Poem of the Week: Freneau's "On the Death of Dr. Benjamin Franklin"

Gotta go American style this week, after giving love to the very English Betjeman last. This week's entry is Phillip Freneau's (1752-1832) "On the Death of Dr. Benjamin Franklin".

----

Thus, some tall tree that long hath stood
The glory of its native wood,
By storms destroyed, or length of years,
Demands the tribute of our tears.

The pile, that took long time to raise,
To dust returns by slow decays:
But, when its destined years are o'er,
We must regret the loss the more.

So long accustomed to your aid,
The world laments your exit made;
So long befriended by your art,
Philosopher, 'tis hard to part!--

When monarchs tumble to the ground,
Successors easily are found:
But, matchless FRANKLIN! what a few
Can hope to rival such as YOU,
Who seized from kings their sceptered pride,
And turned the lightning darts aside.

So in summary: Democracy is cool, but it makes it damned difficult to always keep finding new heroes...

Freneau's an interesting guy, a part of that revolutionary generation at Princeton that was already quite, well, revolutionary by the late 1760s. Freneau sorta fought in the Revolutionary War, although he also spent long periods of the war down in the Caribbean and then later in a British prison ship. By the end of his life he was largely forgotten and almost totally broke. He asked his old college roomate (Madison) for money and work more than once... Still, he's the author of some very good romantic poems as well as hundreds of rousing verses he wrote and published cheaply during the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812.