Nature's Nobleman. A Fragment

When winter's cold and summer's heat
Shall come and go again,
A hundred years will be complete
Since Marion crossed the main,
And brought unto this wild retreat
His dark-eyed wife of Spain.

He was the founder of a free
And independent band,
Who lit the fires of liberty
The revolution fanned:--
His patent of nobility
Read in the ransomed land!

Around his deeds a lustre throngs,
A heritage designed
To teach the world to spurn the wrongs
Once threatened all mankind:--
To his posterity belongs
The peerage of the mind.