SWIFT to the dust descends each honored name | |
| That raised their country to these heights of fame, | |
| Sages that planned, and chiefs that led the way | |
| To freedom’s temple—all too soon decay; | |
| Alike submit to one unaltered doom. | 5 |
| Their glories closing in perpetual gloom, | |
| Like the dim splendors of the evening, fade, | |
| While night advances to complete the shade. | |
| |
| Reed! ’tis for thee we shed th’ unpurchased tear, | |
| Bend o’er thy tomb, and plant our laurels here, | 10 |
| Thy own brave deeds the noblest pile transcend, | |
| And virtue, patriot virtue, mourns her friend, | |
| Gone to those realms where worth may claim regard, | |
| And gone where virtue meets her best reward. | |
| |
| No single art engaged his manly mind, | 15 |
| In every scene his active genius shined, | |
| Nature in him, in honor to our age, | |
| At once composed the soldier and the sage;— | |
| Firm to his purpose, vigilant, and bold, | |
| Detesting traitors and despising gold, | 20 |
| He scorned all bribes from Britain’s hostile throne— | |
| For all his country’s wrongs were thrice his own. | |
| |
| Reed, rest in peace, for time’s impartial page | |
| Shall blast the wrongs of this ungrateful age: | |
| Long in these climes thy name shall flourish fair, | 25 |
| The statesman’s pattern, and the poet’s care; | |
| Long on these plains thy memory shall remain, | |
| And still new tributes from new ages gain, | |
| Fair to the eye that injured honor rise— | |
| Nor traitors triumph while the patriot dies. | 30 |
| |
