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Home  »  The Book of New York Verse  »  Clinton Scollard

Hamilton Fish Armstrong, ed. The Book of New York Verse. 1917.

The Grave of Lawrence

Clinton Scollard

Trinity Churchyard

MORN and noon of day and even, human ebb and flow;

Overhead, the stars of midnight,—scarce the faintest glow,—

Shrunken into misty marsh-fires by the city’s glare;

Here he sleeps, our sailor hero,—pause and hail him fair!

Here he sleeps where jostling Wall Street merges in Broadway,

And the roar is as a legion leaping to the fray.

Out from Trinity’s dim portal floats the chanting choir;

Matchless midst the girdling granite lifts the graceful spire.

Many slumberers around him, men of church and state;

Here he sleeps, our sailor hero, great among the great!

Simple lines to mark his slumber; how the letters speak!

“Lawrence” (hark, ye money-getters!) “of the Chesapeake!”

Stone may call in clearer accents than the loudest lip.

Just a name! What does it cry you? “Don’t give up the ship!”

Aye, there’s something more than millions.—a far nobler aim!

Here he sleeps, our sailor hero, nothing but a name!

Yet (and who can pierce the future?) this may one day be

As a burning inspiration both on land and sea.