David Everett

David Everett Poems

David Everett Biography

Everett was born at Princeton, Massachusetts and educated at Dartmouth College where he graduated around the year 1795. He was the editor of a newspaper in some part of the state of New Hampshire, in the early part of his life. He was afterwards one of the editors and proprietors of the Boston Patriot. He wrote a volume of essays in prose, entitled Common Sense in Dishabille and a work upon the Prophecies. His poetry consists of a few short pieces, and a tragedy called Daranzel, or the Persian Patriot, which was acted and published at Boston in 1800. A number of his poems have been reprinted in collections since his death, such as in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations He died in 1813 in Marietta, Ohio.)

The Best Poem Of David Everett

Lines Written For A School Declamation

You'd scarce expect one of my age
To speak in public on the stage,
And if I chance to fall below
Demosthenes or Cicero,
Don't view me with a critic's eye,
But pass my imperfections by.
Large streams from little fountains flow,
Tall oaks from little acorns grow;
And though now I am small and young,
Of judgment weak and feeble tongue,
Yet all great, learned men, like me
Once learned to read their ABC.
But why may not Columbia's soil
Rear men as great as Britain's Isle,
Exceed what Greece and Rome have done
Or any land beneath the sun?
Mayn't Massachusetts boast as great
As any other sister state?
Or where's the town, go far or near,
That does not find a rival here?
Or where's the boy but three feet high
Who's made improvement more than I?
These thoughts inspire my youthful mind
To be the greatest of mankind:
Great, not like Cæsar, stained with blood,
But only great as I am good.

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