Ah, gone! and none your place supply, Nor will your equal soon appear; But that great name can only die When memory dwells no longer here, When man and all his systems must Dissolve, like you, and turn to dust. [169] From the 1815 edition. STANZAS[170] Upon the Same Subject with the Preceding The chief who freed these suffering lands From Britain's bold besieging bands, The hero, through all countries known,-- The guardian genius of his own, Is gone to that celestial bourne From whence no traveller can return, Where Scipio and where Trajan went; And heaven reclaims the soul it lent. Each heart with secret wo congeals; Down the pale cheek moist sorrow steals, And all the nobler passions join To mourn, remember, and resign. O ye, who carve the marble bust To celebrate poor human dust, And from the silent shades of death Retrieve the form but not the breath, Vain is the attempt by force of art To impress his image on the heart: It lives, it glows, in every breast, And tears of millions paint it best. Indebted to his guardian care, And great alike in peace and war, The loss they feel these States deplore,-- Their friend--their father--is no more. What will they do to avow their grief? No sighs, no tears, afford relief: Dark mourning weeds but ill express The poignant wo that all confess; Nor will the monumental stone Assuage one tear--relieve one groan. O Washington! thy honor'd dust To parent nature we entrust; Convinced that your exalted mind Still lives, but soars beyond mankind, Still acts in virtue's sacred cause, Nor asks from man his vain applause. In raptures with a theme so great, While thy famed actions they relate, Each future age from thee shall know All that is good and great below; Shall glow with pride to hand thee down To latest time, to long renown, The brightest name on freedom's page, And the first honor of our age. [170] From the 1815 edition. STANZAS[171] Occasioned by certain absurd, extravagant, and even blasphemous panegyrics and encomiums on the character of the late Gen. Washington, that appeared in several pamphlets, journals, and other periodical publications, in January, 1800 No tongue can tell, no pen describe The phrenzy of a numerous tribe, Who, by distemper'd fancy led, Insult the memory of the dead. Of old, there were in every age Who stuff'd with gods the historian's page, And raised beyond the human sphere Some who, we know, were mortal here. Such was the case, we know full well, When darkness spread her pagan spell; Mere insects, born for tombs and graves, They changed into celestial knaves; Made some, condemn'd to tombs and shrouds, Lieutenant generals in the clouds. In journals, meant to spread the news, From state to state--and we know whose-- We read a thousand idle things That madness pens, or folly sings.