Philip Freneau (1752–1832)

Who died December 14, 1799

Terra tegit, populus mœret, cœlum, habet!

DEPARTING with the closing age,

To virtue, worth, and freedom true,

The chief, the patriot, and the sage

To Vernon bids his last adieu:

To reap in some exalted sphere

The just rewards of virtue here.

Thou, Washington, by Heaven design’d

To act a part in human things

That few have known among mankind,

And far beyond the task of kings;

We hail you now to Heaven received

Your mighty task on earth achieved.

While sculpture and her sister arts

For thee their choicest wreaths prepare,

Fond Gratitude her share imparts,

And begs thy bones for burial there;

Where, near Virginia’s northern bound,

Swells the vast pile on federal ground.

To call from their obscure abodes

The Grecian chief, the Roman sage,

The kings, the heroes, and the gods

Who flourish’d in Time’s earlier age,

Would be to class them not with you:

Superior far, in every view.

Those ancients of ferocious mould,

Blood their delight, and war their trade,

Their oaths profaned, their countries sold,

And fetter’d nations prostrate laid;

Could these, like you, assert their claim

To honour and immortal fame?

Those monarchs, proud of pillaged spoils,

With nations shackled in their train,

Returning from their desperate toils

With trophies, and their thousands slain;

In all they did no traits are known

Like those that honour’d Washington.

Who now will save our shores from harms,

The task to him so long assign’d?

Who now will rouse our youth to arms,

Should war approach to curse mankind?

Alas! no more the word you give,

But in your precepts you survive.

Ah, gone! and none your place supply,

Nor will your equal soon appear;

But that great name can only die

When Memory dwells no longer here:

When man, and all his systems, must

Dissolve, like you, and turn to dust.

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