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.