William McCarty, comp. The American National Song Book. 1842.
Gen. William Henry HarrisonGeorge Hooker Colton (1818–1847)
N
Who led them on to victory and the grave,
Charged with his office from the courts of Heaven,
By soul-born impulse to arise and save.
The beautiful and weak create the brave:
Frail trembling thousands on that soul relied,
To which their very trust its ardour gave;
And Wabash waves, and Maumee’s moaning tide,
And Thames, dark-rushing, tell his name while they abide.
Folded the banners of red-handed war:
Where broad Ohio’s bending beauty lingers,
The chief reposed beneath the evening star.
Calm was the life he led, till, near and far,
The breath of millions bore his name along,
Through praise and censure and continuous jar:—
But lo! the Capitol’s rejoicing throng!
And envoys from all lands approach with greeting tongue!
When that proud pageant pass’d to mortal sight;
And when, alas! her splendour waned again,
His transient glory faded like her light!—
O empress of the star-loved realm of night,
I see thee shine o’er mountain, vale, and stream,
For thou couldst then resume thy beauty bright;
But never more upon this land shall beam
His mild and honour’d sway—departed like a dream!
To be true-hearted and of soul sincere,
To bear down vice, yet with paternal rule
To nurse no hatred, and to feel no fear,
To raise the fallen and the faint to cheer,
And be the soldier’s and the orphan’s stay;
These are the virtues that his name endear.
The world is change! Time verges to decay,
And all things good, but Heaven, must fail and pass away!
Is borne one freeman towards the glowing west,
His eye and tongue, above the chieftain’s grave,
Shall hail the marble honours of his rest!
And long as Dian lifts her waning crest,
Where Liberty yet holds what she hath won,
A pensive thought shall haunt the patriot’s breast
Of him, whose reign in her brief year was done,
And from his heart shall rise the name of H