He said; and high before the Tiger-trainWith longer strides hangs forward o'er the slain,Bends like a falling tree to reach the foe,And o'er tall Capac aims a forceful blow.The king beheld the ax, and with his wandStruck the raised weapon from the sachem's hand;Then clench'd the falling helve, and whirling round,Fell'd a close file of heroes to the ground;Nor stay'd, but follow'd where his people run,Fearing to fight, forsaken by the Sun;Till Cusco's walls salute their longing sight,And the wide gates receive their rapid flight.The folds are barr'd, the foes in shade conceal'd,Like howling wolves, rave round the frighted field.
The monarch now ascends the sacred dome;The Sun's fixt image there partakes the gloom;Thro all the shrines, where erst on new-moon daySwell'd the full quires of consecrated praise,A tomb-like silence reigns; till female criesBurst forth at last, and these sad accents rise:Was it for this, my son to distant landsMust trace the wilds, and tempt those lawless bands?And does the God obscure his golden throneIn mournful darkness for my slaughter'd son?Oh, had his beam; ere that disastrous dayThat call'd the youth from these fond arms away,Received my spirit to its native sky,That sad Oella might have seen him die!
Where slept thy shaft of vengeance, O my God,When those fell tigers drank his sacred blood?Did not the pious prince, with rites divine,Feed the pure flame in this thy hallow'd shrine;And early learn, beneath his father's hand,To shed thy blessings round the favor'd land?Form'd by thy laws the royal seat to grace,Son of thy son, and glory of his race.Where, my lost Rocha, rests thy lovely head?Where the rent robes thy hapless mother made?I see thee, mid those hideous hills of snow,Pursued and slaughter'd by the wildman foe;Or, doom'd a feast for some pretended god,Drench his black altar with celestial blood.Snatch me, O Sun, to happier worlds of light--No: shroud me, shroud me with thyself in night.Thou hear'st me not, thou dread departed Power,Thy face is dark, and Rocha lives no more.
Thus heard the silent king; his equal heartCaught all her grief, and bore a father's part.The cause, suggested by her tender moan,The cause perchance that veil'd the midday sun,And shouts that spoke the still approaching foe,Fixt him suspense, in all the strength of woe.A doubtful moment held his changing choice;Now would he sooth her, half assumes his voice;But greater cares the rising wish control,And call forth all his energy of soul.Why should he cease to ward the coming fate?Or she be told the foes besiege the gate?He turn'd in haste; and now their image-godHigh on the spire with newborn lustre glow'd;Swift thro the portal flew the hero's eye,And hail'd the growing splendor in the sky.
The troops courageous at return of lightThrong round the dome, impatient for the fight;The king descending in the portal stood,And thus addrest the all-delighting God:O sovereign Soul of heaven, thy changing faceMakes or destroys the glory of thy race.If from this mortal life my child he fled,First of thy line that ever graced the dead;If thy bright splendor ceased on high to burnFor that loved youth who never must return.Forgive thine armies, when in fields of bloodThey lose their strength and fear the frowning God.As now thy glory, with superior day,Glows thro the field and leads the warrior's way,May our exalted souls, to vengeance driven,Burn with new brightness in the cause of heaven!For thy slain son the murderous horde shall bleed;We mourn the hero, but avenge the deed.
He said; and from the battlement on highA watchful warrior raised a sudden cry:"An Inca white on yonder altar tied--Tis Rocha's self--the flame ascends his side."
In sweeping haste the bursting gates unbar,And flood the champaign with a tide of war;A cloud of arrows leads the rapid train,They shout, they swarm, they hide the dusty plain;Bows, quivers, girdles strow the field behind,And the raised axes cleave the passing wind.The prince, confest to every warrior's sight,Inspires each soul and centres all the fight;Each hopes to snatch him from the kindling pyre,Each fears his breath already flits in fire.Here Zamor ranged his ax-men deep and wide,Wedged like a wall, and thus the king defied:Haste, son of Light, pour fast the winged war,The prince, the dying prince demands your care;Hear how his death song chides your dull delay,Lift longer strides, bend forward to the fray,Ere flames infolding suffocate his groan,Child of your beaming God, a victim to our own.
This said, he raised his shaggy shoulders high,And bade the shafts glide thicker thro the sky.Like the broad billows of the lifted main,Rolls into sight the long Peruvian train;A white sail bounding, on the billows tost,Is Capac towering o'er the furious host.
Now meet the dreadful chiefs, with eyes on fire;Beneath their blows the parting ranks retire;In whirlwind-sweep their meeting axes bound,Wheel, crash in air, and plow the trembling ground;Their sinewy limbs in fierce contortions bend,And mutual strokes with equal force descend,Parried with equal art, now gyring prestHigh at the head, now plunging for the breast.The king starts backward from the struggling foe,Collects new strength, and with a circling blowRush'd furious on; his flinty edge, whirl'd wide,Met Zamor's helve, and glancing grazed his sideAnd settled in his groin; so plunged it lay,That scarce the king could tear his ax away.The savage fell; when thro the Tiger-trainThe driving Inca turns his force amain;Where still compact they hem the murderous pyre,And Rocha's voice seems faltering to expire.The phrensied father rages, thunders wild,Hews armies down, to save the sinking child;The ranks fall staggering where he lifts his arm,Or roll before him like a billowy storm;Behind his steps collecting warriors close;Deep centred in a circling ridge of foesHe cleaves his wasting way; the prince unties,And thus his voice: Dread Sovereign of the skies.Accept my living son, again bestow'dTo grace with rites the temple of his God.Move, heroes, move; complete the work begun.Crush the grim race, avenge your injured Sun.
The savage host, that view'd the daring deed,And saw their nations with their leader bleed,Raised high the shriek of horror; all the plainIs trod with flight and cover'd with the slain.The bold Peruvians compass round the field,Confine their flight, and force the rest to yield;When Capac raised his placid voice again;Ye conquering troops, collect the vanquish'd train;The Sun commands to stay the rage of war,He knows to conquer, but he loves to spare.
He ceased; and where the savage leader layWeltering in gore, directs his eager way,Unwraps the tiger's hide, and strives in vainTo close the wound, and mitigate the pain;And while compassion for a foe distrestMixt with reproach, he thus the chief addrest:Too long, proud prince, thy fearless heart withstoodOur sacred arms, and braved the living God;His sovereign will commands all feuds to cease,His realm is concord and his pleasure peace;This copious carnage, spreading far the plain,Insults his bounties, but confirms his reign.Enough! tis past; thy parting breath demandsThe last sad office from my yielding hands.To share thy pains and feel thy hopeless woe,Are rites ungrateful to a fallen foe:Yet rest in peace; and know, a chief so brave,When life departs, shall find an honor'd grave;Myself in princely pomp thy tomb shall rear,And tribes unborn thy hapless fate declare.
Insult me not with tombs! the monster cried,Let closing clods thy coward carcase hide;But these brave bones, unburied on the plain,Touch not with dust, nor dare with rites profane;Let no curst earth conceal this gory head,Nor songs proclaim the dreadful Zamor dead,Me, whom the hungry gods from plain to plainHave follow'd, feasting on thy slaughter'd train,Me wouldst thou cover? No! from yonder sky,The wide-beak'd hawk, that now beholds me die,Soon with his cowering train my flesh shall tear,And wolves and tigers vindicate their share.Receive, dread Powers (since I can slay no more),My last glad victim, this devoved gore.
Thus pour'd the vengeful chief his fainting breath,And lost his utterance in the gasp of death.The sad remaining tribes confess the Power,That sheds his bounties round Peruvia's shore;All bow obedient to the Incan throne,And blest Oella hails her living son.
.
Destruction of Peru foretold. Grief of Columbus. He is comforte the promise of a vision of future ages. All Europe appears in vision. Effect of the discovery of America upon the affairs of Europe. Improvement in commerce; government. Revival of letters. Order of the Jesuits. Religious persecution. Inquisition. Rise and progress of more liberal principles. Character of Raleigh; who plans the settlement of North America. Formation of the coast by the gulph stream. Nature of the colonial establishments, the first great asylum and infant empire of Liberty. Liberty the necessary foundation of morals. Delaware arrives with a reinforcement of new settlers, to consolidate the colony of Virginia. Night scene, as contemplated by these patriarchs, while they are sailing up the Chesapeak, and are saluted by the river gods. Prophetic speech of Potowmak. Fleets of settlers from seyeral parts of Europe steering for America.
In one dark age, beneath a single hand,Thus rose an empire in the savage land.Its wealth and power with following years increase,Its growing nations spread the walks of peace;Religion here, that universal name,Man's proudest passion, most ungovern'd flame,Erects her altars on the same bright base,That dazzled erst, and still deludes the race;Sun, moon, all powers that forceful strike his eyes,Earth-shaking storms and constellated skies.
Yet all the pomp his labors here unfold,The vales of verdure and the towers of gold,Those infant arts and sovereign seats of state,In short-lived glory hasten to their fate.Thy followers, rushing like an angry flood,Too soon shall drench them in the nation's blood;Nor thou, Las Casas, best of men, shalt stayThe ravening legions from their guardless prey.O hapless prelate! hero, saint and sage,Foredoom'd with crimes a fruitless war to wage,To see at last (thy life of virtue run)A realm unpeopled and a world undone!While pious Valverde mock of priesthood stands,Guilt in his heart, the gospel in his hands,Bids, in one field, their unarm'd thousands bleed,Smiles o'er the scene and sanctifies the deed.And thou, brave Gasca, with persuasive strain,Shalt lift thy voice and urge thy power in vain;Vain are thy hopes the sinking land to save,Or call her slaughter'd millions from the grave.
Here Hesper paused. Columbus with a sighCast o'er the continent his moisten'd eye,And thus replied: Ah, hide me in the tomb;Why should I live to see the impending doom?If such foul deeds the scheme of heaven compose,And virtue's toils induce redoubled woes,Unfold no more; but grant a kind release;Give me, tis all I ask, to rest in peace.
And thou shalt rest in peace, the Saint rejoin'd,Ere these conflicting shades involve mankind.But broader views shall first thy mind engage,Years far advanced beyond this darksome ageShall feast thee here; the fruits of thy long careA grateful world beneath thy ken shall share.Europe's contending kings shall soon beholdThese fertile plains and hills of treasured gold;And in the path of thy adventurous sailTheir countless navies float on every gale,For wealth and commerce search the western shore.And load each ocean with the shining ore.
As up the orient heaven the dawning raySmiles o'er the hills and gives the promised day,Drives fraud and rapine from their nightly spoil,And social nature wakes to various toil;So from the blazing mine the golden storeMid rival states shall spread from shore to shore,Unite their force, its opulence to share,Extend the pomp but sooth the rage of war;Wide thro the world while genius unconfinedTempts loftier flights, and opens all the mind,Dissolves the slavish bands of monkish lore,Wakes the bold arts and bids the Muses soar.Then shall thy northern climes their seats displayUnited nations there commence their sway;O'er earth and ocean spread their peerless fame,And send thro time thy patriarchal name.
Now turn thy view to Europe; see the rageOf feudal faction every court engage;All honest labor, all commercial tiesTheir kings discountenance, their lords despise.The naked harbors, looking to the main,Rear their kind cliffs and break the storms in vain,The willing wave no foreign treasures lade,Nor sails nor cities cast a watery shade;Save, where yon opening gulph the strand divides,Proud Venice bathes her in the broken tides,Weds her tamed sea, shakes every distant throne,And deems by right the naval world her own.
Yet must we mark, the bondage of the mindSpreads deeper glooms, and subj ugates mankind;The zealots fierce, whom local creeds enrage,In holy feuds perpetual combat wage,Support all crimes by full indulgence given,Usurp the power and wield the sword of heaven,
But lo, where future years their scenes unrol,The rising arts inspire the venturous soul.From all the ports that cleave the coast of Spain,New fleets ascending streak the western main;From Tago's bank, from Albion's rocky round,Commercing squadrons o'er the billows bound;Thro Afric's isles observe the sweeping sails,Full pinions tossing in Arabian gales,Indus and Ganges deep in canvass lost,And navies crowding round Cambodia's coast;New nations rise, all climes and oceans brave,And shade with sheets the immeasurable wave.
See lofty Ximenes with solemn gaitMove from the cloister to the walks of state,And thro the factious monarchies of Spain,Curb the fierce lords and fix one royal reign.Behold dread Charles the imperial seat ascends,O'er Europe's thrones his conquering arm extends;While wealthier shores, beneath the western day,Unfold their treasures to confirm his sway.
Roused at false glory's fascinating call,See Francis train the gallant youths of Gaul,O'erstrain the strength of her extended states,Scale the proud Alps, or burst their granite gates,On Pavia's plain for Cesar's crown contend,Of arms the votary, but of arts the friend.
And see proud Wolsey rise, securely great,Kings at his call and mitres round him wait;From monkish walls the hoarded wealth he drawsTo aid the tyrant and restrain the laws,Wakes Albion's genius, neighboring princes braves,And shares with them the commonwealth of waves,
Behold dark Solyman, from eastern skies,With his grim host magnificently rise,Wave his broad crescent o'er the Midland sea,Thro vast Hungaria drive his conquering way,Crowd close the Christian powers, and carry farThe rules of homicide, the lore of war.
The Tuscan dukes excite a nobler strife;Lorenzo calls the Fine Arts forth to life,Fair nature's mimic maids; whose powers divineHer charms develop and her laws define;From sire to son the splendid labors spread,And Leo follows where good Cosmo led.Waked from the ground that Gothic rovers trod,Starts the bronze hero and the marble god;Monks, prelates, pontiffs pay the reverence dueTo that bold taste their Grecian masters knew;Resurgent temples throng the Latian shore,The Pencil triumphs and the Muses soar.
O'er the dark world Erasmus rears his eye,In schoolman lore sees kings and nations lie,With strength of judgment and with fancy warm,Derides their follies and dissolves the charm,Tears the deep veil that bigot zeal has thrownOn pagan books and science long unknown,From faith in senseless rites relieves mankind,And seats bold virtue in the conscious mind.But still the frightful task, to face aloneThe jealous vengeance of the papal throne,Restrains his hand: he gives the contest o'er,And leaves his hardier sons to curb that power.
Luther walks forth in yon majestic frame,Bright beam of heaven, and heir of endless fame,Born, like thyself, thro toils and griefs to wind,From slavery's chains to free the captive mind,Brave adverse crowns, control the pontiff sway,And bring benighted nations into day.
Remark what crowds his name around him brings,Schools, synods, prelates, potentates and kings,All gaining knowledge from his boundless store,And join'd to shield him from the papal power.First of his friends, see Frederic's princely formWard from the sage divine the gathering storm,In learned Wittemburgh secure his seat,High throne of thought, religion's safe retreat.There sits Melancthon, mild as morning light,And feuds, tho sacred, soften in his sight;In terms so gentle flows his tuneful tongue,Even cloister'd bigots join the pupil throng;By all sectarian chiefs he lives approved,By monarchs courted and by men beloved.
And lo, where Europe's utmost limits bend,From this new source what various lights ascend!See haughty Henry from the papal tieHis realms dissever, and the priest defy;While Albion's sons disdain a foreign throne,And learn to bound the oppressions of their own.
Then rises Loyola, a strange new name,By paths unseen to reach the goal of fame;Thro courts and camps he teaches how to wind,To mine whole states and overreach mankind.Train'd in his school, a bold and artful raceRange o'er the world, and every sect embrace,All creeds and powers and policies explore,New seats of science raise on every shore;Till their wide empire gains a wondrous birth,Built in all empires o'er this ancient earth.Our wildmen too, the tribes of Paraguay,Receive their rites and bow beneath their sway.
The world of men thus moving in thy viewImprove their state, more useful works pursue;Unwonted deeds in rival greatness shine,Call'd into life, and first inspired by thine.So while imperial Homer tunes the lyre,His living lays unnumber'd bards inspire;From age to age the kindling spirit flies,Sounds thro the earth and echoes to the skies.
Now roll the years, when Europe's ample spaceBy peace and culture rears a wiser race,Men bred to labor, school'd in freedom's lore,And formed to colonize our favorite shore.To speed their course, the sons of bigot rageIn persecution whelm the inquiring age;Myriads of martyr'd heroes mount the pyre,And blind devotion lights the sacred fire.
Led by the dark Dominicans of Spain,A newborn Fury walks the wide domain,Gaunt INQUISITION; mark her giant stride,Her blood-nursed vulture screaming at her side.Her priestly train the tools of torment brings.Racks, wheels and crosses, faggots, stakes and strings;Scaffolds and cages round her altar stand,And, tipt with sulphur, waves her flaming brand.Her imps of inquest round the Fiend advance,Suspectors grave, and spies with eye askance,Pretended heretics who worm the soul,And sly confessors with their secret scroll,Accusers hired, for each conviction paid,Judges retain'd and witnesses by trade.
Dragged from a thousand jails her victim trains,Jews, Moors and Christians, clank alike their chains,Read their known sentence in her fiery eyes,And breathe to heaven their unavailing cries;Lash'd on the pile their writhing bodies turn,And, veil'd in doubling smoke, begin to burn.Where the flames open, lo! their limbs in vainReach out for help, distorted by the pain;Till folded in the fires they disappear,And not a sound invades the startled ear.
See Philip, throned in insolence and pride,Enjoy their wailings and their pangs deride;While o'er the same dread scenes, on Albion's isles,His well-taught spouse, the cruel Mary, smiles.What clouds of smoke hang heavy round the shore!What altars hecatomb'd with Christian gore!Her sire's best friends, the wise, the brave, the good,Roll in the flames or fly the land of blood.
To Gallia's plains the maddening phrensy turns.Religion raves and civil discord burns;Leaguers and Huguenots their vengeance pour,They swell Bartholemy's wide feast of gore,Alternate victors bid their gibbets rise,And the foul stench of victims chokes the skies.
Now cease the factions with the Valois line,And Bourbon's virtues every voice combine.Quell'd by his fame, the furious sects accord,Europe respires beneath his guardian sword;Batavia's states to independence soar,And curb the cohorts of Iberian power.From Albion's ports her infant navies heave,Stretch forth and thunder on the Flandrian wave;Her Howard there first foils the force of Spain,And there begins her mastery of the main.
The Seraph spoke; when full beneath their eyeA new-form'd squadron rose along the sky.High on the tallest deck majestic shoneSage Raleigh, pointing to the western sun;His eye, bent forward, ardent and sublime,Seem'd piercing nature and evolving time;Beside him stood a globe, whose figures tracedA future empire in each present waste;All former works of men behind him shoneGraved by his hand in ever-during stone;On his calm brow a various crown displaysThe hero's laurel and the scholar's bays;His graceful limbs in steely mail were drest,The bright star burning on his lofty breast;His sword, high waving, flash'd the solar ray.Illumed the shrouds and rainbow'd far the spray;The smiling crew rose resolute and brave,And the glad sails hung bounding o'er the wave.
Storms of wild Hatteras, suspend your roar,Ye tumbling billows, cease to shake the shore;Look thro the doubling clouds, thou lamp of day,Teach the bold Argonauts their chartless way;Your viewless capes, broad Chesapeak, unfold,And show your promised Colchis fleeced with gold.No plundering squadron your new Jason brings;No pirate demigods nor hordes of kingsFrom shore to shore a faithless miscreant steers,To steal a maid and leave a sire in tears.But yon wise chief conducts with careful kenThe queen of colonies, the best of men,To wake to fruitful life your slumbering soil,And rear an empire with the hand of toil.Your fond Medea too, whose dauntless breastAll danger braves to screen her hunted guest.Shall quit her native tribe, but never shareThe crimes and sufferings of the Colchian fair.Blest Pocahontas! fear no lurking guile;Thy hero's love shall well reward thy smile.Ah sooth the wanderer in his desperate plight,Hide him by day and calm his cares by night;Tho savage nations with thy vengeful sirePursue their victim with unceasing ire,And tho their threats thy startled ear assail,Let virtue's voice o'er filial fears prevail.Fly with the faithful youth, his steps to guide,Pierce the known thicket, breast the fordless tide,Illude the scout, avoid the ambush'd line,And lead him safely to his friends and thine;For thine shall be his friends, his heart, his name;His camp shall shout, his nation boast thy fame.
But now the Bay unfolds a passage wide,And leads the squadron up the freshening tide;Where Pohatan spreads deep her sylvan soil,And grassy lawns allure the steps of toil.Here, lodged in peace, they tread the welcome land.An instant harvest waves beneath their hand,Spontaneous fruits their easy cares beguile,And opening fields in living culture smile.
With joy Columbus view'd; when thus his voice:Ye grove-clad shores, ye generous hosts, rejoice!Exchange your benefits, your gifts combine;What nature fashions, let her sons refine.
Be thou, my Seer, the people's guardian friend,Protect their virtues and their lives defend;May wealth and wisdom with their arts unfold,Yet save, oh, save them from the thirst of gold!Let the poor guardless natives never feelThe flamen's fraud, the soldier's fateful steel;But learn the blessings that alone attendOn civil rights where social virtues blend,In these brave leaders find a welcome guide,And rear their fanes and empires by their side.Smile, great Hesperia, smile; the star of mornIllumes thy heavens and bids thy day be born;Thy opening forests show the work begun,Thy plains unshaded drink a purer sun;Yield now thy bounties, load the laboring main,Give birth to nations, and begin thy reign.
The Hero spoke; when thus the Saint rejoin'd,Approved his joy, and feasted still his mind:Well may thy voice, with patriarch pride elate,Burst forth triumphant at a scene so great;Here springs indeed the day, since time began,The brightest, broadest, happiest morn of man.In these prime settlements thy raptures traceThe germ, the genius of a sapient race,Predestined here to methodise and mouldNew codes of empire to reform the old.
A work so vast a second world required,By oceans bourn'd, from elder states retired;Where, uncontaminated, unconfined,Free contemplation might expand the mind,To form, fix, prove the well-adjusted plan,And base and build the commonwealth of man.
This arm, that leads the stellar host of even,That stretch'd o'er yon rude ridge the western heaven,That heal'd the wounded earth, when from her sideThe moon burst forth, and left the South Sea tide,That calm'd these elements, and taught them whereTo mould their mass and rib the crusted sphere,Line the closed continent with wrecks of life,And recommence their generating strife,That rear'd the mountain, spread the subject plain,Led the long stream and roll'd the billowy main,Stole from retiring tides the growing strand,Heaved the green banks, the shadowy inlets plann'd,Strow'd the wild fruitage, gave the beast his place,And form'd the region for thy filial race,--This arm prepared their future seats of state,Design'd their limits and prescribed their date.
When first the staggering globe its breach repair'd,And this bold hemisphere its shoulders rear'd,Back to those heights, whose hovering vapor shroudsMy rock-raised world in Alleganian clouds,The Atlantic waste its coral kingdom spread,And scaly nations here their gambols led;Till by degrees, thro following tracts of time,From laboring ocean rose the sedgy clime,As from unloaded waves the rising sandSwell'd into light and gently drew to land.For, moved by trade winds o'er the flaming zone,The waves roll westward with the constant sun,Meet my firm isthmus, scoop that gulphy bed,Wheel to the north, and here their current spread.Those ravaged banks, that move beneath their force,Borne on the tide and lost along their course,Create the shore, consolidate the soil.And hither lead the enlighten'd steps of toil.
Think not the lust of gold shall here annoy,Enslave the nation and its nerve destroy.No useles mine these northern hills enclose,No ruby ripens and no diamond glows;But richer stores and rocks of useful mouldRepay in wealth the penury of gold.Freedom's unconquer'd race, with healthy toil,Shall lop the grove and warm the furrow'd soil,From iron ridges break the rugged ore,And plant with men the man-ennobling shore;Sails, villas, towers and temples round them heave,Shine o'er the realms and light the distant wave.Nor think the native tribes shall rue the dayThat leads our heroes o'er the watery way.A cause like theirs no mean device can mar,Nor bigot rage nor sacerdotal war.From eastern tyrants driven, resolved and brave,To build new states or seek a distant grave,Our sons shall try a new colonial plan,To tame the soil, but spare their kindred man.
Thro Europe's wilds when feudal nations spread.The pride of conquest every legion led.Each fur-clad chief, by servile crowds adored,O'er conquer'd realms assumed the name of lord,Built the proud castle, ranged the savage wood,Fired his grim host to frequent fields of blood,With new-made honors lured his subject bands,Price of their lives, and purchase of their lands;For names and titles bade the world resignTheir faith, their freedom and their rights divine.
Contending baronies their terrors spread,And slavery follow'd where the standard led;Till, little tyrants by the great o'erthrown,The spoils of nobles build the regal crown;Wealth, wisdom, virtue, every claim of manUnguarded fall to consummate the plan.Ambitious cares, that nature never gave,Torment alike the monarch and the slave,Thro all degrees in gradual pomp ascend,Honor the name, but tyranny the end.
Far different honors here the heart shall claim,Sublimer objects, deeds of happier fame;A new creation waits the western shore,And moral triumphs o'er monarchic power.Thy freeborn sons, with genius unconfined,Nor sloth can slacken nor a tyrant bind;With self-wrought fame and worth internal blest,No venal star shall brighten on their breast,Nor king-created name nor courtly artDamp the bold thought or desiccate the heart.Above all fraud, beyond all titles great,Truth in their voice and sceptres at their feet,Like sires of unborn states they move sublime,Look empires thro and span the breadth of time,Hold o'er the world, that men may choose from far,The palm of peace, or scourge of barbarous war;Till their example every nation charms,Commands its friendship and its rage disarms.
Here social man a second birth shall find,And a new range of reason lift his mind,Feed his strong intellect with purer light,A nobler sense of duty and of right,The sense of liberty; whose holy fireHis life shall temper and his laws inspire,Purge from all shades the world-embracing scopeThat prompts his genius and expands his hope.
When first his form arose erect on earth,Parturient nature hail'd the wondrous birth,With fairest limbs and finest fibres wrought,And framed for vast and various toils of thought.To aid his promised powers with loftier flight,And stretch his views beyond corporeal sight,Prometheus came, and from the floods of daySunn'd his clear soul with heaven's internal ray,The expanding spark divine; that round him springs,And leads and lights him thro the immense of things,Probes the dense earth, explores the soundless main,Remoulds their mass thro all its threefold reign,O'er great, o'er small extends his physic laws,Empalms the empyrean or dissects a gaz,Weighs the vast orbs of heaven, bestrides the sky,Walks on the windows of an insect's eye;Turns then to self, more curious still to traceThe whirls of passion that involve the race,That cloud with mist the visual lamp of God,And plunge the poniard in fraternal blood.Here fails his light. The proud Titanian rayO'er physic nature sheds indeed its day;Yet leaves the moral in chaotic jars,The spoil of violence, the sport of wars,Presents contrasted parts of one great plan,Earth, heaven subdued, but man at swords with man;His wars, his errors into science grown,And the great cause of all his ills unknown.
But when he steps on these regenerate shores,His mind unfolding for superior powers,FREEDOM, his new Prometheus, here shall rise,Light her new torch in my refulgent skies,Touch with a stronger life his opening soul,Of moral systems fix the central goal,Her own resplendent essence. Thence expandThe rays of reason that illume the land;Thence equal rights proceed, and equal laws,Thence holy Justice all her reverence draws;Truth with untarnish'd beam descending thence,Strikes every eye, and quickens every sense,Bids bright Instruction spread her ample page,To drive dark dogmas from the inquiring age,Ope the true treasures of the earth and skies,And teach the student where his object lies.
Sun of the moral world! effulgent sourceOf man's best wisdom and his steadiest force,Soul-searching Freedom! here assume thy stand,And radiate hence to every distant land;Point out and prove how all the scenes of strife,The shock of states, the impassion'd broils of life,Spring from unequal sway; and how they flyBefore the splendor of thy peaceful eye;Unfold at last the genuine social plan,The mind's full scope, the dignity of man,Bold nature bursting thro her long disguise,And nations daring to be just and wise.
Yes! righteous Freedom, heaven and earth and seaYield or withold their various gifts for thee;Protected Industry beneath thy reignLeads all the virtues in her filial train;Courageous Probity with brow serene,And Temperance calm presents her placid mienContentment, Moderation, Labor, Art,Mould the new man and humanize his heart;To public plenty private ease dilates,Domestic peace to harmony of states.Protected Industry, careering far,Detects the cause and cures the rage of war,And sweeps, with forceful arm, to their last graves,Kings from the earth and pirates from the waves.
But slow proceeds the work. Long toils, my son,Must base the fabric of so vast a throne;Where Freedom founds her everlasting reign,And earth's whole empires form the fair domain.That great coloniarch, whose exalted soulPervades all scenes that future years unrol,Must yield the palm, and at a courtier's shrineHis plans relinquish and his life resign;His life that brightens, as his death shall stain,The fair, foul annals of his master's reign.
That feeble band, the lonely wilds who tread,Their sire, their genius in their Raleigh dead,Shall pine and perish in the savage gloom,Or mount the wave and seek their ancient home.Others in vain the generous task pursue,The dangers tempt and all the strife renew;While kings and ministers obstruct the plan,Unfaithful guardians of the weal of man.
At last brave Delaware, with his blithe host,Sails in full triumph to the well-known coast,Aids with a liberal hand the patriot cause,Reforms their policy, designs their laws;Till o'er Virginia's plains they spread their sway,And push their hamlets tow'rd the setting day.He comes, my Delaware! how mild and blandMy zephyrs greet him from the long-sought land!From fluvial glades that thro my cantons run,From those rich mounds that mask the falling sun.
Borne up my Chesapeak, as first he hailsThe flowery banks that scent his slackening sails,Descending twilight mellows down the gleamThat spreads far forward on the broad blue stream;The moonbeam dancing, as the pendants glide,Silvers with trembling tints the ripply tide;The sand-sown beach, the rocky bluff repaysThe faint effulgence with their amber'd rays;O'er greenwood glens a browner lustre flies,And bright-hair'd hills walk shadowy round the skies.
Profound solicitude and strong delightAbsorb the chief, as thro the waste of nightHe walks the lonely deck, and skirts the landsThat wait their nations from his guiding hands.Tall thro the tide the river Sires by turnsRise round the bark and blend their social urns;Majestic brotherhood! each feels the powerTo feed an empire from his future store.They stand stupendous, flooding full the bay,And pointing each thro different climes the way.
Resplendent o'er the rest, the regent godPotowmak towers, and sways the swelling flood;Vines clothe his arms, wild fruits o'erfill his horn,Wreaths of green maize his reverend brows adorn,His silver beard reflects the lunar day,And round his loins the scaly nations play.The breeze falls calm, the sails in silence rest,While thus his greetings cheer the stranger guest:
Blest be the bark that seized the promised hourTo waft thee welcome to this friendly shore!Long have we learnt the fame that here awaitsThe future sires of our unplanted states;We all salute thee with our mingling tides,Our high-fenced havens and our fruitful sides.The hundred realms our myriad fountains drainShall lose their limits in the vast domain;But my bold banks with proud impatience waitThe palm of glory in a work so great;On me thy sons their central seat shall raise,And crown my labors with distinguish'd praise.For this, from rock-ribb'd lakes I forced my birth,And climb'd and sunder'd many a mound of earth,Rent the huge hills that yonder heave on highAnd with their tenfold ridges rake the sky,Removed whole mountains in my headlong way,Strow'd a strong soil around this branching Bay,Scoop'd wide his basins to the distant main,And hung with headlands every marsh they drain.
Haste then, my heroes, tempt the fearless toil,Enrich your nations with the nurturing spoil;O'er my vast vales let yellow harvests wave,Quay the calm ports and dike the lawns I lave.Win from the waters every stagnant fen,Where truant rills escape my conscious ken;And break those remnant rocks that still impedeMy current crowding thro the gaps I made.
So shall your barks pursue my branching bed,Slope after slope, to every fountain's head,Seat your contiguous towns on all my shores,And charge my channel with their seaward stores.Freedom and Peace shall well reward your care,My guardian mounds protect the friendly pair;Or if delirious War shall dare draw nigh,And eastern storms o'ercast the western sky,My soil shall rear the chief to guide your host,And drive the demon cringing from the coast;Yon verdant hill his sylvan seat shall claim,And grow immortal from his deathless fame.
Then shall your federal towers my bank adorn,And hail with me the great millennial mornThat gilds your capitol. Thence earth shall drawHer first clear codes of liberty and law;There public right a settled form shall find,Truth trim her lamp to lighten humankind,Old Afric's sons their shameful fetters cast,Our wild Hesperians humanize at last,All men participate, all time expandThe source of good my liberal sages plann'd.
This said, he plunges in the sacred flood;That closes calm and lulls the cradled god.Exulting at his words, the gallant crewBrace the broad canvass and their course pursue:For now the breathing airs, from ocean born,Breeze up the bay, and lead the lively mornThat lights them to their port. Tis here they joinTheir bold precursors in the work divine;And here their followers, yet a numerous train,Wind o'er the wave and swell the new domain.For impious Laud, on England's wasted shore,Renews the flames that Mary fed before;Contristed sects his sullen fury fly,To seek new seats beneath a safer sky;Where faith and freedom yield a forceful charm,And toils and dangers every bosom warm.
Amid the tried unconquerable train,Whom tyrants press and seas oppose in vain,See Plymouth colons stretch their standards o'er,Face the dark wildmen and the wintry shore;See virtuous Baltimore ascend the wave,See peaceful Penn its unknown terrors brave;Swedes, Belgians, Gauls their various flags display,Full pinions crowding on the watery way;All from their different ports, their sails unfurl'd,Point their glad streamers to the western world.
.
Vision confined to North America. Progress of the colonies. Troubles with the natives. Settlement of Canada. Spirit of the English and French colonies compared. Hostilities between France and England extended to America. Braddock's defeat. Washington saves the re of the English army. Actions of Abercrombie, Amherst, Wolfe. Peace. Darkness overspreads the continent. Apprehensions of Columbus from that appearance. Cause explained. Cloud bursts away in the centre. of congress, and of the different regions from which its members are delegated. Their endeavors to arrest the violence of England compared with those of the Genius of Rome to dissuade Cesar from passing the Rubicon. The demon War stalking over the ocean and leading on the English invasion. Conflagration of towns from Falmouth to Norfolk. Battle of Bunker Hill seen thro the smoke. Death of Warren. American army assembles. Review of its chiefs. Speech of Washington. Actions and death of Montgomery. Loss of Newyork.
Columbus hail'd them with a father's smile,Fruits of his cares and children of his toil;While still his eyes, thro tears of joy, descriedTheir course adventurous on the distant tide.Thus, when o'er deluged earth her Numen stood,The tost ark bounding on the shoreless flood,The sacred treasure fixt his guardian view,While climes unnoticed in the wave withdrew.
The Hero saw them reach the rising strand,Leap from their ships and share the joyous land;Receding forests yield the laborers room,And opening wilds with fields and gardens bloom.Fill'd with the glance ecstatic, all his soulNow seems unbounded with the scene to roll,And now impatient, with retorted eye,Perceives his station in another sky:Waft me, indulgent Angel, waft me o'er,With those blest heroes, to the happy shore;There let me live and die. But all appearsA fleeting vision! these are future years.Yet grant the illusion still may nearer spread,And my glad steps may seem their walks to tread;While Europe, wrapt in momentary night,Shall rise no more to intercept the sight.
Columbus thus; when Hesper's potent handMoves brightening o'er the visionary land;The height that bore them still sublimer grew,And earth's whole circuit settled from their view.A dusky deep, serene as breathless even,Seem'd vaulting downward like another heaven;The sun, rejoicing on his western way,Stampt his fair image in the inverted day:When now Hesperia's coast arose more nigh,And life and action fill'd the dancing eye.
Between the gulphs, where Laurence drains the worldAnd where Floridia's farthest floods are curl'd,Where midlands broad their swelling mountains heaveAnd slope their champaigns to the Atlantic wave,The sandy streambank and the woodgreen plainRaise into sight the new-made seats of man.The placid ports, that break the seaborn gales,Shoot forth their quays and stretch aloft their sails,Full harvests wave, new groves with fruitage bend,Gay villas smile, defensive towers ascend;All the rich works of art their charms display,To court the planter and his cares repay:Till war invades; when soon the dales discloseTheir meadows path'd with files of savage foes;High tufted quills their painted foreheads press,Dark spoils of beasts their shaggy shoulders dress,The bow bent forward for the combat strung,Ax, quiver, scalpknife on the girdle hung;Discordant yells, convulsing long the air,Tone forth at last the war whoop's hideous blare.
The Patriarch look'd; and every frontier heightPours down the swarthy nations to the fight.Where Kennebec's high source forsakes the sky,Where long Champlain's yet unkeel'd waters lie,Where Hudson crowds his hill-dissundering tide,Where Kaatskill dares the starry vault divide,Where the dim Alleganies sit sublimeAnd give their streams to every neighboring clime,The swarms descended like an evening shade,And wolves and vultures follow'd where they spread.Thus when a storm, on eastern pinions driven,Meets the firm Andes in the midst of heaven,The clouds convulse, the torrents pour amain,And the black waters sweep the subject plain.
Thro harvest fields the bloody myriads tread,Sack the lone village, strow the streets with dead;The flames in spiry volumes round them rise,And shrieks and shouts redoubling rend the skies.Fair babes and matrons in their domes expire,Or bursting frantic thro the folding fireThey scream, fly, fall; promiscuous rave alongThe yelling victors and the driven throng;The streams run purple; all the peopled shoreIs wrapt in flames and trod with steps of gore.Till colons, gathering from the shorelands far,Stretch their new standards and oppose the war,With muskets match the many-shafted bow,With loud artillery stun the astonish'd foe.When, like a broken wave, the barbarous trainLead back the flight and scatter from the plainSlay their weak captives, drop their shafts in haste,Forget their spoils and scour the trackless waste;From wood to wood in wild confusion hurl'd,They hurry o'er the hills far thro the savage world.
Now move secure the cheerful works of peace,New temples rise and fruitful fields increase.Where Delaware's wide waves behold with pridePenn's beauteous town ascending on their side,The crossing streets in just allinement run,The walls and pavements sparkle to the sun,Like that famed city rose the checker'd plan,Whose spacious towers Semiramis began;Long ages finish'd what her hand design'd,The pride of kings and wonder of mankind.
Newyork ascends o'er Hudson's seaward isles,And flings the sunbeams from her glittering tiles;Albania, opening thro the distant wood,Rolls her rich treasures on her parent flood;Amid a thousand sails young Boston laves,High looms majestic Newport o'er the waves,Patapsco's bay contracts his yielding side,As spreading Baltimore invades his tide;Aspiring Richmond tops the bank of James,And Charleston sways her two contending streams.
Thro each colonial realm, for wisdom great,Elected sires assume the cares of state;Nursed in equality, to freedom bred,Firm is their step and straight the paths they tread;Dispensing justice with paternal hand,By laws of peace they rule the happy land;While reason's page their statute codes unfold,And rites and charters flame in figured gold.All rights that Britons know they here transfuse,Their sense invigorate and expand their views,Dare every height of human soul to scan,Find, fathom, scope the moral breadth of man,Learn how his social powers may still dilate,And tone their tension to a stronger state.
Round the long glade where lordly Laurence strays,Gaul's migrant sons their forts and villas raise,Stretch over Canada their colon sway,And circling far beneath the western dayPlant sylvan Wabash with a watchful post,O'er Missisippi spread a mantling host,Bid Louisiana's lovely clime prepareNew arts to prove and infant states to rear;While the bright lakes, that wide behind them spread,Unfold their channels to the paths of trade,Ohio's waves their destined honors claim,And smile, as conscious of approaching fame.
But Gallic planters still their trammels wear,Their feudal genius still attends them here;Dependent feelings for a distant throneGyve the crampt soul that fears to think alone,Demand their rulers from the parent land,Laws ready made, and generals to command.Judge, priest and pedagogue, and all the slavesOf foreign masters, crowding o'er the waves,Spread thick the shades of vassalage and sloth,Absorb their labors and prevent their growth,Damp every thought that might their tyrants brave,And keep the vast domain a desert and a grave.
Too soon the mother states, with jealous fear,Transport their feuds and homebred quarrels here.Now Gallia's war-built barks ascend in sight,White flags unfold, and armies robed in whiteOn all the frontier streams their forts prepare,And coop our cantons with surrounding war.Quebec, as proud she rears her rocky seat,Feeds their full camp and shades their anchored fleet:Oswego's rampart frowns athwart his flood,And wild Ontario swells beneath his load.
And now a friendly host from Albion's strandArrives to aid her young colonial band.They join their force, and tow'rd the falling dayImpetuous Braddock leads their hasty way;O'er Allegany heights, like streams of fire,The red flags wave and glittering arms aspireTo meet the savage hordes, who there advanceTheir skulking files to join the arms of France.
Where, old as earth, yet still unstain'd with blood,Monongahela roll'd his careless flood,Flankt with his mantling groves the fountful hills,Drain'd the vast region thro his thousand rills,Lured o'er his lawns the buffle herds, and spreadFor all his fowls his piscatory glade;But now perceives, with hostile flag unfurl'd,A Gallic fortress awe the western world;There Braddock bends his march; the troops withinBehold their danger and the fire begin.Forth bursting from the gates they rush amain,Front, flank and charge the fast approaching train;The batteries blaze, the leaden volleys pour,The vales, the streams, the solid mountains roar;Clouds of convolving smoke the welkin spread,The champaign shrouding in sulphureous shade.Lost in the rocking thunder's loud career,No shouts nor groans invade the Patriarch's ear,Nor valorous feats are seen, nor flight nor fall,But one broad burst of darkness buries all;Till chased by rising winds the smoke withdrew,And the wide slaughter open'd on his view.He saw the British leader borne afar,In dust and gore, beyond the wings of war;And while delirious panic seized his host,Their flags, their arms in wild confusion tost,Bold in the midst a youthful warrior strode,And tower'd undaunted o'er the field of blood;He checks the shameful rout, with vengeance burns,And the pale Britons brighten where he turns.So, when thick vapors veil the nightly sky,The starry host in half-seen lustre fly,Till Phosphor rises o'er the twinkling crowd,And gives new splendor thro his parting cloud.
Swift on a fiery steed the stripling rose,Form'd the light files to pierce the line of foes;Then waved his gleamy sword that flash'd the day,And thro the Gallic legions hew'd his way:His troops press forward like a loose-broke flood,Sweep ranks away and smear their paths in blood;The hovering foes pursue the combat far,And shower their balls along the flying war;When the new leader turns his single force,Points the flight forward, speeds his backward course;The French recoiling half their victory yield,And the glad Britons quit the fatal field.
These deathful deeds as great Columbus eyed,With anxious tone he thus addrest the Guide:Why combat here these transatlantic bands,And strow their corses thro thy pathless lands?Can Europe's realms, the seat of endless strife,Afford no trophies for the waste of life?Can monarchs there no proud applauses gain,No living laurel for their people slain?Nor Belgia's plains, so fertile made with gore,Hide heroes' bones nor feast the vultures more?Will Rhine no longer cleanse the crimson stain,Nor Danube bear their bodies to the main,That infant empires here the shock must feel,And these pure streams with foreign carnage swell?But who that chief? his name, his nation say,Whose lifeblood seems his follies to repay;And who the youth, that from the combat lostSprings up and saves the remnant of his host?
The Power replied: Each age successive bringsTheir varying views to earth's contentious kings;Here roll the years when Albion's parent hand,In aid of thy brave children, guards the land;That growing states their veteran force may train,A nobler prize in later fields to gain;In fields where Albion's self shall turn their foe,Spread broader sails and aim a deadlier blow,Recross, in evil hour, the astonish'd wave,Her own brave sons to ravage and enslave.But here she combats with the powers of Gaul:Here her bold Braddock finds his destined fall;Thy Washington, in that young martial frame,From yon lost field begins a life of fame.Tis he, in future straits, with loftier stride,The colon states to sovereign rule shall guide;When, prest by wrongs, their own full force they find,To wield the sword for man, and bulwark humankind.
The Seraph spoke; when thro the purpled airThe northern armies spread the flames of war.Swift o'er the lake, to Crownpoint's fortful strand,Rash Abercrombie leads his headlong bandTo fierce unequal fight; the batteries roar,Shield the strong foes and rake the banner'd shore;Britannia's sons again the contest yield,Again proud Gaul triumphant sweeps the field.
But Amherst quick renews the raging toil,And drives wide hosting o'er Acadia's isle;Young Wolfe beside him points the lifted lance,The boast of Britain and the scourge of France.The tide of victory here the heroes turn,And Gallic navies in their harbors burn;High flame the ships, the billows swell with gore,And the red standard shades the conquer'd shore.
Wolfe, now detacht and bent on bolder deeds,A sail-borne host up sealike Laurence leads,Stems the long lessening tide; till Abraham's heightAnd famed Quebec rise frowning into sight.Swift bounding on the bank, the foe they claim.Climb the tall mountain like a rolling flame,Push wide their wings, high bannering bright the air,And move to fight as comets cope in war.The smoke falls folding thro the downward sky.And shrouds the mountain from the Patriarch's eye,While on the towering top, in glare of day,The flashing swords in fiery arches play.As on a side-seen storm, adistance driven,The flames fork round the semivault of heaven,Thick thunders roll, descending torrents flow,Dash down the clouds and whelm the hills below;Or as on plains of light when Michael strove,The swords of cherubim to combat move,Ten thousand fiery forms together fray,And flash new lightning on empyreal day.
Long raged promiscuous combat, half conceal'd,When sudden parle suspended all the field;Then roar the shouts, the smoke forsakes the plainAnd the huge hill is topt with heaps of slain.Stretch'd high in air Britannia's standard waved,And good Columbus hail'd his country saved;While calm and silent, where the ranks retire,He saw brave Wolfe in victory's arms expire.So the pale moon, when morning beams arise,Veils her lone visage in her midway skies;She needs no longer drive the shades away,Nor waits to view the glories of the day.
Again the towns aspire; the cultured fieldAnd crowded mart their copious treasures yield;Back to his plough the colon soldier moves,And songs of triumph fill the warbling groves,The conscious flocks, returning joys that share,Spread thro the grassland o'er the walks of war,Streams, freed of gore, their crystal course regain,Serener sunbeams gild the tentless plain;A general jubilee, o'er earth and heaven,Leads the gay morn and lights the lambent even.
Rejoicing, confident of long repose,(Their friends triumphant, far retired their foes,)The British colonies now feel their swaySpan the whole north and crowd the western day.Acadia, Canada, earth's total side,From Slave's long lake to Pensacola's tide,Expand their soils for them; and here unfoldA range of highest hope, a promised age of gold.
But soon from eastern seas dark vapors rise,Sweep the vast Occident and shroud the skies,Snatch all the vision from the Hero's sight,And wrap the coast in sudden shades of night.He turn'd, and sorrowful besought the Power:Why sinks the scene, or must I view no more?Must here the fame of that young world descend?Shall our brave children find so quick their end?Where then the promised grace? "Thou soon shalt seeThat half mankind shall owe their seats to thee."
The Saint replied: Ere long, beneath thy viewThe scene shall brighten and thy joys renew.Here march the troublous years, when goaded soreThy sons shall rise to change the ruling power;When Albion's prince, who sways the happy land,To lawless rule extends his tyrant hand,To bind in slavery's bands the peaceful host,Their rights unguarded and their charters lost.Now raise thine eye; from this delusive plain;What nations leap to life, what deeds adorn their fame!
Columbus look'd; and still around them spread,From south to north, the immeasurable shade;At last the central darkness burst away,And rising regions opened on the day.Once more bright Delaware's commercial streamAnd Penn's throng'd city cast a cheerful gleam;The dome of state, as conscious of his eye,Now seem'd to silver in a loftier sky,Unfolding fair its gates; when lo, withinThe assembled states in solemn Congress shine.
The sires elect from every province came,Where wide Columbia bore the British name,Where Freedom's sons their highborn lineage trace,And homebred bravery still exalts the race:Her sons who plant each various vast domainThat Chesapeak's uncounted currents drain;The race who Roanoke's clear stream bestride,Who fell the pine on Apalachia's side,To Albemarle's wide wave who trust their store,Who dike proud Pamlico's unstable shore.Whose groaning barks o'erload the long Santee,Wind thro the realms and labor to the sea,(Their cumbrous cargoes, to the sail consign'd,Seek distant worlds, and feed and clothe mankind;)The race whose rice-fields suck Savanna's urn,Whose verdant vines Oconee's bank adorn;Who freight the Delaware with golden grain,Who tame their steeds on Monmouth's flowery plain,From huge Toconnok hills who drag their ore,And sledge their corn to Hudson's quay-built shore.Who keel Connecticut's long meadowy tide,With patient plough his fallow plains divide,Spread their white flocks o'er Narraganset's vale,Or chase to each chill pole the monstrous whale;Whose venturous prows have borne their fame afar,Tamed all the seas and steer'd by every star,Dispensed to earth's whole habitants their store,And with their biting flukes have harrow'd every shore.
The virtuous delegates behold with painThe hostile Britons hovering o'er the main,Lament the strife that bids two worlds engage,And blot their annals with fraternal rage;Two worlds in one broad state! whose bounds bestride,Like heaven's blue arch, the vast Atlantic tide,By language, laws and liberty combined,Great nurse of thought, example to mankind.Columbia rears her warning voice in vain,Brothers to brothers call across the main;Britannia's patriots lend a listening ear,But kings and courtiers push their mad career;Dissension raves, the sheathless falchions glare,And earth and ocean tremble at the war.
Thus with stern brow, as worn by cares of state,His bosom big with dark unfolding fate,High o'er his lance the sacred Eagle spread,And earth's whole crown still resting on his head,Rome's hoary Genius rose, and mournful stoodOn roaring Rubicon's forbidden flood,When Cesar's ensigns swept the Alpine air,Led their long legions from the Gallic war,Paused on the opposing bank with wings unfurl'd,And waved portentous o'er the shuddering world.The god, with outstretch'd arm and awful look,Call'd the proud victor and prophetic spoke:Arrest, my son, thy parricidious hate,Pass not the stream nor stab my filial state,Stab not thyself, thy friends, thy total kind,And worlds and ages in one state combined.The chief, regardless of the warning god,Rein'd his rude steed and headlong past the flood,Cried, Farewel, Peace! took Fortune for his guide,And o'er his country pour'd the slaughtering tide.
High on the foremost seat, in living light,Resplendent Randolph caught the world's full sight.He opes the cause, and points in prospect farThro all the toils that wait impending war:But, reverend sage! thy race must soon be o'er,To lend thy lustre and to shine no more.So the mild morning star, from shades of even,Leads up the dawn and lights the front of heaven,Points to the waking world the sun's broad way,Then veils his own, and vaults above the day.And see bright Washington behind thee rise,Thy following sun, to gild our morning skies,O'er shadowy climes to pour enlivening flame,The charms of freedom and the fire of fame.For him the patriot bay beheld with prideThe hero's laurel springing by its side;His sword still sleeping rested on his thigh,On Britain still he cast a filial eye;But sovereign fortitude his visage bore,To meet her legions on the invaded shore.
Sage Franklin next arose with cheerful mien,And smiled unruffled o'er the solemn scene;His locks of age a various wreath embraced,Palm of all arts that e'er a mortal graced;Beneath him lay the sceptre kings had borne,And the tame thunder from the tempest torn.
Wythe, Mason, Pendleton with Henry join'd,Rush, Rodney, Langdon, friends of humankind,Persuasive Dickinson, the former's boast,Recording Thomson, pride of all the host,Nash, Jay, the Livingstons, in council great,Rutledge and Laurens held the rolls of fate,O'er wide creation turn'd their ardent eyes,And bade the opprest to selfexistence rise;All powers of state, in their extended plan,Spring from consent, to shield the rights of man.Undaunted Wolcott urged the holy cause,With steady hand the solemn scene he draws;Stern thoughtful temperance with his ardorjoin'd,Nor kings nor worlds could warp his steadfast mind.
With graceful ease but energetic tones;And eloquence that shook a thousand thrones,Majestic Hosmer stood; the expanding soulDarts from his eyebeams while his accents roll.But lo! the shaft of death untimely flew,And fell'd the patriot from the Hero's view;Wrapt in the funeral shroud he sees descendThe guide of nations and the Muse's friend.Columbus dropt a tear; while Hesper's eyeTraced the freed spirit mounting thro the sky.
Each generous Adams, freedom's favorite pair,And Hancock rose the tyrant's rage to dare,Groupt with firm Jefferson, her steadiest hope,Of modest mien but vast unclouded scope.Like four strong pillars of her state they stand,They clear from doubt her brave but wavering band;Colonial charters in their hands they bore,And lawless acts of ministerial power.Some injured right in every page appears,A king in terrors and a land in tears;From all his guileful plots the veil they drew,With eye retortive look'd creation thro,Traced moral nature thro her total plan,Markt all the steps of liberty and man;Crowds rose to reason while their accents rung.And INDEPENDENCE thunder'd from their tongue.
Columbus turn'd; when rolling to the shoreSwells o'er the seas an undulating roar;Slow, dark, portentous, as the meteors sweep.And curtain black the illimitable deep,High stalks, from surge to surge, a demon Form,That howls thro heaven and breathes a billowing storm.His head is hung with clouds; his giant handFlings a blue flame far flickering to the land;His blood-stain'd limbs drip carnage as he strides,And taint with gory grume the staggering tides;Like two red suns his quivering eyeballs glare,His mouth disgorges all the stores of war,Pikes, muskets, mortars, guns and globes of fire.And lighted bombs that fusing trails exspire.Percht on his helmet, two twin sisters rode,The favorite offspring of the murderous god,Famine and Pestilence; whom whilom boreHis wife, grim Discord, on Trinacria's shore;When first their Cyclop sons, from Etna's forge,Fill'd his foul magazine, his gaping gorge:Then earth convulsive groan'd, high shriek'd the air.And hell in gratulation call'd him War.
Behind the fiend, swift hovering for the coast,Hangs o'er the wave Britannia's sail-wing'd host;They crowd the main, they spread their sheets abroad,From the wide Laurence to the Georgian flood,Point their black batteries to the peopled shore,And spouting flames commence the hideous roar.
Where fortless Falmouth, looking o'er her bay,In terror saw the approaching thunders play,The fire begins; the shells o'er arching fly,And shoot a thousand rainbows thro the sky;On Charlestown spires, on Bedford roofs they light,Groton and Fairfield kindle from the flight,Norwalk expands the blaze; o'er Reading hillsHigh flaming Danbury the welkin fills;Esopus burns, Newyork's delightful fanesAnd sea-nursed Norfolk light the neighboring plains.From realm to realm the smoky volumes bend,Reach round the bays and up the streams extend;Deep o'er the concave heavy wreaths are roll'd,And midland towns and distant groves infold.
Thro solid curls of smoke, the bursting firesClimb in tall pyramids above the spires,Concentring all the winds; whose forces, drivenWith equal rage from every point of heaven,Whirl into conflict, round the scantling pourThe twisting flames and thro the rafters roar,Suck up the cinders, send them sailing far,To warn the nations of the raging war,Bend high the blazing vortex, swell'd and curl'd,Careering, brightening o'er the lustred world,Absorb the reddening clouds that round them run,Lick the pale stars, and mock their absent sun:Seas catch the splendor, kindling skies resound,And falling structures shake the smouldering ground.
Crowds of wild fugitives, with frantic tread,Flit thro the flames that pierce the midnight shade,Back on the burning domes revert their eyes,Where some lost friend, some perisht infant lies.Their maim'd, their sick, their age-enfeebled siresHave sunk sad victims to the sateless fires;They greet with one last look their tottering walls,See the blaze thicken, as the ruin falls,Then o'er the country train their dumb despair,And far behind them leave the dancing glare;Their own crusht roofs still lend a trembling light,Point their long shadows and direct their flight.Till wandering wide they seek some cottage door,Ask the vile pittance due the vagrant poor;Or faint and faltering on the devious road,They sink at last and yield their mortal load.
But where the sheeted flames thro Charlestown roar,And lashing waves hiss round the burning shore,Thro the deep folding fires dread Bunker's heightThunders o'er all and shows a field of fight.Like nightly shadows thro a flaming grove,To the dark fray the closing squadrons move;They join, they break, they thicken thro the glare,And blazing batteries burst along the war;Now wrapt in reddening smoke, now dim in sight,They rake the hill, or wing the downward flight;Here, wheel'd and wedged, Britannia's veterans turn,And the long lightnings from their muskets burn;There scattering strive the thin colonial train,Whose broken platoons still the field maintain;Till Britain's fresh battalions rise the height,And with increasing vollies give the fight.When, choked with dust, discolor'd deep in gore,And gall'd on all sides from the ships and shore,Hesperia's host moves off the field afar,And saves, by slow retreat, the sad remains of war.
There strides bold Putnam, and from all the plainsCalls the tired troops, the tardy rear sustains,And, mid the whizzing balls that skim the lowe,Waves back his sword, defies the following foe.
In this prime prelude of the toil that waitsThe nascent glories of his infant states,Columbus mourn'd the slain. A numerous crowd,Half of each host, had bought their fame with blood;From the whole hill he saw the lifestream pour,And sloping pathways trod with tracks of gore.Here, glorious Warren, thy cold earth was seen,Here spring thy laurels in immortal green;Dearest of chiefs that ever prest the plain,In freedom's cause with early honors slain;Still dear in death, as when before our sightYou graced the senate, or you led the fight.The grateful Muse shall tell the world your fame,And unborn realms resound the deathless name.
Now from all plains, as settling smokes decay,The banded freemen rise in open day;Tall thro the lessening shadows, half conceal'd,They throng and gather in a central field;In unskill'd ranks but ardent soul they stand,Claim quick the foe, and eager strife demand.
In front firm Washington superior shone,His eye directed to the half-seen sun;As thro the cloud the bursting splendors glow,And light the passage to the distant foe.His waving steel returns the living day,And points, thro unfought fields, the warrior's way;His valorous deeds to be confined no more,Monongahela, to thy desert shore.Matured with years, with nobler glory warm,Fate in his eye and empire on his arm,He feels his sword the strength of nations wield,And moves before them with a broader shield.
Greene rose beside him emulous in arms,His genius brightening as the danger warms,In counsel great, in every science skill'd,Pride of the camp and terror of the field.With eager look, conspicuous o'er the crowd,And port majestic, brave Montgomery strode,Bared his tried blade, with honor's call elate,Claim'd the first field and hasten'd to his fate.Lincoln, with force unfolding as he rose,Scoped the whole war and measured well the foes;Calm, cautious, firm, for frugal counsels known,Frugal of other's blood but liberal of his own.Heath for impending toil his falchion draws,And fearless Wooster aids the sacred cause,Mercer advanced an early death to prove,Sinclair and Mifflin swift to combat move;Here stood stern Putnam, scored with ancient scars.The living records of his country's wars;Wayne, like a moving tower, assumes his post.Fires the whole field, and is himself a host;Undaunted Stirling, prompt to meet his foes,And Gates and Sullivan for action rose;Macdougal, Clinton, guardians of the state,Stretch the nerved arm to pierce the depth of fate;Marion with rapture seized the sword of fame,Young Laurens graced a father's patriot name;Moultrie and Sumter lead their banded powers,Morgan in front of his bold riflers towers,His host of keen-eyed marksmen, skill'd to pourTheir slugs unerring from the twisted bore.No sword, no bayonet they learn to wield,They gall the flank, they skirt the battling field,Cull out the distant foe in full horse speed,Couch the long tube and eye the silver bead,Turn as he turns, dismiss the whizzing lead,And lodge the death-ball in his heedless head.
So toil'd the huntsman Tell. His quivering dart,Prest by the bended bowstring, fears to part,Dreads the tremendous task, to graze but shunThe tender temples of his infant son;As the loved youth (the tyrant's victim led)Bears the poised apple tottering on his head.The sullen father, with reverted eye,Now marks the satrap, now the bright-hair'd boy;His second shaft impatient lies, athirstTo mend the expected error of the first,To pierce the monster, mid the insulted crowd,And steep the pangs of nature in his blood.Deep doubling tow'rd his breast, well poised and slow.Curve the strain'd horns of his indignant bow;His left arm straightens as the dexter bends,And his nerved knuckle with the gripe distends;Soft slides the reed back with the stiff drawn strand,Till the steel point has reacht his steady hand;Then to his keen fixt eye the shank he brings,Twangs the loud cord, the feather'd arrow sings.Picks off the pippin from the smiling boy,And Uri's rocks resound with shouts of joy.Soon by an equal dart the tyrant bleeds,The cantons league, the work of fate proceeds;Till Austria's titled hordes, with their own gore,Fat the fair fields they lorded long before;On Gothard's height while freedom first unfurl'dHer infant banner o'er the modern world.