William McCarty, comp. The American National Song Book. 1842. | | Death of Col. Laurens | By Philip Freneau (17521832) |
| | To the memory of the brave, accomplished, and patriotic Col. John Laurens, who, in the twenty-seventh year of his age, was killed in an engagement with a detachment of the British from Charleston, near the river Cambahee, in South Carolina, August, 1782. |
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| SINCE on her plains this generous chief expired, | |
Whom sages honourd and whom France admired; | |
Does fame no statues to his memory raise, | |
Nor swells one column to record his praise; | |
Where her palmetto shades the adjacent deeps, | 5 |
Affection sighs, and Carolina weeps! | |
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Thou who shalt stray where death this chief confines, | |
Approach, and read the patriot in these lines: | |
Not from the dust the muse transcribes his name, | |
And more than marble shall declare his fame; | 10 |
Where scenes more glorious his great soul engage, | |
Confessd thrice worthy in that closing page; | |
When conquering Time to dark oblivion calls, | |
The marble totters, and the column falls. | |
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Laurens, thy tomb while kindred hands adorn, | 15 |
Let northern muses, too, inscribe thy urn; | |
Of all, whose names on deaths black list appear, | |
No chief that perishd claimd more grief sincere; | |
Not one, Columbia, that thy bosom bore, | |
More tears commanded or deserved them more! | 20 |
Grief at his tomb shall heave the unwearied sigh, | |
And honour lift the mantle to her eye; | |
Fame through the world his patriot name shall spread, | |
By heroes envied and by monarchs read; | |
Just, generous, braveto each true heart allied, | 25 |
The Britons terror, and his countrys pride; | |
For him the tears of war-worn soldiers ran, | |
The friend of Freedom, and the friend of man. | |
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Then what is death, compared with such a tomb, | |
Where honour fades not, and fair virtues bloom? | 30 |
Ah! what is death, when fame like this endears | |
The brave mans favourite, and his countrys tears! | | |
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