The last New Englander will find this rock,

Rounded by weather from a jagged block,

When the hunted, native part of him must die,

And down with this deep ledge for headstone lie.

He will be rooted, like the hills around,

Dark in the green, pine-covered, ancient ground.

The men who mean to dig New England out

Can curse the labor they have set about.

It is a more than half-way-buried boulder

That lifts above the field a solid shoulder.

The diggers will find the body deep enough,

And find it whole and heavy, hard and rough.

Although they heave, hammer, and heave again,

It will not split or stir for these men as men.

They will exhaust themselves in frantic toil,

And blunt their tools against the gravelly soil,

Or scrape it out until their fingers bleed,

And the rock still have the stubbornness they need.

They will decide, their hopeful hatred spent,

To mark this rock and call it a monument.