Nature's Nobleman

When winter's cold and summer's heat

Shall come and go again,

A hundred years will be complete

Since Marion crossed the main,

And brought unto this wild retreat

His dark-eyed wife of Spain.

He was the founder of a free

And independent band,

Who lit the fires of liberty

The revolution fanned:—

His patent of nobility

Read in the ransomed land!

Around his deeds a lustre throngs,

A heritage designed

To teach the world to spurn the wrongs

Once threatened all mankind:—

To his posterity belongs

The peerage of the mind.