Take, countryman, thy glass in hand, And drink with the American Unto the Father of his Land, Creator of his country’s plan. Where, in the nations’ Pantheon, Thy honored Vasa proudly towers He rears to his great Washington A monument, the peer of ours.
O Freedom, child of heavenly birth, Sent to release a shackled race, Erase the boundaries of earth, And bring the nations face to face; Where’er thy spirit men inspired To battle ’gainst a tyrant’s might, The pulses leap, the souls are fired With shouts for Victory and Right!
’Twas by thy stroke, O Liberty, The noble patriot was knighted, Who glorified with victory Virginian fields, by tyrants blighted; ’Twas at thy call he rose and fought To settle internecine quarrels And then his peaceful homestead sought, His temples wreathed with Fabian laurels.
’Twas thy commandments that he taught
When for a people, tried and loyal, The laws of right he wisely wrought, A nation’s chief, benign, but royal, In council with the wise and good, Enfolded in the statesman’s toga, He sat as firm as e’er he stood At Trenton, Yorktown, Saratoga.
When bubbles of a moment’s fame
Must pass oblivion’s fatal muster, And many a toasted princely name On memory’s vault shall lose its luster, Then, graced by centuries of renown, The civic chief shall sit for aye, Without a scepter or a crown, The sovereign prince of Liberty.
In memory’s pilgrimage we wend
To where the sod the hero pillows. No mourning flowers their fragrance lend, Nor grace his tomb the weeping willows; But love of law and liberty, And good will unto every mortal Guard against wrong and tyranny The hero’s grave, his country’s portal.