Richard Henry Wilde Monument

Greene Street, Augusta, Georgia

Richard Henry Wilde, born in Dublin, Ireland in 1789, came to Augusta Georgia as a child. He grew up in Augusa to become an an attorney and later attorney-general of Georgia. He also served in the United States Congress where he spoke out in opposition to the Force bill and to the removal of the deposits from the United States bank, and those on the tariff and the currency.

His opposition to President Andrew Jackson led to his defeat, after which he moved for a while to Europe and engaged himself in scholarly pursuits. After returning to America he was a member of the Whig state convention at Milledgeville, Georgia, in 1842.

In 1843 he left politics for good and moved to New Orleans, where he became a professor of constitutional law at the University of Louisiana. He filled that post until his death from yellow fever in 1847.
In addition to his careers in politics and education, Wildes was also a poet. Today he is best remembered as the author of a verse which was later set to music by Stephen Foster and published in 1860. It became a wildly popular song during the era of the War Between the States. Titled, "None Shall Weep a Tear for Me," the first four lines of the verse are on the front of the Wilde Monument:

"My life is like a summer rose,

That opens to the morning sky,

But ere the shades of evening pose,

Is scattered on the ground to die."