Eliza Cook, There's a Star in the West

There's a star in the West that shall nerer go down Till the records of Valour decay, We must worship its light though it is not our own, For liberty burst in its ray. Shall the name of a Washington ever be heard By a freeman, and thrill not his breast? Is there one out of bondage that hails not the word, As a Bethlehem Star of the West?

— Eliza Cook

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "There's a star in the West that shall nerer go down Till the records of Valour decay, We must worship its light though it is not our own, For liberty burst in its ray. Shall the name of a Washington ever be heard By a freeman, and thrill not his breast? Is there one out of bondage that hails not the word, As a Bethlehem Star of the West?" in the context of "Eliza Cook, There's a Star in the West" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

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Source: Wikiquote: "George Washington" (Quotes about George Washington: Sorted alphabetically by author or source These should be arranged alphabetically by author, Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations: Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 860-62.) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed February 05, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
George Washington

About George Washington

George Washington (22 February 1732 – 14 December 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Second Continental Congress as commander of the Continental Army in June 1775, Washington led Patriot forces to victory in the American Revolutionary War and then served as president of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, which drafted and ratified the Constitution of the United States and established the American federal government. Washington has thus been called the "Father of his Country".