Richmond Enquirer

[From the Virginia Herald.]

On visiting the Grave of the Mother of General Washington, at Fredericksburg.

Mother of him whose godlike fame
The good throughout the world revere,
Ah! why, without a stone, or name,
Thus sleep'st thou unregarded here?

Fair pensive branches o'er thee wave,
And Nature decks the chosen dell;
Yet surely o'er thy hallow'd grave
A nation's mournful sighs should swell.

Rome, with a burst of filial piety,
The mother of her Gracchi viewed;
And why should we restrain the tide
Of reverential gratitude?

She to sublime Volumnia paid
Her tribute of enraptur'd tears,
When the dread chief that voice obey'd,
Which sternly curb'd his infant years.

Thou, in the days of Sparta's might,
Mad'st high on her illustrious roll
Be rank'd amid those matrons bright,
Who nobly nurs'd the great of soul.

For disciplin'd in Wisdom's school,
The lofty pupil own'd thy sway;
And well might he be skill'd to rule,
So early nurtur'd to obey.

No enervating arts refin'd,
To slumber lull'd his heaven-born nights
No weak indulgence warp'd thy mind,
To cloud the hero's path of light.

Say,--when upon thy shielding breast,
The saviour of his country hung,
When his soft lip to thine was press'd,
Wooing the accents from thy tongue,

Saw'st thou, prescient, o'er his brow,
The shadowy wreath of laurel start?
Or, did thy mighty dream bestow
High visions of his glorious part?

And when his little hands were taught
By thee in simple prayer to rise,
Say,--were thy own devotions fraught
With heighten'd incense for the skies?

Well may that realm confiding rest,
Her heroes, and mighty chiefs, to see,
Who finds in mainant offspring blest
With monitors and guides like thee.

Future age, than ours more just,
With us, shall blend thy honour'd name,
And rear, exulting o'er thy dust,
The monument of deathless fame;

And thither bid young mothers wend,
To bless thy spirit as they rove;
And learn, while o'er thy tomb they bend,
For heaven to train the babes they love.

May 21st, 1825.
H. S.