Grover Cleveland

Joel Benton

1837-1908

On June 24, 1908, Grover Cleveland, twice President of the United States, died at his home in Princeton, N. J., at the age of seventy-one.

Bring cypress, rosemary and rue
  For him who kept his rudder true;
  Who held to right the people’s will,
  And for whose foes we love him still.

A man of Plutarch’s marble mould,
  Of virtues strong and manifold,
  Who spurned the incense of the hour,
  And made the nation’s weal his dower.

His sturdy, rugged sense of right
  Put selfish purpose out of sight;
  Slowly he thought, but long and well,
  With temper imperturbable.

Bring cypress, rosemary and rue
  For him who kept his rudder true;
  Who went at dawn to that high star
  Where Washington and Lincoln are.