1741.  Thus speak the lips of seventeen forty-one:  His work in copybooks was nearly done.

1743.  In seventeen hundred forty-three He loved in military sports to be.

1752.  My days of seventeen fifty-two No finer form could bring to view.

VOICES.

Away, ye years!  No more, no more!
                                        [They retire. 
Arise, thou ghost of fifty-four.

(Arise 1754.)

The French and Indian War this year begun,
Its first gun fired by youthful Washington;
The shots flew fast from hidden foe,
And many a one was then laid low,
Yet never a wound that grand form felt,
Though shots like rain at him were dealt. 
Old Indian chiefs declared a charm
Preserved his life from every harm.
          
                              [Retire.

VOICES.

Come forth, ye vanished seventeen seventy-five. 
No man methinks that knew thee is alive.

(Arise 1775.)

I proudly rise from the vanished past,
Behold a dark cloud gathering fast! 
At first no bigger than a hand,
’Tis spreading over all the land,
And men are hurrying here and there,
Their brows all grave with anxious care. 
Upon the green at Cambridge gaze,
List to the shouts the people raise,
As on his war-horse, proud and calm,
Sits he, the nation’s strong right arm;
Beneath the spreading elm-tree’s shade,
Commander-in-chief he there is made
Of young America’s armies all. 
Who is it thus the people call? 
’Tis Washington, the star of light,
That shone through all the country’s night.
          
                              [Retire.

VOICES.

Come back, ye years that now are o’er,
And tell us of this man yet more.

(Arise 1776 and 1777.  In concert.)

Together we rise to speak his fame,
Who won a grand, immortal name
At Trenton and at Princeton too. 
More brilliant deeds where can we view? 
On History’s page they brightly gleam. 
Him “first in war” we rightly deem.
          
                              [Retire.

VOICES.

Behold a shadow dark and weighty! 
Stand forth, thou ghost of seventeen eighty.

(Arise 1780.)

Hunger and cold, and suffering great
In my last days was the sad fate
Of Washington and his soldiers brave. 
The name “hard winter” to me clave. 
But still the grand old patriot fire
Within one breast did ne’er expire. 
In cause so grand he placed a faith sublime,
That far outweighed the sorrows of the time.
          
                              [Retire.

VOICES.

What canst thou tell us, seventeen eighty-one,
Of this far-famed, immortal Washington?

(Arise 1781.)