SLEEP, Motley, with the great of ancient days,
Who wrote for all the years that yet shall be!
Sleep with Herodotus, whose name and praise
Have reached the isles of earth’s remotest sea;
Sleep, while, defiant of the slow decays
Of time, thy glorious writings speak for thee,
And in the answering heart of millions raise
The generous zeal for Right and Liberty.
And should the day o’ertake us when, at last,
The silence—that, ere yet a human pen
Had traced the slenderest record of the past,
Hushed the primeval languages of men—
Upon our English tongue its spell shall cast,
Thy memory shall perish only then.
William Cullen Bryant
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/in-memory-of-john-lothrop-motley/
