Poem by Henry Timrod

Song Composed for Washington's Birthday, and Respectfully Inscribed to the Officers and Members of the Washington Light Infantry of Charleston, February 22, 1859

A hundred years and more ago
 A little child was born—
To-day, with pomp of martial show,
 We hail his natal morn.

Who guessed as that poor infant wept
 Upon a woman's knee,
A nation from the centuries stept
 As weak and frail as he?

Who saw the future on his brow
 Upon that happy morn?
We are a mighty nation now
 Because that child was born.

To him, and to his spirit's scope,
 Besides a glorious home,
We owe that what we have and hope
 Are more than Greece and Rome.

1. Sonnets. 12. What Gossamer Lures Thee Now? What Hope, What Name
2. Sonnets. 14. Are These Wild Thoughts, Thus Fettered in My Rhymes
3. Sonnets. 4. They Dub Thee Idler, Smiling Sneeringly
4. Sonnets. 6. I Scarcely Grieve, O Nature! at the Lot
5. Vox et Præterea Nihil

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