REST on, O heroes! in your silent slumber! Hail and farewell, ye mighty, moveless dead! Long as her centuries Earth shall know and number, Green be the laurel boughs above ye spread. Your course is sped; your record man remembers, And God's own hand your sacred dust shall keep; Though all the flame hath left those mortal embers, Upward it sprang, with bright, immortal leap. Sleep in your country's heart; forever holy Your memory shines along the slopes we tread; Another hundred years their incense lowly Ere long shall o'er your sculptured honors shed. And we who bring you grace and salutation, We, too, shall sleep; and nobler tribes of men Shall offer here the homage of a nation Rich with a wisdom far beyond our ken. But still, as years return, shall man returning Fight, fall, despair, or chant the conqueror's psalm, Still the same light in patriot hearts be burning, And Heaven, still just, bestow the martyr's palm. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE ARCHITECT (2) by KAREN SWENSON THE BOOK OF THEL by WILLIAM BLAKE SCHOOLBOYS IN WINTER by JOHN CLARE ARABELLA STUART by FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS TO MRS. THRALE [ON HER COMPLETING HER THIRTY-FIFTH YEAR] by SAMUEL JOHNSON (1709-1784) BELLS FOR JOHN WHITESIDE'S DAUGHTER by JOHN CROWE RANSOM VALENTINES TO MY MOTHER: 1877 by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI |