| |
| AT Eutaw springs the valiant died: | |
| Their limbs with dust are covered o’er— | |
| Weep on, ye springs, your tearful tide; | |
| How many heroes are no more! | |
| |
| If in this wreck of ruin, they | 5 |
| Can yet be thought to claim a tear, | |
| O smite thy gentle breast, and say | |
| The friends of freedom slumber here! | |
| |
| Thou, who shalt trace this bloody plain, | |
| If goodness rules thy generous breast, | 10 |
| Sigh for the wasted rural reign; | |
| Sigh for the shepherds, sunk to rest! | |
| |
| Stranger, their humble graves adorn; | |
| You too may fall, and ask a tear: | |
| ’T is not the beauty of the morn | 15 |
| That proves the evening shall be clear. | |
| |
| They saw their injured country’s wo; | |
| The flaming town, the wasted field; | |
| Then rush’d to meet the insulting foe; | |
| They took the spear—but left the shield. | 20 |
| |
| Led by thy conquering genius, Greene, | |
| The Britons they compell’d to fly: | |
| None distant view’d the fatal plain, | |
| None grieved, in such a cause to die. | |
| |
| But, like the Parthian, famed of old, | 25 |
| Who, flying, still their arrows threw; | |
| These routed Britons, full as bold, | |
| Retreated, and retreating slew. | |
| |
| Now rest in peace our patriot band; | |
| Though far from nature’s limits thrown, | 30 |
| We trust, they find a happier land, | |
| A brighter sunshine of their own. | |
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