William McCarty, comp. The American National Song Book. 1842.
Jamestown, an ElegyJohn Davis
O
The orb of day descends the sky,
And, glimmering, lights the churchyard wood,
Where the first settlers mingled lie.
Of locust from the oak afar,
And to the steeple’s ivied wall
The pigeon flutters through the air.
Where once the Atlantic fathers bent,
And, pealing, praised the Lord of all,
With incense from the bosom sent.
And dim the supplicating eye,
Cold is the hand, beneath the clod,
That begg’d down blessings from on high.
The gallant Smith, for arms renown’d,
Whose polish’d lance, in Turkey’s clime,
Threw horse and horseman to the ground.
Whose bosom heaved at passion’s call;
For in the town, or savage glade,
Resistless love is lord of all.
The night-bird makes his funeral moan,
And, rising from the tranquil wave,
The queen of night ascends her throne.
That from the sea-worn, sandy ground,
The dapper elves afar are heard,
Footing their waving morrice round.
I seek the unprotected grave,
Where sleep within their narrow cells
The rovers o’er the Atlantic wave.
From tropic sun to polar snow;
And those who seek a foreign strand
Await alike the unerring blow.
Who hoped again to cross the deep,
But scarce escaped the Atlantic surf,
Death rock’d him in eternal sleep.
No friend to watch his asking eye;
He breathed a wish beyond the main,
And gave to home his parting sigh.
Who oft beneath the cypress shade,
Where to the flood the streamlet glides,
With harp bewail’d a distant maid.
Along the deep the murmur stole;
’Twas wildly mix’d with joy and pain,
The rising wave forgot to roll!
In vain the hero’s pulses glow,
Unless the muse her tribute bring,
His fame shall not through ages flow.
A heart decays that, in life’s race,
Hoped to be blazon’d with the brave,
And spurn’d the earth’s contracted space.
The swains collect the fields to till,
And morning, robed in living fires,
Walks o’er the dew of yonder hill.