Contents -Volume INDEX -AUTHOR INDEX -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889

André’s Bequest to Washington

By Nathaniel Parker Willis (1806–1867)

IT is not the fear of death

That damps my brow,

It is not for another breath

I ask thee now;

I can die with a lip unstirred

And a quiet heart—

Let but this prayer be heard

Ere I depart.

I can give up my mother’s look—

My sister’s kiss;

I can think of love—yet brook

A death like this!

I can give up the young fame

I burned to win—

All—but the spotless name

I glory in.

Thine is the power to give,

Thine to deny,

Joy for the hour I live—

Calmness to die.

By all the brave should cherish,

By my dying breath,

I ask that I may perish

By a soldier’s death!