George Washington

Soldier and statesman, rarest unison;

High-poised example of great duties done

Simply as breathing, a world's honors worn

As life's indifferent gifts to all men born;

Dumb for himself, unless it were to God,

But for his barefoot soldiers eloquent,

Tramping the snow to coral where they trod,

Held by his awe in hollow-eyed content;

Modest, yet firm as Nature's self; unblamed

Save by the men his nobler temper shamed;

Never seduced through show of present good

By other than unsetting lights to steer

New-trimmed in Heaven, nor than his steadfast mood

More steadfast, far from rashness as from fear,

Rigid, but with himself first, grasping still

In swerveless poise the wave-beat helm of will;

Not honored then or now because he wooed

The popular voice, but that he still withstood;

Broad-minded, higher-souled, there is but one

Who was all this and ours, and all men's—WASHINGTON.

July 8, 1775 This is a fragment from the ode for the centenary of Washington's taking command of the American army at Cambridge.