Poems (Hoffman)/U. S. Grant

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U. S. GRANT.
Dead! The swift wires brought the message,And a Nation's grief replied,Dead! Columbia's noblest heroIn the land he loved has died.He who braved the fire of battle,He who faced the storm of war,He who vanquished mighty armies,Earth's most honored conqueror.Mourn Columbia, o'er thy watersSounds the death knell of thy brave,Droop thy proud old flag in sadness,'Tis the flag he fought to save;He shall sleep where none may waken,In the land he loved so well;But thy unborn generationsShall his deeds of valor tell.Over Orient lands he traveled,Foreign nations made him room,Heathen empires spread before him ​Their rich fruitage and their bloom;But not one of them could claim him,O'er the ocean's pathless foamFaithful vessels bore him safelyBack again to friends and home.Egypt's tombs nor India's templesShall his precious dust inclose;Nor in Britain's ivied abbeysShall our sacred dead repose.But his own, his native country,Shall protect his lettered stone;Proud Columbia, draped in mourning,Claims her hero for her own.Rest in peace thou veteran warrior,All thy victories are past;On thy ear shall no more thunderCannon's roar or trumpet's blast.'Till thy peaceful, slumbering ashes,Resting 'neath thy country's sod,Shall awake with countless millionsAt the mighty trump of God.
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