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