Hamilton Fish Armstrong, ed. The Book of New York Verse. 1917.
The Sieur De RochefontaineClinton Scollard
P
Never the fair home land again,
For the Sieur de Rochefontaine!
With the soft south breezes o’er him blown
Where his stately noble name is known!
With the alien marble above his breast,
In the clime of his youthful soldier quest.
The ancient foe of his folk our foe,
Hither he came with Rochambeau.
Grace and a courtier bearing, yet
A soul as valiant as Lafayette.
In the fore of the fight for liberty
With the dauntless men who would fain be free.
Of the sun of Freedom’s rising beam,
Who saw the vision, who dreamed the dream.
Sweep by the chapel of old St. Paul’s,
Its levelled graves and its ivied walls.
Sweet with the great felicity
That waits, ’tis said, beyond Death’s dark sea.
What matters it for a noble will
That smites for right, ’gainst a giant ill?
So a plot of our free domaine
For the Sieur de Rochefontaine.