Well, tho' in her deserted halls
The fire on Freedom's shrine is dead,
Tho' o'er her darkened, crumbling walls,
Stern Desolation's pall is spread;
Is not the second better part,
To that which rends the despot's chain,
To wear it with a dauntless heart,
To feel yet shrink not from its pain?
Then let the creeping ivy twine
Its wreaths about each ruined arch,
Till Time shall crush them in the brine,
Beneath its all-triumphant march!
Then let the swelling waters close
Above the sea-child's sinking frame,
And hide for ever from her foes,
Each trace and vestige of her shame.
Shall we at last less calmly sleep,
When in the narrow death-house pent,
Because the bosom of the deep
Shall be our only monument?
No! by the waste of waters bid,
Our tombs as well shall keep their trust,
As tho' a marble pyramid
Were piled above our mangled dust!
Written in the National Gallery, at the city of Washington, on
looking at a Mummy, supposed to have belonged to a race extinct
before the occupation of the Western Continent by the people in
whose possession the Europeans found it.
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