Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

William McCarty, comp. The American National Song Book. 1842.

Ode to the Memory of Dr. Joseph Warren

The celebrated orator, who was slain upon the heights of Charlestown, fighting for the liberties of America, on the 17th day of June, 1775

O GREAT reverse of Tully’s coward heart,

Immortal Warren! you suffice to teach,

The orator may fill the warrior’s part,

And active souls be join’d with fluent speech.

Shall not the speaker, who alone could give

Immortal reviviscence to the dead,

Changed to a hero now, forever live,

In fame’s eternal roll, with those he led?

Let North and Sandwich take the meaner shame

Of blustering words unknown to hardy deeds!

And callous G——— superior merit claim,

In grinning laughter, while his country bleeds.

Boston’s first sons in prostrate numbers lay,

And freedom totter’d on destruction’s brink;

Warren stept forth, to solemnize the day,

And dared to speak what some scarce dared to think.

Yet glorious honour! more than one man’s share,

He in his latest, as his earliest breath,

In camp or forum equally could dare,

And seal his bold philippic with his death.