and Wainwright shall be remembered down the ages with Paul Jones, Decatur, Porter and Farragut; and with them the great Arctic hero, Admiral George W. Melville. The monarchy of Spain that once ruled the western world has been swept off the seas, and does not own an inch of land on the American Continent. I personally participated, with my soldier comrades, in the inauguration ceremonies of the lofty Lincoln, the glorious Garfield and the magnanimous McKinley, and heard their burning words of patriotism delivered from the east front of the National Capitol. And again it was my melancholy duty to march with the Grand Army of the Republic in the funeral train that took their assassinated remains to lie in state under the dome of the Capitol for the last view of the people upon the calm countenance of these illustrious Americans. The greatest characters of earth vanish away and are forgotten like the mists of the morning. "The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, And all that beauty, all that wealth ere gave, Await alike the inevitable hour The paths of glory lead but to the grave." And now bestriding the Isthmus beneath the Stars and Stripes, with my right foot at Colon and left foot at Panama, I watch the digging of the interocean canal, with the High Priest Roosevelt joining the Atlantic and Pacific oceans in eternal wedlock, where the commerce of the globe shall float equal and free forever! Congregated at the World's Fair at St. Louis, And now, navigating the circumambient air in I'll go swinging round the circle And sweet Freedom, heaven slated When I am incarnated- Shall still hold its deathless sway! And great Shakspere then shall meet me And exclaim with honest fervor— THE END. |