I love the charity, that for itself, And nought beside, conveys the silent pelf. I love the zeal, that honest, firm, and clear, Contemns the placeman’s frown, the skeptic’s jeer. I love the rays that winter nights beguile, I love compassion’s tear, and woman’s smile; I love the spirit noble in its aims, The sacred ardor love and friendship claims, Bland nature’s solitude, the lore of men; I love my home, my study, and my pen. [1816.] WASHINGTON. [On a visit to the tomb of Washington at Mount Vernon, April 28th, 1822, the writer picked out and selected from the rude earthen mound which covers it, some plain mineralogical fragments, which he deposited in a neat paper box in his cabinet, with the following lines:] These little relics, if they show No ruby’s tint, no diamond’s glow, Yet shall they shed upon my heart, A joy that gems can ne’er impart, And exercise upon my mind, A power of talismanic kind; A power to think, to act, to feel— In youth and manhood, wo and weal; Like him, the lov’d, the great, the blest, Whose hallowed tomb they lately prest— To emulate his noble fires, His measured aims, his chaste desires, His firmness in the trying hour, His mod’rate use of fame and power; In social round, his skill to please, His stately manners, mix’d with ease, And all those virtues great and bland, Which erst aroused an injur’d land, And raised its strength, and winged its ires, And fann’d its hopes, and curb’d its fires, And spoke by act, by sword and pen, Him first of heroes, first of men. When prest by thought, or danger tried, By slander stung, or rage defied; These relics shall afford a clue, The bold to awe, the strong subdue. And if, in some propitious hour, One deed of fame, one ray of power, A wayward fortune should decree To one so poor and lone as me, Still should my thoughts to Vernon turn, To ponder on the hero’s urn, And, in whispering accents, breathe My reverence for the dust beneath— The sacred dust, which, living, won, And, dead—still! still! is Washington: And each proud hope, and each lone sigh, Shall be, like him to live, to die.