How shall we rank thee upon glory's page?
Thou more than soldier and just less than sage!
Of peace too fond to act the conqueror's part,
Too long in camps to learn a statesman's art,
Nature designed thee for a hero's mould,
But, ere she cast thee, let the stuff grow cold.
While loftier souls command, nay, make their fate,
Thy fate made thee and forced thee to be great.
Yet Fortune, who so oft, so blindly sheds
Her brightest halo round the weakest heads,
Found _thee_ undazzled, tranquil as before,
Proud to be useful, scorning to be more;
Less moved by glory's than by duty's claim,
Renown the meed, but self-applause the aim;
All that thou _wert_ reflects less fame on thee,
Far less, than all thou didst _forbear to be_.
Nor yet the patriot of one land alone,--
For, thine's a name all nations claim their own;
And every shore, where breathed the good and brave,
Echoed the plaudits thy own country gave.
Now look, my friend, where faint the moonlight falls
On yonder dome, and, in those princely halls,--
If thou canst hate, as sure that soul must hate,
Which loves the virtuous, and reveres the great,
If thou canst loathe and execrate with me
The poisoning drug of French philosophy,
That nauseous slaver of these frantic times,
With which false liberty dilutes her crimes,
If thou has got, within thy free-born breast,
One pulse that beats more proudly than the rest,
With honest scorn for that inglorious soul,
Which creeps and whines beneath a mob's control,
Which courts the rabble's smile, the rabble's nod,
And makes, like Egypt, every beast its god,
There, in those walls--but, burning tongue forbear!
Rank must be reverenced, even the rank that's there:
So here I pause--and now, dear Hume, we part:
But oft again, in frank exchange of heart,
Thus let us meet, and mingle converse dear
By Thames at home, or by Potowmac here.
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