The Madisonian. [volume] (Washington City [i.e. Washington, D.C.]) 1837-1845, 1839-06-19
POETRY.
THE TRUE GLORY OF AMERICA.

THE TRUE GLORY OF. AMERICA.
BY oaEEnylLI.E MELLEs.
Composed for hs Jubilee Of tie Consultation.
The light that time pours round a land
A sacred light may be,
But leads not 10 great command
Like that which crowns The Free
And holy that unfaded light,
Which fingers with The dead;
But when The beams, how passing bright
That fire the path we tread!
Then tell me not Of years OF old,
OF ancient heart and cline;
Ours Is the land and age OF gold,
And ours the followed time
The jewelled crown and sceptre
or Greece have passed away,
And none OF all who wept her
Could bid her spiendour stay.
The world has shaken with the tread
OF iron sandaled crime
And fast, o'ershadowing all the dead,
The conquerOr stalked suhlimel
Then ask not for crown and plume
To nod above my head;
The victor's footsteps point to doom
Graves open around my handl
The memory Of the monarch Man
We gather now TO sing,
Who, when Coumbia's years began
Their light on time TO fling,
To Freedoms altar place came up
Before his land 10 bow,
And lift TO God her golden cup,
With sacrifice and vow
Is not that meaner memory
Which fingers with crownl
IT'S the light that links man with the sky;
The lighshe lays not down!
Rome with thy pillared palaces
And sculptured heroes, all
Snalched in their warm triumphal days
To Arts high festival
Rome with thy giant sons Of power,
Whose pathway was on thrones,
Who built their Kingdoms Of an hour
On yet unburied bones
would not have my land like thee,
So lafty-yet so cold
Be hers lowler majesty,
In yet nobler mould.
Thy marbles-works Of wonder!
In Thy victorious days,
Whose white lips seemed to sunder
Before the astonished gaze
When statue glared on statue there,
The living on the dead,
And where as silent prilgrims were
Before some sainted head
o, not for faultess marbles yet
Would the light fofego,
That beams when other lights have SET.
And art herself lies lowl
Task not for the chisel's boast
A Paptheon's cloud Of glory .#.".
Bathing in Heavens noon-tide the host
OF those who swell her story
Though these proud works of magic hand,
Fame's rolling trump shall fill,
The best of all those peerless bands 49,.
Is pulseless marble still.
And though no classic madness here
With quick transforming eye,
Bid beauty from the block appear
Till love stand doubling by
care not-for brighter wreath
Than round the Parian brows
or those whose sculpture seemed TO breathe,
Shall wait our holier VOWS.
And ours holier hope shall be III
Than consecrated bust, .,.
Some loftier mean of memory f..
To snatch US from the dust.
And ours sterneI artthan this "
Shall fix our image here
The spirits mould Of loveliness
A nobler Belvidere!
His spirit that in thunder spake
In beautiful command
To list'ning words, like sun shall break
Undimmed on every land
Until the beam Of sun and star
Shall die on mount and cloud,
And virtues pillars sink afar
Mid the oden wrecks, and proud ..
The spirit that this ocean shout
Halls with its holy morn,
Yet sweeps our lumlned path about
We bow TO WASHINGTON
Then let them bind with bloomless flowers
The bus,s and turns Of old;
A fairer heritage be ours ~
A sacrifice less cold!
Give honor to the Great and Gooa MI.
And wrealhe the hpiag brow,
Kinding with virtues manllng blood
And pay the tributes nowl
So when the great and good go down,
Their statues shall arise
To crowd those temples of our own-
Our fadeeSs memores ...
And when the sculptured marble fall,
And art goes in to die,
Our forms shall live in holier halls 49,.
The Pantheon of the sky