William McCarty, comp. The American National Song Book. 1842.
The Wyoming Monument
M
That valour flourish which did guard your homes
From foreign domination, haste to pay
Due honour to the dead, who made their breasts
A shield against the foe, and in the cause
Of holy liberty laid down to die.
Flow’d not their blood from the same glorious source
That fill’d your own? Why should they longer sleep
In cold oblivion’s tomb?
Their gather’d bones
Are where the death shaft fell; and the green turf
Of fair Wyoming’s vale hath done its best
To deck their sepulchre. Yea, Spring hath come,
Weeping like Rizpah for her slaughter’d sons,
And spread a mantle o’er them: and the flowers
That Summer brings have budded there, and died,
These many lustrums.
Friends and countrymen,
Plant ye a stone upon that hallow’d mound,
And from its graven tablets teach your sons.
And when its pillar’d height goes up toward heaven,
Tell them from whence was drawn that fortitude
Which saved their land. Then, if you see a tear
Upon the bright cheek of your listening boy,
Haste, with a precious speed, and charge him, there,
To love his country and to fear his God.