Monticello
’Tis true that when the god-like die,
Their glorious monument
Are earth’s great mountains and the sky,
Their names with all things blent—
But, then, some storied heap should show
The grave of worth entombed below.
’Tis true, the pilgrim wandering slow,
O’er sad Achaia’s plain,
Will feel his bosom warmly glow,
And memory fire his brain—
Achilles’ strength—and Homer’s song
Across his breast will roll along.
But, had the Grecian chisel wrought,
No pile above their graves,
Say, could ye point out, save in thought,
Their own, from tombs of slaves?
A crumbling column, only shows
Where Greece’s mighty dead repose.
But tombs of men, more wise, more free,
Amid a brighter day,
Are like the mounds ye scarcely see,
And note not by the way.
No Mausoleums climb the skies,
To tell where greater Glory lies.