Inscription

For a tablet in the island of Juan Fernandez

Last of a race of giants, lived De Foe,
First champion of commercial liberty!
Where lie his bones? He died—'tis all we know,
Save that he lived and died in penury;
And, sorrowing, paid to unrelenting hate
That debt which envy ne'er forgives the great.
Hampden! De Foe! Cromwell! and Milton! When
Shall twenty years boast four such names again?—
But which was greatest? Great was he who fell—
The rebel Hampden; great and terrible
He who well merited the crown he dared;
Mighty the novelist; sublime the bard,
That blind old man of London! With their deeds
The world still rings as age to age succeeds;
But which will longest bask in glory's smile?
The tale of Paradise—or that of Crusoe's isle?