George Washington
by
James Russell Lowell (1819 � 1891) |
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Soldier and statesman, rarest unison;
High-poised
example of great duties done
Simply as breathing, a
world's honors worn
As life's indifferent gifts to all
men born;
Dumb for himself, unless it were to God,
But
for his barefoot soldiers eloquent,
Tramping the snow to
coral where they trod,
Held by his awe in hollow-eyed
content;
Modest, yet firm as Nature's self; unblamed
Save by the men his nobler temper shamed;
Never seduced
through show of present good
By other than unsetting
lights to steer
New-trimmed in Heaven, nor than his
steadfast mood
More steadfast, far from rashness as from
fear,
Rigid, but with himself first, grasping still
In
swerveless poise the wave-beat helm of will;
Not honored
then or now because he wooed
The popular voice, but that
he still withstood;
Broad-minded, higher-souled, there is
but one
Who was all this and ours, and all
men's--WASHINGTON. |
By James Russell Lowell (1819 � 1891)
Listed June 17, 2012
Note:
(July 8, 1775)
This is a fragment from the ode for
the centenary of
Washington's taking command of the
American army at Cambridge. |
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