| William McCarty, comp. The American National Song Book. 1842. | | | | Death of Col. Laurens | | By Philip Freneau (1752–1832) |
| | | | 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 honour’d 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, | |
| Confess’d 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 death’s black list appear, | |
| No chief that perish’d claim’d 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, brave—to each true heart allied, | 25 |
| The Briton’s terror, and his country’s 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 man’s favourite, and his country’s tears! | | | |
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