AUTHOR OF — MY COUNTRY 'TIS OF THEE, — ON HIS EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY

While through the land the strains resound
What added fame can love impart
To him who touched the string that found
Its echoes in a Nation's heart?

No stormy ode, no fiery march,
His gentle memory shall prolong,
But on fair Freedom's climbing arch,
He shed the light of hallowed song.

Full many a poet's labored lines.
A country's creeping waves will hide, —
The verse a people's love enshrines
Stands like the rock that breasts the tide.
Time wrecks the proudest piles we raise, —
The towers, the domes, the temples fall;
The fortress ever crumbles and decays, —
One breath of song outlasts them all.