Poems Sigourney 1827/Grave of the Mother of Washington
POEMS.
GRAVE OF THE MOTHER OF WASHINGTON.
Mother of him whose godlike fame
The good throughout the world revere,
Ah! why, without a stone, or name,
Thus sleep'st thou unregarded here?
Fair pensile branches o'er thee wave,
And Nature decks the chosen dell;
Yet surely o'er thy hallow'd grave
A nation's mournful sighs should swell!
Rome, with a burst of filial pride,
The mother of her Gracchi view'd;
And why should we restrain the tide
Of reverential gratitude?
She to sublime Volumnia paid
Her tribute of enraptured tears,
When the dread chief that voice obey'd
Which sternly curb'd his infant years.
Thou in the days of Sparta's might,
Had'st high on her illustrious roll
Been rank'd, amidst those matrons bright,
Who nobly nursed the great of soul.
For disciplined in Wisdom's school,
The lofty pupil own'd thy sway;
And well might he be skill'd to rule,
So early nurtured to obey.
No enervating arts refined
To slumber lull'd his heaven-born might;
No weak indulgence warp'd thy mind,
To cloud a hero's path of light.
Say,—when upon thy shielding breast
The saviour of his country hung,
When his soft lip to thine was prest,
Wooing the accents from thy tongue,
Saw'st thou, prescient, o'er his brow.
The shadowy wreath of laurel start?
Or, did thy nightly dream bestow
High visions of his glorious part?
And when his little hands were taught
By thee, in simple prayer to rise,
Say,—were thy own devotions fraught
With heighten'd incense for the skies?
Well may that realm confiding rest,
Heroes, and mighty chiefs to see,
Which finds its infant offspring blest
With monitors and guides like thee.
A future age, than ours more just,
With his, shall blend thy honor'd name,
And rear, exulting, o'er thy dust,
The monument of deathless fame.
And thither bid young mothers wend,
To bless thy spirit as they rove,
And learn, while o'er thy tomb they bend,
For heaven to train the babes they love.