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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Columbiad, by Joel Barlow
+
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+Title: The Columbiad
+
+Author: Joel Barlow
+
+Release Date: August, 2005 [EBook #8683]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on August 1, 2003]
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+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
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+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COLUMBIAD ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+The Columbiad
+
+A Poem.
+
+By Joel Barlow.
+
+
+
+  Tu spiegherai, Colombo, a un novo polo
+  Lontane si le fortunate antenne,
+  Ch'a pena seguira con gli occhi il volo
+  La Fama, ch' ha mille occhi e mille penne.
+  Canti ella Alcide, e Bacco; e di te solo
+  Basti a i posteri tuoi, ch' alquanto accenne:
+  Che quel poco dara lunga memoria
+  Di poema degnissima, e d'istoria.
+
+  Gierus, Lib. Can. xv.
+
+
+
+
+
+1809
+
+
+
+
+Preface.
+
+
+
+In preparing this work for publication it seems proper to offer some
+observations explanatory of its design. The classical reader will perceive
+the obstacles which necessarily presented themselves in reconciling the
+nature of the subject with such a manner of treating it as should appear
+the most poetical, and at the same time the most likely to arrive at that
+degree of dignity and usefulness to which it ought to aspire.
+
+The Columbiad is a patriotic poem; the subject is national and historical.
+Thus far it must be interesting to my countrymen. But most of the events
+were so recent, so important and so well known, as to render them
+inflexible to the hand of fiction. The poem therefore could not with
+propriety be modelled after that regular epic form which the more splendid
+works of this kind have taken, and on which their success is supposed in a
+great measure to depend. The attempt would have been highly injudicious;
+it must have diminished and debased a series of actions which were really
+great in themselves, and could not be disfigured without losing their
+interest.
+
+I shall enter into no discussion on the nature of the epopea, nor attempt
+to prove by any latitude of reasoning that I have written an Epic Poem.
+The subject indeed is vast; far superior to any one of those on which the
+celebrated poems of this description have been constructed; and I have no
+doubt but the form I have given to the work is the best that the subject
+would admit. It may be added that in no poem are the unities of time, place
+and action more rigidly observed: the action, in the technical sense of
+the word, consisting only of what takes place between Columbus and Hesper;
+which must be supposed to occupy but few hours, and is confined to the
+prison and the mount of vision.
+
+But these circumstances of classical regularity are of little consideration
+in estimating the real merit of any work of this nature. Its merit must
+depend on the importance of the action, the disposition of the parts, the
+invention and application of incidents, the propriety of the illustrations,
+the liveliness and chastity of the images, the suitable intervention of
+machinery, the moral tendency of the manners, the strength and sublimity of
+the sentiments; the whole being clothed in language whose energy, harmony
+and elegance shall constitute a style every where suited to the matter they
+have to treat. It is impossible for me to determine how far I may have
+succeeded in any of these particulars. This must be decided by others, the
+result of whose decision I shall never know. But there is one point of view
+in which I wish the reader to place the character of my work, before he
+pronounces on its merit: I mean its political tendency. There are two
+distinct objects to be kept in view in the conduct of a narrative poem; the
+_poetical_ object and the _moral_ object. The poetical is the
+fictitious design of the action; the moral is the real design of the poem.
+
+In the Iliad of Homer the poetical object is to kindle, nourish, sustain
+and allay the anger of Achilles. This end is constantly kept in view; and
+the action proper to attain it is conducted with wonderful judgment thro a
+long series of incidents, which elevate the mind of the reader, and excite
+not only a veneration for the creative powers of the poet, but an ardent
+emulation of his heroes, a desire to imitate and rival some of the great
+actors in the splendid scene; perhaps to endeavor to carry into real life
+the fictions with which we are so much enchanted.
+
+Such a high degree of interest excited by the first object above mentioned,
+the fictitious design of the action, would make it extremely important that
+the second object, the real design of the poem, should be beneficial to
+society. But the real design in the Iliad was directly the reverse.
+Its obvious tendency was to inflame the minds of young readers with an
+enthusiastic ardor for military fame; to inculcate the pernicious doctrine
+of the divine right of kings; to teach both prince and people that military
+plunder was the most honorable mode of acquiring property; and that
+conquest, violence and war were the best employment of nations, the most
+glorious prerogative of bodily strength and of cultivated mind.
+
+How much of the fatal policy of states, and of the miseries and
+degradations of social man, have been occasioned by the false notions of
+honor inspired by the works of Homer, it is not easy to ascertain. The
+probability is, that however astonishing they are as monuments of human
+intellect, and how long soever they have been the subject of universal
+praise, they have unhappily done more harm than good. My veneration for his
+genius is equal to that of his most idolatrous readers; but my reflections
+on the history of human errors have forced upon me the opinion that his
+existence has really proved one of the signal misfortunes of mankind.
+
+The moral tendency of the Eneid of Virgil is nearly as pernicious as that
+of the works of Homer. Its poetical or fictitious design, the settlement
+of his hero in Italy, is well delineated and steadily pursued. This object
+must have been far more interesting to the Romans than the anger of
+Achilles could have been to the Greeks. Had Virgil written his poem one or
+two centuries earlier than he did, while his countrymen felt that they had
+a country and were not themselves the property of a master, they must have
+glowed with enthusiasm in reciting the fabulous labors of their ancestors,
+and adored the songster who could have thus elevated so endearing a
+subject; who could have adorned it with such an interesting variety of
+incidents, such weight of pathos, such majesty of sentiment and harmony of
+verse. But Virgil wrote and felt like a subject, not like a citizen. The
+real design of his poem was to increase the veneration of the people for a
+master, whoever he might be, and to encourage like Homer the great system
+of military depredation.
+
+Lucan is the only republican among the ancient epic poets. But the action
+of his rambling tho majestic poem is so badly arranged as to destroy, in
+a poetical sense, the life and interest of the great national subject on
+which it is founded; at the same time that it abounds in the most exalted
+sentiments and original views of manners, highly favorable to the love of
+justice and the detestation of war. If a mind, formed like that of Lucan,
+as to its moral and political cast, and endowed with the creative energy
+of Homer, had sung to the early Greeks the fall of Troy or the labors
+of Hercules, his work (taking the place which those of Homer have
+unfortunately occupied) as a splendid model for all succeeding ages, would
+have given a very different turn to the pursuits of heroes and the policy
+of nations. Ambition might then have become a useful passion, instead of a
+destructive disease.
+
+In the poem here presented to the public the objects, as in other works of
+the kind, are two, the fictitious object of the action and the real object
+of the poem. The first of these is to sooth and satisfy the desponding
+mind of Columbus; to show him that his labors, tho ill rewarded by his
+cotemporaries, had not been performed in vain; that he had opened the way
+to the most extensive career of civilization and public happiness; and that
+he would one day be recognised as the author of the greatest benefits to
+the human race. This object is steadily kept in view; and the actions,
+images and sentiments are so disposed as probably to attain the end. But
+the real object of the poem embraces a larger scope; it is to inculcate the
+love of rational liberty, and to discountenance the deleterious passion for
+violence and war; to show that on the basis of the republican principle all
+good morals, as well as good government and hopes of permanent peace, must
+be founded; and to convince the student in political science, that the
+theoretical question of the future advancement of human society, till
+states as well as individuals arrive at universal civilization, is held in
+dispute and still unsettled only because we have had too little experience
+of organized liberty in the government of nations to have well considered
+its effects.
+
+I cannot expect that every reader, nor even every republican reader, will
+join me in opinion with respect to the future progress of society and the
+civilization of states; but there are two sentiments in which I think
+all men will agree: that the event is desirable, and that to believe it
+practicable is one step towards rendering it so. This being the case, they
+ought to pardon a writer, if not applaud him, for endeavoring to inculcate
+this belief.
+
+I have taken the liberty, notwithstanding the recency of the events,
+to make some changes in the order of several of the principal battles
+described in this poem. I have associated the actions of Starke, Herkimer,
+Brown and Francis in the battle of Saratoga, tho they happened at some
+distance from that battle, both as to time and place. A like circumstance
+will be noticed with respect to Sumter, Jackson of Georgia and some others
+in the battle of Eutaw. I have supposed a citadel mined and blown up in
+the siege of York, and two ships of war grappled and blown up in the naval
+battle of Degrasse and Graves. It is presumed that these circumstances
+require no apology; as in the two latter cases the events are incidental to
+such situations, and they here serve the principal purpose, being meant to
+increase our natural horror for the havoc and miseries of war in general.
+And with regard to the two former cases we ought to consider that, in the
+epic field, the interest to be excited by the action cannot be sustained
+by following the gazette, as Lucan has done. The desultory parts of the
+historical action must be brought together and be made to elevate and
+strengthen each other, so as to press upon the mind with the full force of
+their symmetry and unity. Where the events are recent and the actors known,
+the only duty imposed by that circumstance on the poet is to do them
+historical justice, and not ascribe to one hero the actions of another. But
+the scales of justice in this case are not necessarily accompanied by the
+calendar and the map.
+
+It will occur to most of my readers that the modern modes of fighting, as
+likewise the instruments and terms now used in war, are not yet rendered
+familiar in poetical language. It is doubtless from an unwarrantable
+timidity, or want of confidence in their own powers of description, that
+modern poets have made so little use of this kind of riches that lay before
+them. I confess that I imbibed the common prejudice, and remained a long
+time in the error of supposing that the ancients had a poetical advantage
+over us in respect to the dignity of the names of the weapons used in war,
+if not in their number and variety. And when I published a sketch of the
+present poem, under the title of The Vision of Columbus, I labored under
+the embarrassment of that idea. I am now convinced that the advantage, at
+least as to the weapons, is on the side of the moderns. There are better
+sounding names and more variety in the instruments, works, stratagems and
+other artifices employed in our war system than in theirs. In short, the
+modern military dictionary is more copious than the ancient, and the words
+at least as poetical.
+
+As to the mode of fighting, we have, poetically speaking, lost something in
+one respect, but we have gained much in another. Our battles indeed admit
+but few single combats, or trials of individual prowess. They do admit them
+however; and it is not impossible to describe them with as much detail and
+interest as the nature of the action requires; as Voltaire has proved in
+the single combat of Aumale and Turenne in the Henriad. Had he managed his
+general descriptions and the other parts of the conduct of his poem as
+well, he would have made it a far more interesting work than he has.
+However, since our single combats must be insignificant in their
+consequences, not deciding any thing as to the result of the battle,
+it would be inconvenient and misplaced to make much use of them in our
+descriptions. And here lies our disadvantage, compared with the ancients.
+
+But in a general engagement, the shock of modern armies is, beyond
+comparison, more magnificent, more sonorous and more discoloring to the
+face of nature, than the ancient could have been; and is consequently
+susceptible of more pomp and variety of description. Our heaven and earth
+are not only shaken and tormented with greater noise, but filled and
+suffocated with fire and smoke. If Homer, with his Grecian tongue and all
+its dialects, had had the battle of Blenheim to describe, the world would
+have possessed a picture and a piece of music which now it will never
+possess. The description would have astonished all ages, and enriched every
+language into which it might have been translated.
+
+With regard to naval battles the moderns have altogether the advantage. But
+there has been no naval battle described in modern poetry; neither is there
+any remaining to us from the ancients, except that in the bay of Marseilles
+by Lucan, and that near Syracuse by Silius. It would seem strange indeed
+that Homer, whose wonderful powers of fiction were not embarrassed by
+historical realities, and who in other respects is so insatiable of
+variety, did not introduce a sea fight either in the defence of Troy, or
+in the disastrous voyages of Ulysses. But the want of this in Homer's two
+poems amounts almost to a proof that in his time the nations had not yet
+adopted any method of fighting at sea; so that the poet could have no such
+image in his mind.
+
+The business of war, with all its varieties, makes but a small part of the
+subject of my poem; it ought therefore to occupy but a small portion of its
+scenery. This is the reason why I have not been more solicitous to vary and
+heighten the descriptions of battles and other military operations. I make
+this observation to satisfy those readers who being accustomed to see a
+long poem chiefly occupied with this sort of bustle conceive that the life
+and interest of such compositions depend upon it. How far the majesty or
+interest of epic song really depends upon the tumultuous conflicts of war I
+will not decide; but I can assure the reader, so far as my experience goes,
+that these parts of the work are not the most difficult to write. They are
+scenes that exhibit those vigorous traits of human character which strike
+the beholder most forcibly and leave the deepest impression. They delight
+in violent attitudes; and, painting themselves in the strongest colors on
+the poet's fancy, they are easy at any time to recal. He varies them at
+pleasure, he adorns them readily with incidents, and imparts them with
+spirit to the reader.
+
+My object is altogether of a moral and political nature I wish to encourage
+and strengthen in the rising generation, a sense of the importance of
+republican institutions; as being the great foundation of public and
+private happiness, the necessary aliment of future and permanent
+ameliorations in the condition of human nature.
+
+This is the moment in America to give such a direction to poetry, painting
+and the other fine arts, that true and useful ideas of glory may be
+implanted in the minds of men here, to take place of the false and
+destructive ones that have degraded the species in other countries;
+impressions which have become so wrought into their most sacred
+institutions, that it is there thought impious to detect them and dangerous
+to root them out, tho acknowledged to be false. Wo be to the republican
+principle and to all the institutions it supports, when once the pernicious
+doctrine of the holiness of error shall creep into the creed of our schools
+and distort the intellect of our citizens!
+
+The Columbiad, in its present form, is such as I shall probably leave it to
+its fate. Whether it be destined to survive its author, is a question that
+gives me no other concern than what arises from the most pure and ardent
+desire of doing good to my country. To my country therefore, with every
+sentiment of veneration and affection I dedicate my labors.
+
+
+
+
+Introduction.
+
+
+
+Every circumstance relating to the discovery and settlement of America
+is an interesting object of inquiry, especially to the great and growing
+nations of this hemisphere, who owe their existence to those arduous
+labors. Yet it is presumed that many persons, who might be entertained
+with a poem on this subject, are but slightly acquainted with the life and
+character of the hero whose extraordinary genius led him to discover the
+continent, and whose singular sufferings, arising from that service, ought
+to excite the indignation of the world.
+
+Christopher Columbus was born in Genoa about the year 1447, when the
+navigation of Europe was scarcely extended beyond the limits of the
+Mediterranean and the other narrow seas that border the great ocean. The
+mariner's compass had been invented and in common use for more than a
+century; yet with the help of this sure guide, and prompted by a laudable
+spirit of discovery, the mariners of those days rarely ventured from the
+sight of land.
+
+They acquired wonderful applause by sailing along the coast of Africa,
+and discovering some of the neighboring islands; and after pushing their
+researches with great industry for half a century, the Portuguese, who were
+the most fortunate and enterprising, extended their voyages southward no
+farther than the equator.
+
+The rich commodities of the East had, for several ages, been brought into
+Europe by the Red Sea and the Mediterranean; and it had now become the
+object of the Portuguese to find a passage to India by sailing round the
+southern extremity of Africa, and then taking an eastern course. This great
+object engaged the general attention, and drew into the Portuguese service
+adventurers from the other maritime nations of Europe. Every year added to
+their experience in navigation, and seemed to promise some distant reward
+to their industry. The prospect however of arriving at India by that route
+was still by no means encouraging. Fifty years perseverance in the same
+track having brought them only to the equator, it was probable that as many
+more would elapse before they could accomplish their purpose.
+
+But Columbus, by an uncommon exertion of genius, formed a design no less
+astonishing to the age in which he lived than beneficial to posterity. This
+design was to sail to India by taking a western direction. By the accounts
+of travellers who had visited that part of Asia, it seemed almost without
+limits on the east; and by attending to the spherical figure of the earth
+Columbus drew the natural conclusion, that the Atlantic ocean must be
+bounded on the west either by India itself, or by some continent not far
+distant from it.
+
+This illustrious navigator, who was then about twenty-seven years of age,
+appears to have possessed every talent requisite to form and execute the
+greatest enterprises. He was early educated in such of the useful sciences
+as were taught in that day. He had made great proficiency in geography,
+astronomy and drawing, as they were necessary to his favorite pursuit of
+navigation. He had been a number of years in the service of the Portuguese,
+and had acquired all the experience that their voyages and discoveries
+could afford. His courage had been put to the severest test; and the
+exercise of every amiable as well as heroic virtue, the kindred qualities
+of a great mind, had secured him an extensive reputation. He had married a
+Portuguese lady, by whom he had two sons, Diego and Ferdinand; the younger
+of these is the historian of his life.
+
+Such was the situation of Columbus, when he formed and digested a plan,
+which, in its operation and consequences, has unfolded to the view of
+mankind one half of the globe, diffused wealth and industry over the other,
+and is extending commerce and civilization thro the whole. To corroborate
+the theory he had formed of the existence of a western continent, his
+discerning mind, which knew the application of every circumstance that fell
+in his way, had observed several facts which by others would have passed
+unnoticed. In his voyages to the African islands he had found, floating
+ashore after a long western storm, pieces of wood carved in a curious
+manner, canes of a size unknown in that quarter of the world, and human
+bodies with very singular features.
+
+The opinion being well established in his mind that a considerable portion
+of the earth still remained to be discovered, his temper was too vigorous
+and persevering to suffer an idea of this importance to rest merely in
+speculation, as it had done with Plato and Seneca, who seem to have
+entertained conjectures of a similar nature. He determined therefore to
+bring his theory to the test of experiment. But an object of that magnitude
+required the patronage of a prince; and a design so extraordinary met
+with all the obstructions that an age of superstition could invent, and
+personal jealousy enhance.
+
+It is happy for mankind that, in this instance, a genius capable of
+devising the greatest undertakings associated in itself a degree of
+patience and enterprise, modesty and confidence, which rendered him
+superior to these misfortunes, and enabled him to meet with fortitude all
+the future calamities of his life. Excited by an ardent enthusiasm to
+become a discoverer of new countries, and fully sensible of the advantages
+that would result to mankind from such discoveries, he had the cruel
+mortification to wear away eighteen years of his life, after his system
+was well established in his own mind, before he could obtain the means of
+executing his projected voyage. The greatest part of this period was spent
+in successive solicitations in Genoa, Portugal and Spain.
+
+As a duty to his native country he made his first proposal to the senate of
+Genoa, where it was soon rejected. Conscious of the truth of his theory,
+and of his own abilities to execute his plan, he retired without dejection
+from a body of men who were incapable of forming any just ideas upon
+the subject, and applied with fresh confidence to John Second, king of
+Portugal; who had distinguished himself as the great patron of navigation,
+and in whose service Columbus had acquired a reputation which entitled him
+and his project to general confidence. But here he experienced a treatment
+much more insulting than a direct refusal. After referring the examination
+of his scheme to the council who had the direction of naval affairs, and
+drawing from him his general ideas of the length of the voyage and the
+course he meant to take, that splendid monarch had the meanness to conspire
+with this council to rob Columbus of the glory and advantage he expected
+to derive from his undertaking. While Columbus was amused with the
+negotiation, in hopes of having his scheme adopted, a vessel was secretly
+dispatched by order of the king to make the intended discovery. Want of
+skill or courage in the pilot rendered the plot unsuccessful; and Columbus,
+on discovering the treachery, retired with an ingenuous indignation from a
+court which could be capable of such duplicity.
+
+Having now performed what was due to the country that gave him birth, and
+to the one that had adopted him as a subject, he was at liberty to court
+the patronage of any other which should have the wisdom to accept his
+proposals. He had communicated his ideas to his brother Bartholomew, whom
+he sent to England to negotiate with Henry Seventh; at the same time he
+went himself into Spain to apply in person to Ferdinand and Isabella, who
+governed the united kingdoms of Arragon and Castile.
+
+The circumstances of his brother's application in England, which appears
+to have been unsuccessful, are not to my purpose to relate; and the
+limits prescribed to this biographical sketch will prevent the detail of
+particulars respecting his own negotiation in Spain. This occupied him
+eight years; in which the various agitations of suspense, expectation and
+disappointment must have borne hard upon his patience. At length his scheme
+was adopted by Isabella; who undertook, as queen of Castile, to defray the
+expenses of the expedition, and declared herself ever after the friend and
+patron of the hero who projected it.
+
+Columbus, who during his ill success in the negotiation never abated any
+thing of the honors and emoluments which he expected to acquire in the
+expedition, obtained from Ferdinand and Isabella a stipulation of every
+article contained in his first proposals. He was constituted high admiral
+and viceroy of all the seas, islands and continents which he should
+discover; with power to receive one tenth of the profits arising from their
+productions and commerce. Which offices and emoluments were to be made
+hereditary in his family.
+
+These articles being adjusted, the preparations for the voyage were brought
+forward with rapidity; but they were by no means adequate to the importance
+of the expedition. Three small vessels, scarcely sufficient in size to be
+employed in the coasting business, were appointed to traverse the vast
+Atlantic, and to encounter the storms and currents always to be expected in
+tropical climates, uncertain seasons and unknown seas. These vessels, as we
+must suppose them in the infancy of navigation, were ill constructed, in a
+poor condition, and manned by seamen unaccustomed to distant voyages. But
+the tedious length of time which Columbus had passed in solicitation and
+suspense, and the prospect of being able soon to obtain the object of his
+wishes, induced him to overlook what he could not easily remedy; and led
+him to disregard those circumstances which would have intimidated any other
+mind. He accordingly equipped his small squadron with as much expedition as
+possible, manned with ninety men and victualled for one year. With these,
+on the third of August 1492, amidst a vast crowd of spectators, he set sail
+on an enterprise which, if we consider the ill condition of his ships,
+the inexperience of his sailors, the length and precarious nature of his
+voyage, and the consequences that flowed from it, was the most daring and
+important that ever was undertaken. He touched at some of the Portuguese
+settlements in the Canary Isles; where, altho he had been but a few days
+at sea, he found his vessels needed refitting. He soon made the necessary
+repairs, and took his departure from the westermost islands that had
+hitherto been discovered. Here he left the former track of navigation, and
+steered his course due west. Not many days after he laid this course he
+perceived the symptoms of a new scene of difficulty. The sailors now began
+to contemplate the dangers and uncertain issue of a voyage, the nature
+and length of which were left entirely open to conjecture. Besides the
+fickleness and timidity natural to men unaccustomed to the discipline of a
+seafaring life, several circumstances contributed to inspire an obstinate
+and mutinous disposition; which required the most consummate art as well as
+fortitude in the admiral to control. Having been three weeks at sea, and
+experienced the uniform course of the trade winds, they contended that,
+should they continue the same course for a longer time, the same winds
+would never permit them to return to Spain. The magnetic needle began to
+vary its direction. This being the first time that this phenomenon was ever
+noticed, it was viewed by the sailors with astonishment; they thought it an
+indication that nature itself had changed its laws, and that Providence was
+about to punish their audacity in venturing so far beyond the bounds of
+man. They declared that the commands of the government had been fully
+obeyed in their proceeding so many days in the same course, and so far
+surpassing all former navigators in quest of discoveries.
+
+Every talent requisite for governing, soothing and tempering the passions
+of men is conspicuous in the conduct of Columbus on this occasion. The
+dignity and affability of his manners, his surprising knowledge and
+experience in naval affairs, his unwearied and minute attention to the
+duties of his command, gave him a great ascendency over the minds of his
+men, and inspired that degree of confidence which would have maintained his
+authority in almost any circumstances. But here, from the nature of the
+undertaking, every man had leisure to feed his imagination with the
+gloominess and uncertainty of the prospect. They found from day to day the
+same steady gales wafting them with rapidity from their native country, and
+indeed from all countries of which they had any knowledge.
+
+He addressed himself to their passions with all the variety of management
+that the situation would admit, sometimes by soothing them with the
+prognostics of approaching land, sometimes by flattering their ambition and
+feasting their avarice with the glory and wealth they would acquire from
+discovering the rich countries beyond the Atlantic, and sometimes by
+threatening them with the displeasure of their king, should their
+disobedience defeat so great an object. But every argument soon lost its
+effect; and their uneasiness still increased. From secret whisperings it
+arose to open mutiny and dangerous conspiracy. At length they determined to
+rid themselves of the remonstrances of Columbus by throwing him into the
+sea. The infection spread from ship to ship, and involved officers as well
+as sailors. They finally lost all sense of subordination and addressed
+their commander in an insolent manner, demanding to be conducted
+immediately back to Spain; or, they assured him, they would seek their own
+safety by taking away his life.
+
+Columbus, whose sagacity had discerned every symptom of the disorder, was
+prepared for this last stage of it; and was sufficiently apprized of the
+danger that awaited him. He found it vain to contend with passions he could
+no longer control. He therefore proposed that they should obey his orders
+for three days longer; and should they not discover land in that time, he
+would then direct his course for Spain. They complied with his proposal;
+and, happily for mankind, in three days they discovered land. This was
+a small island, to which he gave the name of San Salvador. His first
+interview with the natives was a scene of compassion on the one part and
+astonishment on the other, but highly interesting to both. The natives were
+entirely naked, simple and timorous; and they viewed the Spaniards as a
+superior order of beings descended from the sun; which, in that island and
+in most parts of America, was worshipped as a Deity. By this it was easy
+for Columbus to perceive the line of conduct proper to be observed toward
+that simple and inoffensive people. Had his companions and successors
+of the Spanish nation possessed the wisdom and humanity of this great
+discoverer, the benevolent mind would have had to experience no sensations
+of regret in contemplating the extensive advantages arising to mankind from
+the discovery of America.
+
+In this voyage Columbus discovered the islands of Cuba and Hispaniola, on
+the latter of which he erected a small fort; and having left a garrison of
+thirty-eight men he set sail for Spain. Returning across the Atlantic, he
+was overtaken by a violent storm, which lasted several days, and increased
+to such a degree as baffled his naval skill and threatened immediate
+destruction. In this situation when all were in a state of despair, and
+it was expected that every sea would swallow up the crazy vessel, he
+manifested a serenity and presence of mind seldom equalled in cases of like
+extremity. He wrote a short account of his voyage and of the discoveries he
+had made; this he hastily wrapt in an oiled cloth, then enclosed it in a
+cake of wax and put it into an empty cask, which he threw overboard, in
+hopes that some fortunate accident might preserve a deposit of so much
+importance to the world.
+
+The storm however abated, and he at length arrived in Spain, after having
+been driven by stress of weather into the port of Lisbon; where he had
+opportunity, in an interview with the king of Portugal, to prove the
+truth of his system by arguments more convincing than those he had before
+advanced in the character of a bold projector but humble suitor. He was
+received every where in Spain with royal honors; his family was ennobled,
+and his former stipulation respecting his offices and emoluments was
+ratified in the most solemn manner by Ferdinand and Isabella; while
+all Europe resounded his praises, and reciprocated their joy and
+congratulations on the discovery of what they called a new world.
+
+The immediate consequence was a second voyage, in which Columbus took
+charge of a squadron of seventeen ships of considerable burden. Volunteers
+of all ranks solicited to be employed in this expedition. He carried over
+fifteen hundred persons, with the necessaries for establishing a colony
+and extending his discoveries. In this voyage he explored most of the West
+India islands; but on his arrival at Hispaniola he found that the garrison
+he had left there had been all destroyed by the natives, and the fort
+demolished. He proceeded however in the planting of his colony; and by his
+prudent and humane conduct towards the natives he effectually established
+the Spanish authority in that island. But while he was thus laying the
+foundation of European dominion in America, some discontented persons,
+who had returned to Spain, uniting with his former opponents and powerful
+enemies at court, conspired to accomplish his ruin.
+
+They represented his conduct in such a light as to create uneasiness in
+the jealous mind of Ferdinand, and make it necessary for Columbus again to
+return to Spain, to counteract their machinations and obtain such farther
+supplies as were necessary to his great political and beneficent purposes.
+On his arriving at court, and stating with his usual dignity and confidence
+the whole history of his transactions abroad, every thing wore a favorable
+appearance. He was received with the same honors as before, and solicited
+to take charge of another squadron, to carry out farther supplies, to
+pursue his discoveries, and in every respect to use his discretion in
+extending the Spanish empire in the new world.
+
+In this third voyage he discovered the continent of America at the mouth
+of the river Orinoco. He rectified many disorders in his government of
+Hispaniola, which had happened in his absence; and every thing was going on
+in a prosperous train, when an event was announced to him, which completed
+his own ruin and gave a fatal turn to the Spanish policy and conduct in
+America. This was the arrival of Francis de Bovadilla, with a commission
+to supersede Columbus in his government, to arraign him as a criminal, and
+pronounce judgment on all his former administration.
+
+It seems that by this time the enemies of Columbus, despairing to complete
+his overthrow by groundless insinuations of malconduct, had taken the more
+effectual method of exciting the jealousy of their sovereigns. From the
+promising samples of gold and other valuable commodities brought from
+America, they took occasion to represent to the king and queen that the
+prodigious wealth and extent of the countries he had discovered would soon
+throw such power into the hands of the viceroy, that he would trample on
+the royal authority and bid defiance to the Spanish power. These arguments
+were well calculated for the cold and suspicious temper of Ferdinand; and
+they must have had some effect upon the mind of Isabella. The consequence
+was the appointment of Bovadilla, the inveterate enemy of Columbus, to take
+the government from his hands. This first tyrant of the Spanish nation in
+America began his administration by ordering Columbus to be put in chains
+on board of a ship, and sending him prisoner to Spain. By relaxing all
+discipline he introduced disorder and licentiousness thro the colony.
+He subjected the unhappy natives to a most miserable servitude, and
+apportioned them out in large numbers among his adherents. Under this
+severe treatment perished in a short time many thousands of those innocent
+people.
+
+Columbus was carried in his fetters to the Spanish court, where the king
+and queen either feigned or felt a sufficient regret at the conduct of
+Bovadilla towards their illustrious prisoner. He was not only released from
+confinement; he was treated with all imaginable respect. But, altho
+the king endeavored to expiate the offence by censuring and recalling
+Bovadilla, yet we may judge of his sincerity from his appointing Nicholas
+de Ovando, another well known enemy of Columbus, to succeed in the
+government; and from his ever after refusing to reinstate Columbus, or to
+fulfil any of the conditions on which the discoveries had been undertaken.
+
+After two years of solicitation for this or some other employment, he
+at length obtained a squadron of four small vessels to attempt new
+discoveries. He then set out, with the enthusiasm of a young adventurer, in
+quest of what was always his favorite object, a passage into the South Sea,
+by which he might sail to India. He touched at Hispaniola, where Ovando the
+governor refused him admittance on shore, even to take shelter during
+a hurricane, the prognostics of which his experience had taught him to
+discern. By putting into a creek he rode out the storm, and then bore away
+for the continent. He spent several months, the most boisterous of the
+year, in exploring the coast round the gulph of Mexico, in hopes of finding
+the intended navigation to India. At length he was shipwrecked, and driven
+ashore on the island of Jamaica.
+
+His cup of calamities seemed now to be full. He was cast upon an island of
+savages, without provisions, without a vessel, and thirty leagues from any
+Spanish settlement. But the greatest physical misfortunes are capable of
+being embittered by the insults of our fellow creatures. A few of his
+companions generously offered, in two Indian canoes, to attempt a voyage to
+Hispaniola, in hopes of obtaining a vessel for the relief of the unhappy
+crew. After suffering every extremity of danger and fatigue, they arrived
+at the Spanish colony in ten days. Ovando, excited by personal malice
+against Columbus, detained these messengers for eight months, and then
+despatched a vessel to Jamaica to spy out the condition of Columbus and
+his crew, with positive instructions to the captain not to afford them any
+relief. This order was punctually executed. The captain approached the
+shore, delivered a letter of empty compliment from Ovando to the admiral,
+received his answer and returned. About four months afterwards a vessel
+came to their relief; and Columbus, worn out with fatigues and broken by
+misfortunes, returned for the last time to Spain. Here a new distress
+awaited him, which he considered as one of the greatest of his whole life:
+this was the death of queen Isabella, his last and most powerful friend.
+
+He did not suddenly abandon himself to despair. He called upon the
+gratitude and justice of the king; and in terms of dignity demanded the
+fulfilment of his former contract. Notwithstanding his age and infirmities,
+he even solicited to be farther employed in extending the career of
+discovery, without a prospect of any other reward than the pleasure of
+doing good to mankind. But Ferdinand, cold ungrateful and timid, dared not
+comply with any proposal of this kind, lest he should increase his own
+obligations to a man, whose services he thought it dangerous to reward. He
+therefore delayed and avoided any decision on these subjects, in hopes
+that the declining health of Columbus would soon rid the court of the
+remonstrances of a suitor, whose unexampled merit was, in their opinion, a
+sufficient reason for destroying him. In this they were not disappointed.
+Columbus languished a short time, and gladly resigned a life which had been
+worn out in the most signal services perhaps that have been rendered by any
+one man to an ungrateful world.
+
+Posterity is sometimes more just to the memory of great men than
+contemporaries were to their persons. But even this consolation, if it be
+one, has been wanting to the discoverer of our hemisphere. The continent,
+instead of bearing his name, has been called after one of his followers,
+a man of no particular merit. And in the modern city of Mexico there is
+instituted and perpetuated, by order of government, an annual festival in
+honour of Hernando Cortez, the perfidious butcher of its ancient race;
+while no public honors have been decreed to Christopher Columbus, one of
+the wisest and best among the benefactors of mankind.
+
+After his last return from America he seems to have past the short
+remainder of his life at Valladolid, the capital of Old Castile, and then
+the seat of the Spanish government. He died in that city on the twentieth
+of August 1506, and was buried in one of its churches. Over his body is a
+plain stone inscribed simply with his name, as it is written in Spanish,
+CHRISTOVAL COLON.
+
+His son, who wrote his life, has left us a particular description of his
+person, manners and private character; all of which were agreeable and
+interesting. His portrait is in possession of the author of this poem.
+It is painted in oil, half length and the size of life, copied from an
+original picture in the gallery of Florence.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The Columbiad.
+
+
+
+
+Book I.
+
+
+
+
+Argument
+
+
+    Subject of the Poem, and invocation to Freedom. Condition of Columbus
+    in a Spanish prison. His monologue on the great actions of his life,
+    and the manner in which they had been rewarded. Appearance and speech
+    of Hesper, the guardian Genius of the western continent. They quit the
+    dungeon, and ascend the mount of vision, which rises over the western
+    coast of Spain; Europe settling from their sight, and the Atlantic
+    ocean spreading far beneath their feet. Continent of America draws into
+    view, and is described by its mountains, rivers, lakes, soil and some
+    of the natural productions.
+
+
+I sing the Mariner who first unfurl'd
+An eastern banner o'er the western world,
+And taught mankind where future empires lay
+In these fair confines of descending day;
+Who sway'd a moment, with vicarious power,
+Iberia's sceptre on the new found shore,
+Then saw the paths his virtuous steps had trod
+Pursued by avarice and defiled with blood,
+The tribes he foster'd with paternal toil
+Snatch'd from his hand, and slaughter'd for their spoil.
+
+Slaves, kings, adventurers, envious of his name,
+Enjoy'd his labours and purloin'd his fame,
+And gave the Viceroy, from his high seat hurl'd.
+Chains for a crown, a prison for a world
+Long overwhelm'd in woes, and sickening there,
+He met the slow still march of black despair,
+Sought the last refuge from his hopeless doom,
+And wish'd from thankless men a peaceful tomb:
+Till vision'd ages, opening on his eyes,
+Cheer'd his sad soul, and bade new nations rise;
+He saw the Atlantic heaven with light o'ercast,
+And Freedom crown his glorious work at last.
+
+Almighty Freedom! give my venturous song
+The force, the charm that to thy voice belong;
+Tis thine to shape my course, to light my way,
+To nerve my country with the patriot lay,
+To teach all men where all their interest lies,
+How rulers may be just and nations wise:
+Strong in thy strength I bend no suppliant knee,
+Invoke no miracle, no Muse but thee.
+
+Night held on old Castile her silent reign,
+Her half orb'd moon declining to the main;
+O'er Valladolid's regal turrets hazed
+The drizzly fogs from dull Pisuerga raised;
+Whose hovering sheets, along the welkin driven,
+Thinn'd the pale stars, and shut the eye from heaven.
+Cold-hearted Ferdinand his pillow prest,
+Nor dream'd of those his mandates robb'd of rest,
+Of him who gemm'd his crown, who stretch'd his reign
+To realms that weigh'd the tenfold poise of Spain;
+Who now beneath his tower indungeon'd lies,
+Sweats the chill sod and breathes inclement skies.
+
+His feverish pulse, slow laboring thro his frame,
+Feeds with scant force its fast expiring flame;
+A far dim watch-lamp's thrice reflected beam
+Throws thro his grates a mist-encumber'd gleam,
+Paints the dun vapors that the cell invade,
+And fills with spectred forms the midnight shade;
+When from a visionary short repose,
+That nursed new cares and temper'd keener woes,
+Columbus woke, and to the walls addrest
+The deep felt sorrows bursting from his breast:
+
+Here lies the purchase, here the wretched spoil
+Of painful years and persevering toil.
+For these damp caves, this hideous haunt of
+pain,
+I traced new regions o'er the chartless main,
+Tamed all the dangers of untraversed waves,
+Hung o'er their clefts, and topt their surging graves,
+Saw traitorous seas o'er coral mountains sweep,
+Red thunders rock the pole and scorch the deep,
+Death rear his front in every varying form,
+Gape from the shoals and ride the roaring storm,
+My struggling bark her seamy planks disjoin,
+Rake the rude rock and drink the copious brine.
+Till the tired elements are lull'd at last,
+And milder suns allay the billowing blast,
+Lead on the trade winds with unvarying force,
+And long and landless curve our constant course.
+
+Our homeward heaven recoils; each night forlorn
+Calls up new stars, and backward rolls the morn;
+The boreal vault descends with Europe's shore,
+And bright Calisto shuns the wave no more,
+The Dragon dips his fiery-foaming jole,
+The affrighted magnet flies the faithless pole;
+Nature portends a general change of laws,
+My daring deeds are deemed the guilty cause;
+The desperate crew, to insurrection driven,
+Devote their captain to the wrath of heaven,
+Resolve at once to end the audacious strife,
+And buy their safety with his forfeit life.
+
+In that sad hour, this feeble frame to save,
+(Unblest reprieve) and rob the gaping wave,
+The morn broke forth, these tearful orbs descried
+The golden banks that bound the western tide.
+With full success I calm'd the clamorous race,
+Bade heaven's blue arch a second earth embrace;
+And gave the astonish'd age that bounteous shore,
+Their wealth to nations, and to kings their power.
+
+Land of delights! ah, dear delusive coast,
+To these fond aged eyes forever lost!
+No more thy flowery vales I travel o'er,
+For me thy mountains rear the head no more,
+For me thy rocks no sparkling gems unfold,
+Nor streams luxuriant wear their paths in gold;
+From realms of promised peace forever borne,
+I hail mute anguish, and in secret mourn.
+
+But dangers past, a world explored in vain,
+And foes triumphant show but half my pain.
+Dissembling friends, each early joy who gave,
+And fired my youth the storms of fate to brave,
+Swarm'd in the sunshine of my happier days,
+Pursued the fortune and partook the praise,
+Now pass my cell with smiles of sour disdain,
+Insult my woes and triumph in my pain.
+
+One gentle guardian once could shield the brave;
+But now that guardian slumbers in the grave.
+Hear from above, thou dear departed shade;
+As once my hopes, my present sorrows aid,
+Burst my full heart, afford that last relief,
+Breathe back my sighs and reinspire my grief;
+Still in my sight thy royal form appears,
+Reproves my silence and demands my tears.
+Even on that hour no more I joy to dwell,
+When thy protection bade the canvass swell;
+When kings and churchmen found their factions vain,
+Blind superstition shrunk beneath her chain,
+The sun's glad beam led on the circling way,
+And isles rose beauteous in Atlantic day.
+For on those silvery shores, that new domain,
+What crowds of tyrants fix their murderous reign!
+Her infant realm indignant Freedom flies,
+Truth leaves the world, and Isabella dies.
+
+Ah, lend thy friendly shroud to veil my sight,
+That these pain'd eyes may dread no more the light;
+These welcome shades shall close my instant doom,
+And this drear mansion moulder to a tornb.
+
+Thus mourn'd the hapless man: a thundering sound
+Roll'd thro the shuddering walls and shook the ground;
+O'er all the dungeon, where black arches bend,
+The roofs unfold, and streams of light descend;
+The growing splendor fills the astonish'd room,
+And gales etherial breathe a glad perfume.
+Robed in the radiance, moves a form serene,
+Of human structure, but of heavenly mien;
+Near to the prisoner's couch he takes his stand,
+And waves, in sign of peace, his holy hand.
+Tall rose his stature, youth's endearing grace
+Adorn'd his limbs and brighten'd in his face;
+Loose o'er his locks the star of evening hung,
+And sounds melodious moved his cheerful tongue:
+
+Rise, trembling chief, to scenes of rapture rise;
+This voice awaits thee from the western skies;
+Indulge no longer that desponding strain,
+Nor count thy toils, nor deem thy virtues vain.
+Thou seest in me the guardian Power who keeps
+The new found world that skirts Atlantic deeps,
+Hesper my name, my seat the brightest throne
+In night's whole heaven, my sire the living sun,
+My brother Atlas with his name divine
+Stampt the wild wave; the solid coast is mine.
+
+[Note: Atlas and Hesper were of the race of Titans. They were sons of
+Uranus, or of Japetus, according as the fable is traced to different
+countries, whose supreme God (originally the sun) was called by different
+names. Atlas, from being king of Mauritania, became a mountain to support
+the heavens, and gave his name to the western ocean. Hesper frequented that
+mountain in the study of astronomy; till one evening he disappeared, and
+returned no more. He was then placed in the western heaven; and, having
+been a beautiful young man, he became a beautiful planet, called the
+evening star. This circumstance gave his name to the western regions of the
+earth indefinitely. Italy was called Hesperia by the Greeks, because it
+lay west from them, and seemed under the influence of the star of evening;
+Spain was called Hesperia by the Romans, for the same reason.
+
+If the nations which adopted this fable had known of a country west of the
+Atlantic, that country must have been Hesperia to them all; and pursuing
+this analogy I have so named it, in several instances, in the course of
+this poem. Considering Hesper as the guardian Genius, and Columbus as the
+Discoverer, of the western continent, it may derive its name, in poetical
+language, from either of theirs indifferently, and be called Hesperia or
+Columbia.
+
+Atlas is considered in this poem as the guardian Genius of Africa. See his
+speech, in the eighth book, on the slavery of his people.
+
+This explanation seemed of such immediate importance for understanding
+the machinery of the poem, as to require its being placed here. The other
+notes, being numerous and some of them long, have been forced to yield
+to typographical elegance; and are placed at the end of the volume, with
+suitable reference to the passages to which they belong.]
+
+This hand, which form'd, and in the tides of time
+Laves and improves the meliorating clime,
+Which taught thy prow to cleave the trackless way,
+And hail'd thee first in occidental day,
+To all thy worth shall vindicate thy claim,
+And raise up nations to revere thy name.
+
+In this dark age tho blinded faction sways,
+And wealth and conquest gain the palm of praise;
+Awed into slaves while groveling millions groan,
+And blood-stain'd steps lead upward to a throne;
+Far other wreaths thy virtuous temples twine,
+Far nobler triumphs crown a life like thine;
+Thine be the joys that minds immortal grace,
+As thine the deeds that bless a kindred race.
+Now raise thy sorrowed soul to views more bright,
+The vision'd ages rushing on thy sight;
+Worlds beyond worlds shall bring to light their stores,
+Time, nature, science blend their utmost powers,
+To show, concentred in one blaze of fame,
+The ungather'd glories that await thy name.
+
+As that great seer, whose animating rod
+Taught Jacob's sons their wonder-working God,
+Who led thro dreary wastes the murmuring band,
+And reach'd the confines of their promised land,
+Opprest with years, from Pisgah's towering height,
+On fruitful Canaan feasted long his sight;
+The bliss of unborn nations warm'd his breast,
+Repaid his toils and sooth'd his soul to rest;
+Thus o'er thy subject wave shalt thou behold
+Far happier realms their future charms unfold,
+In nobler pomp another Pisgah rise,
+Beneath whose foot thy new found Canaan lies;
+There, rapt in vision, hail my favorite clime,
+And taste the blessings of remotest time.
+
+So Hesper spoke; Columbus raised his head;
+His chains dropt off; the cave, the castle fled.
+Forth walked the Pair; when steep before them stood;
+Slope from the town, a heaven-illumined road;
+That thro disparting shades arose on high,
+Reach'd o'er the hills, and lengthen'd up the sky,
+Show'd a clear summit, rich with rising flowers,
+That breathe their odors thro celestial bowers.
+O'er the proud Pyrenees it looks sublime,
+Subjects the Alps, and levels Europe's clime;
+Spain, lessening to a chart, beneath it swims,
+And shrouds her dungeons in the void she dims.
+
+Led by the Power, the Hero gain'd the height,
+New strength and brilliance flush'd his mortal sight;
+When calm before them flow'd the western main,
+Far stretch'd, immense, a sky-encircled plain.
+No sail, no isle, no cloud invests the bound,
+Nor billowy surge disturbs the vast profound;
+Till, deep in distant heavens, the sun's blue ray
+Topt unknown cliffs and call'd them up to day;
+Slow glimmering into sight wide regions drew,
+And rose and brighten'd on the expanding view;
+Fair sweep the waves, the lessening ocean smiles,
+In misty radiance loom a thousand isles;
+Near and more near the long drawn coasts arise,
+Bays stretch their arms and mountains lift the skies,
+The lakes, high mounded, point the streams their way,
+Slopes, ridges, plains their spreading skirts display,
+The vales branch forth, high walk approaching groves,
+And all the majesty of nature moves.
+
+O'er the wild hemisphere his glances fly,
+Its form unfolding as it still draws nigh,
+As all its salient sides force far their sway,
+Crowd back the ocean and indent the day.
+He saw, thro central zones, the winding shore
+Spread the deep Gulph his sail had traced before,
+The Darien isthmus check the raging tide,
+Join distant lands, and neighboring seas divide;
+On either hand the shores unbounded bend,
+Push wide their waves, to each dim pole ascend;
+The two twin continents united rise,
+Broad as the main, and lengthen'd with the skies.
+
+Long gazed the Mariner; when thus the Guide:
+Here spreads the world thy daring sail descried,
+Hesperia call'd, from my anterior claim;
+But now Columbia, from thy patriarch name.
+So from Phenicia's peopled strand of yore
+Europa sail'd, and sought an unknown shore;
+There stampt her sacred name; and thence her race,
+Hale, venturous, bold, from Jove's divine embrace,
+Ranged o'er the world, predestined to bestride
+Earth's elder continents and each far tide.
+
+Ages unborn shall bless the happier day,
+That saw thy streamer shape the guideless way,
+Their bravest heroes trace the path you led,
+And sires of nations thro the regions spread.
+Behold yon isles, where first thy flag unfurl'd
+In bloodless triumph o'er the younger world;
+As, awed to silence, savage bands gave place,
+And hail'd with joy the sun-descended race.
+
+Retrace the banks yon rushing waters lave;
+There Orinoco checks great ocean's wave;
+Thine is the stream; it cleaves the well known coast,
+Where Paria's walks thy former footsteps boast.
+But these no more thy wide discoveries bound;
+Superior prospects lead their swelling round;
+Nature's remotest scenes before thee roll,
+And years and empires open on thy soul.
+
+To yon dim rounds first elevate thy view;
+See Quito's plains o'erlook their proud Peru;
+On whose huge base, like isles amid sky driven,
+A vast protuberance props the cope of heaven;
+Earth's loftiest turrets there contend for height,
+And all our Andes fill the bounded sight.
+From south to north what long blue swells arise,
+Built thro the clouds, and lost in ambient skies!
+Approaching slow they heave expanding bounds,
+The yielding concave bends sublimer rounds;
+Whose wearied stars, high curving to the west,
+Pause on the summits for a moment's rest;
+Recumbent there they renovate their force,
+And roll rejoicing on their downward course.
+
+Round each bluff base the sloping ravine bends;
+Hills forms on hills, and croupe o'er croupe extends;
+Ascending, whitening, how the crags are lost,
+O'erhung with headcliffs of eternal frost!
+Broad fields of ice give back the morning ray,
+Like walls of suns, or heaven's perennial day.
+
+There folding storms on eastern pinions ride,
+Veil the black void, and wrap the mountains side,
+Rude thunders rake the crags, the rains descend,
+And the long lightnings o'er the vallies bend;
+While blasts unburden'd sweep the cliffs of snow,
+The whirlwinds wheel above, the floods convolve
+below.
+
+There molten rocks explosive rend their tomb;
+Volcanos, laboring many a nation's doom,
+Wild o'er the regions pour their floods of fire;
+The shores heave backward, and the seas retire.
+There lava waits my late reluctant call,
+To roar aloft and shake some guilty wall;
+Thy pride, O Lima, swells the sulphurous wave,
+And fanes and priests and idols crowd thy grave.
+
+But cease, my son, these dread events to trace,
+Nor learn the woes that here await thy race.
+Anorth from that broad gulph, where verdant rise
+Those gentler mounds that skirt the temperate skies,
+A happier hemisphere invites thy view;
+Tis there the old world shall embrace the new:
+There Europe's better sons their seat shall trace,
+And change of government improve the race.
+Thro all the midsky zones, to yon blue pole,
+Their green hills lengthen, their bright rivers roll;
+And swelling westward, how their champaigns run!
+How slope their uplands to the morning sun!
+
+So spoke the blest Immortal; when more near
+His northern wilds in all their breadth appear;
+Lands yet unknown, and streams without a name
+Rise into vision and demand their fame.
+As when some saint first gains his bright abode,
+Vaults o'er the spheres and views the works of God,
+Sees earth, his kindred orb, beneath him roll,
+Here glow the centre, and there point the pole;
+O'er land and sea his eyes delighted rove,
+And human thoughts his heavenly joys improve;
+With equal scope the raptured Hero's sight
+Ranged the low vale, or climb'd the cloudy height,
+As, fixt in ardent look, his opening mind,
+Explored the realms that here invite mankind.
+
+From sultry Mobile's gulph-indented shore
+To where Ontario hears his Laurence roar,
+Stretch'd o'er the broadback'd hills, in long array.
+The tenfold Alleganies meet the day.
+And show, far sloping from the plains and streams,
+The forest azure streak'd with orient beams.
+High moved the scene, Columbus gazed sublime,
+And thus in prospect hail'd the happy clime:
+Blest be the race my guardian guide shall lead
+Where these wide vales their various bounties spread!
+What treasured stores the hills must here combine!
+Sleep still ye diamonds, and ye ores refine;
+Exalt your heads ye oaks, ye pines ascend,
+Till future navies bid your branches bend;
+Then spread the canvass o'er the watery way,
+Explore new worlds and teach the old your sway.
+
+He said, and northward cast his curious eyes
+On other cliffs of more exalted size.
+Where Maine's bleak breakers line the dangerous coast,
+And isles and shoals their latent horrors boast,
+High lantern'd in his heaven the cloudless White
+Heaves the glad sailor an eternal light;
+Who far thro troubled ocean greets the guide,
+And stems with steadier helm the stormful tide.
+
+Nor could those heights unnoticed raise their head,
+That swell sublime o'er Hudson's shadowy bed;
+Tho fiction ne'er has hung them in the skies,
+Tho White and Andes far superior rise,
+Yet hoary Kaatskill, where the storms divide,
+Would lift the heavens from Atlas' laboring pride.
+
+Land after land his passing notice claim,
+And hills by hundreds rise without a name;
+Hills yet unsung, their mystic powers untold;
+Celestials there no sacred senates hold;
+No chain'd Prometheus feasts the vulture there,
+No Cyclop forges thro their summits glare,
+To Phrygian Jove no victim smoke is curl'd,
+Nor ark high landing quits a deluged world.
+But were these masses piled on Asia's shore,
+Taurus would shrink, Hemodia strut no more,
+Indus and Ganges scorn their humble sires,
+And rising suns salute superior fires;
+Whose watchful priest would meet, with matin blaze,
+His earlier God, and sooner chaunt his praise.
+For here great nature, with a bolder hand,
+Roll'd the broad stream, and heaved the lifted land;
+And here from finish'd earth, triumphant trod
+The last ascending steps of her creating God.
+
+He saw these mountains ope their watery stores,
+Floods quit their caves and seek the distant shores;
+Wilcl thro disparting plains their waves expand,
+And lave the banks where future towns must stand.
+Whirl'd from the monstrous Andes' bursting sides,
+Maragnon leads his congregating tides;
+A thousand Alps for him dissolve their snow,
+A thousand Rhones obedient bend below,
+From different zones their ways converging wind,
+Sweep beds of ore, and leave their gold behind,
+In headlong cataracts indignant rave,
+Rush to his banks and swell the swallowing wave.
+Ucayla, first of all his mighty sons,
+From Cusco's walls a wearied journey runs;
+Pastaza mines proud Pambamarca's base,
+And holds thro sundering hills his lawless race;
+Aloft, where Cotopaxa flames on high,
+The roaring Napo quits his misty sky,
+Down the long steeps in whitening torrents driven,
+Like Nile descending from his fabled heaven;
+Mound after mound impetuous Tigris rends,
+Curved Ista folds whole countries in his bends;
+Vast Orinoco, summon'd forth to bring
+His far fetch'd honors to the sateless king,
+Drives on his own strong course to gain the shore,
+But sends Catuba here with half his store;
+Like a broad Bosphorus here Negro guides
+The gather'd mass of fifty furious tides;
+From his waste world, by nameless fountains fed,
+Wild Purus wears his long and lonely bed;
+O'er twelve degrees of earth Madera flows,
+And robs the south of half its treasured snows;
+Zingus, of equal length and heavier force,
+Rolls on, for months, the same continuous course
+To reach his master's bank; that here constrains
+Topayo, charged with all Brazilians rains;
+While inland seas, and lakes unknown to fame,
+Send their full tributes to the monarch stream;
+Who, swell'd with growing conquest, wheels abroad,
+Drains every land, and gathers all his flood;
+Then far from clime to clime majestic goes,
+Enlarging, widening, deepening as he flows;
+Like heaven's broad milky way he shines alone,
+Spreads o'er the globe its equatorial zone,
+Weighs the cleft continent, and pushes wide
+Its balanced mountains from each crumbling side.
+Sire Ocean hears his proud Maragnon roar,
+Moves up his bed, and seeks in vain the shore,
+Then surging strong, with high and hoary tide,
+Whelms back the Stream and checks his rolling pride.
+The stream ungovernable foams with ire,
+Climbs, combs tempestuous, and attacks the Sire;
+Earth feels the conflict o'er her bosom spread,
+Her isles and uplands hide their wood-crown'd head;
+League after league from land to water change,
+From realm to realm the seaborn monsters range;
+Vast midland heights but pierce the liquid plain,
+Old Andes tremble for their proud domain;
+Till the fresh Flood regains his forceful sway,
+Drives back his father Ocean, lash'd with spray;
+Whose ebbing waters lead the downward sweep,
+And waves and trees and banks roll whirling to the deep.
+Where suns less ardent cast their golden beams,
+And minor Andes pour a waste of streams,
+The marsh of Moxoe scoops the world, and fills
+(From Bahia's coast to Cochabamba's hills)
+A thousand leagues of bog; he strives in vain
+Their floods to centre and their lakes retain;
+His gulphs o'ercharged their opening sides display,
+And southern vales prolong the seaward way.
+Columbus traced, with swift exploring eye,
+The immense of waves that here exalted lie,
+The realms that mound the unmeasured magazine,
+The far blue main, the climes that stretch between.
+He saw Xaraya's diamond banks unfold,
+And Paraguay's deep channel paved with gold,
+Saw proud Potosi lift his glittering head,
+And pour down Plata thro his tinctured bed.
+Rich with the spoils of many a distant mine,
+In his broad silver sea their floods combine;
+Wide over earth his annual freshet strays,
+And highland drains with lowland drench repays;
+Her thirsty regions wait his glad return,
+And drink their future harvest from his urn.
+
+Where the cold circles gird the southern sky.
+Brave Magellan's wild channel caught his eye;
+The long cleft ridges wall'd the spreading way.
+That gleams far westward to an unknown sea.
+Soon as the distant swell was seen to roll,
+His ancient wishes reabsorb'd his soul;
+Warm from his heaving heart a sudden sigh
+Burst thro his lips; he turn'd his moisten'd eye,
+And thus besought his Angel: speak, my guide,
+Where leads the pass? and what yon purple tide?
+How the dim waves in blending ether stray!
+No lands behind them rise, no pinions on them play.
+There spreads, belike, that other unsail'd main
+I sought so long, and sought, alas, in vain;
+To gird this watery globe, and bring to light
+Old India's coast; and regions wrapt in night.
+Restore, celestial friend, my youthful morn,
+Call back my years, and let my fame return;
+Grant me to trace, beyond that pathless sea,
+Some happier shore from lust of empire free;
+To find in that far world a peaceful bower,
+From envy safe and curst Ovando's power.
+Earth's happiest realms let not their distance hide,
+Nor seas forever roll their useless tide.
+For nations yet unborn, that wait thy time,
+Demand their seats in that secluded clime;
+Ah, grant me still, their passage to prepare.
+One venturous bark, and be my life thy care.
+
+So pray'd the Hero; Hesper mild replies,
+Divine compassion softening in his eyes,
+Tho still to virtuous deeds thy mind aspires,
+And these glad visions kindle new desires,
+Yet hear with reverence what attends thy state,
+Nor wish to pass the eternal bounds of fate.
+Led by this sacred light thou soon shalt see
+That half mankind shall owe their seats to thee,
+Freedom's first empire claim its promised birth
+In these rich rounds of sea-encircled earth;
+Let other years, by thine example prest,
+Call forth their heroes to explore the rest.
+
+Thro different seas a twofold passage lies
+To where sweet India scents a waste of skies.
+The circling course, by Madagascar's shores,
+Round Afric's cape, bold Gama now explores;
+Thy well plann'd path these gleamy straits provide,
+Nor long shall rest the daring search untried.
+This idle frith must open soon to fame,
+Here a lost Lusitanian fix his name,
+From that new main in furious waves be tost,
+And fall neglected on the barbarous coast.
+
+But lo the Chief! bright Albion bids him rise,
+Speed in his pinions, ardor in his eyes!
+Hither, O Drake, display thy hastening sails,
+Widen ye passes, and awake ye gales,
+March thou before him, heaven-revolving sun,
+Wind his long course, and teach him where to run;
+Earth's distant shores, in circling bands unite,
+Lands, learn your fame, and oceans, roll in light,
+Round all the watery globe his flag be hurl'd,
+A new Columbus to the astonish'd world.
+
+He spoke; and silent tow'rd the northern sky
+Wide o'er the hills the Hero cast his eye,
+Saw the long floods thro devious channels pour,
+And wind their currents to the opening shore;
+Interior seas and lonely lakes display
+Their glittering glories to the beams of day.
+Thy capes, Virginia, towering from the tide,
+Raise their blue banks, and slope thy barriers wide,
+To future sails unfold an inland way,
+And guard secure thy multifluvian Bay;
+That drains uncounted realms, and here unites
+The liquid mass from Alleganian heights.
+York leads his wave, imbank'd in flowery pride,
+And nobler James falls winding by his side;
+Back to the hills, thro many a silent vale,
+While Rappahanok seems to lure the sail,
+Patapsco's bosom courts the hand of toil,
+Dull Susquehanna laves a length of soil;
+But mightier far, in sealike azure spread,
+Potowmak sweeps his earth disparting bed.
+
+Long dwelt his eye where these commingling pour'd,
+Their waves unkeel'd, their havens unexplored;
+Where frowning forests stretch the dusky wing,
+And deadly damps forbid the flowers to spring;
+No seasons clothe the field with cultured grain,
+No buoyant ship attempts the chartless main;
+Then with impatient voice: My Seer, he cried,
+When shall my children cross the lonely tide?
+Here, here my sons, the hand of culture bring,
+Here teach the lawn to smile, the grove to sing:
+Ye laboring floods, no longer vainly glide,
+Ye harvests load them, and ye forests ride;
+Bear the deep burden from the joyous swain,
+And tell the world where peace and plenty reign.
+
+Hesper to this return'd him no reply,
+But raised new visions to his roving eye.
+He saw broad Delaware the shores divide,
+He saw majestic Hudson pour his tide;
+Thy stream, my Hartford, thro its misty robe,
+Play'd in the sunbeams, belting far the globe;
+No watery glades thro richer vallies shine,
+Nor drinks the sea a lovelier wave than thine.
+
+Mystick and Charles refresh their seaward isles,
+And gay Piscateway pays his passing smiles;
+Swift Kenebec, high bursting from his lakes,
+Shoots down the hillsides thro the clouds he makes;
+And hoarse resounding, gulphing wide the shore,
+Dread Laurence labors with tremendous roar;
+Laurence, great son of Ocean! lorn he lies,
+And braves the blasts of hyperborean skies.
+Where hoary winter holds his howling reign,
+And April flings her timid showers in vain,
+Groans the choked Flood, in frozen fetters bound,
+And isles of ice his angry front surround.
+
+As old Enceladus, in durance vile,
+Spreads his huge length beneath Sicilia's isle,
+Feels mountains, crush'd by mountains, on him prest,
+Close not his veins, nor still his laboring breast;
+His limbs convulse, his heart rebellious rolls,
+Earth shakes responsive to her utmost poles,
+While rumbling, bursting, boils his ceaseless ire,
+Flames to mid heaven, and sets the skies on fire.
+So the contristed Laurence lays him low,
+And hills of sleet and continents of snow
+Rise on his crystal breast; his heaving sides
+Crash with the weight, and pour their gushing tides,
+Asouth, whence all his hundred branches bend,
+Relenting airs with boreal blasts contend;
+Far in his vast extremes he swells and thaws,
+And seas foam wide between his ice-bound jaws.
+Indignant Frost, to hold his captive, plies
+His hosted fiends that vex the polar skies,
+Unlocks his magazines of nitric stores,
+Azotic charms and muriatic powers;
+Hail, with its glassy globes, and brume congeal'd,
+Rime's fleecy flakes, and storm that heaps the field
+Strike thro the sullen Stream with numbing force,
+Obstruct his sluices and impede his course.
+In vain he strives; his might interior fails;
+Nor spring's approach, nor earth's whole heat avails;
+He calls his hoary Sire; old Ocean roars
+Responsive echoes thro the Shetland shores.
+He comes, the Father! from his bleak domains,
+To break with liquid arms the sounding chains;
+Clothed in white majesty, he leads from far
+His tides high foaming to the wintry war.
+Billows on billows lift the maddening brine,
+And seas and clouds in battling conflict join,
+O'erturn the vast gulph glade with rending sweep,
+And crash the crust that bridged the boiling deep;
+Till forced aloft, bright bounding thro the air,
+Moves the blear ice, and sheds a dazzling glare;
+The torn foundations on the surface ride,
+And wrecks of winter load the downward tide.
+
+The loosen'd ice-isles o'er the main advance,
+Toss on the surge, and thro the concave dance;
+Whirl'd high, conjoin'd, in crystal mountains driven,
+Alp over Alp, they build a midway heaven;
+Whose million mirrors mock the solar ray,
+And give condensed the tenfold glare of day.
+As tow'rd the south the mass enormous glides.
+And brineless rivers furrow down its sides;
+The thirsty sailor steals a glad supply,
+And sultry trade winds quaff the boreal sky.
+
+But oft insidious death, with mist o'erstrown,
+Rides the dark ocean on this icy throne;
+When ships thro vernal seas with light airs steer
+Their midnight march, and deem no danger near.
+The steerman gaily helms his course along,
+And laughs and listens to the watchman's song,
+Who walks the deck, enjoys the murky fog,
+Sure of his chart, his magnet and his log;
+Their shipmates dreaming, while their slumbers last,
+Of joys to come, of toils and dangers past.
+Sudden a chilling blast comes roaring thro
+The trembling shrouds, and startles all the crew;
+They spring to quarters, and perceive too late
+The mount of death, the giant strides of fate.
+The fullsail'd ship, with instantaneous shock,
+Dash'd into fragments by the floating rock,
+Plunges beneath its basement thro the wave,
+And crew and cargo glut the watery grave.
+
+Say, Palfrey, brave good man, was this thy doom?
+Dwells here the secret of thy midsea tomb?
+But, Susan, why that tear? my lovely friend,
+Regret may last, but grief should have an end.
+An infant then, thy memory scarce can trace
+The lines, tho sacred, of thy father's face;
+A generous spouse has well replaced the sire;
+New duties hence new sentiments require.
+
+Now where the lakes, those midland oceans, lie,
+Columbus turn'd his heaven-illumined eye.
+Ontario's banks, unable to retain
+The five great Caspians from the distant main,
+Burst with the ponderous mass, and forceful whirl'd
+His Laurence forth, to balance thus the world.
+Above, bold Erie's wave sublimely stood,
+Look'd o'er the cliff, and heaved his headlong flood;
+Where dread Niagara bluffs high his brow,
+And frowns defiance to the world below.
+White clouds of mist expanding o'er him play,
+That tinge their skirts in all the beams of day;
+Pleased Iris wantons in perpetual pride,
+And bends her rainbows o'er the dashing tide.
+Far glimmering in the north, bleak Huron runs,
+Clear Michigan reflects a thousand suns,
+And bason'd high, on earth's broad bosom gay,
+The bright Superior silvers down the day.
+
+Blue mounds beyond them far in ether fade,
+Deep groves between them cast a solemn shade,
+Slow moves their settling mist in lurid streams,
+And dusky radiance streaks the solar beams.
+Fixt on the view the great discoverer stood,
+And thus addrest the messenger of good:
+But why these seats, that seem reserved to grace
+The social toils of some illustrious race,
+Why spread so wide and form'd so fair in vain?
+And why so distant rolls the bounteous main?
+These happy regions must forever rest,
+Of man unseen, by native beasts possest;
+And the best heritage my sons could boast
+Illude their search in far dim deserts lost,
+For see, no ship can point her pendants here,
+No stream conducts nor ocean wanders near;
+Frost, crags and cataracts their north invest,
+And the tired sun scarce finds their bounds awest.
+
+To whom the Seraph: Here indeed retires
+The happiest land that feels my fostering fires;
+Here too shall numerous nations found their seat,
+And peace and freedom bless the kind retreat.
+Led by this arm thy sons shall hither come,
+And streams obedient yield the heroes room,
+Spread a broad passage to their well known main,
+Nor sluice their lakes, nor form their soils in vain.
+
+Here my bold Missisippi bends his way,
+Scorns the dim bounds of yon bleak boreal day,
+And calls from western heavens, to feed his stream,
+The rains and floods that Asian seas might claim.
+Strong in his march, and charged with all the fates
+Of regions pregnant with a hundred states.
+He holds in balance, ranged on either hand,
+Two distant oceans and their sundering land;
+Commands and drains the interior tracts that lie
+Outmeasuring Europe's total breadth of sky.
+
+High in the north his parent fountains wed,
+And oozing urns adorn his infant head;
+In vain proud Frost his nursing lakes would close,
+And choke his channel with perennial snows;
+From all their slopes he curves his countless rills,
+Sweeps their long marshes, saps their settling hills;
+Then stretching, straighteningsouth, he gaily gleams,
+Swells thro the climes, and swallows all their streams;
+From zone to zone, o'er earth's broad surface curl'd,
+He cleaves his course, he furrows half the world,
+Now roaring wild thro bursting mountains driven,
+Now calm reflecting all the host of heaven;
+Where Cynthia pausing, her own face admires,
+And suns and stars repeat their dancing fires.
+Wide o'er his meadowy lawns he spreads and feeds
+His realms of canes, his waving world of reeds;
+Where mammoth grazed the renovating groves,
+Slaked his huge thirst, and chill'd his fruitless loves;
+Where elks, rejoicing o'er the extinguished race,
+By myriads rise to fill the vacant space.
+Earth's widest gulph expands to meet his wave,
+Vast isles of ocean in his current lave;
+Glad Thetis greets him from his finish'd course,
+And bathes her Nereids in his freshening source.
+
+To his broad bed their tributary stores
+Wisconsin here, there lonely Peter pours;
+Croix, from the northeast wilds his channel fills,
+Ohio, gather'd from his myriad hills,
+Yazoo and Black, surcharged by Georgian springs,
+Rich Illinois his copious treasure brings;
+Arkansa, measuring back the sun's long course,
+Moine, Francis, Rouge augment the father's force.
+But chief of all his family of floods
+Missouri marches thro his world of woods;
+He scorns to mingle with the filial train,
+Takes every course to reach alone the main;
+Orient awhile his bending swreep he tries,
+Now drains the southern, now the northern skies,
+Searches and sunders far the globe's vast frame,
+Reluctant joins the sire, and takes at last his name.
+
+There lies the path thy future sons shall trace,
+Plant here their arts, and rear their vigorous race:
+A race predestined, in these choice abodes,
+To teach mankind to tame their fluvial floods,
+Retain from ocean, as their work requires,
+These great auxiliars, raised by solar fires,
+Force them to form ten thousand roads, and girth
+With liquid belts each verdant mound of earth,
+To aid the colon's as the carrier's toil,
+To drive the coulter, and to fat the soil,
+Learn all mechanic arts, and oft regain
+Their native hills in vapor and in rain.
+
+So taught the Saint. The regions nearer drew,
+And raised resplendent to their Hero's view
+Rich nature's triple reign; for here elate
+She stored the noblest treasures of her state,
+Adorn'd exuberant this her last domain,
+As yet unalter'd by her mimic man,
+Sow'd liveliest gems, and plants of proudest grace,
+And strung with strongest nerves her animated race.
+
+Retiring far round Hudson's frozen bay,
+Earth's lessening circles shrink beyond the day;
+Snows ever rising with the toils of time
+Choke the chill shrubs that brave the dismal clime;
+The beasts all whitening roam the lifeless plain,
+And caves unfrequent scoop the couch for man.
+
+Where Spring's coy steps in cold Canadia stray,
+And joyless seasons hold unequal sway,
+He saw the pine its daring mantle rear,
+Break the rude blast, and mock the brumal year,
+Shag the green zone that bounds the boreal skies,
+And bid all southern vegetation rise.
+Wild o'er the vast impenetrable round
+The untrod bowers of shadowy nature frown'd;
+Millennial cedars wave their honors wide,
+The fir's tall boughs, the oak's umbrageous pride,
+The branching beech, the aspen's trembling shade
+Veil the dim heaven, and brown the dusky glade.
+For in dense crowds these sturdy sons of earth,
+In frosty regions, claim a stronger birth;
+Where heavy beams the sheltering dome requires,
+And copious trunks to feed its wintry fires.
+
+But warmer suns, that southern zones emblaze,
+A cool thin umbrage o'er their woodland raise;
+Floridia's shores their blooms around him spread.
+And Georgian hills erect their shady head;
+Whose flowery shrubs regale the passing air
+With all the untasted fragrance of the year.
+Beneath tall trees, dispersed in loose array,
+The rice-grown lawns their humble garb display;
+The infant maize, unconscious of its worth,
+Points the green spire and bends the foliage forth;
+In various forms unbidden harvests rise,
+And blooming life repays the genial skies.
+
+Where Mexic hills the breezy gulph defend,
+Spontaneous groves with richer burdens bend.
+Anana's stalk its shaggy honors yields,
+Acassia's flowers perfume a thousand fields,
+Their cluster'd dates the mast-like palms unfold,
+The spreading orange waves a load of gold,
+Connubial vines o'ertop the larch they climb,
+The long-lived olive mocks the moth of time,
+Pomona's pride, that old Grenada claims,
+Here smiles and reddens in diviner flames;
+Pimento, citron scent the sky serene,
+White woolly clusters fringe the cotton's green,
+The sturdy fig, the frail deciduous cane
+And foodful cocoa fan the sultry plain.
+
+Here, in one view, the same glad branches bring
+The fruits of autumn and the flowers of spring;
+No wintry blasts the unchanging year deform,
+Nor beasts unshelter'd fear the pinching storm;
+But vernal breezes o'er the blossoms rove,
+And breathe the ripen'd juices thro the grove.
+
+Beneath the crystal wave's inconstant light
+Pearls burst their shells to greet the Hero's sight;
+From opening earth in living lustre shine
+The various treasures of the blazing mine;
+Hills cleft before him all their stores unfold,
+The pale platina and the burning gold;
+Silver whole mounds, and gems of dazzling ray
+Illume the rocks and shed the beams of day.
+
+
+
+Book II.
+
+
+
+Argument
+
+
+
+    Natives of America appear in vision. Their manners and characters.
+    Columbus demands the cause of the dissimilarity of men in different
+    countries, Hesper replies, That the human body is composed of a due
+    proportion of the elements suited to the place of its first formation;
+    that these elements, differently proportioned, produce all the changes
+    of health, sickness, growth and decay; and may likewise produce any
+    other changes which occasion the diversity of men; that these elemental
+    proportions are varied, not more by climate than temperature and other
+    local circumstances; that the mind is likewise in a state of change,
+    and will take its physical character from the body and from external
+    objects: examples. Inquiry concerning the first peopling of America.
+    View of Mexico. Its destruction by Cortez. View of Cusco and Quito,
+    cities of Peru. Tradition of Capac and Oella, founders of the Peruvian
+    empire. Columbus inquires into their real history. Hesper gives an
+    account of their origin, and relates the stratagems they used in
+    establishing that empire.
+
+
+High o'er his world as thus Columbus gazed,
+And Hesper still the changing scene emblazed,
+Round all the realms increasing lustre flew,
+And raised new wonders to the Patriarch's view.
+
+He saw at once, as far as eye could rove,
+Like scattering herds, the swarthy people move
+In tribes innumerable; all the waste,
+Wide as their walks, a varying shadow cast.
+As airy shapes, beneath the moon's pale eye,
+People the clouds that sail the midnight sky,
+Dance thro the grove and flit along the glade,
+And cast their grisly phantoms on the shade;
+So move the hordes, in thickets half conceal'd,
+Or vagrant stalking thro the fenceless field,
+Here tribes untamed, who scorn to fix their home,
+O'er shadowy streams and trackless deserts roam;
+While others there in settled hamlets rest,
+And corn-clad vales a happier state attest.
+
+The painted chiefs, in guise terrific drest,
+Rise fierce to war, and beat their savage breast;
+Dark round their steps collecting warriors pour,
+Some fell revenge begins the hideous roar;
+From hill to hill the startling war-song flies,
+And tribes on tribes in dread disorder rise,
+Track the mute foe and scour the howling wood,
+Loud as a storm, ungovern'd as a flood;
+Or deep in groves the silent ambush lay,
+Lead the false flight, decoy and seize their prey,
+Their captives torture, butcher and devour,
+Drink the warm blood and paint their cheeks with gore.
+
+Awhile he paused, with dubious thoughts opprest,
+And thus to Hesper's ear his doubts addrest:
+Say, to what class of nature's sons belong
+The countless tribes of this untutor'd throng?
+Where human frames and brutal souls combine,
+No force can tame them, and no arts refine.
+Can these be fashion'd on the social plan,
+Or boast a lineage with the race of man?
+When first we found them in yon hapless isle,
+They seem'd to know and seem'd to fear no guile;
+A timorous herd, like harmless roes, they ran,
+And call'd us Gods, from whom their tribes began.
+But when, their fears allay'd, in us they trace
+The well-known image of a mortal race,
+When Spanish blood their wondering eyes beheld,
+A frantic rage their changing bosoms swell'd;
+They roused their bands from numerous hills afar,
+To feast their souls on ruin, waste and war.
+Nor plighted vows nor sure defeat control
+The same indignant savageness of soul.
+
+Tell then, my Seer, from what dire sons of earth
+The brutal people drew their ancient birth;
+If these forgotten shores and useless tides
+Have form'd them different from the world besides,
+Born to subjection, when in happier time
+A nobler race should reach their fruitful clime;
+Or, if a common source all nations claim,
+Their lineage, form and faculties the same,
+What sovereign secret cause, yet undisplay'd,
+This wondrous change in nature's work has made;
+Why various powers of soul and tints of face
+In different lands diversify the race;
+To whom the Guide: Unnumbered causes lie,
+In earth and sea, in climate, soil and sky,
+That fire the soul, or damp the genial flame,
+And work their wonders on the human frame.
+See beauty, form and color change with place;
+Here charms of health the lively visage grace;
+There pale diseases float in every wind,
+Deform the figure, and degrade the mind.
+
+From earth's own elements thy race at first
+Rose into life, the children of the dust;
+These kindred elements, by various use,
+Nourish the growth and every change produce;
+In each ascending stage the man sustain,
+His breath, his food, his physic and his bane.
+In due proportions where these atoms lie,
+A certain form their equal aids supply;
+And while unchanged the efficient causes reign,
+Age following age the certain form maintain.
+But where crude atoms disproportion'd rise,
+And cast their sickening vapors round the skies,
+Unlike that harmony of human frame,
+That moulded first and reproduce the same,
+The tribes ill form'd, attempering to the clime,
+Still vary downward with the years of time;
+More perfect some, and some less perfect yield
+Their reproductions in this wondrous field;
+Till fixt at last their characters abide,
+And local likeness feeds their local pride.
+The soul too, varying with the change of clime,
+Feeble or fierce, or groveling or sublime,
+Forms with the body to a kindred plan,
+And lives the same, a nation or a man.
+
+Yet think not clime alone the tint controls,
+On every shore, by altitude of poles;
+A different cast the glowing zone demands,
+In Paria's groves, from Tombut's burning sands,
+Unheeded agents, for the sense too fine,
+With every pulse, with every thought combine,
+Thro air and ocean, with their changes run,
+Breathe from the ground, or circle with the sun.
+Where these long continents their shores outspread,
+See the same form all different tribes pervade;
+Thro all alike the fertile forests bloom,
+And all, uncultured, shed a solemn gloom;
+Thro all great nature's boldest features rise,
+Sink into vales or tower amid the skies;
+Streams darkly winding stretch a broader sway,
+The groves and mountains bolder walks display;
+A dread sublimity informs the whole,
+And rears a dread sublimity of soul.
+
+Yet time and art shall other changes find,
+And open still and vary still the mind.
+The countless clans that tread these dank abodes,
+Who glean spontaneous fruits and range the woods,
+Fixt here for ages, in their swarthy face
+Display the wild complexion of the place.
+Yet when the hordes to happy nations rise,
+And earth By culture warms the genial skies,
+A fairer tint and more majestic grace
+Shall flush their features and exalt the race;
+While milder arts, with social joys refined,
+Inspire new beauties in the growing mind.
+
+Thy followers too, old Europe's noblest pride,
+When future gales shall wing them o'er the tide,
+A ruddier hue and deeper shade shall gain,
+And stalk, in statelier figures, on the plain.
+While nature's grandeur lifts the eye abroad
+O'er these last labors of the forming God,
+Wing'd on a wider glance the venturous soul
+Bids greater powers and bolder thoughts unrol;
+The sage, the chief, the patriot unconfined,
+Shield the weak world and meliorate mankind.
+But think not thou, in all the range of man,
+That different pairs each different cast began;
+Or tribes distinct, by signal marks confest,
+Were born to serve or subjugate the rest.
+
+The Hero heard, and thus resumed the strain:
+Who led these wanderers o'er the dreary main?
+Could their weak sires, unskill'd in human lore,
+Build the bold bark, to seek an unknown shore?
+A shore so distant from the world beside,
+So dark the tempests, and so wild the tide,
+That Greece and Tyre, and all who tempt the sea,
+Have shunn'd the task, and left the fame to me.
+
+When first thy roving race, the Power replied,
+Learn'd by the stars the devious sail to guide,
+From stormy Hellespont explored the way,
+And sought the limits of the Midland sea;
+Before Alcides form'd his impious plan
+To check the sail, and bound the steps of man,
+This hand had led them to this rich abode,
+And braved the wrath of that strong demigod.
+
+Driven from the Calpian strait, a hapless train
+Roll'd on the waves that sweep the western main;
+Storms from the orient bhcken'd heaven with shade,
+Nor sun nor stars could yield their wonted aid.
+For many a darksome day o'erwhelm'd and tost,
+Their sails, their oars in swallowing surges lost,
+At length, the clouds withdrawn, they sad descry
+Their course directing from their native sky.
+No hope remains; far onward o'er the zone
+The trade wind bears them with the circling sun;
+Till wreck'd and stranded here, the sylvan coast
+Receives to lonely seats the suffering host.
+The fruitful vales invite their steps to roam,
+Renounce their sorrows and forget their home;
+Revolving years their ceaseless wanderings led,
+And from their sons descending nations spread.
+
+These in the torrid tracts began their sway,
+Whose cultured fields their growing arts display;
+The northern tribes a later stock may boast,
+A race descended from the Asian coast.
+High in the Arctic, where Anadir glides,
+A narrow strait the impinging worlds divides;
+There Tartar fugitives from famine sail,
+And migrant tribes these fruitful shorelands hail.
+
+He spoke; when Behren's pass before them lay,
+And moving nations on the margin stray,
+Thick swarming, venturous; sail and oar they ply,
+Climb on the surge and o'er the billows fly.
+As when autumnal storms awake their force.
+The storks foreboding tempt their southern course;
+From all the fields collecting throngs arise,
+Mount on the wing and crowd along the skies:
+Thus, to his eye, from bleak Tartaria's shore,
+Thro isles and seas, the gathering people pour,
+Change their cold regions for a happier strand,
+Leap from the wave and tread the welcome land;
+In growing tribes extend their southern sway,
+And wander wide beneath a warmer day.
+
+But why, the Chief replied, if ages past
+Led the bold vagrants to so mild a waste;
+If human souls, for social compact given,
+Inform their nature with the stamp of heaven.
+Why the wild woods for ever must they rove,
+Nor arts nor social joys their passions move?
+Long is the lapse of ages, since thy hand
+Conducted here thy first adventurous band.
+On other shores, in every eastern clime,
+Since that unletter'd, distant tract of time,
+What arts have sprung, imperial powers to grace!
+What sceptres sway'd the many-master'd race!
+Guilt, grandeur, glory from their seats been hurl'd,
+And dire divulsions shook the changing world!
+
+Ere Rome's first Eagle clave the frighted air,
+Ere Sparta form'd her deathlike sons of war,
+Ere Tyre and Ilion saw their towers arise,
+Or Memphian pyramids usurp'd the skies,
+These tribes have forester'd the fruitful zone,
+Their seats unsettled, and their name unknown.
+
+Hesper to this replied: A scanty train,
+In that far age, approach'd the wide domain;
+The wide domain, with game and fruitage crown'd,
+Supplied their food uncultured from the ground.
+By nature form'd to rove, the humankind,
+Of freedom fond, will ramble unconfined,
+Till all the region fills, and rival right
+Restrains their steps, and bids their force unite;
+When common safety builds a common cause,
+Conforms their interest and inspires their laws;
+By mutual checks their different manners blend,
+Their fields bloom joyous, and their walls ascend.
+Here to the vagrant tribes no bounds arose,
+They form'd no union, as they fear'd no foes;
+Wandering and wild, from sire to son they stray,
+A thousand ages, scorning every sway.
+And what a world their seatless nations led!
+A total hemisphere around them spread;
+See the lands lengthen, see the rivers roll,
+To each far main, to each extended pole!
+
+But lo, at last the destined course is run,
+The realms are peopled and their arts begun.
+Where yon mid region elevated lies,
+A few famed cities glitter to the skies;
+There move, in eastern pomp, the toils of state,
+And temples heave, magnificently great.
+
+The Hero turn'd to greet the novel sight;
+When three far splendors, yet confusedly bright,
+Rose like a constellation; till more near,
+Distinctly mark'd their different sites appear;
+Diverging still, beneath their roofs of gold,
+Three cities gay their mural towers unfold.
+So, led by visions of his guiding God,
+The seer of Patmos o'er the welkin trod,
+Saw the new heaven its flamy cope unbend,
+And walls and gates and spiry domes descend;
+His well known sacred city grows, and gains
+Her new built towers, her renovated fanes;
+With golden skies and suns and rainbows crown'd,
+Jerusalem looks forth and lights the world around.
+
+Bright on the north imperial Mexic rose;
+A mimic morn her sparkling vanes disclose,
+Her opening streets concentred hues display,
+Give back the sun, and shed internal day;
+The circling wall with guardian turrets frown'd,
+And look'd defiance to the realms around;
+A glimmering lake without the wall retires,
+Inverts the towers, and seems a grove of spires.
+
+Proud o'er the midst, on columns lifted high,
+A giant structure claims a loftier sky;
+O'er the tall gates sublimer arches bend,
+Courts larger lengthen, bolder walks ascend,
+Starr'd with superior gems the porches shine,
+And speak the royal residence writhin.
+There, deck'd in state robes, on his golden throne,
+Mid suppliant kings, dread Montezuma shone;
+Mild in his eye a temper'd grandeur sate,
+High seem'd his soul, with conscious power elate;
+In aspect open, social and serene,
+Enclosed by favorites, and of friends unseen.
+
+Round the rich throne, in various lustre dight,
+Gems undistinguished cast a changing light;
+Sapphire and emerald soften down the scene,
+Cold azure mingling with the vernal green,
+Pearl, amber, ruby warmer flames unfold,
+And diamonds brighten from the burning gold;
+Thro all the dome the living blazes blend,
+And shoot their rainbows where the arches bend.
+On every ceiling, painted light and gay,
+Symbolic forms their graphic art display;
+Recording, confident of endless fame,
+Each feat of arms, each patriarchal name;
+Like Memphian hieroglyphs, to stretch the span
+Of memory frail in momentary man.
+
+Pour'd thro the gates a hundred nations greet,
+Throng the rich mart and line each ample street,
+Ply different labors, walls and structures rear,
+Or till the fields, or train the ranks of war.
+Thro spreading states the skirts of empire bend,
+New temples rise and other plains extend;
+Thrice ten wide provinces, in culture gay,
+Bless the same king, and daily firm the sway.
+
+A smile benignant kindling in his eyes,
+O happy realm! the glad Columbus cries,
+Far in the midland, safe from every foe,
+Thy arts shall flourish as thy virtues grow,
+To endless years thy rising fame extend,
+And sires of nations from thy sons descend.
+May no gold-thirsty race thy temples tread,
+Insult thy rites, nor heap thy plains with dead;
+No Bovadilla seize the tempting spoil,
+No dark Ovando, no religious Boyle,
+In mimic priesthood grave, or robed in state,
+Overwhelm thy glories in oblivious fate!
+
+Vain are thy hopes, the sainted Power replied,
+These rich abodes from Spanish hordes to hide,
+Or teach hard guilt and cruelty to spare
+The guardless prize of sacrilegious war.
+Think not the vulture, mid the field of slain,
+Where base and brave promiscuous strow the plain,
+Where the young hero in the pride of charms
+Pours brighter crimson o'er his spotless arms,
+Will pass the tempting prey, and glut his rage
+On harder flesh, and carnage black with age;
+O'er all alike he darts his eager eye,
+Whets the blunt beak and hovers down the sky,
+From countless corses picks the dainty food,
+And screams and fattens in the purest blood.
+So the vile hosts, that hither trace thy way,
+On happiest tribes with fiercest fury prey.
+Thine the dread task, O Cortez, here to show
+What unknown crimes can heighten human woe,
+On these fair fields the blood of realms to pour,
+Tread sceptres down, and print thy steps in gore,
+With gold and carnage swell thy sateless mind,
+And live and die the blackest of mankind.
+
+He gains the shore. Behold his fortress rise,
+His fleet high flaming suffocates the skies.
+The march begins; the nations in affright
+Quake as he moves, and wage the fruitless fight;
+Thro the rich provinces he bends his way,
+Kings in his chain, and kingdoms for his prey;
+Full on the imperial town infuriate falls,
+And pours destruction o'er its batter'd walls.
+
+In quest of peace great Montezuma stands,
+A sovereign supplicant with lifted hands,
+Brings all his treasure, yields the regal sway,
+Bids vassal millions their new lord obey;
+And plies the victor with incessant prayer,
+Thro ravaged realms the harmless race to spare.
+But treasures, tears and sceptres plead in vain,
+Nor threats can move him, nor a world restrain;
+While blind religion's prostituted name
+And monkish fury guide the sacred flame.
+O'er crowded fanes their fires unhallow'd bend,
+Climb the wide roofs, the lofty towers ascend,
+Pour thro the lowering skies the smoky flood,
+And stain the fields, and quench the blaze in blood.
+
+Columbus heard; and, with a heaving sigh,
+Dropt the full tear that started in his eye:
+O hapless day! his trembling voice replied,
+That saw my wandering pennon mount the tide.
+Had but the lamp of heaven to that bold sail
+Ne'er mark'd the passage nor awoke the gale,
+Taught foreign prows these peopled shores to find,
+Nor led those tigers forth to fang mankind;
+Then had the tribes beneath these bounteous skies
+Seen their walls widen and their harvests rise;
+Down the long tracts of time their glory shone,
+Broad as the day and lasting as the sun.
+The growing realms, behind thy shield that rest,
+Paternal monarch, still thy power had blest,
+Enjoy'd the pleasures that surround thy throne,
+Survey'd thy virtues and improved their own.
+
+Forgive me, prince; this luckless arm hath led
+The storm unseen that hovers o'er thy head;
+Taught the dark sons of slaughter where to roam,
+To seize thy crown and seal the nation's doom.
+Arm, sleeping empire, meet the murderous band,
+Drive back the invaders, save the sinking land.--
+But vain the call! behold the streaming blood!
+Forgive me, Nature! and forgive me, God!
+
+While sorrows thus his patriarch pride control,
+Hesper reproving sooths his tender soul:
+Father of this new world, thy tears give o'er,
+Let virtue grieve and heaven be blamed no more.
+Enough for man, with persevering mind,
+To act his part and strive to bless his kind;
+Enough for thee, o'er thy dark age to soar,
+And raise to light that long-secluded shore.
+For this my guardian care thy youth inspired,
+To virtue rear'd thee, and with glory fired,
+Bade in thy plan each distant world unite,
+And wing'd thy vessel for the venturous flight.
+
+Nor think the labors vain; to good they tend;
+Tyrants like these shall ne'er defeat their end;
+Their end that opens far beyond the scope
+Of man's past efforts and his present hope.
+Long has thy race, to narrow shores confined,
+Trod the same round that fetter'd fast the mind;
+Now, borne on bolder plumes, with happier flight,
+The world's broad bounds unfolding to the sight,
+The mind shall soar; the coming age expand
+Their arts and lore to every barbarous land;
+And buried gold, drawn copious from the mine,
+Give wings to commerce and the world refine.
+
+Now to yon southern cities turn thy view,
+And mark the rival seats of rich Peru.
+See Quito's airy plains, exalted high,
+With loftier temples rise along the sky;
+And elder Cusco's shining roofs unfold,
+Flame on the day, and shed their suns of gold.
+Another range, in these pacific climes,
+Spreads a broad theatre for unborn crimes;
+Another Cortez shall their treasures view,
+His rage rekindle and his guilt renew;
+His treason, fraud, and every fell design,
+O curst Pizarro, shall revive in thine.
+
+Here reigns a prince, whose heritage proclaims
+A long bright lineage of imperial names;
+Where the brave roll of Incas love to trace
+The distant father of their realm and race,
+Immortal Capac. He, in youthful pride,
+With young Oella his illustrious bride,
+Announced their birth divine; a race begun
+From heaven, the children of their God the Sun;
+By him sent forth a polish'd state to frame,
+Crush the fiend Gods that human victims claim,
+With cheerful rites their pure devotions pay
+To the bright orb that gives the changing day.
+
+On this great plan, as children of the skies,
+They plied their arts and saw their hamlets rise.
+First of their works, and sacred to their fame.
+Yon proud metropolis received its name,
+Cusco the seat of states, in peace design'd
+To reach o'er earth, and civilize mankind.
+Succeeding sovereigns spread their limits far,
+Tamed every tribe, and sooth'd the rage of war;
+Till Quito bow'd; and all the heliac zone
+Felt the same sceptre, and confirm'd the throne.
+
+Near Cusco's walls, where still their hallow'd isle
+Bathes in its lake and wears its verdant smile,
+Where these prime parents of the sceptred line
+Their advent made, and spoke their birth divine,
+Behold their temple stand; its glittering spires
+Light the glad waves and aid their father's fires.
+Arch'd in the walls of gold, its portal gleams
+With various gems of intermingling beams;
+And flaming from the front, with borrow'd ray,
+A diamond circlet gives the rival day;
+In whose bright face forever looks abroad
+The labor'd image of the radiant God.
+There dwells the royal priest, whose inner shrine
+Conceals his lore; tis there his voice divine
+Proclaims the laws; and there a cloister'd quire
+Of holy virgins keep the sacred fire.
+
+Columbus heard; and curious to be taught
+What pious fraud such wondrous changes wrought,
+Ask'd by what mystic charm, in that dark age,
+They quell'd in savage souls the barbarous rage,
+By leagues of peace combined a wide domain,
+And taught the virtues in their laws to reign.
+
+Long is the tale; but tho their labors rest
+By years obscured, in flowery fiction drest,
+My voice, said Hesper, shall revive their name,
+And give their merits to immortal fame.
+Led by his father's wars, in early prime
+Young Capac left his native northern clime;
+The clime where Quito since hath rear'd her fanes,
+And now no more her barbarous rites maintains.
+He saw these vales in richer blooms array'd,
+And tribes more numerous haunt the woodland shade,
+Saw rival clans their local Gods adore,
+Their altars staining with their children's gore,
+Yet mark'd their reverence for the Sun, whose beam
+Proclaims his bounties and his power supreme;
+Who sails in happier skies, diffusing good,
+Demands no victim and receives no blood.
+
+In peace return'd with his victorious sire,
+New charms of glory all his soul inspire;
+To conquer nations on a different plan,
+And build his greatness on the good of man.
+
+By nature form'd for hardiest deeds of fame,
+Tall, bold and full-proportion'd rose his frame;
+Strong moved his limbs, a mild majestic grace
+Beam'd from his eyes and open'd in his face;
+O'er the dark world his mind superior shone,
+And seem'd the semblance of his parent Sun.
+But tho fame's airy visions lift his eyes,
+And future empires from his labors rise;
+Yet softer fires his daring views control,
+And mixt emotions fill his changing soul.
+Shall genius rare, that might the world improve,
+Bend to the milder voice of careless love,
+That bounds his glories, and forbids to part
+From bowers that woo'd his fluctuating heart?
+Or shall the toils imperial heroes claim
+Fire his brave bosom with a patriot flame,
+Bid sceptres wait him on Peruvia's shore,
+And loved Oella meet his eyes no more?
+
+Still unresolved he sought the lonely maid,
+Who plied her labors in the silvan shade;
+Her locks loose rolling mantle deep her breast,
+And wave luxuriant round her slender waist,
+Gay wreaths of flowers her pensive brows adorn,
+And her white raiment mocks the light of morn.
+Her busy hand sustains a bending bough,
+Where cotton clusters spread their robes of snow,
+From opening pods unbinds the fleecy store,
+And culls her labors for the evening bower.
+
+For she, the first in all Hesperia, fed
+The turning spindle with the twisting thread;
+The woof, the shuttle follow'd her command,
+Till various garments grew beneath her hand.
+And now, while all her thoughts with Capac rove
+Thro former scenes of innocence and love,
+In distant fight his fancied dangers share,
+Or wait him glorious from the finish'd war;
+Blest with the ardent hope, her sprightly mind
+A vesture white had for the prince design'd;
+And here she seeks the wool to web the fleece,
+The sacred emblem of returning peace.
+
+Sudden his near approach the maid alarms;
+He flew enraptured to her yielding arms,
+And lost, dissolving in a softer flame,
+His distant empire and the fire of fame.
+At length, retiring thro the homeward field,
+Their glowing souls to cooler converse yield;
+O'er various scenes of blissful life they ran,
+When thus the warrior to the maid began:
+
+Long have we mark'd the inauspicious reign
+That waits our sceptre in this rough domain;
+A soil ungrateful and a wayward race,
+Their game but scanty, and confined their space.
+Where late my steps the southern war pursued,
+The fertile plains grew boundless as I view'd;
+More numerous nations trod the grassy wild,
+And joyous nature more delightful smiled.
+No changing seasons there the flowers deform,
+No dread volcano and no mountain storm;
+Rains ne'er invade, nor livid lightnings play,
+Nor clouds obscure the radiant King of day.
+But while his orb, in ceaseless glory bright,
+Rolls the rich day and fires his stars by night,
+Unbounded fulness flows beneath his reign,
+Seas yield their treasures, fruits adorn the plain;
+His melting mountains spread their annual flood,
+Night sheds her dews, the day-breeze fans the God.
+Tis he inspires me with the vast design
+To form those nations to a sway divine;
+Destroy the rites of every demon Power,
+Whose altars smoke with sacrilegious gore;
+To laws and labor teach the tribes to yield,
+And richer fruits to grace the cultured field.
+
+But great, my charmer, is the task of fame,
+Their faith to fashion and their lives to tame;
+Full many a spacious wild these eyes must see
+Spread dreary bounds between my love and me;
+And yon bright Godhead circle thrice the year,
+Each lonely evening number'd with a tear.
+Long robes of white my shoulders must embrace,
+To speak my lineage of ethereal race;
+That simple men may reverence and obey
+The radiant offspring of the Power of day.
+
+When these my deeds the faith of nations gain,
+And happy millions bless thy Capac's reign,
+Then shall he feign a journey to the Sun,
+To bring the partner of his well-earn'd throne;
+So shall descending kings the line sustain,
+Till earth's whole regions join the vast domain.
+
+Will then my fair, at my returning hour,
+Forsake these wilds and hail a happier bower?
+Will she consenting now resume her smiles,
+Send forth her warrior to his glorious toils;
+And, sweetly patient, wait the flight of days,
+That crown our labors with immortal praise?
+
+Silent the damsel heard; her moistening eye
+Spoke the full soul, nor could her voice reply;
+Till softer accents sooth'd her wounded ear,
+Composed her tumult and allay'd her fear:
+Think not, heroic maid, my steps would part
+While silent sorrows heave that tender heart.
+Oella's peace more dear shall prove to me
+Than all the realms that bound the raging sea;
+Nor thou, bright Sun, shalt bribe my soul to rest,
+And leave one struggle in her lovely breast.
+
+Yet think in tribes so vast, my gentle fair,
+What millions merit our instructive care;
+How age to age leads on their joyless gloom,
+Habitual slaughter their poor piteous doom;
+No social ties their wayward passions prove,
+Nor peace nor pleasure treads the howling grove;
+Mid thousand heroes and a thousand fair
+No fond Oella meets her Capac there.
+Yet, taught by thee domestic joys to prize,
+With softer charms the virgin race shall rise,
+Awake new virtues, every grace improve,
+And form their minds for happiness and love.
+
+Ah think, as future years thro time descend,
+What wide creations on thy voice depend;
+And, like the Sun, whose all-delighting ray
+To those mild regions gives his purest day,
+Diffuse thy bounties, let me instant fly;
+In three short moons the generous task I'll try;
+Then swift returning, I'll conduct my fair
+Where realms submissive wait her fostering care.
+
+And will my prince, my Capac, borne away,
+Thro those dark wilds in quest of empire stray,
+Where tigers fierce command the shuddering wood,
+And men like tigers thirst for human blood?
+Think'st thou no dangerous deed the course attends,
+Alone, unaided by thy sire and friends?
+Even chains and death may meet my hero there,
+Nor his last groan could reach Oella's ear.
+
+But no! nor death nor chains shall Capac prove
+Unknown to her, while she has power to rove.
+Close by thy side, where'er thy wanderings stray,
+My equal steps shall measure all the way;
+With borrow'd soul each chance of fate I'll dare,
+Thy toils to lessen and thy dangers share.
+Quick shall my ready hand two garments weave,
+Whose sunny whiteness shall the tribes deceive;
+Thus clad, their homage shall secure our sway.
+And hail us children of the God of day.
+
+The lovely counsel pleased. The smiling chief
+Approved her courage and dispell'd her grief;
+Then to their homely bower in haste they move.
+Begin their labors and prepare to rove.
+Soon grow the robes beneath her forming care,
+And the fond parents wed the wondrous pair;
+But whelm'd in grief beheld the following dawn,
+Their joys all vanish'd and their children gone.
+Nine days they march'd; the tenth effulgent morn
+Saw their white forms that sacred isle adorn.
+The work begins; they preach to every band
+The well-form'd fiction, and their faith demand;
+With various miracles their powers display,
+To prove their lineage and confirm their sway.
+They form to different arts the hand of toil,
+To whirl the spindle and to spade the soil,
+The Sun's bright march with pious finger trace,
+And his pale sister with her changing face;
+Show how their bounties clothe the labor'd plain,
+The green maize shooting from its golden grain,
+How the white cotton tree's expanding lobes
+File into threads, and swell to fleecy robes;
+While the tamed Llama aids the wondrous plan,
+And lends his garment to the loins of man.
+
+The astonish'd tribes believe, with glad surprise,
+The Gods descended from the favoring skies,
+Adore their persons robed in shining white.
+Receive their laws and leave each horrid rite,
+Build with assisting hands the golden throne,
+And hail and bless the sceptre of the Sun.
+
+
+
+Book III.
+
+
+
+Argument.
+
+
+
+    Actions of the Inca Capac. A general invasion of his dominions
+    threatened by the mountain savages. Rocha, the Inca's son, sent with a
+    few companions to offer terms of peace. His embassy. His adventure with
+    the worshippers of the volcano. With those of the storm, on the Andes.
+    Falls in with the savage armies. Character and speech of Zamor, their
+    chief. Capture of Rocha and his companions. Sacrifice of the latter.
+    Death song of Azonto. War dance. March of the savage armies down the
+    mountains to Peru. Incan army meets them. Battle joins. Peruvians
+    terrified by an eclipse of the sun, and routed. They fly to Cusco.
+    Grief of Oella, supposing the darkness to be occasioned by the death of
+    Rocha. Sun appears. Peruvians from the city wall discover Roch
+    an altar in the savage camp. They march in haste out of the city and
+    engage the savages. Exploits of Capac. Death of Zamor. Recovery of
+    Rocha, and submission of the enemy.
+
+
+Now twenty years these children of the skies
+Beheld their gradual growing empire rise.
+They ruled with rigid but with generous care,
+Diffused their arts and sooth'd the rage of war,
+Bade yon tall temple grace their favorite isle,
+The mines unfold, the cultured valleys smile,
+Those broad foundations bend their arches high,
+And rear imperial Cusco to the sky;
+Wealth, wisdom, force consolidate the reign
+From the rude Andes to the western main.
+
+But frequent inroads from the savage bands
+Lead fire and slaughter o'er the labor'd lands;
+They sack the temples, the gay fields deface,
+And vow destruction to the Incan race.
+The king, undaunted in defensive war,
+Repels their hordes, and speeds their flight afar;
+Stung with defeat, they range a wider wood,
+And rouse fresh tribes for future fields of blood.
+
+Where yon blue ridges hang their cliffs on high,
+And suns infulminate the stormful sky,
+The nations, temper'd to the turbid air,
+Breathe deadly strife, and sigh for battle's blare;
+Tis here they meditate, with one vast blow,
+To crush the race that rules the plains below.
+Capac with caution views the dark design,
+Learns from all points what hostile myriads join.
+And seeks in time by proffer'd leagues to gain
+A bloodless victory, and enlarge his reign.
+
+His eldest hope, young Rocha, at his call,
+Resigns his charge within the temple wall;
+In whom began, with reverend forms of awe,
+The functions grave of priesthood and of law,
+
+In early youth, ere yet the ripening sun
+Had three short lustres o'er his childhood run,
+The prince had learnt, beneath his father's hand,
+The well-framed code that sway'd the sacred land;
+With rites mysterious served the Power divine,
+Prepared the altar and adorn'd the shrine,
+Responsive hail'd, with still returning praise,
+Each circling season that the God displays,
+Sooth'd with funereal hymns the parting dead,
+At nuptial feasts the joyful chorus led;
+While evening incense and the morning song
+Rose from his hand or trembled on his tongue.
+
+Thus form'd for empire ere he gain'd the sway,
+To rule with reverence and with power obey,
+Reflect the glories of the parent Sun,
+And shine the Capac of his future throne,
+Employed his docile years; till now from far
+The rumor'd leagues proclaim approaching war;
+Matured for active scenes he quits the shrine,
+To aid in council or in arms to shine.
+
+Amid the chieftains that the court compose,
+In modest mien the stripling pontiff rose,
+With reverence bow'd, conspicuous o'er the rest,
+Approach'd the throne, and thus the sire addrest:
+Great king of nations, heaven-descended sage,
+Thy second heir has reach'd the destined age
+To take these priestly robes; to his pure hand
+I yield them pure, and wait thy kind command.
+Should foes invade, permit this arm to share
+The toils, the triumphs, every chance of war;
+For this dread conflict all our force demands,
+In one wide field to whelm the brutal bands,
+Pour to the mountain gods their wonted food,
+And save thy realms from future leagues of blood.
+Yet oh, may sovereign mercy first ordain
+Propounded compact to the savage train!
+I'll go with terms of peace to spread thy sway,
+And teach the blessings of the God of day.
+
+The sire return'd: My great desire you know,
+To shield from slaughter and preserve the foe,
+In bands of concord all their tribes to bind,
+And live the friend and guardian of mankind.
+Should strife begin, thy youthful arm shall share
+The toils of glory thro the walks of war;
+But o'er their hills to seek alone the foes,
+To gain their confidence or brave their blows,
+Bend their proud souls to reason's voice divine,
+Claims hardier limbs and riper years than thine.
+Yet one of heavenly race the task requires,
+Whose mystic rites control the solar fires;
+So the sooth'd Godhead proves to faithless eyes
+His love to man, his empire of the skies.
+
+Some veteran chief, in those rough labors tried,
+Shall aid thee on, and go thy faithful guide;
+O'er dreary heights thy sinking limbs sustain.
+Teach the dark wiles of each insidious train,
+Thro all extremes of life thy voice attend,
+In counsel lead thee, or in arms defend.
+And three firm youths, thy chosen friends, shall go
+To learn the climes and meditate the foe;
+That wars of future years their skill may find,
+To serve the realm and save the savage kind.
+
+Rise then, my son, first partner of my fame,
+With early toils to build thy sacred name;
+In high behest, for his own legate known,
+Proclaim the bounties of our sire the Sun.
+Tell how his fruits beneath our culture rise,
+His stars, how glorious, gem our cloudless skies;
+And how to us his hand hath kindly given
+His peaceful laws, the purest grace of heaven,
+With power to widen his terrestrial sway,
+And give our blessings where he gives the day.
+Yet, should the stubborn nations still prepare
+The shaft of slaughter for the barbarous war,
+Tell them we know to tread the crimson plain,
+And God's own children never yield to man.
+
+But ah, my child, with steps of caution go,
+The ways are hideous, and enraged the foe;
+Blood stains their altars, all their feasts are blood,
+Death their delight, and darkness reigns their God;
+Tigers and vultures, storms and earthquakes share
+Their rites of worship and their spoils of war.
+Shouldst thou, my Rocha, tempt too far their ire,
+Should those dear relics feed a murderous fire,
+Deep sighs would rend thy wretched mother's breast,
+The pale Sun sink in clouds of darkness drest,
+Thy sire and mournful nations rue the day
+That drew thy steps from these sad walls away.
+
+Yet go; tis virtue calls; and realms unknown,
+Won by these works, may bless thy future throne;
+Millions of unborn souls in time may see
+Their doom reversed, and owe their peace to thee,
+Deluded sires, with murdering hands, no more
+Feed fancied demons with their children's gore,
+But, sway'd by happier sceptres, here behold
+The rites of freedom and the shrines of gold.
+Be wise, be mindful of thy realm and throne;
+God speed thy labors and preserve my son!
+
+Soon the glad prince, in robes of white array'd,
+Call'd his attendants and the sire obey'd.
+A diamond broad, in burning gold imprest,
+Display'd the sun's bright image on his breast;
+A pearl-dropt girdle bound his waist below,
+And the white lautu graced his lofty brow.
+They journey'd forth, o'ermarching far the mound
+That flank'd the kingdom on its Andean bound;
+Ridge after ridge thro vagrant hordes they past,
+Where each new tribe seem'd wilder than the last;
+To all they preach and prove the solar sway,
+And climb fresh mountains on their tedious way.
+
+At length, as thro disparting clouds they rise,
+And hills above them still obstruct the skies,
+While a dead calm o'er all the region stood?
+And not a leaf could fan its parent wood,
+Sudden a strange portentous noise began;
+The birds fled wild, the beasts for shelter ran;
+Slow, sullen, loud, with deep astounding blare,
+Swell the strong tones of subterranean war;
+Behind, before, beneath them groans the ground,
+Earth heaves and labors with the shuddering sound;
+Columns of smoke, that cap the rumbling height,
+Roll reddening far thro heaven, and choke the light;
+From tottering steeps descend their cliffs of snow,
+The mountains reel, the valleys rend below;
+The headlong streams forget their usual round,
+And shrink and vanish in the gaping ground.
+The sun descends; but night recals in vain
+Her silent shades, to recommence her reign;
+The bursting mount gapes high, a sudden glare
+Coruscates wide, till all the purpling air
+Breaks into flame, and wheels and roars and raves
+And wraps the welkin in its folding waves;
+Light sailing cinders, thro its vortex driven,
+Stream high and brighten to the midst of heaven;
+And, following slow, full floods of boiling ore
+Swell, swoop aloft and thro the concave roar.
+Torrents of molten rocks, on every side,
+Lead o'er the shelves of ice their fiery tide;
+Hills slide before them, skies around them burn,
+Towns sink beneath and heaving plains upturn;
+O'er many a league the flaming deluge hurl'd,
+Sweeps total nations from the staggering world.
+
+Meanwhile, at distance thro the livid light,
+A busy concourse met their wondering sight;
+The prince drew near; where lo! an altar stood,
+Rude in its form, and fill'd with burning wood;
+Wrapt in the flames a youth expiring lay,
+And the fond father thus was heard to pray:
+Receive, O dreadful Power, from feeble age,
+This last pure offering to thy sateless rage;
+Thrice has thy vengeance on this hated land
+Claim'd a dear infant from my yielding hand;
+Thrice have those lovely lips the victim prest,
+And all the mother torn that tender breast;
+When the dread duty stifled every sigh,
+And not a tear escaped her beauteous eye.
+Our fourth and last now meets the fatal doom;
+Groan not, my child, thy God remands thee home;
+Attend once more, thou dark infernal Name,
+From yon far streaming pyramid of flame;
+Snatch from his heaving flesh the blasted breath.
+Sacred to thee and all the fiends of death;
+Then in thy hall, with spoils of nations crown'd,
+Confine thy walks beneath the rending ground;
+No more on earth the embowel'd flames to pour,
+And scourge my people and my race no more.
+
+Thus Rocha heard; and to the trembling crowd
+Turn'd the bright image of his beaming God.
+The afflicted chief, with fear and grief opprest,
+Beheld the sign, and thus the prince addrest:
+From what far land, O royal stranger, say,
+Ascend thy wandering steps this nightly way?
+From plains like ours, by holy demons fired?
+Have thy brave people in the flames expired?
+And hast thou now, to stay the whelming flood,
+No son to offer to the furious God?
+
+From happier lands I came, the prince returns,
+Where no red flaming flood the concave burns,
+No furious God bestorms our soil and skies,
+Nor yield our hands the bloody sacrifice;
+But life and joy the Power delights to give,
+And bids his children but rejoice and live.
+Thou seest thro heaven the day-dispensing Sun
+In living radiance wheel his golden throne,
+O'er earth's gay surface send his genial beams,
+Force from yon cliffs of ice the vernal streams;
+While fruits and flowers adorn the cultured field,
+And seas and lakes their copious treasures yield;
+He reigns our only God. In him we trace
+The friend, the father of our happy race.
+Late the lone tribes, on those unlabor'd shores,
+Ran wild and served imaginary Powers;
+Till he, in pity, taught their feuds to cease,
+Devised their laws, and fashion'd all for peace.
+My sacred parents first the reign began,
+Sent from his courts to guide the paths of man,
+To plant his fruits, to manifest his sway,
+And give their blessings where he gives the day.
+
+The sachem proud replied: Thy garb and face
+Proclaim thy lineage of superior race;
+And our progenitors, no less than thine,
+Sprang from a God, and own a birth divine.
+From that sky-scorching mount, on floods of flame,
+In elder times my great forefathers came;
+There dwells the Sire, and from his dark abode
+Oft claims, as now, the tribute of a God.
+This victim due when willing mortals pay,
+His terrors lessen and his fires decay;
+While purer sleet regales the mountain air,
+And our glad hosts are fired for fiercer war.
+
+Yet know, dread chief, the pious youth rejoin'd,
+Some one prime Power produced all human kind:
+Some Sire supreme, whose ever-ruling soul
+Creates, preserves, and regulates the whole.
+That Sire supreme must roll his radiant eye
+Round the wide earth and thro the boundless sky;
+That all their habitants, their gods and men,
+May rise unveil'd beneath his careful ken.
+Could thy dark fiend, that hides his blind abode,
+And cauldrons in his cave that fiery flood,
+Yield the rich fruits that distant nations find?
+Or praise or punish or behold mankind?
+But when my God, resurging from the night,
+Shall gild his chambers with the morning light,
+By mystic rites he'll vindicate his throne,
+And own thy servant for his duteous son.
+
+Meantime, the chief replied, thy cares releast,
+Rest here the night and share our scanty feast;
+Which, driven in hasty rout, our train supplied,
+When trembling earth foretold the boiling tide.
+They fared, they rested; till with lucid horn
+All-cheering Phosphor led the lively morn;
+The prince arose, an altar rear'd in haste,
+And watch'd the splendors of the reddening east.
+
+As o'er the mountain flamed the sun's broad eye,
+He call'd the host, his holy rites to try;
+Then took the loaves of maize, the bounties brake,
+Gave to the chief, and bade them all partake;
+The hallow'd relics on the pile he placed,
+With tufts of flowers the simple offering graced,
+Held to the sun the image from his breast,
+Whose glowing concave all the God exprest;
+O'er the dried leaves the rays concentred fly,
+And thus his voice ascends the listening sky:
+O thou, whose splendors kindle heaven with fire.
+Great Soul of nature, man's immortal Sire,
+If e'er my father found thy sovereign grace,
+Or thy blest will ordain'd the Incan race,
+Give these lorn tribes to learn thy awful name,
+Receive this offering, and the pile inflame;
+So shall thy laws o'er wider bounds be known,
+And earth's whole race be happy as thy own.
+
+Thus pray'd the prince; the focal flames aspire,
+The mute beholders tremble and retire,
+Gaze on the miracle, full credence own,
+And vow obedience to the sacred Sun.
+
+The legates now their farther course descried,
+A young cazique attending as a guide,
+O'er craggy cliffs pursued their eastern way,
+Trod loftier champaigns, meeting high the day,
+Saw timorous tribes, in these sublime abodes,
+Adore the blasts and turn the storms to gods;
+While every cloud that thunders thro the skies
+Claims from their hands a human sacrifice.
+Awhile the youth, their better faith to gain,
+Strives with his usual art, but strives in vain;
+In vain he pleads the mildness of the sun;
+A gale refutes him ere his speech be done;
+Continual tempests from their orient blow,
+And load the mountains with eternal snow.
+The sun's own beam, the timid clans declare,
+Drives all their evils on the tortured air;
+He draws the vapors up their eastern sky,
+That sail and centre round his dazzling eye;
+Leads the loud storms along his midday course,
+And bids the Andes meet their sweeping force;
+Builds their bleak summits with an icy throne,
+To shine thro heaven, a semblance of his own;
+Hence the sharp sleet, these lifted lawns that wait,
+And all the scourges that attend their state.
+
+Two toilsome days the virtuous Inca strove
+To social life their savage minds to move;
+When the third morning glow'd serenely bright,
+He led their elders to an eastern height;
+The world unlimited beneath them lay,
+And not a cloud obscured the rising day.
+Vast Amazonia, starr'd with twinkling streams,
+In azure drest, a heaven inverted seems;
+Dim Paraguay extends the aching sight,
+Xaraya glimmers like the moon of night,
+Land, water, sky in blending borders play,
+And smile and brighten to the lamp of day.
+When thus the prince: What majesty divine!
+What robes of gold! what flames about him shine!
+There walks the God! his starry sons on high
+Draw their dim veil and shrink behind the sky;
+Earth with surrounding nature's born anew,
+And men by millions greet the glorious view!
+Who can behold his all-delighting soul
+Give life and joy, and heaven and earth control,
+Bid death and darkness from his presence move,
+Who can behold, and not adore and love?
+Those plains, immensely circling, feel his beams,
+He greens the groves, he silvers gay the streams,
+Swells the wild fruitage, gives the beast his food,
+And mute creation hails the genial God.
+But richer boons his righteous laws impart,
+To aid the life and mould the social heart,
+His arts of peace thro happy realms to spread,
+And altars grace with sacrificial bread;
+Such our distinguish'd lot, who own his sway,
+Mild as his morning stars and liberal as the day.
+
+His unknown laws, the mountain chief replied,
+May serve perchance your boasted race to guide;
+And yon low plains, that drink his partial ray,
+At his glad shrine their just devotions pay.
+But we nor fear his frown nor trust his smile;
+Vain as our prayers is every anxious toil;
+Our beasts are buried in his whirls of snow,
+Our cabins drifted to his slaves below.
+Even now his placid looks thy hopes beguile,
+He lures thy raptures with a morning smile;
+But soon (for so those saffron robes proclaim)
+His own black tempest shall obstruct his flame,
+Storm, thunder, fire, against the mountains driven,
+Rake deep their sulphur'd sides, disgorging here his
+heaven.
+
+He spoke; they waited, till the fervid ray
+High from the noontide shot the faithless day;
+When lo, far gathering under eastern skies,
+Solemn and slow, the dark red vapors rise;
+Full clouds, convolving on the turbid air,
+Move like an ocean to the watery war.
+The host, securely raised, no dangers harm,
+They sit unclouded and o'erlook the storm;
+While far beneath, the sky-borne waters ride,
+Veil the dark deep and sheet the mountain's side;
+The lightning's glancing fires, in fury curl'd,
+Bend their long forky foldings o'er the world;
+Torrents and broken crags and floods of rain
+From steep to steep roll down their force amain,
+In dreadful cataracts; the bolts confound
+The tumbling clouds, and rock the solid ground.
+
+The blasts unburden'd take their upward course,
+And o'er the mountain top resume their force.
+Swift thro the long white ridges from the north
+The rapid whirlwinds lead their terrors forth;
+High walks the storm, the circling surges rise,
+And wild gyrations wheel the hovering skies;
+Vast hills of snow, in sweeping columns driven,
+Deluge the air and choke the void of heaven;
+Floods burst their bounds, the rocks forget their place,
+And the firm Andes tremble to their base.
+
+Long gazed the host; when thus the stubborn chief,
+With eyes on fire, and fill'd with sullen grief:
+Behold thy careless god, secure on high,
+Laughs at our woes and peaceful walks the sky,
+Drives all his evils on these seats sublime,
+And wafts his favors to a happier clime;
+Sire of the dastard race thy words disclose,
+There glads his children, here afflicts his foes.
+Hence! speed thy flight! pursue him where he leads;
+Lest vengeance seize thee for thy father's deeds,
+Thy immolated limbs assuage the fire
+Of those curst Powers, who now a gift require.
+
+The youth in haste collects his scanty train,
+And, with the sun, flies o'er the western plain;
+The fading orb with plaintive voice he plies,
+To guide his steps and light him down the skies.
+So when the moon and all the host of even
+Hang pale and trembling on the verge of heaven,
+While storms ascending threat their nightly reign,
+They seek their absent sire, and sink below the main.
+
+Now to the south he turns; where one vast plain
+Calls from a hundred hordes the warrior train;
+Of various dress and various form they show'd;
+Each wore the ensign of his local god.
+
+From eastern hills a grisly troop descends,
+Whose war song wild the shuddering concave rends;
+Cloak'd in a tiger's hide their grim chief towers,
+And apes the brinded god his tribe adores.
+The tusky jaws grin o'er the sachem's brow,
+The bald eyes glare, the paws depend below,
+From his bored ears contorted serpents hung,
+And drops of gore seem'd rolling on his tongue.
+The northern glens pour forth the Vulture-race;
+Brown tufts of quills their shaded foreheads grace;
+The claws branch wide, the beak expands for blood,
+And all the armor imitates the god.
+The Condor, frowning from a southern plain,
+Borne on a standard, leads a numerous train:
+Clench'd in his talons hangs an infant dead,
+His long bill pointing where the sachems tread,
+His wings, tho lifeless, frighten still the wind,
+And his broad tail o'ershades the file behind.
+From other plains and other hills afar,
+The tribes throng dreadful to the promised war;
+Some twine their forelock with a crested snake,
+Some wear the emblems of a stream or lake;
+All from the Power they serve assume their mode,
+And foam and yell to taste the Incan blood.
+
+The prince incautious with his men drew near,
+Known for an Inca by his dress and air;
+Till coop'd and caught amid the warrior trains,
+They bow in silence to the victor's chains.
+When now the gather'd thousands throng the plain,
+And echoing skies the rending shouts retain;
+Zamor, the chieftain of the Tiger-band,
+By choice appointed to the first command,
+Shrugg'd up his brinded spoils above the rest,
+And grimly frowning thus the crowd addrest:
+
+Warriors, attend! tomorrow leads abroad
+Our sacred vengeance for our brothers' blood.
+On those scorch'd plains for ever must they lie,
+Their bones still naked to the burning sky?
+Left in the field for foreign hawks to tear,
+Nor our own vultures can the banquet share.
+But soon, ye mountain gods, yon dreary west
+Shall sate your hunger with an ampler feast;
+When the proud Sun, that terror of the plain,
+Shall grieve in heaven for all his children slain,
+As o'er his realm our slaughtering armies roam,
+And give to your sad Powers a happier home.
+Meanwhile, ye tribes, these men of solar race,
+Food for the flames, your bloody rites shall grace;
+Each to a different god his panting breath
+Resigns in fire; this night demands their death:
+All but the Inca; him reserved in state
+These conquering hands ere long shall immolate
+To all the Powers at once that storm the skies,
+A grateful gift, before his mother's eyes.
+
+The sachem ceased; the chiefs of every race
+Lead the bold captives to their destined place;
+The sun descends, the parting day expires,
+And earth and heaven display their sparkling fires.
+Soon the raised altars kindle round the gloom,
+And call the victims to their vengeful doom;
+Led to their pyres, in sullen pomp they tread,
+And sing by turns the triumphs of the dead.
+Amid the crowd beside his altar stood
+The youth devoted to the Tiger-god;
+A beauteous form he rose, of noble grace,
+The only hope of his illustrious race.
+His aged sire, for numerous years, had shone
+The first supporter of the Incan throne;
+Wise Capac loved the youth, and graced his hand
+With a fair virgin from a neighboring band;
+And him the legate prince, in equal prime,
+Had chose to share his mission round the clime.
+He mounts the pyre, the flames approach his breath.
+And thus he wakes the dauntless song of death:
+
+Dark vault of heaven, that greet his daily throne.
+Where flee the glories of your absent Sun?
+Ye starry hosts, who kindle from his eye,
+Can you behold him in the western sky?
+Or if unseen beneath his watery bed,
+The wearied God reclines his radiant head,
+When next his morning steps your courts inflame,
+And seek on earth for young Azonto's name,
+Then point these ashes, mark the smoky pile,
+And say the hero suffer'd with a smile.
+So shall the Power in vengeance view the place,
+In crimson clothe his terror-beaming face,
+Pour swift destruction on these curst abodes,
+Whelm the grim tribes and all their savage gods.
+
+But ah, forbear to tell my stooping sire
+His darling hopes have fed a coward fire;
+Why should he know the tortures of the brave?
+Why fruitless sorrows bend him to the grave?
+Nor shalt thou e'er be told, my bridal fair,
+What silent pangs these panting vitals tear;
+But blooming still the patient hours employ
+On the blind hope of future scenes of joy.
+Now haste, ye fiends of death; the Sire of day
+In absent slumber gives your malice way;
+While fainter light these livid flames supply,
+And short-lived thousands learn of me to die,
+
+He ceased not speaking; when the yell of war
+Drowns all their death songs in a hideous jar;
+The cries rebounding from the hillsides pour,
+And wolves and tigers catch the distant roar.
+Now more concordant all their voices join,
+And round the plain they form the festive line;
+When, to the music of the dismal din,
+Indignant Zamor bids the dance begin.
+Dim thro the shadowy fires each changing form
+Moves like a cloud before an evening storm,
+When o'er the moon's pale face and starry plain
+The shifting shades lead on their broken train;
+The mingling tribes their mazy gambols tread,
+Till the last groan proclaims the victims dead,
+Then part the smoky flesh, enjoy the feast,
+And lose their labors in oblivious rest.
+
+Soon as the western hills announced the morn,
+And falling fires were scarcely seen to burn,
+Grimm'd by the horrors of the dreadful night,
+The hosts woke fiercer for the promised fight;
+And dark and silent thro the frowning grove
+The different tribes beneath their standards move.
+
+Meantime the solar king collects from far
+His martial bands, to meet the expected war,
+Camps on the confines of an eastern plain
+That skirts the steep rough limit of his reign;
+He trains their ranks, their pliant force combines,
+To close in columns or extend in lines,
+To wheel, change front, in broken files dispart,
+And draw new strength from all the warrior's art.
+
+But now the rising sun relumes the plain,
+And calls to arms the well-accustom'd train.
+High in the front imperial Capac strode,
+In fair effulgence like the beaming God;
+A golden girdle bound his snowy vest,
+A mimic sun hung sparkling on his breast;
+The lautu's horned wreath his temples twined,
+The bow, the quiver shade his waist behind;
+Raised high in air his golden sceptre burn'd,
+And hosts surrounding trembled as he turn'd.
+
+O'er eastern hills he cast his watchful eye,
+Thro the broad breaks that lengthen down the sky;
+In whose blue clefts the sloping pathways bend,
+Where annual floods from melting snows descend.
+Now dry and deep, they lead from every height
+The savage files that headlong rush to fight;
+They throng and thicken thro the smoky air,
+And every breach pours down the dusky war.
+So when a hundred streams explore their way,
+Down the same slopes, convolving to the sea,
+They boil, they bend, they force their floods amain,
+Swell o'er obstructing crags, and sweep the plain.
+
+Capac beholds and waits the coming shock,
+As for the billows waits the storm-beat rock;
+And while for fight his ardent troops prepare,
+Thus thro the ranks he breathes the soul of war:
+Ye tribes that flourish in the Sun's mild reign,
+Long have your flocks adorn'd the peaceful plain,
+As o'er the realm his smiles persuasive flow'd,
+And conquer'd all without the stain of blood;
+But lo, at last that wild infuriate band
+With savage war demands your happy land.
+Beneath the dark immeasurable host,
+Descending, swarming, how the crags are lost!
+Already now their ravening eyes behold
+Your star-bright temples and your gates of gold;
+And to their gods in fancied goblets pour
+The warm libation of your children's gore.
+Move then to vengeance, meet the sons of blood,
+Led by this arm and lighted by that God;
+The strife is fierce, your fanes and fields the prize,
+The warrior conquers or the infant dies.
+
+Fill'd with his fire, the troops in squared array
+Wait the wild hordes loose huddling to the fray;
+Their pointed arrows, rising on the bow,
+Look up the sky and chide the lagging foe.
+
+Dread Zamor leads the homicidious train,
+Moves from the clefts and stretches o'er the plain.
+He gives the shriek; the deep convulsing sound
+The hosts reecho, and the hills around
+Retain the rending tumult; all the air
+Clangs in the conflict of the clashing war;
+But firm undaunted as a shelvy strand
+That meets the surge, the bold Peruvians stand,
+With steady aim the sounding bowstring ply,
+And showers of arrows thicken thro the sky;
+When each grim host, in closer conflict join'd,
+Clench the dire ax and cast the bow behind;
+Thro broken ranks sweep wide their slaughtering course.
+Now struggle back, now sidelong swray the force.
+Here from grim chiefs is lopt the grisly head;
+All gride the dying, all deface the dead;
+There scattering o'er the field in thin array,
+Man tugs with man, and clubs with axes play;
+With broken shafts they follow and they fly,
+And yells and groans and shouts invade the sky;
+Round all the shatter'd groves the ground is strow'd
+With sever'd limbs and corses bathed in blood.
+Long raged the strife; and where, on either side,
+A friend, a father or a brother died,
+No trace remain'd of what he was before,
+Mangled with horrid wounds and black with gore.
+
+Now the Peruvians, in collected might,
+With one wide stroke had wing'd the savage flighty
+But their bright Godhead, in his midday race,
+With glooms unusual veil'd his radiant face,
+Quench'd all his beams, tho cloudless, in affright,
+As loth to view from heaven the finish'd fight.
+A trembling twilight o'er the welkin moves,
+Browns the dim void, and darkens deep the groves;
+The waking stars, embolden'd at the sight,
+Peep out and gem the anticipated night;
+Day-birds, and beasts of light to covert fly,
+And owls and wolves begin their evening cry.
+The astonish'd Inca marks, with wild surprise,
+Dead chills on earth, no cloud in all the skies,
+His host o'ershaded in the field of blood,
+Gored by his foes, deserted by his God.
+Mute with amaze, they cease the war to wage,
+Gaze on their leaders and forget their rage;
+When pious Capac to the listening crowd
+Raised high his wand and pour'd his voice aloud:
+Ye chiefs and warriors of Peruvian race,
+Some sore offence obscures my father's face;
+What moves the Numen to desert the plain,
+Nor save his children, nor behold them slain?
+Fly! speed your course, regain the guardian town,
+Ere darkness shroud you in a deeper frown;
+The faithful walls your squadrons shall defend,
+While my sad steps the sacred dome ascend,
+To learn the cause, and ward the woes we fear:
+Haste, haste, my sons! I guard the flying rear.
+
+The hero spoke; the trembling tribes obey,
+While deeper glooms obscure the source of day.
+Sudden the savage bands collect amain,
+Hang on the rear and sweep them o'er the plain;
+Their shouts, redoubling with the flying war.
+Drown the loud groans and torture all the air.
+The hawks of heaven, that o'er the field had stood,
+Scared by the tumult from the scent of blood,
+Cleave the far gloom; the beasts forget their prey,
+And scour the waste, and give the war its way.
+
+Zamor elate with horrid joy beheld
+The Sun depart, his children fly the field,
+And raised his rending voice: Thou darkening sky,
+Deepen thy damps, the fiend of death is nigh;
+Behold him rising from his shadowy throne,
+To veil this heaven and drive the conquer'd Sun;
+The glaring Godhead yields to sacred night,
+And his foil'd armies imitate his flight.
+Confirm, infernal Power, thy rightful reign,
+Give deadlier shades and heap the piles of slain;
+Soon the young captive prince shall roll in fire,
+And all his race accumulate the pyre.
+Ye mountain vultures, here your food explore,
+Tigers and condors, all ye gods of gore,
+In these rich fields, beneath your frowning sky,
+A plenteous feast shall every god supply.
+Rush forward, warriors, hide the plains with dead;
+Twas here our friends in former combat bled;
+Strow'd thro the waste their naked bones demand
+This tardy vengeance from our conquering hand.
+
+He said; and high before the Tiger-train
+With 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 wand
+Struck 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 day
+Swell'd the full quires of consecrated praise,
+A tomb-like silence reigns; till female cries
+Burst forth at last, and these sad accents rise:
+Was it for this, my son to distant lands
+Must trace the wilds, and tempt those lawless bands?
+And does the God obscure his golden throne
+In mournful darkness for my slaughter'd son?
+Oh, had his beam; ere that disastrous day
+That 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 heart
+Caught 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-god
+High 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 light
+Throng 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 face
+Makes 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 burn
+For that loved youth who never must return.
+Forgive thine armies, when in fields of blood
+They 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 high
+A 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 prest
+High at the head, now plunging for the breast.
+The king starts backward from the struggling foe,
+Collects new strength, and with a circling blow
+Rush'd furious on; his flinty edge, whirl'd wide,
+Met Zamor's helve, and glancing grazed his side
+And settled in his groin; so plunged it lay,
+That scarce the king could tear his ax away.
+The savage fell; when thro the Tiger-train
+The 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 foes
+He cleaves his wasting way; the prince unties,
+And thus his voice: Dread Sovereign of the skies.
+Accept my living son, again bestow'd
+To 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 plain
+Is 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 lay
+Weltering in gore, directs his eager way,
+Unwraps the tiger's hide, and strives in vain
+To close the wound, and mitigate the pain;
+And while compassion for a foe distrest
+Mixt with reproach, he thus the chief addrest:
+Too long, proud prince, thy fearless heart withstood
+Our 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 demands
+The 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 plain
+Have 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.
+
+
+
+
+Book IV.
+
+
+
+Argument
+
+
+
+    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 stay
+The 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 sigh
+Cast 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 age
+Shall feast thee here; the fruits of thy long care
+A grateful world beneath thy ken shall share.
+Europe's contending kings shall soon behold
+These fertile plains and hills of treasured gold;
+And in the path of thy adventurous sail
+Their 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 ray
+Smiles 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 store
+Mid 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 unconfined
+Tempts 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 display
+United 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 rage
+Of feudal faction every court engage;
+All honest labor, all commercial ties
+Their 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 mind
+Spreads 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 gait
+Move 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 draws
+To 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 far
+The 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 divine
+Her 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 due
+To 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 thrown
+On 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 alone
+The 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 form
+Ward 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 tie
+His 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 race
+Range 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 view
+Improve 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 space
+By 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 rage
+In 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 vain
+Reach 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 eye
+A new-form'd squadron rose along the sky.
+High on the tallest deck majestic shone
+Sage 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 traced
+A future empire in each present waste;
+All former works of men behind him shone
+Graved by his hand in ever-during stone;
+On his calm brow a various crown displays
+The 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 kings
+From shore to shore a faithless miscreant steers,
+To steal a maid and leave a sire in tears.
+But yon wise chief conducts with careful ken
+The 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 breast
+All danger braves to screen her hunted guest.
+Shall quit her native tribe, but never share
+The 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 sire
+Pursue 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 feel
+The flamen's fraud, the soldier's fateful steel;
+But learn the blessings that alone attend
+On 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 morn
+Illumes 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 trace
+The germ, the genius of a sapient race,
+Predestined here to methodise and mould
+New 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 side
+The moon burst forth, and left the South Sea tide,
+That calm'd these elements, and taught them where
+To 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 shrouds
+My 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 sand
+Swell'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 mould
+Repay 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 day
+That 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 resign
+Their 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 man
+Unguarded 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 art
+Damp 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 fire
+His life shall temper and his laws inspire,
+Purge from all shades the world-embracing scope
+That 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 day
+Sunn'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 trace
+The 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 ray
+O'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 expand
+The 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 source
+Of 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 fly
+Before 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 sea
+Yield or withold their various gifts for thee;
+Protected Industry beneath thy reign
+Leads all the virtues in her filial train;
+Courageous Probity with brow serene,
+And Temperance calm presents her placid mien
+Contentment, 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 soul
+Pervades all scenes that future years unrol,
+Must yield the palm, and at a courtier's shrine
+His 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 bland
+My 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 hails
+The flowery banks that scent his slackening sails,
+Descending twilight mellows down the gleam
+That 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 repays
+The 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 delight
+Absorb the chief, as thro the waste of night
+He walks the lonely deck, and skirts the lands
+That wait their nations from his guiding hands.
+Tall thro the tide the river Sires by turns
+Rise round the bark and blend their social urns;
+Majestic brotherhood! each feels the power
+To 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 god
+Potowmak 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 hour
+To waft thee welcome to this friendly shore!
+Long have we learnt the fame that here awaits
+The 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 drain
+Shall lose their limits in the vast domain;
+But my bold banks with proud impatience wait
+The 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 high
+And 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 impede
+My 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 morn
+That gilds your capitol. Thence earth shall draw
+Her 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 expand
+The 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 crew
+Brace the broad canvass and their course pursue:
+For now the breathing airs, from ocean born,
+Breeze up the bay, and lead the lively morn
+That lights them to their port. Tis here they join
+Their 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.
+
+
+
+
+Book V.
+
+
+
+Argument.
+
+
+    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, descried
+Their 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 soul
+Now 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 appears
+A 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 hand
+Moves 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 world
+And where Floridia's farthest floods are curl'd,
+Where midlands broad their swelling mountains heave
+And slope their champaigns to the Atlantic wave,
+The sandy streambank and the woodgreen plain
+Raise 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 disclose
+Their 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 height
+Pours 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 sublime
+And 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 fire
+They scream, fly, fall; promiscuous rave along
+The yelling victors and the driven throng;
+The streams run purple; all the peopled shore
+Is 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 train
+Lead back the flight and scatter from the plain
+Slay 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 pride
+Penn'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 day
+Plant sylvan Wabash with a watchful post,
+O'er Missisippi spread a mantling host,
+Bid Louisiana's lovely clime prepare
+New 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 throne
+Gyve 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 slaves
+Of 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 white
+On 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 strand
+Arrives to aid her young colonial band.
+They join their force, and tow'rd the falling day
+Impetuous Braddock leads their hasty way;
+O'er Allegany heights, like streams of fire,
+The red flags wave and glittering arms aspire
+To meet the savage hordes, who there advance
+Their 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 spread
+For 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 within
+Behold 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 lost
+Springs up and saves the remnant of his host?
+
+The Power replied: Each age successive brings
+Their 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 air
+The northern armies spread the flames of war.
+Swift o'er the lake, to Crownpoint's fortful strand,
+Rash Abercrombie leads his headlong band
+To 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 height
+And 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 plain
+And 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 field
+And 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 sway
+Span 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 unfold
+A 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 see
+That half mankind shall owe their seats to thee."
+
+The Saint replied: Ere long, beneath thy view
+The scene shall brighten and thy joys renew.
+Here march the troublous years, when goaded sore
+Thy 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 stream
+And 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, within
+The 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 domain
+That 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 pain
+The 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 stood
+On 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 far
+Thro 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 pride
+The 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 soul
+Darts 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 descend
+The guide of nations and the Muse's friend.
+Columbus dropt a tear; while Hesper's eye
+Traced 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 shore
+Swells 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 hand
+Flings 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 bore
+His 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 hills
+High flaming Danbury the welkin fills;
+Esopus burns, Newyork's delightful fanes
+And 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 fires
+Climb in tall pyramids above the spires,
+Concentring all the winds; whose forces, driven
+With equal rage from every point of heaven,
+Whirl into conflict, round the scantling pour
+The 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 sires
+Have 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 height
+Thunders 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 plains
+Calls 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 waits
+The 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 sight
+You 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 pour
+Their 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 shun
+The 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, athirst
+To 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'd
+Her infant banner o'er the modern world.
+
+Bland, Moylan, Sheldon the long lines enforce
+With light-arm'd scouts, with solid squares of horse;
+And Knox from his full park to battle brings
+His brazen tubes, the last resort of kings.
+The long black rows in sullen silence wait,
+Their grim jaws gaping, soon to utter fate;
+When at his word the carbon clouds shall rise,
+And well aim'd thunders rock the shores and skies.
+
+Two foreign Youths had caught the splendent flame,
+To Fame's hard school the warm disciples came;
+To learn sage Liberty's unlesson'd lore,
+To brave the tempest on her war-beat shore,
+Prometheus like, to snatch a beam of day,
+And homeward bear the unscintillating ray,
+To pour new life on Europe's languid horde,
+Where millions crouch beneath one stupid lord.
+Tho Austria's keiser and the Russian czar
+To dungeons doom them, and with fetters mar,
+Fayette o'er Gaul's vast realm some light shall spread,
+Brave Kosciusko rear Sarmatia's head;
+From Garonne's bank to Duna's wintry skies,
+The morn shall move, and slumbering nations rise.
+And tho their despots quake with wild alarms,
+And lash and agonize the world to arms,
+Whelm for a while the untutor'd race in blood,
+And turn against themselves the raging flood;
+Yet shall the undying dawn, with silent pace,
+Reach over earth and every land embrace;
+Till Europe's well taught sons the boon shall share,
+And bless the labors of the imprison'd Pair.
+
+So Leda's Twins from Colchis raped the Fleece,
+And brought the treasure to their native Greece.
+She hail'd her heroes from their finished wars,
+Assigned their place amid the cluster'd stars,
+Bade round the eternal sky their trophies flame,
+And charged the zodiac with their deathless fame.
+--Here move the Strangers, here in freedom's cause
+His untried blade each stripling hero draws,
+On the great chief their eyes in transport roll,
+And war and Washington renerve the soul.
+
+Steuben advanced, in veteran armor drest,
+For Prussian lore distinguish'd o'er the rest,
+The tactic lore; to this he bends his care,
+And here transplants the discipline of war.
+Other brave chieftains of illustrious name
+Rise into sight and equal honors claim;
+But who can tell the dew-drops of the morn,
+Or count the rays that in the diamond burn?
+--Grieve not, my valiant friends; the faithful song
+Shall soon redress the momentary wrong;
+Your own bright swords have cleaved your course to fame,
+And all her hundred tongues recognize every claim.
+
+Now the broad field as untaught warriors shade,
+The sun's glad beam their shining arms display'd;
+High waved great Washington his glittering steel,
+Bade the long train in circling order wheel;
+And, while the banner'd youths around him prest,
+With voice revered he thus the ranks addrest:
+Ye generous bands, behold the task to save,
+Or yield whole nations to an instant grave.
+See hosted myriads crowding to your shore,
+Hear from all ports their vollied thunders roar;
+From Boston heights their bloody standards play,
+O'er long Champlain they lead their northern way,
+Virginian banks behold their streamers glide,
+And hostile navies load each southern tide.
+Beneath their steps your towns in ashes lie,
+Your inland empires feast their greedy eye;
+Soon shall your fields to lordly parks be turn'd,
+Your children butcher'd and your villas burn'd;
+While following millions, thro the reign of time.
+Who claim their birth in this indulgent clime,
+Bend the weak knee, to servile toils consigned,
+And sloth and slavery still degrade mankind.
+Rise then to war, to timely vengeance rise,
+Ere the gray sire, the helpless infant dies;
+Look thro the world, see endless years descend,
+What realms, what ages on your arms depend!
+Reverse the fate, avenge the insulted sky,
+Move to the work; we conquer or we die.
+
+So spoke Columbia's chief; his guiding hand
+Points out their march to every ardent band,
+Assigns to each brave leader, as they claim,
+His test of valor and his task of fame.
+With his young host Montgomery first moves forth,
+To crush the vast invasion of the north;
+O'er streams and lakes their flags far onward play,
+Navies and forts surrendering mark their way;
+Rocks, fens and deserts thwart the paths they go,
+And hills before them lose their crags in snow.
+Loud Laurence, clogg'd with ice, indignant feels
+Their sleet-clad oars, choked helms and crusted keels;
+They buffet long his tides; when rise in sight
+Quebec's dread walls, and Wolfe's unclouded height
+Already there a few brave patriots stood,
+Worn down with toil, by famine half subdued;
+Untrench'd before the town, they dare oppose
+Their fielded cohorts to the forted foes.
+Ah gallant troop! deprived of half the praise
+That deeds like yours in other times repays,
+Since your prime chief (the favorite erst of fame)
+Hath sunk so deep his hateful, hideous name,
+That every honest Muse with horror flings
+The name unsounded from her sacred strings;
+Else what high tones of rapture must have told
+The first great action of a chief so bold!
+Twas his, twas yours, to brave unusual storms,
+To tame rude nature in her drearest forms;
+Foodless and guideless, thro that waste of earth,
+You march'd long months; and, sore reduced by dearth,
+Reach'd the proud capital, too feeble far
+To tempt unaided such a task of war;
+Till now Montgomery's host, with hopes elate,
+Joins your scant powers, to try the test of fate.
+
+With skilful glance he views the fortress round.
+Bristled with pikes, with dark artillery crown'd;
+Resolves with naked steel to scale the towers,
+And snatch a realm from Britain's hostile powers.
+Now drear December's boreal blasts arise,
+A roaring hailstorm sweeps the shuddering skies,
+Night with condensing horror mantles all,
+And trembling watch-lights glimmer from the wall.
+From bombs o'erarching, fusing, bursting high,
+The glare scarce wanders thro the loaded sky;
+And in the louder shock of meteors drown'd,
+The accustom'd ear in vain expects the sound.
+
+He points the assault; and, thro the howling air,
+O'er rocky ramparts leads audacious war.
+Swift rise the rapid files; the walls are red
+With flashing flames, that show the piles of dead;
+Till back recoiling from the ranks of slain,
+They leave their leader with a feeble train,
+Begirt with foes within the sounding wall,
+Who thick beneath his single falchion fall.
+But short the conflict; others hemm'd him round,
+And brave Montgomery prest the gory ground.
+A second Wolfe Columbus here beheld,
+In youthful charms, a soul undaunted yield;
+Forlorn, o'erpower'd, his hardy host remains,
+Stretch'd by his side, or led in captive chains.
+Macpherson, Cheesman share their general's doom;
+Meigs, Morgan, Dearborn, planning deeds to come,
+Resign impatient prisoners; soon to wield
+Their happier swords in many a broader field.
+
+Triumphant to Newyork's ill forted post
+Britannia turns her vast amphibious host,
+That seas and storms, obedient to her hand,
+Heave and discharge on every distant land;
+Fleets, floating batteries shake Manhattan's shore,
+And Hellgate rocks reverberate the roar.
+Swift o'er the shuddering isles that line the bay
+The red flags wave, and battering engines play;
+Howe leads aland the interminable train,
+While his bold brother still bestorms the main,
+Great Albion's double pride; both famed afar
+On each vext element, each world of war;
+Where British rapine follows peaceful toil,
+And murders nations but to seize their spoil.
+
+Wide sweep the veteran myriads o'er the strand,
+Outnumbering thrice the raw colonial band;
+Flatbush and Harlem sink beneath their fires,
+Brave Stirling yields, and Sullivan retires.
+In vain sage Washington, from hill to hill,
+Plays round his foes with more than Fabian skill,
+Retreats, advances, lures them to his snare,
+To balance numbers by the shifts of war.
+For not their swords alone, but fell disease
+Thins his chill camp and chokes the neighboring seas.
+The baleful malady, from Syrius sent,
+floats in each breeze, impesting every tent,
+Strikes the young soldier with the morning ray,
+And lays him lifeless ere the close of day,
+Far from his father's house, his mother's care,
+And all the charities that nursed him there.
+
+Damp'd is the native rage that first impell'd
+The insulted colons to the battling field;
+When first their high-soul'd sentiment of right
+And full-vein'd vigor nerved their arm to fight.
+For stript of health, benumb'd thy vital flood,
+Thy muscles lax'd and decomposed thy blood,
+What is thy courage, man? a foodless flame,
+A light unseen, a soul without a frame.
+
+Each day the decimated ranks forgo
+Their dying comrades to repulse the foe,
+And each damp night, along the slippery trench,
+Breathe at their post the suffocating stench;
+They sink by hundreds on the vapory soil,
+Till a new fight relieves their deadlier toil.
+At last from fruitless combat, sore defeat,
+To Croton hills they lead a long retreat;
+Pale, curbed, exanimate, in dull despair,
+Train the scant relics of the twofold war:
+The sword, the pestilence press hard behind;
+The body both assail, and one beats down the mind.
+
+
+
+
+Book VI.
+
+
+
+Argument.
+
+
+    British cruelty to American prisoners. Prison Ship. Retreat of
+    Washington with the relics of his army, pursued by Howe. Washington
+    recrossing the Delaware in the night, to surprise the British van, is
+    opposed by uncommon obstacles. His success in this audacious enterprise
+    lays the foundation of the American empire. A monument to be ere
+    on the bank of the Delaware. Approach of Burgoyne, sailing up the St.
+    Laurence with an army of Britons and various other nations. Indignant
+    energy of the colonies, compared to that of Greece in opposing the
+    invasion of Xerxes. Formation of an army of citizens, under the command
+    of Gates. Review of the American and British armies, and of the savage
+    tribes who join the British standard. Battle of Saratoga. Story of
+    Lucinda. Second battle, and capture of Burgoyne and his army.
+
+
+But of all tales that war's black annals hold,
+The darkest, foulest still remains untold;
+New modes of torture wait the shameful strife,
+And Britain wantons in the waste of life.
+
+Cold-blooded Cruelty, first fiend of hell,
+Ah think no more with savage hordes to dwell;
+Quit the Caribian tribes who eat their slain,
+Fly that grim gang, the Inquisitors of Spain,
+Boast not thy deeds in Moloch's shrines of old,
+Leave Barbary's pirates to their blood-bought gold,
+Let Holland steal her victims, force them o'er
+To toils and death on Java's morbid shore;
+Some cloak, some color all these crimes may plead;
+Tis avarice, passion, blind religion's deed;
+But Britons here, in this fraternal broil,
+Grave, cool, deliberate in thy service toil.
+Far from the nation's eye, whose nobler soul
+Their wars would humanize, their pride control,
+They lose the lessons that her laws impart,
+And change the British for the brutal heart.
+Fired by no passion, madden'd by no zeal,
+No priest, no Plutus bids them not to feel;
+Unpaid, gratuitous, on torture bent,
+Their sport is death, their pastime to torment;
+All other gods they scorn, but bow the knee,
+And curb, well pleased, O Cruelty, to thee.
+
+Come then, curst goddess, where thy votaries reign,
+Inhale their incense from the land and main;
+Come to Newyork, their conquering arms to greet,
+Brood o'er their camp and breathe along their fleet;
+The brother chiefs of Howe's illustrious name
+Demand thy labors to complete their fame.
+What shrieks of agony thy praises sound!
+What grateless dungeons groan beneath the ground!
+See the black Prison Ship's expanding womb
+Impested thousands, quick and dead, entomb.
+Barks after barks the captured seamen bear,
+Transboard and lodge thy silent victims there;
+A hundred scows, from all the neighboring shore,
+Spread the dull sail and ply the constant oar,
+Waft wrecks of armies from the well fought field,
+And famisht garrisons who bravely yield;
+They mount the hulk, and, cramm'd within the cave,
+Hail their last house, their living, floating grave.
+
+She comes, the Fiend! her grinning jaws expand,
+Her brazen eyes cast lightning o'er the strand,
+Her wings like thunder-clouds the welkin sweep,
+Brush the tall spires and shade the shuddering deep;
+She gains the deck, displays her wonted store,
+Her cords and scourges wet with prisoners' gore;
+Gripes, pincers, thumb-screws spread beneath her feet,
+Slow poisonous drugs and loads of putrid meat;
+Disease hangs drizzling from her slimy locks,
+And hot contagion issues from her box.
+
+O'er the closed hatches ere she takes her place,
+She moves the massy planks a little space,
+Opes a small passage to the cries below,
+That feast her soul on messages of woe;
+There sits with gaping ear and changeless eye,
+Drinks every groan and treasures every sigh,
+Sustains the faint, their miseries to prolong,
+Revives the dying and unnerves the strong.
+
+But as the infected mass resign their breath.
+She keeps with joy the register of death.
+As tost thro portholes from the encumber'd cave,
+Corpse after corpse fall dashing in the wave;
+Corpse after corpse, for days and months and years,
+The tide bears off, and still its current clears;
+At last, o'erloaded with the putrid gore,
+The slime-clad waters thicken round the shore.
+Green Ocean's self, that oft his wave renews,
+That drinks whole fleets with all their battling crews,
+That laves, that purifies the earth and sky,
+Yet ne'er before resign'd his natural dye,
+Here purples, blushes for the race he bore
+To rob and ravage this unconquer'd shore;
+The scaly nations, as they travel by,
+Catch the contagion, sicken, gasp and die.
+
+Now Hesper turns the Hero's tearful eye
+To other fields where other standards fly;
+For here constrain'd new warfare to disclose,
+And show the feats of more than mortal foes,
+Where interposing with celestial might,
+His own dread labors must decide the fight,
+He bids the scene with pomp unusual rise,
+To teach Columbus how to read the skies.
+
+He marks the trace of Howe's triumphant course,
+And wheels o'er Jersey plains his gathering force;
+Where dauntless Washington, begirt with foes,
+Still greater rises as the danger grows,
+And wearied troops, o'er kindred warriors slain,
+Attend his march thro many a sanguine plain.
+
+From Hudson's bank to Trenton's wintry strand,
+He guards in firm retreat his feeble band;
+Britons by thousands on his flanks advance,
+Bend o'er his rear and point the lifted lance.
+Past Delaware's frozen stream, with scanty force,
+He checks retreat; then turning back his course,
+Remounts the wave, and thro the mingled roar
+Of ice and storm reseeks the hostile shore,
+Wrapt in the gloom of night. The offended Flood
+Starts from his cave, assumes the indignant god,
+Rears thro the parting tide his foamy form,
+And with his fiery eyeballs lights the storm.
+He stares around him on the host he heard,
+Clears his choked urn and smooths his icy beard,
+And thus: Audacious chief, this troubled wave
+Tempt not; or tempting, here shall gape thy grave.
+Is nothing sacred to thy venturous might?
+The howling storm, the holy truce of night,
+High tossing ice-isles crashing round thy side,
+Insidious rocks that pierce the tumbling tide?
+Fear then this forceful arm, and hear once more,
+Death stands between thee and that shelvy shore.
+
+The chief beholds the god, and notes his cry,
+But onward drives, nor pauses to reply;
+Calls to each bark, and spirits every host
+To toil, gain, tempt the interdicted coast.
+The crews, regardless of the doubling roar,
+Breast the strong helm, and wrestle with the oar,
+Stem with resurgent prow the struggling spray,
+And with phosphoric lanterns shape their way.
+
+The god perceived his warning words were vain,
+And rose more furious to assert his reign,
+Lash'd up a loftier surge, and heaved on high
+A ridge of billows that obstruct the sky;
+And, as the accumulated mass he rolls,
+Bares the sharp rocks and lifts the gaping shoals.
+Forward the fearless barges plunge and bound,
+Top the curl'd wave, or grind the flinty ground,
+Careen, whirl, right, and sidelong dasht and tost,
+Now seem to reach and now to lose the coast.
+
+Still unsubdued the sea-drench'd army toils,
+Each buoyant skiff the flouncing godhead foils;
+He raves and roars, and in delirious woe
+Calls to his aid his ancient hoary foe,
+Almighty Frost; when thus the vanquish'd Flood
+Bespeaks in haste the great earth-rending god:
+Father of storms! behold this mortal race
+Confound my force and brave me to my face.
+Not all my waves by all my tempests driven,
+Nor black night brooding o'er the starless heaven,
+Can check their course; they toss and plunge amain,
+And lo, my guardian rocks project their points in vain.
+
+Come to my help, and with thy stiffening breath
+Clog their strain'd helms, distend their limbs indeath.
+Tho ancient enmity our realms divide,
+And oft thy chains arrest my laboring tide,
+Let strong necessity our cause combine,
+Thy own disgrace anticipate in mine;
+Even now their oars thy sleet in vain congeals,
+Thy crumbling ice-cakes crash beneath their keels;
+Their impious arms already cope with ours,
+And mortal man defies immortal Powers.
+
+Roused at the call, the Monarch mounts the storm;
+In muriat flakes he robes his nitrous form,
+Glares thro the compound, all its blast inhales,
+And seas turn crystal where he breathes his gales.
+He comes careering o'er his bleak domain,
+But comes untended by his usual train;
+Hail, sleet and snow-rack far behind him fly,
+Too weak to wade thro this petrific sky,
+Whose air consolidates and cuts and stings,
+And shakes hoar tinsel from its flickering wings.
+Earth heaves and cracks beneath the alighting god;
+He gains the pass, bestrides the roaring flood,
+Shoots from his nostrils one wide withering sheet
+Of treasured meteors on the struggling fleet;
+The waves conglaciate instant, fix in air,
+Stand like a ridge of rocks, and shiver there.
+The barks, confounded in their headlong surge,
+Or wedged in crystal, cease their oars to urge;
+Some with prone prow, as plunging down the deep,
+And some remounting o'er the slippery steep
+Seem laboring still, but moveless, lifeless all;
+And the chill'd army here awaits its fall.
+
+But Hesper, guardian of Hesperia's right,
+From his far heaven looks thro the rayless night;
+And, stung to vengeance at the unequal strife,
+To save her host, in jeopardy of life,
+Starts from his throne, ascends his flamy car.
+And turns tremendous to the field of war.
+His wheels, resurging from the depth of even,
+Roll back the night, streak wide the startled heaven,
+Regain their easting with reverted gyres,
+And stud their path with scintillating fires.
+He cleaves the clouds; and, swift as beams of day,
+O'er California sweeps his splendid way;
+Missouri's mountains at his passage nod,
+And now sad Delaware feels the present god,
+And trembles at his tread. For here to fight
+Rush two dread Powers of such unmeasured might,
+As threats to annihilate his doubtful reign,
+Convulse the heaven and mingle earth and main.
+
+Frost views his brilliant foe with scornful eye,
+And whirls a tenfold tempest thro the sky;
+Where each fine atom of the immense of air,
+Steel'd, pointed, barb'd for unexampled war,
+Sings o'er the shuddering ground; when thus he broke
+Contemptuous silence, and to Hesper spoke:
+Thou comest in time to share their last disgrace,
+To change to crystal with thy rebel race,
+Stretch thy huge corse o'er Delaware's bank afar,
+And learn the force of elemental war.
+Or if undying life thy lamp inspire,
+Take that one blast and to thy sky retire;
+There, roll'd eternal round the heavens, proclaim
+Thy own disaster and my deathless fame.
+
+I come, said Hesper, not to insult the brave,
+But break thy sceptre and let loose my wave,
+Teach the proud Stream more peaceful tides to roll,
+And send thee howling to thy stormy pole;
+That drear dominion shall thy rage confine;
+This land, these waters and those troops are mine.
+
+He added not; and now the sable storm,
+Pierced by strong splendor, burst before his form;
+His visage stern an awful lustre shed,
+His pearly planet play'd around his head.
+He seized a lofty pine, whose roots of yore
+Struck deep in earth, to guard the sandy shore
+From hostile ravage of the mining tide,
+That rakes with spoils of earth its crumbling side.
+He wrencht it from the soil, and o'er the foe
+Whirl'd the strong trunk, and aim'd a sweeping blow,
+That sung thro air, but miss'd the moving god,
+And fell wide crashing on the frozen flood.
+For many a rood the shivering ice it tore,
+Loosed every bark and shook the sounding shore;
+Stroke after stroke with doubling force he plied,
+Foil'd the hoar Fiend and pulverized the tide.
+The baffled tyrant quits the desperate cause;
+From Hesper's heat the river swells and thaws,
+The fleet rolls gently to the Jersey coast,
+And morning splendors greet the landing host.
+
+Tis here dread Washington, when first the day
+O'er Trenton beam'd to light his rapid way,
+Pour'd the rude shock on Britain's vanguard train,
+And led whole squadrons in his captive chain;
+Where veteran troops to half their numbers yield,
+Tread back their steps, or press the sanguine field,
+To Princeton plains precipitate their flight,
+Thro new disasters and unfinish'd fight,
+Resign their conquests by one sad surprise,
+Sink in their pride and see their rivals rise.
+
+Here dawn'd the daystar of Hesperia's fame,
+Here herald glory first emblazed her name;
+On Delaware's bank her base of empire stands,
+The work of Washington's immortal hands;
+Prompt at his side while gallant Mercer trod,
+And seal'd the firm foundation with his blood.
+
+In future years, if right the Muse divine,
+Some great memorial on this bank shall shine;
+A column bold its granite shaft shall rear,
+Swell o'er the strand and check the passing air,
+Cast its broad image on the watery glade,
+And Bristol greet the monumental shade;
+Eternal emblem of that gloomy hour,
+When the great general left her storm-beat shore,
+To tempest, night and his own sword consign'd
+His country's fates, the fortunes of mankind.
+
+Where sealike Laurence, rolling in his pride,
+With Ocean's self disputes the tossing tide,
+From shore to shore, thro dim distending skies,
+Beneath full sails imbanded nations rise.
+Britain and Brunswick here their flags unfold,
+Here Hessia's hordes, for toils of slaughter sold,
+Anspach and Darmstadt swell the hireling train,
+Proud Caledonia crowds the masted main,
+Hibernian kerns and Hanoverian slaves
+Move o'er the decks and darken wide the waves.
+
+Tall on the boldest bark superior shone
+A warrior ensign'd with a various crown;
+Myrtles and laurels equal honors join'd,
+Which arms had purchased and the Muses twined;
+His sword waved forward, and his ardent eye
+Seem'd sharing empires in the southern sky.
+Beside him rose a herald to proclaim
+His various honors, titles, feats and fame;
+Who raised an opening scroll, where proudly shone
+_Burgoyne and vengeance from the British throne._
+
+Champlain receives the congregated host,
+And his husht waves beneath the sails are lost;
+Ticonderoga rears his rocks in vain,
+Nor Edward's walls the weighty shock sustain;
+Deep George's loaded lake reluctant guides
+Their bounding barges o'er his sacred tides.
+State after state the splendid pomp appalls,
+Each town surrenders, every fortress falls;
+Sinclair retires; and with his feeble train,
+In slow retreat o'er many a fatal plain,
+Allures their march; wide moves their furious force,
+And flaming hamlets mark their wasting course;
+Thro fortless realms their spreading ranks are wheel'd,
+On Mohawk's wrestern wave, on Bennington's dread field.
+
+At last where Hudson, with majestic pace,
+Swells at the sight, and checks his rapid race,
+Thro dark Stillwater slow and silent moves,
+And flying troops with sullen pause reproves,
+A few firm bands their starry standard rear,
+Wheel, front and face the desolating war.
+Sudden the patriot flame each province warms,
+Deep danger calls, the freemen quit their farms,
+Seize their tried muskets, name their chiefs to lead,
+Endorse their knapsacks and to vengeance speed.
+O'er all the land the kindling ardor flies,
+Troop follows troop, and flags on flags arise,
+Concentred, train'd, their forming files unite,
+Swell into squadrons and demand the fight.
+
+When Xerxes, raving at his sire's disgrace,
+Pour'd his dark millions on the coast of Thrace,
+O'er groaning Hellespont his broad bridge hurl'd,
+Hew'd ponderous Athos from the trembling world,
+Still'd with his weight of ships the struggling main,
+And bound the billows in his boasted chain,
+Wide o'er proud Macedon he wheel'd his course,
+Thrace, Thebes, Thessalia join'd his furious force.
+Thro six torn states his hovering swarms increase,
+And hang tremendous on the skirts of Greece;
+Deep groan the shrines of all her guardian gods,
+Sad Pelion shakes, divine Olympus nods,
+Shock'd Ossa sheds his hundred hills of snow,
+And Tempe swells her murmuring brook below;
+Wild in her starts of rage the Pythian shrieks,
+Dodona's Oak the pangs of nature speaks,
+Eleusis quakes thro all her mystic caves,
+And black Trophonius gapes a thousand graves.
+But soon the freeborn Greeks to vengeance rise,
+Brave Sparta springs where first the danger lies,
+Her self-devoted Band, in one steel'd mass,
+Plunge in the gorge of death, and choke the Pass,
+Athenian youths, the unwieldy war to meet,
+Couch the stiff lance, or mount the well arm'd fleet;
+They sweep the incumber'd seas of their vast load,
+And fat their fields with lakes of Asian blood.
+
+So leapt our youths to meet the invading hordes,
+Fame fired their courage, freedom edged their swords.
+Gates in their van on high-hill'd Bemus rose,
+Waved his blue steel and dared the headlong foes;
+Undaunted Lincoln, laboring on his right,
+Urged every arm, and gave them hearts to fight;
+Starke, at the dexter flank, the onset claims,
+Indignant Herkimer the left inflames;
+He bounds exulting to commence the strife.
+And buy the victory with his barter'd life.
+
+And why, sweet Minstrel, from the harp of fame
+Withhold so long that once resounding name?
+The chief who, steering by the boreal star,
+O'er wild Canadia led our infant war,
+In desperate straits superior powers display'd,
+Burgoyne's dread scourge, Montgomery's ablest aid;
+Ridgefield and Compo saw his valorous might
+With ill-arm'd swains put veteran troops to flight.
+Tho treason foul hath since absorb'd his soul,
+Bade waves of dark oblivion round him roll,
+Sunk his proud heart abhorrent and abhorr'd,
+Effaced his memory and defiled his sword;
+Yet then untarnisht roll'd his conquering car;
+Then famed and foremost in the ranks of war
+Brave Arnold trod; high valor warm'd his breast,
+And beams of glory play'd around his crest.
+Here toils the chief; whole armies from his eye
+Resume their souls, and swift to combat fly.
+
+Camp'd on a hundred hills, and trench'd in form,
+Burgoyne's long legions view the gathering storm;
+Uncounted nations round their general stand,
+And wait the signal from his guiding hand.
+Canadia crowds her Gallic colons there,
+Ontario's yelling tribes torment the air,
+Wild Huron sends his lurking hordes from far,
+Insidious Mohawk swells the woodland war;
+Scalpers and ax-men rush from Erie's shore,
+And Iroquois augments the war whoop roar;
+While all his ancient troops his train supply,
+Half Europe's banners waving thro the sky;
+Deep squadron'd horse support his endless flanks,
+And park'd artillery frowns behind the ranks.
+Flush'd with the conquest of a thousand fields,
+And rich with spoils that all the region yields,
+They burn with zeal to close the long campaign,
+And crush Columbia on this final plain.
+
+His fellow chiefs inhale the hero's flame,
+Nerves of his arm and partners in his fame:
+Phillips, with treasured thunders poised and wheel'd
+In brazen tubes, prepares to rake the field;
+The trench-tops darken with the sable rows,
+And, tipt with fire, the waving match-rope glows.
+There gallant Reidesel in German guise,
+And Specht and Breyman, prompt for action, rise;
+His savage hordes the murderous Johnson leads,
+Files thro the woods and treads the tangled weeds,
+Shuns open combat, teaches where to run,
+Skulk, couch the ambush, aim the hunter's gun,
+Whirl the sly tomahawk, the war whoop sing,
+Divide the spoils and pack the scalps they bring.
+
+Frazer in quest of glory seeks the field;--
+False glare of glory, what hast thou to yield?
+How long, deluding phantom, wilt thou blind,
+Mislead, debase, unhumanize mankind?
+Bid the bold youth, his headlong sword who draws,
+Heed not the object, nor inquire the cause;
+But seek adventuring, like an errant knight,
+Wars not his own, gratuitous in fight,
+Greet the gored field, then plunging thro the fire,
+Mow down his men, with stupid pride expire,
+Shed from his closing eyes the finish'd flame,
+And ask, for all his crimes, a deathless name?
+And when shall solid glory, pure and bright,
+Alone inspire us, and our deeds requite?
+When shall the applause of men their chiefs pursue
+In just proportion to the good they do,
+On virtue's base erect the shrine of fame,
+Define her empire, and her code proclaim?
+
+Unhappy Frazer! little hast thou weigh'd
+The crirneful cause thy valor comes to aid.
+Far from thy native land, thy sire, thy wife,
+Love's lisping race that cling about thy life,
+Thy soul beats high, thy thoughts expanding roam
+On battles past, and laurels yet to come:
+Alas, what laurels? where the lasting gain?
+A pompous funeral on a desert plain!
+The cannon's roar, the muffled drums proclaim,
+In one short blast, thy momentary fame,
+And some war minister per-hazard reads
+In what far field the tool of placemen bleeds.
+
+Brave Heartly strode in youth's o'erweening pride;
+Housed in the camp he left his blooming bride,
+The sweet Lucinda; whom her sire from far,
+On steeds high bounding o'er the waste of war,
+Had guided thro the lines, and hither led,
+That fateful morn, the plighted chief to wed.
+He deem'd, deluded sire! the contest o'er,
+That routed rebels dared the fight no more;
+And came to mingle, as the tumult ceased,
+The victor's triumph with the nuptial feast.
+They reach'd his tent; when now with loud alarms
+The morn burst forth and roused the camp to arms;
+Conflicting passions seized the lover's breast,
+Bright honor call'd, and bright Lucinda prest:--
+And wilt thou leave me for that clangorous call?
+Traced I these deserts but to see thee fall?
+I know thy valorous heart, thy zeal that speeds
+Where dangers press and boldest battle bleeds.
+My father said blest Hymen here should join
+With sacred Love to make Lucinda thine;
+But other union these dire drums foredoom,
+The dark dead union of the eternal tomb.
+On yonder plain, soon sheeted o'er with blood,
+Our nuptial couch shall prove a crimson clod;
+For there this night thy livid corse must lie,
+I'll seek it there, and on that bosom die.
+Yet go; tis duty calls; but o'er thy head
+Let this white plume its floating foliage spread;
+That from the rampart, thro the troubled air,
+These eyes may trace thee toiling in the war.
+She fixt the feather on his crest above,
+Bound with the mystic knot, the knot of love;
+He parted silent, but in silent prayer
+Bade Love and Hymen guard the timorous fair.
+
+Where Saratoga show'd her champaign side,
+That Hudson bathed with still untainted tide,
+The opposing pickets push'd their scouting files,
+Wheel'd skirmisht, halted, practised all their wiles;
+Each to mislead, insnare, exhaust their foes,
+And court the conquest ere the armies close.
+
+Now roll like winged storms the solid lines,
+The clarion thunders and the battle joins,
+Thick flames in vollied flashes load the air,
+And echoing mountains give the noise of war;
+Sulphureous clouds rise reddening round the height,
+And veil the skies, and wrap the sounding fight.
+Soon from the skirts of smoke, where thousands toil,
+Ranks roll away and into light recoil;
+Starke pours upon them in a storm of lead;
+His hosted swains bestrew the field with dead,
+Pierce with strong bayonets the German reins,
+Whelm two battalions in their captive chains,
+Bid Baum, with wounds enfeebled, quit the field,
+And Breyman next his gushing lifeblood yield.
+
+This Frazer sees, and thither turns his course,
+Bears down before them with Britannia's force,
+Wheels a broad column on the victor flank,
+And springs to vengeance thro the foremost rank.
+Lincoln, to meet the hero, sweeps the plain;
+His ready bands the laboring Starke sustain;
+Host matching host, the doubtful battle burns,
+And now the Britons, now their foes by turns
+Regain the ground; till Frazer feels the force
+Of a rude grapeshot in his flouncing horse;
+Nor knew the chief, till struggling from the fall,
+That his gored thigh had first received the ball.
+He sinks expiring on the slippery soil;
+Shock'd at the sight, his baffled troops recoil;
+Where Lincoln, pressing with redoubled might,
+Broke thro their squadrons and confirmed the flight;
+When this brave leader met a stunning blow,
+That stopt his progress and avenged the foe.
+He left the field; but prodigal of life,
+Unwearied Francis still prolong'd the strife;
+Till a chance carabine attained his head,
+And stretch'd the hero mid the vulgar dead.
+His near companions rush with ardent gait,
+Swift to revenge, but soon to share his fate;
+Brown, Adams, Coburn, falling side by side,
+Drench the chill sod with all their vital tide.
+
+Firm on the west bold Herkimer sustains
+The gather'd shock of all Canadia's trains;
+Colons and wildmen post their skulkers there,
+Outflank his pickets and assail his rear,
+Drive in his distant scouts with hideous blare,
+And press, on three sides close, the hovering war.
+Johnson's own shrieks commence the deafening din,
+Rouse every ambush and the storm begin.
+A thousand thickets, thro each opening glen,
+Pour forth their hunters to the chase of men;
+Trunks of huge trees, and rocks and ravines lend
+Unnumber'd batteries and their files defend;
+They fire, they squat, they rise, advance and fly,
+And yells and groans alternate rend the sky.
+The well aim'd hatchet cleaves the helmless head,
+Mute showers of arrows and loud storms of lead
+Rain thick from hands unseen, and sudden fling
+A deep confusion thro the laboring wing.
+
+But Herkimer undaunted quits the stand,
+Breaks in loose files his disencumbered band,
+Wheels on the howling glens each light-arm'd troop,
+And leads himself where Johnson tones his whoop,
+Pours thro his copse a well directed fire;
+The semisavage sees his tribes retire,
+Then follows thro the brush in full horse speed,
+And gains the hilltop where the Hurons lead;
+Here turns his courser; when a grateful sight
+Recals his stragglers, and restrains his flight.
+For Herkimer no longer now sustains
+The loss of blood that his faint vitals drains:
+A ball had pierced him ere he changed his field;
+The slow sure death his prudence had conceal'd,
+Till dark derouted foes should yield to flight,
+And his firm friends could finish well the fight.
+
+Lopt from his horse the hero sinks at last;
+The Hurons ken him, and with hallooing blast
+Shake the vast wilderness; the tribes around
+Drink with broad ears and swell the rending sound,
+Rush back to vengeance with tempestuous might,
+Sweep the long slopes from every neighboring height,
+Full on their check'd pursuers; who regain,
+From all their woods, the first contested plain.
+Here open fight begins; and sure defeat
+Had forced that column to a swift retreat,
+But Arnold, toiling thro the distant smoke,
+Beheld their plight, a small detachment took,
+Bore down behind them with his field-park loud,
+And hail'd his grapeshot thro the savage crowd;
+Strow'd every copse with dead, and chased afar
+The affrighted relics from the skirts of war.
+
+But on the centre swells the heaviest charge,
+The squares develop and the lines enlarge.
+Here Kosciusko's mantling works conceal'd
+His batteries mute, but soon to scour the field;
+Morgan with all his marksmen flanks the foe,
+Hull, Brooks and Courtlandt in the vanguard glow;
+Here gallant Dearborn leads his light-arm'd train,
+Here Scammel towers, here Silly shakes the plain.
+
+Gates guides the onset with his waving brand,
+Assigns their task to each unfolding band,
+Sustains, inspirits, prompts the warrior's rage,
+Now bids the flank and now the front engage,
+Points the stern riflers where their slugs to pour,
+And tells the unmasking batteries when to roar.
+For here impetuous Powell wheels and veers
+His royal guards, his British grenadiers;
+His Highland broadswords cut their wasting course,
+His horse-artillery whirls its furious force.
+Here Specht and Reidesel to battle bring
+Their scattering yagers from each folding wing;
+And here, concentred in tremendous might,
+Britain's whole park, descending to the fight,
+Roars thro the ranks; tis Phillips leads the train,
+And toils and thunders o'er the shuddering plain.
+
+Burgoyne, secure of victory, from his height,
+Eyes the whole field and orders all the fight,
+Marks where his veterans plunge their fiercest fire,
+And where his foes seem halting to retire,
+Already sees the starry staff give way.
+And British ensigns gaining on the day;
+When from the western wing, in steely glare,
+All-conquering Arnold surged the tide of war.
+Columbia kindles as her hero comes;
+Her trump's shrill clangor and her deafening drums
+Redoubling sound the charge; they rage, they burn,
+And hosted Europe trembles in her turn.
+So when Pelides' absence check'd her fate,
+All Ilion issued from her guardian gate;
+Her huddling squadrons like a tempest pour'd,
+Each man a hero and each dart a sword,
+Full on retiring Greece tumultuous fall,
+And Greece reluctant seeks her sheltering wall;
+But Pelius' son rebounding o'er the plain,
+Troy backward starts and seeks her towers again.
+
+Arnold's dread falchion, with terrific sway,
+Rolls on the ranks and rules the doubtful day,
+Confounds with one wide sweep the astonish'd foes,
+And bids at last the scene of slaughter close.
+Pale rout begins, Britannia's broken train
+Tread back their steps and scatter from the plain,
+To their strong camp precipitate retire,
+And wide behind them streams the roaring fire.
+
+Meantime, the skirts of war as Johnson gored,
+His kindred cannibals desert their lord;
+They scour the waste for undistinguish'd prey,
+Howl thro the night the horrors of the day,
+Scalp every straggler from all parties stray'd,
+Each wounded wanderer thro the moonlight glade;
+And while the absent armies give them place,
+Each camp they plunder and each world disgrace.
+
+One deed shall tell what fame great Albion draws
+From these auxiliars in her barbarous cause,
+Lucinda's fate; the tale, ye nations, hear;
+Eternal ages, trace it with a tear.
+Long from the rampart, thro the imbattled field,
+She spied her Heartly where his column wheel'd,
+Traced him with steadfast eye and tortured breast,
+That heaved in concert with his dancing crest;
+And oft, with head advanced and hand outspread,
+Seem'd from her Love to ward the flying lead;
+Till, dimm'd by distance and the gathering cloud;
+At last he vanish'd in the warrior crowd.
+She thought he fell; and wild with fearless air,
+She left the camp to brave the woodland war,
+Made a long circuit, all her friends to shun,
+And wander'd wide beneath the falling sun;
+Then veering to the field, the pickets past,
+To gain the hillock where she miss'd him last.
+Fond maid, he rests not there; from finish'd fight
+He sought the camp, and closed the rear of flight.
+
+He hurries to his tent;--oh rage! despair!
+No glimpse, no tidings of the frantic fair;
+Save that some carmen, as acamp they drove,
+Had seen her coursing for the western grove.
+Faint with fatigue and choked with burning thirst,
+Forth from his friends with bounding leap he burst,
+Vaults o'er the palisade with eyes on flame,
+And fills the welkin with Lucinda's name,
+Swift thro the wild wood paths phrenetic springs,--
+Lucind! Lucinda! thro the wild wood rings.
+All night he wanders; barking wolves alone
+And screaming night-birds answer to his moan;
+For war had roused them from their savage den;
+They scent the field, they snuff the walks of men.
+
+The fair one too, of every aid forlorn,
+Had raved and wander'd, till officipus morn
+Awaked the Mohawks from their short repose,
+To glean the plunder, ere their comrades rose.
+Two Mohawks met the maid,--historian, hold!--
+Poor Human Nature! must thy shame be told?
+Where then that proud preeminence of birth,
+Thy Moral Sense? the brightest boast of earth.
+Had but the tiger changed his heart for thine,
+Could rocks their bowels with that heart combine,
+Thy tear had gusht, thy hand relieved her pain,
+And led Lucinda to her lord again.
+
+She starts, with eyes upturn'd and fleeting breath,
+In their raised axes views her instant death,
+Spreads her white hands to heaven in frantic prayer,
+Then runs to grasp their knees, and crouches there.
+Her hair, half lost along the shrubs she past,
+Rolls in loose tangles round her lovely waist;
+Her kerchief torn betrays the globes of snow
+That heave responsive to her weight of woe.
+Does all this eloquence suspend the knife?
+Does no superior bribe contest her life?
+There does: the scalps by British gold are paid;
+A long-hair'd scalp adorns that heavenly head;
+Arid comes the sacred spoil from friend or foe,
+No marks distinguish, and no man can know.
+
+With calculating pause and demon grin,
+They seize her hands, and thro her face divine
+Drive the descending ax; the shriek she sent
+Attain'd her lover's ear; he thither bent
+With all the speed his wearied limbs could yield,
+Whirl'd his keen blade, and stretch'd upon the field
+The yelling fiends; who there disputing stood
+Her gory scalp, their horrid prize of blood.
+He sunk delirious on her lifeless clay,
+And past, in starts of sense, the dreadful day.
+
+Are these thy trophies, Carleton! these the swords
+Thy hand unsheath'd and gave the savage hordes,
+Thy boasted friends, by treaties brought from far,
+To aid thy master in his murderous war?
+
+But now Britannia's chief, with proud disdain
+Coop'd in his camp, demands the field again.
+Back to their fate his splendid host he drew,
+Swell'd high their rage, and led the charge anew;
+Again the batteries roar, the lightnings play,
+Again they fall, again they roll away;
+For now Columbia, with rebounding might,
+Foil'd quick their columns, but confined their flight.
+Her wings, like fierce tornados, gyring ran,
+Crusht their wide flanks and gain'd their flying van;
+Here Arnold charged; the hero storm'd and pour'd
+A thousand thunders where he turn'
+No pause, no parley; onward far he fray'd,
+Dispersed whole squadrons every bound he made,
+Broke thro their rampart, seized theircampand stores
+And pluck'd the standard from their broken towers.
+
+Aghast, confounded in the midway field,
+They drop their arms; the banded nations yield.
+When sad Burgoyne, in one disastrous day,
+Sees future crowns and former wreaths decay,
+His banners furl'd, his long battalions wheel'd
+To pile their muskets on the battle field;
+While two pacific armies shade one plain,
+The mighty victors and the captive train.
+
+
+
+
+Book VII.
+
+
+
+
+Argument.
+
+
+    Coast of France rises in vision. Louis, to humble the British power,
+    forms an alliance with the American states. This brings France, Spain
+    and Holland into the war, and rouses Hyder Ally to attack the English
+    in India. The vision returns to America, where the military operations
+    continue with various success. Battle of Monmouth. Storming of
+    Stonypoint by Wayne. Actions of Lincoln, and surrender of Charleston.
+    Movements of Cornwallis. Actions of Greene, and battle of Eutaw. French
+    army arrives, and joins the American. They march to besiege the English
+    army of Cornwallis in York and Gloster. Naval battle of Degrasse and
+    Graves. Two of their ships grappled and blown up. Progress of the
+    siege. A citadel mined and blown up. Capture of Cornwallis and his
+    army. Their banners furled and muskets piled on the field of battle.
+
+
+Thus view'd the Pair; when lo, in eastern skies,
+From glooms unfolding, Gallia's coasts arise.
+Bright o'er the scenes of state a golden throne,
+Instarr'd with gems and hung with purple, shone;
+Young Bourbon there in royal splendor sat,
+And fleets and moving armies round him wait.
+For now the contest, with increased alarms,
+Fill'd every court and roused the world to arms;
+As Hesper's hand, that light from darkness brings,
+And good to nations from the scourge of kings,
+In this dread hour bade broader beams unfold,
+And the new world illuminate the old.
+
+In Europe's realms a school of sages trace
+The expanding dawn that waits the Reasoning Race;
+On the bright Occident they fix their eyes,
+Thro glorious toils where struggling nations rise;
+Where each firm deed, each new illustrious name
+Calls into light a field of nobler fame:
+A field that feeds their hope, confirms the plan
+Of well poized freedom and the weal of man.
+They scheme, they theorize, expand their scope,
+Glance o'er Hesperia to her utmost cope;
+Where streams unknown for other oceans stray,
+Where suns unseen their waste of beams display,
+Where sires of unborn nations claim their birth,
+And ask their empires in those wilds of earth.
+While round all eastern climes, with painful eye,
+In slavery sunk they see the kingdoms lie,
+Whole states exhausted to enrich a throne,
+Their fruits untasted and their rights unknown;
+Thro tears of grief that speak the well taught mind,
+They hail the aera that relieves mankind.
+
+Of these the first, the Gallic sages stand,
+And urge their king to lift an aiding hand.
+The cause of humankind their souls inspired,
+Columbia's wrongs their indignation fired;
+To share her fateful deeds their counsel moved,
+To base in practice what in theme they proved:
+That no proud privilege from birth can spring,
+No right divine, nor compact form a king;
+That in the people dwells the sovereign sway,
+Who rule by proxy, by themselves obey;
+That virtues, talents are the test of awe,
+And Equal Rights the only source of law.
+Surrounding heroes wait the monarch's word,
+In foreign fields to draw the patriot sword,
+Prepared with joy to join those infant powers,
+Who build republics on the western shores.
+
+By honest guile the royal ear they bend,
+And lure him on, blest Freedom to defend;
+That, once recognised, once establisht there,
+The world might learn her profer'd boon to share.
+But artful arguments their plan disguise,
+Garb'd in the gloss that suits a monarch's eyes.
+By arms to humble Britain's haughty power,
+From her to sever that extended shore,
+Contents his utmost wish. For this he lends
+His powerful aid, and calls the opprest his friends.
+The league proposed, he lifts his arm to save,
+And speaks the borrow'd language of the brave:
+
+Ye states of France, and ye of rising name
+Who work those distant miracles of fame,
+Hear and attend; let heaven the witness bear,
+We wed the cause, we join the righteous war.
+Let leagues eternal bind each friendly land,
+Given by our voice, and stablisht by our hand;
+Let that brave people fix their infant sway,
+And spread their blessings with the bounds of day.
+Yet know, ye nations; hear, ye Powers above,
+Our purposed aid no views of conquest move;
+In that young world revives no ancient claim
+Of regions peopled by the Gallic name;
+Our envied bounds, already stretch'd afar,
+Nor ask the sword, nor fear encroaching war;
+But virtue, coping with the tyrant power
+That drenches earth in her best children's gore,
+With nature's foes bids former compact cease;
+We war reluctant, and our wish is peace;
+For man's whole race the sword of France we draw;
+Such is our will, and let our will be law.
+
+He spoke; his moving armies veil'd the plain,
+His fleets rode bounding on the western main;
+O'er lands and seas the loud applauses rung,
+And war and union dwelt on every tongue.
+
+The other Bourbon caught the splendid strain,
+To Gallia's arms he joins the powers of Spain;
+Their sails assemble; Crillon lifts the sword,
+Minorca bows and owns her ancient lord.
+But while dread Elliott shakes the Midland wave,
+They strive in vain the Calpian rock to brave.
+Batavia's states with equal speed prepare
+Thro western isles to meet the naval war;
+For Albion there rakes rude the tortured main,
+And foils the force of Holland, France and Spain.
+
+Where old Indostan still perfumes the skies,
+To furious strife his ardent myriads rise;
+Fierce Hyder there, unconquerably bold,
+Bids a new flag its horned moons unfold,
+Spreads o'er Carnatic kings his splendid force,
+And checks the Britons in their waiting course.
+
+Europe's pacific powers their counsels join,
+The laws of trade to settle and define.
+The imperial Moscovite around him draws
+Each Baltic state to join the righteous cause;
+Whose arm'd Neutrality the way prepares
+To check the ravages of future wars;
+Till by degrees the wasting sword shall cease,
+And commerce lead to universal peace.
+
+Thus all the ancient world with anxious eyes
+Enjoy the lights that gild Atlantic skies,
+Wake to new life, assume a borrow'd flame,
+Enlarge the lustre and partake the fame.
+So mounts of ice, that polar heavens invade,
+Tho piled unseen thro night's long wintry shade.
+When morn at last illumes their glaring throne,
+Give back the day and imitate the sun.
+
+But still Columbus, on his war-beat shore,
+Sees Albion's fleets her new battalions pour;
+The states unconquer'd still their terrors wield,
+And stain with mingled gore the embattled field.
+On Pennsylvania's various plains they move,
+And adverse armies equal slaughter prove;
+Columbia mourns her Nash in combat slain,
+Britons around him press the gory plain;
+Skirmish and cannonade and distant fire
+Each power diminish and each nation tire.
+Till Howe from fruitless toil demands repose,
+And leaves despairing in a land of foes
+His wearied host; who now, to reach their fleet,
+O'er Jersey hills commence their long retreat,
+Tread back the steps their chief had led before,
+And ask in vain the late abandon'd shore,
+Where Hudson meets, the main; for on their rear
+Columbia moves; and checks their swift career.
+
+But where green Monmouth lifts his grassy height,
+They halt, they face, they dare the coming fight.
+Howe's proud successor, Clinton, hosting there,
+To tempt once more the desperate chance of war,
+Towers at their head, in hopes to work relief,
+And mend the errors of his former chief.
+Here shines his day; and here with loud acclaim
+Begins and ends his little task of fame.
+He vaults before them with his balanced blade,
+Wheels the bright van, and forms the long parade;
+Where Britons, Hessians crowd the glittering field,
+And all their powers for ready combat wield.
+As the dim sun, beneath the skirts of even,
+Crimsons the clouds that sail the western heaven;
+So, in red wavy rows, where spread the train
+Of men and standards, shone the fateful plain.
+
+They shone, till Washington obscured their light,
+And his long ranks roll'd forward to the fight.
+He points the charge; the mounted thunders roar,
+And rake the champaign to the distant shore.
+Above the folds of smoke that veil the war,
+His guiding sword illumes the fields of air;
+And vollied flames, bright bursting o'er the plain,
+Break the brown clouds, discovering far the slain:
+Till flight begins; the smoke is roll'd away,
+And the red standards open into day.
+Britons and Germans hurry from the field,
+Now wrapt in dust, and now to sight reveal'd;
+Behind, swift Washington his falchion drives,
+Thins the pale ranks, but saves submissive lives.
+Hosts captive bow and move behind his arm,
+And hosts before him wing the sounding storm;
+When the glad sea salutes their fainting sight,
+And Albion's fleet wide thundering aids their flight;
+They steer to sad Newyork their hasty way,
+And rue the toils of Monmouth's mournful day.
+
+But Hudson still, with his interior tide,
+Laves a rude rock that bears Britannia's pride,
+Swells round the headland with indignant roar,
+And mocks her thunders from his murmuring shore;
+When a firm cohort starts from Peekskill plain,
+To crush the invaders and the post regain.
+Here, gallant Hull, again thy sword is tried,
+Meigs, Fleury, Butler, laboring side by side,
+Wayne takes the guidance, culls the vigorous band,
+Strikes out the flint, and bids the nervous hand
+Trust the mute bayonet and midnight skies,
+To stretch o'er craggy walls the dark surprise.
+With axes, handspikes on the shoulder hung,
+And the sly watchword whisper'd from the tongue,
+Thro different paths the silent march they take,
+Plunge, climb the ditch, the palisado break,
+Secure each sentinel, each picket shun,
+Grope the dim postern where the byways run.
+Soon the roused garrison perceives its plight;
+Small time to rally and no means of flight,
+They spring confused to every post they know,
+Point their poized cannon where they hear the foe,
+Streak the dark welkin with the flames they pour,
+And rock the mountain with convulsive roar.
+
+The swift assailants still no fire return,
+But, tow'rd the batteries that above them burn,
+Climb hard from crag to crag; and scaling higher
+They pierce the long dense canopy of fire
+That sheeted all the sky; then rush amain,
+Storm every outwork, each dread summit gain,
+Hew timber'd gates, the sullen drawbridge fall,
+File thro and form within the sounding wall.
+The Britons strike their flag, the fort forgo,
+Descend sad prisoners to the plain below.
+A thousand veterans, ere the morning rose,
+Received their handcuffs from five hundred foes;
+And Stonypoint beheld, with dawning day,
+His own starr'd standard on his rampart play.
+
+From sack'd Savanna, whelm'd in hostile fires,
+A few raw troops brave Lincoln now retires; 2l
+With rapid march to suffering Charleston goes,
+To meet the myriads of concentring foes,
+Who shade the pointed strand. Each fluvial flood
+Their gathering fleets and floating batteries load,
+Close their black sails, debark the amphibious host,
+And with their moony anchors fang the coast.
+
+The bold beleaguer'd post the hero gains,
+And the hard siege with various fate sustains.
+Cornwallis, towering at the British van,
+In these fierce toils his wild career began;
+He mounts the forky streams, and soon bestrides
+The narrow neck that parts converging tides,
+Sinks the deep trench, erects the mantling tower,
+Lines with strong forts the desolated shore,
+Hems on all sides the long unsuccour'd place,
+With mines and parallels contracts the space;
+Then bids the battering floats his labors crown,
+And pour their bombard on the shuddering town.
+
+High from the decks the mortar's bursting fires
+Sweep the full streets, and splinter down the spires.
+Blaze-trailing fuses vault the night's dim round,
+And shells and langrage lacerate the ground;
+Till all the tented plain, where heroes tread,
+Is torn with crags and cover'd with the dead.
+Each shower of flames renews the townsmen's woe,
+They wail the fight, they dread the cruel foe.
+Matrons in crowds, while tears bedew their charms,
+Babes at their sides and infants in their arms,
+Press round their Lincoln and his hand implore,
+To save them trembling from the tyrant's power.
+He shares their anguish with a moistening eye,
+And bids the balls rain thicker thro the sky;
+Tries every aid that art and valor yield,
+The sap, the countermine, the battling field,
+The bold sortie, by famine urged afar,
+That dreadful daughter of earth-wasting War.
+But vain the conflict now; on all the shore
+The foes in fresh brigades around him pour;
+He yields at last the well contested prize,
+And freedom's banners quit the southern skies.
+
+The victor Britons soon the champaign tread,
+And far anorth their fire and slaughter spread;
+Thro fortless realms, where unarm'd peasants fly,
+Cornwallis bears his bloody standard high;
+O'er Carolina rolls his growing force,
+And thousands fall and thousands aid his course;
+While in his march athwart the wide domain,
+Colonial dastards join his splendid train.
+So mountain streams thro slopes of melting snow
+Swell their foul waves and flood the world below.
+
+Awhile the Patriarch saw, with heaving sighs,
+These crimson flags insult the saddening skies,
+Saw desolation whelm his favorite coast,
+His children scattered and their vigor lost,
+Dekalb in furious combat press the plain,
+Morgan and Smallwood every shock sustain,
+Gates, now no more triumphant, quit the field,
+Indignant Davidson his lifeblood yield,
+Blount, Gregory, Williamson, with souls of fire
+But slender force, from hill to hill retire;
+When Greene in lonely greatness takes the ground,
+And bids at last the trump of vengeance sound.
+
+A few firm patriots to the chief repair,
+Raise the star standard and demand the war.
+But o'er the regions as he turns his eyes,
+What foes develop! and what forts arise!
+Rawdon with rapid marches leads their course,
+From state to state Cornwallis whirls their force,
+Impetuous Tarleton like a torrent pours,
+And fresh battalions land along the shores;
+Where, now resurgent from his captive chain,
+Phillips wide storming shakes the field again;
+And traitor Arnold, lured by plunder o'er,
+Joins the proud powers his valor foil'd before.
+
+Greene views the tempest with collected soul,
+Arid fates of empires in his bosom roll;
+So small his force, where shall he lift the steel?
+(Superior hosts o'er every canton wheel)
+Or how behold their wanton carnage spread,
+Himself stand idle and his country bleed?
+Fixt in a moment's pause the general stood,
+And held his warriors from the field of blood;
+Then points the British legions where to steer,
+Marks to their chief a rapid wild career,
+Wide o'er Virginia lets him foeless roam,
+To search for pillage and to find his doom,
+With short-lived glory feeds his sateless flame,
+But leaves the victory to a nobler name,
+Gives to great Washington to meet his way,
+Nor claims the honors of so bright a day.
+
+Now to the conquer'd south he turns his force,
+Renerves the nation by his rapid course;
+Forts fall around him, hosts before him fly,
+And captive bands his growing train supply;
+A hundred leagues of coast, in one campaign,
+Return reconquer'd to their lords again.
+At last Britannia's vanguard, near the strand,
+Veers on her foe to make one vigorous stand.
+Her gallant Stuart here amass'd from far
+The veteran legions of the Georgian war,
+To aid her hard-pusht powers, and quick restore
+The British name to that extended shore.
+He checks their flight, and chooses well their field,
+Flank'd with a marsh, by lofty woods concealed;
+Where Eutaw's fountains, tinged of old with gore,
+Still murmuring swell'd amid the bones they bore,
+Destined again to foul their pebbly stream,
+The mournful monuments of human fame;
+There Albion's columns, ranged in order bright,
+Stand like a fiery wall and wait the shock of fight.
+
+Swift on the neighboring hill as Greene arose,
+He view'd, with rapid glance, the glittering foes,
+Disposed for combat all his ardent train,
+To charge, change front, each echelon sustain;
+Roused well their rage, superior force to prove,
+Waved his bright blade and bade the onset move.
+As hovering clouds, when morning beams arise,
+Hang their red curtains round our eastern skies,
+Unfold a space to hail the promised sun,
+And catch their splendors from his rising throne;
+Thus glow'd the opposing fronts, whose steely glare
+Glanced o'er the shuddering interval of war.
+
+From Albion's left the cannonade began,
+And pour'd thick thunders on Hesperia's van,
+Forced in her dexter guards, that skirmisht wide
+To prove what powers the forest hills might hide;
+They break, fall back, with measured quickstep tread,
+Form close, and flank the solid squares they led.
+Now roll, with kindling haste, the long stark lines,
+From wing to wing the sounding battle joins;
+Batteries and field-parks and platoons of fire,
+In mingled shocks their roaring blasts exspire.
+Each front approaching fast, with equal pace,
+Devours undaunted their dividing space;
+Till, dark beneath the smoke, the meeting ranks
+Slope their strong bayonets, with short firm shanks
+Protruded from their tubes; each bristling van,
+Steel fronting steel, and man encountering man,
+In dreadful silence tread. As, wrapt from sight,
+The nightly ambush moves to secret fight;
+So rush the raging files, and sightless close
+In plunging thrust with fierce conflicting foes.
+They reach, they strike, they stagger o'er the slain,
+Deal doubtful blows, or closing clench their man,
+Intwine their twisting limbs, the gun forgo,
+Wrench off the bayonet and dirk the foe;
+Then struggling back, reseize the musket bare,
+Club the broad breech, and headlong whirl to war
+Ranks crush on ranks with equal slaughter gored;
+Warm dripping streams from every lifted sword
+Stain the thin carnaged corps who still maintain,
+With mutual shocks, the vengeance of the plain.
+At last where Williams fought and Campbell fell,
+Unwonted strokes the British line repel.
+The rout begins; the shattered wings afar
+Roll back in haste and scatter from the war;
+They drop their arms, they scour the marshy field,
+Whole squadrons fall and faint battalions yield.
+
+The great Observer, fixt in his midsky,
+View'd the whole combat, saw them fall and fly:
+He mark'd where Greene with every onset drove,
+Saw death and victory with his presence move,
+Beneath his arm saw Marion, Sumter, Gaine,
+Pickens and Sumner shake the astonish'd plain;
+He saw young Washington, the child of fame,
+Preserve in fight the honors of his name.
+Lee, Jackson, Hampton, Pinckney, matcht in might,
+Roll'd on the storm and hurried fast the flight:
+While numerous chiefs, that equal trophies raise,
+Wrought, not unseen, the deeds of deathless praise.
+
+As Europe now the newborn states beheld
+The shock sustain of many a hard-fought field;
+Swift o'er the main, with high-spread sails, advance
+Our brave auxiliars from the coast of France.
+On the tall decks their curious chiefs explore,
+With optic tube, our camp-encumber'd shore;
+And, as the lessening wave behind them flies,
+Wide scenes of conflict open on their eyes.
+Rochambeau foremost with his gleamy brand
+Points to each field and singles every band,
+Sees Washington the power of nations guide,
+And longs to toil and conquer by his side.
+Two brother chiefs, Viominil the name,
+Brothers in birth but twins in generous fame,
+Behold with steadfast eye the plains disclose,
+Uncase their arms and claim the promised foes.
+Biron, beneath his sail, in armor bright,
+Frown'd o'er the wave impatient for the fight;
+A fiery steed beside the hero stood,
+And his blue blade waved forward o'er the crowd.
+
+With eager haste descending on the coast,
+Thro the glad states they march their veteran host,
+From sea-nursed Newport file o'er western roads,
+Pitch many a camp, and bridge a hundred floods,
+Pass the full towns, where joyful crowds admire
+Their foreign speech, gay mien and gilt attire,
+Applaud their generous deeds, the zeal that draws
+Their swords untried in freedom's doubtful cause.
+Thro Hartford plains, on Litchfield hills they gleam,
+Wave their white flags o'er Hudson's loaded stream,
+Band after band with Delaware's current pour,
+Shade Schuylkill's wave and Elk's indented shore,
+Join their new friends, where allied banners lead,
+Demand the foe and bid the war proceed.
+
+Again Columbus turn'd his anxious eye
+Where Britain's banner waved along the sky;
+And, graced with spoils of many fields of blood,
+Cornwallis boastful on a bulwark stood.
+Where York and Gloster's rocky towers bestride
+Their parent stream, Virginia's midmost tide,
+He camp'd his hundred nations, to regain
+Their force, exhausted in the long campaign;
+Paused for a moment on a scene so vast,
+To plan the future and review the past.
+Thro vanquisht provinces and towns in flame
+He mark'd his recent monuments of fame,
+His checker'd marches, long and various toils,
+And camp well stored with wide collected spoils.
+
+High glittering to the sun his hands unfold
+A map new drafted on a sheet of gold;
+There in delusive haste his burin graved
+A country conquer'd and a race enslaved.
+Its middle realm, by fairer figures known
+And rich with fruits, lay bounded for his own;
+Deep thro the centre spreads a branching bay,
+Full sails ascend and golden rivers stray;
+Bright palaces arise relieved in gold,
+And gates and streets the crossing lines unfold.
+James furrows o'er the plate with turgid tide,
+Young Richmond roughens on his masted side;
+Reviving Norfolk from her ashes springs,
+A golden phoenix on refulgent wings;
+Potowmak's yellow waves reluctant spread,
+And Vernon rears his rich and radiant head,
+Tis here the chief his pointed graver stays,
+The bank to burnish with a purer blaze,
+Gives all his art, on this bright hill to trace
+His future seat and glory of his race;
+Deems his long line of lords the realm shall own,
+The kings predestined to Columbia's throne.
+
+But while his mind thus quafft its airy food,
+And gazing thousands round the rampart stood,
+Whom future ease and golden dreams employ,
+The songs of triumph and the feast of joy;
+Sudden great Washington arose in view,
+And allied flags his stately steps pursue;
+Gaul's veteran host and young Hesperia's pride
+Bend the long march concentring at his side,
+Stream over Chesapeak, like sheets of flame,
+And drive tempestuous to the field of fame.
+
+Far on the wild expanse, where ocean lies,
+And scorns all confines but incumbent skies,
+Scorns to retain the imprinted paths of men
+To guide their wanderings or direct their ken;
+Where warring vagrants, raging as they go,
+Ask of the stars their way to find the foe,
+Columbus saw two hovering fleets advance,
+And rival ensigns o'er their pinions dance.
+Graves, on the north, with Albion's flag unfurl'd,
+Waves proud defiance to the watery world;
+Degrasse, from southern isles, conducts his train,
+And shades with Gallic sheets the moving main.
+
+Now Morn, unconscious of the coming fray
+That soon shall storm the crystal cope of day,
+Glows o'er the heavens, and with her orient breeze
+Fans her fair face and curls the summer seas.
+The swelling sails, as far as eye can sweep,
+Look thro the skies and awe the shadowy deep,
+Lead their long bending lines; and, ere they close,
+To count, recognise, circumvent their foes,
+Each hauls his wind, the weathergage to gain
+And master all the movements of the plain;
+Or bears before the breeze with loftier gait,
+And, beam to beam, begins the work of fate.
+
+As when the warring winds, from each far pole,
+Their adverse storms across the concave roll,
+Thin fleecy vapors thro the expansion run,
+Veil the blue vault and tremble o'er the sun,
+Till the dark folding wings together drive,
+And, ridged with fire and rock'd with thunder, strive;
+So, hazing thro the void, at first appear
+White clouds of canvass floating on the air,
+Then frown the broad black decks, the sails are stay'd,
+The gaping portholes cast a frightful shade,
+Flames, triple tier'd, and tides of smoke, arise.
+And fulminations rock the seas and skies.
+
+From van to rear the roaring deluge runs,
+The storm disgorging from a thousand guns,
+Each like a vast volcano, spouting wide
+His hissing hell-dogs o'er the shuddering tide,
+Whirls high his chainshot, cleaves the mast and strews
+The shiver'd fragments on the staggering foes;
+Whose gunwale sides with iron globes are gored,
+And a wild storm of splinters sweeps the board.
+Husht are the winds of heaven; no more the gale
+Breaks the red rolls of smoke nor flaps the sail;
+A dark dead calm continuous cloaks the glare,
+And holds the clouds of sulphur on the war,
+Convolving o'er the space that yawns and shines,
+With frequent flash, between the laboring lines.
+Nor sun nor sea nor skyborn lightning gleams,
+But flaming Phlegethon's asphaltic steams
+Streak the long gaping gulph; where varying glow
+Carbonic curls above, blue flakes of fire below.
+
+Hither two hostile ships to contact run,
+Both grappling, board to board and gun to gun;
+Each thro the adverse ports their contents pour,
+Rake the lower decks, the interior timbers bore,
+Drive into chinks the illumined wads unseen,
+Whose flames approach the unguarded magazine.
+Above, with shrouds afoul and gunwales mann'd,
+Thick halberds clash; and, closing hand to hand,
+The huddling troops, infuriate from despair,
+Tug at the toils of death, and perish there;
+Grenados, carcasses their fragments spread,
+And pikes and pistols strow the decks with dead.
+Now on the Gallic board the Britons rush,
+The intrepid Gauls the rash adventurers crush;
+And now, to vengeance Stung, with frantic air,
+Back on the British maindeck roll the war.
+There swells the carnage; all the tar-beat floor
+Is clogg'd with spatter'd brains and glued with gore;
+And down the ship's black waist fresh brooks of blood
+Course o'er their clots, and tinge the sable flood.
+Till War, impatient of the lingering strife
+That tires and slackens with the waste of life,
+Opes with engulphing gape the astonish'd wave,
+And whelms the combat whole, in one vast grave.
+For now the imprison'd powder caught the flames,
+And into atoms whirl'd the monstrous frames
+Of both the entangled ships; the vortex wide
+Roars like an AEtna thro the belching tide,
+And blazing into heaven, and bursting high,
+Shells, carriages and guns obstruct the sky;
+Cords, timbers, trunks of men the welkin sweep,
+And fall on distant ships, or shower along the deep.
+
+The matcht armadas still the fight maintain,
+But cautious, distant; lest the staggering main
+Drive their whole lines afoul, and one dark day
+Glut the proud ocean with too rich a prey.
+At last, where scattering fires the cloud disclose,
+Hulls heave in sight and blood the decks o'erflows;
+Here from the field tost navies rise to view,
+Drive hack to vengeance and the roar renew,
+There shatter'd ships commence their flight afar,
+Tow'd thro the smoke, hard struggling from the war;
+And some, half seen amid the gaping wave,
+Plunge in the whirl they make, and gorge their grave.
+
+Soon the dark smoky volumes roll'd away,
+And a long line ascended into day;
+The pinions swell'd, Britannia's cross arose
+And flew the terrors of triumphing foes;
+When to Virginia's bay, new shocks to brave,
+The Gallic powers their conquering banners wave.
+Glad Chesapeak unfolds his bosom wide,
+And leads their prows to York's contracting tide;
+Where still dread Washington directs his way,
+And seas and continents his voice obey;
+While brave Cornwallis, mid the gathering host,
+Perceives his glories gone, his promised empire lost.
+
+Columbus here with silent joy beheld
+His favorite sons the fates of nations wield.
+Here joyous Lincoln rose in arms again,
+Nelson and Knox moved ardent o'er the plain;
+Scammel alert with force unusual trod,
+Prepared to seal their victory with his blood;
+Cobb, Dearborn, Laurens, Tilghman, green in years
+But ripe in glory, tower'd amid their peers;
+Death-daring Hamilton with splendor shone,
+And claim'd each post of danger for his own,
+Skill'd every arm in war's whole hell to wield,
+An Ithacus in camp, an Ajax in the field.
+
+Their Gallic friends an equal ardor fires;
+Brisk emulation every troop inspires:
+Where Tarleton turns, with hopes of flight elate,
+Brave Biron moves and drives him back to fate,
+Hems in his host, to wait, on Gloster plains,
+Their finish'd labors and their destined chains.
+
+Two British forts the growing siege outflank,
+Rake its wide works and awe the tide-beat bank;
+Swift from the lines two chosen bands advance,
+Our light-arm'd scouts, the grenadiers of France;
+These young Viominil conducts to fame,
+And those Fayette's unerring guidance claim.
+No cramm'd cartouch their belted back attires,
+No grains of sleeping thunder wait their fires;
+The flint, the ramrod spurn'd, away they cast;
+The strong bright bayonet, imbeaded fast,
+Stands beaming from the bore; with this they tread,
+Nor heed from high-wall'd foes their showers of lead.
+Each rival band, tho wide and distant far,
+Springs simultaneous to this task of war;
+For here a twofold force each hero draws,
+His own proud country and the general cause;
+And each with twofold energy contends,
+His foes to vanquish and outstrip his friends.
+They summon all their zeal, and wild and warm
+O'er flaming ramparts pour the maddening storm,
+The mounted cannons crush, and lead the foe
+Two trains of captives to the plain below;
+An equal prize each gallant troop ameeds,
+Alike their numbers and alike their deeds.
+
+A strong high citadel still thundering stood,
+And stream'd her standard o'er the field of blood,
+Check'd long the siege with fulminating blare,
+Scorn'd all the steel and every globe of war,
+Defied fell famine, heapt her growing store,
+And housed in bombproof all the host she bore.
+No rude assault can stretch the scale so high,
+In vain the battering siege-guns round her ply;
+Mortars well poized their deafening deluge rain,
+Load the red skies and shake the shores in vain;
+Her huge rock battlements rebound the blow,
+And roll their loose crags on the men below.
+
+But while the fusing fireballs scorch the sky,
+Their mining arts the staunch besiegers ply,
+Delve from the bank of York, and gallery far,
+Deep subterranean, to the mount of war;
+Beneath the ditch, thro rocks and fens they go,
+Scoop the dark chamber plumb beneath the foe;
+There lodge their tons of powder and retire,
+Mure the dread passage, wave the fatal fire,
+Send a swift messenger to warn the foe
+To seek his safety and the post forgo.
+A taunting answer comes; he dares defy
+To spring the mine and all its AEtnas try;
+When a black miner seized the sulphur'd brand,
+Shriek'd high for joy, and with untrembling hand
+Touch'd quick the insidious train; lest here the chief
+Should change his counsel and afford relief:
+For hard the general's task, to speak the doom
+That sends a thousand heroes to the tomb;
+Heroes who know no wrong; who thoughtless speed
+Where kings command or where their captains lead,
+--Burst with the blast, the reeling mountain roars,
+Heaves, labors, boils, and thro the concave pours
+His flaming contents high; he chokes the air
+With all his warriors and their works of war;
+Guns, bastions, magazines confounded fly,
+Vault wide their fresh explosions o'er the sky,
+Encumber each far camp, and plough profound
+With their rude fragments every neighboring ground.
+
+Britain's brave leader, where he sought repose,
+And deem'd his hill-fort still repulsed the foes,
+Starts at the astounding earthquake, and descries
+His chosen veterans whirling down the skies.
+Their mangled members round his balcon fall,
+Scorch'd in the flames, and dasht on every wall:
+Sad field of contemplation! Here, ye great,
+Kings, priests of God, and ministers of state,
+Review your system here! behold and scan
+Your own fair deeds, your benefits to man!
+You will not leave him to his natural toil,
+To tame these elements and till the soil.
+To reap, share, tithe you what his hand has sown,
+Enjoy his treasures and increase your own,
+Build up his virtues on the base design'd,
+The well-toned harmonies of humankind.
+You choose to check his toil, and band his eyes
+To all that's honest and to all that's wise;
+Lure with false fame, false morals and false lore,
+To barter fields of corn for fields of gore,
+To take by bands what single thieves would spare,
+And methodise his murders into war.
+
+Now the prest garrison fresh danger warms;
+They rush impetuous to each post of arms,
+Man the long trench, each embrasure sustain,
+And pour their langrage on the allied train;
+Whose swift approaches, crowding on the line,
+Each wing envelop and each front confine.
+O'er all sage Washington his arm extends,
+Points every movement, every work defends,
+Bids closer quarters, bloodier strokes proceed,
+New batteries blaze and heavier squadrons bleed.
+Line within line fresh parallels enclose;
+Here runs a zigzag, there a mantlet grows,
+Round the pent foe approaching breastworks rise,
+And bombs, like meteors, vault the flaming skies.
+Night, with her hovering wings, asserts in vain
+The shades, the silence of her rightful reign;
+High roars her canopy with fiery flakes,
+And War stalks wilder thro the glare he makes.
+
+With dire dismay the British chief beheld
+The foe advance, his veterans shun the field,
+Despair and slaughter where he turns his eye,
+No hope in combat and no power to fly;
+Degrasse victorious shakes the shadowy tide,
+Imbodied nations all the champaign hide,
+Fosses and batteries, growing on the sight,
+Still pour new thunders and increase the fight;
+Shells rain before him, rending every mound,
+Crags, gunstones, balls o'erturn the tented ground,
+From post to post his driven ranks retire,
+The earth in crimson and the skies on fire.
+
+Death wantons proud in this decisive round,
+For here his hand its favorite victim found;
+Brave Scammel perisht here. Ah! short, my friend,
+Thy bright career, but glorious to its end.
+Go join thy Warren's ghost, your fates compare,
+His that commenced, with thine that closed the war;
+Freedom, with laurel'd brow but tearful eyes,
+Bewails her first and last, her twinlike sacrifice.
+
+Now grateful truce suspends the burning war,
+And groans and shouts promiscuous load the air;
+When the tired Britons, where the smokes decay,
+Quit their strong station and resign the day.
+Slow files along the immeasurable train,
+Thousands on thousands redden all the plain,
+Furl their torn bandrols, all their plunder yield.
+And pile their muskets on the battle field.
+Their wide auxiliar nations swell the crowd,
+And the coop'd navies, from the neighboring flood,
+Repeat surrendering signals, and obey
+The landmen's fate on this concluding day.
+
+Cornwallis first, their late all-conquering lord,
+Bears to the victor chief his conquer'd sword,
+Presents the burnisht hilt, and yields with pain
+The gift of kings, here brandisht long in vain.
+Then bow their hundred banners, trailing far
+Their wearied wings from all the skirts of war.
+Battalion'd infantry and squadron'd horse
+Dash the silk tassel and the golden torse;
+Flags from the forts and ensigns from the fleet
+Roll in the dust, and at Columbia's feet
+Prostrate the pride of thrones; they firm the base
+Of Freedom's temple, while her arms they grace.
+Here Albion's crimson Cross the soil o'erspreads,
+Her Lion crouches and her Thistle fades;
+Indignant Erin rues her trampled Lyre,
+Brunswick's pale Steed forgets his foamy fire,
+Proud Hessia's Castle lies in dust o'erthrown,
+And venal Anspach quits her broken Crown.
+
+Long trains of wheel'd artillery shade the shore,
+Quench their blue matches and forget to roar;
+Along the encumber'd plain, thick planted rise
+High stacks of muskets glittering to the skies,
+Numerous and vast. As when the toiling swains
+Heap their whole harvest on the stubbly plains,
+Gerb after gerb the bearded shock expands,
+Shocks, ranged in rows, hill high the burden'd lands;
+The joyous master numbers all the piles,
+And o'er his well-earn'd crop complacent smiles:
+Such growing heaps this iron harvest yield,
+So tread the victors this their final field.
+
+Triumphant Washington, with brow serene,
+Regards unmoved the exhilarating scene,
+Weighs in his balanced thought the silent grief
+That sinks the bosom of the fallen chief.
+With all the joy that laurel crowns bestow,
+A world reconquer'd and a vanquished foe.
+Thus thro extremes of life, in every state,
+Shines the clear soul, beyond all fortune great;
+While smaller minds, the dupes of fickle chance,
+Slight woes o'erwhelm and sudden joys entrance.
+So the full sun, thro all the changing sky,
+Nor blasts nor overpowers the naked eye;
+Tho transient splendors, borrowed from his light,
+Glance on the mirror and destroy the sight.
+
+He bids brave Lincoln guide with modest air
+The last glad triumph of the finish'd war;
+Who sees, once more, two armies shade one plain,
+The mighty victors and the captive train.
+
+
+
+
+Book VIII.
+
+
+
+
+Argument.
+
+
+
+    Hymn to Peace. Eulogy on the heroes slain in the war; in which the
+    Author finds occasion to mention his Brother. Address to the patriots
+    who have survived the conflict; exhorting them to preserve
+    liberty they have established. The danger of losing it by inattention
+    illustrated in the rape of the Golden Fleece. Freedom succeeding to
+    Despotism in the moral world, like Order succeeding to Chaos in the
+    physical world. Atlas, the guardian Genius of Africa, denounces to
+    Hesper the crimes of his people in the slavery of the Afripans. The
+    Author addresses his countrymen on that subject, and on the principles
+    of their government.
+
+    Hesper, recurring to his object of showing Columbus the importance of
+    his discoveries, reverses the order of time, and exhibits the continent
+    again in its savage state. He then displays the progress of arts in
+    America. Fur-trade. Fisheries. Productions. Commerce. Education.
+    Philosophical discoveries. Painting. Poetry.
+
+
+Hail, holy Peace, from thy sublime abode
+Mid circling saints that grace the throne of God!
+Before his arm around our embryon earth
+Stretch'd the dim void, and gave to nature birth.
+Ere morning stars his glowing chambers hung,
+Or songs of gladness woke an angel's tongue,
+Veil'd in the splendors of his beamful mind,
+In blest repose thy placid form reclined,
+Lived in his life, his inward sapience caught,
+And traced and toned his universe of thought.
+Borne thro the expanse with his creating voice
+Thy presence bade the unfolding worlds rejoice,
+Led forth the systems on their bright career,
+Shaped all their curves and fashion'd every sphere,
+Spaced out their suns, and round each radiant goal,
+Orb over orb, compell'd their train to roll,
+Bade heaven's own harmony their force combine.
+Taught all their host symphonious strains to join,
+Gave to seraphic harps their sounding lays,
+Their joys to angels, and to men their praise.
+
+From scenes of blood, these verdant shores that stain,
+From numerous friends in recent battle slain,
+From blazing towns that scorch the purple sky,
+From houseless hordes their smoking walls that fly,
+From the black prison ships, those groaning graves,
+From warring fleets that vex the gory waves,
+From a storm'd world, long taught thy flight to mourn,
+I rise, delightful Peace, and greet thy glad return.
+
+For now the untuneful trump shall grate no more;
+Ye silver streams, no longer swell with gore,
+Bear from your war-beat banks the guilty stain
+With yon retiring navies to the main.
+While other views, unfolding on my eyes,
+And happier themes bid bolder numbers rise;
+Bring, bounteous Peace, in thy celestial throng.
+Life to my soul, and rapture to my song;
+Give me to trace, with pure unclouded ray,
+The arts and virtues that attend thy sway,
+To see thy blissful charms, that here descend,
+Thro distant realms and endless years extend.
+
+Too long the groans of death and battle's bray
+Have rung discordant thro my turgid lay:
+The drum's rude clang, the war wolfs hideous howl
+Convulsed my nerves and agonized my soul,
+Untuned the harp for all but misery's pains,
+And chased the Muse from corse-encumber'd plains.
+Let memory's balm its pious fragrance shed
+On heroes' wounds and patriot warriors dead;
+Accept, departed Shades, these grateful sighs,
+Your fond attendants thro your homeward skies.
+
+And thou, my earliest friend, my Brother dear,
+Thy fall untimely still renews my tear.
+In youthful sports, in toils, in taste allied,
+My kind companion and my faithful guide,
+When death's dread summons, from our infant eyes,
+Had call'd our last loved parent to the skies.
+Tho young in arms, and still obscure thy name,
+Thy bosom panted for the deeds of fame;
+Beneath Montgomery's eye, when by thy steel
+In northern wilds the frequent savage fell.
+Fired by his voice, and foremost at his call,
+To mount the breach or scale the flamy wall,
+Thy daring hand had many a laurel gain'd,
+If years had ripen'd what thy fancy feign'd.
+Lamented Youth! when thy great leader bled,
+Thro the same wound thy parting spirit fled,
+Join'd the long train, the self-devoted band,
+The gods, the saviors of their native land.
+
+On fame's high pinnacle their names shall shine,
+Unending ages greet the group divine,
+Whose holy hands our banners first unfurl'd,
+And conquer'd freedom for the grateful world.
+
+And you, their peers, whose steel avenged their blood,
+Whose breasts with theirs our sacred rampart stood,
+Illustrious relics of a thousand fields!
+To you at last the foe reluctant yields.
+But tho the Muse, too prodigal of praise,
+Dares with the dead your living worth to raise,
+Think not, my friends, the patriot's task is done,
+Or Freedom safe, because the battle's won.
+Unnumber'd foes, far different arms that wield,
+Wait the weak moment when she quits her shield,
+To plunge in her bold breast the insidious dart,
+Or pour keen poison round her thoughtless heart.
+Perhaps they'll strive her votaries to divide,
+From their own veins to draw the vital tide;
+Perhaps, by cooler calculation shown,
+Create materials to construct a throne,
+Dazzle her guardians with the glare of state,
+Corrupt with power, with borrowed pomp inflate,
+Bid thro the land the soft infection creep,
+Whelm all her sons in one lethargic sleep,
+Crush her vast empire in its brilliant birth,
+And chase the goddess from the ravaged earth.
+
+The Dragon thus, that watch'd the Colchian fleece,
+Foil'd the fierce warriors of wide-plundering Greece;
+Warriors of matchless might and wondrous birth,
+Jove's sceptred sons and demigods of earth.
+High on the sacred tree, the glittering prize
+Hangs o'er its guard, and tires the warriors' eyes;
+First their hurl'd spears his spiral folds assail,
+Their spears fall pointless from his flaky mail;
+Onward with dauntless swords they plunge amain;
+He shuns their blows, recoils his twisting train,
+Darts forth his forky tongue, heaves high in air
+His fiery crest, and sheds a hideous glare,
+Champs, churns his poisonous juice, and hissing loud
+Spouts thick the stifling tempest o'er the crowd;
+Then, with one sweep of convoluted train,
+Rolls back all Greece, and besoms wide the plain,
+O'erturns the sons of gods, dispersing far
+The pirate horde, and closes quick the war.
+From his red jaws tremendous triumph roars,
+Dark Euxine trembles to its distant shores,
+Proud Jason starts, confounded in his might,
+Leads back his peers, and dares no more the fight.
+But the sly Priestess brings her opiate spell,
+Soft charms that hush the triple hound of hell,
+Bids Orpheus tune his all-enchanting lyre,
+And join to calm the guardian's sleepless ire.
+Soon from the tepid ground blue vapors rise,
+And sounds melodious move along the skies;
+A settling tremor thro his folds extends,
+His crest contracts, his rainbow heck unbends,
+O'er all his hundred hoops the languor crawls,
+Each curve develops, every volute falls,
+His broad back flattens as he spreads the plain,
+And sleep consigns him to his lifeless reign.
+Flusht at the sight the pirates seize the spoil,
+And ravaged Colchis rues the insidious toil.
+
+Yes! fellow freemen, sons of high renown,
+Chant your loud peans, weave your civic crown;
+But know, the goddess you've so long adored,
+Tho now she scabbards your avenging sword,
+Calls you to vigil ance, to manlier cares,
+To prove in peace the men she proved in wars:
+Superior task! severer test of soul!
+Tis here bold virtue plays her noblest role
+And merits most of praise. The warrior's name,
+Tho peal'd and chimed on all the tongues of fame,
+Sounds less harmonious to the grateful mind
+Than his who fashions and improves mankind.
+
+And what high meed your new vocation waits!
+Freedom, parturient with a hundred states,
+Confides them to your hand; the nascent prize
+Claims all your care, your soundest wisdom tries.
+Ah nurture, temper, train your infant charge,
+Its force develop and its life enlarge,
+Unfold each day some adolescent grace,
+Some right recognise or some duty trace;
+Mould a fair model for the realms of earth,
+Call moral nature to a second birth,
+Reach, renovate the world's great social plan,
+And here commence the sober sense of man,
+
+For lo, in other climes and elder states,
+What strange inversion all his works awaits!
+From age to age, on every peopled shore,
+Stalks the fell Demon of despotic power,
+Sweeps in his march the mounds of art away.
+Blots with his breath the trembling disk of day,
+Treads down whole nations every stride he takes,
+And wraps their labors in his fiery flakes.
+
+As Anarch erst around his regions hurl'd
+The wrecks, long crush'd, of time's anterior world;
+While nature mourn'd, in wild confusion tost,
+Her suns extinguisht and her systems lost;
+Light, life and instinct shared the dreary trance,
+And gravitation fled the field of chance;
+No laws remain'd of matter, motion, space;
+Time lost his count, the universe his place;
+Till Order came, in her cerulean robes,
+And launch'd and rein'd the renovated globes,
+Stock'd with harmonious worlds the vast Inane,
+Archt her new heaven and fixt her boundless reign:
+So kings convulse the moral frame, the base
+Of all the codes that can accord the race;
+And so from their broad grasp, their deadly ban,
+Tis yours to snatch this earth, to raise regenerateman.
+
+My friends, I love your fame, I joy to raise
+The high-toned anthem of my country's praise;
+To sing her victories, virtues, wisdom, weal,
+Boast with loud voice the patriot pride I feel;
+Warm wild I sing; and, to her failings blind,
+Mislead myself, perhaps mislead mankind.
+Land that I love! is this the whole we owe?
+Thy pride to pamper, thy fair face to show;
+Dwells there no blemish where such glories shine?
+And lurks no spot in that bright sun of thine?
+Hark! a dread voice, with heaven-astounding strain,
+Swells Wee a thousand thunders o'er the main,
+Rolls and reverberates around thy hills,
+And Hesper's heart with pangs paternal fills.
+Thou hearst him not; tis Atlas, throned sublime.
+Great brother guardian of old Afric's clime;
+High o'er his coast he rears his frowning form,
+Overlooks and calms his sky-borne fields of storm,
+Flings off the clouds that round his shoulders hung,
+And breaks from clogs of ice his trembling tongue;
+While far thro space with rage and grief he glares,
+Heaves his hoar head and shakes the heaven he bears:
+--Son of my sire! O latest brightest birth
+That sprang from his fair spouse, prolific earth!
+Great Hesper, say what sordid ceaseless hate
+Impels thee thus to mar my elder state.
+Our sire assign'd thee thy more glorious reign,
+Secured and bounded by our laboring main;
+That main (tho still my birthright name it bear)
+Thy sails o'ershadow, thy brave children share;
+I grant it thus; while air surrounds the ball,
+Let breezes blow, let oceans roll for all.
+But thy proud sons, a strange ungenerous race,
+Enslave my tribes, and each fair world disgrace,
+Provoke wide vengeance on their lawless land,
+The bolt ill placed in thy forbearing hand.--
+Enslave my tribes! then boast their cantons free,
+Preach faith and justice, bend the sainted knee,
+Invite all men their liberty to share,
+Seek public peace, defy the assaults of war,
+Plant, reap, consume, enjoy their fearless toil,
+Tame their wild floods, to fatten still their soil,
+Enrich all nations with their nurturing store,
+And rake with venturous fluke each wondering shore.--
+
+Enslave my tribes! what, half mankind imban,
+Then read, expound, enforce the rights of man!
+Prove plain and clear how nature's hand of old
+Cast all men equal in her human mould!
+Their fibres, feelings, reasoning powers the same,
+Like wants await them, like desires inflame.
+Thro former times with learned book they tread,
+Revise past ages and rejudge the dead,
+Write, speak, avenge, for ancient sufferings feel,
+Impale each tyrant on their pens of steel,
+Declare how freemen can a world create,
+And slaves and masters ruin every state.--
+Enslave my tribes! and think, with dumb disdain,
+To scape this arm and prove my vengeance vain!
+But look! methinks beneath my foot I ken
+A few chain'd things that seem no longer men;
+Thy sons perchance! whom Barbary's coast can tell
+The sweets of that loved scourge they wield so well.
+Link'd in a line, beneath the driver's goad,
+See how they stagger with their lifted load;
+The shoulder'd rock, just wrencht from off my hill
+And wet with drops their straining orbs distil,
+Galls, grinds them sore, along the rarnpart led,
+And the chain clanking counts the steps they tread.
+
+By night close bolted in the bagnio's gloom,
+Think how they ponder on their dreadful doom,
+Recal the tender sire, the weeping bride,
+The home, far sunder'd by a waste of tide,
+Brood all the ties that once endear'd them there,
+But now, strung stronger, edge their keen despair.
+Till here a fouler fiend arrests their pace:
+Plague, with his burning breath and bloated face,
+With saffron eyes that thro the dungeon shine,
+And the black tumors bursting from the groin,
+Stalks o'er the slave; who, cowering on the sod,
+Shrinks from the Demon and invokes his God,
+Sucks hot contagion with his quivering breath,
+And, rack'd with rending torture, sinks in death.
+
+Nor shall these pangs atone the nation's crime;
+Far heavier vengeance, in the march of time,
+Attends them still; if still they dare debase
+And hold inthrall'd the millions of my race;
+A vengeance that shall shake the world's deep frame,
+That heaven abhors, and hell might shrink to name.
+Nature, long outraged, delves the crusted sphere,
+And moulds the mining mischief dark and drear;
+Europa too the penal shock shall find,
+The rude soul-selling monsters of mankind:
+
+Where Alps and Andes at their bases meet,
+In earth's mid caves to lock their granite feet,
+Heave their broad spines, expand each breathing lobe,
+And with their massy members rib the globe,
+Her cauldron'd floods of fire their blast prepare;
+Her wallowing womb of subterranean war
+Waits but the fissure that my wave shall find,
+To force the foldings of the rocky rind,
+Crash your curst continent, and whirl on high
+The vast avulsion vaulting thro the sky,
+Fling far the bursting fragments, scattering wide
+Rocks, mountains, nations o'er the swallowing tide.
+Plunging and surging with alternate sweep,
+They storm the day-vault and lay bare the deep,
+Toss, tumble, plough their place, then slow subside,
+And swell each ocean as their bulk they hide;
+Two oceans dasht in one! that climbs and roars,
+And seeks in vain the exterminated shores,
+The deep drencht hemisphere. Far sunk from day,
+It crumbles, rolls, it churns the settling sea,
+Turns up each prominence, heaves every side,
+To pierce once more the landless length of tide;
+Till some poized Pambamarca looms at last
+A dim lone island in the watery waste,
+Mourns all his minor mountains wreck'd and hurl'd,
+Stands the sad relic of a ruin'd world,
+Attests the wrath our mother kept in store,
+And rues her judgments on the race she bore.
+No saving Ark around him rides the main,
+Nor Dove weak-wing'd her footing finds again;
+His own bald Eagle skims alone the sky,
+Darts from all points of heaven her searching eye,
+Kens, thro the gloom, her ancient rock of rest,
+And finds her cavern'd crag, her solitary nest.
+
+Thus toned the Titan his tremendous knell,
+And lash'd his ocean to a loftier swell;
+Earth groans responsive, and with laboring woes
+Leans o'er the surge and stills the storm he throws.
+
+Fathers and friends, I know the boding fears
+Of angry genii and of rending spheres
+Assail not souls like yours; whom Science bright
+Thro shadowy nature leads with surer light;
+For whom she strips the heavens of love and hate,
+Strikes from Jove's hand the brandisht bolt of fate,
+Gives each effect its own indubious cause,
+Divides her moral from her physic laws,
+Shows where the virtues find their nurturing food,
+And men their motives to be just and good.
+
+You scorn the Titan's threat; nor shall I strain
+The powers of pathos in a task so vain
+As Afric's wrongs to sing; for what avails
+To harp for you these known familiar tales?
+To tongue mute misery, and re-rack the soul
+With crimes oft copied from that bloody scroll
+Where Slavery pens her woes; tho tis but there
+We learn the weight that mortal life can be.
+The tale might startle still the accustom'd ear,
+Still shake the nerve that pumps the pearly tear,
+Melt every heart, and thro the nation gain
+Full many a voice to break the barbarous chain.
+But why to sympathy for guidance fly,
+(Her aids uncertain and of scant supply)
+When your own self-excited sense affords
+A guide more sure, and every sense accords?
+Where strong self-interest, join'd with duty, lies,
+Where doing right demands no sacrifice,
+Where profit, pleasure, life-expanding fame
+League their allurements to support the claim,
+Tis safest there the impleaded cause to trust;
+Men well instructed will be always just.
+
+From slavery then your rising realms to save,
+Regard the master, notice not the slave;
+Consult alone for freemen, and bestow
+Your best, your only cares, to keep them so.
+Tyrants are never free; and, small and great,
+All masters must be tyrants soon or late;
+So nature works; and oft the lordling knave
+Turns out at once a tyrant and a slave,
+Struts, cringes, bullies, begs, as courtiers must,
+Makes one a god, another treads in dust,
+Fears all alike, and filches whom he can,
+But knows no equal, finds no friend in man.
+
+Ah! would you not be slaves, with lords and kings,
+Then be not masters; there the danger springs.
+The whole crude system that torments this earth,
+Of rank, privation, privilege of birth,
+False honor, fraud, corruption, civil jars,
+The rage of conquest and the curse of wars,
+Pandora's total shower, all ills combined
+That erst o'erwhelm'd and still distress mankind,
+Box'd up secure in your deliberate hand,
+Wait your behest, to fix or fly this land.
+
+Equality of Right is nature's plan;
+And following nature is the march of man.
+Whene'er he deviates in the least degree,
+When, free himself, he would be more than free,
+The baseless column, rear'd to bear his bust,
+Falls as he mounts, and whelms him in the dust.
+
+See Rome's rude sires, with autocratic gait,
+Tread down their tyrant and erect their state;
+Their state secured, they deem it wise and brave
+That every freeman should command a slave,
+And, flusht with franchise of his camp and town,
+Rove thro the world and hunt the nations down;
+Master and man the same vile spirit gains,
+Rome chains the world, and wears herself the chains.
+
+Mark modern Europe with her feudal codes,
+Serfs, villains, vassals, nobles, kings and gods,
+All slaves of different grades, corrupt and curst
+With high and low, for senseless rank athirst,
+Wage endless wars; not fighting to be free,
+But _cujum pecus_, whose base herd they'll be.
+
+Too much of Europe, here transplanted o'er,
+Nursed feudal feelings on your tented shore,
+Brought sable serfs from Afric, call'd it gain,
+And urged your sires to forge the fatal chain.
+But now, the tents o'erturn'd, the war dogs fled,
+Now fearless Freedom rears at last her head
+Matcht with celestial Peace,--my friends, beware
+To shade the splendors of so bright a pair;
+Complete their triumph, fix their firm abode,
+Purge all privations from your liberal code,
+Restore their souls to men, give earth repose,
+And save your sons from slavery, wars and woes.
+
+Based on its rock of Right your empire lies,
+On walls of wisdom let the fabric rise;
+Preserve your principles, their force unfold,
+Let nations prove them and let kings behold.
+EQUALITY, your first firm-grounded stand;
+Then FREE ELECTION; then your FEDERAL BAND;
+This holy Triad should forever shine
+The great compendium of all rights divine,
+Creed of all schools, whence youths by millions draw
+Their themes of right, their decalogues of law;
+Till men shall wonder (in these codes inured)
+How wars were made, how tyrants were endured.
+
+Then shall your works of art superior rise,
+Your fruits perfume a larger length of skies,
+Canals careering climb your sunbright hills,
+Vein the green slopes and strow their nurturing rills,
+Thro tunnel'd heights and sundering ridges glide,
+Rob the rich west of half Kenhawa's tide,
+Mix your wide climates, all their stores confound,
+And plant new ports in every midland mound.
+Your lawless Missisippi, now who slimes
+And drowns and desolates his waste of climes,
+Ribb'd with your dikes, his torrent shall restrain,
+And ask your leave to travel to the main;
+Won from his wave while rising cantons smile,
+Rear their glad nations and reward their toil.
+
+Thus Nile's proud flood to human hands of yore
+Raised and resign'd his tide-created shore,
+Call'd from his Ethiop hills their hardy swains,
+And waved their harvests o'er his newborn plains;
+Earth's richest realm from his tamed current sprung;
+There nascent science toned her infant tongue,
+Taught the young arts their tender force to try,
+To state the seasons and unfold the sky;
+Till o'er the world extended and refined,
+They rule the destinies of humankind.
+
+Now had Columbus well enjoy'd the sight
+Of armies vanquisht and of fleets in flight,
+From all Hesperia's heaven the darkness flown,
+And colon crowds to sovereign sages grown.
+To cast new glories o'er the changing clime,
+The guardian Power reversed the flight of time,
+Roll'd back the years that led their course before,
+Stretch'd out immense the wild uncultured shore;
+Then shifts the total scene, and rears to view
+Arts and the men that useful arts pursue.
+As o'er the canvass when the painter's mind
+Glows with a future landscape well design'd,
+While Panorama's wondrous aid he calls,
+To crowd whole realms within his circling walls,
+Lakes, fields and forests, ports and navies rise,
+A new creation to his kindling eyes;
+He smiles o'er all; sand in delightful strife
+The pencil moves and Calls the whole to life.
+So while Columbia's patriarch stood sublime,
+And saw rude nature clothe the trackless clime;
+The green banks heave, the winding currents pour,
+The bays and harbors cleave the yielding shore,
+The champaigns spread, the solemn groves arise,
+And the rough mountains lengthen round the skies;
+Thro all their bounds he traced, with skilful ken,
+The unform'd seats and future walks of men;
+Mark'd where the field should bloom, the pennon play,
+Great cities grow and empires claim their sway;
+When, sudden waked by Hesper's waving hand,
+They rose obedient round the cultured land.
+
+In western tracts, where still the wildmen tread,
+From sea to sea an inland commerce spread;
+On the dim streams and thro the gloomy grove
+The trading bauds their cumbrous burdens move;
+Furs, peltry, drugs, and all the native store
+Of midland realms descended to the shore.
+
+Where summer suns, along the northern coast,
+With feeble force dissolve the chains of frost,
+Prolific waves the scaly nations trace,
+And tempt the toils of man's laborious race.
+Tho rich Brazilian strands, beneath the tide,
+Their shells of pearl and sparkling pebbles hide,
+While for the gaudy prize a venturous train
+Plunge the dark deep and brave the surging main,
+Drag forth the shining gewgaws into air,
+To stud a sceptre or emblaze a star;
+Far wealthier stores these genial tides display,
+And works less dangerous with their spoils repay.
+The Hero saw the hardy crews advance,
+Cast the long line and aim the barbed lance;
+Load the deep floating barks, and bear abroad
+To every land the life-sustaining food;
+Renascent swarms by nature's care supplied,
+Repeople still the shoals and fin the fruitful tide.
+
+Where southern streams thro broad savannas bend,
+The rice-clad vales their verdant rounds extend;
+Tobago's plant its leaf expanding yields,
+The maize luxuriant clothes a thousand fields;
+Steeds, herds and flocks o'er northern regions rove,
+Embrown the hill and wanton thro the grove.
+The woodlands wide their sturdy honors bend,
+The pines, the liveoaks to the shores descend,
+There couch the keels, the crooked ribs arise,
+Hulls heave aloft and mastheads mount the skies;
+Launcht on the deep o'er every wave they
+Feed tropic isles and Europe's looms supply.
+
+To nurse the arts and fashion freedom's lore
+Young schools of science rise along the shore;
+Great without pomp their modest walls expand,
+Harvard and Yale and Princeton grace the land,
+Penn's student halls his youths with gladness greet,
+On James's bank Virginian Muses meet,
+Manhattan's mart collegiate domes command,
+Bosom'd in groves, see growing Dartmouth stand;
+Bright o'er its realm reflecting solar fires,
+On yon tall hill Rhode Island's seat aspires.
+
+Thousands of humbler name around them rise,
+Where homebred freemen seize the solid prize;
+Fixt in small spheres, with safer beams to shine,
+They reach the useful and refuse the fine,
+Found, on its proper base, the social plan,
+The broad plain truths, the common sense of man,
+His obvious wants, his mutual aids discern,
+His rights familiarize, his duties learn,
+Feel moral fitness all its force dilate,
+Embrace the village and comprise the state.
+Each rustic here who turns the furrow'd soil,
+The maid, the youth that ply mechanic toil,
+In equal rights, in useful arts inured,
+Know their just claims, and see their claims secured;
+They watch their delegates, each law revise,
+Its faults designate and its merits prize,
+Obey, but scrutinize; and let the test
+Of sage experience prove and fix the best.
+
+Here, fired by virtue's animating flame,
+The preacher's task persuasive sages claim,
+To mould religion to the moral mind,
+In bands of peace to harmonize mankind,
+To life, to light, to promised joys above
+The soften'd soul with ardent hope to move.
+No dark intolerance blinds the zealous throng,
+No arm of power attendant on their tongue;
+Vext Inquisition, with her flaming brand,
+Shuns their mild march, nor dares approach the land.
+Tho different creeds their priestly robes denote,
+Their orders various and their rites remote,
+Yet one their voice, their labors all combined,
+Lights of the world and friends of humankind.
+So the bright galaxy o'er heaven displays
+Of various stars the same unbounded blaze;
+Where great and small their mingling rays unite,
+And earth and skies exchange the friendly light.
+
+And lo, my son that other sapient band,
+The torch of science flamiflg in their hand!
+Thro nature's range their searching souls aspire,
+Or wake to life the canvass and the lyre.
+Fixt in sublimest thought, behold them rise
+World after world unfolding to their eyes,
+Lead, light, allure them thro the total plan,
+And give new guidance to the paths of man.
+
+Yon meteor-mantled hill see Franklin tread,
+Heaven's awful thunders tolling o'er his head,
+Convolving clouds the billowy skies deform,
+And forky flames emblaze the blackening storm,
+See the descending streams around him burn,
+Glance on his rod and with his finger turn;
+He bids conflicting fulminants expire
+The guided blast, and holds the imprison'd fire.
+No more, when doubling storms the vault o'erspread,
+The livid glare shall strike thy race with dread,
+Nor towers nor temples, shuddering with the sound,
+Sink in the flames and shake the sheeted ground.
+His well tried wires, that every tempest wait,
+Shall teach mankind to ward the bolts of fate,
+With pointed steel o'ertop the trembling spire,
+And lead from untouch'd walls the harmless flre;
+Fill'd with his fame while distant climes rejoice,
+Wherever lightning shines or thunder rears its voice.
+
+And see sage Rittenhouse, with ardent eye,
+Lift the long tube and pierce the starry sky;
+Clear in his view the circling planets roll,
+And suns and satellites their course control.
+He marks what laws the widest wanderers bind,
+Copies creation in his forming mind,
+Sees in his hall the total semblance rise,
+And mimics there the labors of the skies.
+There student youths without their tubes behold
+The spangled heavens their mystic maze unfold,
+And crowded schools their cheerful chambers grace
+With all the spheres that cleave the vast of space.
+
+To guide the sailor in his wandering way,
+See Godfrey's glass reverse the beams of day.
+His lifted quadrant to the eye displays
+From adverse skies the counteracting rays;
+And marks, as devious sails bewilder'd roll,
+Each nice gradation from the steadfast pole.
+
+West with his own great soul the canvass warms,
+Creates, inspires, impassions human forms,
+Spurns critic rules, and seizing safe the heart,
+Breaks down the former frightful bounds of Art;
+Where ancient manners, with exclusive reign,
+From half mankind withheld her fair domain.
+He calls to life each patriot, chief or sage,
+Garb'd in the dress and drapery of his age.
+Again bold Regulus to death returns,
+Again her falling Wolfe Britannia mourns;
+Lahogue, Boyne, Cressy, Nevilcross demand
+And gain fresh lustre from his copious hand;
+His Lear stalks wild with woes, the gods defies,
+Insults the tempest and outstorms the skies;
+Edward in arms to frowning combat moves,
+Or, won to pity by the queen he loves,
+Spares the devoted Six, whose deathless deed
+Preserves the town his vengeance doom'd to bleed.
+
+With rival force, see Copley's pencil trace
+The air of action and the charms of face.
+Fair in his tints unfold the scenes of state,
+The senate listens and the peers debate;
+Pale consternation every heart appals,
+In act to speak, when death-struck Chatham fails.
+He bids dread Calpe cease to shake the waves,
+While Elliott's arm the host of Bourbon saves;
+O'er sail-wing'd batteries sinking in the flood,
+Mid flames and darkness, drench'd in hostile blood,
+Britannia's sons extend their generous hand
+To rescue foes from death, and bear them to the land.
+
+Fired with the martial deeds that bathed in gore
+His brave companions on his native shore,
+Trumbull with daring hand their fame recals;
+He shades with night Quebec's beleagured walls,
+Thro flashing flames, that midnight war supplies,
+The assailants yield, their great Montgomery dies.
+On Bunker height, thro floods of hostile fire,
+His Putnam toils till all the troops retire,
+His Warren, pierced with balls, at last lies low,
+And leaves a victory to the wasted foe.
+Britannia too his glowing tint shall claim,
+To pour new splendor on her Calpean fame;
+He leads her bold sortie, and from their towers
+O'erturns the Gallic and Iberian powers.
+
+See rural seats of innocence and ease,
+High tufted towers and walks of waving trees,
+The white wates dashing on the Craggy shores,
+Meandring streams and meads of mingled flowers,
+Where nature's sons their wild excursions tread,
+In just design from Taylor's pencil spread.
+
+Stuart and Brown the moving portrait raise,
+Each rival stroke the force of life conveys;
+Heroes and beauties round their tablets stand,
+And rise unfading from their plastic hand;
+Each breathing form preserves its wonted grace,
+And all the Soul stands speaking in the face.
+
+Two kindred arts the swelling statue heave,
+Wake the dead wax, and teach the stone to live.
+While the bold chissel claims the rugged strife,
+To rouse the sceptred marble into life,
+
+See Wright's fair hands the livelier fire control,
+In waxen forms she breathes impassion'd soul;
+The pencil'd tint o'er moulded substance glows,
+And different powers the peerless art compose.
+Grief, rage and fear beneath her fingers start,
+Roll the wild eye and pour the bursting heart;
+The world's dead fathers wait her wakening call;
+And distant ages fill the storied hall.
+
+To equal fame ascends thy tuneful throng,
+The boast of genius and the pride of song;
+Caught from the cast of every age and clime,
+Their lays shall triumph o'er the lapse of time.
+
+With lynx-eyed glance thro nature far to pierce,
+With all the powers and every charm of verse,
+Each science opening in his ample mind,
+His fancy glowing and his taste refined,
+See Trumbull lead the train. His skilful hand
+Hurls the keen darts of satire round the land.
+Pride, knavery, dullness feel his mortal stings,
+And listening virtue triumphs while he sings;
+Britain's foil'd sons, victorious now no more,
+In guilt retiring from the wasted shore,
+Strive their curst cruelties to hide in vain;
+The world resounds them in his deathless strain.
+
+On wings of faith to elevate the soul
+Beyond the bourn of earth's benighted pole,
+For Dwight's high harp the epic Muse sublime
+Hails her new empire in the western clime.
+Tuned from the tones by seers seraphic sung,
+Heaven in his eye and rapture on his tongue,
+His voice revives old Canaan's promised land,
+The long-fought fields of Jacob's chosen band.
+In Hanniel's fate, proud faction finds its doom,
+Ai's midnight flames light nations to their tomb,
+In visions bright supernal joys are given,
+And all the dark futurities of heaven.
+
+While freedom's cause his patriot bosom warms,
+In counsel sage, nor inexpert in arms,
+See Humphreys glorious from the field retire,
+Sheathe the glad sword and string the soothing lyre;
+That lyre which erst, in hours of dark despair,
+Roused the sad realms to finish well the war.
+O'er fallen friends, with all the strength of woe,
+Fraternal sighs in his strong numbers flow;
+His country's wrongs, her duties, dangers, praise,
+Fire his full soul and animate his lays:
+Wisdom and War with equal joy shall own
+So fond a votary and so brave a son.
+
+
+
+
+Book IX.
+
+
+
+Argument.
+
+
+    Vision suspended. Night scene, as contemplated from the mount of
+    vision. Columbus inquires the reason of the slow progress of science,
+    and its frequent interruptions. Hesper answers, that all things in the
+    physical as well as the moral and intellectual world are progressive in
+    like manner. He traces their progress from the birth of the universe to
+    the present state of the earth and its inhabitants; asserts the future
+    advancement of society, till perpetual peace shall be established.
+    Columbus proposes his doubts; alleges in support of them the successive
+    rise and downfal of ancient nations; and infers future and periodical
+    convulsions. Hesper, in answer, exhibits the great distinction between
+    the ancient and modern state of the arts and of society. Crusades.
+    Commerce. Hanseatic League. Copernicus. Kepler. Newton, Galileo.
+    Herschel. Descartes. Bacon. Printing Press. Magnetic Needle.
+    Geographical discoveries. Federal system in America. A similar system
+    to be extended over the whole earth. Columbus desires a view of this.
+
+
+But now had Hesper from the Hero's sight
+Veil'd the vast world with sudden shades of night.
+Earth, sea and heaven, where'er he turns his eye,
+Arch out immense, like one surrounding sky
+Lamp'd with reverberant fires. The starry train
+Paint their fresh forms beneath the placid main;
+Fair Cynthia here her face reflected laves,
+Bright Venus gilds again her natal waves,
+The Bear redoubling foams with fiery joles,
+And two dire dragons twine two arctic poles.
+Lights o'er the land, from cities lost in shade,
+New constellations, new galaxies spread,
+And each high pharos double flames provides,
+One from its fires, one fainter from the tides.
+
+Centred sublime in this bivaulted sphere,
+On all sides void, unbounded, calm and clear,
+Soft o'er the Pair a lambent lustre plays,
+Their seat still cheering with concentred rays;
+To converse grave the soothing shades invite.
+And on his Guide Columbus fixt his sight:
+Kind messenger of heaven, he thus began,
+Why this progressive laboring search of man?
+If men by slow degrees have power to reach
+These opening truths that long dim ages teach,
+If, school'd in woes and tortured on to thought,
+Passion absorbing what experience taught,
+Still thro the devious painful paths they wind,
+And to sound wisdom lead at last the mind,
+Why did not bounteous nature, at their birth,
+Give all their science to these sons of earth,
+Pour on their reasoning powers pellucid day,
+Their arts, their interests clear as light display?
+That error, madness and sectarian strife
+Might find no place to havock human life.
+
+To whom the guardian Power: To thee is given
+To hold high converse and inquire of heaven,
+To mark untraversed ages, and to trace
+Whate'er improves and what impedes thy race.
+Know then, progressive are the paths we go
+In worlds above thee, as in thine below
+Nature herself (whose grasp of time and place
+Deals out duration and impalms all space)
+Moves in progressive march; but where to tend,
+What course to compass, how the march must end,
+Her sons decide not; yet her works we greet
+Imperfect in their parts, but in their whole complete.
+
+When erst her hand the crust of Chaos thirl'd,
+And forced from his black breast the bursting world,
+High swell'd the huge existence crude and crass,
+A formless dark impermeated mass;
+No light nor heat nor cold nor moist nor dry,
+But all concocting in their causes lie.
+Millions of periods, such as these her spheres
+Learn since to measure and to call their years,
+She broods the mass; then into motion brings
+And seeks and sorts the principles of things,
+Pours in the attractive and repulsive force,
+Whirls forth her globes in cosmogyral course,
+By myriads and by millions, scaled sublime,
+To scoop their skies, and curve the rounds of time.
+
+She groups their systems, lots to each his place,
+Strow'd thro immensity, and drown'd in space,
+All yet unseen; till light at last begun,
+And every system found a centred sun,
+Call'd to his neighbor and exchanged from far
+His infant gleams with every social star;
+Rays thwarting rays and skies o'erarching skies
+Robed their dim planets with commingling dyes,
+Hung o'er each heaven their living lamps serene,
+And tinged with blue the frore expanse between:
+Then joyous Nature hail'd the golden morn,
+Drank the young beam, beheld her empire born.
+
+Lo the majestic movement! there they trace
+Their blank infinitudes of time and space,
+Vault with careering curves her central goal,
+Pour forth her day and stud her evening stole,
+Heedless of count; their numbers still unknown,
+Unmeasured still their progress round her throne;
+For none of all her firstborn sons, endow'd
+With heavenly sapience and pretensions proud,
+No seraph bright, whose keen considering eye
+And sunbeam speed ascend from sky to sky,
+Has yet explored or counted all their spheres,
+Or fixt or found their past record of years.
+Nor can a ray from her remotest sun,
+Shot forth when first their splendid morn begun,
+Borne straight, continuous thro the void of space,
+Doubling each thousand years its rapid pace
+And hither posting, yet have reach'd this earth,
+To bring the tidings of its master's birth.
+
+And mark thy native orb! tho later born,
+Tho still unstored with light her silver horn,
+As seen from sister planets, who repay
+Far more than she their borrow'd streams of day,
+Yet what an age her shell-rock ribs attest!
+Her sparry spines, her coal-encumber'd breast!
+Millions of generations toil'd and died
+To crust with coral and to salt her tide,
+And millions more, ere yet her soil began,
+Ere yet she form'd or could have nursed her man.
+
+Then rose the proud phenomenon, the birth
+Most richly wrought, the favorite child of earth;
+But frail at first his frame, with nerves ill strung,
+Unform'd his footsteps, long untoned his tongue,
+Unhappy, unassociate, unrefined,
+Unfledged the pinions of his lofty mind,
+He wander'd wild, to every beast a prey,
+More prest with wrants, and feebler far than they;
+For countless ages forced from place to place,
+Just reproduced but scarce preserved his race.
+At last, a soil more fixt and streams more sweet
+Inform the wretched migrant where to seat;
+Euphrates' flowery banks begin to smile,
+Fruits fringe the Ganges, gardens grace the Nile;
+Nile, ribb'd with dikes, a length of coast creates,
+And giant Thebes begins her hundred gates,
+Mammoth of human works! her grandeur known
+These thousand lustres by its wrecks alone;
+Wrecks that humiliate still all modern states,
+Press the poized earth with their enormous weights,
+Refuse to quit their place, dissolve their frame
+And trust, like Ilion, to the bards their fame.
+Memphis amass'd her piles, that still o'erclimb
+The clouds of heaven, and task the tooth of time;
+Belus and Brama tame their vagrant throngs,
+And Homer, with his monumental songs,
+Builds far more durable his splendid throne
+Than all the Pharaohs with their hills of stone.
+
+High roll'd the round of years that hung sublime
+These wondrous beacons in the night of time;
+Studs of renown! that to thine eyes attest
+The waste of ages that beyond them rest;
+Ages how fill'd with toils! how gloom'd with woes!
+Trod with all steps that man's long march compose,
+Dim drear disastrous; ere his foot could gain
+A height so brilliant o'er the bestial train.
+
+In those blank periods, where no man can trace
+The gleams of thought that first illumed his race,
+His errors, twined with science, took their birth,
+And forged their fetters for this child of earth.
+And when, as oft, he dared expand his view,
+And work with nature on the line she drew,
+Some monster, gender'd in his fears, unmann'd
+His opening soul, and marr'd the works he plann'd.
+Fear, the first passion of his helpless state,
+Redoubles all the woes that round him wait,
+Blocks nature's path and sends him wandering wide,
+Without a guardian and without a guide.
+
+Beat by the storm, refresht by gentle rain,
+By sunbeams cheer'd or founder'd in the main,
+He bows to every force he can't control,
+Indows them all with intellect and soul,
+With passions various, turbulent and strong,
+Rewarding virtue and avenging wrong,
+Gives heaven and earth to their supernal doom,
+And swells their sway beyond the closing tomb.
+Hence rose his gods, that mystic monstrous lore
+Of blood-stain'd altars and of priestly power,
+Hence blind credulity on all dark things,
+False morals hence, and hence the yoke of kings.
+
+Yon starry vault that round him rolls the spheres,
+And gives to earth her seasons, days and years,
+The source designates and the clue imparts
+Of all his errors and of all his arts.
+There spreads the system that his ardent thought
+First into emblems, then to spirits wrought;
+Spirits that ruled all matter and all mind,
+Nourish'd or famish'd, kill'd or cured mankind,
+Bade him neglect the soil whereon he fed,
+Work with hard hand for that which was not bread,
+Erect the temple, darken deep the shrine,
+Yield the full hecatomb with awe divine,
+Despise this earth, and claim with lifted eyes
+His health and harvest from the meteor'd skies.
+
+Accustom'd thus to bow the suppliant head,
+And reverence powers that shake his heart with dread,
+His pliant faith extends with easy ken
+From heavenly hosts to heaven-anointed men;
+The sword, the tripod join their mutual aids,
+To film his eyes with more impervious shades,
+Create a sceptred idol, and enshrine
+The Robber Chief in attributes divine,
+Arm the new phantom with the nation's rod,
+And hail the dreadful delegate of God.
+Two settled slaveries thus the race control,
+Engross their labors and debase their soul;
+Till creeds and crimes and feuds and fears compose
+The seeds of war and all its kindred woes.
+
+Unfold, thou Memphian dungeon! there began
+The lore of Mystery, the mask of man;
+There Fraud with Science leagued, in early times,
+Plann'd a resplendent course of holy crimes,
+Stalk'd o'er the nations with gigantic pace,
+With sacred symbols charm'd the cheated race,
+Taught them new grades of ignorance to gain,
+And punish truth with more than mortal pain,--
+Unfold at last thy cope! that man may see
+The mines of mischief he has drawn from thee.
+--Wide gapes the porch with hieroglyphics hung,
+And mimic zodiacs o'er its arches flung;
+Close labyrinth'd here the feign'd Omniscient dwells,
+Dupes from all nations seek the sacred cells;
+Inquiring strangers, with astonish'd eyes,
+Dive deep to read these subterranean skies,
+To taste that holiness which faith bestows,
+And fear promulgates thro its world of woes.
+The bold Initiate takes his awful stand,
+A thin pale taper trembling in his hand;
+Thro hells of howling monsters lies the road,
+To season souls and teach the ways of God.
+
+Down the crampt corridor, far sunk from day,
+On hands and bended knees he gropes his way,
+Swims roaring streams, thro dens of serpents crawls,
+Descends deep wells and clambers flaming walls;
+Now thwart his lane a lake of sulphur gleams,
+With fiery waves and suffocating steams;
+He dares not shun the ford; for full in view
+Fierce lions rush behind and force him thro.
+Long ladders heaved on end, with banded eyes
+He mounts, and mounts, and seems to gain the skies;
+Then backward falling, tranced with deadly fright,
+Finds his own feet and stands restored to light.
+Here all dread sights of torture round him rise;
+Lash'd on a wheel, a whirling felon flies;
+A wretch, with members chain'd and liver bare,
+Writhes and disturbs the vulture feasting there:
+One strains to roll his rock, recoiling still;
+One, stretch'd recumbent o'er a limpid rill,
+Burns with devouring thirst; his starting eyes,
+Swell'd veins and frothy lips and piercing cries
+Accuse the faithless eddies, as they shrink
+And keep him panting still, still bending o'er the brink.
+
+At last Elysium to his ravisht eyes
+Spreads flowery fields and opens golden skies;
+Breathes Orphean music thro the dancing groves,
+Trains the gay troops of Beauties, Graces, Loves,
+Lures his delirious sense with sweet decoys,
+Fine fancied foretaste of eternal joys,
+Fastidious pomp or proud imperial state,--
+Illusions all, that pass the Ivory Gate!
+
+Various and vast the fraudful drama grows,
+Feign'd are the pleasures, as unfelt the woes;
+Where sainted hierophants, with well taught mimes,
+Play'd first the role for all succeeding times;
+Which, vamp'd and varied as the clime required,
+More trist or splendid, open or retired,
+Forms local creeds, with multifarious lore,
+Creates the God and bids the world adore.
+
+Lo at the Lama's feet, as lord of all,
+Age following age in dumb devotion fall;
+The youthful god, mid suppliant kings enshrined,
+Dispensing fate and ruling half mankind,
+Sits with contorted limbs, a silent slave,
+An early victim of a secret grave;
+His priests by myriads famish every clime
+And sell salvation in the tones they chime.
+
+See India's Triad frame their blood-penn'd codes,
+Old Ganges change his gardens for his gods,
+Ask his own waves from their celestial hands,
+And choke his channel with their sainted sands.
+Mad with the mandates of their scriptured word,
+And prompt to snatch from hell her dear dead lord,
+The wife, still blooming, decks her sacred urns,
+Mounts the gay pyre, and with his body burns.
+
+Shrined in his golden fane the Delphian stands,
+Shakes distant thrones and taxes unknown lands.
+Kings, consuls, khans from earth's whole regions come,
+Pour in their wealth, and then inquire their doom;
+Furious and wild the priestess rends her veil,
+Sucks, thro the sacred stool, the maddening gale,
+Starts reddens foams and screams and mutters loud,
+Like a fell fiend, her oracles of God.
+The dark enigma, by the pontiff scroll'd
+In broken phrase, and close in parchment roll'd,
+From his proud pulpit to the suppliant hurl'd,
+Shall rive an empire and distract the world.
+
+And where the mosque's dim arches bend on high,
+Mecca's dead prophet mounts the mimic sky;
+Pilgrims, imbanded strong for mutual aid,
+Thro dangerous deserts that their faith has made,
+Train their long caravans, and famish'd come
+To kiss the shrine and trembling touch the tomb,
+By fire and sword the same fell faith extend,
+And howl their homilies to earth's far end.
+
+Phenician altars reek with human gore,
+Gods hiss from caverns or in cages roar,
+Nile pours from heaven a tutelary flood,
+And gardens grow the vegetable god.
+Two rival powers the magian faith inspire,
+Primeval Darkness and immortal Fire;
+Evil and good in these contending rise,
+And each by turns the sovereign of the skies.
+Sun, stars and planets round the earth behold
+Their fanes of marble and their shrines of gold;
+The sea, the grove, the harvest and the vine
+Spring from their gods and claim a birth divine;
+While heroes, kings and sages of their times,
+Those gods on earth, are gods in happier climes;
+Minos in judgment sits, and Jove in power,
+And Odin's friends are feasted there with gore.
+
+Man is an infant still; and slow and late
+Must form and fix his adolescent state,
+Mature his manhood, and at last behold
+His reason ripen and his force unfold.
+From that bright eminence he then shall cast
+A look of wonder on his wanderings past,
+Congratulate himself, and o'er the earth
+Firm the full reign of peace predestined at his birth.
+
+So Hesper taught; and farther had pursued
+A theme so grateful as a world renew'd;
+But dubious thoughts disturb'd the Hero's breast,
+Who thus with modest mien the Seer addrest:
+Say, friend of man, in this unbounded range,
+Where error vagrates and illusions change,
+What hopes to see his baleful blunders cease,
+And earth commence that promised age of peace?
+Like a loose pendulum his mind is hung,
+From wrong to wrong by ponderous passion swung,
+It vibrates wide, and with unceasing flight
+Sweeps all extremes and scorns the mean of right.
+Tho in the times you trace he seems to gain
+A steadier movement and a path more plain,
+And tho experience will have taught him then
+To mark some dangers, some delusions ken,
+Yet who can tell what future shocks may spread
+New shades of darkness round his lofty head,
+Plunge him again in some broad gulph of woes,
+Where long and oft he struggled, wreck'd and rose?
+
+What strides he took in those gigantic times
+That sow'd with cities all his orient climes!
+When earth's proud floods he tamed, made many a shore,
+And talk'd with heaven from Babel's glittering tower!
+Did not his Babylon exulting say,
+I sit a queen, for ever stands my sway?
+Thebes, Memphis, Nineveh, a countless throng,
+Caught the same splendor and return'd the song;
+Each boasted, promised o'er the world to rise,
+Spouse of the sun, eternal as the skies.
+Where shall we find them now? the very shore
+Where Ninus rear'd his empire is no more:
+The dikes decay'd, a putrid marsh regains
+The sunken walls, the tomb-encumber'd plains,
+Pursues the dwindling nations where they shrink,
+And skirts with slime its deleterious brink.
+The fox himself has fled his gilded den,
+Nor holds the heritage he won from men;
+Lapwing and reptile shun the curst abode,
+And the foul dragon, now no more a god,
+Trails off his train; the sickly raven flies;
+A wide strong-stencht Avernus chokes the skies.
+So pride and ignorance fall a certain prey
+To the stanch bloodhound of despotic sway.
+
+Then past a long drear night, with here and there
+A doubtful glimmering from a single star;
+Tyre, Carthage, Syracuse the gleam increase,
+Till dawns at last the effulgent morn of Greece,
+Here all his Muses meet, all arts combine
+To nerve his genius and his works refine;
+Morals and laws and arms, and every grace
+That e'er adorn'd or could exalt the race,
+Wrought into science and arranged in rules,
+Swell the proud splendor of her cluster'd schools,
+Build and sustain the state with loud acclaim,
+And work those deathless miracles of fame
+That stand unrivall'd still; for who shall dare
+Another field with Marathon compare?
+Who speaks of eloquence or sacred song,
+But calls on Greece to modulate his tongue?
+And where has man's fine form so perfect shone
+In tint or mould, in canvass or in stone?
+
+Yet from that splendid height o'erturn'd once more,
+He dasht in dust the living lamp he bore.
+Dazzled with her own glare, decoy'd and sold
+For homebred faction and barbaric gold,
+Greece treads on Greece, subduing and subdued,
+New crimes inventing, all the old renew'd,
+Canton o'er canton climbs; till, crush'd and broke,
+All yield the sceptre and resume the yoke.
+
+Where shall we trace him next, the migrant man,
+To try once more his meliorating plan?
+Shall not the Macedonian, where he strides
+O'er Asian worlds and Nile's neglected tides,
+Prepare new seats of glory, to repay
+The transient shadows with perpetual day?
+His heirs erect their empires, and expand
+The beams of Greece thro each benighted land;
+Seleucia spreads o'er ten broad realms her sway,
+And turns on eastern climes the western ray;
+Palmyra brightens earth's commercial zone,
+And sits an emblem of her god the sun;
+While fond returning to that favorite shore
+Where Ammon ruled and Hermes taught of yore,
+All arts concentrate, force and grace combine
+To rear and blend the useful with the fine,
+Restore the Egyptian glories, and retain,
+Where science dawn'd, her great resurgent reign.
+
+From Egypt chased again, he seeks his home,
+More firmly fixt in sage considerate Rome.
+Here all the virtues long resplendent shone
+All that was Greek, barbarian and her own;
+She school'd him sound, and boasted to extend
+Thro time's long course and earth's remotest end
+His glorious reign of reason; soon to cease
+The clang of arms, and rule the world in peace.
+Great was the sense he gain'd, and well defined
+The various functions of his tutor'd mind;
+Could but his sober sense have proved his guide,
+And kind experience pruned the shoots of pride.
+
+A field magnificent before him lay;
+Land after land received the spreading ray;
+Franchise and friendship travell'd in his train,
+Bandits of earth and pirates of the main
+Rose into citizens, their rage resign'd.
+And hail'd the great republic of mankind.
+If ever then state slaughter was to pause,
+And man from nature learn to frame his laws.
+This was the moment; here the sunbeam rose
+To hush the human storm and let the world repose.
+
+But drunk with pomp and sickening at the light,
+He stagger d wild on this delirious height;
+Forgot the plainest truths he learnt before,
+And barter'd moral for material power.
+From Calpe's rock to India's ardent skies,
+O'er shuddering earth his talon'd Eagle flies,
+To justice blind, and heedless where she drove,
+As when she bore the brandisht bolt of Jove.
+
+Rome loads herself with chains, seals fast her eyes,
+And tells the insulted nations when to rise;
+And rise they do, like sweeping tempests driven,
+Swarm following swarm, o'ershading earth and heaven,
+Roll back her outrage, and indignant shed
+The world's wide vengeance on her sevenfold head.
+Then dwindling back to littleness and shade
+Man soon forgets the gorgeous glare he made,
+Sinks to a savage serf or monkish drone,
+Roves in rude hordes or counts his beads alone,
+Wars with his arts, obliterates his lore,
+And burns the books that rear'd his race before.
+
+Shrouded in deeper darkness now he veers
+The vast gyration of a thousand years,
+Strikes out each lamp that would illume his way,
+Disputes his food with every beast of prey;
+Imbands his force to fence his trist abodes,
+A wretched robber with his feudal codes.
+
+At length, it seems, some parsimonious rays
+Collect from each far heaven a feeble blaze,
+Dance o'er his Europe, and again excite
+His numerous nations to receive the light.
+But faint and slow the niggard dawn expands,
+Diffused o'er various far dissunder'd lands,
+Dreading, as well it may, to prove once more
+The same sad chance so often proved before.
+
+And why not lapse again? Celestial Seer,
+Forgive my doubts, and ah remove my fear!
+Man is my brother; strong I feel the ties,
+From strong solicitude my doubts arise;
+My heart, while opening with the boundless scope
+That swells before him and expands his hope,
+Forebodes another fall; and tho at last
+Thy world is planted and with light o'ercast,
+Tho two broad continents their beams combine
+Round his whole globe to stream his day divine,
+Perchance some folly, yet uncured, may spread
+A storm proportion'd to the lights they shed,
+Veil both his continents, and leave again
+Between them stretch'd the impermeable main;
+All science buried, sails and cities lost,
+Their lands uncultured, as their seas uncrost.
+Till on thy coast, some thousand ages hence,
+New pilots rise, bold enterprise commence,
+Some new Columbus (happier let him be,
+More wise and great and virtuous far than me)
+Launch on the wave, and tow'rd the rising day
+Like a strong eaglet steer his untaught way,
+Gird half the globe, and to his age unfold
+A strange new world, the world we call the old.
+From Finland's glade to Calpe's storm-beat head
+He'll find some tribes of scattering wildmen spread;
+But one vast wilderness will shade the soil,
+No wreck of art, no sign of ancient toil
+Tell where a city stood; nor leave one trace
+Of all that honors now, and all that shames the race.
+
+If such the round we run, what hope, my friend,
+To see our madness and our miseries end?--
+Here paused the Patriarch: mild the Saint return'd,
+And as he spoke, fresh glories round him burn'd:
+My son, I blame not but applaud thy grief;
+Inquiries deep should lead to slow belief.
+So small the portion of the range of man
+His written stories reach or views can span,
+That wild confusion seems to clog his march,
+And the dull progress made illudes thy search.
+But broad beyond compare, with steadier hand
+Traced o'er his earth, his present paths expand.
+In sober majesty and matron grace
+Sage Science now conducts her filial race;
+And if, while all their arts around them shine,
+They culture more the solid than the fine,
+Tis to correct their fatal faults of old,
+When, caught by tinsel, they forgot the gold;
+When their strong brilliant imitative lines
+Traced nature only in her gay designs,
+Rear'd the proud column, toned her chanting lyre,
+Warm'd the full senate with her words of fire,
+Pour'd on the canvass every pulse of life,
+And bade the marble rage with human strife.
+
+These were the arts that nursed unequal sway,
+That priests would pamper and that kings would pay,
+That spoke to vulgar sense, and often stole
+The sense of right and freedom from the soul.
+While, circumscribed in some concentred clime,
+They reach'd but one small nation at a time,
+Dazzled that nation, pufft her local pride,
+Proclaim'd her hatred to the world beside,
+Drew back returning hatred from afar,
+And sunk themselves beneath the storms of war.
+
+As, when the sun moves o'er the flaming zone,
+Collecting clouds attend his fervid throne,
+Superior splendors, in his morn display'd,
+Prepare for noontide but a heavier shade;
+Thus where the brilliant arts alone prevail'd,
+Their shining course succeeding storms assail'd;
+Pride, wrong and insult hemm'd their scanty reign,
+A Nile their stream, a Hellespont their main,
+Content with Tiber's narrow shores to wind,
+They fledged their Eagle but to fang mankind;
+Ere great inventions found a tardy birth,
+And with their new creations blest the earth.
+
+Now sober'd man a steadier gait assumes,
+Broad is the beam that breaks the Gothic glooms.
+At once consenting nations lift their eyes,
+And hail the holy dawn that streaks the skies;
+Arabian caliphs rear the spires of Spain,
+The Lombards keel their Adriatic main,
+Great Charles, invading and reviving all,
+Plants o'er with schools his numerous states of Gaul;
+And Alfred opes the mines whence Albion draws
+The ore of all her wealth,--her liberty and laws.
+
+Ausonian cities interchange and spread
+The lights of learning on the wings of trade;
+Bologna's student walls arise to fame,
+Germania, thine their rival honors claim;
+Halle, Gottinge, Upsal, Kiel and Leyden smile,
+Oxonia, Cambridge cheer Britannia's isle;
+Where, like her lark, gay Chaucer leads the lay,
+The matin carol of his country's day.
+
+Blind War himself, that erst opposed all good,
+And whelm'd meek Science in her votaries' blood,
+Now smooths, by means unseen, her modest way,
+Extends her limits and secures her sway.
+From Europe's world his mad crusaders pour
+Their banded myriads on the Asian shore;
+The mystic Cross, thro famine toil and blood,
+Leads their long marches to the tomb of God.
+Thro realms of industry their passage lies,
+And labor'd affluence feasts their curious eyes;
+Till fields of slaughter whelm the broken host,
+Their pride appall'd, their warmest zealots lost,
+The wise remains to their own shores return,
+Transplant all arts that Hagar's race adorn,
+Learn from long intercourse their mutual ties,
+And find in commerce where their interest lies.
+
+From Drave's long course to Biscay's bending shores,
+Where Adria sleeps, to where the Bothnian roars,
+In one great Hanse, for earth's whole trafic known,
+Free cities rise, and in their golden zone
+Bind all the interior states; nor princes dare
+Infringe their franchise with voracious war.
+All shield them safe, and joy to share the gain
+That spreads o'er land from each surrounding main,
+Makes Indian stuffs, Arabian gums their own,
+Plants Persian gems on every Celtic crown,
+Pours thro their opening woodlands milder day,
+And gives to genius his expansive play.
+
+This blessed moment, from the towers of Thorn
+New splendor rises; there the sage is born!
+The sage who starts these planetary spheres,
+Deals out their task to wind their own bright years,
+Restores his station to the parent Sun,
+And leads his duteous daughters round his throne.
+Each mounts obedient on her wheels of fire,
+Whirls round her sisters, and salutes the sire,
+Guides her new car, her youthful coursers tries,
+Curves careful paths along her alter'd skies,
+Learns all her mazes thro the host of even,
+And hails and joins the harmony of heaven.
+--Fear not, Copernicus! let loose the rein,
+Launch from their goals, and mark the moving train;
+Fix at their sun thy calculating eye,
+Compare and count their courses round their sky.
+Fear no disaster from the slanting force
+That warps them staggering in elliptic course;
+Thy sons with steadier ken shall aid the search,
+And firm and fashion their majestic march,
+Kepler prescribe the laws no stars can shun,
+And Newton tie them to the eternal sun.
+
+By thee inspired, his tube the Tuscan plies,
+And sends new colonies to stock the skies,
+Gives Jove his satellites, and first adorns
+Effulgent Phosphor with his silver horns.
+Herschel ascends himself with venturous wain,
+And joins and flanks thy planetary train,
+Perceives his distance from their elder spheres,
+And guards with numerous moons the lonely round he steers.
+
+Yes, bright Copernicus, thy beams, far hurl'd,
+Shall startle well this intellectual world,
+Break the delusive dreams of ancient lore,
+New floods of light on every subject pour,
+Thro Physic Nature many a winding trace,
+And seat the Moral on her sister's base.
+Descartes with force gigantic toils alone,
+Unshrines old errors and propounds his own;
+Like a blind Samson, gropes their strong abodes,
+Whelms deep in dust their temples and their gods,
+Buries himself with those false codes they drew,
+And makes his followers frame and fix the true.
+
+Bacon, with every power of genius fraught,
+Spreads over worlds his mantling wings of thought,
+Draws in firm lines, and tells in nervous tone
+All that is yet and all that shall be known,
+Withes Proteus Matter in his arms of might,
+And drags her tortuous secrets forth to light,
+Bids men their unproved systems all forgo,
+Informs them what to learn, and how to know,
+Waves the first flambeau thro the night that veils
+Egyptian fables and Phenician tales,
+Strips from all-plundering Greece the cloak she wore,
+And shows the blunders of her borrow'd lore.
+
+One vast creation, lately borne abroad,
+Cheers the young nations like a nurturing God,
+Breathes thro them all the same wide-searching soul.
+Forms, feeds, refines and animates the whole,
+Guards every ground they gain, and forward brings
+Glad Science soaring on cerulean wings,
+Trims her gay plumes, directs her upward course,
+Props her light pinions and sustains her force,
+Instructs all men her golden gifts to prize,
+And catch new glories from her beamful eyes,--
+Tis the prolific Press; whose tablet, fraught
+By graphic Genius with his painted thought,
+Flings forth by millions the prodigious birth,
+And in a moment stocks the astonish'd earth.
+
+Genius, enamor'd of his fruitful bride,
+Assumes new force and elevates his pride.
+No more, recumbent o'er his finger'd style,
+He plods whole years each copy to compile,
+Leaves to ludibrious winds the priceless page,
+Or to chance fires the treasure of an age;
+But bold and buoyant, with his sister Fame,
+He strides o'er earth, holds high his ardent flame,
+Calls up Discovery with her tube and scroll,
+And points the trembling magnet to the pole.
+Hence the brave Lusitanians stretch the sail,
+Scorn guiding stars, and tame the midsea gale;
+And hence thy prow deprest the boreal wain,
+Rear'd adverse heavens, a second earth to gain,
+Ran down old Night, her western curtain thirl'd,
+And snatch'd from swaddling shades an infant world.
+
+Rome, Athens, Memphis, Tyre! had you butknown
+This glorious triad, now familiar grown,
+The Press, the Magnet faithful to its pole,
+And earth's own Movement round her steadfast goal,
+Ne'er had your science, from that splendid height,
+Sunk in her strength, nor seen succeeding night.
+Her own utility had forced her sway,
+All nations caught the fast-extending ray,
+Nature thro all her kingdoms oped the road,
+Resign'd her secrets and her wealth bestow'd;
+Her moral codes a like dominion rear'd,
+Freedom been born and folly disappear'd,
+War and his monsters sunk beneath her ban,
+And left the world to reason and to man.
+
+But now behold him bend his broader way,
+Lift keener eyes and drink diviner day,
+All systems scrutinize, their truths unfold,
+Prove well the recent, well revise the old,
+Reject all mystery, and define with force
+The point he aims at in his laboring course,--
+To know these elements, learn how they wind
+Their wondrous webs of matter and of mind,
+What springs, what guides organic life requires,
+To move, rule, rein its ever-changing gyres,
+Improve and utilise each opening birth,
+And aid the labors of this nurturing earth.
+
+But chief their moral soul he learns to trace,
+That stronger chain which links and leads the race;
+Which forms and sanctions every social tie,
+And blinds or clears their intellectual eye.
+He strips that soul from every filmy shade
+That schools had caught, that oracles had made,
+Relumes her visual nerve, develops strong
+The rules of right, the subtle shifts of wrong;
+Of civil power draws clear the sacred line,
+Gives to just government its right divine,
+Forms, varies, fashions, as his lights increase,
+Till earth is fill'd with happiness and peace.
+
+Already taught, thou know'st the fame that waits
+His rising seat in thy confederate states.
+There stands the model, thence he long shall draw
+His forms of policy, his traits of law;
+Each land shall imitate, each nation join
+The well-based brotherhood, the league divine,
+Extend its empire with the circling sun,
+And band the peopled globe beneath its federal zone.
+
+As thus he spoke, returning tears of joy
+Suffused the Hero's cheek and pearl'd his eye:
+Unveil, said he, my friend, and stretch once more
+Beneath my view that heaven-illumined shore;
+Let me behold her silver beams expand,
+To lead all nations, lighten every land,
+Instruct the total race, and teach at last
+Their toils to lessen and their chains to cast,
+Trace and attain the purpose of their birth,
+And hold in peace this heritage of earth.
+The Seraph smiled consent, the Hero's eye
+Watch'd for the daybeam round the changing sky.
+
+
+
+
+Book X.
+
+
+
+Argument
+
+
+    The vision resumed, and extended over the whole earth. Present
+    character of different nations. Future progress of society with respect
+    to commerce; discoveries; inland navigation; philosophical, med
+    and political knowledge. Science of government. Assimilation and final
+    union of all languages. Its effect on education, and on the advancement
+    of physical and moral science. The physical precedes the moral, as
+    Phosphor precedes the Sun. View of a general Congress from all nations,
+    assembled to establish the political harmony of mankind. Conclusion.
+
+
+Hesper again his heavenly power display'd,
+And shook the yielding canopy of shade.
+Sudden the stars their trembling fires withdrew.
+Returning splendors burst upon the view,
+Floods of unfolding light the skies adorn,
+And more than midday glories grace the morn.
+So shone the earth, as if the sideral train,
+Broad as full suns, had sail'd the ethereal plain;
+When no distinguisht orb could strike the sight,
+But one clear blaze of all-surrounding light
+O'erflow'd the vault of heaven. For now in view
+Remoter climes and future ages drew;
+Whose deeds of happier fame, in long array,
+Call'd into vision, fill the newborn day.
+
+Far as seraphic power could lift the eye,
+Or earth or ocean bend the yielding sky,
+Or circling sutis awake the breathing gale,
+Drake lead the way, or Cook extend the sail;
+Where Behren sever'd, with adventurous prow,
+Hesperia's headland from Tartaria's brow;
+Where sage Vancouvre's patient leads were hurl'd,
+Where Deimen stretch'd his solitary world;
+All lands, all seas that boast a present name,
+And all that unborn time shall give to fame,
+Around the Pair in bright expansion rise,
+And earth, in one vast level, bounds the skies.
+
+They saw the nations tread their different shores,
+Ply their own toils and wield their local powers,
+Their present state in all its views disclose,
+Their gleams of happiness, their shades of woes,
+Plodding in various stages thro the range
+Of man's unheeded but unceasing change.
+Columbus traced them with experienced eye,
+And class'd and counted all the flags that fly;
+He mark'd what tribes still rove the savage waste,
+What cultured realms the sweets of plenty taste;
+Where arts and virtues fix their golden reign,
+Or peace adorns, or slaughter dyes the plain.
+
+He saw the restless Tartar, proud to roam,
+Move with his herds and pitch a transient home;
+Tibet's long tracts and China's fixt domain,
+Dull as their despots, yield their cultured grain;
+Cambodia, Siam, Asia's myriad isles
+And old Indostan, with their wealthy spoils
+Attract adventures masters, and o'ershade
+Their sunbright ocean with the wings of trade.
+Arabian robbers, Syrian Kurds combined,
+Create their deserts and infest mankind;
+The Turk's dim Crescent, like a day-struck star,
+As Russia's Eagle shades their haunts of war,
+Shrinks from insulted Europe, who divide
+The shatter'd empire to the Pontic tide.
+He mark'd impervious Afric, where alone
+She lies encircled with the verdant zone
+That lines her endless coast, and still sustains
+Her northern pirates and her eastern swains,
+Mourns her interior tribes purloined away,
+And chain'd and sold beyond Atlantic day.
+Brazilla's wilds, Mackensie's savage lands
+With bickering strife inflame their furious bands;
+Atlantic isles and Europe's cultured shores
+Heap their vast wealth, exchange their growing stores,
+All arts inculcate, new discoveries plan,
+Tease and torment but school the race of man.
+While his own federal states, extending far,
+Calm their brave sons now breathing from the war,
+Unfold their harbors, spread their genial soil,
+And welcome freemen to the cheerful toil.
+
+A sight so solemn, as it varied sound,
+Fill'd his fond heart with reveries profound;
+He felt the infinitude of thoughts that pass
+And guide and govern that enormous mass.
+The cares that agitate, the creeds that blind,
+The woes that waste the many-master'd kind,
+The distance great that still remains to trace,
+Ere sober sense can harmonize the race,
+Held him suspense, imprest with reverence meek,
+And choked his utterance as he wish'd to speak:
+When Hesper thus: The paths they here pursue,
+Wide as they seem unfolding to thy view,
+Show but a point in that long circling course
+Which cures their weakness and confirms their force,
+Lends that experience which alone can close
+The scenes of strife, and give the world repose.
+Yet here thou seest the same progressive plan
+That draws for mutual succour man to man,
+From twain to tribe, from tribe to realm dilates,
+In federal union groups a hundred states,
+Thro all their turns with gradual scale ascends,
+Their powers; their passions and their interest blends;
+While growing arts their social virtues spread,
+Enlarge their compacts and unlock their trade;
+Till each remotest clan, by commerce join'd,
+Links in the chain that binds all humankind,
+Their bloody banners sink in darkness furl'd,
+And one white flag of peace triumphant walks the world.
+
+As infant streams, from oozing earth at first
+With feeble force and lonely murmurs burst,
+From myriad unseen fountains draw the rills
+And curl contentious round their hundred hills,
+Meet, froth and foam, their dashing currents swell,
+O'er crags and rocks their furious course impel,
+Impetuous plunging plough the mounds of earth,
+And tear the fostering flanks that gave them birth;
+Mad with the strength they gain, they thicken deep
+Their muddy waves and slow and sullen creep,
+O'erspread whole regions in their lawless pride,
+Then stagnate long, then shrink and curb their tide;
+Anon more tranquil grown, with steadier sway,
+Thro broader banks they shape their seaward way,
+From different climes converging, join and spread
+Their mingled waters in one widening bed,
+Profound, transparent; till the liquid zone
+Bands half the globe and drinks the golden sun,
+Sweeps onward still the still expanding plain,
+And moves majestic to the boundless main.
+Tis thus Society's small sources rise;
+Thro passions wild her infant progress lies;
+Fear, with its host of follies, errors, woes,
+Creates her obstacles and forms her foes;
+Misguided interest, local pride withstand,
+Till long-tried ills her growing views expand,
+Till tribes and states and empires find their place,
+Whose mutual wants her widest walks embrace;
+Enlightened interest, moral sense at length
+Combine their aids to elevate her strength,
+Lead o'er the world her peace-commanding sway.
+And light her steps with everlasting day.
+
+From that mark'd stage of man we now behold,
+More rapid strides his coming paths unfold;
+His continents are traced, his islands found,
+His well-taught sails on all his billows bound,
+His varying wants their new discoveries ply,
+And seek in earth's whole range their sure supply.
+
+First of his future stages, thou shalt see
+His trade unfetter'd and his ocean free.
+From thy young states the code consoling springs,
+To strip from vulture War his naval wings;
+In views so just all Europe's powers combine,
+And earth's full voice approves the vast design.
+Tho still her inland realms the combat wage
+And hold in lingering broils the unsettled age,
+Yet no rude shocks that shake the crimson plain
+Shall more disturb the labors of the main;
+The main that spread so wide his travell'd way,
+Liberal as air, impartial as the day,
+That all thy race the common wealth might share,
+Exchange their fruits and fill their treasures there,
+Their speech assimilate, their counsels blend,
+Till mutual interest fix the mutual friend.
+Now see, my son, the destined hour advance;
+Safe in their leagues commercial navies dance,
+Leave their curst cannon on the quay-built strand,
+And like the stars of heaven a fearless course command.
+
+The Hero look'd; beneath his wondering eyes
+Gay streamers lengthen round the seas and skies;
+The countless nations open all their stores,
+Load every wave and crowd the lively shores;
+Bright sails in mingling mazes streak the air,
+And commerce triumphs o'er the rage of war.
+
+From Baltic streams, from Elba's opening side,
+From Rhine's long course and Texel's laboring tide,
+From Gaul, from Albion, tired of fruitless fight,
+From green Hibernia, clothed in recent light,
+Hispania's strand that two broad oceans lave,
+From Senegal and Gambia's golden wave,
+Tago the rich, and Douro's viny shores,
+The sweet Canaries and the soft Azores,
+Commingling barks their mutual banners hail,
+And drink by turns the same distending gale.
+Thro Calpe's strait that leads the Midland main,
+From Adria, Pontus, Nile's resurgent reign,
+The sails look forth and wave their bandrols high
+And ask their breezes from a broader sky.
+Where Asia's isles and utmost shorelands bend,
+Like rising suns the sheeted masts ascend;
+Coast after coast their flowing flags unrol,
+From Deimen's rocks to Zembla's ice-propt pole,
+Where Behren's pass collapsing worlds divides,
+Where California breaks the billowy tides,
+Peruvian streams their golden margins boast,
+Or Chili bluffs or Plata flats the coast.
+Where, clothed in splendor, his Atlantic way
+Spreads the blue borders of Hesperian day,
+From all his havens, with majestic sweep,
+The swiftest boldest daughters of the deep
+Swarm forth before him; till the cloudlike train
+From pole to pole o'ersheet the whitening main.
+
+So some primeval seraph, placed on high,
+From heaven's sublimest point o'erlooke'd the sky,
+When space unfolding heard the voice of God,
+And suns and stars and systems roll'd abroad,
+Caught their first splendors from his beamful eye,
+Began their years and vaulted round their sky;
+Their social spheres in bright confusion play,
+Exchange their beams and fill the newborn day.
+
+Nor seas alone the countless barks behold;
+Earth's inland realms their naval paths unfold.
+Her plains, long portless, now no more complain
+Of useless rills and fountains nursed in vain;
+Canals curve thro them many a liquid line,
+Prune their wild streams, their lakes and oceans join.
+Where Darien hills o'erlook the gulphy tide,
+Cleft in his view the enormous banks divide;
+Ascending sails their opening pass pursue,
+And waft the sparkling treasures of Peru.
+Moxoe resigns his stagnant world of fen,
+Allures, rewards the cheerful toils of men,
+Leads their long new-made rivers round his reign,
+Drives off the stench and waves his golden grain,
+Feeds a whole nation from his cultured shore,
+Where not a bird could skim the skies before.
+
+From Mohawk's mouth, far westing with the sun,
+Thro all the midlands recent channels run,
+Tap the redundant lakes, the broad hills brave,
+And Hudson marry with Missouri's wave.
+From dim Superior, whose uncounted sails
+Shade his full seas and bosom all his gales,
+New paths unfolding seek Mackensie's tide,
+And towns and empires rise along their side;
+Slave's crystal highways all his north adorn,
+Like coruscations from the boreal morn.
+Proud Missisippi, tamed and taught his road,
+Flings forth irriguous from his generous flood
+Ten thousand watery glades; that, round him curl'd,
+Vein the broad bosom of the western world.
+
+From the red banks of Arab's odorous tide
+Their Isthmus opens, and strange waters glide;
+Europe from all her shores, with crowded sails,
+Looks thro the pass and calls the Asian gales.
+Volga and Obi distant oceans join.
+Delighted Danube weds the wasting Rhine;
+Elbe, Oder, Neister channel many a plain,
+Exchange their barks and try each other's main.
+All infant streams and every mountain rill
+Choose their new paths, some useful task to fill,
+Each acre irrigate, re-road the earth,
+And serve at last the purpose of their birth.
+
+Earth, garden'd all, a tenfold burden brings;
+Her fruits, her odors, her salubrious springs
+Swell, breathe and bubble from the soil they grace,
+String with strong nerves the renovating race,
+Their numbers multiply in every land,
+Their toils diminish and their powers expand;
+And while she rears them with a statelier frame
+Their soul she kindles with diviner flame,
+Leads their bright intellect with fervid glow
+Thro all the mass of things that still remains to know.
+
+He saw the aspiring genius of the age
+Soar in the Bard and strengthen in the Sage:
+The Bard with bolder hand assumes the lyre,
+Warms the glad nations with unwonted fire,
+Attunes to virtue all the tones that roll
+Their tides of transport thro the expanding soul.
+For him no more, beneath their furious gods,
+Old ocean crimsons and Olympus nods,
+Uprooted mountains sweep the dark profound,
+Or Titans groan beneath the rending ground,
+No more his clangor maddens up the mind
+To crush, to conquer and enslave mankind,
+To build on ruin'd realms the shrines of fame,
+And load his numbers with a tyrant's name.
+Far nobler objects animate his tongue,
+And give new energies to epic song;
+To moral charms he bids the world attend,
+Fraternal states their mutual ties extend,
+O'er cultured earth the rage of conquest cease,
+War sink in night and nature smile in peace.
+Soaring with science then he learns to string
+Her highest harp, and brace her broadest wing,
+With her own force to fray the paths untrod,
+With her own glance to ken the total God,
+Thro heavens o'ercanopied by heavens behold
+New suns ascend and other skies unfold,
+Social and system'd worlds around him shine,
+And lift his living strains to harmony divine.
+
+The Sage with steadier lights directs his ken,
+Thro twofold nature leads the walks of men,
+Remoulds her moral and material frames,
+Their mutual aids, their sister laws proclaims,
+Disease before him with its causes flies,
+And boasts no more of sickly soils and skies;
+His well-proved codes the healing science aid,
+Its base establish and its blessing spread,
+With long-wrought life to teach the race to glow,
+And vigorous nerves to grace the locks of snow.
+
+From every shape that varying matter gives,
+That rests or ripens, vegetates or lives,
+His chymic powers new combinations plan,
+Yield new creations, finer forms to man,
+High springs of health for mind and body trace,
+Add force and beauty to the joyous race,
+Arm with new engines his adventurous hand,
+Stretch o'er these elements his wide command,
+Lay the proud storm submissive at his feet,
+Change, temper, tame all subterranean heat,
+Probe laboring earth and drag from her dark side
+The mute volcano, ere its force be tried;
+Walk under ocean, ride the buoyant air,
+Brew the soft shower, the labor'd land repair,
+A fruitful soil o'er sandy deserts spread,
+And clothe with culture every mountain's head.
+
+Where system'd realms their mutual glories lend,
+And well-taught sires the cares of state attend,
+Thro every maze of man they learn to wind,
+Note each device that prompts the Proteus mind,
+What soft restraints the tempered breast requires,
+To taste new joys and cherish new desires,
+Expand the selfish to the social flame,
+And rear the soul to deeds of nobler fame.
+
+They mark, in all the past records of praise,
+What partial views heroic zeal could raise;
+What mighty states on others' ruins stood,
+And built unsafe their haughty seats in blood;
+How public virtue's ever borrow'd name
+With proud applauses graced the deeds of shame,
+Bade each imperial standard wave sublime,
+And wild ambition havoc every clime;
+From chief to chief the kindling spirit ran,
+Heirs of false fame and enemies of man.
+
+Where Grecian states in even balance hung,
+And warm'd with jealous fires the patriot's tongue,
+The exclusive ardor cherish'd in the breast
+Love to one land and hatred to the rest.
+And where the flames of civil discord rage,
+And Roman arms with Roman arms engage,
+The mime of virtue rises still the same,
+To build a Cesar's as a Pompey's name.
+
+But now no more the patriotic mind,
+To narrow views and local laws confined,
+Gainst neighboring lands directs the public rage.
+Plods for a clan or counsels for an age;
+But soars to loftier thoughts, and reaches far
+Beyond the power, beyond the wish of war;
+For realms and ages forms the general aim,
+Makes patriot views and moral views the same,
+Works with enlighten'd zeal, to see combined
+The strength and happiness of humankind.
+
+Long had Columbus with delighted eyes
+Mark'd all the changes that around him rise,
+Lived thro descending ages as they roll,
+And feasted still the still expanding soul;
+When now the peopled regions swell more near,
+And a mixt noise tumultuous stuns his ear.
+At first, like heavy thunders roll'd in air,
+Or the rude shock of cannonading war,
+Or waves resounding on the craggy shore,
+Hoarse roll'd the loud-toned undulating roar.
+But soon the sounds like human voices rise,
+All nations pouring undistinguisht cries;
+Till more distinct the wide concussion grown
+Rolls forth at times an accent like his own.
+By turns the tongues assimilating blend,
+And smoother idioms over earth ascend;
+Mingling and softening still in every gale,
+O'er discord's din harmonious tones prevail.
+At last a simple universal sound
+Winds thro the welkin, sooths the world around,
+From echoing shores in swelling strain replies,
+And moves melodious o'er the warbling skies.
+
+Such wild commotions as he heard and view'd,
+In fixt astonishment the Hero stood,
+And thus besought the Guide: Celestial friend,
+What good to man can these dread scenes intend?
+Some sore distress attends that boding sound
+That breathed hoarse thunder and convulsed the ground.
+War sure hath ceased; or have my erring eyes
+Misread the glorious visions of the skies?
+Tell then, my Seer, if future earthquakes sleep,
+Closed in the conscious caverns of the deep,
+Waiting the day of vengeance, when to roll
+And rock the rending pillars of the pole.
+Or tell if aught more dreadful to my race
+In these dark signs thy heavenly wisdom trace;
+And why the loud discordance melts again
+In the smooth glidings of a tuneful strain.
+
+The guardian god replied: Thy fears give o'er;
+War's hosted hounds shall havoc earth no more;
+No sore distress these signal sounds foredoom,
+But give the pledge of peaceful years to come;
+The tongues of nations here their accents blend.
+Till one pure language thro the world extend.
+
+Thou know'st the tale of Babel; how the skies
+Fear'd for their safety as they felt him rise,
+Sent unknown jargons mid the laboring bands,
+Confused their converse and unnerved their hands,
+Dispersed the bickering tribes and drove them far,
+From peaceful toil to violence and war;
+Bade kings arise with bloody flags unfurl'd,
+Bade pride and conquest wander o'er the world,
+Taught adverse creeds, commutual hatreds bred,
+Till holy homicide the climes o'erspread.
+--For that fine apologue, writh mystic strain,
+Gave like the rest a golden age to man,
+Ascribed perfection to his infant state,
+Science unsought and all his arts innate;
+Supposed the experience of the growing race
+Must lead him retrograde and cramp his pace,
+Obscure his vision as his lights increast,
+And sink him from an angel to a beast.
+
+Tis thus the teachers of despotic sway
+Strive in all times to blot the beams of day,
+To keep him curb'd, nor let him lift his eyes
+To see where happiness, where misery lies.
+They lead him blind, and thro the world's broad waste
+Perpetual feuds, unceasing shadows cast,
+Crush every art that might the mind expand,
+And plant with demons every desert land;
+That, fixt in straiten'd bounds, the lust of power
+May ravage still and still the race devour,
+An easy prey the hoodwink'd hordes remain,
+And oceans roll and shores extend in vain.
+
+Long have they reign'd; till now the race at last
+Shake off their manacles, their blinders cast,
+Overrule the crimes their fraudful foes produce,
+By ways unseen to serve the happiest use,
+Tempt the wide wave, probe every yielding soil,
+Fill with their fruits the hardy hand of toil,
+Unite their forces, wheel the conquering car,
+Deal mutual death, but civilize by war.
+
+Dear-bought the experiment and hard the strife
+Of social man, that rear'd his arts to life.
+His Passions wild that agitate the mind,
+His Reason calm, their watchful guide designed,
+While yet unreconciled, his march restrain,
+Mislead the judgment and betray the man.
+Fear, his first passion, long maintain'd the sway,
+Long shrouded in its glooms the mental ray,
+Shook, curb'd, controll'd his intellectual force,
+And bore him wild thro many a devious course.
+Long had his Reason, with experienced eye,
+Perused the book of earth and scaled the sky,
+Led fancy, memory, foresight in her train,
+And o'er creation stretch'd her vast domain;
+Yet would that rival Fear her strength appal;
+In that one conflict always sure to fall,
+Mild Reason shunn'd the foe she could not brave,
+Renounced her empire and remained a slave.
+
+But deathless, tho debased, she still could find
+Some beams of truth to pour upon the mind;
+And tho she dared no moral code to scan,
+Thro physic forms she learnt to lead the man;
+To strengthen thus his opening orbs of sight,
+And nerve and clear them for a stronger light.
+That stronger light, from nature's double codes,
+Now springs expanding and his doubts explodes;
+All nations catch it, all their tongues combine
+To hail the human morn and speak the day divine.
+
+At this blest period, when the total race
+Shall speak one language and all truths embrace,
+Instruction clear a speedier course shall find,
+And open earlier on the infant mind.
+No foreign terms shall crowd with barbarous rules
+The dull unmeaning pageantry of schools;
+Nor dark authorities nor names unknown
+Fill the learnt head with ignorance not its own;
+But wisdom's eye with beams unclouded shine,
+And simplest rules her native charms define;
+One living language, one unborrow'd dress
+Her boldest flights with fullest force express;
+Triumphant virtue, in the garb of truth,
+Win a pure passage to the heart of youth,
+Pervade all climes where suns or oceans roll,
+And warm the world with one great moral soul,
+To see, facilitate, attain the scope
+Of all their labor and of all their hope.
+
+As early Phosphor, on his silver throne,
+Fair type of truth and promise of the sun,
+Smiles up the orient in his dew-dipt ray,
+Illumes the front of heaven and leads the day;
+Thus Physic Science, with exploring eyes,
+First o'er the nations bids her beauties rise,
+Prepares the glorious way to pour abroad
+Her Sister's brighter beams, the purest light of God.
+Then Moral Science leads the lively mind
+Thro broader fields and pleasures more refined;
+Teaches the temper'd soul, at one vast view,
+To glance o'er time and look existence thro,
+See worlds and worlds, to being's formless end,
+With all their hosts on her prime power depend,
+Seraphs and suns and systems, as they rise,
+Live in her life and kindle from her eyes,
+Her cloudless ken, her all-pervading soul
+Illume, sublime and harmonize the whole;
+Teaches the pride of man its breadth to bound
+In one small point of this amazing round,
+To shrink and rest where nature fixt its fate,
+A line its space, a moment for its date;
+Instructs the heart an ampler joy to taste,
+And share its feelings with each human breast,
+Expand its wish to grasp the total kind
+Of sentient soul, of cogitative mind;
+Till mutual love commands all strife to cease,
+And earth join joyous in the songs of peace.
+
+Thus heard Columbus, eager to behold
+The famed Apocalypse its years unfold;
+The soul stood speaking thro his gazing eyes,
+And thus his voice: Oh let the visions rise!
+Command, celestial Guide, from each far pole,
+John's vision'd morn to open on my soul,
+And raise the scenes, by his reflected light,
+Living and glorious to my longing sight.
+Let heaven unfolding show the eternal throne,
+And all the concave flame in one clear sun;
+On clouds of fire, with angels at his side,
+The Prince of Peace, the King of Salem ride,
+With smiles of love to greet the bridal earth,
+Call slumbering ages to a second birth,
+With all his white-robed millions fill the train,
+And here commence the interminable reign!
+Such views, the Saint replies, for sense too bright,
+Would seal thy vision in eternal night;
+Man cannot face nor seraph power display
+The mystic beams of such an awful day.
+Enough for thee, that thy delighted mind
+Should trace the temporal actions of thy kind;
+That time's descending veil should ope so far
+Beyond the reach of wretchedness and war,
+Till all the paths in nature's sapient plan
+Fair in thy presence lead the steps of man,
+And form at last, on earth's extended ball,
+Union of parts and happiness of all.
+To thy glad ken these rolling years have shown
+The boundless blessings thy vast labors crown,
+That, with the joys of unborn ages blest,
+Thy soul exulting may retire to rest,
+But see once more! beneath a change of skies,
+The last glad visions wait thy raptured eyes.
+
+Eager he look'd. Another train of years
+Had roll'd unseen, and brighten'd still their spheres;
+Earth more resplendent in the floods of day
+Assumed new smiles, and flush'd around him lay.
+Green swell the mountains, calm the oceans roll,
+Fresh beams of beauty kindle round the pole;
+Thro all the range where shores and seas extend,
+In tenfold pomp the works of peace ascend.
+Robed in the bloom of spring's eternal year,
+And ripe with fruits the same glad fields appear;
+O'er hills and vales perennial gardens run,
+Cities unwall'd stand sparkling to the sun;
+The streams all freighted from the bounteous plain
+Swell with the load and labor to the main,
+Whose stormless waves command a steadier gale
+And prop the pinions of a bolder sail:
+Sway'd with the floating weight each ocean toils,
+And joyous nature's full perfection smiles.
+
+Fill'd with unfolding fate, the vision'd age
+Now leads its actors on a broader stage;
+When clothed majestic in the robes of state,
+Moved by one voice, in general congress meet
+The legates of all empires. Twas the place
+Where wretched men first firm'd their wandering pace;
+Ere yet beguiled, the dark delirious hordes
+Began to fight for altars and for lords;
+Nile washes still the soil, and feels once more
+The works of wisdom press his peopled shore.
+
+In this mid site, this monumental clime,
+Rear'd by all realms to brave the wrecks of time
+A spacious dome swells up, commodious great,
+The last resort, the unchanging scene of state.
+On rocks of adamant the walls ascend,
+Tall columns heave and sky-like arches bend;
+Bright o'er the golden roofs the glittering spires
+Far in the concave meet the solar fires;
+Four blazing fronts, with gates unfolding high,
+Look with immortal splendor round the sky:
+Hither the delegated sires ascend,
+And all the cares of every clime attend.
+
+As that blest band, the guardian guides of heaven,
+To whom the care of stars and suns is given,
+(When one great circuit shall have proved their spheres,
+And time well taught them how to wind their years)
+Shall meet in general council; call'd to state
+The laws and labors that their charge await;
+To learn, to teach, to settle how to hold
+Their course more glorious, as their lights unfold:
+From all the bounds of space (the mandate known)
+They wing their passage to the eternal throne;
+Each thro his far dim sky illumes the road,
+And sails and centres tow'rd the mount of God;
+There, in mid universe, their seats to rear,
+Exchange their counsels and their works compare:
+So, from all tracts of earth, this gathering throng
+In ships and chariots shape their course along,
+Reach with unwonted speed the place assign'd
+To hear and give the counsels of mankind.
+
+South of the sacred mansion, first resort
+The assembled sires, and pass the spacious court.
+Here in his porch earth's figured Genius stands,
+Truth's mighty mirror poizing in his hands;
+Graved on the pedestal and chased in gold,
+Man's noblest arts their symbol forms unfold,
+His tillage and his trade; with all the store
+Of wondrous fabrics and of useful lore:
+Labors that fashion to his sovereign sway
+Earth's total powers, her soil and air and sea;
+Force them to yield their fruits at his known call,
+And bear his mandates round the rolling ball.
+Beneath the footstool all destructive things,
+The mask of priesthood and the mace of kings,
+Lie trampled in the dust; for here at last
+Fraud, folly, error all their emblems cast.
+Each envoy here unloads his wearied hand
+Of some old idol from his native land;
+One flings a pagod on the mingled heap,
+One lays a crescent, one a cross to sleep;
+Swords, sceptres, mitres, crowns and globes and stars,
+Codes of false fame and stimulants to wars
+Sink in the settling mass; since guile began,
+These are the agents of the woes of man.
+
+Now the full concourse, where the arches bend,
+Pour thro by thousands and their seats ascend.
+Far as the centred eye can range around,
+Or the deep trumpet's solemn voice resound,
+Long rows of reverend sires sublime extend,
+And cares of worlds on every brow suspend.
+High in the front, for soundest wisdom known,
+A sire elect in peerless grandeur shone;
+He open'd calm the universal cause,
+To give each realm its limit and its laws,
+Bid the last breath of tired contention cease,
+And bind all regions in the leagues of peace;
+Till one confederate, condependent sway
+Spread with the sun and bound the walks of day,
+One centred system, one all-ruling soul
+Live thro the parts and regulate the whole.
+
+Here then, said Hesper, with a blissful smile,
+Behold the fruits of thy long years of toil.
+To yon bright borders of Atlantic day
+Thy swelling pinions led the trackless way,
+And taught mankind such useful deeds to dare,
+To trace new seas and happy nations rear;
+Till by fraternal hands their sails unfurl'd
+Have waved at last in union o'er the world.
+
+Then let thy steadfast soul no more complain
+Of dangers braved and griefs endured in vain,
+Of courts insidious, envy's poison'd stings,
+The loss of empire and the frown of kings;
+While these broad views thy better thoughts compose
+To spurn the malice of insulting foes;
+And all the joys descending ages gain,
+Repay thy labors and remove thy pain.
+
+
+
+
+Notes.
+
+
+
+Tho it would be more convenient to the reader to find some of these notes,
+especially the shorter ones, at the bottom of the pages to which they
+refer, yet most of them are of such a length as would render that mode of
+placing them disadvantageous to the symmetry of the pages and the general
+appearance of the work. It seemed necessary that these should be collected
+at the end of the Poem; and it was thought proper that the others should
+not be separated from them.
+
+The notes will probably be found too voluminous for the taste of some
+readers; but others would doubtless be better pleased to see them still
+augmented, as several of the philosophical subjects and historical
+references are left unexplained. Were I to offer apologies in this case, I
+should hardly know on which side to begin. I will therefore only say that
+in this appendage, as in the body of the work, I have aimed, as well as I
+was able, at blending in due proportions the useful with the agreeable.
+
+
+
+No. 1.
+
+
+  _One gentle guardian once could shield the brave;
+  But now that guardian slumbers in the grave._
+
+  Book I. Line 105.
+
+The death of queen Isabella, which happened before the last return of
+Columbus from America, was a subject of great sorrow to him. In her he lost
+his only powerful friend in Spain, on whose influence he was accustomed to
+rely in counteracting the perpetual intrigues of a host of enemies, whose
+rank and fortune gave them a high standing at the court of Valladolid.
+Their situation and connexions must havee commanded a weight of authority
+not easily resisted by an individual foreigner, however illustrious from
+his merit.
+
+It was a grievous reflection for Columbus that his services, tho great in
+themselves and unequalled in their consequences to the world, had been
+performed in an age and for a nation which knew not their value, as well as
+for an ungrateful monarch who chose to disregard them.
+
+
+
+No. 2.
+
+
+  _As, awed to silence, savage lands gave place,
+  And hail'd with joy the sun-descended race._
+
+  Book I. Line 243.
+
+The original inhabitants of Hispaniola were worshippers of the sun. The
+Europeans, when they first landed there, were supposed by them to be gods,
+and consequently descended from the sun. See the subject of solar worship
+treated more at large in a subsequent note.
+
+
+
+No. 3.
+
+
+  _High lanterned in his heaven the cloudless White
+  Heaves the glad sailor an eternal light;_
+
+  Book I. Line 333.
+
+The White Mountain of Newhampshire, tho eighty miles from the sea, is the
+first land to be discovered in approaching that part of the coast of North
+America. It serves as a landmark for a considerable length of coast, of
+difficult navigation.
+
+
+
+No. 4.
+
+
+  _Whirl'd from the monstrous Andes' bursting sides,
+  Maragnon leads his congregating tides;_
+
+  Book I. Line 365.
+
+This river, from different circumstances, has obtained several different
+names. It has been called Amazon, from an idea that some part of the
+neighboring country was inhabited by a race of warlike women, resembling
+what Herodotus relates of the Amazons of Scythia. It has been called
+Orellana, from its having been discovered by a Spanish officer of that
+name, who, on a certain expedition, deserted from the younger Pizarro on
+one of the sources of this river, and navigated it from thence to the
+ocean. Maragnon is the original name given it by the natives; which name I
+choose to follow.
+
+If we estimate its magnitude by the length of its course and the quantity
+of water it throws into the sea, it is much the greatest river that has
+hitherto come to our knowledge. Its navigation is said by Condamine and
+others to be uninterrupted for four thousand miles from the sea. Its
+breadth, within the banks, is sixty geographical miles; it receives in its
+course a variety of great rivers, besides those described in the text. Many
+of these descend from elevated countries and mountains covered with snow,
+the melting of which annually swells the Maragnon above its banks; when it
+overflows and fertilizes a vast extent of territory.
+
+
+
+No. 5.
+
+
+  _He saw Xaraycts diamond lanks unfold,
+  And Paraguay's deep channel paved with gold._
+
+  Book I. Line 435.
+
+Some of the richest diamond mines are found on the banks of the lake
+Xaraya. The river Paraguay is remarkable for the quantities of gold dust
+found in its channel. The Rio de la Plata, properly so called, has
+its source in the mountains of Potosi; and it was probably from this
+circumstance that it received its name, which signifies River of Silver.
+This river, after having joined the Paraguay, which is larger than itself,
+retains its own name till it reaches the sea. Near the mouth, it is one
+hundred and fifty miles wide; but in other respects it is far inferior to
+the Maragnon.
+
+
+
+No. 6.
+
+
+  _Soon as the distant swell was seen to roll,
+  His ancient wishes reabsorb'd his soul;_
+
+  Book I. Line 449.
+
+The great object of Columbus, in most of his voyages, was to discover a
+western passage to India. He navigated the Gulph of Mexico with particular
+attention to this object, and was much disappointed in not finding a pass
+into the South Sea. The view he is here supposed to have of that ocean
+would therefore naturally recal his former desire of sailing to India.
+
+
+
+No. 7.
+
+
+  _This idle frith must open soon to fame,
+  Here a lost Lusitanian fix his name,_
+
+  Book I. Line 491.
+
+The straits of Magellan, so called from having been discovered by a
+Portuguese navigator of that name, who first attempted to sail round the
+world, and lost his life in the attempt.
+
+
+
+No. 8.
+
+
+  _Say, Palfrey, brave good man, was this thy doom?
+  Dwells here the secret of thy midsea tomb?_
+
+  Book I. Line 627.
+
+Colonel Palfrey of Boston was an officer of distinction in the American
+army during the war of independence. Soon after the war he proposed to
+visit Europe, and embarked for England; but never more was heard of. The
+ship probably perished in the ice. His daughter, here alluded to, is now
+the wife of William Lee, American consul at Bordeaux.
+
+
+
+No. 9.
+
+
+  _The beasts all whitening roam the lifeless plain,
+  And caves unfrequent scoop the couch for man._
+
+  Book I. Line 753.
+
+The color of animals is acquired partly from the food they eat, thro
+successive generations, and partly from the objects with which they are
+usually surrounded. Dr. Darwin has a curious note on this subject, in which
+he remarks on the advantages that insects and other small animals derive
+from their color, as a means of rendering them invisible to their more
+powerful enemies; who thus find it difficult to distinguish them from other
+objects where they reside. Some animals which inhabit cold countries turn
+white in winter, when the earth is covered with snow; such as the snowbird
+of the Alps. Others in snowy regions are habitually white; such as the
+white bear of Russia.
+
+
+
+No. 10.
+
+
+  _A different cast the glowing zone demands,
+  In Paria's blooms, from Tombut's burning sands._
+
+  Book II. Line 97.
+
+Paria is a fertile country near the river Orinoco; the only part of the
+continent of America that Columbus had seen. Tombut, in the same latitude,
+is the most sterile part of Africa. America embraces a greater compass of
+latitude by many degrees than the other continent; and yet its inhabitants
+present a much less variety in their physical and moral character. When
+shall we be able to account for this fact?
+
+
+
+No. 11.
+
+
+  _Yet when the hordes to happy nations rise,
+  And earth by culture warms the genial skies_,
+
+  Book II. Line 119.
+
+Without entering into any discussion on the theory of heat and cold
+(a point not yet settled in our academies) I would just observe, in
+vindication of the expression in the text, that some solid matter, such for
+instance as the surface of the earth, seems absolutely necessary to the
+production of heat. At least it must be a matter more compact than that of
+the sun's rays; and perhaps its power of producing heat is in proportion to
+its solidity.
+
+The warmth communicated to the atmosphere is doubtless produced by the
+combined causes of the earth and the sun; but the agency of the former is
+probably more powerful in this operation than that of the latter, and its
+presence more indispensable. For masses of matter will produce heat by
+friction, without the aid of the sun; but no experiment has yet proved that
+the rays of the sun are capable of producing heat without the aid of other
+and more solid matter. The air is temperate in those cavities of the earth
+where the sun is the most effectually excluded; whereas the coldest regions
+yet known to us are the tops of the Andes, where the sun's rays have the
+most direct operation, being the most vertical and the least obstructed by
+vapors. Those regions are deprived of heat by being so far removed from
+the broad surface of the earth; a body that appears requisite to warm the
+surrounding atmosphere by its cooperation with the action of the sun.
+
+From these principles we may conclude that cultivation, in a woody country,
+tends to warm the atmosphere and ameliorate a cold climate; as, by removing
+the forests and marshes, it opens the earth to the sun, and allows them to
+act in conjunction upon the air.
+
+According to the descriptions given of the middle parts of Europe by Cesar
+and Tacitus, it appears that those countries were much colder in their days
+than they are at present; cultivation seems to have softened that climate
+to a great degree. The same effect begins to be perceived in North America.
+Possibly it may in time become as apparent as the present difference in the
+temperature of the two continents.
+
+
+
+No. 12.
+
+
+  _A ruddier hue and deeper shade shall gain,
+  And stalk, in statelier figures, on the plain._
+
+  Book II. Line 127.
+
+The complexion of the inhabitants of North America, who are descended from
+the English and Dutch, is evidently darker, and their stature taller, than
+those of the English and Dutch in Europe.
+
+
+
+No. 13.
+
+
+  _Like Memphian hieroglyphs, to stretch the span
+  Of memory frail in momentary man._
+
+  Book II. Line 287.
+
+We may reckon three stages of improvement in the graphic art, or the art of
+communicating our thoughts to absent persons and to posterity by visible
+signs. First, The invention of _painting ideas,_ or representing
+actions, dates and other circumstances of historical fact, by the images of
+material things, drawn usually on a flat surface, or sometimes carved or
+moulded in a more solid form. This was the state at which the art had
+arrived in Egypt before the introduction of letters, and in Mexico before
+the arrival of the Spaniards. The Greeks in Egypt called it hieroglyphic.
+
+Second, The invention of _painting sounds,_ which we do by the use
+of letters, or the alphabet, and which we call writing. This was a vast
+improvement; as it simplified in a wonderful degree the communication of
+thought. For ideas are infinite in number and variety; while the simple
+sounds we use to convey them to the ear are few, distinct and easy to be
+understood. It would indeed be impossible to express all our ideas by
+distinct and visible images. And even if the writer were able to do this,
+not many readers could be made to understand him; since it would be
+necessary that every new idea should have a new image invented and agreed
+upon between the writer and the reader, before it could be used. Which
+preliminary could not be settled without the writer should see and converse
+with the reader. And he might as well, in this case, convey his ideas by
+oral speech; so that his writing could be of little use beyond a certain
+routine of established signs.
+
+The number of simple sounds in human language, used in discourse, is not
+above eighteen or twenty; and these are so varied in the succession in
+which they are uttered, as to express an inconceivable and endless variety
+of thought and sentiment. Then, by the help of an alphabet of about
+twenty-six letters or visible signs, these sounds are translated from the
+ear to the eye; and we are able, by thus painting the sound, to arrest its
+fleeting nature, render it permanent, and talk with distant nations and
+future ages, without any previous convention whatever, even supposing them
+to be ignorant of the language in which we write. This is the present state
+of the art, as commonly practised in all the countries where an alphabet
+is used. It is called the art of writing; and to understand it is called
+reading.
+
+Third, Another invention, which is still in its infancy, is the art of
+_painting phrases,_ or sentences; commonly called shorthand writing.
+This is yet but little used, and only by a few dexterous persons, who make
+it a particular study. Probably the true principles on which it ought to be
+founded are yet to be discovered. But it may be presumed, that in this part
+of the graphic art there remains to the ingenuity of future generations a
+course of improvements totally inconceivable to the present; by which the
+whole train of impressions now made upon the mind by reading a long and
+well written treatise may be conveyed by a few strokes of the pen, and be
+received at a glance of the eye. This desideratum would be an abridgment
+of labor in our mental acquisitions, of which we cannot determine the
+consequences. It might make, in the progress of human knowledge, an epoch
+as remarkable as that which was made by the invention of alphabetical
+writing, and produce as great a change in the mode of transmitting the
+history of events.
+
+One consequence of the invention of alphabetical writing seems to have been
+to throw into oblivion all previous historical facts; and it has thus
+left an immense void, which the imagination knows not how to fill, in
+contemplating the progress of our race. How many important discoveries,
+which still remain to our use, must have taken their origin in that space
+of time which is thus left a void to us! A vast succession of ages, and
+ages of improvement, must have preceded (for example) the invention of the
+wheel. The wheel must have been in common use, we know not how long, before
+alphabetical writing; because we find its image employed in painting ideas,
+during the first stage of the graphic art above described. The wheel
+was likewise in use before the mysteries of Ceres or those of Isis were
+established; as is evident from its being imagined as an instrument
+of punishment in hell, in the case of Ixion, as represented in those
+mysteries. The taming of the ox and the horse, the use of the sickle
+and the bow and arrow, a considerable knowledge of astronomy, and its
+application to the purposes of agriculture and navigation, with many other
+circumstances, which show a prodigious improvement, must evidently have
+preceded the date of the zodiac; a date fixed by Dupuis, with a great
+degree of probability, at about seventeen thousand years from our time.
+This epoch would doubtless carry us back many thousand years beyond that of
+the alphabet; the invention of which was sufficient of itself to obliterate
+the details of previous history, as the event has proved.
+
+How far the loss of these historical details is to be regretted, as an
+impediment to our progress in useful knowledge, I will not decide; but
+in one view, which I am going to state, it may be justly considered as a
+misfortune.
+
+The art of painting ideas, being arrested in the state in which the use of
+the alphabet found it, went into general disuse for common purposes; and
+the works then extant, as well as the knowledge of writing in that mode,
+being no longer intelligible to the people, became objects of deep and
+laborious study, and known only to the learned; that is, to the men of
+leisure and contemplation. These men consequently ran it into mystery;
+making it a holy object, above the reach of vulgar inquiry. On this
+ground they established, in the course of ages, a profitable function
+or profession, in the practice of which a certain portion of men of the
+brightest talents could make a reputable living; taking care not to
+initiate more than a limited number of professors; no more than the people
+could maintain as priests. This mode of writing then assumed the name of
+hieroglyphic, or sacred painting, to distinguish it from that which had
+now become the vulgar mode of writing, by the use of the alphabet. This is
+perhaps the source of that ancient, vast and variegated system of false
+religion, with all its host of errors and miseries, which has so long and
+so grievously weighed upon the character of human nature.
+
+In noticing the distinction of the three stages in the graphic art above
+described, I have not mentioned the wonderful powers we derive from it
+in the language of the mathematics and the language of music. In each of
+these, though its effects are already astonishing, there is no doubt but
+great improvements are still to be made. Our present mode of writing
+in these, as in literature, belongs to the _second_ or _alphabetical_
+stage of the graphic art. The ten ciphers, and the other signs used in
+the mathematical sciences, form the alphabet in which the language of
+those sciences is written. The few musical notes, and the other signs
+which accompany them, furnish an alphabet for writing the language of
+music.
+
+The mode of writing in China is still different from any of those I have
+mentioned. The Chinese neither paint ideas nor sounds: but they make a
+character for every word; which character must vary according to the
+different inflections and uses of that word. The characters must therefore
+be insupportably numerous, and be still increasing as the language is
+enriched with new words by the augmentation and correction of ideas.
+
+The English language is supposed to contain about twelve thousand distinct
+words, and the Italian about seventeen thousand, in the present state of
+our sciences. I know not how many the Chinese may contain; but if we were
+to write our languages in the Chinese method, it would be the business of a
+whole life for a man to learn his mother tongue, so as to read and write it
+for his ordinary purposes.
+
+As the Chinese have not adopted an alphabet, but have adhered to an
+invariable state of the graphic art, which is probably more ancient by
+several thousand years than our present method, may we not venture to
+conjecture that the traces of their very ancient history have been, for
+that reason, better preserved? and that their pretensions to a very high
+antiquity, which we have been used to think extravagant and ridiculous, are
+really not without foundation? If so, we might then allow a little more
+latitude to ourselves, and conclude that we are in fact as old as they, and
+might have been as sensible of it, if we had adhered to our ancient
+method of writing; and not changed it for a new one which, while it
+has facilitated the progress of our science, has humbled our pride of
+antiquity, by obliterating the dates of those labors and improvements of
+our early progenitors, to which we are indebted for more of the rudiments
+of our sciences and our arts than we usually imagine.
+
+It is much to be regretted, that the Spanish devastation in Mexico and Peru
+was so universal as to leave us but few monuments of the history of the
+human mind in those countries, which presented a state of manners so
+remarkably different from what can be found in any other part of the world.
+The pictorial writing of the Mexicans, tho sometimes called hieroglyphic,
+does not appear to merit that name, as it was not exclusively appropriated
+by the priests to sacred purposes. Indeed it could not be so appropriated
+till a more convenient method could be discovered and adopted for common
+purposes. For a thing cannot become sacred, in this sense of the word,
+until it ceases to be common.
+
+
+
+
+No. 14.
+
+
+  _No Bovadilla seize the tempting spoil,
+  No dark Ovando, no religious Boyle,_
+
+  Book II. Line 303.
+
+Bovadilla and Ovando are mentioned in the Introduction as the enemies and
+successors of Columbus in the government of Hispaniola. They began
+that system of cruelty towards the natives which in a few years almost
+depopulated that island, and was afterwards pursued by Cortez, Pizarro and
+others, in all the first settlements in Spanish America.
+
+Boyle was a fanatical priest who accompanied Ovando, and, under pretence of
+christianizing the natives by the sword, gave the sanction of the church to
+the most shocking and extensive scenes of slaughter.
+
+
+
+No. 15.
+
+
+  _He gains the shore. Behold his fortress rise,
+  His fleet high flaming suffocates the skies._
+
+  Book II. Line 329.
+
+The conduct of Cortez, when he first landed on the coast of Mexico, was as
+remarkable for that hardy spirit of adventure, to which success gives the
+name of policy, as his subsequent operations were for cruelty and perfidy.
+As soon as his army was on shore, he dismantled his fleet of such articles
+as would be useful in building a new one; he then set fire to his ships,
+and burnt them in presence of his men; that they might fight their battles
+with more desperate courage, knowing that it would be impossible to save
+themselves from a victorious enemy by flight. He constructed a fort, in
+which the iron and the rigging were preserved.
+
+
+
+No. 16.
+
+
+  _With cheerful rites their pure devotions pay
+  To the bright orb that gives the changing day._
+
+  Book II. Line 421.
+
+It is worthy of remark, that the countries where the worship of the sun has
+made the greatest figure are Egypt and Peru; the two regions of the earth
+the most habitually deprived of rain, and probably of clouds, which in
+other countries so frequently obstruct his rays and seem to dispute his
+influence. Tho in the rude ages of society it is certainly natural in all
+countries to pay adoration to the sun, as one of the visible agents of
+those changes in the atmosphere which most affect the people's happiness,
+yet it is reasonable to suppose that this adoration would be more unmixed,
+and consequently more durable, in climates where the agency of the sun
+appears unrivalled and supreme.
+
+On the supposition that Greece and Western Asia, regions whose early
+traditions are best known to us, derived their first theological ideas
+from Egypt, it is curious to observe how the pure heliosebia of Egypt
+degenerated in those climates in proportion as other visible agents seemed
+to exert their influence in human affairs. Greece is a mountainous country,
+subject to a great deal of lightning and other meteors, whose effects are
+tremendous and make stronger impressions on rude savages than the gentle
+energies of the sun.
+
+The Greeks therefore, having forgotten the source of their religious
+system, ceased to consider the sun as their supreme god; his agency being,
+in their opinion, subject to a more potent divinity, the Power of the air
+or Jupiter, whom they styled the Thunderer. So that Apollo, the god of
+light, became, in their mythology, the subject and offspring of the
+supreme god of the atmosphere. This religion became extremely confused
+and complicated with new fables, according to the temperature and other
+accidents of the different climates thro which it passed. The god of
+thunder obtained the supreme veneration generally in Europe: known in the
+south by the name of Jupiter or Zeus and in the north by that of Thor.
+
+Europe in general has an uneven surface and a vapory sky, liable to great
+concussions in the lower regions of the atmosphere which border the
+habitation of man. There is no wonder that in such a region the god of the
+air should appear more powerful than the god of light. This disposition of
+the elements has given a gloomy cast to the mind, and in the north more
+than in the south. The Thor of the Celtic nations was more tremendous, more
+feared and less beloved, than the Jupiter of the Greeks and Romans; he was
+worshipped accordingly with more bloody sacrifices. But in all Europe,
+Western Asia and the northwestern coast of Africa, where the earth is
+uneven and the climate variable, their religion was more gloomy and their
+gods more ferocious than among the ancient Egyptians.
+
+A like difference is observed in the religions of the two countries in
+America where civilization was most advanced before the arrival of the
+Spaniards. Peru enjoyed a climate of great serenity and regularity. Of
+all the sensible agents that operated on the earth and air, the sun was
+apparently the most uniform and energetic. The worship of the sun was
+therefore the most predominant and durable; and it inspired a mildness of
+manners analogous to his mild and beneficent influence. In Mexico and other
+uneven countries, where storms and earthquakes were frequent, the sun,
+altho he was reckoned among their deities, was not considered so powerful
+as those of a more boisterous and maleficent nature. The Mexican worship
+was therefore addressed chiefly to ferocious beings, enemies to human
+happiness, who delighted in the tears and blood of their votaries. The
+difference in the moral cast of religion in Peru and Mexico, as well as in
+Egypt and Greece, must have been greatly owing to climate. Indeed in what
+else should it be found? since the origin of religious ideas must have
+been in the energies of those visible agents which form the distinctive
+character of climates.
+
+
+
+No. 17.
+
+
+  _Long is the tale; but tho their labors rest
+  By years obscured, in flowery fiction drest,_
+
+  Book II. Line 455.
+
+The traditions respecting these founders of the Peruvian empire are indeed
+obscure; but they excite in us the same sort of veneration that we feel
+for the most amiable and distinguished characters of remote antiquity. The
+honest zeal of Garcilasso de la Vega in collecting these traditions into
+one body of history, as a probable series of facts, is to be applauded;
+since he has there presented us with one of the most striking examples of
+the _beau ideal_ in political character, that can be found in the
+whole range of literature. He treats his subject with more natural
+simplicity, tho with less talent, than Plutarch or Xenophon, when they
+undertake a similar task, that of drawing traditional characters to fill up
+the middle space between fable and history.
+
+With regard to the true position that the portrait of Manco Capac ought to
+hold in this middle space, how near it should stand to history and how
+near to fable, we should find it difficult to say, and perhaps useless to
+inquire. Plutarch has gravely given us the lives and actions of several
+heroes who are evidently more fabulous than Capac, and of others who should
+be placed on the same line with him. The existence of Theseus, Romulus
+and Numa is more doubtful and their actions less probable than his. The
+character of Capac, in regard to its reality, stands on a parallel with
+that of the Lycurgus of Plutarch and the Cyrus of Xenophon; not purely
+historical nor purely fabulous, but presented to us as a compendium of
+those talents and labors which might possibly be crowded into the capacity
+of one mind, and be achieved in one life, but which more probably belong
+to several generations; the talents and labors that could reduce a great
+number of ferocious tribes into one peaceable and industrious state.
+
+Garcilasso was himself an Inca by maternal descent, born and educated
+at Cusco after the Spanish conquest. He writes apparently with the most
+scrupulous regard to truth, with little judgment and no ornament. He
+discovers a credulous zeal to throw a lustre on his remote ancestor Manco
+Capac, not by inventing new incidents, but by collecting with great
+industry all that had been recorded in the annals of the family. And their
+manner of recording events, tho not so perfect as that of writing, was not
+so liable to error as traditions merely oral, like those of the Caledonian
+and other Celtic bards, with respect to the ancient heroes of their
+countries.
+
+His account states, that about four centuries previous to the discovery of
+that country by the Spaniards, the natives of Peru were as rude savages
+as any in America. They had no fixed habitations, no ideas of permanent
+property; they wandered naked like the beasts, and like them depended on
+the events of each day for a subsistence. At this period Manco Capac and
+his wife Mauna Oella appeared on a small island in the lake Titiaca, near
+which the city of Cusco was afterwards built. These persons, to establish a
+belief of their divinity in the minds of the people, were clothed in white
+garments of cotton, and declared themselves descended from the sun, who
+was their father and the god of that country. They affirmed that he was
+offended at their cruel and perpetual wars, their barbarous modes of
+worship, and their neglecting to make the best use of the blessings he was
+constantly bestowing, in fertilizing the earth and producing vegetation;
+that he pitied their wretched state, and had sent his own children to
+instruct them and to establish a number of wise regulations, by which they
+might be rendered happy.
+
+By some uncommon method of persuasion, these persons drew together a few
+of the savage tribes, laid the foundation of the city of Cusco, and
+established what is called the kingdom of the Sun, or the Peruvian empire.
+In the reign of Manco Capac, the dominion was extended about eight leagues
+from the city; and at the end of four centuries it was established fifteen
+hundred miles on the coast of the Pacific ocean, and from that ocean to
+the Andes. During this period, thro a succession of twelve monarchs, the
+original constitution, established by the first Inca, remained unaltered;
+and this constitution, with the empire itself, was at last overturned by an
+accident which no human wisdom could foresee or prevent.
+
+For a more particular detail of the character and institutions of this
+extraordinary personage the reader is referred to a subsequent note, in
+which he will find a dissertation on that subject.
+
+In the passage preceding this reference, I have alluded to the fabulous
+traditions relating to these children of the sun. In the remainder of the
+second and thro the whole of the third book, I have given what may be
+supposed a probable narrative of their real origin and actions. The space
+allowed to this episode may appear too considerable in a poem whose
+principal object is so different. But it may be useful to exhibit in action
+the manners and sentiments of savage tribes, whose aliment is war; that the
+contrast may show more forcibly the advantages of civilized life, whose
+aliment is peace.
+
+
+
+No. 18.
+
+
+  _Long robes of white my shoulders must embrace,
+  To speak my lineage of ethereal race;_
+
+  Book II. Line 553.
+
+As the art of spinning is said to have been invented by Oella, it is no
+improbable fiction to imagine that they first assumed these white garments
+of cotton as an emblem of the sun, in order to inspire that reverence
+for their persons which was necessary to their success. Such a dress may
+likewise be supposed to have continued in the family as a badge of royalty.
+
+
+
+No. 19.
+
+
+  DISSERTATION ON THE INSTITUTIONS OF MANCO CAPAC.
+
+  For the end of Book II.
+
+Altho the original inhabitants of America in general deserve to be classed
+among the most unimproved savages that had been, discovered before those of
+New Holland, yet the Mexican and Peruvian governments exhibited remarkable
+exceptions, and seemed to be fast approaching to a state of civilization.
+In the difference of national character between the people of these two
+empires we may discern the influence of political systems on the human
+mind, and infer the importance of the task which a legislator undertakes,
+in attempting to reduce a barbarous people under the control of government
+and laws.
+
+The Mexican constitution was formed to render its subjects brave and
+powerful; but, while it succeeded in this object, it kept them far removed
+from the real blessings of society. According to the Spanish accounts
+(which for an obvious reason may however be suspected of exaggeration)
+the manners of the Mexicans were uncommonly ferocious, and their religion
+gloomy, sanguinary, and unrelenting. But the establishments of Manco Capac,
+if we may follow Garcilasso in attributing the whole of the Peruvian
+constitution to that wonderful personage, present the aspect of a most
+benevolent and pacific system; they tended to humanize the world and render
+his people happy; while his ideas of deity were so elevated as to bear a
+comparison with the sublime doctrines of Socrates or Plato.
+
+The characters, whether real or fabulous, who are the most distinguished
+as lawgivers among barbarous nations, are Moses, Lycurgus, Solon, Numa,
+Mahomet, and Peter of Russia. Of these, only the two former and the two
+latter appear really to deserve the character of lawgivers. Solon and Numa
+possessed not the opportunity of showing their talents in the work of
+original legislation. Athens and Rome were considerably civilized before
+these persons arose. The most they could do was to correct and amend
+constitutions already formed. Solon may be considered as a wise politician,
+but by no means as the founder of a nation. The Athenians were too
+far advanced in society to admit any radical change in their form of
+government; unless recourse could have been had to the representative
+system, by establishing an equality of rank, and instructing all the people
+in their duties and their rights; a system which was never understood by
+any ancient legislator.
+
+The institutions of Numa (if such a person as Numa really existed) were
+more effective and durable. His religious ceremonies were, for many ages,
+the most powerful check on the licentious and turbulent Romans, the greater
+part of whom were ignorant slaves. By inculcating a remarkable reverence
+for the gods, and making it necessary to consult the auspices when any
+thing important was to be transacted, his object was to render the popular
+superstition subservient to the views of policy, and thus to give the
+senate a steady check upon the plebeians. But the constitutions of Rome and
+Athens, notwithstanding the abundant applause that has been bestowed upon
+them, were never fixed on any permanent principles; tho the wisdom of some
+of their rulers, and the spirit of liberty that inspired the citizens, may
+justly demand our admiration.
+
+Each of the other legislators above mentioned deserves a particular
+consideration, as having acted in stations somewhat similar to that of the
+Peruvian patriarch. Three objects are to be attended to by the legislator
+of a barbarous people: First, That his system be such as is capable of
+reducing the greatest number of men under one jurisdiction: Second, That it
+apply to such principles in human nature for its support as are universal
+and permanent, in order to insure the duration of the government: Third,
+That it admit of improvements correspondent to any advancement in knowledge
+or variation of circumstances that may happen to its subjects, without
+endangering the principle of government by such innovations. So far as the
+systems of such legislators agree with these fundamental principles; they
+are worthy of respect; and so far as they deviate, they may be considered
+as defective.
+
+To begin with Moses and Lycurgus: It is proper to observe that, in order to
+judge of the merit of any institutions, we must take into view the peculiar
+character of the people for whom they were framed. For want of this
+attention, many of the laws of Moses and some of those of Lycurgus have
+been ridiculed and censured. The Jews, when led by Moses out of Egypt, were
+not only uncivilized, but having just risen to independence from a state
+of servitude they united the manners of servants and savages; and their
+national character was a compound of servility, ignorance, filthiness and
+cruelty. Of their cruelty as a people we need no other proof than the
+account of their avengers of blood, and the readiness with which the
+whole congregation turned executioners, and stoned to death the devoted
+offenders. The leprosy, a disease now scarcely known, was undoubtedly
+produced by a want of cleanliness continued for successive generations.
+In this view, their frequent ablutions, their peculiar modes of trial and
+several other institutions, may be vindicated from ridicule and proved to
+be wise regulations.
+
+The Spartan lawgiver has been censured for the toleration of theft and
+adultery. Among that race of barbarians these habits were too general to
+admit of total prevention or universal punishment. By vesting all property
+in the commonwealth, instead of encouraging theft, he removed the
+possibility of the crime; and, in a nation where licentiousness was
+generally indulged, it was a great step towards introducing a purity of
+manners, to punish adultery in all cases wherein it was committed without
+the consent of all parties interested in its consequences.
+
+Until the institution of representative republics, which are of recent
+date, it was found that those constitutions of government were best
+calculated for immediate energy and duration, which were interwoven with
+some religious system. The legislator who appears in the character of an
+inspired person renders his political institutions sacred, and interests
+the conscience as well as the judgment in their support. The Jewish
+lawgiver had this advantage over the Spartan: he appeared not in the
+character of a mere earthly governor, but as an interpreter of the divine
+will. By enjoining a religious observance of certain rites he formed his
+people to habitual obedience; by directing their cruelty against the
+breakers of the laws he at least mitigated the rancor of private hatred; by
+directing that real property should return to the original families in
+the year of Jubilee he prevented too great an equality of wealth; and by
+selecting a single tribe to be the interpreters of religion he prevented
+its mysteries from being the subject of profane and vulgar investigation.
+With a view of securing the permanence of his institutions, he prohibited
+intercourse with foreigners by severe restrictions, and formed his people
+to habits and a character disagreeable to other nations; so that any
+foreign intercourse was prevented by the mutual hatred of both parties.
+
+To these institutions the laws of Lycurgus bear a striking resemblance. The
+features of his constitution were severe and forbidding; it was however
+calculated to inspire the most enthusiastic love of liberty and martial
+honor. In no country was the patriotic passion more energetic than in
+Sparta; no laws ever excluded the idea of separate property in an equal
+degree, or inspired a greater contempt for the manners of other nations.
+The prohibition of money, commerce and almost every thing desirable to
+effeminate nations, excluded foreigners from Sparta; and while it inspired
+the people with contempt for strangers it made them agreeable to each
+other. By these means Lycurgus rendered the nation warlike; and to insure
+the duration of the government he endeavored to interest the consciences
+of his people by the aid of oracles, and by the oath he is said to have
+exacted from them to obey his laws till his return, when he went into
+perpetual exile.
+
+From this view of the Jewish and Spartan institutions, applied to
+the principles before stated, they appear in the two first articles
+considerably imperfect, and in the last totally defective. Neither of them
+was calculated to bring any considerable territory or number of men under
+one jurisdiction: from this circumstance alone they could not be rendered
+permanent, as nations so restricted in their means of extension must be
+constantly exposed to their more powerful neighbors. But the third object
+of legislation, that of providing for the future progress of society, which
+as it regards the happiness of mankind is the most important of the three,
+was in both instances entirely neglected. These symptoms appear to have
+been formed with an express design to prevent future improvement in
+knowledge or enlargement of the human mind, and to fix those nations in
+a state of ignorance and barbarism. To vindicate their authors from an
+imputation of weakness or inattention in this particular, it may be urged
+that they were each of them surrounded by nations more powerful than
+their own; it was therefore perhaps impossible for them to commence an
+establishment upon any other plan.
+
+The institutions of Mahomet are next to be considered. The first object of
+legislation appears to have been better understood by him than by either of
+the preceding sages; his jurisdiction was capable of being enlarged to any
+extent of territory, and governing any number of nations that might be
+subjugated by his enthusiastic armies; and his system of religion was
+admirably calculated to attain this object. Like Moses, he convinced his
+people that he acted as the vicegerent of God; but with this advantage,
+adapting his religion to the natural feelings and propensities of mankind,
+he multiplied his followers by the allurements of pleasure and the promise
+of a sensual paradise. These circumstances were likewise sure to render his
+constitution durable. His religious system was so easy to be understood, so
+splendid and so inviting, there could be no danger that the people would
+lose sight of its principles, and no necessity of future prophets to
+explain its doctrines or reform the nation. To these advantages if we add
+the exact and rigid military discipline, the splendor and sacredness of the
+monarch, and that total ignorance among the people which such a system
+will produce and perpetuate, the establishment must have been evidently
+calculated for a considerable extent and duration. But the last and
+most important end of government, that of mental improvement and social
+happiness, was deplorably lost in the institution. There was probably more
+learning and cultivated genius in Arabia, in the days of this extraordinary
+man, than can now be found in all the Mahometan dominions.
+
+On the contrary, the enterprising mind of the Russian monarch appears to
+have been wholly bent on the arts of civilization and the improvement of
+society among his subjects. Established in a legal title to a throne which
+already commanded a prodigious extent of country, he found the first object
+of government already secured; and by applying himself with great sagacity
+to the third object, that of improving his people, it was reasonable to
+suppose that the second, the durability of his system, would become a
+necessary consequence. He effected his purposes, important as they were,
+merely by the introduction of the arts and the encouragement of politer
+manners. The greatness of his character appears not so much in his
+institutions, which he copied from other nations, as in the extraordinary
+measures he followed to introduce them, the judgment he showed in selecting
+and adapting them to the genius of his subjects, and the surprising
+assiduity by which he raised a savage people to an elevated rank among
+European nations.
+
+To the nature and operation of the several forms of government above
+mentioned I will compare that of the Peruvian lawgiver. I have observed in
+a preceding note that the knowledge we have of Manco Capac is necessarily
+imperfect and obscure, derived thro traditions and family registers
+(without the aid of writing) for four hundred years; from the time he is
+supposed to have lived, till that of his historian and descendant, Inca
+Garcilasso de la Vega. About an equal interval elapsed from the supposed
+epoch of the first kings of Rome to that of their first historians; a
+longer space from Lycurgus to Herodotus; probably not a shorter one from
+the time of the great Cyrus to that of Xenophon, author of the elegant
+romance on the actions of that hero.
+
+I recal the reader's attention to these comparisons, not with a view of
+contending that our accounts of the actions ascribed to Capac are derived
+from authentic records, and that he is a subject of real history, like
+Mahomet or Peter; but to show that, our channels of information with regard
+to him being equally respectable with those that have brought us acquainted
+with the classical and venerable names of Lycurgus, Romulus, Numa and
+Cyrus, we may be as correct in our reasonings from the modern as from the
+ancient source of reference, and fancy ourselves treading a ground as
+sacred on the tomb of the western patriarch, as on those more frequented
+and less scrutinized in the east, consecrated to the demigods of Sparta,
+Rome and Persia.
+
+It is probable that the savages of Peru before the time of Capac, among
+other objects of adoration, paid homage to the sun. By availing himself
+of this popular sentiment he appeared, like Moses and Mahomet, in the
+character of a divine legislator endowed with supernatural powers. After
+impressing these ideas on the minds of the people, drawing together a
+number of the tribes and rendering them subservient to his benevolent
+purposes, he applied himself to forming the outlines of a plan of policy
+capable of founding and regulating an extensive empire, wisely calculated
+for long duration, and well adapted to improve the knowledge, peace and
+happiness of a considerable portion of mankind. In the allotment of the
+lands as private property he invented a mode somewhat resembling the feudal
+system of Europe: yet this system was checked in its operation by a law
+similar to that of Moses which regulated landed possessions in the year of
+Jubilee. He divided the lands into three parts; the first was consecrated
+to the uses of religion, as it was from the sacerdotal part of his system
+that he doubtless expected its most powerful support. The second portion
+was set apart for the Inca and his family, to enable him to defray the
+expenses of government and appear in the style of a monarch. The third and
+largest portion was allotted to the people; which allotment was repeated
+every year, and varied according to the number and exigences of each
+family.
+
+As the Incan race appeared in the character of divinities, it seemed
+necessary that a subordination of rank should be established, to render the
+distinction between the monarch and his people more perceptible. With this
+view he created a band of nobles, who were distinguished by personal and
+hereditary honors. These were united to the monarch by the strongest ties
+of interest; in peace they acted as judges and superintended the police of
+the empire; in war they commanded in the armies. The next order of men were
+the respectable landholders and cultivators, who composed the principal
+strength of the nation. Below these was a class of men who were the
+servants of the public and cultivated the public lands. They possessed
+no property, and their security depended on their regular industry and
+peaceable demeanor. Above all these orders were the Inca and his family. He
+possessed absolute and uncontrolable power; his mandates were regarded as
+the word of heaven, and the double guilt of impiety and rebellion attended
+on disobedience.
+
+To impress the utmost veneration for the Incan family, it was a fundamental
+principle that the royal blood should never be contaminated by any foreign
+alliance. The mysteries of religion were preserved sacred by the high
+priest of the royal family under the control of the king, and celebrated
+with rites capable of making the deepest impression on the multitude.
+The annual distribution of the lands, while it provided for the varying
+circumstances of each family, was designed to strengthen the bands of
+society by perpetuating that distinction of rank among the orders which is
+supposed necessary to a monarchical government; the peasants could not vie
+with their superiors, and the nobles could not be subjected by misfortune
+to a subordinate station. A constant habit of industry was inculcated upon
+all ranks by the force of example. The cultivation of the soil, which in
+most other countries is considered as one of the lowest employments, was
+here regarded as a divine art. Having had no knowledge of it before, and
+being taught it by the children of their god, the people viewed it as a
+sacred privilege, a national honor, to assist the sun in opening the bosom
+of the earth to produce vegetation. That the government might be able to
+exercise the endearing acts of beneficence, the produce of the public lands
+was reserved in magazines, to supply the wants of the unfortunate and as a
+resource in case of scarcity or invasion.
+
+These are the outlines of a government the most simple and energetic, and
+at least as capable as any monarchy within our knowledge of reducing
+great and populous countries under one jurisdiction; at the same time,
+accommodating its principle of action to every stage of improvement, by
+a singular and happy application to the passions of the human mind, it
+encouraged the advancement of knowledge without being endangered by
+success.
+
+In the traits of character which distinguish this institution we may
+discern all the great principles of each of the legislators above
+mentioned. The pretensions of Capac to divine authority were as artfully
+contrived and as effectual in their consequences as those of Mahomet; his
+exploding the worship of evil beings and objects of terror, forbidding
+human sacrifices and accommodating the rites of worship to a god of justice
+and benevolence, produced a greater change in the national character of his
+people than the laws of Moses did in his; like Peter he provided for the
+future improvement of society, while his actions were never measured on the
+contracted scale which limited the genius of Lycurgus.
+
+Thus far we find that altho the political system of Capac did not embrace
+that extensive scope of human nature which is necessary in forming
+republican institutions, and which can be drawn only from long and well
+recorded experience of the passions and tendencies of social man, yet
+it must be pronounced at least equal to those of the most celebrated
+monarchical law-givers, whether ancient or modern. But in some things his
+mind seems to have attained an elevation with which few of theirs will bear
+a comparison; I mean in his religious institutions, and the exalted ideas
+he had formed of the agency and attributes of supernatural beings.
+
+From what source he could have drawn these ideas it is difficult to form a
+satisfactory conjecture. The worship of the sun is so natural to an early
+state of society, in a mild climate with a clear atmosphere, that it may be
+as reasonable to suppose it would originate in Peru as in Egypt or Persia;
+where we find that a similar worship did originate and was wrought into
+a splendid system; whence it was probably extended, with various
+modifications, over most of the ancient world.
+
+Or if we reject this theory, and suppose that only one nation, from some
+circumstance peculiar to itself, could create the materials of such a
+system, and has consequently had the privilege of giving its religion
+to the human race; we may in this case imagine that the Phenicians (who
+colonized Cadiz and other places in the west of Europe, at the time when
+they possessed the solar worship in all its glory) must have had a vessel
+driven across the Atlantic; and thus conveyed a stock of inhabitants, with
+their own religious ideas, to the western continent.
+
+The first theory is doubtless the most plausible. And the mild regions of
+Peru, for the reasons mentioned in a former note, became, like Egypt, the
+seat of an institution so congenial to its climate. But in more boisterous
+climates, where storms and other violent agents prevail, many different
+fables have wrought themselves into the system, as remarked in the same
+note; and the solar religion in such countries has generally lost its name
+and the more beneficent parts of its influence. Being thus corrupted,
+religion in almost every part of the earth assumed a gloomy and sanguinary
+character.
+
+Savage nations create their gods from such materials as they have at hand,
+the most striking to their senses. And these are in general an assemblage
+of destructive attributes. They usually form no idea of a general
+superintending providence; they consider not their god as the author of
+their beings, the creator of the world and the dispenser of the happiness
+they enjoy; they discern him not in the usual course of nature, in the
+sunshine and in the shower, the productions of the earth and the blessing
+of society; they find a deity only in the storm, the earthquake and the
+whirlwind, or ascribe to him the evils of pestilence and famine; they
+consider him as interposing in wrath to change the course of nature and
+exercise the attributes of rage and revenge. They adore him with rites
+suited to these attributes, with horror, with penance and with sacrifice;
+they imagine him pleased with the severity of their mortifications, with
+the oblations of blood and the cries of human victims; and they hope
+to compound for greater judgments by voluntary sufferings and horrid
+sacrifices, suited to the relish of his taste.
+
+Perhaps no single criterion can be given which will determine more
+accurately the state of society in any age or nation than their general
+ideas concerning the nature and attributes of deity. In the most
+enlightened periods of antiquity, only a few of their philosophers, a
+Socrates, Tully or Confucius, ever formed a rational idea on the subject,
+or described a god of purity, justice and benevolence. But Capac, erecting
+his institutions in a country where the visible agents of nature inspired
+more satisfactory feelings, adopted a milder system. As the sun, with its
+undisturbed influence, seemed to point itself out as the supreme controller
+and vital principle of nature, he formed the idea, as the Egyptians had
+done before, of constituting that luminary the chief object of adoration.
+He taught the nation to consider the sun as the parent of the universe, the
+god of order and regularity; ascribing to his influence the rotation of
+the seasons, the productions of the earth and the blessings of health;
+especially attributing to his inspiration the wisdom of their laws, and
+that happy constitution which was the delight and veneration of the people.
+
+A system so just and benevolent, as might be expected, was attended with
+success. In about four centuries the dominion of the Incas had extended
+fifteen hundred miles in length, and had introduced peace and prosperity
+thro the whole region. The arts of society had been carried to a
+considerable degree of improvement, and the authority of the Incan race
+universally acknowledged, when an event happened which disturbed the
+tranquillity of the empire. Huana Capac, the twelfth monarch, had reduced
+the powerful kingdom of Quito and annexed it to his dominions. To
+conciliate the affections of his new subjects, he married a daughter of the
+ancient king of Quito, who was not of the race of Incas. Thus, by violating
+a fundamental law of the empire, he left at his death a disputed succession
+to the throne. Atabalipa, the son of Huana by the heiress of Quito, being
+in possession of the principal force of the Peruvian armies, left at that
+place on the death of his father, gave battle to his brother Huascar, who
+was the elder son of Huana by a lawful wife, and legal heir to the crown.
+
+After a long and destructive civil war the former was victorious; and thus
+was that flourishing kingdom left a prey to regal dissensions and to the
+few soldiers of Pizarro, who happened at that juncture to make a descent
+upon the coast. In this manner he effected an easy conquest and an utter
+destruction of a numerous, brave, unfortunate people.
+
+It is however obvious that this deplorable event is not to be charged
+on Capac, as the consequence of any defect in his institution. It is
+impossible that an original legislator should effectually guard against the
+folly of all future sovereigns. Capac had not only removed every temptation
+that could induce a wise prince to wish for a change in the constitution,
+but had connected the ruin of his authority with the change; for he who
+disregards any part of institutions deemed sacred teaches his people to
+consider the whole as an imposture. Had he made a law ordaining that the
+Peruvians should be absolved from their allegiance to a prince who should
+violate the laws, it would have implied possible error and imperfection in
+those persons whom the people were ordered to regard as divinities; the
+reverence due to characters who made such high pretensions would have been
+weakened; and instead of rendering the constitution perfect, such a law
+would have been its greatest defect. Besides, it is probable the rupture
+might have been healed and the suecession settled, with as little
+difficulty as frequently happens with partial revolutions in other
+kingdoms, had not the descent of the Spaniards prevented it. And this
+event, for that age and country, must have been beyond the possibility of
+human foresight. But viewing the concurrence of these fatal accidents,
+which reduced this flourishing empire to a level with many other ruined and
+departed kingdoms, it only furnishes an additional proof that no political
+system has yet had the privilege to be perfect.
+
+On the whole it is evident that the system of Capac (if the Peruvian
+constitution may be so called) is one of the greatest exertions of genius
+to be found in the history of mankind. When, we consider him as an
+individual emerging from the midst of a barbarous people, having seen no
+example of the operation of laws in any country, originating a plan of
+religion and policy never equalled by the sages of antiquity, civilizing an
+extensive empire and rendering religion and government subservient to the
+general happiness of a great people, there is no danger that we grow too
+warm in his praise, or pronounce too high an eulogiurn on his character.
+
+
+
+No. 20.
+
+
+  _Bade yon tall temple grace their favorite isle,
+  The mines unfold, the cultured valleys smile._
+
+  Book III. Line 5.
+
+One of the great temples of the sun was built on an island in the lake
+Titiaca near Cusco, to consecrate the spot of ground where Capac and Oella
+first made their appearance and claimed divine honors as children of the
+sun.
+
+
+
+No. 21.
+
+
+  _His eldest hope, young Rocha, at his call,
+  Resigns his charge within the temple, wall;_
+
+  Book III. Line 29.
+
+The high priest of the sun was always one of the royal family; and in every
+generation after the first, was brother to the king. This office probably
+began with Rocha; as he was the first who was capable of receiving it, and
+as it was necessary, in the education of the prince, that he should be
+initiated in the sacred mysteries.
+
+
+
+No. 22.
+
+  _A pearl-dropt girdle bound his waist below,
+  And the white lautu graced his lofty brow._
+
+  Book III. Line 135.
+
+The lautu was a cotton band, twisted and worn on the head of the Incas as a
+badge of royalty. It made several turns round the head; and, according to
+the description of Garcilasso, it must have resembled the Turkish turban.
+
+It is possible that both the lautu and the turban had their remote origin
+in the ancient astronomical religion, whose principal god was the sun and
+usually represented under the figure of a man with the horns of the ram;
+that is, the sun in the sign of aries. The form of the lautu and of the
+turban (which I suppose to be the same) seems to indicate that they were
+originally designed as emblems or badges; and when properly twisted and
+wound round the head, as Turks of distinction usually wear the turban, they
+resemble the horns of the ram as represented in those figures of Jupiter
+Ammon where the horns curl close to the head.
+
+There is an engraving in Garcilasso representing the first Inca and his
+wife, Capac and Oella; and the heads of both are ornamented with rams'
+horns projecting out from the lautu. Whether the figures of these
+personages were usually so represented in Peru previous to the Spanish
+devastation, would be difficult at this day to ascertain. If it could be
+ascertained that they were usually so represented there, we might esteem
+it a remarkable circumstance in proof of the unity of the origin of their
+religion with that of the ancient Egyptians; from which all the early
+theological systems of Asia and Europe, as far as they have come to our
+knowledge, were evidently derived.
+
+
+
+No. 23.
+
+
+  _Receive, O dreadful Power, from feeble age.
+  This last pure offering to thy sateless rage;_
+
+  Book III. Line 181.
+
+Garcilasso declares that the different tribes of those mountain savages
+worshipped the various objects of terror that annoyed the particular parts
+of the country where they dwelt; such as storms, volcanos, rivers, lakes,
+and several beasts and birds of prey. All of them believed that their
+forefathers were descended from the gods which they worshipped.
+
+
+
+No. 24.
+
+  _Held to the sun the image from his breast
+  Whose glowing concave all the god exprest;_
+
+  Book III. Line 273.
+
+The historian of the Incas relates that, by the laws of the empire, none
+but sacred fire could be used in sacrifices; and that there were three
+modes in which it might be procured. First, the most sacred fire was that
+which was drawn immediately from the sun himself by means of a concave
+mirror, which was usually made of gold or silver highly polished. Second,
+in case of cloudy weather or other accident, the fire might be taken from
+the temple, where it was preserved by the holy virgins; whose functions
+and discipline resembled those of the vestals of Rome. Third, when the
+sacrifice was to be made in the provinces at an inconvenient distance from
+the temple, and when the weather was such as to prevent drawing the fire
+immediately from the sun, it was permitted to procure it by the friction of
+two pieces of dry wood.
+
+The two latter modes were resorted to only in cases of necessity. Not to
+be able to obtain fire by means of the mirror was a bad omen, a sign of
+displeasure in the god; it cast a gloom over the whole ceremony and threw
+the people into lamentations, fearing their offering would not be well
+received.
+
+This method of procuring fire directly from the sun, to burn a sacrifice,
+must have appeared so miraculous to the savages who could not understand
+it, that it doubtless had a powerful effect in converting them to the solar
+religion and to the Incan government.
+
+
+
+No. 25.
+
+
+  _Dim Paraguay extends the aching sight,
+  Xaraya glimmers like the moon of night,_
+
+  Book III. Line 321.
+
+Xaraya is a lake in the country of Paraguay, and is the principal source of
+the river Paraguay. This river is the largest branch of the Plata.
+
+
+
+No. 26.
+
+
+  _The Condor frowning from a southern plain.
+  Borne on a standard, leads a numerous train:_
+
+  Book III. Line 421.
+
+The Condor is supposed to be the largest bird of prey hitherto known. His
+wings, from one extreme to the other, are said to measure fifteen feet; he
+is able to carry a sheep in his talons, and he sometimes attacks men. He
+inhabits the high mountains of Peru, and is supposed by some authors to be
+peculiar to the American continent. Buffon believes him to be of the same
+species with the laemmer-geyer (lamb-vulture) of the Alps. The similarity
+of their habitations favors this conjecture; but the truth is, the Condor
+of Peru has not been well examined, and his history is imperfectly known.
+
+
+
+No. 27.
+
+
+  _So shall the Power in vengeance view the place,
+  In crimson clothe his terror-beaming face,_
+
+  Book III. Line 493.
+
+It is natural for the worshippers of the sun to consider any change in the
+atmosphere as indicative of the different passions of their deity. With the
+Peruvians a sanguine appearance in the sun denoted his anger.
+
+
+
+No. 28.
+
+
+  _Thro all the shrines, where erst on new-moon days
+  Swell'd the full quires of consecrated praise,_
+
+  Book III. Line 687.
+
+New-moon days were days of high festival with the Incas, according to
+Garcilasso. Eclipses of the sun must therefore have happened on solemn
+days, and have interrupted the service of the temple.
+
+
+
+No. 29.
+
+
+  _Las Casas. Valverde. Gasca._
+
+  Book IV. Line 17-27.
+
+_Bartholomew de las Casas_ was a Dominican priest of a most amiable
+and heroic character. He first went to Hispaniola with Columbus in his
+second voyage, where he manifested an ardent but honest zeal, first in
+attempting to instruct the natives in the principles of the catholic
+faith, and afterwards in defending them against the insufferable cruelties
+exercised by the Spanish tyrants who succeeded Columbus in the discoveries
+and settlements in South America. He early declared himself _Protector
+of the Indians;_ a title which seems to have been acknowledged by the
+Spanish government. He devoted himself ever after to the most indefatigable
+labors in the service of that unhappy people. He made several voyages to
+Spain, to solicit, first from Ferdinand, then from cardinal Ximenes, and
+finalty from Charles V, some effectual restrictions against the horrid
+career of depopulation which every where attended the Spanish arms. He
+followed these monsters of cruelty into all the conquered countries; where,
+by the power of his eloquence and that purity of morals which commands
+respect even from the worst of men, he doubtless saved the lives of many
+thousands of innocent people. His life was a continued struggle agaiust
+that deplorable system of tyranny, of which he gives a description in
+a treatise addressed to Philip prince of Spain, entitled _Brevissima
+Relacion de la Destruycion de las Yndias_.
+
+It is said by the Spanish writers that the inhabitants of Hispaniola, when
+first discovered by the Spaniards, amounted to more than one million. This
+incredible population was reduced, in fifteen years, to sixty thousand
+souls.
+
+_Vincent Valverde_ was a fanatical priest who accompanied Pizarro in
+his destructive expedition to Peru. If we were to search the history of
+mankind, we should not find another such example of the united efforts of
+ecclesiastical hypocrisy and military ferocity, of unresisted murder and
+insatiable plunder, as we meet with in the account of this expedition.
+
+Father Valverde, in a formal manner, gave the sanction of the church to the
+treacherous murder of Atabalipa and his relations; which was immediately
+followed by the destruction and almost entire depopulation of a flourishing
+empire.
+
+_Pedro de la Gasca_ was one of the few men whose virtues form a
+singular contrast with the vices which disgraced the age in which he lived
+and the country in which he acquired his glory. He was sent over to Peru by
+Charles V without any military force, to quell the rebellion of the younger
+Pizarro and to prevent a second depopulation, by a civil war, of that
+country which had just been drenched in the blood of its original
+inhabitants. He effected this great purpose by the weight only of his
+personal authority and the veneration inspired by his virtues. As soon
+as he had suppressed the rebellion and established the government of the
+colony he hastened to resign his authority into the hands of his master.
+And tho his victories had been obtained in the richest country on earth he
+returned to Spain as poor as Cincinnatus; having resisted every temptation
+to plunder, and refused to receive any emolument for his services.
+
+
+
+No. 30.
+
+
+  _First of his friends, see Frederic's princely form
+  Ward from the sage divine the gathering storm;_
+
+  Book IV. Line 157.
+
+Frederic of Saxony, surnamed the Wise, was the first sovereign prince
+who favored the doctrines of Luther. He became at once his pupil and his
+patron, defended him from the persecutions of the pope, and gave him an
+establishment as professor in the university of Wittemburgh.
+
+
+
+No. 31.
+
+
+  _By monarchs courted and by men beloved._
+
+  Book IV. Line 165.
+
+Francis I, out of respect to the great learning and moderation of
+Melancthon, and disregarding the pretended danger of discussing the dogmas
+of the church, invited him to come to France and establish himself at
+Paris; but the intrigues of the cardinal de Tournon frustrated the king's
+intention.
+
+If every leader of religious sects had possessed the amiable qualities of
+Melancthon, and every monarch who wished to oppose the introduction of new
+opinions had partaken of the wisdom of Francis, the blood of many hundreds
+of millions of the human species, which has flowed at the shrine of
+fanaticism, would have been spared. This circumstance alone would have
+made of human society by this time a state totally different from what we
+actually experience; and its influence on the progress of improvement in
+national happiness and general civilization must have been beyond our
+ordinary calculation.
+
+
+
+No. 32.
+
+
+  _While kings and ministers obstruct the plan,
+  Unfaithful guardians of the weal of man._
+
+  Book IV. Line 529.
+
+The British colonies in all their early struggles for existence complained,
+and with reason, of the uniform indifference and discouragement which they
+experienced from the government of the mother country. But it was probably
+to that very indifference that they owed the remarkable spirit of liberty
+and self-dependence which created their prosperity, by inducing them
+uniformly to adopt republican institutions. These circumstances prepared
+the way for that mutual confidence and federal union which have finally
+formed them into a flourishing nation.
+
+Ministers who feel their power over a distant colony to be uncontrolled
+are so naturally inclined to govern too much, that it may be a fortunate
+circumstance for the colony to be neglected altogether. This neglect was
+indeed fatal to the first Virginia settlers sent out by Sir Walter Raleigh;
+and the companies who afterwards succeeded in their establishments at
+Jamestown in Virginia and at Plymouth in Massachusetts were very near
+sharing the fate of their predecessors. But after these settlements had
+acquired so much consistence as to assure their own continuance, it may
+be assumed as an historical fact, that the want of encouragement from
+government was rather beneficial than detrimental to the British colonies
+in general.
+
+These establishments were in the nature of private adventures, undertaken
+by a few individuals at their own expense, rather than organised colonies
+sent abroad for a public purpose. They were companies incorporated for
+plantation and trade. All they asked of the mother country (after obtaining
+acts of incorporation enabling them to acquire property and exercise other
+civil functions, such as incorporated companies at home could exercise) was
+to give them charters of political franchise, ascertaining the extent and
+limits of their rights and duties as subjects of the British crown forming
+nations in parts of the earth that had been found in an uncultivated state,
+and far removed from the mother country.
+
+As they could not in this situation be represented in the parliament of
+England, these charters stipulated their right of having parliaments
+or legislative assemblies of their own, with executive and judiciary
+institutions established within their territories.
+
+The acknowledgment of these rights placed them on a different footing from
+any other modern colonies; and the restricting clause, by which their trade
+was confined to the mother country, rendered their situation unlike that of
+the colonies of ancient Greece. Indeed the British system of colonization
+in America differed essentially from every other, whether ancient or
+modern; if that may properly be called a system, which was rather the
+result of early indifference to the cries of needy adventurers, and
+subsequent attempts to seize upon their earnings when they became objects
+of rapacity. This singular train of difficulties must be considered as one
+of the causes of our ancient prosperity and present freedom.
+
+
+
+
+No. 33.
+
+
+  _Where Freedom's sons their high-born lineage trace,
+  And homebred bravery still exalts the race:_
+
+  Book V. Line 345.
+
+The author of this poem will not be suspected of laying any stress on the
+mere circumstance of lineage or birth, as relating either to families or
+nations. The phrase however in the text is not without its meaning. Among
+the colonies derived from the several nations of Europe in modern times,
+those from the English have flourished far better than the others, under a
+parity of circumstances, such as climate, soil and productions. The reason
+of this undeniable fact deserves to be explained.
+
+Colonies naturally carry with them the civil, political and religious
+institutions of their mother countries. These institutions in England are
+much more favorable to liberty and the development of industry than in any
+other part of Europe which has sent colonies abroad. But this is not all:
+when men for several generations have been bred up in the habit of feeling
+and exercising such a portion of liberty as the English nation has enjoyed,
+their minds are prepared to open and expand themselves as occasion may
+offer. They are able to embrace new circumstances, to perceive the
+improvements that may be drawn from them, and not only make a temperate use
+of that portion of self-control to which they are accustomed, but devise
+the means of extending it to other objects of their political relations,
+till they become familiar with all the interests of men in society.
+
+The habitual use of the liberty of the press, of trial by jury in open
+court, of the accountability of public agents and of some voice in the
+election of legislators, must create, in a man or a nation, a character
+quite different from what it could be under the habitual disuse of these
+advantages. And when these habits are transplanted with a young colony to
+a distant region of the earth, enjoying a good soil and climate, with an
+unlimited and unoccupied country, the difference will necessarily be more
+remarkable.
+
+A most striking illustration of this principle is exhibited in the colonies
+of North America. This coast, from the St. Laurence to the Missisippi,
+was colonized by the French and English, (I make no account of the Dutch
+establishment on the Hudson nor of the Swedish on the Delaware; they being
+of little importance, and early absorbed in the English settlements.) If we
+look back only one hundred years from the present time, we find the French
+and English dominions here about equally important in point of extent and
+population. The French Canada, Acadia, Cape Breton, Newfoundland, Florida
+and Louisiana were then as far advanced in improvement as the English
+settlements which they flanked on each side. And the French had greatly
+the advantage in point of soil, interior navigation and capability of
+extension. They commanded and possessed the two great rivers which almost
+met together on the English frontier. And the space between the waters of
+those rivers on the west was planted with French military posts, so as to
+complete the investment.
+
+New Orleans was begun before Philadelphia, and was much better situated to
+become a great commercial capital. Quebec and Montreal were older, and had
+the advantage of most of our other cities. Add to this that the French
+nation at home was about twice as populous as the English nation at home;
+and as that part of the increase of colonial population which comes
+from emigration must naturally be derived from their respective mother
+countries, it might have been expected that the comparative rapidity of
+increase would have been in favor of the French at least two to one.
+
+But the French colonists had not been habituated to the use of liberty
+before their emigration; and they were not prepared nor permitted to enjoy
+it in any degree afterwards. Their laws were made for them in their mother
+country, by men who could not know their wants and who fell no interest in
+their prosperity; and then they were administered by a set of agents as
+ignorant as their masters; men who, from the nature of their employment and
+accountability, must in general be oppressive and rapacious.
+
+The result has solved a great problem in political combination. One of
+these clusters of colonies has grown to a powerful empire, giving examples
+to the universe in most of the great objects which constitute the dignity
+of nations. The other, after having been a constant expense to the mother
+country, and serving for barter and exchange in the capricious vicissitudes
+of European despotism, presents altogether at this day a mass of population
+and wealth scarcely equal to one of our provinces.
+
+This note is written at the moment when Louisiana, one of the most
+extensive but least peopled of the French colonies, is ceded to the United
+States. The world will see how far the above theory will now be confirmed
+by the rapid increase of population and improvement in that interesting
+portion of our continent.
+
+
+
+No. 34.
+
+
+  _Beneath him lay the sceptre kings had borne,
+  And the tame thunder from the tempest torn._
+
+  Book V. Line 429.
+
+  Eripuit coelo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis.
+
+This epigraph, written by Turgot on the bust of Franklin, seems to have
+been imitated from a line in Manilius; where noticing the progress of
+science in ascribing things to their natural and proper causes instead of
+supernatural ones, he says,
+
+  Eriput Jovi fulmen, viresque tonandi,
+  Et sonitum ventis concessit, nubibus ignem.
+
+
+
+No. 35.
+
+
+  _And Knox from his full park to battle brings
+  His brazen tubes, the last resort of kings._
+
+  Book V. Line 665.
+
+Ultima ratio regum; a device of Louis XIV engraved on his ordnance, and
+afterwards adopted by other powers. When we consider men as reasonable
+beings and endowed with the qualities requisite for living together in
+society, this device looks like a satire upon the species; but in reality
+it only proves the imperfect state to which their own principles of society
+have yet advanced them in the long and perhaps interminable progress of
+which they are susceptible. This _ultima ratio_ being already taken
+out of the hands of individuals and confided only to the chiefs of nations
+is as clear a proof of a great progress already made, as its remaining in
+the hands of those chiefs is a proof that we still remain far short of that
+degree of wisdom and experience which will enable all the nations to live
+at peace one with another.
+
+There certainly was a time when the same device might have been written
+on the hatchet or club or fist of every man; and the best weapon of
+destruction that he could wield against his neighbour might have been
+called _ultima ratio virarum_, meaning that human reason could go no
+farther. But the wisdom we have drawn from experience has taught us to
+restrain the use of mortal weapons, making it unlawful and showing it to
+be unreasonable to use them in private disputes. The principles of social
+intercourse and the advantages of peace are so far understood as to enable
+men to form great societies, and to submit their personal misunderstandings
+to common judges; thus removing the ultima ratio from their own private
+hands to the hands of their government.
+
+Hitherto there has usually been a government to every nation; but the
+nations are increasing in size and diminishing in number; so that the hands
+which now hold the _ultima ratio_ by delegation are few, compared
+with what they have been. I mean this observation to apply only to those
+extensions of nationality which have been formed on the true principles
+of society and acquiesced in from a sense of their utility. I mean not
+to apply it to those unnatural and unwieldy stretches of power, whose
+overthrow is often and erroneously cited as an argument against the
+progress of civilization; such as the conquests of Alexander, the Roman
+generals, Omar, Gengis Khan and others of that brilliant description. These
+are but meteors of compulsive force, which pass away and discourage, rather
+than promote, the spirit of national extension of which I speak.
+
+This spirit operates constantly and kindly; nor is its progress so slow
+but that it is easily perceived. Even within the short memorials of modern
+history we find a heptarchy in England. Ossian informs us that in his time
+there was a great number of warlike states in Ireland and as many more in
+Scotland. Without going back to the writings of Julius Cesar to discover
+the comparative condition of France, we may almost remember when she
+counted within her limits six or seven different governments, generally at
+war among themselves and inviting foreign enemies to come and help them
+destroy each other. Every province in Spain is still called a kingdom;
+and it is not long since they were really so in fact, with the _ultima
+ratio_ in the hands of every king.
+
+The publicist who in any of those modern heroic ages could have imagined
+that all the hundred nations who inhabited the western borders of Europe,
+from the Orknies to Gibraltar, might one day become so far united in
+manners and interests as to form but three great nations, would certainly
+have passed for a madman. Had he been a minister of Phararnond or of Fingal
+he could no more have kept his place than Turgot could keep his after
+pointing out the means of promoting industry and preventing wars. He would
+have been told that the inhabitants of each side of the Humber were natural
+enemies one to the other; that if their chiefs were even disposed to live
+in peace they could not do it; their subjects would demand war and could
+not live without it. The same would have been said of the Seine, the Loire
+and every other dividing line between their petty communities. It would
+have been insisted on that such rivers were the natural boundaries of
+states and never could be otherwise.
+
+But now since the people of those districts find themselves no longer
+on the frontiers of little warlike states, but in the centre of great
+industrious nations, they have lost their relish for war, and consider it
+as a terrible calamity; they cherish the minister who gives them peace, and
+abhor the one who drives them into unnecessary wars. Their local disputes,
+which used to be settled by the sword, are now referred to the tribunals of
+the country. They have substituted a moral to a physical force. They
+have changed the habits of plunder for those of industry; and they find
+themselves richer and happier for the change.
+
+Who will say that the progress of society will stop short in the present
+stage of its career? that great communities will not discover a mode of
+arbitrating their disputes, as little ones have done? that nations will
+not lay aside their present ideas of independence and rivalship, and find
+themselves more happy and more secure in one great universal society,
+which shall contain within itself its own principles of defence, its own
+permanent security? It is evident that national security, in order to be
+permanent, must be founded on the moral force of society at large, and not
+on the physical force of each nation independently exerted. The _ultima
+ratio_ must not be a cannon, but a reference to some rational mode of
+decision worthy of rational beings.
+
+
+
+No. 36.
+
+
+  _Else what high tones of rapture must have told
+  The first great action of a chief so bold!_
+
+  Book V. Line 767.
+
+General Arnold, the leader of this detachment, had acquired by this
+and many other brilliant achievements a degree of military fame almost
+unequalled among the American generals. His shameful defection afterwards,
+by the foulest of treason, should be lamented as a national dishonor; it
+has not only obliterated his own glory, but it seems in some sort to have
+cast a shade on that of others whose brave actions had been associated with
+his in the acquisition of their common and unadulterated fame.
+
+The action here alluded to, the march thro the wilderness from Casco to
+Quebec, was compared in the gazettes of that day to the passage of the Alps
+by Hannibal. And really, considered as a scene of true military valor,
+patient suffering and heroic exertion (detached from the idea of subsequent
+success in the ulterior expedition) the comparison did not disgrace the
+Carthaginian. Yet since the defection of Arnold, which happened five
+years afterwards, this audacious and once celebrated exploit is
+scarcely mentioned in our annals. And Meigs, Dearborn, Morgan and other
+distinguished officers in the expedition, whom that alone might have
+immortalized, have been indebted to their subsequent exertions of patriotic
+valor for the share of celebrity their names now enjoy.
+
+See the character of Arnold treated more at large in the sixth book.
+
+
+
+No. 37.
+
+
+  _See the black Prison Ship's expanding womb
+  Impested thousands, quick and dead, entomb._
+
+  Book VI. Line 35.
+
+The systematic and inflexible course of cruelties exercised by the British
+armies on American prisoners during the three first years of the war were
+doubtless unexampled among civilized nations. Considering it as a war
+against rebels, neither their officers nor soldiers conceived themselves
+bound by the ordinary laws of war.
+
+The detail of facts on this subject, especially in what concerned the
+prison ships, has not been sufficiently noticed in our annals; at least not
+so much noticed as the interest of public morals would seem to require. Mr.
+Boudinot, who was the American commissary of prisoners at the time, has
+since informed the author of this poem that in one prison ship alone,
+called the Jersey, which was anchored near Newyork, _eleven thousand_
+American prisoners died in eighteen months; almost the whole of them from
+the barbarous treatment of being stifled in a crowded hold with infected
+air, and poisoned with unwholesome food.
+
+There were several other prison ships, as well as the sugar-house prison
+in the city, whose histories ought to be better known than they are. I say
+this not from any sort of enmity to the British nation, for I have none. I
+respect the British nation; as will be evident from the views I have given
+of her genius and institutions in the course of this work. I would at all
+times render that nation every service consistent with my duty to my own;
+and surely it is worthy of her magnanimity to consider as a real service
+every true information given her relative to the crimes of her agents in
+distant countries. These crimes are as contrary to the spirit of the nation
+at home as they are to the temper of her laws.
+
+
+
+No. 38.
+
+
+  _Myrtles and laurels equal honors join'd,
+  Which arms had purchased and the Muses twined;_
+
+  Book VI, Line 273.
+
+General Burgoyne had gained some celebrity by his pen, as well as by his
+sword, previous to the American war. He was author of the comedy called
+_The Heiress_, and of some other theatrical pieces which had been well
+received on the London theatres.
+
+
+
+No. 39.
+
+
+  _Deep George's loaded lake reluctant guides
+  Their bounding larges o'er his sacred tides._
+
+  Book VI. Line 285.
+
+The water of Lake George was held in particular veneration by the French
+catholics of Canada. Of this they formerly made their holy water; which was
+carried and distributed to the churches thro the province, and probably
+produced part of the revenues of the clergy. This water is said to have
+been chosen for the purpose on account of its extreme clearness. The lake
+was called _Lac du Saint Sacrement_.
+
+
+
+No. 40.
+
+
+  _His savage hordes the murderous Johnson leads,
+  Files thro the woods and treads the tangled weeds,_
+
+  Book VI. Line 389.
+
+This was general sir John Johnson, an American royalist in the British
+service. He was the son of sir William Johnson, who had been a rich
+proprietor and inhabitant in the Mohawk country, in the colony of New York,
+and had been employed by the king as superintendant of Indian affairs. Sir
+William had married a Mohawk savage wife; and it was supposed that the
+great influence which he had long exercised over that and the neighboring
+tribes must have descended to his son. It was on this account that he
+was employed on the expedition of Burgoyne; in which he had the rank of
+brigadier general, and the special direction of the savages.
+
+
+
+No. 41.
+
+
+  _Are these thy trophies, Carleton! these the swords
+  Thy hand unsheath'd and gave the savage hordes,_
+
+  Book VI. Line 685.
+
+General sir Guy Carleton, afterwards lord Dorchester, was the British
+governor of Canada and superintendant of Indian affairs at the time of
+Burgoyne's campaign. Having great influence with the warlike tribes who
+inhabited the west of Canada and the borders of the Lakes, he was ordered
+by the minister to adopt the barbarous and unjustifiable measure of arming
+and bringing them into the king's service in aid of this expedition.
+
+This was doubtless done with the consent of Burgoyne, tho he seems to have
+been apprehensive of the difficulty of managing a race of men whose manners
+were so ferocious, and whose motives to action must have been so different
+from those of the principal parties in the war. Burgoyne, in his narrative
+of this campaign, informs us that he took precautions to discourage that
+inhuman mode of warfare which had been customary among those savages. He
+ordered them to kill none but such persons as they should find in arms
+fighting against the king's troops; to spare old men, women, children and
+prisoners; and not to scalp any but such as they should kill in open war.
+He intimated to them that he should not pay for any scalps but those thus
+taken from enemies killed in arms.
+
+It is unfortunate for the reputation of the general and of his government,
+that they did not reflect on the futility of such an order and the
+improbability of its being executed. A certain price was offered for
+scalps; the savages must know that in a bag of scalps, packed and dried and
+brought into camp and counted out before the commissary to receive payment,
+it would be impossible to distinguish the political opinions or the
+occupation, age or sex of the heads to which they had belonged; it could
+not be ascertained whether they had been taken from Americans or British,
+whigs or tories, soldiers killed in arms or killed after they had resigned
+their arms, militia men or peasants, old or young, male or female.
+
+The event proved the deplorable policy of employing such auxiliaries,
+especially in such multitudes as were brought together on this occasion. No
+sooner did hostilities begin between the two armies than these people, who
+could have no knowledge of the cause nor affection for either party, and
+whose only object was plunder and pay, began their indiscriminate and
+ungovernable ravages on both sides. They robbed and murdered peasants,
+whether royalists or others; men, women, children, straggling and wounded
+soldiers of both armies. The tragical catastrophe of a young lady of the
+name of Macrea, whose story is almost literally detailed in the foregoing
+paragraphs of the text, is well known. It made a great impression on the
+public mind at the time, both in England and America.
+
+General Carleton, in the preceding campaigns, when the war was carried into
+Canada, had been applauded for his humanity in the treatment of prisoners.
+But the part he took in this measure of associating the savages in the
+operations of the British army was a stain upon his character; and the
+measure was highly detrimental to the royal cause, on account of the
+general indignation it excited thro the country.
+
+
+
+No. 42.
+
+
+  _That no proud privilege from birth can spring,
+  No right divine, nor compact form a king;_
+
+  Book VII. Line 39.
+
+The assumed right of kings, or that supreme authority which one man
+exercises over a nation, and for which he is not held accountable, has been
+contended for on various grounds. It has been sometimes called the _right
+of conquest;_ in which is involved the absolute disposal of the lives
+and labors of the conquered nation, in favor of the victorious chief
+and his descendants to perpetuity. Sometimes it is called the _divine
+right;_ in which case kings are considered as the vicegerents of God.
+
+This notion is very ancient, and it is almost universal among modern
+nations. Homer is full of it; and from his unaffected recurrence to the
+same idea every where in his poems, it is evident that in his day it was
+not called in question. The manner in which the Jews were set at work to
+constitute their first king proves that they were convinced that, if they
+must have a king, he must be given them from God, and receive that solemn
+consecration which should establish his authority on the same divine right
+which was common to other nations, from whom they borrowed the principle.
+
+There are some few instances in history wherein this divine right has
+been set aside; but it has generally been owing rather to the violence
+of circumstances, which sometimes drive men to act contrary to their
+prejudices, tho they still retain them, than to any effort of reasoning
+by which they convinced themselves that this was a prejudice, and that no
+divine right existed in reality. For it does not violate this supposed
+right, to change one king for another, or one race of kings for another,
+tho done in a manner the most unjust and inhuman. In this case the same
+divine right remains, and only changes, with the diadem, from one head to
+another. And tho this change should happen six times in one day (as in one
+instance it has done in Algiers by the murder of six successive kings) they
+would still say it was God who did it all; and the action would only tend
+to prove to the credulous people, that God was made after their own image,
+as changeable as themselves.
+
+It is only in the case of Tarquin and a few others (whose overthrow has
+been followed by a more popular form of government) that it can be said
+that the principle of the divine right has been disregarded, laid aside and
+forgotten for any length of time.
+
+The English are perhaps the first and only people that ever overturned
+this doctrine of the divinity of kings, without changing their form of
+government. This was brought on by circumstances, and took effect in the
+expulsion of James II. Books were then written to prove that the divine
+right of kings did not exist; at least, not in the sense in which it had
+been understood. And these writings completely silenced the old doctrine in
+England. This indeed was gaining an immense advantage in favor of liberty;
+tho the effort of reason, to arrive at it, seems to be so small.
+
+But while the English were discarding the old principle they set up a
+new one; which indeed is not so pernicious because it cannot become so
+extensive, but which is scarcely more reasonable: it is the right of kings
+by _compact;_ that is, a compact, whether written or understood,
+by which the representatives of a nation are supposed to bind their
+constituents and their descendants to be the subjects of a certain prince
+and of his descendants to perpetuity. This singular doctrine is developed
+with perspicuity, but ill supported by argument, in Burke's _Reflections
+on the French Revolution._
+
+The principle of the American government denies the right of any
+representatives to make such a compact, and the right of any prince to
+carry it into execution if it were made. Whatever varieties or mixtures
+there may be in the _forms_ of government, there are but two distinct
+principles on which government is founded. One supposes the source of power
+to be _out_ of the people, and that the governor is not accountable to
+them for the manner of using it; the other supposes the source of power to
+be _in_ the people, and that the governor is accountable to them for
+the manner of using it. The latter is our principle. In this sense no
+_right divine_ nor _compact_ can form a king; that is, a person,
+exercising underived and unreverting power.
+
+
+
+No. 43.
+
+
+  _But while dread Elliott shakes the Midland wave,
+  They strive in vain the Calpian rock to brave._
+
+  Book VII. Line 89.
+
+The English general Elliott commanded the post of Gibraltar, against which
+the combined forces of France and Spain made a vigorous but fruitless
+attack in the year 1781. This attack furnished the subjects for two
+celebrated pictures alluded to in the eighth book: _The burning of the
+Floating Batteries_ painted by Copley; and _The Sortie_, painted by
+Trumbull.
+
+
+
+No. 44.
+
+
+  _To guide the sailor in his wandering way,
+  See Godfrey's glass reverse the beams of day._
+
+  Book VIII. Line 681.
+
+It is less from national vanity than from a regard to truth and a desire of
+rendering personal justice, that the author wishes to rectify the history
+of science in the circumstance here alluded to. The instrument known by the
+name of Hartley's Quadrant, now universally in use and generally attributed
+to Dr. Hartley, was invented by Thomas Godfrey of Philadelphia. See
+Jefferson's Notes on Virginia; likewise Miller's Retrospect of the
+Eighteenth Century, in which the original documents relative to Godfrey's
+invention are fully detailed.
+
+
+
+No. 45.
+
+
+  _West with his own great soul the canvass warms,
+  Creates, inspires, impassions human forms._
+
+  Book VIII. Line 587.
+
+Benjamin West, president of the Royal Academy in London, was born and
+educated in Pennsylvania. At the age of twenty-three he went to Italy to
+perfect his taste in the art to which his genius irresistibly impelled him;
+in which he was destined to cast a splendor upon the age in which he lives,
+and probably to excel all his cotemporaries, so far at least as we can
+judge from the present state of their works. After passing two years in
+that country of models, where canvass and marble seem to contribute their
+full proportion of the population, he went to London.
+
+Here he soon rendered himself conspicuous for the boldness of his designs,
+in daring to shake off the trammels of the art so far as to paint modern
+history in modern dress. He had already staggered the connoisseurs in Italy
+while he was there, by his picture of _The Savage Chief taking leave of
+his family on going to war_. This extraordinary effort of the American
+pencil on an American subject excited great admiration at Venice. The
+picture was engraved in that city by Bartolozzi, before either he or West
+went to England. The artists were surprised to find that the expression of
+the passions of men did not depend on the robes they wore. And his
+early works in London, _The Death of Wolfe_, _The Battles of the
+Boyne_, _Lahogue_, &c., engraved by Woollett and others, not only
+established his reputation, but produced a revolution in the Art. So that
+modern dress has now become as familiar in fictitious as in real life; it
+being justly considered essential in painting modern history.
+
+The engraving from his Wolfe has been often copied in France, Italy and
+Germany; and it may be said that in this picture the revolution in painting
+really originated. It would now be reckoned as preposterous in an artist
+to dress modern personages in Grecian or Roman habits, as it was before to
+give them the garb of the age and country to which they belonged.
+
+The merit of Mr. West was early noticed and encouraged by the king; who
+took him into pay with a convenient salary, and the title of historical
+painter to his majesty. In this situation he has decorated the king's
+palaces, chapels and churches with most of those great pictures from the
+English history and from the Old and New Testament, which compose so
+considerable a portion of his works.
+
+The following catalogue of his pictures was furnished me by Mr. West
+himself in the year 1802. It comprises only his principal productions in
+_historical_ painting, and only his _finished_ pictures; without
+mentioning his numerous portraits, or his more numerous sketches and
+drawings.
+
+The pictures marked thus * have been engraved. The ciphers express the size
+of the pictures. When the same subject is mentioned more than once, there
+is more than one picture on that subject.
+
+
+IN THE QUEEN'S HOUSE.
+
+  * Regulus departing from Rome.
+  * Hannibal sworn when a child.
+  * Death of Wolfe.
+  Damsel accusing Peter.
+  * Death of Epaminondas.
+  Apotheosis of the two young princes.
+  * Death of chevalier Bayard.
+  Germanicus, with Segestus and his daughter prisoners.
+  * Cyrus, with a king and family captives.
+
+
+IN THE KING'S APARTMENTS AT WINDSOR.
+
+  Edward III crossing the Somme.
+  Battle of Cressy, Edward embracing his son.
+  Edward III crowning Ribemond at Calais.
+  St. George destroying the Dragon.
+  The Six Burgesses of Calais before Edward.
+  Battle of Poietiers, king of France prisoner to the Black Prince.
+  Institution of the Order of the Garter.
+  Battle of Nevilcross.
+  Christ's Crucifixion.
+  The same on glass for the west window of the church at Windsor, 36 feet
+    by 28.
+  Peter, John and women at the Sepulchre.
+  The same on glass for the east window of the same church, 36 feet by 28.
+  The Angels appearing to the Shepherds.
+  Nativity of Christ.
+  Kings presenting gifts to Christ.
+
+
+IN THE MARBLE GALLERY, WINDSOR CASTLE.
+
+  Hymen dancing with the Hours  before Peace and Plenty.
+  Boys with the insignia of the Fine Arts.
+  Boys with the insignia of Riches.
+
+
+IN THE KING'S CHAPEL AT WINDSOR.
+
+
+A complete history of Revealed Religion, divided into four dispensations,
+and comprised in thirty-eight pictures.
+
+
+PATRIARCHAL DISPENSATION.
+
+  Adam and Eve created. 9 feet by 6.
+  Adam and Eve driven from Paradise. do.
+  The Deluge. do.
+  Noah sacrificing. do.
+  Abraham going to sacrifice Isaac. do.
+  Birth of Jacob and Esau. do.
+  Death of Jacob, surrounded by his sons. do.
+  Bondage of the Israelites in Egypt. do.
+
+MOSAICAL DISPENSATION.
+
+  Moses called. do.
+  Moses and Aaron before Pharaoh, their rods turned to serpents. 15 feet
+    by 10.
+  Pharaoh's Army lost in the sea.
+  Moses receiving the Law. 18 feet by 12.
+  Hoses consecrating Aaron and his sons to the Priesthood. 15 feet by 10.
+  Moses shows the Brazen Serpent. 15 feet by 10.
+  Moses on Mount Pisgah sees the Promised Land and dies. 9 feet by 6.
+  Joshua passing the Jordan, do.
+  The twelve Tribes drawing their lots. do.
+  David called and anointed, do.
+
+GOSPEL DISPENSATION.
+
+  John Baptist called and named. do.
+  Christ born. do.
+  Christ offered gifts by the Wise Men. do.
+  Christ among the Doctors, do.
+  Christ baptized, and the Holy Spirit descending on him. 15 feet by 10.
+  Christ healing the Sick. do.
+  Christ's last Supper. do.
+  Christ's Crucifixion. 36 feet by 28.
+  Christ's Resurrection, Peter, John and the women at the Sepulchre. do.
+  * Christ's Ascension. 18 feet by 12.
+  Peter's first Sermon, Descent of the Holy Spirit. 15 feet by 10.
+  The Apostles preaching and working miracles. do.
+  Paul and Barnabas turning from the Jews to the Gentiles. do.
+
+APOCALYPTIC DISPENSATION.
+
+  John seeing the Son of Man, and called to write. 9 feet by 6.
+  The Throne surrounded by the Four Beasts, and Saints laying down their
+    crowns. 9 feet by 6.
+  Death on the Pale Horse, and the Opening of the Seals. do.
+  The White Horse and his legions, and the Man destroying the Old Beast.
+    do.
+  General Resurrection, the end of Death. do.
+  Christ's Second Coming. do.
+  The New Jerusalem. do.
+
+
+IN THE COLLECTION OF MR. BECKFORD.
+
+  Michael and his angels casting out the Red Dragon and his angels.
+  The Woman clothed with the Sun.
+  John called to write the Apocalypse.
+  The Beast rising out of the sea.
+  The mighty Angel, one foot on sea the other on land.
+  St. Anthony of Padua.
+  The Madre Dolorosa.
+  Simeon with the Child in his arms.
+  Landscape, with a Hunt in the back ground.
+  Abraham and Isaac going to sacrifice.
+  Thomas a Becket.
+  Angel in the Sun.
+  Order of the Garter, differing in composition from that at Windsor.
+
+
+IN THE COLLECTION OF EARL GROSVENOR.
+
+  The Shunamite's son raised to life by Elisha.
+  Jacob blessing the sons of Joseph.
+  * Death of Wolfe.
+  * Battle of Lahogue.
+  * Battle of the Boyne.
+  * Restoration of Charles II.
+  * Cromwell dissolving the Parliament.
+  The Golden Age.
+  General Wolfe when a boy.
+
+
+IN THE COLLECTION OF MR. HOPE.
+
+  * Telemachus and Calypso.
+  * Angelica and Madora.
+  The Damsel and Orlando.
+  Cicero at the tomb of Archimedes.
+  St. Paul's Conversion.
+  St. Paul persecuting the Christians.
+  His restoration to sight by Ananias.
+  Mr. Hope's family; nine figures, size of life.
+
+
+IN THE HISTORICAL GALLERY, PALLMALL.
+
+  The Queen soliciting king Henry to pardon her son John.
+
+
+IN GREENWICH HOSPITAL.
+
+  Paul shaking the Viper from his finger.
+  Paul preaching at Athens.
+  Elymas the Sorcerer struck blind.
+  Cornelius and the Angel.
+  Peter delivered from prison.
+  Conversion of St. Paul.
+  Paul before Felix.
+  Return of the Prodigal Son.
+
+
+LARGE FIGURES OF
+
+  Faith,
+  Hope,
+  Charity,
+  Innocence,
+  Matthew,
+  Mark,
+  Luke,
+  Matthias,
+  Thomas,
+  Simon,
+  James major,
+  James minor,
+  Philip,
+  Peter,
+  Malachi,
+  Micah,
+  Zachariah,
+  Daniel,
+  Jude,
+  John,
+  Andrew,
+  Bartholomew.
+
+
+IN DIFFERENT CHURCHES.
+
+  Michael chaining the Dragon.
+  Angels announcing the birth of Christ.
+  St. Stephen stoned to death.
+  Raising of Lazarus.
+  Paul shaking off the Viper.
+  The last Supper.
+  Resurrection of Christ.
+  Peter denying Christ.
+  Moses showing the Brazen Serpent.
+  John seeing the Lamb of God.
+  A Mother leading her children to the Temple of Virtue.
+
+
+IN VARIOUS COLLECTIONS.
+
+  Lord Clive taking the dunny from the Mogul.
+  The same.
+  Christ receiving the Sick. _Pensyl. hospital._
+  * Leonidas exiling Cleombrotus and family.
+  The two Marys at the Sepulchre.
+  Alexander and his Physician.
+  Cesar reading the Life of Alexander.
+  Death of Adonis.
+  Continence of Scipio.
+  * Savage Warrior taking leave of his family.
+  Venus and Cupid.
+  Alfred dividing his loaf with the Beggar.
+  Helen presented to Paris.
+  Cupid stung by a bee.
+  Simeon and the Child.
+  * William Penn treating with the Savages.
+  Destruction of the Spanish Armada.
+  Philippa soliciting of Edward the pardon of the citizens of Calais.
+  Europa on the Bull.
+  Death of Hyacinthus.
+  Death of Cesar.
+  Venus presenting her cestus to Juno.
+  Rinaldo and Armida.
+  Pharaoh's Daughter with the child Moses.
+  The stolen Kiss.
+  Angelica and Madora.
+  Woman of Samaria at the well with Christ.
+  Agrippina leaning on the urn of Germanicus.
+  Death of Wolfe.
+  The same; smaller size.
+  Romeo and Juliet.
+  King Lear and his Daughters.
+  Belisarius and the Boy.
+  Sir Francis Baring and family.
+  * Mr. West and family.
+  A Mother and Child.
+  Jupiter and Semele.
+  Petus and Arria.
+  Venus and Cupid smiling at Europa when Jupiter had left her.
+  Rebecca coming to Jacob.
+  Rebecca receiving the bracelets at the well.
+  Agrippina landing at Brundusium with the ashes of Germanieus,
+  The same.
+  The same.
+  Endymion and Diana.
+
+
+IN THE COLLECTION OF ROBERT FULTON.
+
+  Ophelia distracted, before the king and queen
+  *King Lear in the storm,
+
+
+IN MR. WEST'S OWN COLLECTION.
+
+  Hector taking leave of his Wife and Child.
+  Elisha raising the Shunamite's Son.
+  The raising of Lazarus.
+  Macbeth and the Witches.
+  The return of Tobias.
+  Return of the Prodigal Son.
+  Ariadne on the sea shore.
+  Death of Adonis.
+  King of France brought to the Black Prince.
+  * Death of Wolfe.
+  Venus and Adonis.
+  Battle of Lahogue.
+  Edward III crossing the Somme.
+  Philippa at the Battle of Nevilcross.
+  Angels announcing the birth of Christ.
+  Kings bringing presents to Christ.
+  View on the river Thames.
+  View on the Susquehanna.
+  Picture of Tankers Mill at Eton.
+  Chryseis restored to her Father.
+  Antiochus and Stratoftice.
+  King Lear and his Daughters.
+  Chryseus on the sea shore.
+  Nathan and David. _Thou art the man_.
+  Elijah raising the widow's Son.
+  Choice of Hercules.
+  Venus and Europa.
+  Daniel interpreting the Writing on the Wall.
+  Marius on the ruins of Carthage.
+  * Cymon and Iphigenia.
+  Cicero at the tomb of Archimedes.
+  * Alexander, king of Scotland, rescued from the Stag.
+  Battle of Cressy.
+  * Mr. West and his family.
+  * Anthony shows Cesar's Robe and Will.
+  Egysthus viewing the body of Clytemnestra.
+  Recovery of king George in 1789.
+  A large landscape in Windsor Forest.
+  Ophelia before the King and Queen.
+  Leonidas taking leave of his family.
+  Phaeton receiving from Apollo the chariot of the Sun.
+  The Eagle giving the cup of water to Psyche.
+  Moonlight and the Beckoning Ghost. _Pope._
+  Angel sitting on the stone at the Sepulchre.
+  The same subject differently composed.
+  * Angelica and Madora.
+  The Damsel and Orlando.
+  The Good Samaritan.
+  Old Beast and False Prophet destroyed.
+  Christ healing the sick in the temple.
+  Death on the Pale Horse.
+  Jason and the Dragon.
+  Venus and Adonis seeing the Cupids bathe.
+  Moses and Aaron before Pharaoh.
+  Passage boat on the Canal.
+  Paul and Barnabas rejecting the Jews and turning to the Gentiles.
+  Diomed, his horses struck with lightning.
+  Milk-woman in St. James's Park.
+  Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise.
+  Order of the Garter.
+  Orion on the Dolphin's back.
+  The Deluge.
+  Queen Elizabeth's Procession to St. Paul's.
+  Christ showing a child, emblem of heaven.
+  Harvest Home.
+  Washing Sheep.
+  St. Paul shaking off the Viper.
+  Sun setting at Twickenham on Thames.
+  Driving sheep and cows to water.
+  Cattle drinking, and Mr. West drawing, in Windsor Park.
+  Pharaoh and his boat in the Red Sea.
+  Telemachus and Calypso.
+  Moses consecrating Aaron and his sons.
+  A Mother inviting her little boy to come to her thro a brook.
+  Brewer's porter and hod carrier.
+  Venus attended by the Graces.
+  Naming of Samuel.
+  Birth of Jacob and Esau.
+  Ascension of Christ.
+  Samuel presented to Eli.
+  Moses shown the Promised Land.
+  Christ among the Doctors.
+  Reaping scene.
+  Adonis and his dog.
+  Mothers with their children in water.
+  Joshua crossing the Jordan with the Ark.
+  Christ's Nativity.
+  * Pyrrhus when a child before king Glaucus.
+  The Man laying his bread on the bridle of the dead Ass. _Sterne._
+  The Captive. _Ditto._
+  Cupid letting loose two Doves.
+  Cupid asleep.
+  Children eating cherries.
+  St. Anthony of Padua and the Child.
+  Jacob and Laban with his two daughters.
+  The Women looking into the Sepulchre and seeing two Angels where the
+    Lord lay.
+  The Angel unchaining Peter in prison.
+  Death of sir Philip Sidney.
+  Death of Epaminondas.
+  Death of chevalier Bayard.
+  Death of Cephalus.
+  * Kosciusko on a couch.
+  Abraham and Isaac. _Here is the wood and fire, but where is the lamb
+    to sacrifice?_
+  Eponina with her children giving bread to her husband when in
+    concealment.
+  King Henry pardoning his brother.
+  John at the prayer of his mother.
+  Death of lord Chatham. Presentation of the Crown to William the
+    Conqueror.
+  Europa crowning the Bull with flowers.
+  West's garden, gallery and painting room.
+  Cave of Despair. _Spencer_.
+  Arethusa bathing.
+  Cupid shows Venus his finger stung by a bee.
+  Ubald brings his three daughters to Alfred for him to choose one for
+    his wife.
+  * Pylades and Orestes.
+
+Besides the two hundred and ninety-nine large finished pictures here
+mentioned, Mr. West has done about one hundred portraits, and upwards of
+two hundred drawings with the pen; which last, for sublimity of conception,
+are among the finest of his works. So that the whole of his pieces amount
+to above six hundred. Some of them are larger in size than any in the
+national gallery of France; and he has not been assisted by any other
+painter.
+
+Mr. West is now about sixty-eight years of age. He discovers no abatement
+in the activity of his genius, nor in the laborious exercise of his
+talents. He has painted several fine pictures since the above catalogue
+was made. Three of which I have particularly noticed in his painting room:
+Tobet and Tobias with the fish; Abraham sending away Hagar with her child;
+Achilles receiving from Thetis the new armor; and we hear that he has
+lately painted the Death of Nelson. He may yet produce many more original
+works; tho it is presumed he has already exceeded all other historical
+painters, except Rubens, in the number and variety of his productions. With
+regard to the merit of his pictures, I cannot pretend to form a judgment
+that would be of any use in directing that of others. He is doubtless the
+most classical painter, except Raphael, whose works are known to us.
+
+The critics find fault with the coloring of Mr. West. But in his works,
+as in those of Raphael, we do not look for coloring. It is dignity of
+character, fine expression, delicate design, correct drawing and beautiful
+disposition of drapery which fix the suffrage of the real judge. All which
+qualities can only spring from an elevated mind.
+
+
+
+No. 46.
+
+
+  _Nile pours from heaven a tutelary flood,
+  And gardens grow the vegetable god._
+
+  Book IX. Line 287.
+
+  O sanctas gentes, quibus haec nascuntur in hortis Numina.
+
+  Juv. Sat. 15.
+
+
+
+No. 47.
+
+
+  _Tis to correct their fatal faults of old,
+  When, caught by tinsel, they forgot the gold._
+
+  Book IX. Line 499.
+
+The state of the arts and sciences among the ancients, viewed with
+reference to the event of universal civilization, was faulty in two
+respects. First, In their comparative estimation: Second, In their
+flourishing only in one nation at a time. These circumstances might be
+favorable to the exertions of individual genius; and they may be assigned
+both as causes of the universal destruction of the arts and sciences by
+the Gothic conquest, and as reasons why we should not greatly lament that
+destruction.
+
+From the political state of mankind in the days of their ancient splendor
+it was natural that those arts which depend on the imagination, such as
+Architecture, Statuary, Painting, Eloquence and Poetry, should claim the
+highest rank in the estimation of a people. In several, perhaps all of
+these, the ancients remain unrivalled. But these are not the arts which
+tend the most to the general improvement of society. A man in those days
+would have rendered more service to the world by ascertaining the true
+figure and movements of the earth, than by originating a heaven and filling
+it with all the gods of Homer; and had the expenses of the Egyptian
+pyramids been employed in furnishing ships of discovery and sending them
+out of the Mediterranean, the nations called civilized would not have been
+afterwards overrun by Barbarians.
+
+But the sciences of Geography, Navigation and Commerce, with their
+consequent improvements in Natural Philosophy and Humanity, could not, from
+the nature of things at that time, become objects of great encouragement or
+enterprise. Talent was therefore confined to the cultivation of arts more
+striking to the senses. As these arts were adapted to gratify the vanity
+of princes, to help carry on the sacred frauds of priests, to fire the
+ambition of heroes, or to gain causes in popular assemblies, they were
+brought to a degree of perfection which prevented their being relished or
+understood by barbarous neighbors.
+
+The improvements of the world therefore, whether in literature, sciences or
+arts, descended with the line of conquest from one nation to another, till
+the whole were concentred in the Roman empire. Their tendency there was to
+inspire a contempt for nations less civilized, and to teach the Romans to
+consider all mankind as the proper objects of their military despotism.
+These circumstances prepared, thro a course of ages, and finally opened a
+scene of wretchedness at which the human mind has been taught to shudder.
+But some such convulsion seemed necessary to reduce the nations to a
+position capable of commencing regular improvements. And, however novel the
+sentiment may appear, I will venture to say that, as to the prospect of
+universal civilization, mankind were in a better situation in the time of
+Charlemagne than they were in the days of Augustus.
+
+The final destruction of the Roman empire left the nations of Europe
+in circumstances similar to each other; and their consequent rivalship
+prevented any disproportionate refinement from appearing in any particular
+region. The principles of government, firmly rooted in the Feudal System,
+unsocial and unphilosophical as they were, laid the foundation of that
+balance of power which discourages the Cesars and Alexanders of modern ages
+from attempting the conquest of the world.
+
+It seems necessary that the arrangement of events in civilizing the world
+should be in the following order: _first_, all parts of it must be
+considerably peopled; _second_, the different nations must be known
+to each other; _third_, their wants must be increased, in order to
+inspire a passion for commerce. The first of these objects was not probably
+accomplished till a late period. The second for three centuries past has
+been greatly accelerated. The third is a necessary consequence of the two
+former. The spirit of commerce is happily calculated to open an amicable
+intercourse between all countries, to soften the horrors of war, to enlarge
+the field of science, and to assimilate the manners, feelings and languages
+of all nations. This leading principle, in its remoter consequences,
+will produce advantages in favor of free government, give patriotism the
+character of philanthropy, induce all men to regard each other as brethren
+and friends, and teach them the benefits of peace and harmony among the
+nations.
+
+I conceive it no objection to this theory that the progress has hitherto
+been slow; when we consider the magnitude of the object, the obstructions
+that were to be removed, and the length of time taken to accomplish it.
+The future progress will probably be more rapid than the past. Since the
+invention of printing, the application of the properties of the magnet,
+and the knowledge of the structure of the solar system, it is difficult to
+conceive of a cause that can produce a new state of barbarism; unless it be
+some great convulsion in the physical world, so extensive as to change the
+face of the earth or a considerable part of it. This indeed may have been
+the case already more than once, since the earth was first peopled with
+men, and antecedent to our histories. But such events have nothing to do
+with the present argument.
+
+
+
+No. 48.
+
+
+  _Herschel ascends himself with venturous wain,
+  And joins and flanks thy planetary train,_
+
+  Book IX. Line 601.
+
+The planet discovered by Herschel was called by him Georgium Sidus; but in
+all countries except England it is named Herschel, and probably will be so
+named there after his death and that of the patron to whom his gratitude
+led him to make this extraordinary dedication.
+
+I would observe that, besides the impropriety of giving it another name
+than that of the discoverer, it is inconvenient to use a double name, or a
+name composed of two words. Let it be either George or Herschel.
+
+The passage referred to in this note was written before the discovery of
+the three other planets which are now added to our catalogue. Could my
+voice have weight in deciding on the names to be given to these new
+children of the sun, I would call them by the names of their respective
+discoverers, Piazzi, Gibers and Harding, instead of the senseless and
+absurd appellations of Ceres, Pallas and Juno. The former method would at
+least assist us in preserving the history of science; the latter will only
+tend farther to confuse a very ancient mythology which is already extremely
+confused, and increase the difficulty of following the faint traces of real
+knowledge that seems couched under the mass of that mythology; traces which
+may one day lead to many useful truths in philosophy and morals.
+
+
+
+No. 49.
+
+
+  _To build on ruin'd realms the shrine of fame,
+  And load his numbers with a tyrant's name._
+
+  Book X. Line 261.
+
+A most useful book might be written on this subject. It should be a Review
+of Poets and Historians, as to the moral and political tendency of their
+works. It should likewise treat of the importance of the task assigned to
+these two classes of writers. It might attempt to point out the true object
+they ought to have in view; perhaps do this with such clearness and energy
+as to gain the attention of writers as well as readers, and thus serve in
+some measure as a guide to future historians and poets. At least it would
+prove a guide to readers; and by teaching them how to judge, and what
+to praise or blame in the accounts of human actions, whether real or
+fictitious, the public taste would be reformed by degrees. In this case the
+recorders of heroic actions, as well as the authors of them, would find it
+necessary to follow this reform, or they must necessarily fail of obtaining
+the celebrity to which they all aspire.
+
+I think every person who will give himself the trouble to form an opinion
+on the manner in which actions, called heroic, have been recorded, must
+find it faulty; and must lament, as one of the misfortunes of society, that
+writers of these two classes almost universally, from Homer down to Gibbon,
+have led astray the moral sense of man. In this view we may say in general
+of poets and historians, as we do of their heroes, that they have injured
+the cause of humanity almost in proportion to the fame they have acquired.
+
+I would not be understood by this observation to mean that such writers
+have done no good. Even the works of Homer, which have caused more mischief
+to mankind than those of any other, have likewise been a fruitful source of
+a certain species of benefits. They elevate the mind of every reader; they
+have called forth great exertions of genius in poets, artists, philosophers
+and heroes, thro a long succession of ages. But it remains to be considered
+what a fruitful source they have likewise been of those false notions of
+honor and erroneous systems of policy which have governed the actions of
+men from his day to ours.
+
+If, instead of the Iliad, he had given us a work of equal splendor founded
+on an opposite principle; whose object should have been to celebrate the
+useful arts of agriculture and navigation; to build the immortal fame
+of his heroes, and occupy his whole hierarchy of gods, on actions that
+contribute to the real advancement of society, instead of striking away
+every foundation on which society ought to be established or can be greatly
+advanced; mankind, enriched with such a work at that early period, would
+have given a useful turn to their ambition thro all succeeding ages.
+
+It is not easy to conceive how different the state of nations would have
+been at this day from what we now find it, had such a bent been given to
+the pursuits of genius, and such glory cast upon actions truly worthy of
+imitation. I have treated this subject more at large in the third chapter
+of _Advise to the Privileged Orders_.
+
+But it will be asked how this kind of censure can attach to the writers of
+history, whose business is to invent nothing, to confine themselves to
+the simple narration of facts, and relate the actions of men, not as they
+should be, but as they are. This is indeed a part of the duty of the
+historian; but it is not his whole duty. His narrative should be clear and
+simple; but he should likewise develop the political and moral tendency of
+the transactions he details.
+
+In reviewing actions or doctrines which favor despotism, injustice, false
+morals or political errors, he should not suffer them to pass without an
+open and well supported censure. He should show how the authors of such
+actions might have conducted themselves and succeeded in gaining the
+celebrity which they sought, by doing good instead of harm to the age and
+country where they acquired their fame.
+
+The history of human actions, in a political view, has generally been the
+history of human errors. The writers who have given it to us do not appear
+to have been sensible of this. How then are young readers to be sensible
+of it? Their minds are still to be formed; and those who are destined for
+public life must in a great measure take their bias from the study of
+history. But history in general, to answer the purpose of sound instruction
+to the future guides of nations, must be rewritten. For example: among the
+hundred historians who have treated of what is called the Roman Republic
+I know not one who has told us this important fact, that Rome never had a
+republic. The same may be said of Athens, and of several other turbulent
+associations of men in former ages. And it is for want of this attention
+or this knowledge in the writers of their histories, that the republican
+principle of government is so generally associated, even at this day, with
+the idea of insurrection, anarchy and the desire of conquest. Whereas it
+is in fact the _want_ of the republican principle, not the
+_practice_ of it, which has occasioned all the insurrections, anarchy
+and desire of conquest, that have disturbed the order of society both in
+ancient and modern times.
+
+Again: in relating the destruction of Carthage, a measure which the zealous
+patriots, both before and after, considered so essential to the glory of
+the Roman state, and which has immortalized so many heroes as the authors
+and projectors of that destruction, I believe no historian has told us that
+the disease, decay and downfall of Rome itself were occasioned by that
+measure, and must be dated from that epoch; and that the actions of Regulus
+and Scipio, the themes of universal applause, were really more injurious to
+their country than those of Marias and Sylla, the objects (and justly so)
+of universal detestation.
+
+If these principles had been understood by Polybius and his successors in
+the brilliant heritage of history, and had been properly impressed on the
+minds of their readers, we should not have heard old Cato's vociferation
+_delenda est Carthago_ applied to the American states by an orator of
+the British parliament, as we did during the war; because every member of
+that parliament must have understood that the prosperity of these states
+would be highly advantageous to Britain, from the extensive commercial
+intercourse that the relative situation of the two countries required.
+Neither should we see at this day the French English nations seeking
+to impoverish and extirpate each other; each of them entertaining the
+erroneous and absurd opinion that its own prosperity is to be increased by
+the adversity of its neighbor. We should have learned long ago from the
+plain dictates of reason, instead of having it beat into us some ages hence
+by costly experience, that the true dignity of a state is in the happiness
+of its members; and that their happiness is best promoted by the pursuit of
+industry at home and the free exchange of their productions abroad.
+
+We should have perceived the real and constant interest that every nation
+has in the prosperity of its neighbors, instead of their destruction.
+France would have perceived that the wealth of the English would be
+beneficial to her, by enabling them to receive and pay for more of her
+produce. England would have seen the same thing with regard to the French;
+and such would have been the sentiments of other nations reciprocally and
+universally.
+
+I know I must be called an extravagant theorist if I insinuate that all
+these good things would have resulted from having history well written and
+poetry well conceived. No man will doubt however that such would have been
+the tendency; nor can we deny that the contrary has resulted, at least in
+some degree, from the manner in which such writings have been composed. And
+why should we write at all, if not to benefit mankind? The public mind, as
+well as the individual mind, receives its propensities; it is equally the
+creature of habit. Nations are educated, like a single child. They only
+require a longer time and a greater number of teachers.
+
+
+
+No. 50.
+
+
+  _For that fine apologue, in mystic strain,
+  Gave like the rest a golden age to man,_
+
+  Book X. Line 393.
+
+Absurdities in speculative opinion are commonly considered as innocent
+things; and we are told every day that they are not worth refuting. So
+far as opinions are sure to rest merely in speculation, and cannot in any
+degree become practical, this is doubtless the proper way of treating them.
+But there are few opinions of this dormant and indifferent kind, especially
+among those that become general and classical among the nations.
+
+The activity of such, tho imperceptible, is extensive. They get wrought
+into our intellectual existence, and govern our modes of acting as well as
+thinking. The interest of society therefore requires that they should be
+scrutinized, and that such as are erroneous should be exposed, in order to
+be rejected; when their place may be supplied by truth and reason, which
+nourish the mind and accelerate the progress of improvement.
+
+Among the absurd notions which early turned the heads of the teachers of
+mankind, and which are so ridiculous as generally to escape our censure, is
+that of a Golden Age; or the idea that men were more perfect, more moral
+and more happy in some early stage of their intercourse, before they
+cultivated the earth and formed great societies.
+
+The author of Don Quixote has played his artillery upon this doctrine to
+very good effect; he has summoned against it all the force of our contempt
+by making it the text of one of the gravest discourses of his hero. But
+my sensibility is such on moral and political errors, as rarely to be
+satisfied with the weapon of ridicule; tho I know it to be one of the most
+mortal of intellectual weapons.
+
+The notion that the social state of men cannot ameliorate, that they have
+formerly been better than they now are, and that they are continually
+growing worse, is pregnant with infinite mischief. I know no doctrine in
+the whole labyrinth of imposture that has a more immoral tendency. It
+discourages the efforts of all political virtue; it is a constant and
+practical apology for oppression, tyranny, despotism, in every shape,
+in every corner of society, as well as from the throne, the pulpit, the
+tribunal and the camp. It inculcates the belief that ignorance is better
+than knowledge; that war and violence are more natural than industry and
+peace; that deserts and tombs are more glorious than joyful cities and
+cultivated fields.
+
+One of the most operative means of bringing forward our improvements and
+of making mankind wiser and better than they are, is to convince them that
+they are capable of becoming so. Without this conviction they may indeed
+improve slowly, unsteadily and almost imperceptibly, as they have done
+within the period in which our histories are able to trace them. But this
+conviction, impressed on the minds of the chiefs and teachers of nations,
+and inculcated in their schools, would greatly expedite our advancement in
+public happiness and virtue. Perhaps it would in a great measure insure the
+world against any future shocks and retrograde steps, such as heretofore it
+has often, experienced.
+
+
+
+
+Postscript.
+
+
+
+I am well aware that some readers will be dissatisfied in certain instances
+with my orthography. Their judgments are respectable; and as it is not a
+wanton deviation from ancient usage on my part, the subject may justify a
+moment's retrospect from this place. Since we have arrived at the end of a
+work that has given me more pleasure in the composition than it probably
+will in its reception by the public, they must pardon me if I thus linger
+awhile in taking leave. It is a favorite object of amusement as well as
+labor, which I cannot hope to replace.
+
+Our language is constantly and rapidly improving. The unexampled progress
+of the sciences and arts for the last thirty years has enriched it with a
+great number of new words, which are now become as necessary to the writer
+as his ancient mother tongue. The same progress which leads to farther
+extensions of ideas will still extend the vocabulary; and our neology must
+and will keep pace with the advancement of our knowledge. Hence will
+follow a closer definition and more accurate use of words, with a stricter
+attention to their orthography.
+
+Such innovations ought undoubtedly to be admitted with caution; and they
+will of course be severely scrutinized by men of letters. A language is
+public property, in the most extensive sense of the word; and readers as
+well as writers arc its guardians. But they ought to have no objection to
+improving the estate as it passes thro their hands, by making a liberal tho
+rigid estimate of what may be offered as ameliorations. Some respectable
+philologists have proposed a total and immediate reform of our orthography
+and even of our alphabet; but the great body of proprietors in this
+heritage are of opinion that the attempt would be less advantageous than
+the slow and certain improvements which are going forward, and which will
+necessarily continue to attend the active state of our literature.
+
+We have long since laid aside the Latin diphthongs ae and oe in common
+English words, and in some proper names tho not in all. Uniformity in this
+respect is desirable and will prevail. Names of that description which
+occur in this work I have therefore written with the simple vowel, as
+_Cesar_, _Phenicia_, _Etna_, _Medea_.
+
+Another class of our words are in a gradual state of reform. They are those
+Latin nouns ending in _or_, which having past thro France on their
+way from Rome, changed their _o_ into _eu_. The Norman English
+writers restored the Latin _o_, but retained the French _u;_
+and tho the latter has been since rejected in most of these words, yet
+in others it is still retained by many writers. It is quite useless in
+pronunciation; and propriety as well as analogy requires that the reform
+should be carried thro. No writer at this day retains the _u_ in
+_actor_, _author_, _emperor_ and the far greater part, perhaps nine
+tenths, of this class of nouns; why then should it be continued in the few
+that remain, such as _labor_, _honor?_ The most accurate authors
+reject it in all these, and I have followed the example.
+
+I have also respectable authorities in prose as well as poetry for
+expunging the three last letters in _though_ and _through;_ they
+being totally disregarded in pronunciation and awkward in appearance. The
+long sound of _o_ in many words, as _go, fro_, puts it out of
+doubt with respect to _tho;_ and its sound of _oo_, which, frequently
+occurs, as in _prove, move_, is an equal justification of _thro_.
+All the British poets, from Pope downwards, and several eminent prose
+writers, including Shaftsbury and Staunton, have by their practice
+supported this orthography.
+
+Some verbs in the past tense, where the usual ending in _ed_ is
+harsh and uncouth, hare long ago changed it for _t_, as _fixt_,
+_capt_, _meant_, _past_, _blest_. Poetry has extended this innovation
+to many other verbs which are necessarily uttered with the sound of _t_,
+tho in prose they may still retain for a while their ancient _ed_.
+I consider this reform as a valuable improvement in the language, because
+it brings a numerous class of words to be written as they are spoken; and
+the proportion of the reformed ones is already so considerable that
+analogy, or regularity of conjugation, requires us to complete the list.
+I have not carried this reform much farther than other poets have done
+before me. Examples might perhaps be found for nearly all the instances in
+which I have indulged it, such as _perisht_, _astonisht_, tho I have
+not been solicitous to seek them. The correction might well be extended to
+several remaining verbs of the same class; but it is difficult in this
+particular case to fix the proper limit.
+
+With regard to the apostrophe, as employed to mark the elision in the past
+tense of verbs, I have followed the example of the most accurate poets; who
+use it where the verb in the present tense does not end in _e_, as
+_furl'd_, because the _ed_ would add a syllable and destroy the
+measure. But where the present tense ends in _e_, it is retained in
+the past with the _d_, as _robed_, because it does not add a
+syllable.
+
+The letter _k_ we borrowed from the Greek, and the _c_ from the
+Latin. The power of each of these letters at the end of a word is precisely
+the same; and the power of one is the same as that of both. Yet our early
+writers placed them both at the end of certain words, with the _c_
+before the _k_, as _musick_, _publick_, why they did not put the _k_ first,
+as being the most ancient character, does not appear. Modern authors have
+rejected the _k_ sit the end of this class of words; and no correct
+writer will think of replacing such an inconvenient appendage.
+
+The idea of putting a stop to innovation in a living language is absurd,
+unless we put a stop to thinking. When a language becomes fixt it becomes
+a dead language. Men must leave it for a living one, in which they can
+express their ideas with all their changes, extensions and corrections. The
+duty of the critic in this case is only to keep a steady watch over the
+innovations that are offered, and require a rigid conformity to the general
+principles of the idiom. Noah Webster, to whose philological labors our
+language will be much indebted for its purity and regularity, has pointed
+out the advantages of a steady course of improvement, and how it ought to
+be conducted. The Preface to his new Dictionary is an able performance. He
+might advantageously give it more development, with some correction, and
+publish it as a Prospectus to the great work he now has in hand.
+
+The uniform tendency of our language is towards simplicity as well as
+regularity. With this view the final e, in words where it is quite silent
+and useless, is dropping off, and will soon disappear. Having long
+since resigned the place it held in the greater part of these words, as
+_joye_, _ruine_, and more recently in some others, it must finally quit
+the remainder where it is still found a superfluous letter, as _active_,
+_decisive_, _determine_.
+
+We may even hazard a prediction that our whole class of adjectives ending
+in _ous_ will be reformed and brought nearer to their pronunciation by
+rejecting the _o_. A similar change may be expected in words ending
+in _ss_. These words have already undergone one reform; they were
+formerly written with a final _e_, as _wildernesse_. They have
+lost the _e_ because it was useless; and as the final _s_ has now
+become equally useless, it might be dismissed with as little violence
+to the language. But these two projected innovations have not yet been
+ventured upon in any degree; and it is not desirable to be the first in so
+daring an enterprise, when it is not immediately important.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Columbiad, by Joel Barlow
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Columbiad, by Joel Barlow
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
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+Title: The Columbiad
+
+Author: Joel Barlow
+
+Release Date: August, 2005 [EBook #8683]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on August 1, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COLUMBIAD ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+The Columbiad
+
+A Poem.
+
+By Joel Barlow.
+
+
+
+  Tu spiegherai, Colombo, a un novo polo
+  Lontane sì le fortunate antenne,
+  Ch'a pena seguirà con gli occhi il volo
+  La Fama, ch' hà mille occhi e mille penne.
+  Canti ella Alcide, e Bacco; e di te solo
+  Basti a i posteri tuoi, ch' alquanto accenne:
+  Chè quel poco darà lunga memoria
+  Di poema degnissima, e d'istoria.
+
+  Gierus, Lib. Can. xv.
+
+
+
+
+
+1809
+
+
+
+
+Preface.
+
+
+
+In preparing this work for publication it seems proper to offer some
+observations explanatory of its design. The classical reader will perceive
+the obstacles which necessarily presented themselves in reconciling the
+nature of the subject with such a manner of treating it as should appear
+the most poetical, and at the same time the most likely to arrive at that
+degree of dignity and usefulness to which it ought to aspire.
+
+The Columbiad is a patriotic poem; the subject is national and historical.
+Thus far it must be interesting to my countrymen. But most of the events
+were so recent, so important and so well known, as to render them
+inflexible to the hand of fiction. The poem therefore could not with
+propriety be modelled after that regular epic form which the more splendid
+works of this kind have taken, and on which their success is supposed in a
+great measure to depend. The attempt would have been highly injudicious;
+it must have diminished and debased a series of actions which were really
+great in themselves, and could not be disfigured without losing their
+interest.
+
+I shall enter into no discussion on the nature of the epopea, nor attempt
+to prove by any latitude of reasoning that I have written an Epic Poem.
+The subject indeed is vast; far superior to any one of those on which the
+celebrated poems of this description have been constructed; and I have no
+doubt but the form I have given to the work is the best that the subject
+would admit. It may be added that in no poem are the unities of time, place
+and action more rigidly observed: the action, in the technical sense of
+the word, consisting only of what takes place between Columbus and Hesper;
+which must be supposed to occupy but few hours, and is confined to the
+prison and the mount of vision.
+
+But these circumstances of classical regularity are of little consideration
+in estimating the real merit of any work of this nature. Its merit must
+depend on the importance of the action, the disposition of the parts, the
+invention and application of incidents, the propriety of the illustrations,
+the liveliness and chastity of the images, the suitable intervention of
+machinery, the moral tendency of the manners, the strength and sublimity of
+the sentiments; the whole being clothed in language whose energy, harmony
+and elegance shall constitute a style every where suited to the matter they
+have to treat. It is impossible for me to determine how far I may have
+succeeded in any of these particulars. This must be decided by others, the
+result of whose decision I shall never know. But there is one point of view
+in which I wish the reader to place the character of my work, before he
+pronounces on its merit: I mean its political tendency. There are two
+distinct objects to be kept in view in the conduct of a narrative poem; the
+_poetical_ object and the _moral_ object. The poetical is the
+fictitious design of the action; the moral is the real design of the poem.
+
+In the Iliad of Homer the poetical object is to kindle, nourish, sustain
+and allay the anger of Achilles. This end is constantly kept in view; and
+the action proper to attain it is conducted with wonderful judgment thro a
+long series of incidents, which elevate the mind of the reader, and excite
+not only a veneration for the creative powers of the poet, but an ardent
+emulation of his heroes, a desire to imitate and rival some of the great
+actors in the splendid scene; perhaps to endeavor to carry into real life
+the fictions with which we are so much enchanted.
+
+Such a high degree of interest excited by the first object above mentioned,
+the fictitious design of the action, would make it extremely important that
+the second object, the real design of the poem, should be beneficial to
+society. But the real design in the Iliad was directly the reverse.
+Its obvious tendency was to inflame the minds of young readers with an
+enthusiastic ardor for military fame; to inculcate the pernicious doctrine
+of the divine right of kings; to teach both prince and people that military
+plunder was the most honorable mode of acquiring property; and that
+conquest, violence and war were the best employment of nations, the most
+glorious prerogative of bodily strength and of cultivated mind.
+
+How much of the fatal policy of states, and of the miseries and
+degradations of social man, have been occasioned by the false notions of
+honor inspired by the works of Homer, it is not easy to ascertain. The
+probability is, that however astonishing they are as monuments of human
+intellect, and how long soever they have been the subject of universal
+praise, they have unhappily done more harm than good. My veneration for his
+genius is equal to that of his most idolatrous readers; but my reflections
+on the history of human errors have forced upon me the opinion that his
+existence has really proved one of the signal misfortunes of mankind.
+
+The moral tendency of the Eneid of Virgil is nearly as pernicious as that
+of the works of Homer. Its poetical or fictitious design, the settlement
+of his hero in Italy, is well delineated and steadily pursued. This object
+must have been far more interesting to the Romans than the anger of
+Achilles could have been to the Greeks. Had Virgil written his poem one or
+two centuries earlier than he did, while his countrymen felt that they had
+a country and were not themselves the property of a master, they must have
+glowed with enthusiasm in reciting the fabulous labors of their ancestors,
+and adored the songster who could have thus elevated so endearing a
+subject; who could have adorned it with such an interesting variety of
+incidents, such weight of pathos, such majesty of sentiment and harmony of
+verse. But Virgil wrote and felt like a subject, not like a citizen. The
+real design of his poem was to increase the veneration of the people for a
+master, whoever he might be, and to encourage like Homer the great system
+of military depredation.
+
+Lucan is the only republican among the ancient epic poets. But the action
+of his rambling tho majestic poem is so badly arranged as to destroy, in
+a poetical sense, the life and interest of the great national subject on
+which it is founded; at the same time that it abounds in the most exalted
+sentiments and original views of manners, highly favorable to the love of
+justice and the detestation of war. If a mind, formed like that of Lucan,
+as to its moral and political cast, and endowed with the creative energy
+of Homer, had sung to the early Greeks the fall of Troy or the labors
+of Hercules, his work (taking the place which those of Homer have
+unfortunately occupied) as a splendid model for all succeeding ages, would
+have given a very different turn to the pursuits of heroes and the policy
+of nations. Ambition might then have become a useful passion, instead of a
+destructive disease.
+
+In the poem here presented to the public the objects, as in other works of
+the kind, are two, the fictitious object of the action and the real object
+of the poem. The first of these is to sooth and satisfy the desponding
+mind of Columbus; to show him that his labors, tho ill rewarded by his
+cotemporaries, had not been performed in vain; that he had opened the way
+to the most extensive career of civilization and public happiness; and that
+he would one day be recognised as the author of the greatest benefits to
+the human race. This object is steadily kept in view; and the actions,
+images and sentiments are so disposed as probably to attain the end. But
+the real object of the poem embraces a larger scope; it is to inculcate the
+love of rational liberty, and to discountenance the deleterious passion for
+violence and war; to show that on the basis of the republican principle all
+good morals, as well as good government and hopes of permanent peace, must
+be founded; and to convince the student in political science, that the
+theoretical question of the future advancement of human society, till
+states as well as individuals arrive at universal civilization, is held in
+dispute and still unsettled only because we have had too little experience
+of organized liberty in the government of nations to have well considered
+its effects.
+
+I cannot expect that every reader, nor even every republican reader, will
+join me in opinion with respect to the future progress of society and the
+civilization of states; but there are two sentiments in which I think
+all men will agree: that the event is desirable, and that to believe it
+practicable is one step towards rendering it so. This being the case, they
+ought to pardon a writer, if not applaud him, for endeavoring to inculcate
+this belief.
+
+I have taken the liberty, notwithstanding the recency of the events,
+to make some changes in the order of several of the principal battles
+described in this poem. I have associated the actions of Starke, Herkimer,
+Brown and Francis in the battle of Saratoga, tho they happened at some
+distance from that battle, both as to time and place. A like circumstance
+will be noticed with respect to Sumter, Jackson of Georgia and some others
+in the battle of Eutaw. I have supposed a citadel mined and blown up in
+the siege of York, and two ships of war grappled and blown up in the naval
+battle of Degrasse and Graves. It is presumed that these circumstances
+require no apology; as in the two latter cases the events are incidental to
+such situations, and they here serve the principal purpose, being meant to
+increase our natural horror for the havoc and miseries of war in general.
+And with regard to the two former cases we ought to consider that, in the
+epic field, the interest to be excited by the action cannot be sustained
+by following the gazette, as Lucan has done. The desultory parts of the
+historical action must be brought together and be made to elevate and
+strengthen each other, so as to press upon the mind with the full force of
+their symmetry and unity. Where the events are recent and the actors known,
+the only duty imposed by that circumstance on the poet is to do them
+historical justice, and not ascribe to one hero the actions of another. But
+the scales of justice in this case are not necessarily accompanied by the
+calendar and the map.
+
+It will occur to most of my readers that the modern modes of fighting, as
+likewise the instruments and terms now used in war, are not yet rendered
+familiar in poetical language. It is doubtless from an unwarrantable
+timidity, or want of confidence in their own powers of description, that
+modern poets have made so little use of this kind of riches that lay before
+them. I confess that I imbibed the common prejudice, and remained a long
+time in the error of supposing that the ancients had a poetical advantage
+over us in respect to the dignity of the names of the weapons used in war,
+if not in their number and variety. And when I published a sketch of the
+present poem, under the title of The Vision of Columbus, I labored under
+the embarrassment of that idea. I am now convinced that the advantage, at
+least as to the weapons, is on the side of the moderns. There are better
+sounding names and more variety in the instruments, works, stratagems and
+other artifices employed in our war system than in theirs. In short, the
+modern military dictionary is more copious than the ancient, and the words
+at least as poetical.
+
+As to the mode of fighting, we have, poetically speaking, lost something in
+one respect, but we have gained much in another. Our battles indeed admit
+but few single combats, or trials of individual prowess. They do admit them
+however; and it is not impossible to describe them with as much detail and
+interest as the nature of the action requires; as Voltaire has proved in
+the single combat of Aumale and Turenne in the Henriad. Had he managed his
+general descriptions and the other parts of the conduct of his poem as
+well, he would have made it a far more interesting work than he has.
+However, since our single combats must be insignificant in their
+consequences, not deciding any thing as to the result of the battle,
+it would be inconvenient and misplaced to make much use of them in our
+descriptions. And here lies our disadvantage, compared with the ancients.
+
+But in a general engagement, the shock of modern armies is, beyond
+comparison, more magnificent, more sonorous and more discoloring to the
+face of nature, than the ancient could have been; and is consequently
+susceptible of more pomp and variety of description. Our heaven and earth
+are not only shaken and tormented with greater noise, but filled and
+suffocated with fire and smoke. If Homer, with his Grecian tongue and all
+its dialects, had had the battle of Blenheim to describe, the world would
+have possessed a picture and a piece of music which now it will never
+possess. The description would have astonished all ages, and enriched every
+language into which it might have been translated.
+
+With regard to naval battles the moderns have altogether the advantage. But
+there has been no naval battle described in modern poetry; neither is there
+any remaining to us from the ancients, except that in the bay of Marseilles
+by Lucan, and that near Syracuse by Silius. It would seem strange indeed
+that Homer, whose wonderful powers of fiction were not embarrassed by
+historical realities, and who in other respects is so insatiable of
+variety, did not introduce a sea fight either in the defence of Troy, or
+in the disastrous voyages of Ulysses. But the want of this in Homer's two
+poems amounts almost to a proof that in his time the nations had not yet
+adopted any method of fighting at sea; so that the poet could have no such
+image in his mind.
+
+The business of war, with all its varieties, makes but a small part of the
+subject of my poem; it ought therefore to occupy but a small portion of its
+scenery. This is the reason why I have not been more solicitous to vary and
+heighten the descriptions of battles and other military operations. I make
+this observation to satisfy those readers who being accustomed to see a
+long poem chiefly occupied with this sort of bustle conceive that the life
+and interest of such compositions depend upon it. How far the majesty or
+interest of epic song really depends upon the tumultuous conflicts of war I
+will not decide; but I can assure the reader, so far as my experience goes,
+that these parts of the work are not the most difficult to write. They are
+scenes that exhibit those vigorous traits of human character which strike
+the beholder most forcibly and leave the deepest impression. They delight
+in violent attitudes; and, painting themselves in the strongest colors on
+the poet's fancy, they are easy at any time to recal. He varies them at
+pleasure, he adorns them readily with incidents, and imparts them with
+spirit to the reader.
+
+My object is altogether of a moral and political nature I wish to encourage
+and strengthen in the rising generation, a sense of the importance of
+republican institutions; as being the great foundation of public and
+private happiness, the necessary aliment of future and permanent
+ameliorations in the condition of human nature.
+
+This is the moment in America to give such a direction to poetry, painting
+and the other fine arts, that true and useful ideas of glory may be
+implanted in the minds of men here, to take place of the false and
+destructive ones that have degraded the species in other countries;
+impressions which have become so wrought into their most sacred
+institutions, that it is there thought impious to detect them and dangerous
+to root them out, tho acknowledged to be false. Wo be to the republican
+principle and to all the institutions it supports, when once the pernicious
+doctrine of the holiness of error shall creep into the creed of our schools
+and distort the intellect of our citizens!
+
+The Columbiad, in its present form, is such as I shall probably leave it to
+its fate. Whether it be destined to survive its author, is a question that
+gives me no other concern than what arises from the most pure and ardent
+desire of doing good to my country. To my country therefore, with every
+sentiment of veneration and affection I dedicate my labors.
+
+
+
+
+Introduction.
+
+
+
+Every circumstance relating to the discovery and settlement of America
+is an interesting object of inquiry, especially to the great and growing
+nations of this hemisphere, who owe their existence to those arduous
+labors. Yet it is presumed that many persons, who might be entertained
+with a poem on this subject, are but slightly acquainted with the life and
+character of the hero whose extraordinary genius led him to discover the
+continent, and whose singular sufferings, arising from that service, ought
+to excite the indignation of the world.
+
+Christopher Columbus was born in Genoa about the year 1447, when the
+navigation of Europe was scarcely extended beyond the limits of the
+Mediterranean and the other narrow seas that border the great ocean. The
+mariner's compass had been invented and in common use for more than a
+century; yet with the help of this sure guide, and prompted by a laudable
+spirit of discovery, the mariners of those days rarely ventured from the
+sight of land.
+
+They acquired wonderful applause by sailing along the coast of Africa,
+and discovering some of the neighboring islands; and after pushing their
+researches with great industry for half a century, the Portuguese, who were
+the most fortunate and enterprising, extended their voyages southward no
+farther than the equator.
+
+The rich commodities of the East had, for several ages, been brought into
+Europe by the Red Sea and the Mediterranean; and it had now become the
+object of the Portuguese to find a passage to India by sailing round the
+southern extremity of Africa, and then taking an eastern course. This great
+object engaged the general attention, and drew into the Portuguese service
+adventurers from the other maritime nations of Europe. Every year added to
+their experience in navigation, and seemed to promise some distant reward
+to their industry. The prospect however of arriving at India by that route
+was still by no means encouraging. Fifty years perseverance in the same
+track having brought them only to the equator, it was probable that as many
+more would elapse before they could accomplish their purpose.
+
+But Columbus, by an uncommon exertion of genius, formed a design no less
+astonishing to the age in which he lived than beneficial to posterity. This
+design was to sail to India by taking a western direction. By the accounts
+of travellers who had visited that part of Asia, it seemed almost without
+limits on the east; and by attending to the spherical figure of the earth
+Columbus drew the natural conclusion, that the Atlantic ocean must be
+bounded on the west either by India itself, or by some continent not far
+distant from it.
+
+This illustrious navigator, who was then about twenty-seven years of age,
+appears to have possessed every talent requisite to form and execute the
+greatest enterprises. He was early educated in such of the useful sciences
+as were taught in that day. He had made great proficiency in geography,
+astronomy and drawing, as they were necessary to his favorite pursuit of
+navigation. He had been a number of years in the service of the Portuguese,
+and had acquired all the experience that their voyages and discoveries
+could afford. His courage had been put to the severest test; and the
+exercise of every amiable as well as heroic virtue, the kindred qualities
+of a great mind, had secured him an extensive reputation. He had married a
+Portuguese lady, by whom he had two sons, Diego and Ferdinand; the younger
+of these is the historian of his life.
+
+Such was the situation of Columbus, when he formed and digested a plan,
+which, in its operation and consequences, has unfolded to the view of
+mankind one half of the globe, diffused wealth and industry over the other,
+and is extending commerce and civilization thro the whole. To corroborate
+the theory he had formed of the existence of a western continent, his
+discerning mind, which knew the application of every circumstance that fell
+in his way, had observed several facts which by others would have passed
+unnoticed. In his voyages to the African islands he had found, floating
+ashore after a long western storm, pieces of wood carved in a curious
+manner, canes of a size unknown in that quarter of the world, and human
+bodies with very singular features.
+
+The opinion being well established in his mind that a considerable portion
+of the earth still remained to be discovered, his temper was too vigorous
+and persevering to suffer an idea of this importance to rest merely in
+speculation, as it had done with Plato and Seneca, who seem to have
+entertained conjectures of a similar nature. He determined therefore to
+bring his theory to the test of experiment. But an object of that magnitude
+required the patronage of a prince; and a design so extraordinary met
+with all the obstructions that an age of superstition could invent, and
+personal jealousy enhance.
+
+It is happy for mankind that, in this instance, a genius capable of
+devising the greatest undertakings associated in itself a degree of
+patience and enterprise, modesty and confidence, which rendered him
+superior to these misfortunes, and enabled him to meet with fortitude all
+the future calamities of his life. Excited by an ardent enthusiasm to
+become a discoverer of new countries, and fully sensible of the advantages
+that would result to mankind from such discoveries, he had the cruel
+mortification to wear away eighteen years of his life, after his system
+was well established in his own mind, before he could obtain the means of
+executing his projected voyage. The greatest part of this period was spent
+in successive solicitations in Genoa, Portugal and Spain.
+
+As a duty to his native country he made his first proposal to the senate of
+Genoa, where it was soon rejected. Conscious of the truth of his theory,
+and of his own abilities to execute his plan, he retired without dejection
+from a body of men who were incapable of forming any just ideas upon
+the subject, and applied with fresh confidence to John Second, king of
+Portugal; who had distinguished himself as the great patron of navigation,
+and in whose service Columbus had acquired a reputation which entitled him
+and his project to general confidence. But here he experienced a treatment
+much more insulting than a direct refusal. After referring the examination
+of his scheme to the council who had the direction of naval affairs, and
+drawing from him his general ideas of the length of the voyage and the
+course he meant to take, that splendid monarch had the meanness to conspire
+with this council to rob Columbus of the glory and advantage he expected
+to derive from his undertaking. While Columbus was amused with the
+negotiation, in hopes of having his scheme adopted, a vessel was secretly
+dispatched by order of the king to make the intended discovery. Want of
+skill or courage in the pilot rendered the plot unsuccessful; and Columbus,
+on discovering the treachery, retired with an ingenuous indignation from a
+court which could be capable of such duplicity.
+
+Having now performed what was due to the country that gave him birth, and
+to the one that had adopted him as a subject, he was at liberty to court
+the patronage of any other which should have the wisdom to accept his
+proposals. He had communicated his ideas to his brother Bartholomew, whom
+he sent to England to negotiate with Henry Seventh; at the same time he
+went himself into Spain to apply in person to Ferdinand and Isabella, who
+governed the united kingdoms of Arragon and Castile.
+
+The circumstances of his brother's application in England, which appears
+to have been unsuccessful, are not to my purpose to relate; and the
+limits prescribed to this biographical sketch will prevent the detail of
+particulars respecting his own negotiation in Spain. This occupied him
+eight years; in which the various agitations of suspense, expectation and
+disappointment must have borne hard upon his patience. At length his scheme
+was adopted by Isabella; who undertook, as queen of Castile, to defray the
+expenses of the expedition, and declared herself ever after the friend and
+patron of the hero who projected it.
+
+Columbus, who during his ill success in the negotiation never abated any
+thing of the honors and emoluments which he expected to acquire in the
+expedition, obtained from Ferdinand and Isabella a stipulation of every
+article contained in his first proposals. He was constituted high admiral
+and viceroy of all the seas, islands and continents which he should
+discover; with power to receive one tenth of the profits arising from their
+productions and commerce. Which offices and emoluments were to be made
+hereditary in his family.
+
+These articles being adjusted, the preparations for the voyage were brought
+forward with rapidity; but they were by no means adequate to the importance
+of the expedition. Three small vessels, scarcely sufficient in size to be
+employed in the coasting business, were appointed to traverse the vast
+Atlantic, and to encounter the storms and currents always to be expected in
+tropical climates, uncertain seasons and unknown seas. These vessels, as we
+must suppose them in the infancy of navigation, were ill constructed, in a
+poor condition, and manned by seamen unaccustomed to distant voyages. But
+the tedious length of time which Columbus had passed in solicitation and
+suspense, and the prospect of being able soon to obtain the object of his
+wishes, induced him to overlook what he could not easily remedy; and led
+him to disregard those circumstances which would have intimidated any other
+mind. He accordingly equipped his small squadron with as much expedition as
+possible, manned with ninety men and victualled for one year. With these,
+on the third of August 1492, amidst a vast crowd of spectators, he set sail
+on an enterprise which, if we consider the ill condition of his ships,
+the inexperience of his sailors, the length and precarious nature of his
+voyage, and the consequences that flowed from it, was the most daring and
+important that ever was undertaken. He touched at some of the Portuguese
+settlements in the Canary Isles; where, altho he had been but a few days
+at sea, he found his vessels needed refitting. He soon made the necessary
+repairs, and took his departure from the westermost islands that had
+hitherto been discovered. Here he left the former track of navigation, and
+steered his course due west. Not many days after he laid this course he
+perceived the symptoms of a new scene of difficulty. The sailors now began
+to contemplate the dangers and uncertain issue of a voyage, the nature
+and length of which were left entirely open to conjecture. Besides the
+fickleness and timidity natural to men unaccustomed to the discipline of a
+seafaring life, several circumstances contributed to inspire an obstinate
+and mutinous disposition; which required the most consummate art as well as
+fortitude in the admiral to control. Having been three weeks at sea, and
+experienced the uniform course of the trade winds, they contended that,
+should they continue the same course for a longer time, the same winds
+would never permit them to return to Spain. The magnetic needle began to
+vary its direction. This being the first time that this phenomenon was ever
+noticed, it was viewed by the sailors with astonishment; they thought it an
+indication that nature itself had changed its laws, and that Providence was
+about to punish their audacity in venturing so far beyond the bounds of
+man. They declared that the commands of the government had been fully
+obeyed in their proceeding so many days in the same course, and so far
+surpassing all former navigators in quest of discoveries.
+
+Every talent requisite for governing, soothing and tempering the passions
+of men is conspicuous in the conduct of Columbus on this occasion. The
+dignity and affability of his manners, his surprising knowledge and
+experience in naval affairs, his unwearied and minute attention to the
+duties of his command, gave him a great ascendency over the minds of his
+men, and inspired that degree of confidence which would have maintained his
+authority in almost any circumstances. But here, from the nature of the
+undertaking, every man had leisure to feed his imagination with the
+gloominess and uncertainty of the prospect. They found from day to day the
+same steady gales wafting them with rapidity from their native country, and
+indeed from all countries of which they had any knowledge.
+
+He addressed himself to their passions with all the variety of management
+that the situation would admit, sometimes by soothing them with the
+prognostics of approaching land, sometimes by flattering their ambition and
+feasting their avarice with the glory and wealth they would acquire from
+discovering the rich countries beyond the Atlantic, and sometimes by
+threatening them with the displeasure of their king, should their
+disobedience defeat so great an object. But every argument soon lost its
+effect; and their uneasiness still increased. From secret whisperings it
+arose to open mutiny and dangerous conspiracy. At length they determined to
+rid themselves of the remonstrances of Columbus by throwing him into the
+sea. The infection spread from ship to ship, and involved officers as well
+as sailors. They finally lost all sense of subordination and addressed
+their commander in an insolent manner, demanding to be conducted
+immediately back to Spain; or, they assured him, they would seek their own
+safety by taking away his life.
+
+Columbus, whose sagacity had discerned every symptom of the disorder, was
+prepared for this last stage of it; and was sufficiently apprized of the
+danger that awaited him. He found it vain to contend with passions he could
+no longer control. He therefore proposed that they should obey his orders
+for three days longer; and should they not discover land in that time, he
+would then direct his course for Spain. They complied with his proposal;
+and, happily for mankind, in three days they discovered land. This was
+a small island, to which he gave the name of San Salvador. His first
+interview with the natives was a scene of compassion on the one part and
+astonishment on the other, but highly interesting to both. The natives were
+entirely naked, simple and timorous; and they viewed the Spaniards as a
+superior order of beings descended from the sun; which, in that island and
+in most parts of America, was worshipped as a Deity. By this it was easy
+for Columbus to perceive the line of conduct proper to be observed toward
+that simple and inoffensive people. Had his companions and successors
+of the Spanish nation possessed the wisdom and humanity of this great
+discoverer, the benevolent mind would have had to experience no sensations
+of regret in contemplating the extensive advantages arising to mankind from
+the discovery of America.
+
+In this voyage Columbus discovered the islands of Cuba and Hispaniola, on
+the latter of which he erected a small fort; and having left a garrison of
+thirty-eight men he set sail for Spain. Returning across the Atlantic, he
+was overtaken by a violent storm, which lasted several days, and increased
+to such a degree as baffled his naval skill and threatened immediate
+destruction. In this situation when all were in a state of despair, and
+it was expected that every sea would swallow up the crazy vessel, he
+manifested a serenity and presence of mind seldom equalled in cases of like
+extremity. He wrote a short account of his voyage and of the discoveries he
+had made; this he hastily wrapt in an oiled cloth, then enclosed it in a
+cake of wax and put it into an empty cask, which he threw overboard, in
+hopes that some fortunate accident might preserve a deposit of so much
+importance to the world.
+
+The storm however abated, and he at length arrived in Spain, after having
+been driven by stress of weather into the port of Lisbon; where he had
+opportunity, in an interview with the king of Portugal, to prove the
+truth of his system by arguments more convincing than those he had before
+advanced in the character of a bold projector but humble suitor. He was
+received every where in Spain with royal honors; his family was ennobled,
+and his former stipulation respecting his offices and emoluments was
+ratified in the most solemn manner by Ferdinand and Isabella; while
+all Europe resounded his praises, and reciprocated their joy and
+congratulations on the discovery of what they called a new world.
+
+The immediate consequence was a second voyage, in which Columbus took
+charge of a squadron of seventeen ships of considerable burden. Volunteers
+of all ranks solicited to be employed in this expedition. He carried over
+fifteen hundred persons, with the necessaries for establishing a colony
+and extending his discoveries. In this voyage he explored most of the West
+India islands; but on his arrival at Hispaniola he found that the garrison
+he had left there had been all destroyed by the natives, and the fort
+demolished. He proceeded however in the planting of his colony; and by his
+prudent and humane conduct towards the natives he effectually established
+the Spanish authority in that island. But while he was thus laying the
+foundation of European dominion in America, some discontented persons,
+who had returned to Spain, uniting with his former opponents and powerful
+enemies at court, conspired to accomplish his ruin.
+
+They represented his conduct in such a light as to create uneasiness in
+the jealous mind of Ferdinand, and make it necessary for Columbus again to
+return to Spain, to counteract their machinations and obtain such farther
+supplies as were necessary to his great political and beneficent purposes.
+On his arriving at court, and stating with his usual dignity and confidence
+the whole history of his transactions abroad, every thing wore a favorable
+appearance. He was received with the same honors as before, and solicited
+to take charge of another squadron, to carry out farther supplies, to
+pursue his discoveries, and in every respect to use his discretion in
+extending the Spanish empire in the new world.
+
+In this third voyage he discovered the continent of America at the mouth
+of the river Orinoco. He rectified many disorders in his government of
+Hispaniola, which had happened in his absence; and every thing was going on
+in a prosperous train, when an event was announced to him, which completed
+his own ruin and gave a fatal turn to the Spanish policy and conduct in
+America. This was the arrival of Francis de Bovadilla, with a commission
+to supersede Columbus in his government, to arraign him as a criminal, and
+pronounce judgment on all his former administration.
+
+It seems that by this time the enemies of Columbus, despairing to complete
+his overthrow by groundless insinuations of malconduct, had taken the more
+effectual method of exciting the jealousy of their sovereigns. From the
+promising samples of gold and other valuable commodities brought from
+America, they took occasion to represent to the king and queen that the
+prodigious wealth and extent of the countries he had discovered would soon
+throw such power into the hands of the viceroy, that he would trample on
+the royal authority and bid defiance to the Spanish power. These arguments
+were well calculated for the cold and suspicious temper of Ferdinand; and
+they must have had some effect upon the mind of Isabella. The consequence
+was the appointment of Bovadilla, the inveterate enemy of Columbus, to take
+the government from his hands. This first tyrant of the Spanish nation in
+America began his administration by ordering Columbus to be put in chains
+on board of a ship, and sending him prisoner to Spain. By relaxing all
+discipline he introduced disorder and licentiousness thro the colony.
+He subjected the unhappy natives to a most miserable servitude, and
+apportioned them out in large numbers among his adherents. Under this
+severe treatment perished in a short time many thousands of those innocent
+people.
+
+Columbus was carried in his fetters to the Spanish court, where the king
+and queen either feigned or felt a sufficient regret at the conduct of
+Bovadilla towards their illustrious prisoner. He was not only released from
+confinement; he was treated with all imaginable respect. But, altho
+the king endeavored to expiate the offence by censuring and recalling
+Bovadilla, yet we may judge of his sincerity from his appointing Nicholas
+de Ovando, another well known enemy of Columbus, to succeed in the
+government; and from his ever after refusing to reinstate Columbus, or to
+fulfil any of the conditions on which the discoveries had been undertaken.
+
+After two years of solicitation for this or some other employment, he
+at length obtained a squadron of four small vessels to attempt new
+discoveries. He then set out, with the enthusiasm of a young adventurer, in
+quest of what was always his favorite object, a passage into the South Sea,
+by which he might sail to India. He touched at Hispaniola, where Ovando the
+governor refused him admittance on shore, even to take shelter during
+a hurricane, the prognostics of which his experience had taught him to
+discern. By putting into a creek he rode out the storm, and then bore away
+for the continent. He spent several months, the most boisterous of the
+year, in exploring the coast round the gulph of Mexico, in hopes of finding
+the intended navigation to India. At length he was shipwrecked, and driven
+ashore on the island of Jamaica.
+
+His cup of calamities seemed now to be full. He was cast upon an island of
+savages, without provisions, without a vessel, and thirty leagues from any
+Spanish settlement. But the greatest physical misfortunes are capable of
+being embittered by the insults of our fellow creatures. A few of his
+companions generously offered, in two Indian canoes, to attempt a voyage to
+Hispaniola, in hopes of obtaining a vessel for the relief of the unhappy
+crew. After suffering every extremity of danger and fatigue, they arrived
+at the Spanish colony in ten days. Ovando, excited by personal malice
+against Columbus, detained these messengers for eight months, and then
+despatched a vessel to Jamaica to spy out the condition of Columbus and
+his crew, with positive instructions to the captain not to afford them any
+relief. This order was punctually executed. The captain approached the
+shore, delivered a letter of empty compliment from Ovando to the admiral,
+received his answer and returned. About four months afterwards a vessel
+came to their relief; and Columbus, worn out with fatigues and broken by
+misfortunes, returned for the last time to Spain. Here a new distress
+awaited him, which he considered as one of the greatest of his whole life:
+this was the death of queen Isabella, his last and most powerful friend.
+
+He did not suddenly abandon himself to despair. He called upon the
+gratitude and justice of the king; and in terms of dignity demanded the
+fulfilment of his former contract. Notwithstanding his age and infirmities,
+he even solicited to be farther employed in extending the career of
+discovery, without a prospect of any other reward than the pleasure of
+doing good to mankind. But Ferdinand, cold ungrateful and timid, dared not
+comply with any proposal of this kind, lest he should increase his own
+obligations to a man, whose services he thought it dangerous to reward. He
+therefore delayed and avoided any decision on these subjects, in hopes
+that the declining health of Columbus would soon rid the court of the
+remonstrances of a suitor, whose unexampled merit was, in their opinion, a
+sufficient reason for destroying him. In this they were not disappointed.
+Columbus languished a short time, and gladly resigned a life which had been
+worn out in the most signal services perhaps that have been rendered by any
+one man to an ungrateful world.
+
+Posterity is sometimes more just to the memory of great men than
+contemporaries were to their persons. But even this consolation, if it be
+one, has been wanting to the discoverer of our hemisphere. The continent,
+instead of bearing his name, has been called after one of his followers,
+a man of no particular merit. And in the modern city of Mexico there is
+instituted and perpetuated, by order of government, an annual festival in
+honour of Hernando Cortez, the perfidious butcher of its ancient race;
+while no public honors have been decreed to Christopher Columbus, one of
+the wisest and best among the benefactors of mankind.
+
+After his last return from America he seems to have past the short
+remainder of his life at Valladolid, the capital of Old Castile, and then
+the seat of the Spanish government. He died in that city on the twentieth
+of August 1506, and was buried in one of its churches. Over his body is a
+plain stone inscribed simply with his name, as it is written in Spanish,
+CHRISTOVAL COLON.
+
+His son, who wrote his life, has left us a particular description of his
+person, manners and private character; all of which were agreeable and
+interesting. His portrait is in possession of the author of this poem.
+It is painted in oil, half length and the size of life, copied from an
+original picture in the gallery of Florence.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The Columbiad.
+
+
+
+
+Book I.
+
+
+
+
+Argument
+
+
+    Subject of the Poem, and invocation to Freedom. Condition of Columbus
+    in a Spanish prison. His monologue on the great actions of his life,
+    and the manner in which they had been rewarded. Appearance and speech
+    of Hesper, the guardian Genius of the western continent. They quit the
+    dungeon, and ascend the mount of vision, which rises over the western
+    coast of Spain; Europe settling from their sight, and the Atlantic
+    ocean spreading far beneath their feet. Continent of America draws into
+    view, and is described by its mountains, rivers, lakes, soil and some
+    of the natural productions.
+
+
+I sing the Mariner who first unfurl'd
+An eastern banner o'er the western world,
+And taught mankind where future empires lay
+In these fair confines of descending day;
+Who sway'd a moment, with vicarious power,
+Iberia's sceptre on the new found shore,
+Then saw the paths his virtuous steps had trod
+Pursued by avarice and defiled with blood,
+The tribes he foster'd with paternal toil
+Snatch'd from his hand, and slaughter'd for their spoil.
+
+Slaves, kings, adventurers, envious of his name,
+Enjoy'd his labours and purloin'd his fame,
+And gave the Viceroy, from his high seat hurl'd.
+Chains for a crown, a prison for a world
+Long overwhelm'd in woes, and sickening there,
+He met the slow still march of black despair,
+Sought the last refuge from his hopeless doom,
+And wish'd from thankless men a peaceful tomb:
+Till vision'd ages, opening on his eyes,
+Cheer'd his sad soul, and bade new nations rise;
+He saw the Atlantic heaven with light o'ercast,
+And Freedom crown his glorious work at last.
+
+Almighty Freedom! give my venturous song
+The force, the charm that to thy voice belong;
+Tis thine to shape my course, to light my way,
+To nerve my country with the patriot lay,
+To teach all men where all their interest lies,
+How rulers may be just and nations wise:
+Strong in thy strength I bend no suppliant knee,
+Invoke no miracle, no Muse but thee.
+
+Night held on old Castile her silent reign,
+Her half orb'd moon declining to the main;
+O'er Valladolid's regal turrets hazed
+The drizzly fogs from dull Pisuerga raised;
+Whose hovering sheets, along the welkin driven,
+Thinn'd the pale stars, and shut the eye from heaven.
+Cold-hearted Ferdinand his pillow prest,
+Nor dream'd of those his mandates robb'd of rest,
+Of him who gemm'd his crown, who stretch'd his reign
+To realms that weigh'd the tenfold poise of Spain;
+Who now beneath his tower indungeon'd lies,
+Sweats the chill sod and breathes inclement skies.
+
+His feverish pulse, slow laboring thro his frame,
+Feeds with scant force its fast expiring flame;
+A far dim watch-lamp's thrice reflected beam
+Throws thro his grates a mist-encumber'd gleam,
+Paints the dun vapors that the cell invade,
+And fills with spectred forms the midnight shade;
+When from a visionary short repose,
+That nursed new cares and temper'd keener woes,
+Columbus woke, and to the walls addrest
+The deep felt sorrows bursting from his breast:
+
+Here lies the purchase, here the wretched spoil
+Of painful years and persevering toil.
+For these damp caves, this hideous haunt of
+pain,
+I traced new regions o'er the chartless main,
+Tamed all the dangers of untraversed waves,
+Hung o'er their clefts, and topt their surging graves,
+Saw traitorous seas o'er coral mountains sweep,
+Red thunders rock the pole and scorch the deep,
+Death rear his front in every varying form,
+Gape from the shoals and ride the roaring storm,
+My struggling bark her seamy planks disjoin,
+Rake the rude rock and drink the copious brine.
+Till the tired elements are lull'd at last,
+And milder suns allay the billowing blast,
+Lead on the trade winds with unvarying force,
+And long and landless curve our constant course.
+
+Our homeward heaven recoils; each night forlorn
+Calls up new stars, and backward rolls the morn;
+The boreal vault descends with Europe's shore,
+And bright Calisto shuns the wave no more,
+The Dragon dips his fiery-foaming jole,
+The affrighted magnet flies the faithless pole;
+Nature portends a general change of laws,
+My daring deeds are deemed the guilty cause;
+The desperate crew, to insurrection driven,
+Devote their captain to the wrath of heaven,
+Resolve at once to end the audacious strife,
+And buy their safety with his forfeit life.
+
+In that sad hour, this feeble frame to save,
+(Unblest reprieve) and rob the gaping wave,
+The morn broke forth, these tearful orbs descried
+The golden banks that bound the western tide.
+With full success I calm'd the clamorous race,
+Bade heaven's blue arch a second earth embrace;
+And gave the astonish'd age that bounteous shore,
+Their wealth to nations, and to kings their power.
+
+Land of delights! ah, dear delusive coast,
+To these fond aged eyes forever lost!
+No more thy flowery vales I travel o'er,
+For me thy mountains rear the head no more,
+For me thy rocks no sparkling gems unfold,
+Nor streams luxuriant wear their paths in gold;
+From realms of promised peace forever borne,
+I hail mute anguish, and in secret mourn.
+
+But dangers past, a world explored in vain,
+And foes triumphant show but half my pain.
+Dissembling friends, each early joy who gave,
+And fired my youth the storms of fate to brave,
+Swarm'd in the sunshine of my happier days,
+Pursued the fortune and partook the praise,
+Now pass my cell with smiles of sour disdain,
+Insult my woes and triumph in my pain.
+
+One gentle guardian once could shield the brave;
+But now that guardian slumbers in the grave.
+Hear from above, thou dear departed shade;
+As once my hopes, my present sorrows aid,
+Burst my full heart, afford that last relief,
+Breathe back my sighs and reinspire my grief;
+Still in my sight thy royal form appears,
+Reproves my silence and demands my tears.
+Even on that hour no more I joy to dwell,
+When thy protection bade the canvass swell;
+When kings and churchmen found their factions vain,
+Blind superstition shrunk beneath her chain,
+The sun's glad beam led on the circling way,
+And isles rose beauteous in Atlantic day.
+For on those silvery shores, that new domain,
+What crowds of tyrants fix their murderous reign!
+Her infant realm indignant Freedom flies,
+Truth leaves the world, and Isabella dies.
+
+Ah, lend thy friendly shroud to veil my sight,
+That these pain'd eyes may dread no more the light;
+These welcome shades shall close my instant doom,
+And this drear mansion moulder to a tornb.
+
+Thus mourn'd the hapless man: a thundering sound
+Roll'd thro the shuddering walls and shook the ground;
+O'er all the dungeon, where black arches bend,
+The roofs unfold, and streams of light descend;
+The growing splendor fills the astonish'd room,
+And gales etherial breathe a glad perfume.
+Robed in the radiance, moves a form serene,
+Of human structure, but of heavenly mien;
+Near to the prisoner's couch he takes his stand,
+And waves, in sign of peace, his holy hand.
+Tall rose his stature, youth's endearing grace
+Adorn'd his limbs and brighten'd in his face;
+Loose o'er his locks the star of evening hung,
+And sounds melodious moved his cheerful tongue:
+
+Rise, trembling chief, to scenes of rapture rise;
+This voice awaits thee from the western skies;
+Indulge no longer that desponding strain,
+Nor count thy toils, nor deem thy virtues vain.
+Thou seest in me the guardian Power who keeps
+The new found world that skirts Atlantic deeps,
+Hesper my name, my seat the brightest throne
+In night's whole heaven, my sire the living sun,
+My brother Atlas with his name divine
+Stampt the wild wave; the solid coast is mine.
+
+[Note: Atlas and Hesper were of the race of Titans. They were sons of
+Uranus, or of Japetus, according as the fable is traced to different
+countries, whose supreme God (originally the sun) was called by different
+names. Atlas, from being king of Mauritania, became a mountain to support
+the heavens, and gave his name to the western ocean. Hesper frequented that
+mountain in the study of astronomy; till one evening he disappeared, and
+returned no more. He was then placed in the western heaven; and, having
+been a beautiful young man, he became a beautiful planet, called the
+evening star. This circumstance gave his name to the western regions of the
+earth indefinitely. Italy was called Hesperia by the Greeks, because it
+lay west from them, and seemed under the influence of the star of evening;
+Spain was called Hesperia by the Romans, for the same reason.
+
+If the nations which adopted this fable had known of a country west of the
+Atlantic, that country must have been Hesperia to them all; and pursuing
+this analogy I have so named it, in several instances, in the course of
+this poem. Considering Hesper as the guardian Genius, and Columbus as the
+Discoverer, of the western continent, it may derive its name, in poetical
+language, from either of theirs indifferently, and be called Hesperia or
+Columbia.
+
+Atlas is considered in this poem as the guardian Genius of Africa. See his
+speech, in the eighth book, on the slavery of his people.
+
+This explanation seemed of such immediate importance for understanding
+the machinery of the poem, as to require its being placed here. The other
+notes, being numerous and some of them long, have been forced to yield
+to typographical elegance; and are placed at the end of the volume, with
+suitable reference to the passages to which they belong.]
+
+This hand, which form'd, and in the tides of time
+Laves and improves the meliorating clime,
+Which taught thy prow to cleave the trackless way,
+And hail'd thee first in occidental day,
+To all thy worth shall vindicate thy claim,
+And raise up nations to revere thy name.
+
+In this dark age tho blinded faction sways,
+And wealth and conquest gain the palm of praise;
+Awed into slaves while groveling millions groan,
+And blood-stain'd steps lead upward to a throne;
+Far other wreaths thy virtuous temples twine,
+Far nobler triumphs crown a life like thine;
+Thine be the joys that minds immortal grace,
+As thine the deeds that bless a kindred race.
+Now raise thy sorrowed soul to views more bright,
+The vision'd ages rushing on thy sight;
+Worlds beyond worlds shall bring to light their stores,
+Time, nature, science blend their utmost powers,
+To show, concentred in one blaze of fame,
+The ungather'd glories that await thy name.
+
+As that great seer, whose animating rod
+Taught Jacob's sons their wonder-working God,
+Who led thro dreary wastes the murmuring band,
+And reach'd the confines of their promised land,
+Opprest with years, from Pisgah's towering height,
+On fruitful Canaan feasted long his sight;
+The bliss of unborn nations warm'd his breast,
+Repaid his toils and sooth'd his soul to rest;
+Thus o'er thy subject wave shalt thou behold
+Far happier realms their future charms unfold,
+In nobler pomp another Pisgah rise,
+Beneath whose foot thy new found Canaan lies;
+There, rapt in vision, hail my favorite clime,
+And taste the blessings of remotest time.
+
+So Hesper spoke; Columbus raised his head;
+His chains dropt off; the cave, the castle fled.
+Forth walked the Pair; when steep before them stood;
+Slope from the town, a heaven-illumined road;
+That thro disparting shades arose on high,
+Reach'd o'er the hills, and lengthen'd up the sky,
+Show'd a clear summit, rich with rising flowers,
+That breathe their odors thro celestial bowers.
+O'er the proud Pyrenees it looks sublime,
+Subjects the Alps, and levels Europe's clime;
+Spain, lessening to a chart, beneath it swims,
+And shrouds her dungeons in the void she dims.
+
+Led by the Power, the Hero gain'd the height,
+New strength and brilliance flush'd his mortal sight;
+When calm before them flow'd the western main,
+Far stretch'd, immense, a sky-encircled plain.
+No sail, no isle, no cloud invests the bound,
+Nor billowy surge disturbs the vast profound;
+Till, deep in distant heavens, the sun's blue ray
+Topt unknown cliffs and call'd them up to day;
+Slow glimmering into sight wide regions drew,
+And rose and brighten'd on the expanding view;
+Fair sweep the waves, the lessening ocean smiles,
+In misty radiance loom a thousand isles;
+Near and more near the long drawn coasts arise,
+Bays stretch their arms and mountains lift the skies,
+The lakes, high mounded, point the streams their way,
+Slopes, ridges, plains their spreading skirts display,
+The vales branch forth, high walk approaching groves,
+And all the majesty of nature moves.
+
+O'er the wild hemisphere his glances fly,
+Its form unfolding as it still draws nigh,
+As all its salient sides force far their sway,
+Crowd back the ocean and indent the day.
+He saw, thro central zones, the winding shore
+Spread the deep Gulph his sail had traced before,
+The Darien isthmus check the raging tide,
+Join distant lands, and neighboring seas divide;
+On either hand the shores unbounded bend,
+Push wide their waves, to each dim pole ascend;
+The two twin continents united rise,
+Broad as the main, and lengthen'd with the skies.
+
+Long gazed the Mariner; when thus the Guide:
+Here spreads the world thy daring sail descried,
+Hesperia call'd, from my anterior claim;
+But now Columbia, from thy patriarch name.
+So from Phenicia's peopled strand of yore
+Europa sail'd, and sought an unknown shore;
+There stampt her sacred name; and thence her race,
+Hale, venturous, bold, from Jove's divine embrace,
+Ranged o'er the world, predestined to bestride
+Earth's elder continents and each far tide.
+
+Ages unborn shall bless the happier day,
+That saw thy streamer shape the guideless way,
+Their bravest heroes trace the path you led,
+And sires of nations thro the regions spread.
+Behold yon isles, where first thy flag unfurl'd
+In bloodless triumph o'er the younger world;
+As, awed to silence, savage bands gave place,
+And hail'd with joy the sun-descended race.
+
+Retrace the banks yon rushing waters lave;
+There Orinoco checks great ocean's wave;
+Thine is the stream; it cleaves the well known coast,
+Where Paria's walks thy former footsteps boast.
+But these no more thy wide discoveries bound;
+Superior prospects lead their swelling round;
+Nature's remotest scenes before thee roll,
+And years and empires open on thy soul.
+
+To yon dim rounds first elevate thy view;
+See Quito's plains o'erlook their proud Peru;
+On whose huge base, like isles amid sky driven,
+A vast protuberance props the cope of heaven;
+Earth's loftiest turrets there contend for height,
+And all our Andes fill the bounded sight.
+From south to north what long blue swells arise,
+Built thro the clouds, and lost in ambient skies!
+Approaching slow they heave expanding bounds,
+The yielding concave bends sublimer rounds;
+Whose wearied stars, high curving to the west,
+Pause on the summits for a moment's rest;
+Recumbent there they renovate their force,
+And roll rejoicing on their downward course.
+
+Round each bluff base the sloping ravine bends;
+Hills forms on hills, and croupe o'er croupe extends;
+Ascending, whitening, how the crags are lost,
+O'erhung with headcliffs of eternal frost!
+Broad fields of ice give back the morning ray,
+Like walls of suns, or heaven's perennial day.
+
+There folding storms on eastern pinions ride,
+Veil the black void, and wrap the mountains side,
+Rude thunders rake the crags, the rains descend,
+And the long lightnings o'er the vallies bend;
+While blasts unburden'd sweep the cliffs of snow,
+The whirlwinds wheel above, the floods convolve
+below.
+
+There molten rocks explosive rend their tomb;
+Volcanos, laboring many a nation's doom,
+Wild o'er the regions pour their floods of fire;
+The shores heave backward, and the seas retire.
+There lava waits my late reluctant call,
+To roar aloft and shake some guilty wall;
+Thy pride, O Lima, swells the sulphurous wave,
+And fanes and priests and idols crowd thy grave.
+
+But cease, my son, these dread events to trace,
+Nor learn the woes that here await thy race.
+Anorth from that broad gulph, where verdant rise
+Those gentler mounds that skirt the temperate skies,
+A happier hemisphere invites thy view;
+Tis there the old world shall embrace the new:
+There Europe's better sons their seat shall trace,
+And change of government improve the race.
+Thro all the midsky zones, to yon blue pole,
+Their green hills lengthen, their bright rivers roll;
+And swelling westward, how their champaigns run!
+How slope their uplands to the morning sun!
+
+So spoke the blest Immortal; when more near
+His northern wilds in all their breadth appear;
+Lands yet unknown, and streams without a name
+Rise into vision and demand their fame.
+As when some saint first gains his bright abode,
+Vaults o'er the spheres and views the works of God,
+Sees earth, his kindred orb, beneath him roll,
+Here glow the centre, and there point the pole;
+O'er land and sea his eyes delighted rove,
+And human thoughts his heavenly joys improve;
+With equal scope the raptured Hero's sight
+Ranged the low vale, or climb'd the cloudy height,
+As, fixt in ardent look, his opening mind,
+Explored the realms that here invite mankind.
+
+From sultry Mobile's gulph-indented shore
+To where Ontario hears his Laurence roar,
+Stretch'd o'er the broadback'd hills, in long array.
+The tenfold Alleganies meet the day.
+And show, far sloping from the plains and streams,
+The forest azure streak'd with orient beams.
+High moved the scene, Columbus gazed sublime,
+And thus in prospect hail'd the happy clime:
+Blest be the race my guardian guide shall lead
+Where these wide vales their various bounties spread!
+What treasured stores the hills must here combine!
+Sleep still ye diamonds, and ye ores refine;
+Exalt your heads ye oaks, ye pines ascend,
+Till future navies bid your branches bend;
+Then spread the canvass o'er the watery way,
+Explore new worlds and teach the old your sway.
+
+He said, and northward cast his curious eyes
+On other cliffs of more exalted size.
+Where Maine's bleak breakers line the dangerous coast,
+And isles and shoals their latent horrors boast,
+High lantern'd in his heaven the cloudless White
+Heaves the glad sailor an eternal light;
+Who far thro troubled ocean greets the guide,
+And stems with steadier helm the stormful tide.
+
+Nor could those heights unnoticed raise their head,
+That swell sublime o'er Hudson's shadowy bed;
+Tho fiction ne'er has hung them in the skies,
+Tho White and Andes far superior rise,
+Yet hoary Kaatskill, where the storms divide,
+Would lift the heavens from Atlas' laboring pride.
+
+Land after land his passing notice claim,
+And hills by hundreds rise without a name;
+Hills yet unsung, their mystic powers untold;
+Celestials there no sacred senates hold;
+No chain'd Prometheus feasts the vulture there,
+No Cyclop forges thro their summits glare,
+To Phrygian Jove no victim smoke is curl'd,
+Nor ark high landing quits a deluged world.
+But were these masses piled on Asia's shore,
+Taurus would shrink, Hemodia strut no more,
+Indus and Ganges scorn their humble sires,
+And rising suns salute superior fires;
+Whose watchful priest would meet, with matin blaze,
+His earlier God, and sooner chaunt his praise.
+For here great nature, with a bolder hand,
+Roll'd the broad stream, and heaved the lifted land;
+And here from finish'd earth, triumphant trod
+The last ascending steps of her creating God.
+
+He saw these mountains ope their watery stores,
+Floods quit their caves and seek the distant shores;
+Wilcl thro disparting plains their waves expand,
+And lave the banks where future towns must stand.
+Whirl'd from the monstrous Andes' bursting sides,
+Maragnon leads his congregating tides;
+A thousand Alps for him dissolve their snow,
+A thousand Rhones obedient bend below,
+From different zones their ways converging wind,
+Sweep beds of ore, and leave their gold behind,
+In headlong cataracts indignant rave,
+Rush to his banks and swell the swallowing wave.
+Ucayla, first of all his mighty sons,
+From Cusco's walls a wearied journey runs;
+Pastaza mines proud Pambamarca's base,
+And holds thro sundering hills his lawless race;
+Aloft, where Cotopaxa flames on high,
+The roaring Napo quits his misty sky,
+Down the long steeps in whitening torrents driven,
+Like Nile descending from his fabled heaven;
+Mound after mound impetuous Tigris rends,
+Curved Ista folds whole countries in his bends;
+Vast Orinoco, summon'd forth to bring
+His far fetch'd honors to the sateless king,
+Drives on his own strong course to gain the shore,
+But sends Catuba here with half his store;
+Like a broad Bosphorus here Negro guides
+The gather'd mass of fifty furious tides;
+From his waste world, by nameless fountains fed,
+Wild Purus wears his long and lonely bed;
+O'er twelve degrees of earth Madera flows,
+And robs the south of half its treasured snows;
+Zingus, of equal length and heavier force,
+Rolls on, for months, the same continuous course
+To reach his master's bank; that here constrains
+Topayo, charged with all Brazilians rains;
+While inland seas, and lakes unknown to fame,
+Send their full tributes to the monarch stream;
+Who, swell'd with growing conquest, wheels abroad,
+Drains every land, and gathers all his flood;
+Then far from clime to clime majestic goes,
+Enlarging, widening, deepening as he flows;
+Like heaven's broad milky way he shines alone,
+Spreads o'er the globe its equatorial zone,
+Weighs the cleft continent, and pushes wide
+Its balanced mountains from each crumbling side.
+Sire Ocean hears his proud Maragnon roar,
+Moves up his bed, and seeks in vain the shore,
+Then surging strong, with high and hoary tide,
+Whelms back the Stream and checks his rolling pride.
+The stream ungovernable foams with ire,
+Climbs, combs tempestuous, and attacks the Sire;
+Earth feels the conflict o'er her bosom spread,
+Her isles and uplands hide their wood-crown'd head;
+League after league from land to water change,
+From realm to realm the seaborn monsters range;
+Vast midland heights but pierce the liquid plain,
+Old Andes tremble for their proud domain;
+Till the fresh Flood regains his forceful sway,
+Drives back his father Ocean, lash'd with spray;
+Whose ebbing waters lead the downward sweep,
+And waves and trees and banks roll whirling to the deep.
+Where suns less ardent cast their golden beams,
+And minor Andes pour a waste of streams,
+The marsh of Moxoe scoops the world, and fills
+(From Bahia's coast to Cochabamba's hills)
+A thousand leagues of bog; he strives in vain
+Their floods to centre and their lakes retain;
+His gulphs o'ercharged their opening sides display,
+And southern vales prolong the seaward way.
+Columbus traced, with swift exploring eye,
+The immense of waves that here exalted lie,
+The realms that mound the unmeasured magazine,
+The far blue main, the climes that stretch between.
+He saw Xaraya's diamond banks unfold,
+And Paraguay's deep channel paved with gold,
+Saw proud Potosi lift his glittering head,
+And pour down Plata thro his tinctured bed.
+Rich with the spoils of many a distant mine,
+In his broad silver sea their floods combine;
+Wide over earth his annual freshet strays,
+And highland drains with lowland drench repays;
+Her thirsty regions wait his glad return,
+And drink their future harvest from his urn.
+
+Where the cold circles gird the southern sky.
+Brave Magellan's wild channel caught his eye;
+The long cleft ridges wall'd the spreading way.
+That gleams far westward to an unknown sea.
+Soon as the distant swell was seen to roll,
+His ancient wishes reabsorb'd his soul;
+Warm from his heaving heart a sudden sigh
+Burst thro his lips; he turn'd his moisten'd eye,
+And thus besought his Angel: speak, my guide,
+Where leads the pass? and what yon purple tide?
+How the dim waves in blending ether stray!
+No lands behind them rise, no pinions on them play.
+There spreads, belike, that other unsail'd main
+I sought so long, and sought, alas, in vain;
+To gird this watery globe, and bring to light
+Old India's coast; and regions wrapt in night.
+Restore, celestial friend, my youthful morn,
+Call back my years, and let my fame return;
+Grant me to trace, beyond that pathless sea,
+Some happier shore from lust of empire free;
+To find in that far world a peaceful bower,
+From envy safe and curst Ovando's power.
+Earth's happiest realms let not their distance hide,
+Nor seas forever roll their useless tide.
+For nations yet unborn, that wait thy time,
+Demand their seats in that secluded clime;
+Ah, grant me still, their passage to prepare.
+One venturous bark, and be my life thy care.
+
+So pray'd the Hero; Hesper mild replies,
+Divine compassion softening in his eyes,
+Tho still to virtuous deeds thy mind aspires,
+And these glad visions kindle new desires,
+Yet hear with reverence what attends thy state,
+Nor wish to pass the eternal bounds of fate.
+Led by this sacred light thou soon shalt see
+That half mankind shall owe their seats to thee,
+Freedom's first empire claim its promised birth
+In these rich rounds of sea-encircled earth;
+Let other years, by thine example prest,
+Call forth their heroes to explore the rest.
+
+Thro different seas a twofold passage lies
+To where sweet India scents a waste of skies.
+The circling course, by Madagascar's shores,
+Round Afric's cape, bold Gama now explores;
+Thy well plann'd path these gleamy straits provide,
+Nor long shall rest the daring search untried.
+This idle frith must open soon to fame,
+Here a lost Lusitanian fix his name,
+From that new main in furious waves be tost,
+And fall neglected on the barbarous coast.
+
+But lo the Chief! bright Albion bids him rise,
+Speed in his pinions, ardor in his eyes!
+Hither, O Drake, display thy hastening sails,
+Widen ye passes, and awake ye gales,
+March thou before him, heaven-revolving sun,
+Wind his long course, and teach him where to run;
+Earth's distant shores, in circling bands unite,
+Lands, learn your fame, and oceans, roll in light,
+Round all the watery globe his flag be hurl'd,
+A new Columbus to the astonish'd world.
+
+He spoke; and silent tow'rd the northern sky
+Wide o'er the hills the Hero cast his eye,
+Saw the long floods thro devious channels pour,
+And wind their currents to the opening shore;
+Interior seas and lonely lakes display
+Their glittering glories to the beams of day.
+Thy capes, Virginia, towering from the tide,
+Raise their blue banks, and slope thy barriers wide,
+To future sails unfold an inland way,
+And guard secure thy multifluvian Bay;
+That drains uncounted realms, and here unites
+The liquid mass from Alleganian heights.
+York leads his wave, imbank'd in flowery pride,
+And nobler James falls winding by his side;
+Back to the hills, thro many a silent vale,
+While Rappahanok seems to lure the sail,
+Patapsco's bosom courts the hand of toil,
+Dull Susquehanna laves a length of soil;
+But mightier far, in sealike azure spread,
+Potowmak sweeps his earth disparting bed.
+
+Long dwelt his eye where these commingling pour'd,
+Their waves unkeel'd, their havens unexplored;
+Where frowning forests stretch the dusky wing,
+And deadly damps forbid the flowers to spring;
+No seasons clothe the field with cultured grain,
+No buoyant ship attempts the chartless main;
+Then with impatient voice: My Seer, he cried,
+When shall my children cross the lonely tide?
+Here, here my sons, the hand of culture bring,
+Here teach the lawn to smile, the grove to sing:
+Ye laboring floods, no longer vainly glide,
+Ye harvests load them, and ye forests ride;
+Bear the deep burden from the joyous swain,
+And tell the world where peace and plenty reign.
+
+Hesper to this return'd him no reply,
+But raised new visions to his roving eye.
+He saw broad Delaware the shores divide,
+He saw majestic Hudson pour his tide;
+Thy stream, my Hartford, thro its misty robe,
+Play'd in the sunbeams, belting far the globe;
+No watery glades thro richer vallies shine,
+Nor drinks the sea a lovelier wave than thine.
+
+Mystick and Charles refresh their seaward isles,
+And gay Piscateway pays his passing smiles;
+Swift Kenebec, high bursting from his lakes,
+Shoots down the hillsides thro the clouds he makes;
+And hoarse resounding, gulphing wide the shore,
+Dread Laurence labors with tremendous roar;
+Laurence, great son of Ocean! lorn he lies,
+And braves the blasts of hyperborean skies.
+Where hoary winter holds his howling reign,
+And April flings her timid showers in vain,
+Groans the choked Flood, in frozen fetters bound,
+And isles of ice his angry front surround.
+
+As old Enceladus, in durance vile,
+Spreads his huge length beneath Sicilia's isle,
+Feels mountains, crush'd by mountains, on him prest,
+Close not his veins, nor still his laboring breast;
+His limbs convulse, his heart rebellious rolls,
+Earth shakes responsive to her utmost poles,
+While rumbling, bursting, boils his ceaseless ire,
+Flames to mid heaven, and sets the skies on fire.
+So the contristed Laurence lays him low,
+And hills of sleet and continents of snow
+Rise on his crystal breast; his heaving sides
+Crash with the weight, and pour their gushing tides,
+Asouth, whence all his hundred branches bend,
+Relenting airs with boreal blasts contend;
+Far in his vast extremes he swells and thaws,
+And seas foam wide between his ice-bound jaws.
+Indignant Frost, to hold his captive, plies
+His hosted fiends that vex the polar skies,
+Unlocks his magazines of nitric stores,
+Azotic charms and muriatic powers;
+Hail, with its glassy globes, and brume congeal'd,
+Rime's fleecy flakes, and storm that heaps the field
+Strike thro the sullen Stream with numbing force,
+Obstruct his sluices and impede his course.
+In vain he strives; his might interior fails;
+Nor spring's approach, nor earth's whole heat avails;
+He calls his hoary Sire; old Ocean roars
+Responsive echoes thro the Shetland shores.
+He comes, the Father! from his bleak domains,
+To break with liquid arms the sounding chains;
+Clothed in white majesty, he leads from far
+His tides high foaming to the wintry war.
+Billows on billows lift the maddening brine,
+And seas and clouds in battling conflict join,
+O'erturn the vast gulph glade with rending sweep,
+And crash the crust that bridged the boiling deep;
+Till forced aloft, bright bounding thro the air,
+Moves the blear ice, and sheds a dazzling glare;
+The torn foundations on the surface ride,
+And wrecks of winter load the downward tide.
+
+The loosen'd ice-isles o'er the main advance,
+Toss on the surge, and thro the concave dance;
+Whirl'd high, conjoin'd, in crystal mountains driven,
+Alp over Alp, they build a midway heaven;
+Whose million mirrors mock the solar ray,
+And give condensed the tenfold glare of day.
+As tow'rd the south the mass enormous glides.
+And brineless rivers furrow down its sides;
+The thirsty sailor steals a glad supply,
+And sultry trade winds quaff the boreal sky.
+
+But oft insidious death, with mist o'erstrown,
+Rides the dark ocean on this icy throne;
+When ships thro vernal seas with light airs steer
+Their midnight march, and deem no danger near.
+The steerman gaily helms his course along,
+And laughs and listens to the watchman's song,
+Who walks the deck, enjoys the murky fog,
+Sure of his chart, his magnet and his log;
+Their shipmates dreaming, while their slumbers last,
+Of joys to come, of toils and dangers past.
+Sudden a chilling blast comes roaring thro
+The trembling shrouds, and startles all the crew;
+They spring to quarters, and perceive too late
+The mount of death, the giant strides of fate.
+The fullsail'd ship, with instantaneous shock,
+Dash'd into fragments by the floating rock,
+Plunges beneath its basement thro the wave,
+And crew and cargo glut the watery grave.
+
+Say, Palfrey, brave good man, was this thy doom?
+Dwells here the secret of thy midsea tomb?
+But, Susan, why that tear? my lovely friend,
+Regret may last, but grief should have an end.
+An infant then, thy memory scarce can trace
+The lines, tho sacred, of thy father's face;
+A generous spouse has well replaced the sire;
+New duties hence new sentiments require.
+
+Now where the lakes, those midland oceans, lie,
+Columbus turn'd his heaven-illumined eye.
+Ontario's banks, unable to retain
+The five great Caspians from the distant main,
+Burst with the ponderous mass, and forceful whirl'd
+His Laurence forth, to balance thus the world.
+Above, bold Erie's wave sublimely stood,
+Look'd o'er the cliff, and heaved his headlong flood;
+Where dread Niagara bluffs high his brow,
+And frowns defiance to the world below.
+White clouds of mist expanding o'er him play,
+That tinge their skirts in all the beams of day;
+Pleased Iris wantons in perpetual pride,
+And bends her rainbows o'er the dashing tide.
+Far glimmering in the north, bleak Huron runs,
+Clear Michigan reflects a thousand suns,
+And bason'd high, on earth's broad bosom gay,
+The bright Superior silvers down the day.
+
+Blue mounds beyond them far in ether fade,
+Deep groves between them cast a solemn shade,
+Slow moves their settling mist in lurid streams,
+And dusky radiance streaks the solar beams.
+Fixt on the view the great discoverer stood,
+And thus addrest the messenger of good:
+But why these seats, that seem reserved to grace
+The social toils of some illustrious race,
+Why spread so wide and form'd so fair in vain?
+And why so distant rolls the bounteous main?
+These happy regions must forever rest,
+Of man unseen, by native beasts possest;
+And the best heritage my sons could boast
+Illude their search in far dim deserts lost,
+For see, no ship can point her pendants here,
+No stream conducts nor ocean wanders near;
+Frost, crags and cataracts their north invest,
+And the tired sun scarce finds their bounds awest.
+
+To whom the Seraph: Here indeed retires
+The happiest land that feels my fostering fires;
+Here too shall numerous nations found their seat,
+And peace and freedom bless the kind retreat.
+Led by this arm thy sons shall hither come,
+And streams obedient yield the heroes room,
+Spread a broad passage to their well known main,
+Nor sluice their lakes, nor form their soils in vain.
+
+Here my bold Missisippi bends his way,
+Scorns the dim bounds of yon bleak boreal day,
+And calls from western heavens, to feed his stream,
+The rains and floods that Asian seas might claim.
+Strong in his march, and charged with all the fates
+Of regions pregnant with a hundred states.
+He holds in balance, ranged on either hand,
+Two distant oceans and their sundering land;
+Commands and drains the interior tracts that lie
+Outmeasuring Europe's total breadth of sky.
+
+High in the north his parent fountains wed,
+And oozing urns adorn his infant head;
+In vain proud Frost his nursing lakes would close,
+And choke his channel with perennial snows;
+From all their slopes he curves his countless rills,
+Sweeps their long marshes, saps their settling hills;
+Then stretching, straighteningsouth, he gaily gleams,
+Swells thro the climes, and swallows all their streams;
+From zone to zone, o'er earth's broad surface curl'd,
+He cleaves his course, he furrows half the world,
+Now roaring wild thro bursting mountains driven,
+Now calm reflecting all the host of heaven;
+Where Cynthia pausing, her own face admires,
+And suns and stars repeat their dancing fires.
+Wide o'er his meadowy lawns he spreads and feeds
+His realms of canes, his waving world of reeds;
+Where mammoth grazed the renovating groves,
+Slaked his huge thirst, and chill'd his fruitless loves;
+Where elks, rejoicing o'er the extinguished race,
+By myriads rise to fill the vacant space.
+Earth's widest gulph expands to meet his wave,
+Vast isles of ocean in his current lave;
+Glad Thetis greets him from his finish'd course,
+And bathes her Nereids in his freshening source.
+
+To his broad bed their tributary stores
+Wisconsin here, there lonely Peter pours;
+Croix, from the northeast wilds his channel fills,
+Ohio, gather'd from his myriad hills,
+Yazoo and Black, surcharged by Georgian springs,
+Rich Illinois his copious treasure brings;
+Arkansa, measuring back the sun's long course,
+Moine, Francis, Rouge augment the father's force.
+But chief of all his family of floods
+Missouri marches thro his world of woods;
+He scorns to mingle with the filial train,
+Takes every course to reach alone the main;
+Orient awhile his bending swreep he tries,
+Now drains the southern, now the northern skies,
+Searches and sunders far the globe's vast frame,
+Reluctant joins the sire, and takes at last his name.
+
+There lies the path thy future sons shall trace,
+Plant here their arts, and rear their vigorous race:
+A race predestined, in these choice abodes,
+To teach mankind to tame their fluvial floods,
+Retain from ocean, as their work requires,
+These great auxiliars, raised by solar fires,
+Force them to form ten thousand roads, and girth
+With liquid belts each verdant mound of earth,
+To aid the colon's as the carrier's toil,
+To drive the coulter, and to fat the soil,
+Learn all mechanic arts, and oft regain
+Their native hills in vapor and in rain.
+
+So taught the Saint. The regions nearer drew,
+And raised resplendent to their Hero's view
+Rich nature's triple reign; for here elate
+She stored the noblest treasures of her state,
+Adorn'd exuberant this her last domain,
+As yet unalter'd by her mimic man,
+Sow'd liveliest gems, and plants of proudest grace,
+And strung with strongest nerves her animated race.
+
+Retiring far round Hudson's frozen bay,
+Earth's lessening circles shrink beyond the day;
+Snows ever rising with the toils of time
+Choke the chill shrubs that brave the dismal clime;
+The beasts all whitening roam the lifeless plain,
+And caves unfrequent scoop the couch for man.
+
+Where Spring's coy steps in cold Canadia stray,
+And joyless seasons hold unequal sway,
+He saw the pine its daring mantle rear,
+Break the rude blast, and mock the brumal year,
+Shag the green zone that bounds the boreal skies,
+And bid all southern vegetation rise.
+Wild o'er the vast impenetrable round
+The untrod bowers of shadowy nature frown'd;
+Millennial cedars wave their honors wide,
+The fir's tall boughs, the oak's umbrageous pride,
+The branching beech, the aspen's trembling shade
+Veil the dim heaven, and brown the dusky glade.
+For in dense crowds these sturdy sons of earth,
+In frosty regions, claim a stronger birth;
+Where heavy beams the sheltering dome requires,
+And copious trunks to feed its wintry fires.
+
+But warmer suns, that southern zones emblaze,
+A cool thin umbrage o'er their woodland raise;
+Floridia's shores their blooms around him spread.
+And Georgian hills erect their shady head;
+Whose flowery shrubs regale the passing air
+With all the untasted fragrance of the year.
+Beneath tall trees, dispersed in loose array,
+The rice-grown lawns their humble garb display;
+The infant maize, unconscious of its worth,
+Points the green spire and bends the foliage forth;
+In various forms unbidden harvests rise,
+And blooming life repays the genial skies.
+
+Where Mexic hills the breezy gulph defend,
+Spontaneous groves with richer burdens bend.
+Anana's stalk its shaggy honors yields,
+Acassia's flowers perfume a thousand fields,
+Their cluster'd dates the mast-like palms unfold,
+The spreading orange waves a load of gold,
+Connubial vines o'ertop the larch they climb,
+The long-lived olive mocks the moth of time,
+Pomona's pride, that old Grenada claims,
+Here smiles and reddens in diviner flames;
+Pimento, citron scent the sky serene,
+White woolly clusters fringe the cotton's green,
+The sturdy fig, the frail deciduous cane
+And foodful cocoa fan the sultry plain.
+
+Here, in one view, the same glad branches bring
+The fruits of autumn and the flowers of spring;
+No wintry blasts the unchanging year deform,
+Nor beasts unshelter'd fear the pinching storm;
+But vernal breezes o'er the blossoms rove,
+And breathe the ripen'd juices thro the grove.
+
+Beneath the crystal wave's inconstant light
+Pearls burst their shells to greet the Hero's sight;
+From opening earth in living lustre shine
+The various treasures of the blazing mine;
+Hills cleft before him all their stores unfold,
+The pale platina and the burning gold;
+Silver whole mounds, and gems of dazzling ray
+Illume the rocks and shed the beams of day.
+
+
+
+Book II.
+
+
+
+Argument
+
+
+
+    Natives of America appear in vision. Their manners and characters.
+    Columbus demands the cause of the dissimilarity of men in different
+    countries, Hesper replies, That the human body is composed of a due
+    proportion of the elements suited to the place of its first formation;
+    that these elements, differently proportioned, produce all the changes
+    of health, sickness, growth and decay; and may likewise produce any
+    other changes which occasion the diversity of men; that these elemental
+    proportions are varied, not more by climate than temperature and other
+    local circumstances; that the mind is likewise in a state of change,
+    and will take its physical character from the body and from external
+    objects: examples. Inquiry concerning the first peopling of America.
+    View of Mexico. Its destruction by Cortez. View of Cusco and Quito,
+    cities of Peru. Tradition of Capac and Oella, founders of the Peruvian
+    empire. Columbus inquires into their real history. Hesper gives an
+    account of their origin, and relates the stratagems they used in
+    establishing that empire.
+
+
+High o'er his world as thus Columbus gazed,
+And Hesper still the changing scene emblazed,
+Round all the realms increasing lustre flew,
+And raised new wonders to the Patriarch's view.
+
+He saw at once, as far as eye could rove,
+Like scattering herds, the swarthy people move
+In tribes innumerable; all the waste,
+Wide as their walks, a varying shadow cast.
+As airy shapes, beneath the moon's pale eye,
+People the clouds that sail the midnight sky,
+Dance thro the grove and flit along the glade,
+And cast their grisly phantoms on the shade;
+So move the hordes, in thickets half conceal'd,
+Or vagrant stalking thro the fenceless field,
+Here tribes untamed, who scorn to fix their home,
+O'er shadowy streams and trackless deserts roam;
+While others there in settled hamlets rest,
+And corn-clad vales a happier state attest.
+
+The painted chiefs, in guise terrific drest,
+Rise fierce to war, and beat their savage breast;
+Dark round their steps collecting warriors pour,
+Some fell revenge begins the hideous roar;
+From hill to hill the startling war-song flies,
+And tribes on tribes in dread disorder rise,
+Track the mute foe and scour the howling wood,
+Loud as a storm, ungovern'd as a flood;
+Or deep in groves the silent ambush lay,
+Lead the false flight, decoy and seize their prey,
+Their captives torture, butcher and devour,
+Drink the warm blood and paint their cheeks with gore.
+
+Awhile he paused, with dubious thoughts opprest,
+And thus to Hesper's ear his doubts addrest:
+Say, to what class of nature's sons belong
+The countless tribes of this untutor'd throng?
+Where human frames and brutal souls combine,
+No force can tame them, and no arts refine.
+Can these be fashion'd on the social plan,
+Or boast a lineage with the race of man?
+When first we found them in yon hapless isle,
+They seem'd to know and seem'd to fear no guile;
+A timorous herd, like harmless roes, they ran,
+And call'd us Gods, from whom their tribes began.
+But when, their fears allay'd, in us they trace
+The well-known image of a mortal race,
+When Spanish blood their wondering eyes beheld,
+A frantic rage their changing bosoms swell'd;
+They roused their bands from numerous hills afar,
+To feast their souls on ruin, waste and war.
+Nor plighted vows nor sure defeat control
+The same indignant savageness of soul.
+
+Tell then, my Seer, from what dire sons of earth
+The brutal people drew their ancient birth;
+If these forgotten shores and useless tides
+Have form'd them different from the world besides,
+Born to subjection, when in happier time
+A nobler race should reach their fruitful clime;
+Or, if a common source all nations claim,
+Their lineage, form and faculties the same,
+What sovereign secret cause, yet undisplay'd,
+This wondrous change in nature's work has made;
+Why various powers of soul and tints of face
+In different lands diversify the race;
+To whom the Guide: Unnumbered causes lie,
+In earth and sea, in climate, soil and sky,
+That fire the soul, or damp the genial flame,
+And work their wonders on the human frame.
+See beauty, form and color change with place;
+Here charms of health the lively visage grace;
+There pale diseases float in every wind,
+Deform the figure, and degrade the mind.
+
+From earth's own elements thy race at first
+Rose into life, the children of the dust;
+These kindred elements, by various use,
+Nourish the growth and every change produce;
+In each ascending stage the man sustain,
+His breath, his food, his physic and his bane.
+In due proportions where these atoms lie,
+A certain form their equal aids supply;
+And while unchanged the efficient causes reign,
+Age following age the certain form maintain.
+But where crude atoms disproportion'd rise,
+And cast their sickening vapors round the skies,
+Unlike that harmony of human frame,
+That moulded first and reproduce the same,
+The tribes ill form'd, attempering to the clime,
+Still vary downward with the years of time;
+More perfect some, and some less perfect yield
+Their reproductions in this wondrous field;
+Till fixt at last their characters abide,
+And local likeness feeds their local pride.
+The soul too, varying with the change of clime,
+Feeble or fierce, or groveling or sublime,
+Forms with the body to a kindred plan,
+And lives the same, a nation or a man.
+
+Yet think not clime alone the tint controls,
+On every shore, by altitude of poles;
+A different cast the glowing zone demands,
+In Paria's groves, from Tombut's burning sands,
+Unheeded agents, for the sense too fine,
+With every pulse, with every thought combine,
+Thro air and ocean, with their changes run,
+Breathe from the ground, or circle with the sun.
+Where these long continents their shores outspread,
+See the same form all different tribes pervade;
+Thro all alike the fertile forests bloom,
+And all, uncultured, shed a solemn gloom;
+Thro all great nature's boldest features rise,
+Sink into vales or tower amid the skies;
+Streams darkly winding stretch a broader sway,
+The groves and mountains bolder walks display;
+A dread sublimity informs the whole,
+And rears a dread sublimity of soul.
+
+Yet time and art shall other changes find,
+And open still and vary still the mind.
+The countless clans that tread these dank abodes,
+Who glean spontaneous fruits and range the woods,
+Fixt here for ages, in their swarthy face
+Display the wild complexion of the place.
+Yet when the hordes to happy nations rise,
+And earth By culture warms the genial skies,
+A fairer tint and more majestic grace
+Shall flush their features and exalt the race;
+While milder arts, with social joys refined,
+Inspire new beauties in the growing mind.
+
+Thy followers too, old Europe's noblest pride,
+When future gales shall wing them o'er the tide,
+A ruddier hue and deeper shade shall gain,
+And stalk, in statelier figures, on the plain.
+While nature's grandeur lifts the eye abroad
+O'er these last labors of the forming God,
+Wing'd on a wider glance the venturous soul
+Bids greater powers and bolder thoughts unrol;
+The sage, the chief, the patriot unconfined,
+Shield the weak world and meliorate mankind.
+But think not thou, in all the range of man,
+That different pairs each different cast began;
+Or tribes distinct, by signal marks confest,
+Were born to serve or subjugate the rest.
+
+The Hero heard, and thus resumed the strain:
+Who led these wanderers o'er the dreary main?
+Could their weak sires, unskill'd in human lore,
+Build the bold bark, to seek an unknown shore?
+A shore so distant from the world beside,
+So dark the tempests, and so wild the tide,
+That Greece and Tyre, and all who tempt the sea,
+Have shunn'd the task, and left the fame to me.
+
+When first thy roving race, the Power replied,
+Learn'd by the stars the devious sail to guide,
+From stormy Hellespont explored the way,
+And sought the limits of the Midland sea;
+Before Alcides form'd his impious plan
+To check the sail, and bound the steps of man,
+This hand had led them to this rich abode,
+And braved the wrath of that strong demigod.
+
+Driven from the Calpian strait, a hapless train
+Roll'd on the waves that sweep the western main;
+Storms from the orient bhcken'd heaven with shade,
+Nor sun nor stars could yield their wonted aid.
+For many a darksome day o'erwhelm'd and tost,
+Their sails, their oars in swallowing surges lost,
+At length, the clouds withdrawn, they sad descry
+Their course directing from their native sky.
+No hope remains; far onward o'er the zone
+The trade wind bears them with the circling sun;
+Till wreck'd and stranded here, the sylvan coast
+Receives to lonely seats the suffering host.
+The fruitful vales invite their steps to roam,
+Renounce their sorrows and forget their home;
+Revolving years their ceaseless wanderings led,
+And from their sons descending nations spread.
+
+These in the torrid tracts began their sway,
+Whose cultured fields their growing arts display;
+The northern tribes a later stock may boast,
+A race descended from the Asian coast.
+High in the Arctic, where Anadir glides,
+A narrow strait the impinging worlds divides;
+There Tartar fugitives from famine sail,
+And migrant tribes these fruitful shorelands hail.
+
+He spoke; when Behren's pass before them lay,
+And moving nations on the margin stray,
+Thick swarming, venturous; sail and oar they ply,
+Climb on the surge and o'er the billows fly.
+As when autumnal storms awake their force.
+The storks foreboding tempt their southern course;
+From all the fields collecting throngs arise,
+Mount on the wing and crowd along the skies:
+Thus, to his eye, from bleak Tartaria's shore,
+Thro isles and seas, the gathering people pour,
+Change their cold regions for a happier strand,
+Leap from the wave and tread the welcome land;
+In growing tribes extend their southern sway,
+And wander wide beneath a warmer day.
+
+But why, the Chief replied, if ages past
+Led the bold vagrants to so mild a waste;
+If human souls, for social compact given,
+Inform their nature with the stamp of heaven.
+Why the wild woods for ever must they rove,
+Nor arts nor social joys their passions move?
+Long is the lapse of ages, since thy hand
+Conducted here thy first adventurous band.
+On other shores, in every eastern clime,
+Since that unletter'd, distant tract of time,
+What arts have sprung, imperial powers to grace!
+What sceptres sway'd the many-master'd race!
+Guilt, grandeur, glory from their seats been hurl'd,
+And dire divulsions shook the changing world!
+
+Ere Rome's first Eagle clave the frighted air,
+Ere Sparta form'd her deathlike sons of war,
+Ere Tyre and Ilion saw their towers arise,
+Or Memphian pyramids usurp'd the skies,
+These tribes have forester'd the fruitful zone,
+Their seats unsettled, and their name unknown.
+
+Hesper to this replied: A scanty train,
+In that far age, approach'd the wide domain;
+The wide domain, with game and fruitage crown'd,
+Supplied their food uncultured from the ground.
+By nature form'd to rove, the humankind,
+Of freedom fond, will ramble unconfined,
+Till all the region fills, and rival right
+Restrains their steps, and bids their force unite;
+When common safety builds a common cause,
+Conforms their interest and inspires their laws;
+By mutual checks their different manners blend,
+Their fields bloom joyous, and their walls ascend.
+Here to the vagrant tribes no bounds arose,
+They form'd no union, as they fear'd no foes;
+Wandering and wild, from sire to son they stray,
+A thousand ages, scorning every sway.
+And what a world their seatless nations led!
+A total hemisphere around them spread;
+See the lands lengthen, see the rivers roll,
+To each far main, to each extended pole!
+
+But lo, at last the destined course is run,
+The realms are peopled and their arts begun.
+Where yon mid region elevated lies,
+A few famed cities glitter to the skies;
+There move, in eastern pomp, the toils of state,
+And temples heave, magnificently great.
+
+The Hero turn'd to greet the novel sight;
+When three far splendors, yet confusedly bright,
+Rose like a constellation; till more near,
+Distinctly mark'd their different sites appear;
+Diverging still, beneath their roofs of gold,
+Three cities gay their mural towers unfold.
+So, led by visions of his guiding God,
+The seer of Patmos o'er the welkin trod,
+Saw the new heaven its flamy cope unbend,
+And walls and gates and spiry domes descend;
+His well known sacred city grows, and gains
+Her new built towers, her renovated fanes;
+With golden skies and suns and rainbows crown'd,
+Jerusalem looks forth and lights the world around.
+
+Bright on the north imperial Mexic rose;
+A mimic morn her sparkling vanes disclose,
+Her opening streets concentred hues display,
+Give back the sun, and shed internal day;
+The circling wall with guardian turrets frown'd,
+And look'd defiance to the realms around;
+A glimmering lake without the wall retires,
+Inverts the towers, and seems a grove of spires.
+
+Proud o'er the midst, on columns lifted high,
+A giant structure claims a loftier sky;
+O'er the tall gates sublimer arches bend,
+Courts larger lengthen, bolder walks ascend,
+Starr'd with superior gems the porches shine,
+And speak the royal residence writhin.
+There, deck'd in state robes, on his golden throne,
+Mid suppliant kings, dread Montezuma shone;
+Mild in his eye a temper'd grandeur sate,
+High seem'd his soul, with conscious power elate;
+In aspect open, social and serene,
+Enclosed by favorites, and of friends unseen.
+
+Round the rich throne, in various lustre dight,
+Gems undistinguished cast a changing light;
+Sapphire and emerald soften down the scene,
+Cold azure mingling with the vernal green,
+Pearl, amber, ruby warmer flames unfold,
+And diamonds brighten from the burning gold;
+Thro all the dome the living blazes blend,
+And shoot their rainbows where the arches bend.
+On every ceiling, painted light and gay,
+Symbolic forms their graphic art display;
+Recording, confident of endless fame,
+Each feat of arms, each patriarchal name;
+Like Memphian hieroglyphs, to stretch the span
+Of memory frail in momentary man.
+
+Pour'd thro the gates a hundred nations greet,
+Throng the rich mart and line each ample street,
+Ply different labors, walls and structures rear,
+Or till the fields, or train the ranks of war.
+Thro spreading states the skirts of empire bend,
+New temples rise and other plains extend;
+Thrice ten wide provinces, in culture gay,
+Bless the same king, and daily firm the sway.
+
+A smile benignant kindling in his eyes,
+O happy realm! the glad Columbus cries,
+Far in the midland, safe from every foe,
+Thy arts shall flourish as thy virtues grow,
+To endless years thy rising fame extend,
+And sires of nations from thy sons descend.
+May no gold-thirsty race thy temples tread,
+Insult thy rites, nor heap thy plains with dead;
+No Bovadilla seize the tempting spoil,
+No dark Ovando, no religious Boyle,
+In mimic priesthood grave, or robed in state,
+Overwhelm thy glories in oblivious fate!
+
+Vain are thy hopes, the sainted Power replied,
+These rich abodes from Spanish hordes to hide,
+Or teach hard guilt and cruelty to spare
+The guardless prize of sacrilegious war.
+Think not the vulture, mid the field of slain,
+Where base and brave promiscuous strow the plain,
+Where the young hero in the pride of charms
+Pours brighter crimson o'er his spotless arms,
+Will pass the tempting prey, and glut his rage
+On harder flesh, and carnage black with age;
+O'er all alike he darts his eager eye,
+Whets the blunt beak and hovers down the sky,
+From countless corses picks the dainty food,
+And screams and fattens in the purest blood.
+So the vile hosts, that hither trace thy way,
+On happiest tribes with fiercest fury prey.
+Thine the dread task, O Cortez, here to show
+What unknown crimes can heighten human woe,
+On these fair fields the blood of realms to pour,
+Tread sceptres down, and print thy steps in gore,
+With gold and carnage swell thy sateless mind,
+And live and die the blackest of mankind.
+
+He gains the shore. Behold his fortress rise,
+His fleet high flaming suffocates the skies.
+The march begins; the nations in affright
+Quake as he moves, and wage the fruitless fight;
+Thro the rich provinces he bends his way,
+Kings in his chain, and kingdoms for his prey;
+Full on the imperial town infuriate falls,
+And pours destruction o'er its batter'd walls.
+
+In quest of peace great Montezuma stands,
+A sovereign supplicant with lifted hands,
+Brings all his treasure, yields the regal sway,
+Bids vassal millions their new lord obey;
+And plies the victor with incessant prayer,
+Thro ravaged realms the harmless race to spare.
+But treasures, tears and sceptres plead in vain,
+Nor threats can move him, nor a world restrain;
+While blind religion's prostituted name
+And monkish fury guide the sacred flame.
+O'er crowded fanes their fires unhallow'd bend,
+Climb the wide roofs, the lofty towers ascend,
+Pour thro the lowering skies the smoky flood,
+And stain the fields, and quench the blaze in blood.
+
+Columbus heard; and, with a heaving sigh,
+Dropt the full tear that started in his eye:
+O hapless day! his trembling voice replied,
+That saw my wandering pennon mount the tide.
+Had but the lamp of heaven to that bold sail
+Ne'er mark'd the passage nor awoke the gale,
+Taught foreign prows these peopled shores to find,
+Nor led those tigers forth to fang mankind;
+Then had the tribes beneath these bounteous skies
+Seen their walls widen and their harvests rise;
+Down the long tracts of time their glory shone,
+Broad as the day and lasting as the sun.
+The growing realms, behind thy shield that rest,
+Paternal monarch, still thy power had blest,
+Enjoy'd the pleasures that surround thy throne,
+Survey'd thy virtues and improved their own.
+
+Forgive me, prince; this luckless arm hath led
+The storm unseen that hovers o'er thy head;
+Taught the dark sons of slaughter where to roam,
+To seize thy crown and seal the nation's doom.
+Arm, sleeping empire, meet the murderous band,
+Drive back the invaders, save the sinking land.--
+But vain the call! behold the streaming blood!
+Forgive me, Nature! and forgive me, God!
+
+While sorrows thus his patriarch pride control,
+Hesper reproving sooths his tender soul:
+Father of this new world, thy tears give o'er,
+Let virtue grieve and heaven be blamed no more.
+Enough for man, with persevering mind,
+To act his part and strive to bless his kind;
+Enough for thee, o'er thy dark age to soar,
+And raise to light that long-secluded shore.
+For this my guardian care thy youth inspired,
+To virtue rear'd thee, and with glory fired,
+Bade in thy plan each distant world unite,
+And wing'd thy vessel for the venturous flight.
+
+Nor think the labors vain; to good they tend;
+Tyrants like these shall ne'er defeat their end;
+Their end that opens far beyond the scope
+Of man's past efforts and his present hope.
+Long has thy race, to narrow shores confined,
+Trod the same round that fetter'd fast the mind;
+Now, borne on bolder plumes, with happier flight,
+The world's broad bounds unfolding to the sight,
+The mind shall soar; the coming age expand
+Their arts and lore to every barbarous land;
+And buried gold, drawn copious from the mine,
+Give wings to commerce and the world refine.
+
+Now to yon southern cities turn thy view,
+And mark the rival seats of rich Peru.
+See Quito's airy plains, exalted high,
+With loftier temples rise along the sky;
+And elder Cusco's shining roofs unfold,
+Flame on the day, and shed their suns of gold.
+Another range, in these pacific climes,
+Spreads a broad theatre for unborn crimes;
+Another Cortez shall their treasures view,
+His rage rekindle and his guilt renew;
+His treason, fraud, and every fell design,
+O curst Pizarro, shall revive in thine.
+
+Here reigns a prince, whose heritage proclaims
+A long bright lineage of imperial names;
+Where the brave roll of Incas love to trace
+The distant father of their realm and race,
+Immortal Capac. He, in youthful pride,
+With young Oella his illustrious bride,
+Announced their birth divine; a race begun
+From heaven, the children of their God the Sun;
+By him sent forth a polish'd state to frame,
+Crush the fiend Gods that human victims claim,
+With cheerful rites their pure devotions pay
+To the bright orb that gives the changing day.
+
+On this great plan, as children of the skies,
+They plied their arts and saw their hamlets rise.
+First of their works, and sacred to their fame.
+Yon proud metropolis received its name,
+Cusco the seat of states, in peace design'd
+To reach o'er earth, and civilize mankind.
+Succeeding sovereigns spread their limits far,
+Tamed every tribe, and sooth'd the rage of war;
+Till Quito bow'd; and all the heliac zone
+Felt the same sceptre, and confirm'd the throne.
+
+Near Cusco's walls, where still their hallow'd isle
+Bathes in its lake and wears its verdant smile,
+Where these prime parents of the sceptred line
+Their advent made, and spoke their birth divine,
+Behold their temple stand; its glittering spires
+Light the glad waves and aid their father's fires.
+Arch'd in the walls of gold, its portal gleams
+With various gems of intermingling beams;
+And flaming from the front, with borrow'd ray,
+A diamond circlet gives the rival day;
+In whose bright face forever looks abroad
+The labor'd image of the radiant God.
+There dwells the royal priest, whose inner shrine
+Conceals his lore; tis there his voice divine
+Proclaims the laws; and there a cloister'd quire
+Of holy virgins keep the sacred fire.
+
+Columbus heard; and curious to be taught
+What pious fraud such wondrous changes wrought,
+Ask'd by what mystic charm, in that dark age,
+They quell'd in savage souls the barbarous rage,
+By leagues of peace combined a wide domain,
+And taught the virtues in their laws to reign.
+
+Long is the tale; but tho their labors rest
+By years obscured, in flowery fiction drest,
+My voice, said Hesper, shall revive their name,
+And give their merits to immortal fame.
+Led by his father's wars, in early prime
+Young Capac left his native northern clime;
+The clime where Quito since hath rear'd her fanes,
+And now no more her barbarous rites maintains.
+He saw these vales in richer blooms array'd,
+And tribes more numerous haunt the woodland shade,
+Saw rival clans their local Gods adore,
+Their altars staining with their children's gore,
+Yet mark'd their reverence for the Sun, whose beam
+Proclaims his bounties and his power supreme;
+Who sails in happier skies, diffusing good,
+Demands no victim and receives no blood.
+
+In peace return'd with his victorious sire,
+New charms of glory all his soul inspire;
+To conquer nations on a different plan,
+And build his greatness on the good of man.
+
+By nature form'd for hardiest deeds of fame,
+Tall, bold and full-proportion'd rose his frame;
+Strong moved his limbs, a mild majestic grace
+Beam'd from his eyes and open'd in his face;
+O'er the dark world his mind superior shone,
+And seem'd the semblance of his parent Sun.
+But tho fame's airy visions lift his eyes,
+And future empires from his labors rise;
+Yet softer fires his daring views control,
+And mixt emotions fill his changing soul.
+Shall genius rare, that might the world improve,
+Bend to the milder voice of careless love,
+That bounds his glories, and forbids to part
+From bowers that woo'd his fluctuating heart?
+Or shall the toils imperial heroes claim
+Fire his brave bosom with a patriot flame,
+Bid sceptres wait him on Peruvia's shore,
+And loved Oella meet his eyes no more?
+
+Still unresolved he sought the lonely maid,
+Who plied her labors in the silvan shade;
+Her locks loose rolling mantle deep her breast,
+And wave luxuriant round her slender waist,
+Gay wreaths of flowers her pensive brows adorn,
+And her white raiment mocks the light of morn.
+Her busy hand sustains a bending bough,
+Where cotton clusters spread their robes of snow,
+From opening pods unbinds the fleecy store,
+And culls her labors for the evening bower.
+
+For she, the first in all Hesperia, fed
+The turning spindle with the twisting thread;
+The woof, the shuttle follow'd her command,
+Till various garments grew beneath her hand.
+And now, while all her thoughts with Capac rove
+Thro former scenes of innocence and love,
+In distant fight his fancied dangers share,
+Or wait him glorious from the finish'd war;
+Blest with the ardent hope, her sprightly mind
+A vesture white had for the prince design'd;
+And here she seeks the wool to web the fleece,
+The sacred emblem of returning peace.
+
+Sudden his near approach the maid alarms;
+He flew enraptured to her yielding arms,
+And lost, dissolving in a softer flame,
+His distant empire and the fire of fame.
+At length, retiring thro the homeward field,
+Their glowing souls to cooler converse yield;
+O'er various scenes of blissful life they ran,
+When thus the warrior to the maid began:
+
+Long have we mark'd the inauspicious reign
+That waits our sceptre in this rough domain;
+A soil ungrateful and a wayward race,
+Their game but scanty, and confined their space.
+Where late my steps the southern war pursued,
+The fertile plains grew boundless as I view'd;
+More numerous nations trod the grassy wild,
+And joyous nature more delightful smiled.
+No changing seasons there the flowers deform,
+No dread volcano and no mountain storm;
+Rains ne'er invade, nor livid lightnings play,
+Nor clouds obscure the radiant King of day.
+But while his orb, in ceaseless glory bright,
+Rolls the rich day and fires his stars by night,
+Unbounded fulness flows beneath his reign,
+Seas yield their treasures, fruits adorn the plain;
+His melting mountains spread their annual flood,
+Night sheds her dews, the day-breeze fans the God.
+Tis he inspires me with the vast design
+To form those nations to a sway divine;
+Destroy the rites of every demon Power,
+Whose altars smoke with sacrilegious gore;
+To laws and labor teach the tribes to yield,
+And richer fruits to grace the cultured field.
+
+But great, my charmer, is the task of fame,
+Their faith to fashion and their lives to tame;
+Full many a spacious wild these eyes must see
+Spread dreary bounds between my love and me;
+And yon bright Godhead circle thrice the year,
+Each lonely evening number'd with a tear.
+Long robes of white my shoulders must embrace,
+To speak my lineage of ethereal race;
+That simple men may reverence and obey
+The radiant offspring of the Power of day.
+
+When these my deeds the faith of nations gain,
+And happy millions bless thy Capac's reign,
+Then shall he feign a journey to the Sun,
+To bring the partner of his well-earn'd throne;
+So shall descending kings the line sustain,
+Till earth's whole regions join the vast domain.
+
+Will then my fair, at my returning hour,
+Forsake these wilds and hail a happier bower?
+Will she consenting now resume her smiles,
+Send forth her warrior to his glorious toils;
+And, sweetly patient, wait the flight of days,
+That crown our labors with immortal praise?
+
+Silent the damsel heard; her moistening eye
+Spoke the full soul, nor could her voice reply;
+Till softer accents sooth'd her wounded ear,
+Composed her tumult and allay'd her fear:
+Think not, heroic maid, my steps would part
+While silent sorrows heave that tender heart.
+Oella's peace more dear shall prove to me
+Than all the realms that bound the raging sea;
+Nor thou, bright Sun, shalt bribe my soul to rest,
+And leave one struggle in her lovely breast.
+
+Yet think in tribes so vast, my gentle fair,
+What millions merit our instructive care;
+How age to age leads on their joyless gloom,
+Habitual slaughter their poor piteous doom;
+No social ties their wayward passions prove,
+Nor peace nor pleasure treads the howling grove;
+Mid thousand heroes and a thousand fair
+No fond Oella meets her Capac there.
+Yet, taught by thee domestic joys to prize,
+With softer charms the virgin race shall rise,
+Awake new virtues, every grace improve,
+And form their minds for happiness and love.
+
+Ah think, as future years thro time descend,
+What wide creations on thy voice depend;
+And, like the Sun, whose all-delighting ray
+To those mild regions gives his purest day,
+Diffuse thy bounties, let me instant fly;
+In three short moons the generous task I'll try;
+Then swift returning, I'll conduct my fair
+Where realms submissive wait her fostering care.
+
+And will my prince, my Capac, borne away,
+Thro those dark wilds in quest of empire stray,
+Where tigers fierce command the shuddering wood,
+And men like tigers thirst for human blood?
+Think'st thou no dangerous deed the course attends,
+Alone, unaided by thy sire and friends?
+Even chains and death may meet my hero there,
+Nor his last groan could reach Oella's ear.
+
+But no! nor death nor chains shall Capac prove
+Unknown to her, while she has power to rove.
+Close by thy side, where'er thy wanderings stray,
+My equal steps shall measure all the way;
+With borrow'd soul each chance of fate I'll dare,
+Thy toils to lessen and thy dangers share.
+Quick shall my ready hand two garments weave,
+Whose sunny whiteness shall the tribes deceive;
+Thus clad, their homage shall secure our sway.
+And hail us children of the God of day.
+
+The lovely counsel pleased. The smiling chief
+Approved her courage and dispell'd her grief;
+Then to their homely bower in haste they move.
+Begin their labors and prepare to rove.
+Soon grow the robes beneath her forming care,
+And the fond parents wed the wondrous pair;
+But whelm'd in grief beheld the following dawn,
+Their joys all vanish'd and their children gone.
+Nine days they march'd; the tenth effulgent morn
+Saw their white forms that sacred isle adorn.
+The work begins; they preach to every band
+The well-form'd fiction, and their faith demand;
+With various miracles their powers display,
+To prove their lineage and confirm their sway.
+They form to different arts the hand of toil,
+To whirl the spindle and to spade the soil,
+The Sun's bright march with pious finger trace,
+And his pale sister with her changing face;
+Show how their bounties clothe the labor'd plain,
+The green maize shooting from its golden grain,
+How the white cotton tree's expanding lobes
+File into threads, and swell to fleecy robes;
+While the tamed Llama aids the wondrous plan,
+And lends his garment to the loins of man.
+
+The astonish'd tribes believe, with glad surprise,
+The Gods descended from the favoring skies,
+Adore their persons robed in shining white.
+Receive their laws and leave each horrid rite,
+Build with assisting hands the golden throne,
+And hail and bless the sceptre of the Sun.
+
+
+
+Book III.
+
+
+
+Argument.
+
+
+
+    Actions of the Inca Capac. A general invasion of his dominions
+    threatened by the mountain savages. Rocha, the Inca's son, sent with a
+    few companions to offer terms of peace. His embassy. His adventure with
+    the worshippers of the volcano. With those of the storm, on the Andes.
+    Falls in with the savage armies. Character and speech of Zamor, their
+    chief. Capture of Rocha and his companions. Sacrifice of the latter.
+    Death song of Azonto. War dance. March of the savage armies down the
+    mountains to Peru. Incan army meets them. Battle joins. Peruvians
+    terrified by an eclipse of the sun, and routed. They fly to Cusco.
+    Grief of Oella, supposing the darkness to be occasioned by the death of
+    Rocha. Sun appears. Peruvians from the city wall discover Roch
+    an altar in the savage camp. They march in haste out of the city and
+    engage the savages. Exploits of Capac. Death of Zamor. Recovery of
+    Rocha, and submission of the enemy.
+
+
+Now twenty years these children of the skies
+Beheld their gradual growing empire rise.
+They ruled with rigid but with generous care,
+Diffused their arts and sooth'd the rage of war,
+Bade yon tall temple grace their favorite isle,
+The mines unfold, the cultured valleys smile,
+Those broad foundations bend their arches high,
+And rear imperial Cusco to the sky;
+Wealth, wisdom, force consolidate the reign
+From the rude Andes to the western main.
+
+But frequent inroads from the savage bands
+Lead fire and slaughter o'er the labor'd lands;
+They sack the temples, the gay fields deface,
+And vow destruction to the Incan race.
+The king, undaunted in defensive war,
+Repels their hordes, and speeds their flight afar;
+Stung with defeat, they range a wider wood,
+And rouse fresh tribes for future fields of blood.
+
+Where yon blue ridges hang their cliffs on high,
+And suns infulminate the stormful sky,
+The nations, temper'd to the turbid air,
+Breathe deadly strife, and sigh for battle's blare;
+Tis here they meditate, with one vast blow,
+To crush the race that rules the plains below.
+Capac with caution views the dark design,
+Learns from all points what hostile myriads join.
+And seeks in time by proffer'd leagues to gain
+A bloodless victory, and enlarge his reign.
+
+His eldest hope, young Rocha, at his call,
+Resigns his charge within the temple wall;
+In whom began, with reverend forms of awe,
+The functions grave of priesthood and of law,
+
+In early youth, ere yet the ripening sun
+Had three short lustres o'er his childhood run,
+The prince had learnt, beneath his father's hand,
+The well-framed code that sway'd the sacred land;
+With rites mysterious served the Power divine,
+Prepared the altar and adorn'd the shrine,
+Responsive hail'd, with still returning praise,
+Each circling season that the God displays,
+Sooth'd with funereal hymns the parting dead,
+At nuptial feasts the joyful chorus led;
+While evening incense and the morning song
+Rose from his hand or trembled on his tongue.
+
+Thus form'd for empire ere he gain'd the sway,
+To rule with reverence and with power obey,
+Reflect the glories of the parent Sun,
+And shine the Capac of his future throne,
+Employed his docile years; till now from far
+The rumor'd leagues proclaim approaching war;
+Matured for active scenes he quits the shrine,
+To aid in council or in arms to shine.
+
+Amid the chieftains that the court compose,
+In modest mien the stripling pontiff rose,
+With reverence bow'd, conspicuous o'er the rest,
+Approach'd the throne, and thus the sire addrest:
+Great king of nations, heaven-descended sage,
+Thy second heir has reach'd the destined age
+To take these priestly robes; to his pure hand
+I yield them pure, and wait thy kind command.
+Should foes invade, permit this arm to share
+The toils, the triumphs, every chance of war;
+For this dread conflict all our force demands,
+In one wide field to whelm the brutal bands,
+Pour to the mountain gods their wonted food,
+And save thy realms from future leagues of blood.
+Yet oh, may sovereign mercy first ordain
+Propounded compact to the savage train!
+I'll go with terms of peace to spread thy sway,
+And teach the blessings of the God of day.
+
+The sire return'd: My great desire you know,
+To shield from slaughter and preserve the foe,
+In bands of concord all their tribes to bind,
+And live the friend and guardian of mankind.
+Should strife begin, thy youthful arm shall share
+The toils of glory thro the walks of war;
+But o'er their hills to seek alone the foes,
+To gain their confidence or brave their blows,
+Bend their proud souls to reason's voice divine,
+Claims hardier limbs and riper years than thine.
+Yet one of heavenly race the task requires,
+Whose mystic rites control the solar fires;
+So the sooth'd Godhead proves to faithless eyes
+His love to man, his empire of the skies.
+
+Some veteran chief, in those rough labors tried,
+Shall aid thee on, and go thy faithful guide;
+O'er dreary heights thy sinking limbs sustain.
+Teach the dark wiles of each insidious train,
+Thro all extremes of life thy voice attend,
+In counsel lead thee, or in arms defend.
+And three firm youths, thy chosen friends, shall go
+To learn the climes and meditate the foe;
+That wars of future years their skill may find,
+To serve the realm and save the savage kind.
+
+Rise then, my son, first partner of my fame,
+With early toils to build thy sacred name;
+In high behest, for his own legate known,
+Proclaim the bounties of our sire the Sun.
+Tell how his fruits beneath our culture rise,
+His stars, how glorious, gem our cloudless skies;
+And how to us his hand hath kindly given
+His peaceful laws, the purest grace of heaven,
+With power to widen his terrestrial sway,
+And give our blessings where he gives the day.
+Yet, should the stubborn nations still prepare
+The shaft of slaughter for the barbarous war,
+Tell them we know to tread the crimson plain,
+And God's own children never yield to man.
+
+But ah, my child, with steps of caution go,
+The ways are hideous, and enraged the foe;
+Blood stains their altars, all their feasts are blood,
+Death their delight, and darkness reigns their God;
+Tigers and vultures, storms and earthquakes share
+Their rites of worship and their spoils of war.
+Shouldst thou, my Rocha, tempt too far their ire,
+Should those dear relics feed a murderous fire,
+Deep sighs would rend thy wretched mother's breast,
+The pale Sun sink in clouds of darkness drest,
+Thy sire and mournful nations rue the day
+That drew thy steps from these sad walls away.
+
+Yet go; tis virtue calls; and realms unknown,
+Won by these works, may bless thy future throne;
+Millions of unborn souls in time may see
+Their doom reversed, and owe their peace to thee,
+Deluded sires, with murdering hands, no more
+Feed fancied demons with their children's gore,
+But, sway'd by happier sceptres, here behold
+The rites of freedom and the shrines of gold.
+Be wise, be mindful of thy realm and throne;
+God speed thy labors and preserve my son!
+
+Soon the glad prince, in robes of white array'd,
+Call'd his attendants and the sire obey'd.
+A diamond broad, in burning gold imprest,
+Display'd the sun's bright image on his breast;
+A pearl-dropt girdle bound his waist below,
+And the white lautu graced his lofty brow.
+They journey'd forth, o'ermarching far the mound
+That flank'd the kingdom on its Andean bound;
+Ridge after ridge thro vagrant hordes they past,
+Where each new tribe seem'd wilder than the last;
+To all they preach and prove the solar sway,
+And climb fresh mountains on their tedious way.
+
+At length, as thro disparting clouds they rise,
+And hills above them still obstruct the skies,
+While a dead calm o'er all the region stood?
+And not a leaf could fan its parent wood,
+Sudden a strange portentous noise began;
+The birds fled wild, the beasts for shelter ran;
+Slow, sullen, loud, with deep astounding blare,
+Swell the strong tones of subterranean war;
+Behind, before, beneath them groans the ground,
+Earth heaves and labors with the shuddering sound;
+Columns of smoke, that cap the rumbling height,
+Roll reddening far thro heaven, and choke the light;
+From tottering steeps descend their cliffs of snow,
+The mountains reel, the valleys rend below;
+The headlong streams forget their usual round,
+And shrink and vanish in the gaping ground.
+The sun descends; but night recals in vain
+Her silent shades, to recommence her reign;
+The bursting mount gapes high, a sudden glare
+Coruscates wide, till all the purpling air
+Breaks into flame, and wheels and roars and raves
+And wraps the welkin in its folding waves;
+Light sailing cinders, thro its vortex driven,
+Stream high and brighten to the midst of heaven;
+And, following slow, full floods of boiling ore
+Swell, swoop aloft and thro the concave roar.
+Torrents of molten rocks, on every side,
+Lead o'er the shelves of ice their fiery tide;
+Hills slide before them, skies around them burn,
+Towns sink beneath and heaving plains upturn;
+O'er many a league the flaming deluge hurl'd,
+Sweeps total nations from the staggering world.
+
+Meanwhile, at distance thro the livid light,
+A busy concourse met their wondering sight;
+The prince drew near; where lo! an altar stood,
+Rude in its form, and fill'd with burning wood;
+Wrapt in the flames a youth expiring lay,
+And the fond father thus was heard to pray:
+Receive, O dreadful Power, from feeble age,
+This last pure offering to thy sateless rage;
+Thrice has thy vengeance on this hated land
+Claim'd a dear infant from my yielding hand;
+Thrice have those lovely lips the victim prest,
+And all the mother torn that tender breast;
+When the dread duty stifled every sigh,
+And not a tear escaped her beauteous eye.
+Our fourth and last now meets the fatal doom;
+Groan not, my child, thy God remands thee home;
+Attend once more, thou dark infernal Name,
+From yon far streaming pyramid of flame;
+Snatch from his heaving flesh the blasted breath.
+Sacred to thee and all the fiends of death;
+Then in thy hall, with spoils of nations crown'd,
+Confine thy walks beneath the rending ground;
+No more on earth the embowel'd flames to pour,
+And scourge my people and my race no more.
+
+Thus Rocha heard; and to the trembling crowd
+Turn'd the bright image of his beaming God.
+The afflicted chief, with fear and grief opprest,
+Beheld the sign, and thus the prince addrest:
+From what far land, O royal stranger, say,
+Ascend thy wandering steps this nightly way?
+From plains like ours, by holy demons fired?
+Have thy brave people in the flames expired?
+And hast thou now, to stay the whelming flood,
+No son to offer to the furious God?
+
+From happier lands I came, the prince returns,
+Where no red flaming flood the concave burns,
+No furious God bestorms our soil and skies,
+Nor yield our hands the bloody sacrifice;
+But life and joy the Power delights to give,
+And bids his children but rejoice and live.
+Thou seest thro heaven the day-dispensing Sun
+In living radiance wheel his golden throne,
+O'er earth's gay surface send his genial beams,
+Force from yon cliffs of ice the vernal streams;
+While fruits and flowers adorn the cultured field,
+And seas and lakes their copious treasures yield;
+He reigns our only God. In him we trace
+The friend, the father of our happy race.
+Late the lone tribes, on those unlabor'd shores,
+Ran wild and served imaginary Powers;
+Till he, in pity, taught their feuds to cease,
+Devised their laws, and fashion'd all for peace.
+My sacred parents first the reign began,
+Sent from his courts to guide the paths of man,
+To plant his fruits, to manifest his sway,
+And give their blessings where he gives the day.
+
+The sachem proud replied: Thy garb and face
+Proclaim thy lineage of superior race;
+And our progenitors, no less than thine,
+Sprang from a God, and own a birth divine.
+From that sky-scorching mount, on floods of flame,
+In elder times my great forefathers came;
+There dwells the Sire, and from his dark abode
+Oft claims, as now, the tribute of a God.
+This victim due when willing mortals pay,
+His terrors lessen and his fires decay;
+While purer sleet regales the mountain air,
+And our glad hosts are fired for fiercer war.
+
+Yet know, dread chief, the pious youth rejoin'd,
+Some one prime Power produced all human kind:
+Some Sire supreme, whose ever-ruling soul
+Creates, preserves, and regulates the whole.
+That Sire supreme must roll his radiant eye
+Round the wide earth and thro the boundless sky;
+That all their habitants, their gods and men,
+May rise unveil'd beneath his careful ken.
+Could thy dark fiend, that hides his blind abode,
+And cauldrons in his cave that fiery flood,
+Yield the rich fruits that distant nations find?
+Or praise or punish or behold mankind?
+But when my God, resurging from the night,
+Shall gild his chambers with the morning light,
+By mystic rites he'll vindicate his throne,
+And own thy servant for his duteous son.
+
+Meantime, the chief replied, thy cares releast,
+Rest here the night and share our scanty feast;
+Which, driven in hasty rout, our train supplied,
+When trembling earth foretold the boiling tide.
+They fared, they rested; till with lucid horn
+All-cheering Phosphor led the lively morn;
+The prince arose, an altar rear'd in haste,
+And watch'd the splendors of the reddening east.
+
+As o'er the mountain flamed the sun's broad eye,
+He call'd the host, his holy rites to try;
+Then took the loaves of maize, the bounties brake,
+Gave to the chief, and bade them all partake;
+The hallow'd relics on the pile he placed,
+With tufts of flowers the simple offering graced,
+Held to the sun the image from his breast,
+Whose glowing concave all the God exprest;
+O'er the dried leaves the rays concentred fly,
+And thus his voice ascends the listening sky:
+O thou, whose splendors kindle heaven with fire.
+Great Soul of nature, man's immortal Sire,
+If e'er my father found thy sovereign grace,
+Or thy blest will ordain'd the Incan race,
+Give these lorn tribes to learn thy awful name,
+Receive this offering, and the pile inflame;
+So shall thy laws o'er wider bounds be known,
+And earth's whole race be happy as thy own.
+
+Thus pray'd the prince; the focal flames aspire,
+The mute beholders tremble and retire,
+Gaze on the miracle, full credence own,
+And vow obedience to the sacred Sun.
+
+The legates now their farther course descried,
+A young cazique attending as a guide,
+O'er craggy cliffs pursued their eastern way,
+Trod loftier champaigns, meeting high the day,
+Saw timorous tribes, in these sublime abodes,
+Adore the blasts and turn the storms to gods;
+While every cloud that thunders thro the skies
+Claims from their hands a human sacrifice.
+Awhile the youth, their better faith to gain,
+Strives with his usual art, but strives in vain;
+In vain he pleads the mildness of the sun;
+A gale refutes him ere his speech be done;
+Continual tempests from their orient blow,
+And load the mountains with eternal snow.
+The sun's own beam, the timid clans declare,
+Drives all their evils on the tortured air;
+He draws the vapors up their eastern sky,
+That sail and centre round his dazzling eye;
+Leads the loud storms along his midday course,
+And bids the Andes meet their sweeping force;
+Builds their bleak summits with an icy throne,
+To shine thro heaven, a semblance of his own;
+Hence the sharp sleet, these lifted lawns that wait,
+And all the scourges that attend their state.
+
+Two toilsome days the virtuous Inca strove
+To social life their savage minds to move;
+When the third morning glow'd serenely bright,
+He led their elders to an eastern height;
+The world unlimited beneath them lay,
+And not a cloud obscured the rising day.
+Vast Amazonia, starr'd with twinkling streams,
+In azure drest, a heaven inverted seems;
+Dim Paraguay extends the aching sight,
+Xaraya glimmers like the moon of night,
+Land, water, sky in blending borders play,
+And smile and brighten to the lamp of day.
+When thus the prince: What majesty divine!
+What robes of gold! what flames about him shine!
+There walks the God! his starry sons on high
+Draw their dim veil and shrink behind the sky;
+Earth with surrounding nature's born anew,
+And men by millions greet the glorious view!
+Who can behold his all-delighting soul
+Give life and joy, and heaven and earth control,
+Bid death and darkness from his presence move,
+Who can behold, and not adore and love?
+Those plains, immensely circling, feel his beams,
+He greens the groves, he silvers gay the streams,
+Swells the wild fruitage, gives the beast his food,
+And mute creation hails the genial God.
+But richer boons his righteous laws impart,
+To aid the life and mould the social heart,
+His arts of peace thro happy realms to spread,
+And altars grace with sacrificial bread;
+Such our distinguish'd lot, who own his sway,
+Mild as his morning stars and liberal as the day.
+
+His unknown laws, the mountain chief replied,
+May serve perchance your boasted race to guide;
+And yon low plains, that drink his partial ray,
+At his glad shrine their just devotions pay.
+But we nor fear his frown nor trust his smile;
+Vain as our prayers is every anxious toil;
+Our beasts are buried in his whirls of snow,
+Our cabins drifted to his slaves below.
+Even now his placid looks thy hopes beguile,
+He lures thy raptures with a morning smile;
+But soon (for so those saffron robes proclaim)
+His own black tempest shall obstruct his flame,
+Storm, thunder, fire, against the mountains driven,
+Rake deep their sulphur'd sides, disgorging here his
+heaven.
+
+He spoke; they waited, till the fervid ray
+High from the noontide shot the faithless day;
+When lo, far gathering under eastern skies,
+Solemn and slow, the dark red vapors rise;
+Full clouds, convolving on the turbid air,
+Move like an ocean to the watery war.
+The host, securely raised, no dangers harm,
+They sit unclouded and o'erlook the storm;
+While far beneath, the sky-borne waters ride,
+Veil the dark deep and sheet the mountain's side;
+The lightning's glancing fires, in fury curl'd,
+Bend their long forky foldings o'er the world;
+Torrents and broken crags and floods of rain
+From steep to steep roll down their force amain,
+In dreadful cataracts; the bolts confound
+The tumbling clouds, and rock the solid ground.
+
+The blasts unburden'd take their upward course,
+And o'er the mountain top resume their force.
+Swift thro the long white ridges from the north
+The rapid whirlwinds lead their terrors forth;
+High walks the storm, the circling surges rise,
+And wild gyrations wheel the hovering skies;
+Vast hills of snow, in sweeping columns driven,
+Deluge the air and choke the void of heaven;
+Floods burst their bounds, the rocks forget their place,
+And the firm Andes tremble to their base.
+
+Long gazed the host; when thus the stubborn chief,
+With eyes on fire, and fill'd with sullen grief:
+Behold thy careless god, secure on high,
+Laughs at our woes and peaceful walks the sky,
+Drives all his evils on these seats sublime,
+And wafts his favors to a happier clime;
+Sire of the dastard race thy words disclose,
+There glads his children, here afflicts his foes.
+Hence! speed thy flight! pursue him where he leads;
+Lest vengeance seize thee for thy father's deeds,
+Thy immolated limbs assuage the fire
+Of those curst Powers, who now a gift require.
+
+The youth in haste collects his scanty train,
+And, with the sun, flies o'er the western plain;
+The fading orb with plaintive voice he plies,
+To guide his steps and light him down the skies.
+So when the moon and all the host of even
+Hang pale and trembling on the verge of heaven,
+While storms ascending threat their nightly reign,
+They seek their absent sire, and sink below the main.
+
+Now to the south he turns; where one vast plain
+Calls from a hundred hordes the warrior train;
+Of various dress and various form they show'd;
+Each wore the ensign of his local god.
+
+From eastern hills a grisly troop descends,
+Whose war song wild the shuddering concave rends;
+Cloak'd in a tiger's hide their grim chief towers,
+And apes the brinded god his tribe adores.
+The tusky jaws grin o'er the sachem's brow,
+The bald eyes glare, the paws depend below,
+From his bored ears contorted serpents hung,
+And drops of gore seem'd rolling on his tongue.
+The northern glens pour forth the Vulture-race;
+Brown tufts of quills their shaded foreheads grace;
+The claws branch wide, the beak expands for blood,
+And all the armor imitates the god.
+The Condor, frowning from a southern plain,
+Borne on a standard, leads a numerous train:
+Clench'd in his talons hangs an infant dead,
+His long bill pointing where the sachems tread,
+His wings, tho lifeless, frighten still the wind,
+And his broad tail o'ershades the file behind.
+From other plains and other hills afar,
+The tribes throng dreadful to the promised war;
+Some twine their forelock with a crested snake,
+Some wear the emblems of a stream or lake;
+All from the Power they serve assume their mode,
+And foam and yell to taste the Incan blood.
+
+The prince incautious with his men drew near,
+Known for an Inca by his dress and air;
+Till coop'd and caught amid the warrior trains,
+They bow in silence to the victor's chains.
+When now the gather'd thousands throng the plain,
+And echoing skies the rending shouts retain;
+Zamor, the chieftain of the Tiger-band,
+By choice appointed to the first command,
+Shrugg'd up his brinded spoils above the rest,
+And grimly frowning thus the crowd addrest:
+
+Warriors, attend! tomorrow leads abroad
+Our sacred vengeance for our brothers' blood.
+On those scorch'd plains for ever must they lie,
+Their bones still naked to the burning sky?
+Left in the field for foreign hawks to tear,
+Nor our own vultures can the banquet share.
+But soon, ye mountain gods, yon dreary west
+Shall sate your hunger with an ampler feast;
+When the proud Sun, that terror of the plain,
+Shall grieve in heaven for all his children slain,
+As o'er his realm our slaughtering armies roam,
+And give to your sad Powers a happier home.
+Meanwhile, ye tribes, these men of solar race,
+Food for the flames, your bloody rites shall grace;
+Each to a different god his panting breath
+Resigns in fire; this night demands their death:
+All but the Inca; him reserved in state
+These conquering hands ere long shall immolate
+To all the Powers at once that storm the skies,
+A grateful gift, before his mother's eyes.
+
+The sachem ceased; the chiefs of every race
+Lead the bold captives to their destined place;
+The sun descends, the parting day expires,
+And earth and heaven display their sparkling fires.
+Soon the raised altars kindle round the gloom,
+And call the victims to their vengeful doom;
+Led to their pyres, in sullen pomp they tread,
+And sing by turns the triumphs of the dead.
+Amid the crowd beside his altar stood
+The youth devoted to the Tiger-god;
+A beauteous form he rose, of noble grace,
+The only hope of his illustrious race.
+His aged sire, for numerous years, had shone
+The first supporter of the Incan throne;
+Wise Capac loved the youth, and graced his hand
+With a fair virgin from a neighboring band;
+And him the legate prince, in equal prime,
+Had chose to share his mission round the clime.
+He mounts the pyre, the flames approach his breath.
+And thus he wakes the dauntless song of death:
+
+Dark vault of heaven, that greet his daily throne.
+Where flee the glories of your absent Sun?
+Ye starry hosts, who kindle from his eye,
+Can you behold him in the western sky?
+Or if unseen beneath his watery bed,
+The wearied God reclines his radiant head,
+When next his morning steps your courts inflame,
+And seek on earth for young Azonto's name,
+Then point these ashes, mark the smoky pile,
+And say the hero suffer'd with a smile.
+So shall the Power in vengeance view the place,
+In crimson clothe his terror-beaming face,
+Pour swift destruction on these curst abodes,
+Whelm the grim tribes and all their savage gods.
+
+But ah, forbear to tell my stooping sire
+His darling hopes have fed a coward fire;
+Why should he know the tortures of the brave?
+Why fruitless sorrows bend him to the grave?
+Nor shalt thou e'er be told, my bridal fair,
+What silent pangs these panting vitals tear;
+But blooming still the patient hours employ
+On the blind hope of future scenes of joy.
+Now haste, ye fiends of death; the Sire of day
+In absent slumber gives your malice way;
+While fainter light these livid flames supply,
+And short-lived thousands learn of me to die,
+
+He ceased not speaking; when the yell of war
+Drowns all their death songs in a hideous jar;
+The cries rebounding from the hillsides pour,
+And wolves and tigers catch the distant roar.
+Now more concordant all their voices join,
+And round the plain they form the festive line;
+When, to the music of the dismal din,
+Indignant Zamor bids the dance begin.
+Dim thro the shadowy fires each changing form
+Moves like a cloud before an evening storm,
+When o'er the moon's pale face and starry plain
+The shifting shades lead on their broken train;
+The mingling tribes their mazy gambols tread,
+Till the last groan proclaims the victims dead,
+Then part the smoky flesh, enjoy the feast,
+And lose their labors in oblivious rest.
+
+Soon as the western hills announced the morn,
+And falling fires were scarcely seen to burn,
+Grimm'd by the horrors of the dreadful night,
+The hosts woke fiercer for the promised fight;
+And dark and silent thro the frowning grove
+The different tribes beneath their standards move.
+
+Meantime the solar king collects from far
+His martial bands, to meet the expected war,
+Camps on the confines of an eastern plain
+That skirts the steep rough limit of his reign;
+He trains their ranks, their pliant force combines,
+To close in columns or extend in lines,
+To wheel, change front, in broken files dispart,
+And draw new strength from all the warrior's art.
+
+But now the rising sun relumes the plain,
+And calls to arms the well-accustom'd train.
+High in the front imperial Capac strode,
+In fair effulgence like the beaming God;
+A golden girdle bound his snowy vest,
+A mimic sun hung sparkling on his breast;
+The lautu's horned wreath his temples twined,
+The bow, the quiver shade his waist behind;
+Raised high in air his golden sceptre burn'd,
+And hosts surrounding trembled as he turn'd.
+
+O'er eastern hills he cast his watchful eye,
+Thro the broad breaks that lengthen down the sky;
+In whose blue clefts the sloping pathways bend,
+Where annual floods from melting snows descend.
+Now dry and deep, they lead from every height
+The savage files that headlong rush to fight;
+They throng and thicken thro the smoky air,
+And every breach pours down the dusky war.
+So when a hundred streams explore their way,
+Down the same slopes, convolving to the sea,
+They boil, they bend, they force their floods amain,
+Swell o'er obstructing crags, and sweep the plain.
+
+Capac beholds and waits the coming shock,
+As for the billows waits the storm-beat rock;
+And while for fight his ardent troops prepare,
+Thus thro the ranks he breathes the soul of war:
+Ye tribes that flourish in the Sun's mild reign,
+Long have your flocks adorn'd the peaceful plain,
+As o'er the realm his smiles persuasive flow'd,
+And conquer'd all without the stain of blood;
+But lo, at last that wild infuriate band
+With savage war demands your happy land.
+Beneath the dark immeasurable host,
+Descending, swarming, how the crags are lost!
+Already now their ravening eyes behold
+Your star-bright temples and your gates of gold;
+And to their gods in fancied goblets pour
+The warm libation of your children's gore.
+Move then to vengeance, meet the sons of blood,
+Led by this arm and lighted by that God;
+The strife is fierce, your fanes and fields the prize,
+The warrior conquers or the infant dies.
+
+Fill'd with his fire, the troops in squared array
+Wait the wild hordes loose huddling to the fray;
+Their pointed arrows, rising on the bow,
+Look up the sky and chide the lagging foe.
+
+Dread Zamor leads the homicidious train,
+Moves from the clefts and stretches o'er the plain.
+He gives the shriek; the deep convulsing sound
+The hosts reecho, and the hills around
+Retain the rending tumult; all the air
+Clangs in the conflict of the clashing war;
+But firm undaunted as a shelvy strand
+That meets the surge, the bold Peruvians stand,
+With steady aim the sounding bowstring ply,
+And showers of arrows thicken thro the sky;
+When each grim host, in closer conflict join'd,
+Clench the dire ax and cast the bow behind;
+Thro broken ranks sweep wide their slaughtering course.
+Now struggle back, now sidelong swray the force.
+Here from grim chiefs is lopt the grisly head;
+All gride the dying, all deface the dead;
+There scattering o'er the field in thin array,
+Man tugs with man, and clubs with axes play;
+With broken shafts they follow and they fly,
+And yells and groans and shouts invade the sky;
+Round all the shatter'd groves the ground is strow'd
+With sever'd limbs and corses bathed in blood.
+Long raged the strife; and where, on either side,
+A friend, a father or a brother died,
+No trace remain'd of what he was before,
+Mangled with horrid wounds and black with gore.
+
+Now the Peruvians, in collected might,
+With one wide stroke had wing'd the savage flighty
+But their bright Godhead, in his midday race,
+With glooms unusual veil'd his radiant face,
+Quench'd all his beams, tho cloudless, in affright,
+As loth to view from heaven the finish'd fight.
+A trembling twilight o'er the welkin moves,
+Browns the dim void, and darkens deep the groves;
+The waking stars, embolden'd at the sight,
+Peep out and gem the anticipated night;
+Day-birds, and beasts of light to covert fly,
+And owls and wolves begin their evening cry.
+The astonish'd Inca marks, with wild surprise,
+Dead chills on earth, no cloud in all the skies,
+His host o'ershaded in the field of blood,
+Gored by his foes, deserted by his God.
+Mute with amaze, they cease the war to wage,
+Gaze on their leaders and forget their rage;
+When pious Capac to the listening crowd
+Raised high his wand and pour'd his voice aloud:
+Ye chiefs and warriors of Peruvian race,
+Some sore offence obscures my father's face;
+What moves the Numen to desert the plain,
+Nor save his children, nor behold them slain?
+Fly! speed your course, regain the guardian town,
+Ere darkness shroud you in a deeper frown;
+The faithful walls your squadrons shall defend,
+While my sad steps the sacred dome ascend,
+To learn the cause, and ward the woes we fear:
+Haste, haste, my sons! I guard the flying rear.
+
+The hero spoke; the trembling tribes obey,
+While deeper glooms obscure the source of day.
+Sudden the savage bands collect amain,
+Hang on the rear and sweep them o'er the plain;
+Their shouts, redoubling with the flying war.
+Drown the loud groans and torture all the air.
+The hawks of heaven, that o'er the field had stood,
+Scared by the tumult from the scent of blood,
+Cleave the far gloom; the beasts forget their prey,
+And scour the waste, and give the war its way.
+
+Zamor elate with horrid joy beheld
+The Sun depart, his children fly the field,
+And raised his rending voice: Thou darkening sky,
+Deepen thy damps, the fiend of death is nigh;
+Behold him rising from his shadowy throne,
+To veil this heaven and drive the conquer'd Sun;
+The glaring Godhead yields to sacred night,
+And his foil'd armies imitate his flight.
+Confirm, infernal Power, thy rightful reign,
+Give deadlier shades and heap the piles of slain;
+Soon the young captive prince shall roll in fire,
+And all his race accumulate the pyre.
+Ye mountain vultures, here your food explore,
+Tigers and condors, all ye gods of gore,
+In these rich fields, beneath your frowning sky,
+A plenteous feast shall every god supply.
+Rush forward, warriors, hide the plains with dead;
+Twas here our friends in former combat bled;
+Strow'd thro the waste their naked bones demand
+This tardy vengeance from our conquering hand.
+
+He said; and high before the Tiger-train
+With 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 wand
+Struck 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 day
+Swell'd the full quires of consecrated praise,
+A tomb-like silence reigns; till female cries
+Burst forth at last, and these sad accents rise:
+Was it for this, my son to distant lands
+Must trace the wilds, and tempt those lawless bands?
+And does the God obscure his golden throne
+In mournful darkness for my slaughter'd son?
+Oh, had his beam; ere that disastrous day
+That 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 heart
+Caught 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-god
+High 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 light
+Throng 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 face
+Makes 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 burn
+For that loved youth who never must return.
+Forgive thine armies, when in fields of blood
+They 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 high
+A 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 prest
+High at the head, now plunging for the breast.
+The king starts backward from the struggling foe,
+Collects new strength, and with a circling blow
+Rush'd furious on; his flinty edge, whirl'd wide,
+Met Zamor's helve, and glancing grazed his side
+And settled in his groin; so plunged it lay,
+That scarce the king could tear his ax away.
+The savage fell; when thro the Tiger-train
+The 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 foes
+He cleaves his wasting way; the prince unties,
+And thus his voice: Dread Sovereign of the skies.
+Accept my living son, again bestow'd
+To 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 plain
+Is 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 lay
+Weltering in gore, directs his eager way,
+Unwraps the tiger's hide, and strives in vain
+To close the wound, and mitigate the pain;
+And while compassion for a foe distrest
+Mixt with reproach, he thus the chief addrest:
+Too long, proud prince, thy fearless heart withstood
+Our 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 demands
+The 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 plain
+Have 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.
+
+
+
+
+Book IV.
+
+
+
+Argument
+
+
+
+    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 stay
+The 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 sigh
+Cast 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 age
+Shall feast thee here; the fruits of thy long care
+A grateful world beneath thy ken shall share.
+Europe's contending kings shall soon behold
+These fertile plains and hills of treasured gold;
+And in the path of thy adventurous sail
+Their 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 ray
+Smiles 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 store
+Mid 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 unconfined
+Tempts 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 display
+United 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 rage
+Of feudal faction every court engage;
+All honest labor, all commercial ties
+Their 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 mind
+Spreads 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 gait
+Move 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 draws
+To 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 far
+The 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 divine
+Her 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 due
+To 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 thrown
+On 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 alone
+The 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 form
+Ward 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 tie
+His 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 race
+Range 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 view
+Improve 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 space
+By 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 rage
+In 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 vain
+Reach 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 eye
+A new-form'd squadron rose along the sky.
+High on the tallest deck majestic shone
+Sage 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 traced
+A future empire in each present waste;
+All former works of men behind him shone
+Graved by his hand in ever-during stone;
+On his calm brow a various crown displays
+The 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 kings
+From shore to shore a faithless miscreant steers,
+To steal a maid and leave a sire in tears.
+But yon wise chief conducts with careful ken
+The 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 breast
+All danger braves to screen her hunted guest.
+Shall quit her native tribe, but never share
+The 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 sire
+Pursue 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 feel
+The flamen's fraud, the soldier's fateful steel;
+But learn the blessings that alone attend
+On 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 morn
+Illumes 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 trace
+The germ, the genius of a sapient race,
+Predestined here to methodise and mould
+New 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 side
+The moon burst forth, and left the South Sea tide,
+That calm'd these elements, and taught them where
+To 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 shrouds
+My 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 sand
+Swell'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 mould
+Repay 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 day
+That 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 resign
+Their 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 man
+Unguarded 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 art
+Damp 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 fire
+His life shall temper and his laws inspire,
+Purge from all shades the world-embracing scope
+That 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 day
+Sunn'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 trace
+The 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 ray
+O'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 expand
+The 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 source
+Of 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 fly
+Before 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 sea
+Yield or withold their various gifts for thee;
+Protected Industry beneath thy reign
+Leads all the virtues in her filial train;
+Courageous Probity with brow serene,
+And Temperance calm presents her placid mien
+Contentment, 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 soul
+Pervades all scenes that future years unrol,
+Must yield the palm, and at a courtier's shrine
+His 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 bland
+My 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 hails
+The flowery banks that scent his slackening sails,
+Descending twilight mellows down the gleam
+That 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 repays
+The 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 delight
+Absorb the chief, as thro the waste of night
+He walks the lonely deck, and skirts the lands
+That wait their nations from his guiding hands.
+Tall thro the tide the river Sires by turns
+Rise round the bark and blend their social urns;
+Majestic brotherhood! each feels the power
+To 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 god
+Potowmak 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 hour
+To waft thee welcome to this friendly shore!
+Long have we learnt the fame that here awaits
+The 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 drain
+Shall lose their limits in the vast domain;
+But my bold banks with proud impatience wait
+The 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 high
+And 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 impede
+My 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 morn
+That gilds your capitol. Thence earth shall draw
+Her 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 expand
+The 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 crew
+Brace the broad canvass and their course pursue:
+For now the breathing airs, from ocean born,
+Breeze up the bay, and lead the lively morn
+That lights them to their port. Tis here they join
+Their 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.
+
+
+
+
+Book V.
+
+
+
+Argument.
+
+
+    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, descried
+Their 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 soul
+Now 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 appears
+A 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 hand
+Moves 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 world
+And where Floridia's farthest floods are curl'd,
+Where midlands broad their swelling mountains heave
+And slope their champaigns to the Atlantic wave,
+The sandy streambank and the woodgreen plain
+Raise 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 disclose
+Their 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 height
+Pours 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 sublime
+And 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 fire
+They scream, fly, fall; promiscuous rave along
+The yelling victors and the driven throng;
+The streams run purple; all the peopled shore
+Is 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 train
+Lead back the flight and scatter from the plain
+Slay 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 pride
+Penn'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 day
+Plant sylvan Wabash with a watchful post,
+O'er Missisippi spread a mantling host,
+Bid Louisiana's lovely clime prepare
+New 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 throne
+Gyve 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 slaves
+Of 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 white
+On 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 strand
+Arrives to aid her young colonial band.
+They join their force, and tow'rd the falling day
+Impetuous Braddock leads their hasty way;
+O'er Allegany heights, like streams of fire,
+The red flags wave and glittering arms aspire
+To meet the savage hordes, who there advance
+Their 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 spread
+For 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 within
+Behold 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 lost
+Springs up and saves the remnant of his host?
+
+The Power replied: Each age successive brings
+Their 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 air
+The northern armies spread the flames of war.
+Swift o'er the lake, to Crownpoint's fortful strand,
+Rash Abercrombie leads his headlong band
+To 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 height
+And 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 plain
+And 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 field
+And 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 sway
+Span 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 unfold
+A 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 see
+That half mankind shall owe their seats to thee."
+
+The Saint replied: Ere long, beneath thy view
+The scene shall brighten and thy joys renew.
+Here march the troublous years, when goaded sore
+Thy 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 stream
+And 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, within
+The 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 domain
+That 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 pain
+The 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 stood
+On 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 far
+Thro 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 pride
+The 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 soul
+Darts 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 descend
+The guide of nations and the Muse's friend.
+Columbus dropt a tear; while Hesper's eye
+Traced 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 shore
+Swells 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 hand
+Flings 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 bore
+His 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 hills
+High flaming Danbury the welkin fills;
+Esopus burns, Newyork's delightful fanes
+And 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 fires
+Climb in tall pyramids above the spires,
+Concentring all the winds; whose forces, driven
+With equal rage from every point of heaven,
+Whirl into conflict, round the scantling pour
+The 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 sires
+Have 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 height
+Thunders 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 plains
+Calls 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 waits
+The 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 sight
+You 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 pour
+Their 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 shun
+The 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, athirst
+To 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'd
+Her infant banner o'er the modern world.
+
+Bland, Moylan, Sheldon the long lines enforce
+With light-arm'd scouts, with solid squares of horse;
+And Knox from his full park to battle brings
+His brazen tubes, the last resort of kings.
+The long black rows in sullen silence wait,
+Their grim jaws gaping, soon to utter fate;
+When at his word the carbon clouds shall rise,
+And well aim'd thunders rock the shores and skies.
+
+Two foreign Youths had caught the splendent flame,
+To Fame's hard school the warm disciples came;
+To learn sage Liberty's unlesson'd lore,
+To brave the tempest on her war-beat shore,
+Prometheus like, to snatch a beam of day,
+And homeward bear the unscintillating ray,
+To pour new life on Europe's languid horde,
+Where millions crouch beneath one stupid lord.
+Tho Austria's keiser and the Russian czar
+To dungeons doom them, and with fetters mar,
+Fayette o'er Gaul's vast realm some light shall spread,
+Brave Kosciusko rear Sarmatia's head;
+From Garonne's bank to Duna's wintry skies,
+The morn shall move, and slumbering nations rise.
+And tho their despots quake with wild alarms,
+And lash and agonize the world to arms,
+Whelm for a while the untutor'd race in blood,
+And turn against themselves the raging flood;
+Yet shall the undying dawn, with silent pace,
+Reach over earth and every land embrace;
+Till Europe's well taught sons the boon shall share,
+And bless the labors of the imprison'd Pair.
+
+So Leda's Twins from Colchis raped the Fleece,
+And brought the treasure to their native Greece.
+She hail'd her heroes from their finished wars,
+Assigned their place amid the cluster'd stars,
+Bade round the eternal sky their trophies flame,
+And charged the zodiac with their deathless fame.
+--Here move the Strangers, here in freedom's cause
+His untried blade each stripling hero draws,
+On the great chief their eyes in transport roll,
+And war and Washington renerve the soul.
+
+Steuben advanced, in veteran armor drest,
+For Prussian lore distinguish'd o'er the rest,
+The tactic lore; to this he bends his care,
+And here transplants the discipline of war.
+Other brave chieftains of illustrious name
+Rise into sight and equal honors claim;
+But who can tell the dew-drops of the morn,
+Or count the rays that in the diamond burn?
+--Grieve not, my valiant friends; the faithful song
+Shall soon redress the momentary wrong;
+Your own bright swords have cleaved your course to fame,
+And all her hundred tongues recognize every claim.
+
+Now the broad field as untaught warriors shade,
+The sun's glad beam their shining arms display'd;
+High waved great Washington his glittering steel,
+Bade the long train in circling order wheel;
+And, while the banner'd youths around him prest,
+With voice revered he thus the ranks addrest:
+Ye generous bands, behold the task to save,
+Or yield whole nations to an instant grave.
+See hosted myriads crowding to your shore,
+Hear from all ports their vollied thunders roar;
+From Boston heights their bloody standards play,
+O'er long Champlain they lead their northern way,
+Virginian banks behold their streamers glide,
+And hostile navies load each southern tide.
+Beneath their steps your towns in ashes lie,
+Your inland empires feast their greedy eye;
+Soon shall your fields to lordly parks be turn'd,
+Your children butcher'd and your villas burn'd;
+While following millions, thro the reign of time.
+Who claim their birth in this indulgent clime,
+Bend the weak knee, to servile toils consigned,
+And sloth and slavery still degrade mankind.
+Rise then to war, to timely vengeance rise,
+Ere the gray sire, the helpless infant dies;
+Look thro the world, see endless years descend,
+What realms, what ages on your arms depend!
+Reverse the fate, avenge the insulted sky,
+Move to the work; we conquer or we die.
+
+So spoke Columbia's chief; his guiding hand
+Points out their march to every ardent band,
+Assigns to each brave leader, as they claim,
+His test of valor and his task of fame.
+With his young host Montgomery first moves forth,
+To crush the vast invasion of the north;
+O'er streams and lakes their flags far onward play,
+Navies and forts surrendering mark their way;
+Rocks, fens and deserts thwart the paths they go,
+And hills before them lose their crags in snow.
+Loud Laurence, clogg'd with ice, indignant feels
+Their sleet-clad oars, choked helms and crusted keels;
+They buffet long his tides; when rise in sight
+Quebec's dread walls, and Wolfe's unclouded height
+Already there a few brave patriots stood,
+Worn down with toil, by famine half subdued;
+Untrench'd before the town, they dare oppose
+Their fielded cohorts to the forted foes.
+Ah gallant troop! deprived of half the praise
+That deeds like yours in other times repays,
+Since your prime chief (the favorite erst of fame)
+Hath sunk so deep his hateful, hideous name,
+That every honest Muse with horror flings
+The name unsounded from her sacred strings;
+Else what high tones of rapture must have told
+The first great action of a chief so bold!
+Twas his, twas yours, to brave unusual storms,
+To tame rude nature in her drearest forms;
+Foodless and guideless, thro that waste of earth,
+You march'd long months; and, sore reduced by dearth,
+Reach'd the proud capital, too feeble far
+To tempt unaided such a task of war;
+Till now Montgomery's host, with hopes elate,
+Joins your scant powers, to try the test of fate.
+
+With skilful glance he views the fortress round.
+Bristled with pikes, with dark artillery crown'd;
+Resolves with naked steel to scale the towers,
+And snatch a realm from Britain's hostile powers.
+Now drear December's boreal blasts arise,
+A roaring hailstorm sweeps the shuddering skies,
+Night with condensing horror mantles all,
+And trembling watch-lights glimmer from the wall.
+From bombs o'erarching, fusing, bursting high,
+The glare scarce wanders thro the loaded sky;
+And in the louder shock of meteors drown'd,
+The accustom'd ear in vain expects the sound.
+
+He points the assault; and, thro the howling air,
+O'er rocky ramparts leads audacious war.
+Swift rise the rapid files; the walls are red
+With flashing flames, that show the piles of dead;
+Till back recoiling from the ranks of slain,
+They leave their leader with a feeble train,
+Begirt with foes within the sounding wall,
+Who thick beneath his single falchion fall.
+But short the conflict; others hemm'd him round,
+And brave Montgomery prest the gory ground.
+A second Wolfe Columbus here beheld,
+In youthful charms, a soul undaunted yield;
+Forlorn, o'erpower'd, his hardy host remains,
+Stretch'd by his side, or led in captive chains.
+Macpherson, Cheesman share their general's doom;
+Meigs, Morgan, Dearborn, planning deeds to come,
+Resign impatient prisoners; soon to wield
+Their happier swords in many a broader field.
+
+Triumphant to Newyork's ill forted post
+Britannia turns her vast amphibious host,
+That seas and storms, obedient to her hand,
+Heave and discharge on every distant land;
+Fleets, floating batteries shake Manhattan's shore,
+And Hellgate rocks reverberate the roar.
+Swift o'er the shuddering isles that line the bay
+The red flags wave, and battering engines play;
+Howe leads aland the interminable train,
+While his bold brother still bestorms the main,
+Great Albion's double pride; both famed afar
+On each vext element, each world of war;
+Where British rapine follows peaceful toil,
+And murders nations but to seize their spoil.
+
+Wide sweep the veteran myriads o'er the strand,
+Outnumbering thrice the raw colonial band;
+Flatbush and Harlem sink beneath their fires,
+Brave Stirling yields, and Sullivan retires.
+In vain sage Washington, from hill to hill,
+Plays round his foes with more than Fabian skill,
+Retreats, advances, lures them to his snare,
+To balance numbers by the shifts of war.
+For not their swords alone, but fell disease
+Thins his chill camp and chokes the neighboring seas.
+The baleful malady, from Syrius sent,
+floats in each breeze, impesting every tent,
+Strikes the young soldier with the morning ray,
+And lays him lifeless ere the close of day,
+Far from his father's house, his mother's care,
+And all the charities that nursed him there.
+
+Damp'd is the native rage that first impell'd
+The insulted colons to the battling field;
+When first their high-soul'd sentiment of right
+And full-vein'd vigor nerved their arm to fight.
+For stript of health, benumb'd thy vital flood,
+Thy muscles lax'd and decomposed thy blood,
+What is thy courage, man? a foodless flame,
+A light unseen, a soul without a frame.
+
+Each day the decimated ranks forgo
+Their dying comrades to repulse the foe,
+And each damp night, along the slippery trench,
+Breathe at their post the suffocating stench;
+They sink by hundreds on the vapory soil,
+Till a new fight relieves their deadlier toil.
+At last from fruitless combat, sore defeat,
+To Croton hills they lead a long retreat;
+Pale, curbed, exanimate, in dull despair,
+Train the scant relics of the twofold war:
+The sword, the pestilence press hard behind;
+The body both assail, and one beats down the mind.
+
+
+
+
+Book VI.
+
+
+
+Argument.
+
+
+    British cruelty to American prisoners. Prison Ship. Retreat of
+    Washington with the relics of his army, pursued by Howe. Washington
+    recrossing the Delaware in the night, to surprise the British van, is
+    opposed by uncommon obstacles. His success in this audacious enterprise
+    lays the foundation of the American empire. A monument to be ere
+    on the bank of the Delaware. Approach of Burgoyne, sailing up the St.
+    Laurence with an army of Britons and various other nations. Indignant
+    energy of the colonies, compared to that of Greece in opposing the
+    invasion of Xerxes. Formation of an army of citizens, under the command
+    of Gates. Review of the American and British armies, and of the savage
+    tribes who join the British standard. Battle of Saratoga. Story of
+    Lucinda. Second battle, and capture of Burgoyne and his army.
+
+
+But of all tales that war's black annals hold,
+The darkest, foulest still remains untold;
+New modes of torture wait the shameful strife,
+And Britain wantons in the waste of life.
+
+Cold-blooded Cruelty, first fiend of hell,
+Ah think no more with savage hordes to dwell;
+Quit the Caribian tribes who eat their slain,
+Fly that grim gang, the Inquisitors of Spain,
+Boast not thy deeds in Moloch's shrines of old,
+Leave Barbary's pirates to their blood-bought gold,
+Let Holland steal her victims, force them o'er
+To toils and death on Java's morbid shore;
+Some cloak, some color all these crimes may plead;
+Tis avarice, passion, blind religion's deed;
+But Britons here, in this fraternal broil,
+Grave, cool, deliberate in thy service toil.
+Far from the nation's eye, whose nobler soul
+Their wars would humanize, their pride control,
+They lose the lessons that her laws impart,
+And change the British for the brutal heart.
+Fired by no passion, madden'd by no zeal,
+No priest, no Plutus bids them not to feel;
+Unpaid, gratuitous, on torture bent,
+Their sport is death, their pastime to torment;
+All other gods they scorn, but bow the knee,
+And curb, well pleased, O Cruelty, to thee.
+
+Come then, curst goddess, where thy votaries reign,
+Inhale their incense from the land and main;
+Come to Newyork, their conquering arms to greet,
+Brood o'er their camp and breathe along their fleet;
+The brother chiefs of Howe's illustrious name
+Demand thy labors to complete their fame.
+What shrieks of agony thy praises sound!
+What grateless dungeons groan beneath the ground!
+See the black Prison Ship's expanding womb
+Impested thousands, quick and dead, entomb.
+Barks after barks the captured seamen bear,
+Transboard and lodge thy silent victims there;
+A hundred scows, from all the neighboring shore,
+Spread the dull sail and ply the constant oar,
+Waft wrecks of armies from the well fought field,
+And famisht garrisons who bravely yield;
+They mount the hulk, and, cramm'd within the cave,
+Hail their last house, their living, floating grave.
+
+She comes, the Fiend! her grinning jaws expand,
+Her brazen eyes cast lightning o'er the strand,
+Her wings like thunder-clouds the welkin sweep,
+Brush the tall spires and shade the shuddering deep;
+She gains the deck, displays her wonted store,
+Her cords and scourges wet with prisoners' gore;
+Gripes, pincers, thumb-screws spread beneath her feet,
+Slow poisonous drugs and loads of putrid meat;
+Disease hangs drizzling from her slimy locks,
+And hot contagion issues from her box.
+
+O'er the closed hatches ere she takes her place,
+She moves the massy planks a little space,
+Opes a small passage to the cries below,
+That feast her soul on messages of woe;
+There sits with gaping ear and changeless eye,
+Drinks every groan and treasures every sigh,
+Sustains the faint, their miseries to prolong,
+Revives the dying and unnerves the strong.
+
+But as the infected mass resign their breath.
+She keeps with joy the register of death.
+As tost thro portholes from the encumber'd cave,
+Corpse after corpse fall dashing in the wave;
+Corpse after corpse, for days and months and years,
+The tide bears off, and still its current clears;
+At last, o'erloaded with the putrid gore,
+The slime-clad waters thicken round the shore.
+Green Ocean's self, that oft his wave renews,
+That drinks whole fleets with all their battling crews,
+That laves, that purifies the earth and sky,
+Yet ne'er before resign'd his natural dye,
+Here purples, blushes for the race he bore
+To rob and ravage this unconquer'd shore;
+The scaly nations, as they travel by,
+Catch the contagion, sicken, gasp and die.
+
+Now Hesper turns the Hero's tearful eye
+To other fields where other standards fly;
+For here constrain'd new warfare to disclose,
+And show the feats of more than mortal foes,
+Where interposing with celestial might,
+His own dread labors must decide the fight,
+He bids the scene with pomp unusual rise,
+To teach Columbus how to read the skies.
+
+He marks the trace of Howe's triumphant course,
+And wheels o'er Jersey plains his gathering force;
+Where dauntless Washington, begirt with foes,
+Still greater rises as the danger grows,
+And wearied troops, o'er kindred warriors slain,
+Attend his march thro many a sanguine plain.
+
+From Hudson's bank to Trenton's wintry strand,
+He guards in firm retreat his feeble band;
+Britons by thousands on his flanks advance,
+Bend o'er his rear and point the lifted lance.
+Past Delaware's frozen stream, with scanty force,
+He checks retreat; then turning back his course,
+Remounts the wave, and thro the mingled roar
+Of ice and storm reseeks the hostile shore,
+Wrapt in the gloom of night. The offended Flood
+Starts from his cave, assumes the indignant god,
+Rears thro the parting tide his foamy form,
+And with his fiery eyeballs lights the storm.
+He stares around him on the host he heard,
+Clears his choked urn and smooths his icy beard,
+And thus: Audacious chief, this troubled wave
+Tempt not; or tempting, here shall gape thy grave.
+Is nothing sacred to thy venturous might?
+The howling storm, the holy truce of night,
+High tossing ice-isles crashing round thy side,
+Insidious rocks that pierce the tumbling tide?
+Fear then this forceful arm, and hear once more,
+Death stands between thee and that shelvy shore.
+
+The chief beholds the god, and notes his cry,
+But onward drives, nor pauses to reply;
+Calls to each bark, and spirits every host
+To toil, gain, tempt the interdicted coast.
+The crews, regardless of the doubling roar,
+Breast the strong helm, and wrestle with the oar,
+Stem with resurgent prow the struggling spray,
+And with phosphoric lanterns shape their way.
+
+The god perceived his warning words were vain,
+And rose more furious to assert his reign,
+Lash'd up a loftier surge, and heaved on high
+A ridge of billows that obstruct the sky;
+And, as the accumulated mass he rolls,
+Bares the sharp rocks and lifts the gaping shoals.
+Forward the fearless barges plunge and bound,
+Top the curl'd wave, or grind the flinty ground,
+Careen, whirl, right, and sidelong dasht and tost,
+Now seem to reach and now to lose the coast.
+
+Still unsubdued the sea-drench'd army toils,
+Each buoyant skiff the flouncing godhead foils;
+He raves and roars, and in delirious woe
+Calls to his aid his ancient hoary foe,
+Almighty Frost; when thus the vanquish'd Flood
+Bespeaks in haste the great earth-rending god:
+Father of storms! behold this mortal race
+Confound my force and brave me to my face.
+Not all my waves by all my tempests driven,
+Nor black night brooding o'er the starless heaven,
+Can check their course; they toss and plunge amain,
+And lo, my guardian rocks project their points in vain.
+
+Come to my help, and with thy stiffening breath
+Clog their strain'd helms, distend their limbs indeath.
+Tho ancient enmity our realms divide,
+And oft thy chains arrest my laboring tide,
+Let strong necessity our cause combine,
+Thy own disgrace anticipate in mine;
+Even now their oars thy sleet in vain congeals,
+Thy crumbling ice-cakes crash beneath their keels;
+Their impious arms already cope with ours,
+And mortal man defies immortal Powers.
+
+Roused at the call, the Monarch mounts the storm;
+In muriat flakes he robes his nitrous form,
+Glares thro the compound, all its blast inhales,
+And seas turn crystal where he breathes his gales.
+He comes careering o'er his bleak domain,
+But comes untended by his usual train;
+Hail, sleet and snow-rack far behind him fly,
+Too weak to wade thro this petrific sky,
+Whose air consolidates and cuts and stings,
+And shakes hoar tinsel from its flickering wings.
+Earth heaves and cracks beneath the alighting god;
+He gains the pass, bestrides the roaring flood,
+Shoots from his nostrils one wide withering sheet
+Of treasured meteors on the struggling fleet;
+The waves conglaciate instant, fix in air,
+Stand like a ridge of rocks, and shiver there.
+The barks, confounded in their headlong surge,
+Or wedged in crystal, cease their oars to urge;
+Some with prone prow, as plunging down the deep,
+And some remounting o'er the slippery steep
+Seem laboring still, but moveless, lifeless all;
+And the chill'd army here awaits its fall.
+
+But Hesper, guardian of Hesperia's right,
+From his far heaven looks thro the rayless night;
+And, stung to vengeance at the unequal strife,
+To save her host, in jeopardy of life,
+Starts from his throne, ascends his flamy car.
+And turns tremendous to the field of war.
+His wheels, resurging from the depth of even,
+Roll back the night, streak wide the startled heaven,
+Regain their easting with reverted gyres,
+And stud their path with scintillating fires.
+He cleaves the clouds; and, swift as beams of day,
+O'er California sweeps his splendid way;
+Missouri's mountains at his passage nod,
+And now sad Delaware feels the present god,
+And trembles at his tread. For here to fight
+Rush two dread Powers of such unmeasured might,
+As threats to annihilate his doubtful reign,
+Convulse the heaven and mingle earth and main.
+
+Frost views his brilliant foe with scornful eye,
+And whirls a tenfold tempest thro the sky;
+Where each fine atom of the immense of air,
+Steel'd, pointed, barb'd for unexampled war,
+Sings o'er the shuddering ground; when thus he broke
+Contemptuous silence, and to Hesper spoke:
+Thou comest in time to share their last disgrace,
+To change to crystal with thy rebel race,
+Stretch thy huge corse o'er Delaware's bank afar,
+And learn the force of elemental war.
+Or if undying life thy lamp inspire,
+Take that one blast and to thy sky retire;
+There, roll'd eternal round the heavens, proclaim
+Thy own disaster and my deathless fame.
+
+I come, said Hesper, not to insult the brave,
+But break thy sceptre and let loose my wave,
+Teach the proud Stream more peaceful tides to roll,
+And send thee howling to thy stormy pole;
+That drear dominion shall thy rage confine;
+This land, these waters and those troops are mine.
+
+He added not; and now the sable storm,
+Pierced by strong splendor, burst before his form;
+His visage stern an awful lustre shed,
+His pearly planet play'd around his head.
+He seized a lofty pine, whose roots of yore
+Struck deep in earth, to guard the sandy shore
+From hostile ravage of the mining tide,
+That rakes with spoils of earth its crumbling side.
+He wrencht it from the soil, and o'er the foe
+Whirl'd the strong trunk, and aim'd a sweeping blow,
+That sung thro air, but miss'd the moving god,
+And fell wide crashing on the frozen flood.
+For many a rood the shivering ice it tore,
+Loosed every bark and shook the sounding shore;
+Stroke after stroke with doubling force he plied,
+Foil'd the hoar Fiend and pulverized the tide.
+The baffled tyrant quits the desperate cause;
+From Hesper's heat the river swells and thaws,
+The fleet rolls gently to the Jersey coast,
+And morning splendors greet the landing host.
+
+Tis here dread Washington, when first the day
+O'er Trenton beam'd to light his rapid way,
+Pour'd the rude shock on Britain's vanguard train,
+And led whole squadrons in his captive chain;
+Where veteran troops to half their numbers yield,
+Tread back their steps, or press the sanguine field,
+To Princeton plains precipitate their flight,
+Thro new disasters and unfinish'd fight,
+Resign their conquests by one sad surprise,
+Sink in their pride and see their rivals rise.
+
+Here dawn'd the daystar of Hesperia's fame,
+Here herald glory first emblazed her name;
+On Delaware's bank her base of empire stands,
+The work of Washington's immortal hands;
+Prompt at his side while gallant Mercer trod,
+And seal'd the firm foundation with his blood.
+
+In future years, if right the Muse divine,
+Some great memorial on this bank shall shine;
+A column bold its granite shaft shall rear,
+Swell o'er the strand and check the passing air,
+Cast its broad image on the watery glade,
+And Bristol greet the monumental shade;
+Eternal emblem of that gloomy hour,
+When the great general left her storm-beat shore,
+To tempest, night and his own sword consign'd
+His country's fates, the fortunes of mankind.
+
+Where sealike Laurence, rolling in his pride,
+With Ocean's self disputes the tossing tide,
+From shore to shore, thro dim distending skies,
+Beneath full sails imbanded nations rise.
+Britain and Brunswick here their flags unfold,
+Here Hessia's hordes, for toils of slaughter sold,
+Anspach and Darmstadt swell the hireling train,
+Proud Caledonia crowds the masted main,
+Hibernian kerns and Hanoverian slaves
+Move o'er the decks and darken wide the waves.
+
+Tall on the boldest bark superior shone
+A warrior ensign'd with a various crown;
+Myrtles and laurels equal honors join'd,
+Which arms had purchased and the Muses twined;
+His sword waved forward, and his ardent eye
+Seem'd sharing empires in the southern sky.
+Beside him rose a herald to proclaim
+His various honors, titles, feats and fame;
+Who raised an opening scroll, where proudly shone
+_Burgoyne and vengeance from the British throne._
+
+Champlain receives the congregated host,
+And his husht waves beneath the sails are lost;
+Ticonderoga rears his rocks in vain,
+Nor Edward's walls the weighty shock sustain;
+Deep George's loaded lake reluctant guides
+Their bounding barges o'er his sacred tides.
+State after state the splendid pomp appalls,
+Each town surrenders, every fortress falls;
+Sinclair retires; and with his feeble train,
+In slow retreat o'er many a fatal plain,
+Allures their march; wide moves their furious force,
+And flaming hamlets mark their wasting course;
+Thro fortless realms their spreading ranks are wheel'd,
+On Mohawk's wrestern wave, on Bennington's dread field.
+
+At last where Hudson, with majestic pace,
+Swells at the sight, and checks his rapid race,
+Thro dark Stillwater slow and silent moves,
+And flying troops with sullen pause reproves,
+A few firm bands their starry standard rear,
+Wheel, front and face the desolating war.
+Sudden the patriot flame each province warms,
+Deep danger calls, the freemen quit their farms,
+Seize their tried muskets, name their chiefs to lead,
+Endorse their knapsacks and to vengeance speed.
+O'er all the land the kindling ardor flies,
+Troop follows troop, and flags on flags arise,
+Concentred, train'd, their forming files unite,
+Swell into squadrons and demand the fight.
+
+When Xerxes, raving at his sire's disgrace,
+Pour'd his dark millions on the coast of Thrace,
+O'er groaning Hellespont his broad bridge hurl'd,
+Hew'd ponderous Athos from the trembling world,
+Still'd with his weight of ships the struggling main,
+And bound the billows in his boasted chain,
+Wide o'er proud Macedon he wheel'd his course,
+Thrace, Thebes, Thessalia join'd his furious force.
+Thro six torn states his hovering swarms increase,
+And hang tremendous on the skirts of Greece;
+Deep groan the shrines of all her guardian gods,
+Sad Pelion shakes, divine Olympus nods,
+Shock'd Ossa sheds his hundred hills of snow,
+And Tempe swells her murmuring brook below;
+Wild in her starts of rage the Pythian shrieks,
+Dodona's Oak the pangs of nature speaks,
+Eleusis quakes thro all her mystic caves,
+And black Trophonius gapes a thousand graves.
+But soon the freeborn Greeks to vengeance rise,
+Brave Sparta springs where first the danger lies,
+Her self-devoted Band, in one steel'd mass,
+Plunge in the gorge of death, and choke the Pass,
+Athenian youths, the unwieldy war to meet,
+Couch the stiff lance, or mount the well arm'd fleet;
+They sweep the incumber'd seas of their vast load,
+And fat their fields with lakes of Asian blood.
+
+So leapt our youths to meet the invading hordes,
+Fame fired their courage, freedom edged their swords.
+Gates in their van on high-hill'd Bemus rose,
+Waved his blue steel and dared the headlong foes;
+Undaunted Lincoln, laboring on his right,
+Urged every arm, and gave them hearts to fight;
+Starke, at the dexter flank, the onset claims,
+Indignant Herkimer the left inflames;
+He bounds exulting to commence the strife.
+And buy the victory with his barter'd life.
+
+And why, sweet Minstrel, from the harp of fame
+Withhold so long that once resounding name?
+The chief who, steering by the boreal star,
+O'er wild Canadia led our infant war,
+In desperate straits superior powers display'd,
+Burgoyne's dread scourge, Montgomery's ablest aid;
+Ridgefield and Compo saw his valorous might
+With ill-arm'd swains put veteran troops to flight.
+Tho treason foul hath since absorb'd his soul,
+Bade waves of dark oblivion round him roll,
+Sunk his proud heart abhorrent and abhorr'd,
+Effaced his memory and defiled his sword;
+Yet then untarnisht roll'd his conquering car;
+Then famed and foremost in the ranks of war
+Brave Arnold trod; high valor warm'd his breast,
+And beams of glory play'd around his crest.
+Here toils the chief; whole armies from his eye
+Resume their souls, and swift to combat fly.
+
+Camp'd on a hundred hills, and trench'd in form,
+Burgoyne's long legions view the gathering storm;
+Uncounted nations round their general stand,
+And wait the signal from his guiding hand.
+Canadia crowds her Gallic colons there,
+Ontario's yelling tribes torment the air,
+Wild Huron sends his lurking hordes from far,
+Insidious Mohawk swells the woodland war;
+Scalpers and ax-men rush from Erie's shore,
+And Iroquois augments the war whoop roar;
+While all his ancient troops his train supply,
+Half Europe's banners waving thro the sky;
+Deep squadron'd horse support his endless flanks,
+And park'd artillery frowns behind the ranks.
+Flush'd with the conquest of a thousand fields,
+And rich with spoils that all the region yields,
+They burn with zeal to close the long campaign,
+And crush Columbia on this final plain.
+
+His fellow chiefs inhale the hero's flame,
+Nerves of his arm and partners in his fame:
+Phillips, with treasured thunders poised and wheel'd
+In brazen tubes, prepares to rake the field;
+The trench-tops darken with the sable rows,
+And, tipt with fire, the waving match-rope glows.
+There gallant Reidesel in German guise,
+And Specht and Breyman, prompt for action, rise;
+His savage hordes the murderous Johnson leads,
+Files thro the woods and treads the tangled weeds,
+Shuns open combat, teaches where to run,
+Skulk, couch the ambush, aim the hunter's gun,
+Whirl the sly tomahawk, the war whoop sing,
+Divide the spoils and pack the scalps they bring.
+
+Frazer in quest of glory seeks the field;--
+False glare of glory, what hast thou to yield?
+How long, deluding phantom, wilt thou blind,
+Mislead, debase, unhumanize mankind?
+Bid the bold youth, his headlong sword who draws,
+Heed not the object, nor inquire the cause;
+But seek adventuring, like an errant knight,
+Wars not his own, gratuitous in fight,
+Greet the gored field, then plunging thro the fire,
+Mow down his men, with stupid pride expire,
+Shed from his closing eyes the finish'd flame,
+And ask, for all his crimes, a deathless name?
+And when shall solid glory, pure and bright,
+Alone inspire us, and our deeds requite?
+When shall the applause of men their chiefs pursue
+In just proportion to the good they do,
+On virtue's base erect the shrine of fame,
+Define her empire, and her code proclaim?
+
+Unhappy Frazer! little hast thou weigh'd
+The crirneful cause thy valor comes to aid.
+Far from thy native land, thy sire, thy wife,
+Love's lisping race that cling about thy life,
+Thy soul beats high, thy thoughts expanding roam
+On battles past, and laurels yet to come:
+Alas, what laurels? where the lasting gain?
+A pompous funeral on a desert plain!
+The cannon's roar, the muffled drums proclaim,
+In one short blast, thy momentary fame,
+And some war minister per-hazard reads
+In what far field the tool of placemen bleeds.
+
+Brave Heartly strode in youth's o'erweening pride;
+Housed in the camp he left his blooming bride,
+The sweet Lucinda; whom her sire from far,
+On steeds high bounding o'er the waste of war,
+Had guided thro the lines, and hither led,
+That fateful morn, the plighted chief to wed.
+He deem'd, deluded sire! the contest o'er,
+That routed rebels dared the fight no more;
+And came to mingle, as the tumult ceased,
+The victor's triumph with the nuptial feast.
+They reach'd his tent; when now with loud alarms
+The morn burst forth and roused the camp to arms;
+Conflicting passions seized the lover's breast,
+Bright honor call'd, and bright Lucinda prest:--
+And wilt thou leave me for that clangorous call?
+Traced I these deserts but to see thee fall?
+I know thy valorous heart, thy zeal that speeds
+Where dangers press and boldest battle bleeds.
+My father said blest Hymen here should join
+With sacred Love to make Lucinda thine;
+But other union these dire drums foredoom,
+The dark dead union of the eternal tomb.
+On yonder plain, soon sheeted o'er with blood,
+Our nuptial couch shall prove a crimson clod;
+For there this night thy livid corse must lie,
+I'll seek it there, and on that bosom die.
+Yet go; tis duty calls; but o'er thy head
+Let this white plume its floating foliage spread;
+That from the rampart, thro the troubled air,
+These eyes may trace thee toiling in the war.
+She fixt the feather on his crest above,
+Bound with the mystic knot, the knot of love;
+He parted silent, but in silent prayer
+Bade Love and Hymen guard the timorous fair.
+
+Where Saratoga show'd her champaign side,
+That Hudson bathed with still untainted tide,
+The opposing pickets push'd their scouting files,
+Wheel'd skirmisht, halted, practised all their wiles;
+Each to mislead, insnare, exhaust their foes,
+And court the conquest ere the armies close.
+
+Now roll like winged storms the solid lines,
+The clarion thunders and the battle joins,
+Thick flames in vollied flashes load the air,
+And echoing mountains give the noise of war;
+Sulphureous clouds rise reddening round the height,
+And veil the skies, and wrap the sounding fight.
+Soon from the skirts of smoke, where thousands toil,
+Ranks roll away and into light recoil;
+Starke pours upon them in a storm of lead;
+His hosted swains bestrew the field with dead,
+Pierce with strong bayonets the German reins,
+Whelm two battalions in their captive chains,
+Bid Baum, with wounds enfeebled, quit the field,
+And Breyman next his gushing lifeblood yield.
+
+This Frazer sees, and thither turns his course,
+Bears down before them with Britannia's force,
+Wheels a broad column on the victor flank,
+And springs to vengeance thro the foremost rank.
+Lincoln, to meet the hero, sweeps the plain;
+His ready bands the laboring Starke sustain;
+Host matching host, the doubtful battle burns,
+And now the Britons, now their foes by turns
+Regain the ground; till Frazer feels the force
+Of a rude grapeshot in his flouncing horse;
+Nor knew the chief, till struggling from the fall,
+That his gored thigh had first received the ball.
+He sinks expiring on the slippery soil;
+Shock'd at the sight, his baffled troops recoil;
+Where Lincoln, pressing with redoubled might,
+Broke thro their squadrons and confirmed the flight;
+When this brave leader met a stunning blow,
+That stopt his progress and avenged the foe.
+He left the field; but prodigal of life,
+Unwearied Francis still prolong'd the strife;
+Till a chance carabine attained his head,
+And stretch'd the hero mid the vulgar dead.
+His near companions rush with ardent gait,
+Swift to revenge, but soon to share his fate;
+Brown, Adams, Coburn, falling side by side,
+Drench the chill sod with all their vital tide.
+
+Firm on the west bold Herkimer sustains
+The gather'd shock of all Canadia's trains;
+Colons and wildmen post their skulkers there,
+Outflank his pickets and assail his rear,
+Drive in his distant scouts with hideous blare,
+And press, on three sides close, the hovering war.
+Johnson's own shrieks commence the deafening din,
+Rouse every ambush and the storm begin.
+A thousand thickets, thro each opening glen,
+Pour forth their hunters to the chase of men;
+Trunks of huge trees, and rocks and ravines lend
+Unnumber'd batteries and their files defend;
+They fire, they squat, they rise, advance and fly,
+And yells and groans alternate rend the sky.
+The well aim'd hatchet cleaves the helmless head,
+Mute showers of arrows and loud storms of lead
+Rain thick from hands unseen, and sudden fling
+A deep confusion thro the laboring wing.
+
+But Herkimer undaunted quits the stand,
+Breaks in loose files his disencumbered band,
+Wheels on the howling glens each light-arm'd troop,
+And leads himself where Johnson tones his whoop,
+Pours thro his copse a well directed fire;
+The semisavage sees his tribes retire,
+Then follows thro the brush in full horse speed,
+And gains the hilltop where the Hurons lead;
+Here turns his courser; when a grateful sight
+Recals his stragglers, and restrains his flight.
+For Herkimer no longer now sustains
+The loss of blood that his faint vitals drains:
+A ball had pierced him ere he changed his field;
+The slow sure death his prudence had conceal'd,
+Till dark derouted foes should yield to flight,
+And his firm friends could finish well the fight.
+
+Lopt from his horse the hero sinks at last;
+The Hurons ken him, and with hallooing blast
+Shake the vast wilderness; the tribes around
+Drink with broad ears and swell the rending sound,
+Rush back to vengeance with tempestuous might,
+Sweep the long slopes from every neighboring height,
+Full on their check'd pursuers; who regain,
+From all their woods, the first contested plain.
+Here open fight begins; and sure defeat
+Had forced that column to a swift retreat,
+But Arnold, toiling thro the distant smoke,
+Beheld their plight, a small detachment took,
+Bore down behind them with his field-park loud,
+And hail'd his grapeshot thro the savage crowd;
+Strow'd every copse with dead, and chased afar
+The affrighted relics from the skirts of war.
+
+But on the centre swells the heaviest charge,
+The squares develop and the lines enlarge.
+Here Kosciusko's mantling works conceal'd
+His batteries mute, but soon to scour the field;
+Morgan with all his marksmen flanks the foe,
+Hull, Brooks and Courtlandt in the vanguard glow;
+Here gallant Dearborn leads his light-arm'd train,
+Here Scammel towers, here Silly shakes the plain.
+
+Gates guides the onset with his waving brand,
+Assigns their task to each unfolding band,
+Sustains, inspirits, prompts the warrior's rage,
+Now bids the flank and now the front engage,
+Points the stern riflers where their slugs to pour,
+And tells the unmasking batteries when to roar.
+For here impetuous Powell wheels and veers
+His royal guards, his British grenadiers;
+His Highland broadswords cut their wasting course,
+His horse-artillery whirls its furious force.
+Here Specht and Reidesel to battle bring
+Their scattering yagers from each folding wing;
+And here, concentred in tremendous might,
+Britain's whole park, descending to the fight,
+Roars thro the ranks; tis Phillips leads the train,
+And toils and thunders o'er the shuddering plain.
+
+Burgoyne, secure of victory, from his height,
+Eyes the whole field and orders all the fight,
+Marks where his veterans plunge their fiercest fire,
+And where his foes seem halting to retire,
+Already sees the starry staff give way.
+And British ensigns gaining on the day;
+When from the western wing, in steely glare,
+All-conquering Arnold surged the tide of war.
+Columbia kindles as her hero comes;
+Her trump's shrill clangor and her deafening drums
+Redoubling sound the charge; they rage, they burn,
+And hosted Europe trembles in her turn.
+So when Pelides' absence check'd her fate,
+All Ilion issued from her guardian gate;
+Her huddling squadrons like a tempest pour'd,
+Each man a hero and each dart a sword,
+Full on retiring Greece tumultuous fall,
+And Greece reluctant seeks her sheltering wall;
+But Pelius' son rebounding o'er the plain,
+Troy backward starts and seeks her towers again.
+
+Arnold's dread falchion, with terrific sway,
+Rolls on the ranks and rules the doubtful day,
+Confounds with one wide sweep the astonish'd foes,
+And bids at last the scene of slaughter close.
+Pale rout begins, Britannia's broken train
+Tread back their steps and scatter from the plain,
+To their strong camp precipitate retire,
+And wide behind them streams the roaring fire.
+
+Meantime, the skirts of war as Johnson gored,
+His kindred cannibals desert their lord;
+They scour the waste for undistinguish'd prey,
+Howl thro the night the horrors of the day,
+Scalp every straggler from all parties stray'd,
+Each wounded wanderer thro the moonlight glade;
+And while the absent armies give them place,
+Each camp they plunder and each world disgrace.
+
+One deed shall tell what fame great Albion draws
+From these auxiliars in her barbarous cause,
+Lucinda's fate; the tale, ye nations, hear;
+Eternal ages, trace it with a tear.
+Long from the rampart, thro the imbattled field,
+She spied her Heartly where his column wheel'd,
+Traced him with steadfast eye and tortured breast,
+That heaved in concert with his dancing crest;
+And oft, with head advanced and hand outspread,
+Seem'd from her Love to ward the flying lead;
+Till, dimm'd by distance and the gathering cloud;
+At last he vanish'd in the warrior crowd.
+She thought he fell; and wild with fearless air,
+She left the camp to brave the woodland war,
+Made a long circuit, all her friends to shun,
+And wander'd wide beneath the falling sun;
+Then veering to the field, the pickets past,
+To gain the hillock where she miss'd him last.
+Fond maid, he rests not there; from finish'd fight
+He sought the camp, and closed the rear of flight.
+
+He hurries to his tent;--oh rage! despair!
+No glimpse, no tidings of the frantic fair;
+Save that some carmen, as acamp they drove,
+Had seen her coursing for the western grove.
+Faint with fatigue and choked with burning thirst,
+Forth from his friends with bounding leap he burst,
+Vaults o'er the palisade with eyes on flame,
+And fills the welkin with Lucinda's name,
+Swift thro the wild wood paths phrenetic springs,--
+Lucind! Lucinda! thro the wild wood rings.
+All night he wanders; barking wolves alone
+And screaming night-birds answer to his moan;
+For war had roused them from their savage den;
+They scent the field, they snuff the walks of men.
+
+The fair one too, of every aid forlorn,
+Had raved and wander'd, till officipus morn
+Awaked the Mohawks from their short repose,
+To glean the plunder, ere their comrades rose.
+Two Mohawks met the maid,--historian, hold!--
+Poor Human Nature! must thy shame be told?
+Where then that proud preeminence of birth,
+Thy Moral Sense? the brightest boast of earth.
+Had but the tiger changed his heart for thine,
+Could rocks their bowels with that heart combine,
+Thy tear had gusht, thy hand relieved her pain,
+And led Lucinda to her lord again.
+
+She starts, with eyes upturn'd and fleeting breath,
+In their raised axes views her instant death,
+Spreads her white hands to heaven in frantic prayer,
+Then runs to grasp their knees, and crouches there.
+Her hair, half lost along the shrubs she past,
+Rolls in loose tangles round her lovely waist;
+Her kerchief torn betrays the globes of snow
+That heave responsive to her weight of woe.
+Does all this eloquence suspend the knife?
+Does no superior bribe contest her life?
+There does: the scalps by British gold are paid;
+A long-hair'd scalp adorns that heavenly head;
+Arid comes the sacred spoil from friend or foe,
+No marks distinguish, and no man can know.
+
+With calculating pause and demon grin,
+They seize her hands, and thro her face divine
+Drive the descending ax; the shriek she sent
+Attain'd her lover's ear; he thither bent
+With all the speed his wearied limbs could yield,
+Whirl'd his keen blade, and stretch'd upon the field
+The yelling fiends; who there disputing stood
+Her gory scalp, their horrid prize of blood.
+He sunk delirious on her lifeless clay,
+And past, in starts of sense, the dreadful day.
+
+Are these thy trophies, Carleton! these the swords
+Thy hand unsheath'd and gave the savage hordes,
+Thy boasted friends, by treaties brought from far,
+To aid thy master in his murderous war?
+
+But now Britannia's chief, with proud disdain
+Coop'd in his camp, demands the field again.
+Back to their fate his splendid host he drew,
+Swell'd high their rage, and led the charge anew;
+Again the batteries roar, the lightnings play,
+Again they fall, again they roll away;
+For now Columbia, with rebounding might,
+Foil'd quick their columns, but confined their flight.
+Her wings, like fierce tornados, gyring ran,
+Crusht their wide flanks and gain'd their flying van;
+Here Arnold charged; the hero storm'd and pour'd
+A thousand thunders where he turn'
+No pause, no parley; onward far he fray'd,
+Dispersed whole squadrons every bound he made,
+Broke thro their rampart, seized theircampand stores
+And pluck'd the standard from their broken towers.
+
+Aghast, confounded in the midway field,
+They drop their arms; the banded nations yield.
+When sad Burgoyne, in one disastrous day,
+Sees future crowns and former wreaths decay,
+His banners furl'd, his long battalions wheel'd
+To pile their muskets on the battle field;
+While two pacific armies shade one plain,
+The mighty victors and the captive train.
+
+
+
+
+Book VII.
+
+
+
+
+Argument.
+
+
+    Coast of France rises in vision. Louis, to humble the British power,
+    forms an alliance with the American states. This brings France, Spain
+    and Holland into the war, and rouses Hyder Ally to attack the English
+    in India. The vision returns to America, where the military operations
+    continue with various success. Battle of Monmouth. Storming of
+    Stonypoint by Wayne. Actions of Lincoln, and surrender of Charleston.
+    Movements of Cornwallis. Actions of Greene, and battle of Eutaw. French
+    army arrives, and joins the American. They march to besiege the English
+    army of Cornwallis in York and Gloster. Naval battle of Degrasse and
+    Graves. Two of their ships grappled and blown up. Progress of the
+    siege. A citadel mined and blown up. Capture of Cornwallis and his
+    army. Their banners furled and muskets piled on the field of battle.
+
+
+Thus view'd the Pair; when lo, in eastern skies,
+From glooms unfolding, Gallia's coasts arise.
+Bright o'er the scenes of state a golden throne,
+Instarr'd with gems and hung with purple, shone;
+Young Bourbon there in royal splendor sat,
+And fleets and moving armies round him wait.
+For now the contest, with increased alarms,
+Fill'd every court and roused the world to arms;
+As Hesper's hand, that light from darkness brings,
+And good to nations from the scourge of kings,
+In this dread hour bade broader beams unfold,
+And the new world illuminate the old.
+
+In Europe's realms a school of sages trace
+The expanding dawn that waits the Reasoning Race;
+On the bright Occident they fix their eyes,
+Thro glorious toils where struggling nations rise;
+Where each firm deed, each new illustrious name
+Calls into light a field of nobler fame:
+A field that feeds their hope, confirms the plan
+Of well poized freedom and the weal of man.
+They scheme, they theorize, expand their scope,
+Glance o'er Hesperia to her utmost cope;
+Where streams unknown for other oceans stray,
+Where suns unseen their waste of beams display,
+Where sires of unborn nations claim their birth,
+And ask their empires in those wilds of earth.
+While round all eastern climes, with painful eye,
+In slavery sunk they see the kingdoms lie,
+Whole states exhausted to enrich a throne,
+Their fruits untasted and their rights unknown;
+Thro tears of grief that speak the well taught mind,
+They hail the æra that relieves mankind.
+
+Of these the first, the Gallic sages stand,
+And urge their king to lift an aiding hand.
+The cause of humankind their souls inspired,
+Columbia's wrongs their indignation fired;
+To share her fateful deeds their counsel moved,
+To base in practice what in theme they proved:
+That no proud privilege from birth can spring,
+No right divine, nor compact form a king;
+That in the people dwells the sovereign sway,
+Who rule by proxy, by themselves obey;
+That virtues, talents are the test of awe,
+And Equal Rights the only source of law.
+Surrounding heroes wait the monarch's word,
+In foreign fields to draw the patriot sword,
+Prepared with joy to join those infant powers,
+Who build republics on the western shores.
+
+By honest guile the royal ear they bend,
+And lure him on, blest Freedom to defend;
+That, once recognised, once establisht there,
+The world might learn her profer'd boon to share.
+But artful arguments their plan disguise,
+Garb'd in the gloss that suits a monarch's eyes.
+By arms to humble Britain's haughty power,
+From her to sever that extended shore,
+Contents his utmost wish. For this he lends
+His powerful aid, and calls the opprest his friends.
+The league proposed, he lifts his arm to save,
+And speaks the borrow'd language of the brave:
+
+Ye states of France, and ye of rising name
+Who work those distant miracles of fame,
+Hear and attend; let heaven the witness bear,
+We wed the cause, we join the righteous war.
+Let leagues eternal bind each friendly land,
+Given by our voice, and stablisht by our hand;
+Let that brave people fix their infant sway,
+And spread their blessings with the bounds of day.
+Yet know, ye nations; hear, ye Powers above,
+Our purposed aid no views of conquest move;
+In that young world revives no ancient claim
+Of regions peopled by the Gallic name;
+Our envied bounds, already stretch'd afar,
+Nor ask the sword, nor fear encroaching war;
+But virtue, coping with the tyrant power
+That drenches earth in her best children's gore,
+With nature's foes bids former compact cease;
+We war reluctant, and our wish is peace;
+For man's whole race the sword of France we draw;
+Such is our will, and let our will be law.
+
+He spoke; his moving armies veil'd the plain,
+His fleets rode bounding on the western main;
+O'er lands and seas the loud applauses rung,
+And war and union dwelt on every tongue.
+
+The other Bourbon caught the splendid strain,
+To Gallia's arms he joins the powers of Spain;
+Their sails assemble; Crillon lifts the sword,
+Minorca bows and owns her ancient lord.
+But while dread Elliott shakes the Midland wave,
+They strive in vain the Calpian rock to brave.
+Batavia's states with equal speed prepare
+Thro western isles to meet the naval war;
+For Albion there rakes rude the tortured main,
+And foils the force of Holland, France and Spain.
+
+Where old Indostan still perfumes the skies,
+To furious strife his ardent myriads rise;
+Fierce Hyder there, unconquerably bold,
+Bids a new flag its horned moons unfold,
+Spreads o'er Carnatic kings his splendid force,
+And checks the Britons in their waiting course.
+
+Europe's pacific powers their counsels join,
+The laws of trade to settle and define.
+The imperial Moscovite around him draws
+Each Baltic state to join the righteous cause;
+Whose arm'd Neutrality the way prepares
+To check the ravages of future wars;
+Till by degrees the wasting sword shall cease,
+And commerce lead to universal peace.
+
+Thus all the ancient world with anxious eyes
+Enjoy the lights that gild Atlantic skies,
+Wake to new life, assume a borrow'd flame,
+Enlarge the lustre and partake the fame.
+So mounts of ice, that polar heavens invade,
+Tho piled unseen thro night's long wintry shade.
+When morn at last illumes their glaring throne,
+Give back the day and imitate the sun.
+
+But still Columbus, on his war-beat shore,
+Sees Albion's fleets her new battalions pour;
+The states unconquer'd still their terrors wield,
+And stain with mingled gore the embattled field.
+On Pennsylvania's various plains they move,
+And adverse armies equal slaughter prove;
+Columbia mourns her Nash in combat slain,
+Britons around him press the gory plain;
+Skirmish and cannonade and distant fire
+Each power diminish and each nation tire.
+Till Howe from fruitless toil demands repose,
+And leaves despairing in a land of foes
+His wearied host; who now, to reach their fleet,
+O'er Jersey hills commence their long retreat,
+Tread back the steps their chief had led before,
+And ask in vain the late abandon'd shore,
+Where Hudson meets, the main; for on their rear
+Columbia moves; and checks their swift career.
+
+But where green Monmouth lifts his grassy height,
+They halt, they face, they dare the coming fight.
+Howe's proud successor, Clinton, hosting there,
+To tempt once more the desperate chance of war,
+Towers at their head, in hopes to work relief,
+And mend the errors of his former chief.
+Here shines his day; and here with loud acclaim
+Begins and ends his little task of fame.
+He vaults before them with his balanced blade,
+Wheels the bright van, and forms the long parade;
+Where Britons, Hessians crowd the glittering field,
+And all their powers for ready combat wield.
+As the dim sun, beneath the skirts of even,
+Crimsons the clouds that sail the western heaven;
+So, in red wavy rows, where spread the train
+Of men and standards, shone the fateful plain.
+
+They shone, till Washington obscured their light,
+And his long ranks roll'd forward to the fight.
+He points the charge; the mounted thunders roar,
+And rake the champaign to the distant shore.
+Above the folds of smoke that veil the war,
+His guiding sword illumes the fields of air;
+And vollied flames, bright bursting o'er the plain,
+Break the brown clouds, discovering far the slain:
+Till flight begins; the smoke is roll'd away,
+And the red standards open into day.
+Britons and Germans hurry from the field,
+Now wrapt in dust, and now to sight reveal'd;
+Behind, swift Washington his falchion drives,
+Thins the pale ranks, but saves submissive lives.
+Hosts captive bow and move behind his arm,
+And hosts before him wing the sounding storm;
+When the glad sea salutes their fainting sight,
+And Albion's fleet wide thundering aids their flight;
+They steer to sad Newyork their hasty way,
+And rue the toils of Monmouth's mournful day.
+
+But Hudson still, with his interior tide,
+Laves a rude rock that bears Britannia's pride,
+Swells round the headland with indignant roar,
+And mocks her thunders from his murmuring shore;
+When a firm cohort starts from Peekskill plain,
+To crush the invaders and the post regain.
+Here, gallant Hull, again thy sword is tried,
+Meigs, Fleury, Butler, laboring side by side,
+Wayne takes the guidance, culls the vigorous band,
+Strikes out the flint, and bids the nervous hand
+Trust the mute bayonet and midnight skies,
+To stretch o'er craggy walls the dark surprise.
+With axes, handspikes on the shoulder hung,
+And the sly watchword whisper'd from the tongue,
+Thro different paths the silent march they take,
+Plunge, climb the ditch, the palisado break,
+Secure each sentinel, each picket shun,
+Grope the dim postern where the byways run.
+Soon the roused garrison perceives its plight;
+Small time to rally and no means of flight,
+They spring confused to every post they know,
+Point their poized cannon where they hear the foe,
+Streak the dark welkin with the flames they pour,
+And rock the mountain with convulsive roar.
+
+The swift assailants still no fire return,
+But, tow'rd the batteries that above them burn,
+Climb hard from crag to crag; and scaling higher
+They pierce the long dense canopy of fire
+That sheeted all the sky; then rush amain,
+Storm every outwork, each dread summit gain,
+Hew timber'd gates, the sullen drawbridge fall,
+File thro and form within the sounding wall.
+The Britons strike their flag, the fort forgo,
+Descend sad prisoners to the plain below.
+A thousand veterans, ere the morning rose,
+Received their handcuffs from five hundred foes;
+And Stonypoint beheld, with dawning day,
+His own starr'd standard on his rampart play.
+
+From sack'd Savanna, whelm'd in hostile fires,
+A few raw troops brave Lincoln now retires; 2l
+With rapid march to suffering Charleston goes,
+To meet the myriads of concentring foes,
+Who shade the pointed strand. Each fluvial flood
+Their gathering fleets and floating batteries load,
+Close their black sails, debark the amphibious host,
+And with their moony anchors fang the coast.
+
+The bold beleaguer'd post the hero gains,
+And the hard siege with various fate sustains.
+Cornwallis, towering at the British van,
+In these fierce toils his wild career began;
+He mounts the forky streams, and soon bestrides
+The narrow neck that parts converging tides,
+Sinks the deep trench, erects the mantling tower,
+Lines with strong forts the desolated shore,
+Hems on all sides the long unsuccour'd place,
+With mines and parallels contracts the space;
+Then bids the battering floats his labors crown,
+And pour their bombard on the shuddering town.
+
+High from the decks the mortar's bursting fires
+Sweep the full streets, and splinter down the spires.
+Blaze-trailing fuses vault the night's dim round,
+And shells and langrage lacerate the ground;
+Till all the tented plain, where heroes tread,
+Is torn with crags and cover'd with the dead.
+Each shower of flames renews the townsmen's woe,
+They wail the fight, they dread the cruel foe.
+Matrons in crowds, while tears bedew their charms,
+Babes at their sides and infants in their arms,
+Press round their Lincoln and his hand implore,
+To save them trembling from the tyrant's power.
+He shares their anguish with a moistening eye,
+And bids the balls rain thicker thro the sky;
+Tries every aid that art and valor yield,
+The sap, the countermine, the battling field,
+The bold sortie, by famine urged afar,
+That dreadful daughter of earth-wasting War.
+But vain the conflict now; on all the shore
+The foes in fresh brigades around him pour;
+He yields at last the well contested prize,
+And freedom's banners quit the southern skies.
+
+The victor Britons soon the champaign tread,
+And far anorth their fire and slaughter spread;
+Thro fortless realms, where unarm'd peasants fly,
+Cornwallis bears his bloody standard high;
+O'er Carolina rolls his growing force,
+And thousands fall and thousands aid his course;
+While in his march athwart the wide domain,
+Colonial dastards join his splendid train.
+So mountain streams thro slopes of melting snow
+Swell their foul waves and flood the world below.
+
+Awhile the Patriarch saw, with heaving sighs,
+These crimson flags insult the saddening skies,
+Saw desolation whelm his favorite coast,
+His children scattered and their vigor lost,
+Dekalb in furious combat press the plain,
+Morgan and Smallwood every shock sustain,
+Gates, now no more triumphant, quit the field,
+Indignant Davidson his lifeblood yield,
+Blount, Gregory, Williamson, with souls of fire
+But slender force, from hill to hill retire;
+When Greene in lonely greatness takes the ground,
+And bids at last the trump of vengeance sound.
+
+A few firm patriots to the chief repair,
+Raise the star standard and demand the war.
+But o'er the regions as he turns his eyes,
+What foes develop! and what forts arise!
+Rawdon with rapid marches leads their course,
+From state to state Cornwallis whirls their force,
+Impetuous Tarleton like a torrent pours,
+And fresh battalions land along the shores;
+Where, now resurgent from his captive chain,
+Phillips wide storming shakes the field again;
+And traitor Arnold, lured by plunder o'er,
+Joins the proud powers his valor foil'd before.
+
+Greene views the tempest with collected soul,
+Arid fates of empires in his bosom roll;
+So small his force, where shall he lift the steel?
+(Superior hosts o'er every canton wheel)
+Or how behold their wanton carnage spread,
+Himself stand idle and his country bleed?
+Fixt in a moment's pause the general stood,
+And held his warriors from the field of blood;
+Then points the British legions where to steer,
+Marks to their chief a rapid wild career,
+Wide o'er Virginia lets him foeless roam,
+To search for pillage and to find his doom,
+With short-lived glory feeds his sateless flame,
+But leaves the victory to a nobler name,
+Gives to great Washington to meet his way,
+Nor claims the honors of so bright a day.
+
+Now to the conquer'd south he turns his force,
+Renerves the nation by his rapid course;
+Forts fall around him, hosts before him fly,
+And captive bands his growing train supply;
+A hundred leagues of coast, in one campaign,
+Return reconquer'd to their lords again.
+At last Britannia's vanguard, near the strand,
+Veers on her foe to make one vigorous stand.
+Her gallant Stuart here amass'd from far
+The veteran legions of the Georgian war,
+To aid her hard-pusht powers, and quick restore
+The British name to that extended shore.
+He checks their flight, and chooses well their field,
+Flank'd with a marsh, by lofty woods concealed;
+Where Eutaw's fountains, tinged of old with gore,
+Still murmuring swell'd amid the bones they bore,
+Destined again to foul their pebbly stream,
+The mournful monuments of human fame;
+There Albion's columns, ranged in order bright,
+Stand like a fiery wall and wait the shock of fight.
+
+Swift on the neighboring hill as Greene arose,
+He view'd, with rapid glance, the glittering foes,
+Disposed for combat all his ardent train,
+To charge, change front, each echelon sustain;
+Roused well their rage, superior force to prove,
+Waved his bright blade and bade the onset move.
+As hovering clouds, when morning beams arise,
+Hang their red curtains round our eastern skies,
+Unfold a space to hail the promised sun,
+And catch their splendors from his rising throne;
+Thus glow'd the opposing fronts, whose steely glare
+Glanced o'er the shuddering interval of war.
+
+From Albion's left the cannonade began,
+And pour'd thick thunders on Hesperia's van,
+Forced in her dexter guards, that skirmisht wide
+To prove what powers the forest hills might hide;
+They break, fall back, with measured quickstep tread,
+Form close, and flank the solid squares they led.
+Now roll, with kindling haste, the long stark lines,
+From wing to wing the sounding battle joins;
+Batteries and field-parks and platoons of fire,
+In mingled shocks their roaring blasts exspire.
+Each front approaching fast, with equal pace,
+Devours undaunted their dividing space;
+Till, dark beneath the smoke, the meeting ranks
+Slope their strong bayonets, with short firm shanks
+Protruded from their tubes; each bristling van,
+Steel fronting steel, and man encountering man,
+In dreadful silence tread. As, wrapt from sight,
+The nightly ambush moves to secret fight;
+So rush the raging files, and sightless close
+In plunging thrust with fierce conflicting foes.
+They reach, they strike, they stagger o'er the slain,
+Deal doubtful blows, or closing clench their man,
+Intwine their twisting limbs, the gun forgo,
+Wrench off the bayonet and dirk the foe;
+Then struggling back, reseize the musket bare,
+Club the broad breech, and headlong whirl to war
+Ranks crush on ranks with equal slaughter gored;
+Warm dripping streams from every lifted sword
+Stain the thin carnaged corps who still maintain,
+With mutual shocks, the vengeance of the plain.
+At last where Williams fought and Campbell fell,
+Unwonted strokes the British line repel.
+The rout begins; the shattered wings afar
+Roll back in haste and scatter from the war;
+They drop their arms, they scour the marshy field,
+Whole squadrons fall and faint battalions yield.
+
+The great Observer, fixt in his midsky,
+View'd the whole combat, saw them fall and fly:
+He mark'd where Greene with every onset drove,
+Saw death and victory with his presence move,
+Beneath his arm saw Marion, Sumter, Gaine,
+Pickens and Sumner shake the astonish'd plain;
+He saw young Washington, the child of fame,
+Preserve in fight the honors of his name.
+Lee, Jackson, Hampton, Pinckney, matcht in might,
+Roll'd on the storm and hurried fast the flight:
+While numerous chiefs, that equal trophies raise,
+Wrought, not unseen, the deeds of deathless praise.
+
+As Europe now the newborn states beheld
+The shock sustain of many a hard-fought field;
+Swift o'er the main, with high-spread sails, advance
+Our brave auxiliars from the coast of France.
+On the tall decks their curious chiefs explore,
+With optic tube, our camp-encumber'd shore;
+And, as the lessening wave behind them flies,
+Wide scenes of conflict open on their eyes.
+Rochambeau foremost with his gleamy brand
+Points to each field and singles every band,
+Sees Washington the power of nations guide,
+And longs to toil and conquer by his side.
+Two brother chiefs, Viominil the name,
+Brothers in birth but twins in generous fame,
+Behold with steadfast eye the plains disclose,
+Uncase their arms and claim the promised foes.
+Biron, beneath his sail, in armor bright,
+Frown'd o'er the wave impatient for the fight;
+A fiery steed beside the hero stood,
+And his blue blade waved forward o'er the crowd.
+
+With eager haste descending on the coast,
+Thro the glad states they march their veteran host,
+From sea-nursed Newport file o'er western roads,
+Pitch many a camp, and bridge a hundred floods,
+Pass the full towns, where joyful crowds admire
+Their foreign speech, gay mien and gilt attire,
+Applaud their generous deeds, the zeal that draws
+Their swords untried in freedom's doubtful cause.
+Thro Hartford plains, on Litchfield hills they gleam,
+Wave their white flags o'er Hudson's loaded stream,
+Band after band with Delaware's current pour,
+Shade Schuylkill's wave and Elk's indented shore,
+Join their new friends, where allied banners lead,
+Demand the foe and bid the war proceed.
+
+Again Columbus turn'd his anxious eye
+Where Britain's banner waved along the sky;
+And, graced with spoils of many fields of blood,
+Cornwallis boastful on a bulwark stood.
+Where York and Gloster's rocky towers bestride
+Their parent stream, Virginia's midmost tide,
+He camp'd his hundred nations, to regain
+Their force, exhausted in the long campaign;
+Paused for a moment on a scene so vast,
+To plan the future and review the past.
+Thro vanquisht provinces and towns in flame
+He mark'd his recent monuments of fame,
+His checker'd marches, long and various toils,
+And camp well stored with wide collected spoils.
+
+High glittering to the sun his hands unfold
+A map new drafted on a sheet of gold;
+There in delusive haste his burin graved
+A country conquer'd and a race enslaved.
+Its middle realm, by fairer figures known
+And rich with fruits, lay bounded for his own;
+Deep thro the centre spreads a branching bay,
+Full sails ascend and golden rivers stray;
+Bright palaces arise relieved in gold,
+And gates and streets the crossing lines unfold.
+James furrows o'er the plate with turgid tide,
+Young Richmond roughens on his masted side;
+Reviving Norfolk from her ashes springs,
+A golden phoenix on refulgent wings;
+Potowmak's yellow waves reluctant spread,
+And Vernon rears his rich and radiant head,
+Tis here the chief his pointed graver stays,
+The bank to burnish with a purer blaze,
+Gives all his art, on this bright hill to trace
+His future seat and glory of his race;
+Deems his long line of lords the realm shall own,
+The kings predestined to Columbia's throne.
+
+But while his mind thus quafft its airy food,
+And gazing thousands round the rampart stood,
+Whom future ease and golden dreams employ,
+The songs of triumph and the feast of joy;
+Sudden great Washington arose in view,
+And allied flags his stately steps pursue;
+Gaul's veteran host and young Hesperia's pride
+Bend the long march concentring at his side,
+Stream over Chesapeak, like sheets of flame,
+And drive tempestuous to the field of fame.
+
+Far on the wild expanse, where ocean lies,
+And scorns all confines but incumbent skies,
+Scorns to retain the imprinted paths of men
+To guide their wanderings or direct their ken;
+Where warring vagrants, raging as they go,
+Ask of the stars their way to find the foe,
+Columbus saw two hovering fleets advance,
+And rival ensigns o'er their pinions dance.
+Graves, on the north, with Albion's flag unfurl'd,
+Waves proud defiance to the watery world;
+Degrasse, from southern isles, conducts his train,
+And shades with Gallic sheets the moving main.
+
+Now Morn, unconscious of the coming fray
+That soon shall storm the crystal cope of day,
+Glows o'er the heavens, and with her orient breeze
+Fans her fair face and curls the summer seas.
+The swelling sails, as far as eye can sweep,
+Look thro the skies and awe the shadowy deep,
+Lead their long bending lines; and, ere they close,
+To count, recognise, circumvent their foes,
+Each hauls his wind, the weathergage to gain
+And master all the movements of the plain;
+Or bears before the breeze with loftier gait,
+And, beam to beam, begins the work of fate.
+
+As when the warring winds, from each far pole,
+Their adverse storms across the concave roll,
+Thin fleecy vapors thro the expansion run,
+Veil the blue vault and tremble o'er the sun,
+Till the dark folding wings together drive,
+And, ridged with fire and rock'd with thunder, strive;
+So, hazing thro the void, at first appear
+White clouds of canvass floating on the air,
+Then frown the broad black decks, the sails are stay'd,
+The gaping portholes cast a frightful shade,
+Flames, triple tier'd, and tides of smoke, arise.
+And fulminations rock the seas and skies.
+
+From van to rear the roaring deluge runs,
+The storm disgorging from a thousand guns,
+Each like a vast volcano, spouting wide
+His hissing hell-dogs o'er the shuddering tide,
+Whirls high his chainshot, cleaves the mast and strews
+The shiver'd fragments on the staggering foes;
+Whose gunwale sides with iron globes are gored,
+And a wild storm of splinters sweeps the board.
+Husht are the winds of heaven; no more the gale
+Breaks the red rolls of smoke nor flaps the sail;
+A dark dead calm continuous cloaks the glare,
+And holds the clouds of sulphur on the war,
+Convolving o'er the space that yawns and shines,
+With frequent flash, between the laboring lines.
+Nor sun nor sea nor skyborn lightning gleams,
+But flaming Phlegethon's asphaltic steams
+Streak the long gaping gulph; where varying glow
+Carbonic curls above, blue flakes of fire below.
+
+Hither two hostile ships to contact run,
+Both grappling, board to board and gun to gun;
+Each thro the adverse ports their contents pour,
+Rake the lower decks, the interior timbers bore,
+Drive into chinks the illumined wads unseen,
+Whose flames approach the unguarded magazine.
+Above, with shrouds afoul and gunwales mann'd,
+Thick halberds clash; and, closing hand to hand,
+The huddling troops, infuriate from despair,
+Tug at the toils of death, and perish there;
+Grenados, carcasses their fragments spread,
+And pikes and pistols strow the decks with dead.
+Now on the Gallic board the Britons rush,
+The intrepid Gauls the rash adventurers crush;
+And now, to vengeance Stung, with frantic air,
+Back on the British maindeck roll the war.
+There swells the carnage; all the tar-beat floor
+Is clogg'd with spatter'd brains and glued with gore;
+And down the ship's black waist fresh brooks of blood
+Course o'er their clots, and tinge the sable flood.
+Till War, impatient of the lingering strife
+That tires and slackens with the waste of life,
+Opes with engulphing gape the astonish'd wave,
+And whelms the combat whole, in one vast grave.
+For now the imprison'd powder caught the flames,
+And into atoms whirl'd the monstrous frames
+Of both the entangled ships; the vortex wide
+Roars like an Ætna thro the belching tide,
+And blazing into heaven, and bursting high,
+Shells, carriages and guns obstruct the sky;
+Cords, timbers, trunks of men the welkin sweep,
+And fall on distant ships, or shower along the deep.
+
+The matcht armadas still the fight maintain,
+But cautious, distant; lest the staggering main
+Drive their whole lines afoul, and one dark day
+Glut the proud ocean with too rich a prey.
+At last, where scattering fires the cloud disclose,
+Hulls heave in sight and blood the decks o'erflows;
+Here from the field tost navies rise to view,
+Drive hack to vengeance and the roar renew,
+There shatter'd ships commence their flight afar,
+Tow'd thro the smoke, hard struggling from the war;
+And some, half seen amid the gaping wave,
+Plunge in the whirl they make, and gorge their grave.
+
+Soon the dark smoky volumes roll'd away,
+And a long line ascended into day;
+The pinions swell'd, Britannia's cross arose
+And flew the terrors of triumphing foes;
+When to Virginia's bay, new shocks to brave,
+The Gallic powers their conquering banners wave.
+Glad Chesapeak unfolds his bosom wide,
+And leads their prows to York's contracting tide;
+Where still dread Washington directs his way,
+And seas and continents his voice obey;
+While brave Cornwallis, mid the gathering host,
+Perceives his glories gone, his promised empire lost.
+
+Columbus here with silent joy beheld
+His favorite sons the fates of nations wield.
+Here joyous Lincoln rose in arms again,
+Nelson and Knox moved ardent o'er the plain;
+Scammel alert with force unusual trod,
+Prepared to seal their victory with his blood;
+Cobb, Dearborn, Laurens, Tilghman, green in years
+But ripe in glory, tower'd amid their peers;
+Death-daring Hamilton with splendor shone,
+And claim'd each post of danger for his own,
+Skill'd every arm in war's whole hell to wield,
+An Ithacus in camp, an Ajax in the field.
+
+Their Gallic friends an equal ardor fires;
+Brisk emulation every troop inspires:
+Where Tarleton turns, with hopes of flight elate,
+Brave Biron moves and drives him back to fate,
+Hems in his host, to wait, on Gloster plains,
+Their finish'd labors and their destined chains.
+
+Two British forts the growing siege outflank,
+Rake its wide works and awe the tide-beat bank;
+Swift from the lines two chosen bands advance,
+Our light-arm'd scouts, the grenadiers of France;
+These young Viominil conducts to fame,
+And those Fayette's unerring guidance claim.
+No cramm'd cartouch their belted back attires,
+No grains of sleeping thunder wait their fires;
+The flint, the ramrod spurn'd, away they cast;
+The strong bright bayonet, imbeaded fast,
+Stands beaming from the bore; with this they tread,
+Nor heed from high-wall'd foes their showers of lead.
+Each rival band, tho wide and distant far,
+Springs simultaneous to this task of war;
+For here a twofold force each hero draws,
+His own proud country and the general cause;
+And each with twofold energy contends,
+His foes to vanquish and outstrip his friends.
+They summon all their zeal, and wild and warm
+O'er flaming ramparts pour the maddening storm,
+The mounted cannons crush, and lead the foe
+Two trains of captives to the plain below;
+An equal prize each gallant troop ameeds,
+Alike their numbers and alike their deeds.
+
+A strong high citadel still thundering stood,
+And stream'd her standard o'er the field of blood,
+Check'd long the siege with fulminating blare,
+Scorn'd all the steel and every globe of war,
+Defied fell famine, heapt her growing store,
+And housed in bombproof all the host she bore.
+No rude assault can stretch the scale so high,
+In vain the battering siege-guns round her ply;
+Mortars well poized their deafening deluge rain,
+Load the red skies and shake the shores in vain;
+Her huge rock battlements rebound the blow,
+And roll their loose crags on the men below.
+
+But while the fusing fireballs scorch the sky,
+Their mining arts the staunch besiegers ply,
+Delve from the bank of York, and gallery far,
+Deep subterranean, to the mount of war;
+Beneath the ditch, thro rocks and fens they go,
+Scoop the dark chamber plumb beneath the foe;
+There lodge their tons of powder and retire,
+Mure the dread passage, wave the fatal fire,
+Send a swift messenger to warn the foe
+To seek his safety and the post forgo.
+A taunting answer comes; he dares defy
+To spring the mine and all its Ætnas try;
+When a black miner seized the sulphur'd brand,
+Shriek'd high for joy, and with untrembling hand
+Touch'd quick the insidious train; lest here the chief
+Should change his counsel and afford relief:
+For hard the general's task, to speak the doom
+That sends a thousand heroes to the tomb;
+Heroes who know no wrong; who thoughtless speed
+Where kings command or where their captains lead,
+--Burst with the blast, the reeling mountain roars,
+Heaves, labors, boils, and thro the concave pours
+His flaming contents high; he chokes the air
+With all his warriors and their works of war;
+Guns, bastions, magazines confounded fly,
+Vault wide their fresh explosions o'er the sky,
+Encumber each far camp, and plough profound
+With their rude fragments every neighboring ground.
+
+Britain's brave leader, where he sought repose,
+And deem'd his hill-fort still repulsed the foes,
+Starts at the astounding earthquake, and descries
+His chosen veterans whirling down the skies.
+Their mangled members round his balcon fall,
+Scorch'd in the flames, and dasht on every wall:
+Sad field of contemplation! Here, ye great,
+Kings, priests of God, and ministers of state,
+Review your system here! behold and scan
+Your own fair deeds, your benefits to man!
+You will not leave him to his natural toil,
+To tame these elements and till the soil.
+To reap, share, tithe you what his hand has sown,
+Enjoy his treasures and increase your own,
+Build up his virtues on the base design'd,
+The well-toned harmonies of humankind.
+You choose to check his toil, and band his eyes
+To all that's honest and to all that's wise;
+Lure with false fame, false morals and false lore,
+To barter fields of corn for fields of gore,
+To take by bands what single thieves would spare,
+And methodise his murders into war.
+
+Now the prest garrison fresh danger warms;
+They rush impetuous to each post of arms,
+Man the long trench, each embrasure sustain,
+And pour their langrage on the allied train;
+Whose swift approaches, crowding on the line,
+Each wing envelop and each front confine.
+O'er all sage Washington his arm extends,
+Points every movement, every work defends,
+Bids closer quarters, bloodier strokes proceed,
+New batteries blaze and heavier squadrons bleed.
+Line within line fresh parallels enclose;
+Here runs a zigzag, there a mantlet grows,
+Round the pent foe approaching breastworks rise,
+And bombs, like meteors, vault the flaming skies.
+Night, with her hovering wings, asserts in vain
+The shades, the silence of her rightful reign;
+High roars her canopy with fiery flakes,
+And War stalks wilder thro the glare he makes.
+
+With dire dismay the British chief beheld
+The foe advance, his veterans shun the field,
+Despair and slaughter where he turns his eye,
+No hope in combat and no power to fly;
+Degrasse victorious shakes the shadowy tide,
+Imbodied nations all the champaign hide,
+Fosses and batteries, growing on the sight,
+Still pour new thunders and increase the fight;
+Shells rain before him, rending every mound,
+Crags, gunstones, balls o'erturn the tented ground,
+From post to post his driven ranks retire,
+The earth in crimson and the skies on fire.
+
+Death wantons proud in this decisive round,
+For here his hand its favorite victim found;
+Brave Scammel perisht here. Ah! short, my friend,
+Thy bright career, but glorious to its end.
+Go join thy Warren's ghost, your fates compare,
+His that commenced, with thine that closed the war;
+Freedom, with laurel'd brow but tearful eyes,
+Bewails her first and last, her twinlike sacrifice.
+
+Now grateful truce suspends the burning war,
+And groans and shouts promiscuous load the air;
+When the tired Britons, where the smokes decay,
+Quit their strong station and resign the day.
+Slow files along the immeasurable train,
+Thousands on thousands redden all the plain,
+Furl their torn bandrols, all their plunder yield.
+And pile their muskets on the battle field.
+Their wide auxiliar nations swell the crowd,
+And the coop'd navies, from the neighboring flood,
+Repeat surrendering signals, and obey
+The landmen's fate on this concluding day.
+
+Cornwallis first, their late all-conquering lord,
+Bears to the victor chief his conquer'd sword,
+Presents the burnisht hilt, and yields with pain
+The gift of kings, here brandisht long in vain.
+Then bow their hundred banners, trailing far
+Their wearied wings from all the skirts of war.
+Battalion'd infantry and squadron'd horse
+Dash the silk tassel and the golden torse;
+Flags from the forts and ensigns from the fleet
+Roll in the dust, and at Columbia's feet
+Prostrate the pride of thrones; they firm the base
+Of Freedom's temple, while her arms they grace.
+Here Albion's crimson Cross the soil o'erspreads,
+Her Lion crouches and her Thistle fades;
+Indignant Erin rues her trampled Lyre,
+Brunswick's pale Steed forgets his foamy fire,
+Proud Hessia's Castle lies in dust o'erthrown,
+And venal Anspach quits her broken Crown.
+
+Long trains of wheel'd artillery shade the shore,
+Quench their blue matches and forget to roar;
+Along the encumber'd plain, thick planted rise
+High stacks of muskets glittering to the skies,
+Numerous and vast. As when the toiling swains
+Heap their whole harvest on the stubbly plains,
+Gerb after gerb the bearded shock expands,
+Shocks, ranged in rows, hill high the burden'd lands;
+The joyous master numbers all the piles,
+And o'er his well-earn'd crop complacent smiles:
+Such growing heaps this iron harvest yield,
+So tread the victors this their final field.
+
+Triumphant Washington, with brow serene,
+Regards unmoved the exhilarating scene,
+Weighs in his balanced thought the silent grief
+That sinks the bosom of the fallen chief.
+With all the joy that laurel crowns bestow,
+A world reconquer'd and a vanquished foe.
+Thus thro extremes of life, in every state,
+Shines the clear soul, beyond all fortune great;
+While smaller minds, the dupes of fickle chance,
+Slight woes o'erwhelm and sudden joys entrance.
+So the full sun, thro all the changing sky,
+Nor blasts nor overpowers the naked eye;
+Tho transient splendors, borrowed from his light,
+Glance on the mirror and destroy the sight.
+
+He bids brave Lincoln guide with modest air
+The last glad triumph of the finish'd war;
+Who sees, once more, two armies shade one plain,
+The mighty victors and the captive train.
+
+
+
+
+Book VIII.
+
+
+
+
+Argument.
+
+
+
+    Hymn to Peace. Eulogy on the heroes slain in the war; in which the
+    Author finds occasion to mention his Brother. Address to the patriots
+    who have survived the conflict; exhorting them to preserve
+    liberty they have established. The danger of losing it by inattention
+    illustrated in the rape of the Golden Fleece. Freedom succeeding to
+    Despotism in the moral world, like Order succeeding to Chaos in the
+    physical world. Atlas, the guardian Genius of Africa, denounces to
+    Hesper the crimes of his people in the slavery of the Afripans. The
+    Author addresses his countrymen on that subject, and on the principles
+    of their government.
+
+    Hesper, recurring to his object of showing Columbus the importance of
+    his discoveries, reverses the order of time, and exhibits the continent
+    again in its savage state. He then displays the progress of arts in
+    America. Fur-trade. Fisheries. Productions. Commerce. Education.
+    Philosophical discoveries. Painting. Poetry.
+
+
+Hail, holy Peace, from thy sublime abode
+Mid circling saints that grace the throne of God!
+Before his arm around our embryon earth
+Stretch'd the dim void, and gave to nature birth.
+Ere morning stars his glowing chambers hung,
+Or songs of gladness woke an angel's tongue,
+Veil'd in the splendors of his beamful mind,
+In blest repose thy placid form reclined,
+Lived in his life, his inward sapience caught,
+And traced and toned his universe of thought.
+Borne thro the expanse with his creating voice
+Thy presence bade the unfolding worlds rejoice,
+Led forth the systems on their bright career,
+Shaped all their curves and fashion'd every sphere,
+Spaced out their suns, and round each radiant goal,
+Orb over orb, compell'd their train to roll,
+Bade heaven's own harmony their force combine.
+Taught all their host symphonious strains to join,
+Gave to seraphic harps their sounding lays,
+Their joys to angels, and to men their praise.
+
+From scenes of blood, these verdant shores that stain,
+From numerous friends in recent battle slain,
+From blazing towns that scorch the purple sky,
+From houseless hordes their smoking walls that fly,
+From the black prison ships, those groaning graves,
+From warring fleets that vex the gory waves,
+From a storm'd world, long taught thy flight to mourn,
+I rise, delightful Peace, and greet thy glad return.
+
+For now the untuneful trump shall grate no more;
+Ye silver streams, no longer swell with gore,
+Bear from your war-beat banks the guilty stain
+With yon retiring navies to the main.
+While other views, unfolding on my eyes,
+And happier themes bid bolder numbers rise;
+Bring, bounteous Peace, in thy celestial throng.
+Life to my soul, and rapture to my song;
+Give me to trace, with pure unclouded ray,
+The arts and virtues that attend thy sway,
+To see thy blissful charms, that here descend,
+Thro distant realms and endless years extend.
+
+Too long the groans of death and battle's bray
+Have rung discordant thro my turgid lay:
+The drum's rude clang, the war wolfs hideous howl
+Convulsed my nerves and agonized my soul,
+Untuned the harp for all but misery's pains,
+And chased the Muse from corse-encumber'd plains.
+Let memory's balm its pious fragrance shed
+On heroes' wounds and patriot warriors dead;
+Accept, departed Shades, these grateful sighs,
+Your fond attendants thro your homeward skies.
+
+And thou, my earliest friend, my Brother dear,
+Thy fall untimely still renews my tear.
+In youthful sports, in toils, in taste allied,
+My kind companion and my faithful guide,
+When death's dread summons, from our infant eyes,
+Had call'd our last loved parent to the skies.
+Tho young in arms, and still obscure thy name,
+Thy bosom panted for the deeds of fame;
+Beneath Montgomery's eye, when by thy steel
+In northern wilds the frequent savage fell.
+Fired by his voice, and foremost at his call,
+To mount the breach or scale the flamy wall,
+Thy daring hand had many a laurel gain'd,
+If years had ripen'd what thy fancy feign'd.
+Lamented Youth! when thy great leader bled,
+Thro the same wound thy parting spirit fled,
+Join'd the long train, the self-devoted band,
+The gods, the saviors of their native land.
+
+On fame's high pinnacle their names shall shine,
+Unending ages greet the group divine,
+Whose holy hands our banners first unfurl'd,
+And conquer'd freedom for the grateful world.
+
+And you, their peers, whose steel avenged their blood,
+Whose breasts with theirs our sacred rampart stood,
+Illustrious relics of a thousand fields!
+To you at last the foe reluctant yields.
+But tho the Muse, too prodigal of praise,
+Dares with the dead your living worth to raise,
+Think not, my friends, the patriot's task is done,
+Or Freedom safe, because the battle's won.
+Unnumber'd foes, far different arms that wield,
+Wait the weak moment when she quits her shield,
+To plunge in her bold breast the insidious dart,
+Or pour keen poison round her thoughtless heart.
+Perhaps they'll strive her votaries to divide,
+From their own veins to draw the vital tide;
+Perhaps, by cooler calculation shown,
+Create materials to construct a throne,
+Dazzle her guardians with the glare of state,
+Corrupt with power, with borrowed pomp inflate,
+Bid thro the land the soft infection creep,
+Whelm all her sons in one lethargic sleep,
+Crush her vast empire in its brilliant birth,
+And chase the goddess from the ravaged earth.
+
+The Dragon thus, that watch'd the Colchian fleece,
+Foil'd the fierce warriors of wide-plundering Greece;
+Warriors of matchless might and wondrous birth,
+Jove's sceptred sons and demigods of earth.
+High on the sacred tree, the glittering prize
+Hangs o'er its guard, and tires the warriors' eyes;
+First their hurl'd spears his spiral folds assail,
+Their spears fall pointless from his flaky mail;
+Onward with dauntless swords they plunge amain;
+He shuns their blows, recoils his twisting train,
+Darts forth his forky tongue, heaves high in air
+His fiery crest, and sheds a hideous glare,
+Champs, churns his poisonous juice, and hissing loud
+Spouts thick the stifling tempest o'er the crowd;
+Then, with one sweep of convoluted train,
+Rolls back all Greece, and besoms wide the plain,
+O'erturns the sons of gods, dispersing far
+The pirate horde, and closes quick the war.
+From his red jaws tremendous triumph roars,
+Dark Euxine trembles to its distant shores,
+Proud Jason starts, confounded in his might,
+Leads back his peers, and dares no more the fight.
+But the sly Priestess brings her opiate spell,
+Soft charms that hush the triple hound of hell,
+Bids Orpheus tune his all-enchanting lyre,
+And join to calm the guardian's sleepless ire.
+Soon from the tepid ground blue vapors rise,
+And sounds melodious move along the skies;
+A settling tremor thro his folds extends,
+His crest contracts, his rainbow heck unbends,
+O'er all his hundred hoops the languor crawls,
+Each curve develops, every volute falls,
+His broad back flattens as he spreads the plain,
+And sleep consigns him to his lifeless reign.
+Flusht at the sight the pirates seize the spoil,
+And ravaged Colchis rues the insidious toil.
+
+Yes! fellow freemen, sons of high renown,
+Chant your loud peans, weave your civic crown;
+But know, the goddess you've so long adored,
+Tho now she scabbards your avenging sword,
+Calls you to vigil ance, to manlier cares,
+To prove in peace the men she proved in wars:
+Superior task! severer test of soul!
+Tis here bold virtue plays her noblest role
+And merits most of praise. The warrior's name,
+Tho peal'd and chimed on all the tongues of fame,
+Sounds less harmonious to the grateful mind
+Than his who fashions and improves mankind.
+
+And what high meed your new vocation waits!
+Freedom, parturient with a hundred states,
+Confides them to your hand; the nascent prize
+Claims all your care, your soundest wisdom tries.
+Ah nurture, temper, train your infant charge,
+Its force develop and its life enlarge,
+Unfold each day some adolescent grace,
+Some right recognise or some duty trace;
+Mould a fair model for the realms of earth,
+Call moral nature to a second birth,
+Reach, renovate the world's great social plan,
+And here commence the sober sense of man,
+
+For lo, in other climes and elder states,
+What strange inversion all his works awaits!
+From age to age, on every peopled shore,
+Stalks the fell Demon of despotic power,
+Sweeps in his march the mounds of art away.
+Blots with his breath the trembling disk of day,
+Treads down whole nations every stride he takes,
+And wraps their labors in his fiery flakes.
+
+As Anarch erst around his regions hurl'd
+The wrecks, long crush'd, of time's anterior world;
+While nature mourn'd, in wild confusion tost,
+Her suns extinguisht and her systems lost;
+Light, life and instinct shared the dreary trance,
+And gravitation fled the field of chance;
+No laws remain'd of matter, motion, space;
+Time lost his count, the universe his place;
+Till Order came, in her cerulean robes,
+And launch'd and rein'd the renovated globes,
+Stock'd with harmonious worlds the vast Inane,
+Archt her new heaven and fixt her boundless reign:
+So kings convulse the moral frame, the base
+Of all the codes that can accord the race;
+And so from their broad grasp, their deadly ban,
+Tis yours to snatch this earth, to raise regenerateman.
+
+My friends, I love your fame, I joy to raise
+The high-toned anthem of my country's praise;
+To sing her victories, virtues, wisdom, weal,
+Boast with loud voice the patriot pride I feel;
+Warm wild I sing; and, to her failings blind,
+Mislead myself, perhaps mislead mankind.
+Land that I love! is this the whole we owe?
+Thy pride to pamper, thy fair face to show;
+Dwells there no blemish where such glories shine?
+And lurks no spot in that bright sun of thine?
+Hark! a dread voice, with heaven-astounding strain,
+Swells Wee a thousand thunders o'er the main,
+Rolls and reverberates around thy hills,
+And Hesper's heart with pangs paternal fills.
+Thou hearst him not; tis Atlas, throned sublime.
+Great brother guardian of old Afric's clime;
+High o'er his coast he rears his frowning form,
+Overlooks and calms his sky-borne fields of storm,
+Flings off the clouds that round his shoulders hung,
+And breaks from clogs of ice his trembling tongue;
+While far thro space with rage and grief he glares,
+Heaves his hoar head and shakes the heaven he bears:
+--Son of my sire! O latest brightest birth
+That sprang from his fair spouse, prolific earth!
+Great Hesper, say what sordid ceaseless hate
+Impels thee thus to mar my elder state.
+Our sire assign'd thee thy more glorious reign,
+Secured and bounded by our laboring main;
+That main (tho still my birthright name it bear)
+Thy sails o'ershadow, thy brave children share;
+I grant it thus; while air surrounds the ball,
+Let breezes blow, let oceans roll for all.
+But thy proud sons, a strange ungenerous race,
+Enslave my tribes, and each fair world disgrace,
+Provoke wide vengeance on their lawless land,
+The bolt ill placed in thy forbearing hand.--
+Enslave my tribes! then boast their cantons free,
+Preach faith and justice, bend the sainted knee,
+Invite all men their liberty to share,
+Seek public peace, defy the assaults of war,
+Plant, reap, consume, enjoy their fearless toil,
+Tame their wild floods, to fatten still their soil,
+Enrich all nations with their nurturing store,
+And rake with venturous fluke each wondering shore.--
+
+Enslave my tribes! what, half mankind imban,
+Then read, expound, enforce the rights of man!
+Prove plain and clear how nature's hand of old
+Cast all men equal in her human mould!
+Their fibres, feelings, reasoning powers the same,
+Like wants await them, like desires inflame.
+Thro former times with learned book they tread,
+Revise past ages and rejudge the dead,
+Write, speak, avenge, for ancient sufferings feel,
+Impale each tyrant on their pens of steel,
+Declare how freemen can a world create,
+And slaves and masters ruin every state.--
+Enslave my tribes! and think, with dumb disdain,
+To scape this arm and prove my vengeance vain!
+But look! methinks beneath my foot I ken
+A few chain'd things that seem no longer men;
+Thy sons perchance! whom Barbary's coast can tell
+The sweets of that loved scourge they wield so well.
+Link'd in a line, beneath the driver's goad,
+See how they stagger with their lifted load;
+The shoulder'd rock, just wrencht from off my hill
+And wet with drops their straining orbs distil,
+Galls, grinds them sore, along the rarnpart led,
+And the chain clanking counts the steps they tread.
+
+By night close bolted in the bagnio's gloom,
+Think how they ponder on their dreadful doom,
+Recal the tender sire, the weeping bride,
+The home, far sunder'd by a waste of tide,
+Brood all the ties that once endear'd them there,
+But now, strung stronger, edge their keen despair.
+Till here a fouler fiend arrests their pace:
+Plague, with his burning breath and bloated face,
+With saffron eyes that thro the dungeon shine,
+And the black tumors bursting from the groin,
+Stalks o'er the slave; who, cowering on the sod,
+Shrinks from the Demon and invokes his God,
+Sucks hot contagion with his quivering breath,
+And, rack'd with rending torture, sinks in death.
+
+Nor shall these pangs atone the nation's crime;
+Far heavier vengeance, in the march of time,
+Attends them still; if still they dare debase
+And hold inthrall'd the millions of my race;
+A vengeance that shall shake the world's deep frame,
+That heaven abhors, and hell might shrink to name.
+Nature, long outraged, delves the crusted sphere,
+And moulds the mining mischief dark and drear;
+Europa too the penal shock shall find,
+The rude soul-selling monsters of mankind:
+
+Where Alps and Andes at their bases meet,
+In earth's mid caves to lock their granite feet,
+Heave their broad spines, expand each breathing lobe,
+And with their massy members rib the globe,
+Her cauldron'd floods of fire their blast prepare;
+Her wallowing womb of subterranean war
+Waits but the fissure that my wave shall find,
+To force the foldings of the rocky rind,
+Crash your curst continent, and whirl on high
+The vast avulsion vaulting thro the sky,
+Fling far the bursting fragments, scattering wide
+Rocks, mountains, nations o'er the swallowing tide.
+Plunging and surging with alternate sweep,
+They storm the day-vault and lay bare the deep,
+Toss, tumble, plough their place, then slow subside,
+And swell each ocean as their bulk they hide;
+Two oceans dasht in one! that climbs and roars,
+And seeks in vain the exterminated shores,
+The deep drencht hemisphere. Far sunk from day,
+It crumbles, rolls, it churns the settling sea,
+Turns up each prominence, heaves every side,
+To pierce once more the landless length of tide;
+Till some poized Pambamarca looms at last
+A dim lone island in the watery waste,
+Mourns all his minor mountains wreck'd and hurl'd,
+Stands the sad relic of a ruin'd world,
+Attests the wrath our mother kept in store,
+And rues her judgments on the race she bore.
+No saving Ark around him rides the main,
+Nor Dove weak-wing'd her footing finds again;
+His own bald Eagle skims alone the sky,
+Darts from all points of heaven her searching eye,
+Kens, thro the gloom, her ancient rock of rest,
+And finds her cavern'd crag, her solitary nest.
+
+Thus toned the Titan his tremendous knell,
+And lash'd his ocean to a loftier swell;
+Earth groans responsive, and with laboring woes
+Leans o'er the surge and stills the storm he throws.
+
+Fathers and friends, I know the boding fears
+Of angry genii and of rending spheres
+Assail not souls like yours; whom Science bright
+Thro shadowy nature leads with surer light;
+For whom she strips the heavens of love and hate,
+Strikes from Jove's hand the brandisht bolt of fate,
+Gives each effect its own indubious cause,
+Divides her moral from her physic laws,
+Shows where the virtues find their nurturing food,
+And men their motives to be just and good.
+
+You scorn the Titan's threat; nor shall I strain
+The powers of pathos in a task so vain
+As Afric's wrongs to sing; for what avails
+To harp for you these known familiar tales?
+To tongue mute misery, and re-rack the soul
+With crimes oft copied from that bloody scroll
+Where Slavery pens her woes; tho tis but there
+We learn the weight that mortal life can be.
+The tale might startle still the accustom'd ear,
+Still shake the nerve that pumps the pearly tear,
+Melt every heart, and thro the nation gain
+Full many a voice to break the barbarous chain.
+But why to sympathy for guidance fly,
+(Her aids uncertain and of scant supply)
+When your own self-excited sense affords
+A guide more sure, and every sense accords?
+Where strong self-interest, join'd with duty, lies,
+Where doing right demands no sacrifice,
+Where profit, pleasure, life-expanding fame
+League their allurements to support the claim,
+Tis safest there the impleaded cause to trust;
+Men well instructed will be always just.
+
+From slavery then your rising realms to save,
+Regard the master, notice not the slave;
+Consult alone for freemen, and bestow
+Your best, your only cares, to keep them so.
+Tyrants are never free; and, small and great,
+All masters must be tyrants soon or late;
+So nature works; and oft the lordling knave
+Turns out at once a tyrant and a slave,
+Struts, cringes, bullies, begs, as courtiers must,
+Makes one a god, another treads in dust,
+Fears all alike, and filches whom he can,
+But knows no equal, finds no friend in man.
+
+Ah! would you not be slaves, with lords and kings,
+Then be not masters; there the danger springs.
+The whole crude system that torments this earth,
+Of rank, privation, privilege of birth,
+False honor, fraud, corruption, civil jars,
+The rage of conquest and the curse of wars,
+Pandora's total shower, all ills combined
+That erst o'erwhelm'd and still distress mankind,
+Box'd up secure in your deliberate hand,
+Wait your behest, to fix or fly this land.
+
+Equality of Right is nature's plan;
+And following nature is the march of man.
+Whene'er he deviates in the least degree,
+When, free himself, he would be more than free,
+The baseless column, rear'd to bear his bust,
+Falls as he mounts, and whelms him in the dust.
+
+See Rome's rude sires, with autocratic gait,
+Tread down their tyrant and erect their state;
+Their state secured, they deem it wise and brave
+That every freeman should command a slave,
+And, flusht with franchise of his camp and town,
+Rove thro the world and hunt the nations down;
+Master and man the same vile spirit gains,
+Rome chains the world, and wears herself the chains.
+
+Mark modern Europe with her feudal codes,
+Serfs, villains, vassals, nobles, kings and gods,
+All slaves of different grades, corrupt and curst
+With high and low, for senseless rank athirst,
+Wage endless wars; not fighting to be free,
+But _cujum pecus_, whose base herd they'll be.
+
+Too much of Europe, here transplanted o'er,
+Nursed feudal feelings on your tented shore,
+Brought sable serfs from Afric, call'd it gain,
+And urged your sires to forge the fatal chain.
+But now, the tents o'erturn'd, the war dogs fled,
+Now fearless Freedom rears at last her head
+Matcht with celestial Peace,--my friends, beware
+To shade the splendors of so bright a pair;
+Complete their triumph, fix their firm abode,
+Purge all privations from your liberal code,
+Restore their souls to men, give earth repose,
+And save your sons from slavery, wars and woes.
+
+Based on its rock of Right your empire lies,
+On walls of wisdom let the fabric rise;
+Preserve your principles, their force unfold,
+Let nations prove them and let kings behold.
+EQUALITY, your first firm-grounded stand;
+Then FREE ELECTION; then your FEDERAL BAND;
+This holy Triad should forever shine
+The great compendium of all rights divine,
+Creed of all schools, whence youths by millions draw
+Their themes of right, their decalogues of law;
+Till men shall wonder (in these codes inured)
+How wars were made, how tyrants were endured.
+
+Then shall your works of art superior rise,
+Your fruits perfume a larger length of skies,
+Canals careering climb your sunbright hills,
+Vein the green slopes and strow their nurturing rills,
+Thro tunnel'd heights and sundering ridges glide,
+Rob the rich west of half Kenhawa's tide,
+Mix your wide climates, all their stores confound,
+And plant new ports in every midland mound.
+Your lawless Missisippi, now who slimes
+And drowns and desolates his waste of climes,
+Ribb'd with your dikes, his torrent shall restrain,
+And ask your leave to travel to the main;
+Won from his wave while rising cantons smile,
+Rear their glad nations and reward their toil.
+
+Thus Nile's proud flood to human hands of yore
+Raised and resign'd his tide-created shore,
+Call'd from his Ethiop hills their hardy swains,
+And waved their harvests o'er his newborn plains;
+Earth's richest realm from his tamed current sprung;
+There nascent science toned her infant tongue,
+Taught the young arts their tender force to try,
+To state the seasons and unfold the sky;
+Till o'er the world extended and refined,
+They rule the destinies of humankind.
+
+Now had Columbus well enjoy'd the sight
+Of armies vanquisht and of fleets in flight,
+From all Hesperia's heaven the darkness flown,
+And colon crowds to sovereign sages grown.
+To cast new glories o'er the changing clime,
+The guardian Power reversed the flight of time,
+Roll'd back the years that led their course before,
+Stretch'd out immense the wild uncultured shore;
+Then shifts the total scene, and rears to view
+Arts and the men that useful arts pursue.
+As o'er the canvass when the painter's mind
+Glows with a future landscape well design'd,
+While Panorama's wondrous aid he calls,
+To crowd whole realms within his circling walls,
+Lakes, fields and forests, ports and navies rise,
+A new creation to his kindling eyes;
+He smiles o'er all; sand in delightful strife
+The pencil moves and Calls the whole to life.
+So while Columbia's patriarch stood sublime,
+And saw rude nature clothe the trackless clime;
+The green banks heave, the winding currents pour,
+The bays and harbors cleave the yielding shore,
+The champaigns spread, the solemn groves arise,
+And the rough mountains lengthen round the skies;
+Thro all their bounds he traced, with skilful ken,
+The unform'd seats and future walks of men;
+Mark'd where the field should bloom, the pennon play,
+Great cities grow and empires claim their sway;
+When, sudden waked by Hesper's waving hand,
+They rose obedient round the cultured land.
+
+In western tracts, where still the wildmen tread,
+From sea to sea an inland commerce spread;
+On the dim streams and thro the gloomy grove
+The trading bauds their cumbrous burdens move;
+Furs, peltry, drugs, and all the native store
+Of midland realms descended to the shore.
+
+Where summer suns, along the northern coast,
+With feeble force dissolve the chains of frost,
+Prolific waves the scaly nations trace,
+And tempt the toils of man's laborious race.
+Tho rich Brazilian strands, beneath the tide,
+Their shells of pearl and sparkling pebbles hide,
+While for the gaudy prize a venturous train
+Plunge the dark deep and brave the surging main,
+Drag forth the shining gewgaws into air,
+To stud a sceptre or emblaze a star;
+Far wealthier stores these genial tides display,
+And works less dangerous with their spoils repay.
+The Hero saw the hardy crews advance,
+Cast the long line and aim the barbed lance;
+Load the deep floating barks, and bear abroad
+To every land the life-sustaining food;
+Renascent swarms by nature's care supplied,
+Repeople still the shoals and fin the fruitful tide.
+
+Where southern streams thro broad savannas bend,
+The rice-clad vales their verdant rounds extend;
+Tobago's plant its leaf expanding yields,
+The maize luxuriant clothes a thousand fields;
+Steeds, herds and flocks o'er northern regions rove,
+Embrown the hill and wanton thro the grove.
+The woodlands wide their sturdy honors bend,
+The pines, the liveoaks to the shores descend,
+There couch the keels, the crooked ribs arise,
+Hulls heave aloft and mastheads mount the skies;
+Launcht on the deep o'er every wave they
+Feed tropic isles and Europe's looms supply.
+
+To nurse the arts and fashion freedom's lore
+Young schools of science rise along the shore;
+Great without pomp their modest walls expand,
+Harvard and Yale and Princeton grace the land,
+Penn's student halls his youths with gladness greet,
+On James's bank Virginian Muses meet,
+Manhattan's mart collegiate domes command,
+Bosom'd in groves, see growing Dartmouth stand;
+Bright o'er its realm reflecting solar fires,
+On yon tall hill Rhode Island's seat aspires.
+
+Thousands of humbler name around them rise,
+Where homebred freemen seize the solid prize;
+Fixt in small spheres, with safer beams to shine,
+They reach the useful and refuse the fine,
+Found, on its proper base, the social plan,
+The broad plain truths, the common sense of man,
+His obvious wants, his mutual aids discern,
+His rights familiarize, his duties learn,
+Feel moral fitness all its force dilate,
+Embrace the village and comprise the state.
+Each rustic here who turns the furrow'd soil,
+The maid, the youth that ply mechanic toil,
+In equal rights, in useful arts inured,
+Know their just claims, and see their claims secured;
+They watch their delegates, each law revise,
+Its faults designate and its merits prize,
+Obey, but scrutinize; and let the test
+Of sage experience prove and fix the best.
+
+Here, fired by virtue's animating flame,
+The preacher's task persuasive sages claim,
+To mould religion to the moral mind,
+In bands of peace to harmonize mankind,
+To life, to light, to promised joys above
+The soften'd soul with ardent hope to move.
+No dark intolerance blinds the zealous throng,
+No arm of power attendant on their tongue;
+Vext Inquisition, with her flaming brand,
+Shuns their mild march, nor dares approach the land.
+Tho different creeds their priestly robes denote,
+Their orders various and their rites remote,
+Yet one their voice, their labors all combined,
+Lights of the world and friends of humankind.
+So the bright galaxy o'er heaven displays
+Of various stars the same unbounded blaze;
+Where great and small their mingling rays unite,
+And earth and skies exchange the friendly light.
+
+And lo, my son that other sapient band,
+The torch of science flamiflg in their hand!
+Thro nature's range their searching souls aspire,
+Or wake to life the canvass and the lyre.
+Fixt in sublimest thought, behold them rise
+World after world unfolding to their eyes,
+Lead, light, allure them thro the total plan,
+And give new guidance to the paths of man.
+
+Yon meteor-mantled hill see Franklin tread,
+Heaven's awful thunders tolling o'er his head,
+Convolving clouds the billowy skies deform,
+And forky flames emblaze the blackening storm,
+See the descending streams around him burn,
+Glance on his rod and with his finger turn;
+He bids conflicting fulminants expire
+The guided blast, and holds the imprison'd fire.
+No more, when doubling storms the vault o'erspread,
+The livid glare shall strike thy race with dread,
+Nor towers nor temples, shuddering with the sound,
+Sink in the flames and shake the sheeted ground.
+His well tried wires, that every tempest wait,
+Shall teach mankind to ward the bolts of fate,
+With pointed steel o'ertop the trembling spire,
+And lead from untouch'd walls the harmless flre;
+Fill'd with his fame while distant climes rejoice,
+Wherever lightning shines or thunder rears its voice.
+
+And see sage Rittenhouse, with ardent eye,
+Lift the long tube and pierce the starry sky;
+Clear in his view the circling planets roll,
+And suns and satellites their course control.
+He marks what laws the widest wanderers bind,
+Copies creation in his forming mind,
+Sees in his hall the total semblance rise,
+And mimics there the labors of the skies.
+There student youths without their tubes behold
+The spangled heavens their mystic maze unfold,
+And crowded schools their cheerful chambers grace
+With all the spheres that cleave the vast of space.
+
+To guide the sailor in his wandering way,
+See Godfrey's glass reverse the beams of day.
+His lifted quadrant to the eye displays
+From adverse skies the counteracting rays;
+And marks, as devious sails bewilder'd roll,
+Each nice gradation from the steadfast pole.
+
+West with his own great soul the canvass warms,
+Creates, inspires, impassions human forms,
+Spurns critic rules, and seizing safe the heart,
+Breaks down the former frightful bounds of Art;
+Where ancient manners, with exclusive reign,
+From half mankind withheld her fair domain.
+He calls to life each patriot, chief or sage,
+Garb'd in the dress and drapery of his age.
+Again bold Regulus to death returns,
+Again her falling Wolfe Britannia mourns;
+Lahogue, Boyne, Cressy, Nevilcross demand
+And gain fresh lustre from his copious hand;
+His Lear stalks wild with woes, the gods defies,
+Insults the tempest and outstorms the skies;
+Edward in arms to frowning combat moves,
+Or, won to pity by the queen he loves,
+Spares the devoted Six, whose deathless deed
+Preserves the town his vengeance doom'd to bleed.
+
+With rival force, see Copley's pencil trace
+The air of action and the charms of face.
+Fair in his tints unfold the scenes of state,
+The senate listens and the peers debate;
+Pale consternation every heart appals,
+In act to speak, when death-struck Chatham fails.
+He bids dread Calpe cease to shake the waves,
+While Elliott's arm the host of Bourbon saves;
+O'er sail-wing'd batteries sinking in the flood,
+Mid flames and darkness, drench'd in hostile blood,
+Britannia's sons extend their generous hand
+To rescue foes from death, and bear them to the land.
+
+Fired with the martial deeds that bathed in gore
+His brave companions on his native shore,
+Trumbull with daring hand their fame recals;
+He shades with night Quebec's beleagured walls,
+Thro flashing flames, that midnight war supplies,
+The assailants yield, their great Montgomery dies.
+On Bunker height, thro floods of hostile fire,
+His Putnam toils till all the troops retire,
+His Warren, pierced with balls, at last lies low,
+And leaves a victory to the wasted foe.
+Britannia too his glowing tint shall claim,
+To pour new splendor on her Calpean fame;
+He leads her bold sortie, and from their towers
+O'erturns the Gallic and Iberian powers.
+
+See rural seats of innocence and ease,
+High tufted towers and walks of waving trees,
+The white wates dashing on the Craggy shores,
+Meandring streams and meads of mingled flowers,
+Where nature's sons their wild excursions tread,
+In just design from Taylor's pencil spread.
+
+Stuart and Brown the moving portrait raise,
+Each rival stroke the force of life conveys;
+Heroes and beauties round their tablets stand,
+And rise unfading from their plastic hand;
+Each breathing form preserves its wonted grace,
+And all the Soul stands speaking in the face.
+
+Two kindred arts the swelling statue heave,
+Wake the dead wax, and teach the stone to live.
+While the bold chissel claims the rugged strife,
+To rouse the sceptred marble into life,
+
+See Wright's fair hands the livelier fire control,
+In waxen forms she breathes impassion'd soul;
+The pencil'd tint o'er moulded substance glows,
+And different powers the peerless art compose.
+Grief, rage and fear beneath her fingers start,
+Roll the wild eye and pour the bursting heart;
+The world's dead fathers wait her wakening call;
+And distant ages fill the storied hall.
+
+To equal fame ascends thy tuneful throng,
+The boast of genius and the pride of song;
+Caught from the cast of every age and clime,
+Their lays shall triumph o'er the lapse of time.
+
+With lynx-eyed glance thro nature far to pierce,
+With all the powers and every charm of verse,
+Each science opening in his ample mind,
+His fancy glowing and his taste refined,
+See Trumbull lead the train. His skilful hand
+Hurls the keen darts of satire round the land.
+Pride, knavery, dullness feel his mortal stings,
+And listening virtue triumphs while he sings;
+Britain's foil'd sons, victorious now no more,
+In guilt retiring from the wasted shore,
+Strive their curst cruelties to hide in vain;
+The world resounds them in his deathless strain.
+
+On wings of faith to elevate the soul
+Beyond the bourn of earth's benighted pole,
+For Dwight's high harp the epic Muse sublime
+Hails her new empire in the western clime.
+Tuned from the tones by seers seraphic sung,
+Heaven in his eye and rapture on his tongue,
+His voice revives old Canaan's promised land,
+The long-fought fields of Jacob's chosen band.
+In Hanniel's fate, proud faction finds its doom,
+Ai's midnight flames light nations to their tomb,
+In visions bright supernal joys are given,
+And all the dark futurities of heaven.
+
+While freedom's cause his patriot bosom warms,
+In counsel sage, nor inexpert in arms,
+See Humphreys glorious from the field retire,
+Sheathe the glad sword and string the soothing lyre;
+That lyre which erst, in hours of dark despair,
+Roused the sad realms to finish well the war.
+O'er fallen friends, with all the strength of woe,
+Fraternal sighs in his strong numbers flow;
+His country's wrongs, her duties, dangers, praise,
+Fire his full soul and animate his lays:
+Wisdom and War with equal joy shall own
+So fond a votary and so brave a son.
+
+
+
+
+Book IX.
+
+
+
+Argument.
+
+
+    Vision suspended. Night scene, as contemplated from the mount of
+    vision. Columbus inquires the reason of the slow progress of science,
+    and its frequent interruptions. Hesper answers, that all things in the
+    physical as well as the moral and intellectual world are progressive in
+    like manner. He traces their progress from the birth of the universe to
+    the present state of the earth and its inhabitants; asserts the future
+    advancement of society, till perpetual peace shall be established.
+    Columbus proposes his doubts; alleges in support of them the successive
+    rise and downfal of ancient nations; and infers future and periodical
+    convulsions. Hesper, in answer, exhibits the great distinction between
+    the ancient and modern state of the arts and of society. Crusades.
+    Commerce. Hanseatic League. Copernicus. Kepler. Newton, Galileo.
+    Herschel. Descartes. Bacon. Printing Press. Magnetic Needle.
+    Geographical discoveries. Federal system in America. A similar system
+    to be extended over the whole earth. Columbus desires a view of this.
+
+
+But now had Hesper from the Hero's sight
+Veil'd the vast world with sudden shades of night.
+Earth, sea and heaven, where'er he turns his eye,
+Arch out immense, like one surrounding sky
+Lamp'd with reverberant fires. The starry train
+Paint their fresh forms beneath the placid main;
+Fair Cynthia here her face reflected laves,
+Bright Venus gilds again her natal waves,
+The Bear redoubling foams with fiery joles,
+And two dire dragons twine two arctic poles.
+Lights o'er the land, from cities lost in shade,
+New constellations, new galaxies spread,
+And each high pharos double flames provides,
+One from its fires, one fainter from the tides.
+
+Centred sublime in this bivaulted sphere,
+On all sides void, unbounded, calm and clear,
+Soft o'er the Pair a lambent lustre plays,
+Their seat still cheering with concentred rays;
+To converse grave the soothing shades invite.
+And on his Guide Columbus fixt his sight:
+Kind messenger of heaven, he thus began,
+Why this progressive laboring search of man?
+If men by slow degrees have power to reach
+These opening truths that long dim ages teach,
+If, school'd in woes and tortured on to thought,
+Passion absorbing what experience taught,
+Still thro the devious painful paths they wind,
+And to sound wisdom lead at last the mind,
+Why did not bounteous nature, at their birth,
+Give all their science to these sons of earth,
+Pour on their reasoning powers pellucid day,
+Their arts, their interests clear as light display?
+That error, madness and sectarian strife
+Might find no place to havock human life.
+
+To whom the guardian Power: To thee is given
+To hold high converse and inquire of heaven,
+To mark untraversed ages, and to trace
+Whate'er improves and what impedes thy race.
+Know then, progressive are the paths we go
+In worlds above thee, as in thine below
+Nature herself (whose grasp of time and place
+Deals out duration and impalms all space)
+Moves in progressive march; but where to tend,
+What course to compass, how the march must end,
+Her sons decide not; yet her works we greet
+Imperfect in their parts, but in their whole complete.
+
+When erst her hand the crust of Chaos thirl'd,
+And forced from his black breast the bursting world,
+High swell'd the huge existence crude and crass,
+A formless dark impermeated mass;
+No light nor heat nor cold nor moist nor dry,
+But all concocting in their causes lie.
+Millions of periods, such as these her spheres
+Learn since to measure and to call their years,
+She broods the mass; then into motion brings
+And seeks and sorts the principles of things,
+Pours in the attractive and repulsive force,
+Whirls forth her globes in cosmogyral course,
+By myriads and by millions, scaled sublime,
+To scoop their skies, and curve the rounds of time.
+
+She groups their systems, lots to each his place,
+Strow'd thro immensity, and drown'd in space,
+All yet unseen; till light at last begun,
+And every system found a centred sun,
+Call'd to his neighbor and exchanged from far
+His infant gleams with every social star;
+Rays thwarting rays and skies o'erarching skies
+Robed their dim planets with commingling dyes,
+Hung o'er each heaven their living lamps serene,
+And tinged with blue the frore expanse between:
+Then joyous Nature hail'd the golden morn,
+Drank the young beam, beheld her empire born.
+
+Lo the majestic movement! there they trace
+Their blank infinitudes of time and space,
+Vault with careering curves her central goal,
+Pour forth her day and stud her evening stole,
+Heedless of count; their numbers still unknown,
+Unmeasured still their progress round her throne;
+For none of all her firstborn sons, endow'd
+With heavenly sapience and pretensions proud,
+No seraph bright, whose keen considering eye
+And sunbeam speed ascend from sky to sky,
+Has yet explored or counted all their spheres,
+Or fixt or found their past record of years.
+Nor can a ray from her remotest sun,
+Shot forth when first their splendid morn begun,
+Borne straight, continuous thro the void of space,
+Doubling each thousand years its rapid pace
+And hither posting, yet have reach'd this earth,
+To bring the tidings of its master's birth.
+
+And mark thy native orb! tho later born,
+Tho still unstored with light her silver horn,
+As seen from sister planets, who repay
+Far more than she their borrow'd streams of day,
+Yet what an age her shell-rock ribs attest!
+Her sparry spines, her coal-encumber'd breast!
+Millions of generations toil'd and died
+To crust with coral and to salt her tide,
+And millions more, ere yet her soil began,
+Ere yet she form'd or could have nursed her man.
+
+Then rose the proud phenomenon, the birth
+Most richly wrought, the favorite child of earth;
+But frail at first his frame, with nerves ill strung,
+Unform'd his footsteps, long untoned his tongue,
+Unhappy, unassociate, unrefined,
+Unfledged the pinions of his lofty mind,
+He wander'd wild, to every beast a prey,
+More prest with wrants, and feebler far than they;
+For countless ages forced from place to place,
+Just reproduced but scarce preserved his race.
+At last, a soil more fixt and streams more sweet
+Inform the wretched migrant where to seat;
+Euphrates' flowery banks begin to smile,
+Fruits fringe the Ganges, gardens grace the Nile;
+Nile, ribb'd with dikes, a length of coast creates,
+And giant Thebes begins her hundred gates,
+Mammoth of human works! her grandeur known
+These thousand lustres by its wrecks alone;
+Wrecks that humiliate still all modern states,
+Press the poized earth with their enormous weights,
+Refuse to quit their place, dissolve their frame
+And trust, like Ilion, to the bards their fame.
+Memphis amass'd her piles, that still o'erclimb
+The clouds of heaven, and task the tooth of time;
+Belus and Brama tame their vagrant throngs,
+And Homer, with his monumental songs,
+Builds far more durable his splendid throne
+Than all the Pharaohs with their hills of stone.
+
+High roll'd the round of years that hung sublime
+These wondrous beacons in the night of time;
+Studs of renown! that to thine eyes attest
+The waste of ages that beyond them rest;
+Ages how fill'd with toils! how gloom'd with woes!
+Trod with all steps that man's long march compose,
+Dim drear disastrous; ere his foot could gain
+A height so brilliant o'er the bestial train.
+
+In those blank periods, where no man can trace
+The gleams of thought that first illumed his race,
+His errors, twined with science, took their birth,
+And forged their fetters for this child of earth.
+And when, as oft, he dared expand his view,
+And work with nature on the line she drew,
+Some monster, gender'd in his fears, unmann'd
+His opening soul, and marr'd the works he plann'd.
+Fear, the first passion of his helpless state,
+Redoubles all the woes that round him wait,
+Blocks nature's path and sends him wandering wide,
+Without a guardian and without a guide.
+
+Beat by the storm, refresht by gentle rain,
+By sunbeams cheer'd or founder'd in the main,
+He bows to every force he can't control,
+Indows them all with intellect and soul,
+With passions various, turbulent and strong,
+Rewarding virtue and avenging wrong,
+Gives heaven and earth to their supernal doom,
+And swells their sway beyond the closing tomb.
+Hence rose his gods, that mystic monstrous lore
+Of blood-stain'd altars and of priestly power,
+Hence blind credulity on all dark things,
+False morals hence, and hence the yoke of kings.
+
+Yon starry vault that round him rolls the spheres,
+And gives to earth her seasons, days and years,
+The source designates and the clue imparts
+Of all his errors and of all his arts.
+There spreads the system that his ardent thought
+First into emblems, then to spirits wrought;
+Spirits that ruled all matter and all mind,
+Nourish'd or famish'd, kill'd or cured mankind,
+Bade him neglect the soil whereon he fed,
+Work with hard hand for that which was not bread,
+Erect the temple, darken deep the shrine,
+Yield the full hecatomb with awe divine,
+Despise this earth, and claim with lifted eyes
+His health and harvest from the meteor'd skies.
+
+Accustom'd thus to bow the suppliant head,
+And reverence powers that shake his heart with dread,
+His pliant faith extends with easy ken
+From heavenly hosts to heaven-anointed men;
+The sword, the tripod join their mutual aids,
+To film his eyes with more impervious shades,
+Create a sceptred idol, and enshrine
+The Robber Chief in attributes divine,
+Arm the new phantom with the nation's rod,
+And hail the dreadful delegate of God.
+Two settled slaveries thus the race control,
+Engross their labors and debase their soul;
+Till creeds and crimes and feuds and fears compose
+The seeds of war and all its kindred woes.
+
+Unfold, thou Memphian dungeon! there began
+The lore of Mystery, the mask of man;
+There Fraud with Science leagued, in early times,
+Plann'd a resplendent course of holy crimes,
+Stalk'd o'er the nations with gigantic pace,
+With sacred symbols charm'd the cheated race,
+Taught them new grades of ignorance to gain,
+And punish truth with more than mortal pain,--
+Unfold at last thy cope! that man may see
+The mines of mischief he has drawn from thee.
+--Wide gapes the porch with hieroglyphics hung,
+And mimic zodiacs o'er its arches flung;
+Close labyrinth'd here the feign'd Omniscient dwells,
+Dupes from all nations seek the sacred cells;
+Inquiring strangers, with astonish'd eyes,
+Dive deep to read these subterranean skies,
+To taste that holiness which faith bestows,
+And fear promulgates thro its world of woes.
+The bold Initiate takes his awful stand,
+A thin pale taper trembling in his hand;
+Thro hells of howling monsters lies the road,
+To season souls and teach the ways of God.
+
+Down the crampt corridor, far sunk from day,
+On hands and bended knees he gropes his way,
+Swims roaring streams, thro dens of serpents crawls,
+Descends deep wells and clambers flaming walls;
+Now thwart his lane a lake of sulphur gleams,
+With fiery waves and suffocating steams;
+He dares not shun the ford; for full in view
+Fierce lions rush behind and force him thro.
+Long ladders heaved on end, with banded eyes
+He mounts, and mounts, and seems to gain the skies;
+Then backward falling, tranced with deadly fright,
+Finds his own feet and stands restored to light.
+Here all dread sights of torture round him rise;
+Lash'd on a wheel, a whirling felon flies;
+A wretch, with members chain'd and liver bare,
+Writhes and disturbs the vulture feasting there:
+One strains to roll his rock, recoiling still;
+One, stretch'd recumbent o'er a limpid rill,
+Burns with devouring thirst; his starting eyes,
+Swell'd veins and frothy lips and piercing cries
+Accuse the faithless eddies, as they shrink
+And keep him panting still, still bending o'er the brink.
+
+At last Elysium to his ravisht eyes
+Spreads flowery fields and opens golden skies;
+Breathes Orphean music thro the dancing groves,
+Trains the gay troops of Beauties, Graces, Loves,
+Lures his delirious sense with sweet decoys,
+Fine fancied foretaste of eternal joys,
+Fastidious pomp or proud imperial state,--
+Illusions all, that pass the Ivory Gate!
+
+Various and vast the fraudful drama grows,
+Feign'd are the pleasures, as unfelt the woes;
+Where sainted hierophants, with well taught mimes,
+Play'd first the role for all succeeding times;
+Which, vamp'd and varied as the clime required,
+More trist or splendid, open or retired,
+Forms local creeds, with multifarious lore,
+Creates the God and bids the world adore.
+
+Lo at the Lama's feet, as lord of all,
+Age following age in dumb devotion fall;
+The youthful god, mid suppliant kings enshrined,
+Dispensing fate and ruling half mankind,
+Sits with contorted limbs, a silent slave,
+An early victim of a secret grave;
+His priests by myriads famish every clime
+And sell salvation in the tones they chime.
+
+See India's Triad frame their blood-penn'd codes,
+Old Ganges change his gardens for his gods,
+Ask his own waves from their celestial hands,
+And choke his channel with their sainted sands.
+Mad with the mandates of their scriptured word,
+And prompt to snatch from hell her dear dead lord,
+The wife, still blooming, decks her sacred urns,
+Mounts the gay pyre, and with his body burns.
+
+Shrined in his golden fane the Delphian stands,
+Shakes distant thrones and taxes unknown lands.
+Kings, consuls, khans from earth's whole regions come,
+Pour in their wealth, and then inquire their doom;
+Furious and wild the priestess rends her veil,
+Sucks, thro the sacred stool, the maddening gale,
+Starts reddens foams and screams and mutters loud,
+Like a fell fiend, her oracles of God.
+The dark enigma, by the pontiff scroll'd
+In broken phrase, and close in parchment roll'd,
+From his proud pulpit to the suppliant hurl'd,
+Shall rive an empire and distract the world.
+
+And where the mosque's dim arches bend on high,
+Mecca's dead prophet mounts the mimic sky;
+Pilgrims, imbanded strong for mutual aid,
+Thro dangerous deserts that their faith has made,
+Train their long caravans, and famish'd come
+To kiss the shrine and trembling touch the tomb,
+By fire and sword the same fell faith extend,
+And howl their homilies to earth's far end.
+
+Phenician altars reek with human gore,
+Gods hiss from caverns or in cages roar,
+Nile pours from heaven a tutelary flood,
+And gardens grow the vegetable god.
+Two rival powers the magian faith inspire,
+Primeval Darkness and immortal Fire;
+Evil and good in these contending rise,
+And each by turns the sovereign of the skies.
+Sun, stars and planets round the earth behold
+Their fanes of marble and their shrines of gold;
+The sea, the grove, the harvest and the vine
+Spring from their gods and claim a birth divine;
+While heroes, kings and sages of their times,
+Those gods on earth, are gods in happier climes;
+Minos in judgment sits, and Jove in power,
+And Odin's friends are feasted there with gore.
+
+Man is an infant still; and slow and late
+Must form and fix his adolescent state,
+Mature his manhood, and at last behold
+His reason ripen and his force unfold.
+From that bright eminence he then shall cast
+A look of wonder on his wanderings past,
+Congratulate himself, and o'er the earth
+Firm the full reign of peace predestined at his birth.
+
+So Hesper taught; and farther had pursued
+A theme so grateful as a world renew'd;
+But dubious thoughts disturb'd the Hero's breast,
+Who thus with modest mien the Seer addrest:
+Say, friend of man, in this unbounded range,
+Where error vagrates and illusions change,
+What hopes to see his baleful blunders cease,
+And earth commence that promised age of peace?
+Like a loose pendulum his mind is hung,
+From wrong to wrong by ponderous passion swung,
+It vibrates wide, and with unceasing flight
+Sweeps all extremes and scorns the mean of right.
+Tho in the times you trace he seems to gain
+A steadier movement and a path more plain,
+And tho experience will have taught him then
+To mark some dangers, some delusions ken,
+Yet who can tell what future shocks may spread
+New shades of darkness round his lofty head,
+Plunge him again in some broad gulph of woes,
+Where long and oft he struggled, wreck'd and rose?
+
+What strides he took in those gigantic times
+That sow'd with cities all his orient climes!
+When earth's proud floods he tamed, made many a shore,
+And talk'd with heaven from Babel's glittering tower!
+Did not his Babylon exulting say,
+I sit a queen, for ever stands my sway?
+Thebes, Memphis, Nineveh, a countless throng,
+Caught the same splendor and return'd the song;
+Each boasted, promised o'er the world to rise,
+Spouse of the sun, eternal as the skies.
+Where shall we find them now? the very shore
+Where Ninus rear'd his empire is no more:
+The dikes decay'd, a putrid marsh regains
+The sunken walls, the tomb-encumber'd plains,
+Pursues the dwindling nations where they shrink,
+And skirts with slime its deleterious brink.
+The fox himself has fled his gilded den,
+Nor holds the heritage he won from men;
+Lapwing and reptile shun the curst abode,
+And the foul dragon, now no more a god,
+Trails off his train; the sickly raven flies;
+A wide strong-stencht Avernus chokes the skies.
+So pride and ignorance fall a certain prey
+To the stanch bloodhound of despotic sway.
+
+Then past a long drear night, with here and there
+A doubtful glimmering from a single star;
+Tyre, Carthage, Syracuse the gleam increase,
+Till dawns at last the effulgent morn of Greece,
+Here all his Muses meet, all arts combine
+To nerve his genius and his works refine;
+Morals and laws and arms, and every grace
+That e'er adorn'd or could exalt the race,
+Wrought into science and arranged in rules,
+Swell the proud splendor of her cluster'd schools,
+Build and sustain the state with loud acclaim,
+And work those deathless miracles of fame
+That stand unrivall'd still; for who shall dare
+Another field with Marathon compare?
+Who speaks of eloquence or sacred song,
+But calls on Greece to modulate his tongue?
+And where has man's fine form so perfect shone
+In tint or mould, in canvass or in stone?
+
+Yet from that splendid height o'erturn'd once more,
+He dasht in dust the living lamp he bore.
+Dazzled with her own glare, decoy'd and sold
+For homebred faction and barbaric gold,
+Greece treads on Greece, subduing and subdued,
+New crimes inventing, all the old renew'd,
+Canton o'er canton climbs; till, crush'd and broke,
+All yield the sceptre and resume the yoke.
+
+Where shall we trace him next, the migrant man,
+To try once more his meliorating plan?
+Shall not the Macedonian, where he strides
+O'er Asian worlds and Nile's neglected tides,
+Prepare new seats of glory, to repay
+The transient shadows with perpetual day?
+His heirs erect their empires, and expand
+The beams of Greece thro each benighted land;
+Seleucia spreads o'er ten broad realms her sway,
+And turns on eastern climes the western ray;
+Palmyra brightens earth's commercial zone,
+And sits an emblem of her god the sun;
+While fond returning to that favorite shore
+Where Ammon ruled and Hermes taught of yore,
+All arts concentrate, force and grace combine
+To rear and blend the useful with the fine,
+Restore the Egyptian glories, and retain,
+Where science dawn'd, her great resurgent reign.
+
+From Egypt chased again, he seeks his home,
+More firmly fixt in sage considerate Rome.
+Here all the virtues long resplendent shone
+All that was Greek, barbarian and her own;
+She school'd him sound, and boasted to extend
+Thro time's long course and earth's remotest end
+His glorious reign of reason; soon to cease
+The clang of arms, and rule the world in peace.
+Great was the sense he gain'd, and well defined
+The various functions of his tutor'd mind;
+Could but his sober sense have proved his guide,
+And kind experience pruned the shoots of pride.
+
+A field magnificent before him lay;
+Land after land received the spreading ray;
+Franchise and friendship travell'd in his train,
+Bandits of earth and pirates of the main
+Rose into citizens, their rage resign'd.
+And hail'd the great republic of mankind.
+If ever then state slaughter was to pause,
+And man from nature learn to frame his laws.
+This was the moment; here the sunbeam rose
+To hush the human storm and let the world repose.
+
+But drunk with pomp and sickening at the light,
+He stagger d wild on this delirious height;
+Forgot the plainest truths he learnt before,
+And barter'd moral for material power.
+From Calpe's rock to India's ardent skies,
+O'er shuddering earth his talon'd Eagle flies,
+To justice blind, and heedless where she drove,
+As when she bore the brandisht bolt of Jove.
+
+Rome loads herself with chains, seals fast her eyes,
+And tells the insulted nations when to rise;
+And rise they do, like sweeping tempests driven,
+Swarm following swarm, o'ershading earth and heaven,
+Roll back her outrage, and indignant shed
+The world's wide vengeance on her sevenfold head.
+Then dwindling back to littleness and shade
+Man soon forgets the gorgeous glare he made,
+Sinks to a savage serf or monkish drone,
+Roves in rude hordes or counts his beads alone,
+Wars with his arts, obliterates his lore,
+And burns the books that rear'd his race before.
+
+Shrouded in deeper darkness now he veers
+The vast gyration of a thousand years,
+Strikes out each lamp that would illume his way,
+Disputes his food with every beast of prey;
+Imbands his force to fence his trist abodes,
+A wretched robber with his feudal codes.
+
+At length, it seems, some parsimonious rays
+Collect from each far heaven a feeble blaze,
+Dance o'er his Europe, and again excite
+His numerous nations to receive the light.
+But faint and slow the niggard dawn expands,
+Diffused o'er various far dissunder'd lands,
+Dreading, as well it may, to prove once more
+The same sad chance so often proved before.
+
+And why not lapse again? Celestial Seer,
+Forgive my doubts, and ah remove my fear!
+Man is my brother; strong I feel the ties,
+From strong solicitude my doubts arise;
+My heart, while opening with the boundless scope
+That swells before him and expands his hope,
+Forebodes another fall; and tho at last
+Thy world is planted and with light o'ercast,
+Tho two broad continents their beams combine
+Round his whole globe to stream his day divine,
+Perchance some folly, yet uncured, may spread
+A storm proportion'd to the lights they shed,
+Veil both his continents, and leave again
+Between them stretch'd the impermeable main;
+All science buried, sails and cities lost,
+Their lands uncultured, as their seas uncrost.
+Till on thy coast, some thousand ages hence,
+New pilots rise, bold enterprise commence,
+Some new Columbus (happier let him be,
+More wise and great and virtuous far than me)
+Launch on the wave, and tow'rd the rising day
+Like a strong eaglet steer his untaught way,
+Gird half the globe, and to his age unfold
+A strange new world, the world we call the old.
+From Finland's glade to Calpe's storm-beat head
+He'll find some tribes of scattering wildmen spread;
+But one vast wilderness will shade the soil,
+No wreck of art, no sign of ancient toil
+Tell where a city stood; nor leave one trace
+Of all that honors now, and all that shames the race.
+
+If such the round we run, what hope, my friend,
+To see our madness and our miseries end?--
+Here paused the Patriarch: mild the Saint return'd,
+And as he spoke, fresh glories round him burn'd:
+My son, I blame not but applaud thy grief;
+Inquiries deep should lead to slow belief.
+So small the portion of the range of man
+His written stories reach or views can span,
+That wild confusion seems to clog his march,
+And the dull progress made illudes thy search.
+But broad beyond compare, with steadier hand
+Traced o'er his earth, his present paths expand.
+In sober majesty and matron grace
+Sage Science now conducts her filial race;
+And if, while all their arts around them shine,
+They culture more the solid than the fine,
+Tis to correct their fatal faults of old,
+When, caught by tinsel, they forgot the gold;
+When their strong brilliant imitative lines
+Traced nature only in her gay designs,
+Rear'd the proud column, toned her chanting lyre,
+Warm'd the full senate with her words of fire,
+Pour'd on the canvass every pulse of life,
+And bade the marble rage with human strife.
+
+These were the arts that nursed unequal sway,
+That priests would pamper and that kings would pay,
+That spoke to vulgar sense, and often stole
+The sense of right and freedom from the soul.
+While, circumscribed in some concentred clime,
+They reach'd but one small nation at a time,
+Dazzled that nation, pufft her local pride,
+Proclaim'd her hatred to the world beside,
+Drew back returning hatred from afar,
+And sunk themselves beneath the storms of war.
+
+As, when the sun moves o'er the flaming zone,
+Collecting clouds attend his fervid throne,
+Superior splendors, in his morn display'd,
+Prepare for noontide but a heavier shade;
+Thus where the brilliant arts alone prevail'd,
+Their shining course succeeding storms assail'd;
+Pride, wrong and insult hemm'd their scanty reign,
+A Nile their stream, a Hellespont their main,
+Content with Tiber's narrow shores to wind,
+They fledged their Eagle but to fang mankind;
+Ere great inventions found a tardy birth,
+And with their new creations blest the earth.
+
+Now sober'd man a steadier gait assumes,
+Broad is the beam that breaks the Gothic glooms.
+At once consenting nations lift their eyes,
+And hail the holy dawn that streaks the skies;
+Arabian caliphs rear the spires of Spain,
+The Lombards keel their Adriatic main,
+Great Charles, invading and reviving all,
+Plants o'er with schools his numerous states of Gaul;
+And Alfred opes the mines whence Albion draws
+The ore of all her wealth,--her liberty and laws.
+
+Ausonian cities interchange and spread
+The lights of learning on the wings of trade;
+Bologna's student walls arise to fame,
+Germania, thine their rival honors claim;
+Halle, Gottinge, Upsal, Kiel and Leyden smile,
+Oxonia, Cambridge cheer Britannia's isle;
+Where, like her lark, gay Chaucer leads the lay,
+The matin carol of his country's day.
+
+Blind War himself, that erst opposed all good,
+And whelm'd meek Science in her votaries' blood,
+Now smooths, by means unseen, her modest way,
+Extends her limits and secures her sway.
+From Europe's world his mad crusaders pour
+Their banded myriads on the Asian shore;
+The mystic Cross, thro famine toil and blood,
+Leads their long marches to the tomb of God.
+Thro realms of industry their passage lies,
+And labor'd affluence feasts their curious eyes;
+Till fields of slaughter whelm the broken host,
+Their pride appall'd, their warmest zealots lost,
+The wise remains to their own shores return,
+Transplant all arts that Hagar's race adorn,
+Learn from long intercourse their mutual ties,
+And find in commerce where their interest lies.
+
+From Drave's long course to Biscay's bending shores,
+Where Adria sleeps, to where the Bothnian roars,
+In one great Hanse, for earth's whole trafic known,
+Free cities rise, and in their golden zone
+Bind all the interior states; nor princes dare
+Infringe their franchise with voracious war.
+All shield them safe, and joy to share the gain
+That spreads o'er land from each surrounding main,
+Makes Indian stuffs, Arabian gums their own,
+Plants Persian gems on every Celtic crown,
+Pours thro their opening woodlands milder day,
+And gives to genius his expansive play.
+
+This blessed moment, from the towers of Thorn
+New splendor rises; there the sage is born!
+The sage who starts these planetary spheres,
+Deals out their task to wind their own bright years,
+Restores his station to the parent Sun,
+And leads his duteous daughters round his throne.
+Each mounts obedient on her wheels of fire,
+Whirls round her sisters, and salutes the sire,
+Guides her new car, her youthful coursers tries,
+Curves careful paths along her alter'd skies,
+Learns all her mazes thro the host of even,
+And hails and joins the harmony of heaven.
+--Fear not, Copernicus! let loose the rein,
+Launch from their goals, and mark the moving train;
+Fix at their sun thy calculating eye,
+Compare and count their courses round their sky.
+Fear no disaster from the slanting force
+That warps them staggering in elliptic course;
+Thy sons with steadier ken shall aid the search,
+And firm and fashion their majestic march,
+Kepler prescribe the laws no stars can shun,
+And Newton tie them to the eternal sun.
+
+By thee inspired, his tube the Tuscan plies,
+And sends new colonies to stock the skies,
+Gives Jove his satellites, and first adorns
+Effulgent Phosphor with his silver horns.
+Herschel ascends himself with venturous wain,
+And joins and flanks thy planetary train,
+Perceives his distance from their elder spheres,
+And guards with numerous moons the lonely round he steers.
+
+Yes, bright Copernicus, thy beams, far hurl'd,
+Shall startle well this intellectual world,
+Break the delusive dreams of ancient lore,
+New floods of light on every subject pour,
+Thro Physic Nature many a winding trace,
+And seat the Moral on her sister's base.
+Descartes with force gigantic toils alone,
+Unshrines old errors and propounds his own;
+Like a blind Samson, gropes their strong abodes,
+Whelms deep in dust their temples and their gods,
+Buries himself with those false codes they drew,
+And makes his followers frame and fix the true.
+
+Bacon, with every power of genius fraught,
+Spreads over worlds his mantling wings of thought,
+Draws in firm lines, and tells in nervous tone
+All that is yet and all that shall be known,
+Withes Proteus Matter in his arms of might,
+And drags her tortuous secrets forth to light,
+Bids men their unproved systems all forgo,
+Informs them what to learn, and how to know,
+Waves the first flambeau thro the night that veils
+Egyptian fables and Phenician tales,
+Strips from all-plundering Greece the cloak she wore,
+And shows the blunders of her borrow'd lore.
+
+One vast creation, lately borne abroad,
+Cheers the young nations like a nurturing God,
+Breathes thro them all the same wide-searching soul.
+Forms, feeds, refines and animates the whole,
+Guards every ground they gain, and forward brings
+Glad Science soaring on cerulean wings,
+Trims her gay plumes, directs her upward course,
+Props her light pinions and sustains her force,
+Instructs all men her golden gifts to prize,
+And catch new glories from her beamful eyes,--
+Tis the prolific Press; whose tablet, fraught
+By graphic Genius with his painted thought,
+Flings forth by millions the prodigious birth,
+And in a moment stocks the astonish'd earth.
+
+Genius, enamor'd of his fruitful bride,
+Assumes new force and elevates his pride.
+No more, recumbent o'er his finger'd style,
+He plods whole years each copy to compile,
+Leaves to ludibrious winds the priceless page,
+Or to chance fires the treasure of an age;
+But bold and buoyant, with his sister Fame,
+He strides o'er earth, holds high his ardent flame,
+Calls up Discovery with her tube and scroll,
+And points the trembling magnet to the pole.
+Hence the brave Lusitanians stretch the sail,
+Scorn guiding stars, and tame the midsea gale;
+And hence thy prow deprest the boreal wain,
+Rear'd adverse heavens, a second earth to gain,
+Ran down old Night, her western curtain thirl'd,
+And snatch'd from swaddling shades an infant world.
+
+Rome, Athens, Memphis, Tyre! had you butknown
+This glorious triad, now familiar grown,
+The Press, the Magnet faithful to its pole,
+And earth's own Movement round her steadfast goal,
+Ne'er had your science, from that splendid height,
+Sunk in her strength, nor seen succeeding night.
+Her own utility had forced her sway,
+All nations caught the fast-extending ray,
+Nature thro all her kingdoms oped the road,
+Resign'd her secrets and her wealth bestow'd;
+Her moral codes a like dominion rear'd,
+Freedom been born and folly disappear'd,
+War and his monsters sunk beneath her ban,
+And left the world to reason and to man.
+
+But now behold him bend his broader way,
+Lift keener eyes and drink diviner day,
+All systems scrutinize, their truths unfold,
+Prove well the recent, well revise the old,
+Reject all mystery, and define with force
+The point he aims at in his laboring course,--
+To know these elements, learn how they wind
+Their wondrous webs of matter and of mind,
+What springs, what guides organic life requires,
+To move, rule, rein its ever-changing gyres,
+Improve and utilise each opening birth,
+And aid the labors of this nurturing earth.
+
+But chief their moral soul he learns to trace,
+That stronger chain which links and leads the race;
+Which forms and sanctions every social tie,
+And blinds or clears their intellectual eye.
+He strips that soul from every filmy shade
+That schools had caught, that oracles had made,
+Relumes her visual nerve, develops strong
+The rules of right, the subtle shifts of wrong;
+Of civil power draws clear the sacred line,
+Gives to just government its right divine,
+Forms, varies, fashions, as his lights increase,
+Till earth is fill'd with happiness and peace.
+
+Already taught, thou know'st the fame that waits
+His rising seat in thy confederate states.
+There stands the model, thence he long shall draw
+His forms of policy, his traits of law;
+Each land shall imitate, each nation join
+The well-based brotherhood, the league divine,
+Extend its empire with the circling sun,
+And band the peopled globe beneath its federal zone.
+
+As thus he spoke, returning tears of joy
+Suffused the Hero's cheek and pearl'd his eye:
+Unveil, said he, my friend, and stretch once more
+Beneath my view that heaven-illumined shore;
+Let me behold her silver beams expand,
+To lead all nations, lighten every land,
+Instruct the total race, and teach at last
+Their toils to lessen and their chains to cast,
+Trace and attain the purpose of their birth,
+And hold in peace this heritage of earth.
+The Seraph smiled consent, the Hero's eye
+Watch'd for the daybeam round the changing sky.
+
+
+
+
+Book X.
+
+
+
+Argument
+
+
+    The vision resumed, and extended over the whole earth. Present
+    character of different nations. Future progress of society with respect
+    to commerce; discoveries; inland navigation; philosophical, med
+    and political knowledge. Science of government. Assimilation and final
+    union of all languages. Its effect on education, and on the advancement
+    of physical and moral science. The physical precedes the moral, as
+    Phosphor precedes the Sun. View of a general Congress from all nations,
+    assembled to establish the political harmony of mankind. Conclusion.
+
+
+Hesper again his heavenly power display'd,
+And shook the yielding canopy of shade.
+Sudden the stars their trembling fires withdrew.
+Returning splendors burst upon the view,
+Floods of unfolding light the skies adorn,
+And more than midday glories grace the morn.
+So shone the earth, as if the sideral train,
+Broad as full suns, had sail'd the ethereal plain;
+When no distinguisht orb could strike the sight,
+But one clear blaze of all-surrounding light
+O'erflow'd the vault of heaven. For now in view
+Remoter climes and future ages drew;
+Whose deeds of happier fame, in long array,
+Call'd into vision, fill the newborn day.
+
+Far as seraphic power could lift the eye,
+Or earth or ocean bend the yielding sky,
+Or circling sutis awake the breathing gale,
+Drake lead the way, or Cook extend the sail;
+Where Behren sever'd, with adventurous prow,
+Hesperia's headland from Tartaria's brow;
+Where sage Vancouvre's patient leads were hurl'd,
+Where Deimen stretch'd his solitary world;
+All lands, all seas that boast a present name,
+And all that unborn time shall give to fame,
+Around the Pair in bright expansion rise,
+And earth, in one vast level, bounds the skies.
+
+They saw the nations tread their different shores,
+Ply their own toils and wield their local powers,
+Their present state in all its views disclose,
+Their gleams of happiness, their shades of woes,
+Plodding in various stages thro the range
+Of man's unheeded but unceasing change.
+Columbus traced them with experienced eye,
+And class'd and counted all the flags that fly;
+He mark'd what tribes still rove the savage waste,
+What cultured realms the sweets of plenty taste;
+Where arts and virtues fix their golden reign,
+Or peace adorns, or slaughter dyes the plain.
+
+He saw the restless Tartar, proud to roam,
+Move with his herds and pitch a transient home;
+Tibet's long tracts and China's fixt domain,
+Dull as their despots, yield their cultured grain;
+Cambodia, Siam, Asia's myriad isles
+And old Indostan, with their wealthy spoils
+Attract adventures masters, and o'ershade
+Their sunbright ocean with the wings of trade.
+Arabian robbers, Syrian Kurds combined,
+Create their deserts and infest mankind;
+The Turk's dim Crescent, like a day-struck star,
+As Russia's Eagle shades their haunts of war,
+Shrinks from insulted Europe, who divide
+The shatter'd empire to the Pontic tide.
+He mark'd impervious Afric, where alone
+She lies encircled with the verdant zone
+That lines her endless coast, and still sustains
+Her northern pirates and her eastern swains,
+Mourns her interior tribes purloined away,
+And chain'd and sold beyond Atlantic day.
+Brazilla's wilds, Mackensie's savage lands
+With bickering strife inflame their furious bands;
+Atlantic isles and Europe's cultured shores
+Heap their vast wealth, exchange their growing stores,
+All arts inculcate, new discoveries plan,
+Tease and torment but school the race of man.
+While his own federal states, extending far,
+Calm their brave sons now breathing from the war,
+Unfold their harbors, spread their genial soil,
+And welcome freemen to the cheerful toil.
+
+A sight so solemn, as it varied sound,
+Fill'd his fond heart with reveries profound;
+He felt the infinitude of thoughts that pass
+And guide and govern that enormous mass.
+The cares that agitate, the creeds that blind,
+The woes that waste the many-master'd kind,
+The distance great that still remains to trace,
+Ere sober sense can harmonize the race,
+Held him suspense, imprest with reverence meek,
+And choked his utterance as he wish'd to speak:
+When Hesper thus: The paths they here pursue,
+Wide as they seem unfolding to thy view,
+Show but a point in that long circling course
+Which cures their weakness and confirms their force,
+Lends that experience which alone can close
+The scenes of strife, and give the world repose.
+Yet here thou seest the same progressive plan
+That draws for mutual succour man to man,
+From twain to tribe, from tribe to realm dilates,
+In federal union groups a hundred states,
+Thro all their turns with gradual scale ascends,
+Their powers; their passions and their interest blends;
+While growing arts their social virtues spread,
+Enlarge their compacts and unlock their trade;
+Till each remotest clan, by commerce join'd,
+Links in the chain that binds all humankind,
+Their bloody banners sink in darkness furl'd,
+And one white flag of peace triumphant walks the world.
+
+As infant streams, from oozing earth at first
+With feeble force and lonely murmurs burst,
+From myriad unseen fountains draw the rills
+And curl contentious round their hundred hills,
+Meet, froth and foam, their dashing currents swell,
+O'er crags and rocks their furious course impel,
+Impetuous plunging plough the mounds of earth,
+And tear the fostering flanks that gave them birth;
+Mad with the strength they gain, they thicken deep
+Their muddy waves and slow and sullen creep,
+O'erspread whole regions in their lawless pride,
+Then stagnate long, then shrink and curb their tide;
+Anon more tranquil grown, with steadier sway,
+Thro broader banks they shape their seaward way,
+From different climes converging, join and spread
+Their mingled waters in one widening bed,
+Profound, transparent; till the liquid zone
+Bands half the globe and drinks the golden sun,
+Sweeps onward still the still expanding plain,
+And moves majestic to the boundless main.
+Tis thus Society's small sources rise;
+Thro passions wild her infant progress lies;
+Fear, with its host of follies, errors, woes,
+Creates her obstacles and forms her foes;
+Misguided interest, local pride withstand,
+Till long-tried ills her growing views expand,
+Till tribes and states and empires find their place,
+Whose mutual wants her widest walks embrace;
+Enlightened interest, moral sense at length
+Combine their aids to elevate her strength,
+Lead o'er the world her peace-commanding sway.
+And light her steps with everlasting day.
+
+From that mark'd stage of man we now behold,
+More rapid strides his coming paths unfold;
+His continents are traced, his islands found,
+His well-taught sails on all his billows bound,
+His varying wants their new discoveries ply,
+And seek in earth's whole range their sure supply.
+
+First of his future stages, thou shalt see
+His trade unfetter'd and his ocean free.
+From thy young states the code consoling springs,
+To strip from vulture War his naval wings;
+In views so just all Europe's powers combine,
+And earth's full voice approves the vast design.
+Tho still her inland realms the combat wage
+And hold in lingering broils the unsettled age,
+Yet no rude shocks that shake the crimson plain
+Shall more disturb the labors of the main;
+The main that spread so wide his travell'd way,
+Liberal as air, impartial as the day,
+That all thy race the common wealth might share,
+Exchange their fruits and fill their treasures there,
+Their speech assimilate, their counsels blend,
+Till mutual interest fix the mutual friend.
+Now see, my son, the destined hour advance;
+Safe in their leagues commercial navies dance,
+Leave their curst cannon on the quay-built strand,
+And like the stars of heaven a fearless course command.
+
+The Hero look'd; beneath his wondering eyes
+Gay streamers lengthen round the seas and skies;
+The countless nations open all their stores,
+Load every wave and crowd the lively shores;
+Bright sails in mingling mazes streak the air,
+And commerce triumphs o'er the rage of war.
+
+From Baltic streams, from Elba's opening side,
+From Rhine's long course and Texel's laboring tide,
+From Gaul, from Albion, tired of fruitless fight,
+From green Hibernia, clothed in recent light,
+Hispania's strand that two broad oceans lave,
+From Senegal and Gambia's golden wave,
+Tago the rich, and Douro's viny shores,
+The sweet Canaries and the soft Azores,
+Commingling barks their mutual banners hail,
+And drink by turns the same distending gale.
+Thro Calpe's strait that leads the Midland main,
+From Adria, Pontus, Nile's resurgent reign,
+The sails look forth and wave their bandrols high
+And ask their breezes from a broader sky.
+Where Asia's isles and utmost shorelands bend,
+Like rising suns the sheeted masts ascend;
+Coast after coast their flowing flags unrol,
+From Deimen's rocks to Zembla's ice-propt pole,
+Where Behren's pass collapsing worlds divides,
+Where California breaks the billowy tides,
+Peruvian streams their golden margins boast,
+Or Chili bluffs or Plata flats the coast.
+Where, clothed in splendor, his Atlantic way
+Spreads the blue borders of Hesperian day,
+From all his havens, with majestic sweep,
+The swiftest boldest daughters of the deep
+Swarm forth before him; till the cloudlike train
+From pole to pole o'ersheet the whitening main.
+
+So some primeval seraph, placed on high,
+From heaven's sublimest point o'erlooke'd the sky,
+When space unfolding heard the voice of God,
+And suns and stars and systems roll'd abroad,
+Caught their first splendors from his beamful eye,
+Began their years and vaulted round their sky;
+Their social spheres in bright confusion play,
+Exchange their beams and fill the newborn day.
+
+Nor seas alone the countless barks behold;
+Earth's inland realms their naval paths unfold.
+Her plains, long portless, now no more complain
+Of useless rills and fountains nursed in vain;
+Canals curve thro them many a liquid line,
+Prune their wild streams, their lakes and oceans join.
+Where Darien hills o'erlook the gulphy tide,
+Cleft in his view the enormous banks divide;
+Ascending sails their opening pass pursue,
+And waft the sparkling treasures of Peru.
+Moxoe resigns his stagnant world of fen,
+Allures, rewards the cheerful toils of men,
+Leads their long new-made rivers round his reign,
+Drives off the stench and waves his golden grain,
+Feeds a whole nation from his cultured shore,
+Where not a bird could skim the skies before.
+
+From Mohawk's mouth, far westing with the sun,
+Thro all the midlands recent channels run,
+Tap the redundant lakes, the broad hills brave,
+And Hudson marry with Missouri's wave.
+From dim Superior, whose uncounted sails
+Shade his full seas and bosom all his gales,
+New paths unfolding seek Mackensie's tide,
+And towns and empires rise along their side;
+Slave's crystal highways all his north adorn,
+Like coruscations from the boreal morn.
+Proud Missisippi, tamed and taught his road,
+Flings forth irriguous from his generous flood
+Ten thousand watery glades; that, round him curl'd,
+Vein the broad bosom of the western world.
+
+From the red banks of Arab's odorous tide
+Their Isthmus opens, and strange waters glide;
+Europe from all her shores, with crowded sails,
+Looks thro the pass and calls the Asian gales.
+Volga and Obi distant oceans join.
+Delighted Danube weds the wasting Rhine;
+Elbe, Oder, Neister channel many a plain,
+Exchange their barks and try each other's main.
+All infant streams and every mountain rill
+Choose their new paths, some useful task to fill,
+Each acre irrigate, re-road the earth,
+And serve at last the purpose of their birth.
+
+Earth, garden'd all, a tenfold burden brings;
+Her fruits, her odors, her salubrious springs
+Swell, breathe and bubble from the soil they grace,
+String with strong nerves the renovating race,
+Their numbers multiply in every land,
+Their toils diminish and their powers expand;
+And while she rears them with a statelier frame
+Their soul she kindles with diviner flame,
+Leads their bright intellect with fervid glow
+Thro all the mass of things that still remains to know.
+
+He saw the aspiring genius of the age
+Soar in the Bard and strengthen in the Sage:
+The Bard with bolder hand assumes the lyre,
+Warms the glad nations with unwonted fire,
+Attunes to virtue all the tones that roll
+Their tides of transport thro the expanding soul.
+For him no more, beneath their furious gods,
+Old ocean crimsons and Olympus nods,
+Uprooted mountains sweep the dark profound,
+Or Titans groan beneath the rending ground,
+No more his clangor maddens up the mind
+To crush, to conquer and enslave mankind,
+To build on ruin'd realms the shrines of fame,
+And load his numbers with a tyrant's name.
+Far nobler objects animate his tongue,
+And give new energies to epic song;
+To moral charms he bids the world attend,
+Fraternal states their mutual ties extend,
+O'er cultured earth the rage of conquest cease,
+War sink in night and nature smile in peace.
+Soaring with science then he learns to string
+Her highest harp, and brace her broadest wing,
+With her own force to fray the paths untrod,
+With her own glance to ken the total God,
+Thro heavens o'ercanopied by heavens behold
+New suns ascend and other skies unfold,
+Social and system'd worlds around him shine,
+And lift his living strains to harmony divine.
+
+The Sage with steadier lights directs his ken,
+Thro twofold nature leads the walks of men,
+Remoulds her moral and material frames,
+Their mutual aids, their sister laws proclaims,
+Disease before him with its causes flies,
+And boasts no more of sickly soils and skies;
+His well-proved codes the healing science aid,
+Its base establish and its blessing spread,
+With long-wrought life to teach the race to glow,
+And vigorous nerves to grace the locks of snow.
+
+From every shape that varying matter gives,
+That rests or ripens, vegetates or lives,
+His chymic powers new combinations plan,
+Yield new creations, finer forms to man,
+High springs of health for mind and body trace,
+Add force and beauty to the joyous race,
+Arm with new engines his adventurous hand,
+Stretch o'er these elements his wide command,
+Lay the proud storm submissive at his feet,
+Change, temper, tame all subterranean heat,
+Probe laboring earth and drag from her dark side
+The mute volcano, ere its force be tried;
+Walk under ocean, ride the buoyant air,
+Brew the soft shower, the labor'd land repair,
+A fruitful soil o'er sandy deserts spread,
+And clothe with culture every mountain's head.
+
+Where system'd realms their mutual glories lend,
+And well-taught sires the cares of state attend,
+Thro every maze of man they learn to wind,
+Note each device that prompts the Proteus mind,
+What soft restraints the tempered breast requires,
+To taste new joys and cherish new desires,
+Expand the selfish to the social flame,
+And rear the soul to deeds of nobler fame.
+
+They mark, in all the past records of praise,
+What partial views heroic zeal could raise;
+What mighty states on others' ruins stood,
+And built unsafe their haughty seats in blood;
+How public virtue's ever borrow'd name
+With proud applauses graced the deeds of shame,
+Bade each imperial standard wave sublime,
+And wild ambition havoc every clime;
+From chief to chief the kindling spirit ran,
+Heirs of false fame and enemies of man.
+
+Where Grecian states in even balance hung,
+And warm'd with jealous fires the patriot's tongue,
+The exclusive ardor cherish'd in the breast
+Love to one land and hatred to the rest.
+And where the flames of civil discord rage,
+And Roman arms with Roman arms engage,
+The mime of virtue rises still the same,
+To build a Cesar's as a Pompey's name.
+
+But now no more the patriotic mind,
+To narrow views and local laws confined,
+Gainst neighboring lands directs the public rage.
+Plods for a clan or counsels for an age;
+But soars to loftier thoughts, and reaches far
+Beyond the power, beyond the wish of war;
+For realms and ages forms the general aim,
+Makes patriot views and moral views the same,
+Works with enlighten'd zeal, to see combined
+The strength and happiness of humankind.
+
+Long had Columbus with delighted eyes
+Mark'd all the changes that around him rise,
+Lived thro descending ages as they roll,
+And feasted still the still expanding soul;
+When now the peopled regions swell more near,
+And a mixt noise tumultuous stuns his ear.
+At first, like heavy thunders roll'd in air,
+Or the rude shock of cannonading war,
+Or waves resounding on the craggy shore,
+Hoarse roll'd the loud-toned undulating roar.
+But soon the sounds like human voices rise,
+All nations pouring undistinguisht cries;
+Till more distinct the wide concussion grown
+Rolls forth at times an accent like his own.
+By turns the tongues assimilating blend,
+And smoother idioms over earth ascend;
+Mingling and softening still in every gale,
+O'er discord's din harmonious tones prevail.
+At last a simple universal sound
+Winds thro the welkin, sooths the world around,
+From echoing shores in swelling strain replies,
+And moves melodious o'er the warbling skies.
+
+Such wild commotions as he heard and view'd,
+In fixt astonishment the Hero stood,
+And thus besought the Guide: Celestial friend,
+What good to man can these dread scenes intend?
+Some sore distress attends that boding sound
+That breathed hoarse thunder and convulsed the ground.
+War sure hath ceased; or have my erring eyes
+Misread the glorious visions of the skies?
+Tell then, my Seer, if future earthquakes sleep,
+Closed in the conscious caverns of the deep,
+Waiting the day of vengeance, when to roll
+And rock the rending pillars of the pole.
+Or tell if aught more dreadful to my race
+In these dark signs thy heavenly wisdom trace;
+And why the loud discordance melts again
+In the smooth glidings of a tuneful strain.
+
+The guardian god replied: Thy fears give o'er;
+War's hosted hounds shall havoc earth no more;
+No sore distress these signal sounds foredoom,
+But give the pledge of peaceful years to come;
+The tongues of nations here their accents blend.
+Till one pure language thro the world extend.
+
+Thou know'st the tale of Babel; how the skies
+Fear'd for their safety as they felt him rise,
+Sent unknown jargons mid the laboring bands,
+Confused their converse and unnerved their hands,
+Dispersed the bickering tribes and drove them far,
+From peaceful toil to violence and war;
+Bade kings arise with bloody flags unfurl'd,
+Bade pride and conquest wander o'er the world,
+Taught adverse creeds, commutual hatreds bred,
+Till holy homicide the climes o'erspread.
+--For that fine apologue, writh mystic strain,
+Gave like the rest a golden age to man,
+Ascribed perfection to his infant state,
+Science unsought and all his arts innate;
+Supposed the experience of the growing race
+Must lead him retrograde and cramp his pace,
+Obscure his vision as his lights increast,
+And sink him from an angel to a beast.
+
+Tis thus the teachers of despotic sway
+Strive in all times to blot the beams of day,
+To keep him curb'd, nor let him lift his eyes
+To see where happiness, where misery lies.
+They lead him blind, and thro the world's broad waste
+Perpetual feuds, unceasing shadows cast,
+Crush every art that might the mind expand,
+And plant with demons every desert land;
+That, fixt in straiten'd bounds, the lust of power
+May ravage still and still the race devour,
+An easy prey the hoodwink'd hordes remain,
+And oceans roll and shores extend in vain.
+
+Long have they reign'd; till now the race at last
+Shake off their manacles, their blinders cast,
+Overrule the crimes their fraudful foes produce,
+By ways unseen to serve the happiest use,
+Tempt the wide wave, probe every yielding soil,
+Fill with their fruits the hardy hand of toil,
+Unite their forces, wheel the conquering car,
+Deal mutual death, but civilize by war.
+
+Dear-bought the experiment and hard the strife
+Of social man, that rear'd his arts to life.
+His Passions wild that agitate the mind,
+His Reason calm, their watchful guide designed,
+While yet unreconciled, his march restrain,
+Mislead the judgment and betray the man.
+Fear, his first passion, long maintain'd the sway,
+Long shrouded in its glooms the mental ray,
+Shook, curb'd, controll'd his intellectual force,
+And bore him wild thro many a devious course.
+Long had his Reason, with experienced eye,
+Perused the book of earth and scaled the sky,
+Led fancy, memory, foresight in her train,
+And o'er creation stretch'd her vast domain;
+Yet would that rival Fear her strength appal;
+In that one conflict always sure to fall,
+Mild Reason shunn'd the foe she could not brave,
+Renounced her empire and remained a slave.
+
+But deathless, tho debased, she still could find
+Some beams of truth to pour upon the mind;
+And tho she dared no moral code to scan,
+Thro physic forms she learnt to lead the man;
+To strengthen thus his opening orbs of sight,
+And nerve and clear them for a stronger light.
+That stronger light, from nature's double codes,
+Now springs expanding and his doubts explodes;
+All nations catch it, all their tongues combine
+To hail the human morn and speak the day divine.
+
+At this blest period, when the total race
+Shall speak one language and all truths embrace,
+Instruction clear a speedier course shall find,
+And open earlier on the infant mind.
+No foreign terms shall crowd with barbarous rules
+The dull unmeaning pageantry of schools;
+Nor dark authorities nor names unknown
+Fill the learnt head with ignorance not its own;
+But wisdom's eye with beams unclouded shine,
+And simplest rules her native charms define;
+One living language, one unborrow'd dress
+Her boldest flights with fullest force express;
+Triumphant virtue, in the garb of truth,
+Win a pure passage to the heart of youth,
+Pervade all climes where suns or oceans roll,
+And warm the world with one great moral soul,
+To see, facilitate, attain the scope
+Of all their labor and of all their hope.
+
+As early Phosphor, on his silver throne,
+Fair type of truth and promise of the sun,
+Smiles up the orient in his dew-dipt ray,
+Illumes the front of heaven and leads the day;
+Thus Physic Science, with exploring eyes,
+First o'er the nations bids her beauties rise,
+Prepares the glorious way to pour abroad
+Her Sister's brighter beams, the purest light of God.
+Then Moral Science leads the lively mind
+Thro broader fields and pleasures more refined;
+Teaches the temper'd soul, at one vast view,
+To glance o'er time and look existence thro,
+See worlds and worlds, to being's formless end,
+With all their hosts on her prime power depend,
+Seraphs and suns and systems, as they rise,
+Live in her life and kindle from her eyes,
+Her cloudless ken, her all-pervading soul
+Illume, sublime and harmonize the whole;
+Teaches the pride of man its breadth to bound
+In one small point of this amazing round,
+To shrink and rest where nature fixt its fate,
+A line its space, a moment for its date;
+Instructs the heart an ampler joy to taste,
+And share its feelings with each human breast,
+Expand its wish to grasp the total kind
+Of sentient soul, of cogitative mind;
+Till mutual love commands all strife to cease,
+And earth join joyous in the songs of peace.
+
+Thus heard Columbus, eager to behold
+The famed Apocalypse its years unfold;
+The soul stood speaking thro his gazing eyes,
+And thus his voice: Oh let the visions rise!
+Command, celestial Guide, from each far pole,
+John's vision'd morn to open on my soul,
+And raise the scenes, by his reflected light,
+Living and glorious to my longing sight.
+Let heaven unfolding show the eternal throne,
+And all the concave flame in one clear sun;
+On clouds of fire, with angels at his side,
+The Prince of Peace, the King of Salem ride,
+With smiles of love to greet the bridal earth,
+Call slumbering ages to a second birth,
+With all his white-robed millions fill the train,
+And here commence the interminable reign!
+Such views, the Saint replies, for sense too bright,
+Would seal thy vision in eternal night;
+Man cannot face nor seraph power display
+The mystic beams of such an awful day.
+Enough for thee, that thy delighted mind
+Should trace the temporal actions of thy kind;
+That time's descending veil should ope so far
+Beyond the reach of wretchedness and war,
+Till all the paths in nature's sapient plan
+Fair in thy presence lead the steps of man,
+And form at last, on earth's extended ball,
+Union of parts and happiness of all.
+To thy glad ken these rolling years have shown
+The boundless blessings thy vast labors crown,
+That, with the joys of unborn ages blest,
+Thy soul exulting may retire to rest,
+But see once more! beneath a change of skies,
+The last glad visions wait thy raptured eyes.
+
+Eager he look'd. Another train of years
+Had roll'd unseen, and brighten'd still their spheres;
+Earth more resplendent in the floods of day
+Assumed new smiles, and flush'd around him lay.
+Green swell the mountains, calm the oceans roll,
+Fresh beams of beauty kindle round the pole;
+Thro all the range where shores and seas extend,
+In tenfold pomp the works of peace ascend.
+Robed in the bloom of spring's eternal year,
+And ripe with fruits the same glad fields appear;
+O'er hills and vales perennial gardens run,
+Cities unwall'd stand sparkling to the sun;
+The streams all freighted from the bounteous plain
+Swell with the load and labor to the main,
+Whose stormless waves command a steadier gale
+And prop the pinions of a bolder sail:
+Sway'd with the floating weight each ocean toils,
+And joyous nature's full perfection smiles.
+
+Fill'd with unfolding fate, the vision'd age
+Now leads its actors on a broader stage;
+When clothed majestic in the robes of state,
+Moved by one voice, in general congress meet
+The legates of all empires. Twas the place
+Where wretched men first firm'd their wandering pace;
+Ere yet beguiled, the dark delirious hordes
+Began to fight for altars and for lords;
+Nile washes still the soil, and feels once more
+The works of wisdom press his peopled shore.
+
+In this mid site, this monumental clime,
+Rear'd by all realms to brave the wrecks of time
+A spacious dome swells up, commodious great,
+The last resort, the unchanging scene of state.
+On rocks of adamant the walls ascend,
+Tall columns heave and sky-like arches bend;
+Bright o'er the golden roofs the glittering spires
+Far in the concave meet the solar fires;
+Four blazing fronts, with gates unfolding high,
+Look with immortal splendor round the sky:
+Hither the delegated sires ascend,
+And all the cares of every clime attend.
+
+As that blest band, the guardian guides of heaven,
+To whom the care of stars and suns is given,
+(When one great circuit shall have proved their spheres,
+And time well taught them how to wind their years)
+Shall meet in general council; call'd to state
+The laws and labors that their charge await;
+To learn, to teach, to settle how to hold
+Their course more glorious, as their lights unfold:
+From all the bounds of space (the mandate known)
+They wing their passage to the eternal throne;
+Each thro his far dim sky illumes the road,
+And sails and centres tow'rd the mount of God;
+There, in mid universe, their seats to rear,
+Exchange their counsels and their works compare:
+So, from all tracts of earth, this gathering throng
+In ships and chariots shape their course along,
+Reach with unwonted speed the place assign'd
+To hear and give the counsels of mankind.
+
+South of the sacred mansion, first resort
+The assembled sires, and pass the spacious court.
+Here in his porch earth's figured Genius stands,
+Truth's mighty mirror poizing in his hands;
+Graved on the pedestal and chased in gold,
+Man's noblest arts their symbol forms unfold,
+His tillage and his trade; with all the store
+Of wondrous fabrics and of useful lore:
+Labors that fashion to his sovereign sway
+Earth's total powers, her soil and air and sea;
+Force them to yield their fruits at his known call,
+And bear his mandates round the rolling ball.
+Beneath the footstool all destructive things,
+The mask of priesthood and the mace of kings,
+Lie trampled in the dust; for here at last
+Fraud, folly, error all their emblems cast.
+Each envoy here unloads his wearied hand
+Of some old idol from his native land;
+One flings a pagod on the mingled heap,
+One lays a crescent, one a cross to sleep;
+Swords, sceptres, mitres, crowns and globes and stars,
+Codes of false fame and stimulants to wars
+Sink in the settling mass; since guile began,
+These are the agents of the woes of man.
+
+Now the full concourse, where the arches bend,
+Pour thro by thousands and their seats ascend.
+Far as the centred eye can range around,
+Or the deep trumpet's solemn voice resound,
+Long rows of reverend sires sublime extend,
+And cares of worlds on every brow suspend.
+High in the front, for soundest wisdom known,
+A sire elect in peerless grandeur shone;
+He open'd calm the universal cause,
+To give each realm its limit and its laws,
+Bid the last breath of tired contention cease,
+And bind all regions in the leagues of peace;
+Till one confederate, condependent sway
+Spread with the sun and bound the walks of day,
+One centred system, one all-ruling soul
+Live thro the parts and regulate the whole.
+
+Here then, said Hesper, with a blissful smile,
+Behold the fruits of thy long years of toil.
+To yon bright borders of Atlantic day
+Thy swelling pinions led the trackless way,
+And taught mankind such useful deeds to dare,
+To trace new seas and happy nations rear;
+Till by fraternal hands their sails unfurl'd
+Have waved at last in union o'er the world.
+
+Then let thy steadfast soul no more complain
+Of dangers braved and griefs endured in vain,
+Of courts insidious, envy's poison'd stings,
+The loss of empire and the frown of kings;
+While these broad views thy better thoughts compose
+To spurn the malice of insulting foes;
+And all the joys descending ages gain,
+Repay thy labors and remove thy pain.
+
+
+
+
+Notes.
+
+
+
+Tho it would be more convenient to the reader to find some of these notes,
+especially the shorter ones, at the bottom of the pages to which they
+refer, yet most of them are of such a length as would render that mode of
+placing them disadvantageous to the symmetry of the pages and the general
+appearance of the work. It seemed necessary that these should be collected
+at the end of the Poem; and it was thought proper that the others should
+not be separated from them.
+
+The notes will probably be found too voluminous for the taste of some
+readers; but others would doubtless be better pleased to see them still
+augmented, as several of the philosophical subjects and historical
+references are left unexplained. Were I to offer apologies in this case, I
+should hardly know on which side to begin. I will therefore only say that
+in this appendage, as in the body of the work, I have aimed, as well as I
+was able, at blending in due proportions the useful with the agreeable.
+
+
+
+No. 1.
+
+
+  _One gentle guardian once could shield the brave;
+  But now that guardian slumbers in the grave._
+
+  Book I. Line 105.
+
+The death of queen Isabella, which happened before the last return of
+Columbus from America, was a subject of great sorrow to him. In her he lost
+his only powerful friend in Spain, on whose influence he was accustomed to
+rely in counteracting the perpetual intrigues of a host of enemies, whose
+rank and fortune gave them a high standing at the court of Valladolid.
+Their situation and connexions must havee commanded a weight of authority
+not easily resisted by an individual foreigner, however illustrious from
+his merit.
+
+It was a grievous reflection for Columbus that his services, tho great in
+themselves and unequalled in their consequences to the world, had been
+performed in an age and for a nation which knew not their value, as well as
+for an ungrateful monarch who chose to disregard them.
+
+
+
+No. 2.
+
+
+  _As, awed to silence, savage lands gave place,
+  And hail'd with joy the sun-descended race._
+
+  Book I. Line 243.
+
+The original inhabitants of Hispaniola were worshippers of the sun. The
+Europeans, when they first landed there, were supposed by them to be gods,
+and consequently descended from the sun. See the subject of solar worship
+treated more at large in a subsequent note.
+
+
+
+No. 3.
+
+
+  _High lanterned in his heaven the cloudless White
+  Heaves the glad sailor an eternal light;_
+
+  Book I. Line 333.
+
+The White Mountain of Newhampshire, tho eighty miles from the sea, is the
+first land to be discovered in approaching that part of the coast of North
+America. It serves as a landmark for a considerable length of coast, of
+difficult navigation.
+
+
+
+No. 4.
+
+
+  _Whirl'd from the monstrous Andes' bursting sides,
+  Maragnon leads his congregating tides;_
+
+  Book I. Line 365.
+
+This river, from different circumstances, has obtained several different
+names. It has been called Amazon, from an idea that some part of the
+neighboring country was inhabited by a race of warlike women, resembling
+what Herodotus relates of the Amazons of Scythia. It has been called
+Orellana, from its having been discovered by a Spanish officer of that
+name, who, on a certain expedition, deserted from the younger Pizarro on
+one of the sources of this river, and navigated it from thence to the
+ocean. Maragnon is the original name given it by the natives; which name I
+choose to follow.
+
+If we estimate its magnitude by the length of its course and the quantity
+of water it throws into the sea, it is much the greatest river that has
+hitherto come to our knowledge. Its navigation is said by Condamine and
+others to be uninterrupted for four thousand miles from the sea. Its
+breadth, within the banks, is sixty geographical miles; it receives in its
+course a variety of great rivers, besides those described in the text. Many
+of these descend from elevated countries and mountains covered with snow,
+the melting of which annually swells the Maragnon above its banks; when it
+overflows and fertilizes a vast extent of territory.
+
+
+
+No. 5.
+
+
+  _He saw Xaraycts diamond lanks unfold,
+  And Paraguay's deep channel paved with gold._
+
+  Book I. Line 435.
+
+Some of the richest diamond mines are found on the banks of the lake
+Xaraya. The river Paraguay is remarkable for the quantities of gold dust
+found in its channel. The Rio de la Plata, properly so called, has
+its source in the mountains of Potosi; and it was probably from this
+circumstance that it received its name, which signifies River of Silver.
+This river, after having joined the Paraguay, which is larger than itself,
+retains its own name till it reaches the sea. Near the mouth, it is one
+hundred and fifty miles wide; but in other respects it is far inferior to
+the Maragnon.
+
+
+
+No. 6.
+
+
+  _Soon as the distant swell was seen to roll,
+  His ancient wishes reabsorb'd his soul;_
+
+  Book I. Line 449.
+
+The great object of Columbus, in most of his voyages, was to discover a
+western passage to India. He navigated the Gulph of Mexico with particular
+attention to this object, and was much disappointed in not finding a pass
+into the South Sea. The view he is here supposed to have of that ocean
+would therefore naturally recal his former desire of sailing to India.
+
+
+
+No. 7.
+
+
+  _This idle frith must open soon to fame,
+  Here a lost Lusitanian fix his name,_
+
+  Book I. Line 491.
+
+The straits of Magellan, so called from having been discovered by a
+Portuguese navigator of that name, who first attempted to sail round the
+world, and lost his life in the attempt.
+
+
+
+No. 8.
+
+
+  _Say, Palfrey, brave good man, was this thy doom?
+  Dwells here the secret of thy midsea tomb?_
+
+  Book I. Line 627.
+
+Colonel Palfrey of Boston was an officer of distinction in the American
+army during the war of independence. Soon after the war he proposed to
+visit Europe, and embarked for England; but never more was heard of. The
+ship probably perished in the ice. His daughter, here alluded to, is now
+the wife of William Lee, American consul at Bordeaux.
+
+
+
+No. 9.
+
+
+  _The beasts all whitening roam the lifeless plain,
+  And caves unfrequent scoop the couch for man._
+
+  Book I. Line 753.
+
+The color of animals is acquired partly from the food they eat, thro
+successive generations, and partly from the objects with which they are
+usually surrounded. Dr. Darwin has a curious note on this subject, in which
+he remarks on the advantages that insects and other small animals derive
+from their color, as a means of rendering them invisible to their more
+powerful enemies; who thus find it difficult to distinguish them from other
+objects where they reside. Some animals which inhabit cold countries turn
+white in winter, when the earth is covered with snow; such as the snowbird
+of the Alps. Others in snowy regions are habitually white; such as the
+white bear of Russia.
+
+
+
+No. 10.
+
+
+  _A different cast the glowing zone demands,
+  In Paria's blooms, from Tombut's burning sands._
+
+  Book II. Line 97.
+
+Paria is a fertile country near the river Orinoco; the only part of the
+continent of America that Columbus had seen. Tombut, in the same latitude,
+is the most sterile part of Africa. America embraces a greater compass of
+latitude by many degrees than the other continent; and yet its inhabitants
+present a much less variety in their physical and moral character. When
+shall we be able to account for this fact?
+
+
+
+No. 11.
+
+
+  _Yet when the hordes to happy nations rise,
+  And earth by culture warms the genial skies_,
+
+  Book II. Line 119.
+
+Without entering into any discussion on the theory of heat and cold
+(a point not yet settled in our academies) I would just observe, in
+vindication of the expression in the text, that some solid matter, such for
+instance as the surface of the earth, seems absolutely necessary to the
+production of heat. At least it must be a matter more compact than that of
+the sun's rays; and perhaps its power of producing heat is in proportion to
+its solidity.
+
+The warmth communicated to the atmosphere is doubtless produced by the
+combined causes of the earth and the sun; but the agency of the former is
+probably more powerful in this operation than that of the latter, and its
+presence more indispensable. For masses of matter will produce heat by
+friction, without the aid of the sun; but no experiment has yet proved that
+the rays of the sun are capable of producing heat without the aid of other
+and more solid matter. The air is temperate in those cavities of the earth
+where the sun is the most effectually excluded; whereas the coldest regions
+yet known to us are the tops of the Andes, where the sun's rays have the
+most direct operation, being the most vertical and the least obstructed by
+vapors. Those regions are deprived of heat by being so far removed from
+the broad surface of the earth; a body that appears requisite to warm the
+surrounding atmosphere by its cooperation with the action of the sun.
+
+From these principles we may conclude that cultivation, in a woody country,
+tends to warm the atmosphere and ameliorate a cold climate; as, by removing
+the forests and marshes, it opens the earth to the sun, and allows them to
+act in conjunction upon the air.
+
+According to the descriptions given of the middle parts of Europe by Cesar
+and Tacitus, it appears that those countries were much colder in their days
+than they are at present; cultivation seems to have softened that climate
+to a great degree. The same effect begins to be perceived in North America.
+Possibly it may in time become as apparent as the present difference in the
+temperature of the two continents.
+
+
+
+No. 12.
+
+
+  _A ruddier hue and deeper shade shall gain,
+  And stalk, in statelier figures, on the plain._
+
+  Book II. Line 127.
+
+The complexion of the inhabitants of North America, who are descended from
+the English and Dutch, is evidently darker, and their stature taller, than
+those of the English and Dutch in Europe.
+
+
+
+No. 13.
+
+
+  _Like Memphian hieroglyphs, to stretch the span
+  Of memory frail in momentary man._
+
+  Book II. Line 287.
+
+We may reckon three stages of improvement in the graphic art, or the art of
+communicating our thoughts to absent persons and to posterity by visible
+signs. First, The invention of _painting ideas,_ or representing
+actions, dates and other circumstances of historical fact, by the images of
+material things, drawn usually on a flat surface, or sometimes carved or
+moulded in a more solid form. This was the state at which the art had
+arrived in Egypt before the introduction of letters, and in Mexico before
+the arrival of the Spaniards. The Greeks in Egypt called it hieroglyphic.
+
+Second, The invention of _painting sounds,_ which we do by the use
+of letters, or the alphabet, and which we call writing. This was a vast
+improvement; as it simplified in a wonderful degree the communication of
+thought. For ideas are infinite in number and variety; while the simple
+sounds we use to convey them to the ear are few, distinct and easy to be
+understood. It would indeed be impossible to express all our ideas by
+distinct and visible images. And even if the writer were able to do this,
+not many readers could be made to understand him; since it would be
+necessary that every new idea should have a new image invented and agreed
+upon between the writer and the reader, before it could be used. Which
+preliminary could not be settled without the writer should see and converse
+with the reader. And he might as well, in this case, convey his ideas by
+oral speech; so that his writing could be of little use beyond a certain
+routine of established signs.
+
+The number of simple sounds in human language, used in discourse, is not
+above eighteen or twenty; and these are so varied in the succession in
+which they are uttered, as to express an inconceivable and endless variety
+of thought and sentiment. Then, by the help of an alphabet of about
+twenty-six letters or visible signs, these sounds are translated from the
+ear to the eye; and we are able, by thus painting the sound, to arrest its
+fleeting nature, render it permanent, and talk with distant nations and
+future ages, without any previous convention whatever, even supposing them
+to be ignorant of the language in which we write. This is the present state
+of the art, as commonly practised in all the countries where an alphabet
+is used. It is called the art of writing; and to understand it is called
+reading.
+
+Third, Another invention, which is still in its infancy, is the art of
+_painting phrases,_ or sentences; commonly called shorthand writing.
+This is yet but little used, and only by a few dexterous persons, who make
+it a particular study. Probably the true principles on which it ought to be
+founded are yet to be discovered. But it may be presumed, that in this part
+of the graphic art there remains to the ingenuity of future generations a
+course of improvements totally inconceivable to the present; by which the
+whole train of impressions now made upon the mind by reading a long and
+well written treatise may be conveyed by a few strokes of the pen, and be
+received at a glance of the eye. This desideratum would be an abridgment
+of labor in our mental acquisitions, of which we cannot determine the
+consequences. It might make, in the progress of human knowledge, an epoch
+as remarkable as that which was made by the invention of alphabetical
+writing, and produce as great a change in the mode of transmitting the
+history of events.
+
+One consequence of the invention of alphabetical writing seems to have been
+to throw into oblivion all previous historical facts; and it has thus
+left an immense void, which the imagination knows not how to fill, in
+contemplating the progress of our race. How many important discoveries,
+which still remain to our use, must have taken their origin in that space
+of time which is thus left a void to us! A vast succession of ages, and
+ages of improvement, must have preceded (for example) the invention of the
+wheel. The wheel must have been in common use, we know not how long, before
+alphabetical writing; because we find its image employed in painting ideas,
+during the first stage of the graphic art above described. The wheel
+was likewise in use before the mysteries of Ceres or those of Isis were
+established; as is evident from its being imagined as an instrument
+of punishment in hell, in the case of Ixion, as represented in those
+mysteries. The taming of the ox and the horse, the use of the sickle
+and the bow and arrow, a considerable knowledge of astronomy, and its
+application to the purposes of agriculture and navigation, with many other
+circumstances, which show a prodigious improvement, must evidently have
+preceded the date of the zodiac; a date fixed by Dupuis, with a great
+degree of probability, at about seventeen thousand years from our time.
+This epoch would doubtless carry us back many thousand years beyond that of
+the alphabet; the invention of which was sufficient of itself to obliterate
+the details of previous history, as the event has proved.
+
+How far the loss of these historical details is to be regretted, as an
+impediment to our progress in useful knowledge, I will not decide; but
+in one view, which I am going to state, it may be justly considered as a
+misfortune.
+
+The art of painting ideas, being arrested in the state in which the use of
+the alphabet found it, went into general disuse for common purposes; and
+the works then extant, as well as the knowledge of writing in that mode,
+being no longer intelligible to the people, became objects of deep and
+laborious study, and known only to the learned; that is, to the men of
+leisure and contemplation. These men consequently ran it into mystery;
+making it a holy object, above the reach of vulgar inquiry. On this
+ground they established, in the course of ages, a profitable function
+or profession, in the practice of which a certain portion of men of the
+brightest talents could make a reputable living; taking care not to
+initiate more than a limited number of professors; no more than the people
+could maintain as priests. This mode of writing then assumed the name of
+hieroglyphic, or sacred painting, to distinguish it from that which had
+now become the vulgar mode of writing, by the use of the alphabet. This is
+perhaps the source of that ancient, vast and variegated system of false
+religion, with all its host of errors and miseries, which has so long and
+so grievously weighed upon the character of human nature.
+
+In noticing the distinction of the three stages in the graphic art above
+described, I have not mentioned the wonderful powers we derive from it
+in the language of the mathematics and the language of music. In each of
+these, though its effects are already astonishing, there is no doubt but
+great improvements are still to be made. Our present mode of writing
+in these, as in literature, belongs to the _second_ or _alphabetical_
+stage of the graphic art. The ten ciphers, and the other signs used in
+the mathematical sciences, form the alphabet in which the language of
+those sciences is written. The few musical notes, and the other signs
+which accompany them, furnish an alphabet for writing the language of
+music.
+
+The mode of writing in China is still different from any of those I have
+mentioned. The Chinese neither paint ideas nor sounds: but they make a
+character for every word; which character must vary according to the
+different inflections and uses of that word. The characters must therefore
+be insupportably numerous, and be still increasing as the language is
+enriched with new words by the augmentation and correction of ideas.
+
+The English language is supposed to contain about twelve thousand distinct
+words, and the Italian about seventeen thousand, in the present state of
+our sciences. I know not how many the Chinese may contain; but if we were
+to write our languages in the Chinese method, it would be the business of a
+whole life for a man to learn his mother tongue, so as to read and write it
+for his ordinary purposes.
+
+As the Chinese have not adopted an alphabet, but have adhered to an
+invariable state of the graphic art, which is probably more ancient by
+several thousand years than our present method, may we not venture to
+conjecture that the traces of their very ancient history have been, for
+that reason, better preserved? and that their pretensions to a very high
+antiquity, which we have been used to think extravagant and ridiculous, are
+really not without foundation? If so, we might then allow a little more
+latitude to ourselves, and conclude that we are in fact as old as they, and
+might have been as sensible of it, if we had adhered to our ancient
+method of writing; and not changed it for a new one which, while it
+has facilitated the progress of our science, has humbled our pride of
+antiquity, by obliterating the dates of those labors and improvements of
+our early progenitors, to which we are indebted for more of the rudiments
+of our sciences and our arts than we usually imagine.
+
+It is much to be regretted, that the Spanish devastation in Mexico and Peru
+was so universal as to leave us but few monuments of the history of the
+human mind in those countries, which presented a state of manners so
+remarkably different from what can be found in any other part of the world.
+The pictorial writing of the Mexicans, tho sometimes called hieroglyphic,
+does not appear to merit that name, as it was not exclusively appropriated
+by the priests to sacred purposes. Indeed it could not be so appropriated
+till a more convenient method could be discovered and adopted for common
+purposes. For a thing cannot become sacred, in this sense of the word,
+until it ceases to be common.
+
+
+
+
+No. 14.
+
+
+  _No Bovadilla seize the tempting spoil,
+  No dark Ovando, no religious Boyle,_
+
+  Book II. Line 303.
+
+Bovadilla and Ovando are mentioned in the Introduction as the enemies and
+successors of Columbus in the government of Hispaniola. They began
+that system of cruelty towards the natives which in a few years almost
+depopulated that island, and was afterwards pursued by Cortez, Pizarro and
+others, in all the first settlements in Spanish America.
+
+Boyle was a fanatical priest who accompanied Ovando, and, under pretence of
+christianizing the natives by the sword, gave the sanction of the church to
+the most shocking and extensive scenes of slaughter.
+
+
+
+No. 15.
+
+
+  _He gains the shore. Behold his fortress rise,
+  His fleet high flaming suffocates the skies._
+
+  Book II. Line 329.
+
+The conduct of Cortez, when he first landed on the coast of Mexico, was as
+remarkable for that hardy spirit of adventure, to which success gives the
+name of policy, as his subsequent operations were for cruelty and perfidy.
+As soon as his army was on shore, he dismantled his fleet of such articles
+as would be useful in building a new one; he then set fire to his ships,
+and burnt them in presence of his men; that they might fight their battles
+with more desperate courage, knowing that it would be impossible to save
+themselves from a victorious enemy by flight. He constructed a fort, in
+which the iron and the rigging were preserved.
+
+
+
+No. 16.
+
+
+  _With cheerful rites their pure devotions pay
+  To the bright orb that gives the changing day._
+
+  Book II. Line 421.
+
+It is worthy of remark, that the countries where the worship of the sun has
+made the greatest figure are Egypt and Peru; the two regions of the earth
+the most habitually deprived of rain, and probably of clouds, which in
+other countries so frequently obstruct his rays and seem to dispute his
+influence. Tho in the rude ages of society it is certainly natural in all
+countries to pay adoration to the sun, as one of the visible agents of
+those changes in the atmosphere which most affect the people's happiness,
+yet it is reasonable to suppose that this adoration would be more unmixed,
+and consequently more durable, in climates where the agency of the sun
+appears unrivalled and supreme.
+
+On the supposition that Greece and Western Asia, regions whose early
+traditions are best known to us, derived their first theological ideas
+from Egypt, it is curious to observe how the pure heliosebia of Egypt
+degenerated in those climates in proportion as other visible agents seemed
+to exert their influence in human affairs. Greece is a mountainous country,
+subject to a great deal of lightning and other meteors, whose effects are
+tremendous and make stronger impressions on rude savages than the gentle
+energies of the sun.
+
+The Greeks therefore, having forgotten the source of their religious
+system, ceased to consider the sun as their supreme god; his agency being,
+in their opinion, subject to a more potent divinity, the Power of the air
+or Jupiter, whom they styled the Thunderer. So that Apollo, the god of
+light, became, in their mythology, the subject and offspring of the
+supreme god of the atmosphere. This religion became extremely confused
+and complicated with new fables, according to the temperature and other
+accidents of the different climates thro which it passed. The god of
+thunder obtained the supreme veneration generally in Europe: known in the
+south by the name of Jupiter or Zeus and in the north by that of Thor.
+
+Europe in general has an uneven surface and a vapory sky, liable to great
+concussions in the lower regions of the atmosphere which border the
+habitation of man. There is no wonder that in such a region the god of the
+air should appear more powerful than the god of light. This disposition of
+the elements has given a gloomy cast to the mind, and in the north more
+than in the south. The Thor of the Celtic nations was more tremendous, more
+feared and less beloved, than the Jupiter of the Greeks and Romans; he was
+worshipped accordingly with more bloody sacrifices. But in all Europe,
+Western Asia and the northwestern coast of Africa, where the earth is
+uneven and the climate variable, their religion was more gloomy and their
+gods more ferocious than among the ancient Egyptians.
+
+A like difference is observed in the religions of the two countries in
+America where civilization was most advanced before the arrival of the
+Spaniards. Peru enjoyed a climate of great serenity and regularity. Of
+all the sensible agents that operated on the earth and air, the sun was
+apparently the most uniform and energetic. The worship of the sun was
+therefore the most predominant and durable; and it inspired a mildness of
+manners analogous to his mild and beneficent influence. In Mexico and other
+uneven countries, where storms and earthquakes were frequent, the sun,
+altho he was reckoned among their deities, was not considered so powerful
+as those of a more boisterous and maleficent nature. The Mexican worship
+was therefore addressed chiefly to ferocious beings, enemies to human
+happiness, who delighted in the tears and blood of their votaries. The
+difference in the moral cast of religion in Peru and Mexico, as well as in
+Egypt and Greece, must have been greatly owing to climate. Indeed in what
+else should it be found? since the origin of religious ideas must have
+been in the energies of those visible agents which form the distinctive
+character of climates.
+
+
+
+No. 17.
+
+
+  _Long is the tale; but tho their labors rest
+  By years obscured, in flowery fiction drest,_
+
+  Book II. Line 455.
+
+The traditions respecting these founders of the Peruvian empire are indeed
+obscure; but they excite in us the same sort of veneration that we feel
+for the most amiable and distinguished characters of remote antiquity. The
+honest zeal of Garcilasso de la Vega in collecting these traditions into
+one body of history, as a probable series of facts, is to be applauded;
+since he has there presented us with one of the most striking examples of
+the _beau ideal_ in political character, that can be found in the
+whole range of literature. He treats his subject with more natural
+simplicity, tho with less talent, than Plutarch or Xenophon, when they
+undertake a similar task, that of drawing traditional characters to fill up
+the middle space between fable and history.
+
+With regard to the true position that the portrait of Manco Capac ought to
+hold in this middle space, how near it should stand to history and how
+near to fable, we should find it difficult to say, and perhaps useless to
+inquire. Plutarch has gravely given us the lives and actions of several
+heroes who are evidently more fabulous than Capac, and of others who should
+be placed on the same line with him. The existence of Theseus, Romulus
+and Numa is more doubtful and their actions less probable than his. The
+character of Capac, in regard to its reality, stands on a parallel with
+that of the Lycurgus of Plutarch and the Cyrus of Xenophon; not purely
+historical nor purely fabulous, but presented to us as a compendium of
+those talents and labors which might possibly be crowded into the capacity
+of one mind, and be achieved in one life, but which more probably belong
+to several generations; the talents and labors that could reduce a great
+number of ferocious tribes into one peaceable and industrious state.
+
+Garcilasso was himself an Inca by maternal descent, born and educated
+at Cusco after the Spanish conquest. He writes apparently with the most
+scrupulous regard to truth, with little judgment and no ornament. He
+discovers a credulous zeal to throw a lustre on his remote ancestor Manco
+Capac, not by inventing new incidents, but by collecting with great
+industry all that had been recorded in the annals of the family. And their
+manner of recording events, tho not so perfect as that of writing, was not
+so liable to error as traditions merely oral, like those of the Caledonian
+and other Celtic bards, with respect to the ancient heroes of their
+countries.
+
+His account states, that about four centuries previous to the discovery of
+that country by the Spaniards, the natives of Peru were as rude savages
+as any in America. They had no fixed habitations, no ideas of permanent
+property; they wandered naked like the beasts, and like them depended on
+the events of each day for a subsistence. At this period Manco Capac and
+his wife Mauna Oella appeared on a small island in the lake Titiaca, near
+which the city of Cusco was afterwards built. These persons, to establish a
+belief of their divinity in the minds of the people, were clothed in white
+garments of cotton, and declared themselves descended from the sun, who
+was their father and the god of that country. They affirmed that he was
+offended at their cruel and perpetual wars, their barbarous modes of
+worship, and their neglecting to make the best use of the blessings he was
+constantly bestowing, in fertilizing the earth and producing vegetation;
+that he pitied their wretched state, and had sent his own children to
+instruct them and to establish a number of wise regulations, by which they
+might be rendered happy.
+
+By some uncommon method of persuasion, these persons drew together a few
+of the savage tribes, laid the foundation of the city of Cusco, and
+established what is called the kingdom of the Sun, or the Peruvian empire.
+In the reign of Manco Capac, the dominion was extended about eight leagues
+from the city; and at the end of four centuries it was established fifteen
+hundred miles on the coast of the Pacific ocean, and from that ocean to
+the Andes. During this period, thro a succession of twelve monarchs, the
+original constitution, established by the first Inca, remained unaltered;
+and this constitution, with the empire itself, was at last overturned by an
+accident which no human wisdom could foresee or prevent.
+
+For a more particular detail of the character and institutions of this
+extraordinary personage the reader is referred to a subsequent note, in
+which he will find a dissertation on that subject.
+
+In the passage preceding this reference, I have alluded to the fabulous
+traditions relating to these children of the sun. In the remainder of the
+second and thro the whole of the third book, I have given what may be
+supposed a probable narrative of their real origin and actions. The space
+allowed to this episode may appear too considerable in a poem whose
+principal object is so different. But it may be useful to exhibit in action
+the manners and sentiments of savage tribes, whose aliment is war; that the
+contrast may show more forcibly the advantages of civilized life, whose
+aliment is peace.
+
+
+
+No. 18.
+
+
+  _Long robes of white my shoulders must embrace,
+  To speak my lineage of ethereal race;_
+
+  Book II. Line 553.
+
+As the art of spinning is said to have been invented by Oella, it is no
+improbable fiction to imagine that they first assumed these white garments
+of cotton as an emblem of the sun, in order to inspire that reverence
+for their persons which was necessary to their success. Such a dress may
+likewise be supposed to have continued in the family as a badge of royalty.
+
+
+
+No. 19.
+
+
+  DISSERTATION ON THE INSTITUTIONS OF MANCO CAPAC.
+
+  For the end of Book II.
+
+Altho the original inhabitants of America in general deserve to be classed
+among the most unimproved savages that had been, discovered before those of
+New Holland, yet the Mexican and Peruvian governments exhibited remarkable
+exceptions, and seemed to be fast approaching to a state of civilization.
+In the difference of national character between the people of these two
+empires we may discern the influence of political systems on the human
+mind, and infer the importance of the task which a legislator undertakes,
+in attempting to reduce a barbarous people under the control of government
+and laws.
+
+The Mexican constitution was formed to render its subjects brave and
+powerful; but, while it succeeded in this object, it kept them far removed
+from the real blessings of society. According to the Spanish accounts
+(which for an obvious reason may however be suspected of exaggeration)
+the manners of the Mexicans were uncommonly ferocious, and their religion
+gloomy, sanguinary, and unrelenting. But the establishments of Manco Capac,
+if we may follow Garcilasso in attributing the whole of the Peruvian
+constitution to that wonderful personage, present the aspect of a most
+benevolent and pacific system; they tended to humanize the world and render
+his people happy; while his ideas of deity were so elevated as to bear a
+comparison with the sublime doctrines of Socrates or Plato.
+
+The characters, whether real or fabulous, who are the most distinguished
+as lawgivers among barbarous nations, are Moses, Lycurgus, Solon, Numa,
+Mahomet, and Peter of Russia. Of these, only the two former and the two
+latter appear really to deserve the character of lawgivers. Solon and Numa
+possessed not the opportunity of showing their talents in the work of
+original legislation. Athens and Rome were considerably civilized before
+these persons arose. The most they could do was to correct and amend
+constitutions already formed. Solon may be considered as a wise politician,
+but by no means as the founder of a nation. The Athenians were too
+far advanced in society to admit any radical change in their form of
+government; unless recourse could have been had to the representative
+system, by establishing an equality of rank, and instructing all the people
+in their duties and their rights; a system which was never understood by
+any ancient legislator.
+
+The institutions of Numa (if such a person as Numa really existed) were
+more effective and durable. His religious ceremonies were, for many ages,
+the most powerful check on the licentious and turbulent Romans, the greater
+part of whom were ignorant slaves. By inculcating a remarkable reverence
+for the gods, and making it necessary to consult the auspices when any
+thing important was to be transacted, his object was to render the popular
+superstition subservient to the views of policy, and thus to give the
+senate a steady check upon the plebeians. But the constitutions of Rome and
+Athens, notwithstanding the abundant applause that has been bestowed upon
+them, were never fixed on any permanent principles; tho the wisdom of some
+of their rulers, and the spirit of liberty that inspired the citizens, may
+justly demand our admiration.
+
+Each of the other legislators above mentioned deserves a particular
+consideration, as having acted in stations somewhat similar to that of the
+Peruvian patriarch. Three objects are to be attended to by the legislator
+of a barbarous people: First, That his system be such as is capable of
+reducing the greatest number of men under one jurisdiction: Second, That it
+apply to such principles in human nature for its support as are universal
+and permanent, in order to insure the duration of the government: Third,
+That it admit of improvements correspondent to any advancement in knowledge
+or variation of circumstances that may happen to its subjects, without
+endangering the principle of government by such innovations. So far as the
+systems of such legislators agree with these fundamental principles; they
+are worthy of respect; and so far as they deviate, they may be considered
+as defective.
+
+To begin with Moses and Lycurgus: It is proper to observe that, in order to
+judge of the merit of any institutions, we must take into view the peculiar
+character of the people for whom they were framed. For want of this
+attention, many of the laws of Moses and some of those of Lycurgus have
+been ridiculed and censured. The Jews, when led by Moses out of Egypt, were
+not only uncivilized, but having just risen to independence from a state
+of servitude they united the manners of servants and savages; and their
+national character was a compound of servility, ignorance, filthiness and
+cruelty. Of their cruelty as a people we need no other proof than the
+account of their avengers of blood, and the readiness with which the
+whole congregation turned executioners, and stoned to death the devoted
+offenders. The leprosy, a disease now scarcely known, was undoubtedly
+produced by a want of cleanliness continued for successive generations.
+In this view, their frequent ablutions, their peculiar modes of trial and
+several other institutions, may be vindicated from ridicule and proved to
+be wise regulations.
+
+The Spartan lawgiver has been censured for the toleration of theft and
+adultery. Among that race of barbarians these habits were too general to
+admit of total prevention or universal punishment. By vesting all property
+in the commonwealth, instead of encouraging theft, he removed the
+possibility of the crime; and, in a nation where licentiousness was
+generally indulged, it was a great step towards introducing a purity of
+manners, to punish adultery in all cases wherein it was committed without
+the consent of all parties interested in its consequences.
+
+Until the institution of representative republics, which are of recent
+date, it was found that those constitutions of government were best
+calculated for immediate energy and duration, which were interwoven with
+some religious system. The legislator who appears in the character of an
+inspired person renders his political institutions sacred, and interests
+the conscience as well as the judgment in their support. The Jewish
+lawgiver had this advantage over the Spartan: he appeared not in the
+character of a mere earthly governor, but as an interpreter of the divine
+will. By enjoining a religious observance of certain rites he formed his
+people to habitual obedience; by directing their cruelty against the
+breakers of the laws he at least mitigated the rancor of private hatred; by
+directing that real property should return to the original families in
+the year of Jubilee he prevented too great an equality of wealth; and by
+selecting a single tribe to be the interpreters of religion he prevented
+its mysteries from being the subject of profane and vulgar investigation.
+With a view of securing the permanence of his institutions, he prohibited
+intercourse with foreigners by severe restrictions, and formed his people
+to habits and a character disagreeable to other nations; so that any
+foreign intercourse was prevented by the mutual hatred of both parties.
+
+To these institutions the laws of Lycurgus bear a striking resemblance. The
+features of his constitution were severe and forbidding; it was however
+calculated to inspire the most enthusiastic love of liberty and martial
+honor. In no country was the patriotic passion more energetic than in
+Sparta; no laws ever excluded the idea of separate property in an equal
+degree, or inspired a greater contempt for the manners of other nations.
+The prohibition of money, commerce and almost every thing desirable to
+effeminate nations, excluded foreigners from Sparta; and while it inspired
+the people with contempt for strangers it made them agreeable to each
+other. By these means Lycurgus rendered the nation warlike; and to insure
+the duration of the government he endeavored to interest the consciences
+of his people by the aid of oracles, and by the oath he is said to have
+exacted from them to obey his laws till his return, when he went into
+perpetual exile.
+
+From this view of the Jewish and Spartan institutions, applied to
+the principles before stated, they appear in the two first articles
+considerably imperfect, and in the last totally defective. Neither of them
+was calculated to bring any considerable territory or number of men under
+one jurisdiction: from this circumstance alone they could not be rendered
+permanent, as nations so restricted in their means of extension must be
+constantly exposed to their more powerful neighbors. But the third object
+of legislation, that of providing for the future progress of society, which
+as it regards the happiness of mankind is the most important of the three,
+was in both instances entirely neglected. These symptoms appear to have
+been formed with an express design to prevent future improvement in
+knowledge or enlargement of the human mind, and to fix those nations in
+a state of ignorance and barbarism. To vindicate their authors from an
+imputation of weakness or inattention in this particular, it may be urged
+that they were each of them surrounded by nations more powerful than
+their own; it was therefore perhaps impossible for them to commence an
+establishment upon any other plan.
+
+The institutions of Mahomet are next to be considered. The first object of
+legislation appears to have been better understood by him than by either of
+the preceding sages; his jurisdiction was capable of being enlarged to any
+extent of territory, and governing any number of nations that might be
+subjugated by his enthusiastic armies; and his system of religion was
+admirably calculated to attain this object. Like Moses, he convinced his
+people that he acted as the vicegerent of God; but with this advantage,
+adapting his religion to the natural feelings and propensities of mankind,
+he multiplied his followers by the allurements of pleasure and the promise
+of a sensual paradise. These circumstances were likewise sure to render his
+constitution durable. His religious system was so easy to be understood, so
+splendid and so inviting, there could be no danger that the people would
+lose sight of its principles, and no necessity of future prophets to
+explain its doctrines or reform the nation. To these advantages if we add
+the exact and rigid military discipline, the splendor and sacredness of the
+monarch, and that total ignorance among the people which such a system
+will produce and perpetuate, the establishment must have been evidently
+calculated for a considerable extent and duration. But the last and
+most important end of government, that of mental improvement and social
+happiness, was deplorably lost in the institution. There was probably more
+learning and cultivated genius in Arabia, in the days of this extraordinary
+man, than can now be found in all the Mahometan dominions.
+
+On the contrary, the enterprising mind of the Russian monarch appears to
+have been wholly bent on the arts of civilization and the improvement of
+society among his subjects. Established in a legal title to a throne which
+already commanded a prodigious extent of country, he found the first object
+of government already secured; and by applying himself with great sagacity
+to the third object, that of improving his people, it was reasonable to
+suppose that the second, the durability of his system, would become a
+necessary consequence. He effected his purposes, important as they were,
+merely by the introduction of the arts and the encouragement of politer
+manners. The greatness of his character appears not so much in his
+institutions, which he copied from other nations, as in the extraordinary
+measures he followed to introduce them, the judgment he showed in selecting
+and adapting them to the genius of his subjects, and the surprising
+assiduity by which he raised a savage people to an elevated rank among
+European nations.
+
+To the nature and operation of the several forms of government above
+mentioned I will compare that of the Peruvian lawgiver. I have observed in
+a preceding note that the knowledge we have of Manco Capac is necessarily
+imperfect and obscure, derived thro traditions and family registers
+(without the aid of writing) for four hundred years; from the time he is
+supposed to have lived, till that of his historian and descendant, Inca
+Garcilasso de la Vega. About an equal interval elapsed from the supposed
+epoch of the first kings of Rome to that of their first historians; a
+longer space from Lycurgus to Herodotus; probably not a shorter one from
+the time of the great Cyrus to that of Xenophon, author of the elegant
+romance on the actions of that hero.
+
+I recal the reader's attention to these comparisons, not with a view of
+contending that our accounts of the actions ascribed to Capac are derived
+from authentic records, and that he is a subject of real history, like
+Mahomet or Peter; but to show that, our channels of information with regard
+to him being equally respectable with those that have brought us acquainted
+with the classical and venerable names of Lycurgus, Romulus, Numa and
+Cyrus, we may be as correct in our reasonings from the modern as from the
+ancient source of reference, and fancy ourselves treading a ground as
+sacred on the tomb of the western patriarch, as on those more frequented
+and less scrutinized in the east, consecrated to the demigods of Sparta,
+Rome and Persia.
+
+It is probable that the savages of Peru before the time of Capac, among
+other objects of adoration, paid homage to the sun. By availing himself
+of this popular sentiment he appeared, like Moses and Mahomet, in the
+character of a divine legislator endowed with supernatural powers. After
+impressing these ideas on the minds of the people, drawing together a
+number of the tribes and rendering them subservient to his benevolent
+purposes, he applied himself to forming the outlines of a plan of policy
+capable of founding and regulating an extensive empire, wisely calculated
+for long duration, and well adapted to improve the knowledge, peace and
+happiness of a considerable portion of mankind. In the allotment of the
+lands as private property he invented a mode somewhat resembling the feudal
+system of Europe: yet this system was checked in its operation by a law
+similar to that of Moses which regulated landed possessions in the year of
+Jubilee. He divided the lands into three parts; the first was consecrated
+to the uses of religion, as it was from the sacerdotal part of his system
+that he doubtless expected its most powerful support. The second portion
+was set apart for the Inca and his family, to enable him to defray the
+expenses of government and appear in the style of a monarch. The third and
+largest portion was allotted to the people; which allotment was repeated
+every year, and varied according to the number and exigences of each
+family.
+
+As the Incan race appeared in the character of divinities, it seemed
+necessary that a subordination of rank should be established, to render the
+distinction between the monarch and his people more perceptible. With this
+view he created a band of nobles, who were distinguished by personal and
+hereditary honors. These were united to the monarch by the strongest ties
+of interest; in peace they acted as judges and superintended the police of
+the empire; in war they commanded in the armies. The next order of men were
+the respectable landholders and cultivators, who composed the principal
+strength of the nation. Below these was a class of men who were the
+servants of the public and cultivated the public lands. They possessed
+no property, and their security depended on their regular industry and
+peaceable demeanor. Above all these orders were the Inca and his family. He
+possessed absolute and uncontrolable power; his mandates were regarded as
+the word of heaven, and the double guilt of impiety and rebellion attended
+on disobedience.
+
+To impress the utmost veneration for the Incan family, it was a fundamental
+principle that the royal blood should never be contaminated by any foreign
+alliance. The mysteries of religion were preserved sacred by the high
+priest of the royal family under the control of the king, and celebrated
+with rites capable of making the deepest impression on the multitude.
+The annual distribution of the lands, while it provided for the varying
+circumstances of each family, was designed to strengthen the bands of
+society by perpetuating that distinction of rank among the orders which is
+supposed necessary to a monarchical government; the peasants could not vie
+with their superiors, and the nobles could not be subjected by misfortune
+to a subordinate station. A constant habit of industry was inculcated upon
+all ranks by the force of example. The cultivation of the soil, which in
+most other countries is considered as one of the lowest employments, was
+here regarded as a divine art. Having had no knowledge of it before, and
+being taught it by the children of their god, the people viewed it as a
+sacred privilege, a national honor, to assist the sun in opening the bosom
+of the earth to produce vegetation. That the government might be able to
+exercise the endearing acts of beneficence, the produce of the public lands
+was reserved in magazines, to supply the wants of the unfortunate and as a
+resource in case of scarcity or invasion.
+
+These are the outlines of a government the most simple and energetic, and
+at least as capable as any monarchy within our knowledge of reducing
+great and populous countries under one jurisdiction; at the same time,
+accommodating its principle of action to every stage of improvement, by
+a singular and happy application to the passions of the human mind, it
+encouraged the advancement of knowledge without being endangered by
+success.
+
+In the traits of character which distinguish this institution we may
+discern all the great principles of each of the legislators above
+mentioned. The pretensions of Capac to divine authority were as artfully
+contrived and as effectual in their consequences as those of Mahomet; his
+exploding the worship of evil beings and objects of terror, forbidding
+human sacrifices and accommodating the rites of worship to a god of justice
+and benevolence, produced a greater change in the national character of his
+people than the laws of Moses did in his; like Peter he provided for the
+future improvement of society, while his actions were never measured on the
+contracted scale which limited the genius of Lycurgus.
+
+Thus far we find that altho the political system of Capac did not embrace
+that extensive scope of human nature which is necessary in forming
+republican institutions, and which can be drawn only from long and well
+recorded experience of the passions and tendencies of social man, yet
+it must be pronounced at least equal to those of the most celebrated
+monarchical law-givers, whether ancient or modern. But in some things his
+mind seems to have attained an elevation with which few of theirs will bear
+a comparison; I mean in his religious institutions, and the exalted ideas
+he had formed of the agency and attributes of supernatural beings.
+
+From what source he could have drawn these ideas it is difficult to form a
+satisfactory conjecture. The worship of the sun is so natural to an early
+state of society, in a mild climate with a clear atmosphere, that it may be
+as reasonable to suppose it would originate in Peru as in Egypt or Persia;
+where we find that a similar worship did originate and was wrought into
+a splendid system; whence it was probably extended, with various
+modifications, over most of the ancient world.
+
+Or if we reject this theory, and suppose that only one nation, from some
+circumstance peculiar to itself, could create the materials of such a
+system, and has consequently had the privilege of giving its religion
+to the human race; we may in this case imagine that the Phenicians (who
+colonized Cadiz and other places in the west of Europe, at the time when
+they possessed the solar worship in all its glory) must have had a vessel
+driven across the Atlantic; and thus conveyed a stock of inhabitants, with
+their own religious ideas, to the western continent.
+
+The first theory is doubtless the most plausible. And the mild regions of
+Peru, for the reasons mentioned in a former note, became, like Egypt, the
+seat of an institution so congenial to its climate. But in more boisterous
+climates, where storms and other violent agents prevail, many different
+fables have wrought themselves into the system, as remarked in the same
+note; and the solar religion in such countries has generally lost its name
+and the more beneficent parts of its influence. Being thus corrupted,
+religion in almost every part of the earth assumed a gloomy and sanguinary
+character.
+
+Savage nations create their gods from such materials as they have at hand,
+the most striking to their senses. And these are in general an assemblage
+of destructive attributes. They usually form no idea of a general
+superintending providence; they consider not their god as the author of
+their beings, the creator of the world and the dispenser of the happiness
+they enjoy; they discern him not in the usual course of nature, in the
+sunshine and in the shower, the productions of the earth and the blessing
+of society; they find a deity only in the storm, the earthquake and the
+whirlwind, or ascribe to him the evils of pestilence and famine; they
+consider him as interposing in wrath to change the course of nature and
+exercise the attributes of rage and revenge. They adore him with rites
+suited to these attributes, with horror, with penance and with sacrifice;
+they imagine him pleased with the severity of their mortifications, with
+the oblations of blood and the cries of human victims; and they hope
+to compound for greater judgments by voluntary sufferings and horrid
+sacrifices, suited to the relish of his taste.
+
+Perhaps no single criterion can be given which will determine more
+accurately the state of society in any age or nation than their general
+ideas concerning the nature and attributes of deity. In the most
+enlightened periods of antiquity, only a few of their philosophers, a
+Socrates, Tully or Confucius, ever formed a rational idea on the subject,
+or described a god of purity, justice and benevolence. But Capac, erecting
+his institutions in a country where the visible agents of nature inspired
+more satisfactory feelings, adopted a milder system. As the sun, with its
+undisturbed influence, seemed to point itself out as the supreme controller
+and vital principle of nature, he formed the idea, as the Egyptians had
+done before, of constituting that luminary the chief object of adoration.
+He taught the nation to consider the sun as the parent of the universe, the
+god of order and regularity; ascribing to his influence the rotation of
+the seasons, the productions of the earth and the blessings of health;
+especially attributing to his inspiration the wisdom of their laws, and
+that happy constitution which was the delight and veneration of the people.
+
+A system so just and benevolent, as might be expected, was attended with
+success. In about four centuries the dominion of the Incas had extended
+fifteen hundred miles in length, and had introduced peace and prosperity
+thro the whole region. The arts of society had been carried to a
+considerable degree of improvement, and the authority of the Incan race
+universally acknowledged, when an event happened which disturbed the
+tranquillity of the empire. Huana Capac, the twelfth monarch, had reduced
+the powerful kingdom of Quito and annexed it to his dominions. To
+conciliate the affections of his new subjects, he married a daughter of the
+ancient king of Quito, who was not of the race of Incas. Thus, by violating
+a fundamental law of the empire, he left at his death a disputed succession
+to the throne. Atabalipa, the son of Huana by the heiress of Quito, being
+in possession of the principal force of the Peruvian armies, left at that
+place on the death of his father, gave battle to his brother Huascar, who
+was the elder son of Huana by a lawful wife, and legal heir to the crown.
+
+After a long and destructive civil war the former was victorious; and thus
+was that flourishing kingdom left a prey to regal dissensions and to the
+few soldiers of Pizarro, who happened at that juncture to make a descent
+upon the coast. In this manner he effected an easy conquest and an utter
+destruction of a numerous, brave, unfortunate people.
+
+It is however obvious that this deplorable event is not to be charged
+on Capac, as the consequence of any defect in his institution. It is
+impossible that an original legislator should effectually guard against the
+folly of all future sovereigns. Capac had not only removed every temptation
+that could induce a wise prince to wish for a change in the constitution,
+but had connected the ruin of his authority with the change; for he who
+disregards any part of institutions deemed sacred teaches his people to
+consider the whole as an imposture. Had he made a law ordaining that the
+Peruvians should be absolved from their allegiance to a prince who should
+violate the laws, it would have implied possible error and imperfection in
+those persons whom the people were ordered to regard as divinities; the
+reverence due to characters who made such high pretensions would have been
+weakened; and instead of rendering the constitution perfect, such a law
+would have been its greatest defect. Besides, it is probable the rupture
+might have been healed and the suecession settled, with as little
+difficulty as frequently happens with partial revolutions in other
+kingdoms, had not the descent of the Spaniards prevented it. And this
+event, for that age and country, must have been beyond the possibility of
+human foresight. But viewing the concurrence of these fatal accidents,
+which reduced this flourishing empire to a level with many other ruined and
+departed kingdoms, it only furnishes an additional proof that no political
+system has yet had the privilege to be perfect.
+
+On the whole it is evident that the system of Capac (if the Peruvian
+constitution may be so called) is one of the greatest exertions of genius
+to be found in the history of mankind. When, we consider him as an
+individual emerging from the midst of a barbarous people, having seen no
+example of the operation of laws in any country, originating a plan of
+religion and policy never equalled by the sages of antiquity, civilizing an
+extensive empire and rendering religion and government subservient to the
+general happiness of a great people, there is no danger that we grow too
+warm in his praise, or pronounce too high an eulogiurn on his character.
+
+
+
+No. 20.
+
+
+  _Bade yon tall temple grace their favorite isle,
+  The mines unfold, the cultured valleys smile._
+
+  Book III. Line 5.
+
+One of the great temples of the sun was built on an island in the lake
+Titiaca near Cusco, to consecrate the spot of ground where Capac and Oella
+first made their appearance and claimed divine honors as children of the
+sun.
+
+
+
+No. 21.
+
+
+  _His eldest hope, young Rocha, at his call,
+  Resigns his charge within the temple, wall;_
+
+  Book III. Line 29.
+
+The high priest of the sun was always one of the royal family; and in every
+generation after the first, was brother to the king. This office probably
+began with Rocha; as he was the first who was capable of receiving it, and
+as it was necessary, in the education of the prince, that he should be
+initiated in the sacred mysteries.
+
+
+
+No. 22.
+
+  _A pearl-dropt girdle bound his waist below,
+  And the white lautu graced his lofty brow._
+
+  Book III. Line 135.
+
+The lautu was a cotton band, twisted and worn on the head of the Incas as a
+badge of royalty. It made several turns round the head; and, according to
+the description of Garcilasso, it must have resembled the Turkish turban.
+
+It is possible that both the lautu and the turban had their remote origin
+in the ancient astronomical religion, whose principal god was the sun and
+usually represented under the figure of a man with the horns of the ram;
+that is, the sun in the sign of aries. The form of the lautu and of the
+turban (which I suppose to be the same) seems to indicate that they were
+originally designed as emblems or badges; and when properly twisted and
+wound round the head, as Turks of distinction usually wear the turban, they
+resemble the horns of the ram as represented in those figures of Jupiter
+Ammon where the horns curl close to the head.
+
+There is an engraving in Garcilasso representing the first Inca and his
+wife, Capac and Oella; and the heads of both are ornamented with rams'
+horns projecting out from the lautu. Whether the figures of these
+personages were usually so represented in Peru previous to the Spanish
+devastation, would be difficult at this day to ascertain. If it could be
+ascertained that they were usually so represented there, we might esteem
+it a remarkable circumstance in proof of the unity of the origin of their
+religion with that of the ancient Egyptians; from which all the early
+theological systems of Asia and Europe, as far as they have come to our
+knowledge, were evidently derived.
+
+
+
+No. 23.
+
+
+  _Receive, O dreadful Power, from feeble age.
+  This last pure offering to thy sateless rage;_
+
+  Book III. Line 181.
+
+Garcilasso declares that the different tribes of those mountain savages
+worshipped the various objects of terror that annoyed the particular parts
+of the country where they dwelt; such as storms, volcanos, rivers, lakes,
+and several beasts and birds of prey. All of them believed that their
+forefathers were descended from the gods which they worshipped.
+
+
+
+No. 24.
+
+  _Held to the sun the image from his breast
+  Whose glowing concave all the god exprest;_
+
+  Book III. Line 273.
+
+The historian of the Incas relates that, by the laws of the empire, none
+but sacred fire could be used in sacrifices; and that there were three
+modes in which it might be procured. First, the most sacred fire was that
+which was drawn immediately from the sun himself by means of a concave
+mirror, which was usually made of gold or silver highly polished. Second,
+in case of cloudy weather or other accident, the fire might be taken from
+the temple, where it was preserved by the holy virgins; whose functions
+and discipline resembled those of the vestals of Rome. Third, when the
+sacrifice was to be made in the provinces at an inconvenient distance from
+the temple, and when the weather was such as to prevent drawing the fire
+immediately from the sun, it was permitted to procure it by the friction of
+two pieces of dry wood.
+
+The two latter modes were resorted to only in cases of necessity. Not to
+be able to obtain fire by means of the mirror was a bad omen, a sign of
+displeasure in the god; it cast a gloom over the whole ceremony and threw
+the people into lamentations, fearing their offering would not be well
+received.
+
+This method of procuring fire directly from the sun, to burn a sacrifice,
+must have appeared so miraculous to the savages who could not understand
+it, that it doubtless had a powerful effect in converting them to the solar
+religion and to the Incan government.
+
+
+
+No. 25.
+
+
+  _Dim Paraguay extends the aching sight,
+  Xaraya glimmers like the moon of night,_
+
+  Book III. Line 321.
+
+Xaraya is a lake in the country of Paraguay, and is the principal source of
+the river Paraguay. This river is the largest branch of the Plata.
+
+
+
+No. 26.
+
+
+  _The Condor frowning from a southern plain.
+  Borne on a standard, leads a numerous train:_
+
+  Book III. Line 421.
+
+The Condor is supposed to be the largest bird of prey hitherto known. His
+wings, from one extreme to the other, are said to measure fifteen feet; he
+is able to carry a sheep in his talons, and he sometimes attacks men. He
+inhabits the high mountains of Peru, and is supposed by some authors to be
+peculiar to the American continent. Buffon believes him to be of the same
+species with the laemmer-geyer (lamb-vulture) of the Alps. The similarity
+of their habitations favors this conjecture; but the truth is, the Condor
+of Peru has not been well examined, and his history is imperfectly known.
+
+
+
+No. 27.
+
+
+  _So shall the Power in vengeance view the place,
+  In crimson clothe his terror-beaming face,_
+
+  Book III. Line 493.
+
+It is natural for the worshippers of the sun to consider any change in the
+atmosphere as indicative of the different passions of their deity. With the
+Peruvians a sanguine appearance in the sun denoted his anger.
+
+
+
+No. 28.
+
+
+  _Thro all the shrines, where erst on new-moon days
+  Swell'd the full quires of consecrated praise,_
+
+  Book III. Line 687.
+
+New-moon days were days of high festival with the Incas, according to
+Garcilasso. Eclipses of the sun must therefore have happened on solemn
+days, and have interrupted the service of the temple.
+
+
+
+No. 29.
+
+
+  _Las Casas. Valverde. Gasca._
+
+  Book IV. Line 17-27.
+
+_Bartholomew de las Casas_ was a Dominican priest of a most amiable
+and heroic character. He first went to Hispaniola with Columbus in his
+second voyage, where he manifested an ardent but honest zeal, first in
+attempting to instruct the natives in the principles of the catholic
+faith, and afterwards in defending them against the insufferable cruelties
+exercised by the Spanish tyrants who succeeded Columbus in the discoveries
+and settlements in South America. He early declared himself _Protector
+of the Indians;_ a title which seems to have been acknowledged by the
+Spanish government. He devoted himself ever after to the most indefatigable
+labors in the service of that unhappy people. He made several voyages to
+Spain, to solicit, first from Ferdinand, then from cardinal Ximenes, and
+finalty from Charles V, some effectual restrictions against the horrid
+career of depopulation which every where attended the Spanish arms. He
+followed these monsters of cruelty into all the conquered countries; where,
+by the power of his eloquence and that purity of morals which commands
+respect even from the worst of men, he doubtless saved the lives of many
+thousands of innocent people. His life was a continued struggle agaiust
+that deplorable system of tyranny, of which he gives a description in
+a treatise addressed to Philip prince of Spain, entitled _Brevissima
+Relacion de la Destruycion de las Yndias_.
+
+It is said by the Spanish writers that the inhabitants of Hispaniola, when
+first discovered by the Spaniards, amounted to more than one million. This
+incredible population was reduced, in fifteen years, to sixty thousand
+souls.
+
+_Vincent Valverde_ was a fanatical priest who accompanied Pizarro in
+his destructive expedition to Peru. If we were to search the history of
+mankind, we should not find another such example of the united efforts of
+ecclesiastical hypocrisy and military ferocity, of unresisted murder and
+insatiable plunder, as we meet with in the account of this expedition.
+
+Father Valverde, in a formal manner, gave the sanction of the church to the
+treacherous murder of Atabalipa and his relations; which was immediately
+followed by the destruction and almost entire depopulation of a flourishing
+empire.
+
+_Pedro de la Gasca_ was one of the few men whose virtues form a
+singular contrast with the vices which disgraced the age in which he lived
+and the country in which he acquired his glory. He was sent over to Peru by
+Charles V without any military force, to quell the rebellion of the younger
+Pizarro and to prevent a second depopulation, by a civil war, of that
+country which had just been drenched in the blood of its original
+inhabitants. He effected this great purpose by the weight only of his
+personal authority and the veneration inspired by his virtues. As soon
+as he had suppressed the rebellion and established the government of the
+colony he hastened to resign his authority into the hands of his master.
+And tho his victories had been obtained in the richest country on earth he
+returned to Spain as poor as Cincinnatus; having resisted every temptation
+to plunder, and refused to receive any emolument for his services.
+
+
+
+No. 30.
+
+
+  _First of his friends, see Frederic's princely form
+  Ward from the sage divine the gathering storm;_
+
+  Book IV. Line 157.
+
+Frederic of Saxony, surnamed the Wise, was the first sovereign prince
+who favored the doctrines of Luther. He became at once his pupil and his
+patron, defended him from the persecutions of the pope, and gave him an
+establishment as professor in the university of Wittemburgh.
+
+
+
+No. 31.
+
+
+  _By monarchs courted and by men beloved._
+
+  Book IV. Line 165.
+
+Francis I, out of respect to the great learning and moderation of
+Melancthon, and disregarding the pretended danger of discussing the dogmas
+of the church, invited him to come to France and establish himself at
+Paris; but the intrigues of the cardinal de Tournon frustrated the king's
+intention.
+
+If every leader of religious sects had possessed the amiable qualities of
+Melancthon, and every monarch who wished to oppose the introduction of new
+opinions had partaken of the wisdom of Francis, the blood of many hundreds
+of millions of the human species, which has flowed at the shrine of
+fanaticism, would have been spared. This circumstance alone would have
+made of human society by this time a state totally different from what we
+actually experience; and its influence on the progress of improvement in
+national happiness and general civilization must have been beyond our
+ordinary calculation.
+
+
+
+No. 32.
+
+
+  _While kings and ministers obstruct the plan,
+  Unfaithful guardians of the weal of man._
+
+  Book IV. Line 529.
+
+The British colonies in all their early struggles for existence complained,
+and with reason, of the uniform indifference and discouragement which they
+experienced from the government of the mother country. But it was probably
+to that very indifference that they owed the remarkable spirit of liberty
+and self-dependence which created their prosperity, by inducing them
+uniformly to adopt republican institutions. These circumstances prepared
+the way for that mutual confidence and federal union which have finally
+formed them into a flourishing nation.
+
+Ministers who feel their power over a distant colony to be uncontrolled
+are so naturally inclined to govern too much, that it may be a fortunate
+circumstance for the colony to be neglected altogether. This neglect was
+indeed fatal to the first Virginia settlers sent out by Sir Walter Raleigh;
+and the companies who afterwards succeeded in their establishments at
+Jamestown in Virginia and at Plymouth in Massachusetts were very near
+sharing the fate of their predecessors. But after these settlements had
+acquired so much consistence as to assure their own continuance, it may
+be assumed as an historical fact, that the want of encouragement from
+government was rather beneficial than detrimental to the British colonies
+in general.
+
+These establishments were in the nature of private adventures, undertaken
+by a few individuals at their own expense, rather than organised colonies
+sent abroad for a public purpose. They were companies incorporated for
+plantation and trade. All they asked of the mother country (after obtaining
+acts of incorporation enabling them to acquire property and exercise other
+civil functions, such as incorporated companies at home could exercise) was
+to give them charters of political franchise, ascertaining the extent and
+limits of their rights and duties as subjects of the British crown forming
+nations in parts of the earth that had been found in an uncultivated state,
+and far removed from the mother country.
+
+As they could not in this situation be represented in the parliament of
+England, these charters stipulated their right of having parliaments
+or legislative assemblies of their own, with executive and judiciary
+institutions established within their territories.
+
+The acknowledgment of these rights placed them on a different footing from
+any other modern colonies; and the restricting clause, by which their trade
+was confined to the mother country, rendered their situation unlike that of
+the colonies of ancient Greece. Indeed the British system of colonization
+in America differed essentially from every other, whether ancient or
+modern; if that may properly be called a system, which was rather the
+result of early indifference to the cries of needy adventurers, and
+subsequent attempts to seize upon their earnings when they became objects
+of rapacity. This singular train of difficulties must be considered as one
+of the causes of our ancient prosperity and present freedom.
+
+
+
+
+No. 33.
+
+
+  _Where Freedom's sons their high-born lineage trace,
+  And homebred bravery still exalts the race:_
+
+  Book V. Line 345.
+
+The author of this poem will not be suspected of laying any stress on the
+mere circumstance of lineage or birth, as relating either to families or
+nations. The phrase however in the text is not without its meaning. Among
+the colonies derived from the several nations of Europe in modern times,
+those from the English have flourished far better than the others, under a
+parity of circumstances, such as climate, soil and productions. The reason
+of this undeniable fact deserves to be explained.
+
+Colonies naturally carry with them the civil, political and religious
+institutions of their mother countries. These institutions in England are
+much more favorable to liberty and the development of industry than in any
+other part of Europe which has sent colonies abroad. But this is not all:
+when men for several generations have been bred up in the habit of feeling
+and exercising such a portion of liberty as the English nation has enjoyed,
+their minds are prepared to open and expand themselves as occasion may
+offer. They are able to embrace new circumstances, to perceive the
+improvements that may be drawn from them, and not only make a temperate use
+of that portion of self-control to which they are accustomed, but devise
+the means of extending it to other objects of their political relations,
+till they become familiar with all the interests of men in society.
+
+The habitual use of the liberty of the press, of trial by jury in open
+court, of the accountability of public agents and of some voice in the
+election of legislators, must create, in a man or a nation, a character
+quite different from what it could be under the habitual disuse of these
+advantages. And when these habits are transplanted with a young colony to
+a distant region of the earth, enjoying a good soil and climate, with an
+unlimited and unoccupied country, the difference will necessarily be more
+remarkable.
+
+A most striking illustration of this principle is exhibited in the colonies
+of North America. This coast, from the St. Laurence to the Missisippi,
+was colonized by the French and English, (I make no account of the Dutch
+establishment on the Hudson nor of the Swedish on the Delaware; they being
+of little importance, and early absorbed in the English settlements.) If we
+look back only one hundred years from the present time, we find the French
+and English dominions here about equally important in point of extent and
+population. The French Canada, Acadia, Cape Breton, Newfoundland, Florida
+and Louisiana were then as far advanced in improvement as the English
+settlements which they flanked on each side. And the French had greatly
+the advantage in point of soil, interior navigation and capability of
+extension. They commanded and possessed the two great rivers which almost
+met together on the English frontier. And the space between the waters of
+those rivers on the west was planted with French military posts, so as to
+complete the investment.
+
+New Orleans was begun before Philadelphia, and was much better situated to
+become a great commercial capital. Quebec and Montreal were older, and had
+the advantage of most of our other cities. Add to this that the French
+nation at home was about twice as populous as the English nation at home;
+and as that part of the increase of colonial population which comes
+from emigration must naturally be derived from their respective mother
+countries, it might have been expected that the comparative rapidity of
+increase would have been in favor of the French at least two to one.
+
+But the French colonists had not been habituated to the use of liberty
+before their emigration; and they were not prepared nor permitted to enjoy
+it in any degree afterwards. Their laws were made for them in their mother
+country, by men who could not know their wants and who fell no interest in
+their prosperity; and then they were administered by a set of agents as
+ignorant as their masters; men who, from the nature of their employment and
+accountability, must in general be oppressive and rapacious.
+
+The result has solved a great problem in political combination. One of
+these clusters of colonies has grown to a powerful empire, giving examples
+to the universe in most of the great objects which constitute the dignity
+of nations. The other, after having been a constant expense to the mother
+country, and serving for barter and exchange in the capricious vicissitudes
+of European despotism, presents altogether at this day a mass of population
+and wealth scarcely equal to one of our provinces.
+
+This note is written at the moment when Louisiana, one of the most
+extensive but least peopled of the French colonies, is ceded to the United
+States. The world will see how far the above theory will now be confirmed
+by the rapid increase of population and improvement in that interesting
+portion of our continent.
+
+
+
+No. 34.
+
+
+  _Beneath him lay the sceptre kings had borne,
+  And the tame thunder from the tempest torn._
+
+  Book V. Line 429.
+
+  Eripuit coelo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis.
+
+This epigraph, written by Turgot on the bust of Franklin, seems to have
+been imitated from a line in Manilius; where noticing the progress of
+science in ascribing things to their natural and proper causes instead of
+supernatural ones, he says,
+
+  Eriput Jovi fulmen, viresque tonandi,
+  Et sonitum ventis concessit, nubibus ignem.
+
+
+
+No. 35.
+
+
+  _And Knox from his full park to battle brings
+  His brazen tubes, the last resort of kings._
+
+  Book V. Line 665.
+
+Ultima ratio regum; a device of Louis XIV engraved on his ordnance, and
+afterwards adopted by other powers. When we consider men as reasonable
+beings and endowed with the qualities requisite for living together in
+society, this device looks like a satire upon the species; but in reality
+it only proves the imperfect state to which their own principles of society
+have yet advanced them in the long and perhaps interminable progress of
+which they are susceptible. This _ultima ratio_ being already taken
+out of the hands of individuals and confided only to the chiefs of nations
+is as clear a proof of a great progress already made, as its remaining in
+the hands of those chiefs is a proof that we still remain far short of that
+degree of wisdom and experience which will enable all the nations to live
+at peace one with another.
+
+There certainly was a time when the same device might have been written
+on the hatchet or club or fist of every man; and the best weapon of
+destruction that he could wield against his neighbour might have been
+called _ultima ratio virarum_, meaning that human reason could go no
+farther. But the wisdom we have drawn from experience has taught us to
+restrain the use of mortal weapons, making it unlawful and showing it to
+be unreasonable to use them in private disputes. The principles of social
+intercourse and the advantages of peace are so far understood as to enable
+men to form great societies, and to submit their personal misunderstandings
+to common judges; thus removing the ultima ratio from their own private
+hands to the hands of their government.
+
+Hitherto there has usually been a government to every nation; but the
+nations are increasing in size and diminishing in number; so that the hands
+which now hold the _ultima ratio_ by delegation are few, compared
+with what they have been. I mean this observation to apply only to those
+extensions of nationality which have been formed on the true principles
+of society and acquiesced in from a sense of their utility. I mean not
+to apply it to those unnatural and unwieldy stretches of power, whose
+overthrow is often and erroneously cited as an argument against the
+progress of civilization; such as the conquests of Alexander, the Roman
+generals, Omar, Gengis Khan and others of that brilliant description. These
+are but meteors of compulsive force, which pass away and discourage, rather
+than promote, the spirit of national extension of which I speak.
+
+This spirit operates constantly and kindly; nor is its progress so slow
+but that it is easily perceived. Even within the short memorials of modern
+history we find a heptarchy in England. Ossian informs us that in his time
+there was a great number of warlike states in Ireland and as many more in
+Scotland. Without going back to the writings of Julius Cesar to discover
+the comparative condition of France, we may almost remember when she
+counted within her limits six or seven different governments, generally at
+war among themselves and inviting foreign enemies to come and help them
+destroy each other. Every province in Spain is still called a kingdom;
+and it is not long since they were really so in fact, with the _ultima
+ratio_ in the hands of every king.
+
+The publicist who in any of those modern heroic ages could have imagined
+that all the hundred nations who inhabited the western borders of Europe,
+from the Orknies to Gibraltar, might one day become so far united in
+manners and interests as to form but three great nations, would certainly
+have passed for a madman. Had he been a minister of Phararnond or of Fingal
+he could no more have kept his place than Turgot could keep his after
+pointing out the means of promoting industry and preventing wars. He would
+have been told that the inhabitants of each side of the Humber were natural
+enemies one to the other; that if their chiefs were even disposed to live
+in peace they could not do it; their subjects would demand war and could
+not live without it. The same would have been said of the Seine, the Loire
+and every other dividing line between their petty communities. It would
+have been insisted on that such rivers were the natural boundaries of
+states and never could be otherwise.
+
+But now since the people of those districts find themselves no longer
+on the frontiers of little warlike states, but in the centre of great
+industrious nations, they have lost their relish for war, and consider it
+as a terrible calamity; they cherish the minister who gives them peace, and
+abhor the one who drives them into unnecessary wars. Their local disputes,
+which used to be settled by the sword, are now referred to the tribunals of
+the country. They have substituted a moral to a physical force. They
+have changed the habits of plunder for those of industry; and they find
+themselves richer and happier for the change.
+
+Who will say that the progress of society will stop short in the present
+stage of its career? that great communities will not discover a mode of
+arbitrating their disputes, as little ones have done? that nations will
+not lay aside their present ideas of independence and rivalship, and find
+themselves more happy and more secure in one great universal society,
+which shall contain within itself its own principles of defence, its own
+permanent security? It is evident that national security, in order to be
+permanent, must be founded on the moral force of society at large, and not
+on the physical force of each nation independently exerted. The _ultima
+ratio_ must not be a cannon, but a reference to some rational mode of
+decision worthy of rational beings.
+
+
+
+No. 36.
+
+
+  _Else what high tones of rapture must have told
+  The first great action of a chief so bold!_
+
+  Book V. Line 767.
+
+General Arnold, the leader of this detachment, had acquired by this
+and many other brilliant achievements a degree of military fame almost
+unequalled among the American generals. His shameful defection afterwards,
+by the foulest of treason, should be lamented as a national dishonor; it
+has not only obliterated his own glory, but it seems in some sort to have
+cast a shade on that of others whose brave actions had been associated with
+his in the acquisition of their common and unadulterated fame.
+
+The action here alluded to, the march thro the wilderness from Casco to
+Quebec, was compared in the gazettes of that day to the passage of the Alps
+by Hannibal. And really, considered as a scene of true military valor,
+patient suffering and heroic exertion (detached from the idea of subsequent
+success in the ulterior expedition) the comparison did not disgrace the
+Carthaginian. Yet since the defection of Arnold, which happened five
+years afterwards, this audacious and once celebrated exploit is
+scarcely mentioned in our annals. And Meigs, Dearborn, Morgan and other
+distinguished officers in the expedition, whom that alone might have
+immortalized, have been indebted to their subsequent exertions of patriotic
+valor for the share of celebrity their names now enjoy.
+
+See the character of Arnold treated more at large in the sixth book.
+
+
+
+No. 37.
+
+
+  _See the black Prison Ship's expanding womb
+  Impested thousands, quick and dead, entomb._
+
+  Book VI. Line 35.
+
+The systematic and inflexible course of cruelties exercised by the British
+armies on American prisoners during the three first years of the war were
+doubtless unexampled among civilized nations. Considering it as a war
+against rebels, neither their officers nor soldiers conceived themselves
+bound by the ordinary laws of war.
+
+The detail of facts on this subject, especially in what concerned the
+prison ships, has not been sufficiently noticed in our annals; at least not
+so much noticed as the interest of public morals would seem to require. Mr.
+Boudinot, who was the American commissary of prisoners at the time, has
+since informed the author of this poem that in one prison ship alone,
+called the Jersey, which was anchored near Newyork, _eleven thousand_
+American prisoners died in eighteen months; almost the whole of them from
+the barbarous treatment of being stifled in a crowded hold with infected
+air, and poisoned with unwholesome food.
+
+There were several other prison ships, as well as the sugar-house prison
+in the city, whose histories ought to be better known than they are. I say
+this not from any sort of enmity to the British nation, for I have none. I
+respect the British nation; as will be evident from the views I have given
+of her genius and institutions in the course of this work. I would at all
+times render that nation every service consistent with my duty to my own;
+and surely it is worthy of her magnanimity to consider as a real service
+every true information given her relative to the crimes of her agents in
+distant countries. These crimes are as contrary to the spirit of the nation
+at home as they are to the temper of her laws.
+
+
+
+No. 38.
+
+
+  _Myrtles and laurels equal honors join'd,
+  Which arms had purchased and the Muses twined;_
+
+  Book VI, Line 273.
+
+General Burgoyne had gained some celebrity by his pen, as well as by his
+sword, previous to the American war. He was author of the comedy called
+_The Heiress_, and of some other theatrical pieces which had been well
+received on the London theatres.
+
+
+
+No. 39.
+
+
+  _Deep George's loaded lake reluctant guides
+  Their bounding larges o'er his sacred tides._
+
+  Book VI. Line 285.
+
+The water of Lake George was held in particular veneration by the French
+catholics of Canada. Of this they formerly made their holy water; which was
+carried and distributed to the churches thro the province, and probably
+produced part of the revenues of the clergy. This water is said to have
+been chosen for the purpose on account of its extreme clearness. The lake
+was called _Lac du Saint Sacrement_.
+
+
+
+No. 40.
+
+
+  _His savage hordes the murderous Johnson leads,
+  Files thro the woods and treads the tangled weeds,_
+
+  Book VI. Line 389.
+
+This was general sir John Johnson, an American royalist in the British
+service. He was the son of sir William Johnson, who had been a rich
+proprietor and inhabitant in the Mohawk country, in the colony of New York,
+and had been employed by the king as superintendant of Indian affairs. Sir
+William had married a Mohawk savage wife; and it was supposed that the
+great influence which he had long exercised over that and the neighboring
+tribes must have descended to his son. It was on this account that he
+was employed on the expedition of Burgoyne; in which he had the rank of
+brigadier general, and the special direction of the savages.
+
+
+
+No. 41.
+
+
+  _Are these thy trophies, Carleton! these the swords
+  Thy hand unsheath'd and gave the savage hordes,_
+
+  Book VI. Line 685.
+
+General sir Guy Carleton, afterwards lord Dorchester, was the British
+governor of Canada and superintendant of Indian affairs at the time of
+Burgoyne's campaign. Having great influence with the warlike tribes who
+inhabited the west of Canada and the borders of the Lakes, he was ordered
+by the minister to adopt the barbarous and unjustifiable measure of arming
+and bringing them into the king's service in aid of this expedition.
+
+This was doubtless done with the consent of Burgoyne, tho he seems to have
+been apprehensive of the difficulty of managing a race of men whose manners
+were so ferocious, and whose motives to action must have been so different
+from those of the principal parties in the war. Burgoyne, in his narrative
+of this campaign, informs us that he took precautions to discourage that
+inhuman mode of warfare which had been customary among those savages. He
+ordered them to kill none but such persons as they should find in arms
+fighting against the king's troops; to spare old men, women, children and
+prisoners; and not to scalp any but such as they should kill in open war.
+He intimated to them that he should not pay for any scalps but those thus
+taken from enemies killed in arms.
+
+It is unfortunate for the reputation of the general and of his government,
+that they did not reflect on the futility of such an order and the
+improbability of its being executed. A certain price was offered for
+scalps; the savages must know that in a bag of scalps, packed and dried and
+brought into camp and counted out before the commissary to receive payment,
+it would be impossible to distinguish the political opinions or the
+occupation, age or sex of the heads to which they had belonged; it could
+not be ascertained whether they had been taken from Americans or British,
+whigs or tories, soldiers killed in arms or killed after they had resigned
+their arms, militia men or peasants, old or young, male or female.
+
+The event proved the deplorable policy of employing such auxiliaries,
+especially in such multitudes as were brought together on this occasion. No
+sooner did hostilities begin between the two armies than these people, who
+could have no knowledge of the cause nor affection for either party, and
+whose only object was plunder and pay, began their indiscriminate and
+ungovernable ravages on both sides. They robbed and murdered peasants,
+whether royalists or others; men, women, children, straggling and wounded
+soldiers of both armies. The tragical catastrophe of a young lady of the
+name of Macrea, whose story is almost literally detailed in the foregoing
+paragraphs of the text, is well known. It made a great impression on the
+public mind at the time, both in England and America.
+
+General Carleton, in the preceding campaigns, when the war was carried into
+Canada, had been applauded for his humanity in the treatment of prisoners.
+But the part he took in this measure of associating the savages in the
+operations of the British army was a stain upon his character; and the
+measure was highly detrimental to the royal cause, on account of the
+general indignation it excited thro the country.
+
+
+
+No. 42.
+
+
+  _That no proud privilege from birth can spring,
+  No right divine, nor compact form a king;_
+
+  Book VII. Line 39.
+
+The assumed right of kings, or that supreme authority which one man
+exercises over a nation, and for which he is not held accountable, has been
+contended for on various grounds. It has been sometimes called the _right
+of conquest;_ in which is involved the absolute disposal of the lives
+and labors of the conquered nation, in favor of the victorious chief
+and his descendants to perpetuity. Sometimes it is called the _divine
+right;_ in which case kings are considered as the vicegerents of God.
+
+This notion is very ancient, and it is almost universal among modern
+nations. Homer is full of it; and from his unaffected recurrence to the
+same idea every where in his poems, it is evident that in his day it was
+not called in question. The manner in which the Jews were set at work to
+constitute their first king proves that they were convinced that, if they
+must have a king, he must be given them from God, and receive that solemn
+consecration which should establish his authority on the same divine right
+which was common to other nations, from whom they borrowed the principle.
+
+There are some few instances in history wherein this divine right has
+been set aside; but it has generally been owing rather to the violence
+of circumstances, which sometimes drive men to act contrary to their
+prejudices, tho they still retain them, than to any effort of reasoning
+by which they convinced themselves that this was a prejudice, and that no
+divine right existed in reality. For it does not violate this supposed
+right, to change one king for another, or one race of kings for another,
+tho done in a manner the most unjust and inhuman. In this case the same
+divine right remains, and only changes, with the diadem, from one head to
+another. And tho this change should happen six times in one day (as in one
+instance it has done in Algiers by the murder of six successive kings) they
+would still say it was God who did it all; and the action would only tend
+to prove to the credulous people, that God was made after their own image,
+as changeable as themselves.
+
+It is only in the case of Tarquin and a few others (whose overthrow has
+been followed by a more popular form of government) that it can be said
+that the principle of the divine right has been disregarded, laid aside and
+forgotten for any length of time.
+
+The English are perhaps the first and only people that ever overturned
+this doctrine of the divinity of kings, without changing their form of
+government. This was brought on by circumstances, and took effect in the
+expulsion of James II. Books were then written to prove that the divine
+right of kings did not exist; at least, not in the sense in which it had
+been understood. And these writings completely silenced the old doctrine in
+England. This indeed was gaining an immense advantage in favor of liberty;
+tho the effort of reason, to arrive at it, seems to be so small.
+
+But while the English were discarding the old principle they set up a
+new one; which indeed is not so pernicious because it cannot become so
+extensive, but which is scarcely more reasonable: it is the right of kings
+by _compact;_ that is, a compact, whether written or understood,
+by which the representatives of a nation are supposed to bind their
+constituents and their descendants to be the subjects of a certain prince
+and of his descendants to perpetuity. This singular doctrine is developed
+with perspicuity, but ill supported by argument, in Burke's _Reflections
+on the French Revolution._
+
+The principle of the American government denies the right of any
+representatives to make such a compact, and the right of any prince to
+carry it into execution if it were made. Whatever varieties or mixtures
+there may be in the _forms_ of government, there are but two distinct
+principles on which government is founded. One supposes the source of power
+to be _out_ of the people, and that the governor is not accountable to
+them for the manner of using it; the other supposes the source of power to
+be _in_ the people, and that the governor is accountable to them for
+the manner of using it. The latter is our principle. In this sense no
+_right divine_ nor _compact_ can form a king; that is, a person,
+exercising underived and unreverting power.
+
+
+
+No. 43.
+
+
+  _But while dread Elliott shakes the Midland wave,
+  They strive in vain the Calpian rock to brave._
+
+  Book VII. Line 89.
+
+The English general Elliott commanded the post of Gibraltar, against which
+the combined forces of France and Spain made a vigorous but fruitless
+attack in the year 1781. This attack furnished the subjects for two
+celebrated pictures alluded to in the eighth book: _The burning of the
+Floating Batteries_ painted by Copley; and _The Sortie_, painted by
+Trumbull.
+
+
+
+No. 44.
+
+
+  _To guide the sailor in his wandering way,
+  See Godfrey's glass reverse the beams of day._
+
+  Book VIII. Line 681.
+
+It is less from national vanity than from a regard to truth and a desire of
+rendering personal justice, that the author wishes to rectify the history
+of science in the circumstance here alluded to. The instrument known by the
+name of Hartley's Quadrant, now universally in use and generally attributed
+to Dr. Hartley, was invented by Thomas Godfrey of Philadelphia. See
+Jefferson's Notes on Virginia; likewise Miller's Retrospect of the
+Eighteenth Century, in which the original documents relative to Godfrey's
+invention are fully detailed.
+
+
+
+No. 45.
+
+
+  _West with his own great soul the canvass warms,
+  Creates, inspires, impassions human forms._
+
+  Book VIII. Line 587.
+
+Benjamin West, president of the Royal Academy in London, was born and
+educated in Pennsylvania. At the age of twenty-three he went to Italy to
+perfect his taste in the art to which his genius irresistibly impelled him;
+in which he was destined to cast a splendor upon the age in which he lives,
+and probably to excel all his cotemporaries, so far at least as we can
+judge from the present state of their works. After passing two years in
+that country of models, where canvass and marble seem to contribute their
+full proportion of the population, he went to London.
+
+Here he soon rendered himself conspicuous for the boldness of his designs,
+in daring to shake off the trammels of the art so far as to paint modern
+history in modern dress. He had already staggered the connoisseurs in Italy
+while he was there, by his picture of _The Savage Chief taking leave of
+his family on going to war_. This extraordinary effort of the American
+pencil on an American subject excited great admiration at Venice. The
+picture was engraved in that city by Bartolozzi, before either he or West
+went to England. The artists were surprised to find that the expression of
+the passions of men did not depend on the robes they wore. And his
+early works in London, _The Death of Wolfe_, _The Battles of the
+Boyne_, _Lahogue_, &c., engraved by Woollett and others, not only
+established his reputation, but produced a revolution in the Art. So that
+modern dress has now become as familiar in fictitious as in real life; it
+being justly considered essential in painting modern history.
+
+The engraving from his Wolfe has been often copied in France, Italy and
+Germany; and it may be said that in this picture the revolution in painting
+really originated. It would now be reckoned as preposterous in an artist
+to dress modern personages in Grecian or Roman habits, as it was before to
+give them the garb of the age and country to which they belonged.
+
+The merit of Mr. West was early noticed and encouraged by the king; who
+took him into pay with a convenient salary, and the title of historical
+painter to his majesty. In this situation he has decorated the king's
+palaces, chapels and churches with most of those great pictures from the
+English history and from the Old and New Testament, which compose so
+considerable a portion of his works.
+
+The following catalogue of his pictures was furnished me by Mr. West
+himself in the year 1802. It comprises only his principal productions in
+_historical_ painting, and only his _finished_ pictures; without
+mentioning his numerous portraits, or his more numerous sketches and
+drawings.
+
+The pictures marked thus * have been engraved. The ciphers express the size
+of the pictures. When the same subject is mentioned more than once, there
+is more than one picture on that subject.
+
+
+IN THE QUEEN'S HOUSE.
+
+  * Regulus departing from Rome.
+  * Hannibal sworn when a child.
+  * Death of Wolfe.
+  Damsel accusing Peter.
+  * Death of Epaminondas.
+  Apotheosis of the two young princes.
+  * Death of chevalier Bayard.
+  Germanicus, with Segestus and his daughter prisoners.
+  * Cyrus, with a king and family captives.
+
+
+IN THE KING'S APARTMENTS AT WINDSOR.
+
+  Edward III crossing the Somme.
+  Battle of Cressy, Edward embracing his son.
+  Edward III crowning Ribemond at Calais.
+  St. George destroying the Dragon.
+  The Six Burgesses of Calais before Edward.
+  Battle of Poietiers, king of France prisoner to the Black Prince.
+  Institution of the Order of the Garter.
+  Battle of Nevilcross.
+  Christ's Crucifixion.
+  The same on glass for the west window of the church at Windsor, 36 feet
+    by 28.
+  Peter, John and women at the Sepulchre.
+  The same on glass for the east window of the same church, 36 feet by 28.
+  The Angels appearing to the Shepherds.
+  Nativity of Christ.
+  Kings presenting gifts to Christ.
+
+
+IN THE MARBLE GALLERY, WINDSOR CASTLE.
+
+  Hymen dancing with the Hours  before Peace and Plenty.
+  Boys with the insignia of the Fine Arts.
+  Boys with the insignia of Riches.
+
+
+IN THE KING'S CHAPEL AT WINDSOR.
+
+
+A complete history of Revealed Religion, divided into four dispensations,
+and comprised in thirty-eight pictures.
+
+
+PATRIARCHAL DISPENSATION.
+
+  Adam and Eve created. 9 feet by 6.
+  Adam and Eve driven from Paradise. do.
+  The Deluge. do.
+  Noah sacrificing. do.
+  Abraham going to sacrifice Isaac. do.
+  Birth of Jacob and Esau. do.
+  Death of Jacob, surrounded by his sons. do.
+  Bondage of the Israelites in Egypt. do.
+
+MOSAICAL DISPENSATION.
+
+  Moses called. do.
+  Moses and Aaron before Pharaoh, their rods turned to serpents. 15 feet
+    by 10.
+  Pharaoh's Army lost in the sea.
+  Moses receiving the Law. 18 feet by 12.
+  Hoses consecrating Aaron and his sons to the Priesthood. 15 feet by 10.
+  Moses shows the Brazen Serpent. 15 feet by 10.
+  Moses on Mount Pisgah sees the Promised Land and dies. 9 feet by 6.
+  Joshua passing the Jordan, do.
+  The twelve Tribes drawing their lots. do.
+  David called and anointed, do.
+
+GOSPEL DISPENSATION.
+
+  John Baptist called and named. do.
+  Christ born. do.
+  Christ offered gifts by the Wise Men. do.
+  Christ among the Doctors, do.
+  Christ baptized, and the Holy Spirit descending on him. 15 feet by 10.
+  Christ healing the Sick. do.
+  Christ's last Supper. do.
+  Christ's Crucifixion. 36 feet by 28.
+  Christ's Resurrection, Peter, John and the women at the Sepulchre. do.
+  * Christ's Ascension. 18 feet by 12.
+  Peter's first Sermon, Descent of the Holy Spirit. 15 feet by 10.
+  The Apostles preaching and working miracles. do.
+  Paul and Barnabas turning from the Jews to the Gentiles. do.
+
+APOCALYPTIC DISPENSATION.
+
+  John seeing the Son of Man, and called to write. 9 feet by 6.
+  The Throne surrounded by the Four Beasts, and Saints laying down their
+    crowns. 9 feet by 6.
+  Death on the Pale Horse, and the Opening of the Seals. do.
+  The White Horse and his legions, and the Man destroying the Old Beast.
+    do.
+  General Resurrection, the end of Death. do.
+  Christ's Second Coming. do.
+  The New Jerusalem. do.
+
+
+IN THE COLLECTION OF MR. BECKFORD.
+
+  Michael and his angels casting out the Red Dragon and his angels.
+  The Woman clothed with the Sun.
+  John called to write the Apocalypse.
+  The Beast rising out of the sea.
+  The mighty Angel, one foot on sea the other on land.
+  St. Anthony of Padua.
+  The Madre Dolorosa.
+  Simeon with the Child in his arms.
+  Landscape, with a Hunt in the back ground.
+  Abraham and Isaac going to sacrifice.
+  Thomas à Becket.
+  Angel in the Sun.
+  Order of the Garter, differing in composition from that at Windsor.
+
+
+IN THE COLLECTION OF EARL GROSVENOR.
+
+  The Shunamite's son raised to life by Elisha.
+  Jacob blessing the sons of Joseph.
+  * Death of Wolfe.
+  * Battle of Lahogue.
+  * Battle of the Boyne.
+  * Restoration of Charles II.
+  * Cromwell dissolving the Parliament.
+  The Golden Age.
+  General Wolfe when a boy.
+
+
+IN THE COLLECTION OF MR. HOPE.
+
+  * Telemachus and Calypso.
+  * Angelica and Madora.
+  The Damsel and Orlando.
+  Cicero at the tomb of Archimedes.
+  St. Paul's Conversion.
+  St. Paul persecuting the Christians.
+  His restoration to sight by Ananias.
+  Mr. Hope's family; nine figures, size of life.
+
+
+IN THE HISTORICAL GALLERY, PALLMALL.
+
+  The Queen soliciting king Henry to pardon her son John.
+
+
+IN GREENWICH HOSPITAL.
+
+  Paul shaking the Viper from his finger.
+  Paul preaching at Athens.
+  Elymas the Sorcerer struck blind.
+  Cornelius and the Angel.
+  Peter delivered from prison.
+  Conversion of St. Paul.
+  Paul before Felix.
+  Return of the Prodigal Son.
+
+
+LARGE FIGURES OF
+
+  Faith,
+  Hope,
+  Charity,
+  Innocence,
+  Matthew,
+  Mark,
+  Luke,
+  Matthias,
+  Thomas,
+  Simon,
+  James major,
+  James minor,
+  Philip,
+  Peter,
+  Malachi,
+  Micah,
+  Zachariah,
+  Daniel,
+  Jude,
+  John,
+  Andrew,
+  Bartholomew.
+
+
+IN DIFFERENT CHURCHES.
+
+  Michael chaining the Dragon.
+  Angels announcing the birth of Christ.
+  St. Stephen stoned to death.
+  Raising of Lazarus.
+  Paul shaking off the Viper.
+  The last Supper.
+  Resurrection of Christ.
+  Peter denying Christ.
+  Moses showing the Brazen Serpent.
+  John seeing the Lamb of God.
+  A Mother leading her children to the Temple of Virtue.
+
+
+IN VARIOUS COLLECTIONS.
+
+  Lord Clive taking the dunny from the Mogul.
+  The same.
+  Christ receiving the Sick. _Pensyl. hospital._
+  * Leonidas exiling Cleombrotus and family.
+  The two Marys at the Sepulchre.
+  Alexander and his Physician.
+  Cesar reading the Life of Alexander.
+  Death of Adonis.
+  Continence of Scipio.
+  * Savage Warrior taking leave of his family.
+  Venus and Cupid.
+  Alfred dividing his loaf with the Beggar.
+  Helen presented to Paris.
+  Cupid stung by a bee.
+  Simeon and the Child.
+  * William Penn treating with the Savages.
+  Destruction of the Spanish Armada.
+  Philippa soliciting of Edward the pardon of the citizens of Calais.
+  Europa on the Bull.
+  Death of Hyacinthus.
+  Death of Cesar.
+  Venus presenting her cestus to Juno.
+  Rinaldo and Armida.
+  Pharaoh's Daughter with the child Moses.
+  The stolen Kiss.
+  Angelica and Madora.
+  Woman of Samaria at the well with Christ.
+  Agrippina leaning on the urn of Germanicus.
+  Death of Wolfe.
+  The same; smaller size.
+  Romeo and Juliet.
+  King Lear and his Daughters.
+  Belisarius and the Boy.
+  Sir Francis Baring and family.
+  * Mr. West and family.
+  A Mother and Child.
+  Jupiter and Semele.
+  Petus and Arria.
+  Venus and Cupid smiling at Europa when Jupiter had left her.
+  Rebecca coming to Jacob.
+  Rebecca receiving the bracelets at the well.
+  Agrippina landing at Brundusium with the ashes of Germanieus,
+  The same.
+  The same.
+  Endymion and Diana.
+
+
+IN THE COLLECTION OF ROBERT FULTON.
+
+  Ophelia distracted, before the king and queen
+  *King Lear in the storm,
+
+
+IN MR. WEST'S OWN COLLECTION.
+
+  Hector taking leave of his Wife and Child.
+  Elisha raising the Shunamite's Son.
+  The raising of Lazarus.
+  Macbeth and the Witches.
+  The return of Tobias.
+  Return of the Prodigal Son.
+  Ariadne on the sea shore.
+  Death of Adonis.
+  King of France brought to the Black Prince.
+  * Death of Wolfe.
+  Venus and Adonis.
+  Battle of Lahogue.
+  Edward III crossing the Somme.
+  Philippa at the Battle of Nevilcross.
+  Angels announcing the birth of Christ.
+  Kings bringing presents to Christ.
+  View on the river Thames.
+  View on the Susquehanna.
+  Picture of Tankers Mill at Eton.
+  Chryseis restored to her Father.
+  Antiochus and Stratoftice.
+  King Lear and his Daughters.
+  Chryseus on the sea shore.
+  Nathan and David. _Thou art the man_.
+  Elijah raising the widow's Son.
+  Choice of Hercules.
+  Venus and Europa.
+  Daniel interpreting the Writing on the Wall.
+  Marius on the ruins of Carthage.
+  * Cymon and Iphigenia.
+  Cicero at the tomb of Archimedes.
+  * Alexander, king of Scotland, rescued from the Stag.
+  Battle of Cressy.
+  * Mr. West and his family.
+  * Anthony shows Cesar's Robe and Will.
+  Egysthus viewing the body of Clytemnestra.
+  Recovery of king George in 1789.
+  A large landscape in Windsor Forest.
+  Ophelia before the King and Queen.
+  Leonidas taking leave of his family.
+  Phaeton receiving from Apollo the chariot of the Sun.
+  The Eagle giving the cup of water to Psyche.
+  Moonlight and the Beckoning Ghost. _Pope._
+  Angel sitting on the stone at the Sepulchre.
+  The same subject differently composed.
+  * Angelica and Madora.
+  The Damsel and Orlando.
+  The Good Samaritan.
+  Old Beast and False Prophet destroyed.
+  Christ healing the sick in the temple.
+  Death on the Pale Horse.
+  Jason and the Dragon.
+  Venus and Adonis seeing the Cupids bathe.
+  Moses and Aaron before Pharaoh.
+  Passage boat on the Canal.
+  Paul and Barnabas rejecting the Jews and turning to the Gentiles.
+  Diomed, his horses struck with lightning.
+  Milk-woman in St. James's Park.
+  Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise.
+  Order of the Garter.
+  Orion on the Dolphin's back.
+  The Deluge.
+  Queen Elizabeth's Procession to St. Paul's.
+  Christ showing a child, emblem of heaven.
+  Harvest Home.
+  Washing Sheep.
+  St. Paul shaking off the Viper.
+  Sun setting at Twickenham on Thames.
+  Driving sheep and cows to water.
+  Cattle drinking, and Mr. West drawing, in Windsor Park.
+  Pharaoh and his boat in the Red Sea.
+  Telemachus and Calypso.
+  Moses consecrating Aaron and his sons.
+  A Mother inviting her little boy to come to her thro a brook.
+  Brewer's porter and hod carrier.
+  Venus attended by the Graces.
+  Naming of Samuel.
+  Birth of Jacob and Esau.
+  Ascension of Christ.
+  Samuel presented to Eli.
+  Moses shown the Promised Land.
+  Christ among the Doctors.
+  Reaping scene.
+  Adonis and his dog.
+  Mothers with their children in water.
+  Joshua crossing the Jordan with the Ark.
+  Christ's Nativity.
+  * Pyrrhus when a child before king Glaucus.
+  The Man laying his bread on the bridle of the dead Ass. _Sterne._
+  The Captive. _Ditto._
+  Cupid letting loose two Doves.
+  Cupid asleep.
+  Children eating cherries.
+  St. Anthony of Padua and the Child.
+  Jacob and Laban with his two daughters.
+  The Women looking into the Sepulchre and seeing two Angels where the
+    Lord lay.
+  The Angel unchaining Peter in prison.
+  Death of sir Philip Sidney.
+  Death of Epaminondas.
+  Death of chevalier Bayard.
+  Death of Cephalus.
+  * Kosciusko on a couch.
+  Abraham and Isaac. _Here is the wood and fire, but where is the lamb
+    to sacrifice?_
+  Eponina with her children giving bread to her husband when in
+    concealment.
+  King Henry pardoning his brother.
+  John at the prayer of his mother.
+  Death of lord Chatham. Presentation of the Crown to William the
+    Conqueror.
+  Europa crowning the Bull with flowers.
+  West's garden, gallery and painting room.
+  Cave of Despair. _Spencer_.
+  Arethusa bathing.
+  Cupid shows Venus his finger stung by a bee.
+  Ubald brings his three daughters to Alfred for him to choose one for
+    his wife.
+  * Pylades and Orestes.
+
+Besides the two hundred and ninety-nine large finished pictures here
+mentioned, Mr. West has done about one hundred portraits, and upwards of
+two hundred drawings with the pen; which last, for sublimity of conception,
+are among the finest of his works. So that the whole of his pieces amount
+to above six hundred. Some of them are larger in size than any in the
+national gallery of France; and he has not been assisted by any other
+painter.
+
+Mr. West is now about sixty-eight years of age. He discovers no abatement
+in the activity of his genius, nor in the laborious exercise of his
+talents. He has painted several fine pictures since the above catalogue
+was made. Three of which I have particularly noticed in his painting room:
+Tobet and Tobias with the fish; Abraham sending away Hagar with her child;
+Achilles receiving from Thetis the new armor; and we hear that he has
+lately painted the Death of Nelson. He may yet produce many more original
+works; tho it is presumed he has already exceeded all other historical
+painters, except Rubens, in the number and variety of his productions. With
+regard to the merit of his pictures, I cannot pretend to form a judgment
+that would be of any use in directing that of others. He is doubtless the
+most classical painter, except Raphael, whose works are known to us.
+
+The critics find fault with the coloring of Mr. West. But in his works,
+as in those of Raphael, we do not look for coloring. It is dignity of
+character, fine expression, delicate design, correct drawing and beautiful
+disposition of drapery which fix the suffrage of the real judge. All which
+qualities can only spring from an elevated mind.
+
+
+
+No. 46.
+
+
+  _Nile pours from heaven a tutelary flood,
+  And gardens grow the vegetable god._
+
+  Book IX. Line 287.
+
+  O sanctas gentes, quibus haec nascuntur in hortis Numina.
+
+  Juv. Sat. 15.
+
+
+
+No. 47.
+
+
+  _Tis to correct their fatal faults of old,
+  When, caught by tinsel, they forgot the gold._
+
+  Book IX. Line 499.
+
+The state of the arts and sciences among the ancients, viewed with
+reference to the event of universal civilization, was faulty in two
+respects. First, In their comparative estimation: Second, In their
+flourishing only in one nation at a time. These circumstances might be
+favorable to the exertions of individual genius; and they may be assigned
+both as causes of the universal destruction of the arts and sciences by
+the Gothic conquest, and as reasons why we should not greatly lament that
+destruction.
+
+From the political state of mankind in the days of their ancient splendor
+it was natural that those arts which depend on the imagination, such as
+Architecture, Statuary, Painting, Eloquence and Poetry, should claim the
+highest rank in the estimation of a people. In several, perhaps all of
+these, the ancients remain unrivalled. But these are not the arts which
+tend the most to the general improvement of society. A man in those days
+would have rendered more service to the world by ascertaining the true
+figure and movements of the earth, than by originating a heaven and filling
+it with all the gods of Homer; and had the expenses of the Egyptian
+pyramids been employed in furnishing ships of discovery and sending them
+out of the Mediterranean, the nations called civilized would not have been
+afterwards overrun by Barbarians.
+
+But the sciences of Geography, Navigation and Commerce, with their
+consequent improvements in Natural Philosophy and Humanity, could not, from
+the nature of things at that time, become objects of great encouragement or
+enterprise. Talent was therefore confined to the cultivation of arts more
+striking to the senses. As these arts were adapted to gratify the vanity
+of princes, to help carry on the sacred frauds of priests, to fire the
+ambition of heroes, or to gain causes in popular assemblies, they were
+brought to a degree of perfection which prevented their being relished or
+understood by barbarous neighbors.
+
+The improvements of the world therefore, whether in literature, sciences or
+arts, descended with the line of conquest from one nation to another, till
+the whole were concentred in the Roman empire. Their tendency there was to
+inspire a contempt for nations less civilized, and to teach the Romans to
+consider all mankind as the proper objects of their military despotism.
+These circumstances prepared, thro a course of ages, and finally opened a
+scene of wretchedness at which the human mind has been taught to shudder.
+But some such convulsion seemed necessary to reduce the nations to a
+position capable of commencing regular improvements. And, however novel the
+sentiment may appear, I will venture to say that, as to the prospect of
+universal civilization, mankind were in a better situation in the time of
+Charlemagne than they were in the days of Augustus.
+
+The final destruction of the Roman empire left the nations of Europe
+in circumstances similar to each other; and their consequent rivalship
+prevented any disproportionate refinement from appearing in any particular
+region. The principles of government, firmly rooted in the Feudal System,
+unsocial and unphilosophical as they were, laid the foundation of that
+balance of power which discourages the Cesars and Alexanders of modern ages
+from attempting the conquest of the world.
+
+It seems necessary that the arrangement of events in civilizing the world
+should be in the following order: _first_, all parts of it must be
+considerably peopled; _second_, the different nations must be known
+to each other; _third_, their wants must be increased, in order to
+inspire a passion for commerce. The first of these objects was not probably
+accomplished till a late period. The second for three centuries past has
+been greatly accelerated. The third is a necessary consequence of the two
+former. The spirit of commerce is happily calculated to open an amicable
+intercourse between all countries, to soften the horrors of war, to enlarge
+the field of science, and to assimilate the manners, feelings and languages
+of all nations. This leading principle, in its remoter consequences,
+will produce advantages in favor of free government, give patriotism the
+character of philanthropy, induce all men to regard each other as brethren
+and friends, and teach them the benefits of peace and harmony among the
+nations.
+
+I conceive it no objection to this theory that the progress has hitherto
+been slow; when we consider the magnitude of the object, the obstructions
+that were to be removed, and the length of time taken to accomplish it.
+The future progress will probably be more rapid than the past. Since the
+invention of printing, the application of the properties of the magnet,
+and the knowledge of the structure of the solar system, it is difficult to
+conceive of a cause that can produce a new state of barbarism; unless it be
+some great convulsion in the physical world, so extensive as to change the
+face of the earth or a considerable part of it. This indeed may have been
+the case already more than once, since the earth was first peopled with
+men, and antecedent to our histories. But such events have nothing to do
+with the present argument.
+
+
+
+No. 48.
+
+
+  _Herschel ascends himself with venturous wain,
+  And joins and flanks thy planetary train,_
+
+  Book IX. Line 601.
+
+The planet discovered by Herschel was called by him Georgium Sidus; but in
+all countries except England it is named Herschel, and probably will be so
+named there after his death and that of the patron to whom his gratitude
+led him to make this extraordinary dedication.
+
+I would observe that, besides the impropriety of giving it another name
+than that of the discoverer, it is inconvenient to use a double name, or a
+name composed of two words. Let it be either George or Herschel.
+
+The passage referred to in this note was written before the discovery of
+the three other planets which are now added to our catalogue. Could my
+voice have weight in deciding on the names to be given to these new
+children of the sun, I would call them by the names of their respective
+discoverers, Piazzi, Gibers and Harding, instead of the senseless and
+absurd appellations of Ceres, Pallas and Juno. The former method would at
+least assist us in preserving the history of science; the latter will only
+tend farther to confuse a very ancient mythology which is already extremely
+confused, and increase the difficulty of following the faint traces of real
+knowledge that seems couched under the mass of that mythology; traces which
+may one day lead to many useful truths in philosophy and morals.
+
+
+
+No. 49.
+
+
+  _To build on ruin'd realms the shrine of fame,
+  And load his numbers with a tyrant's name._
+
+  Book X. Line 261.
+
+A most useful book might be written on this subject. It should be a Review
+of Poets and Historians, as to the moral and political tendency of their
+works. It should likewise treat of the importance of the task assigned to
+these two classes of writers. It might attempt to point out the true object
+they ought to have in view; perhaps do this with such clearness and energy
+as to gain the attention of writers as well as readers, and thus serve in
+some measure as a guide to future historians and poets. At least it would
+prove a guide to readers; and by teaching them how to judge, and what
+to praise or blame in the accounts of human actions, whether real or
+fictitious, the public taste would be reformed by degrees. In this case the
+recorders of heroic actions, as well as the authors of them, would find it
+necessary to follow this reform, or they must necessarily fail of obtaining
+the celebrity to which they all aspire.
+
+I think every person who will give himself the trouble to form an opinion
+on the manner in which actions, called heroic, have been recorded, must
+find it faulty; and must lament, as one of the misfortunes of society, that
+writers of these two classes almost universally, from Homer down to Gibbon,
+have led astray the moral sense of man. In this view we may say in general
+of poets and historians, as we do of their heroes, that they have injured
+the cause of humanity almost in proportion to the fame they have acquired.
+
+I would not be understood by this observation to mean that such writers
+have done no good. Even the works of Homer, which have caused more mischief
+to mankind than those of any other, have likewise been a fruitful source of
+a certain species of benefits. They elevate the mind of every reader; they
+have called forth great exertions of genius in poets, artists, philosophers
+and heroes, thro a long succession of ages. But it remains to be considered
+what a fruitful source they have likewise been of those false notions of
+honor and erroneous systems of policy which have governed the actions of
+men from his day to ours.
+
+If, instead of the Iliad, he had given us a work of equal splendor founded
+on an opposite principle; whose object should have been to celebrate the
+useful arts of agriculture and navigation; to build the immortal fame
+of his heroes, and occupy his whole hierarchy of gods, on actions that
+contribute to the real advancement of society, instead of striking away
+every foundation on which society ought to be established or can be greatly
+advanced; mankind, enriched with such a work at that early period, would
+have given a useful turn to their ambition thro all succeeding ages.
+
+It is not easy to conceive how different the state of nations would have
+been at this day from what we now find it, had such a bent been given to
+the pursuits of genius, and such glory cast upon actions truly worthy of
+imitation. I have treated this subject more at large in the third chapter
+of _Advise to the Privileged Orders_.
+
+But it will be asked how this kind of censure can attach to the writers of
+history, whose business is to invent nothing, to confine themselves to
+the simple narration of facts, and relate the actions of men, not as they
+should be, but as they are. This is indeed a part of the duty of the
+historian; but it is not his whole duty. His narrative should be clear and
+simple; but he should likewise develop the political and moral tendency of
+the transactions he details.
+
+In reviewing actions or doctrines which favor despotism, injustice, false
+morals or political errors, he should not suffer them to pass without an
+open and well supported censure. He should show how the authors of such
+actions might have conducted themselves and succeeded in gaining the
+celebrity which they sought, by doing good instead of harm to the age and
+country where they acquired their fame.
+
+The history of human actions, in a political view, has generally been the
+history of human errors. The writers who have given it to us do not appear
+to have been sensible of this. How then are young readers to be sensible
+of it? Their minds are still to be formed; and those who are destined for
+public life must in a great measure take their bias from the study of
+history. But history in general, to answer the purpose of sound instruction
+to the future guides of nations, must be rewritten. For example: among the
+hundred historians who have treated of what is called the Roman Republic
+I know not one who has told us this important fact, that Rome never had a
+republic. The same may be said of Athens, and of several other turbulent
+associations of men in former ages. And it is for want of this attention
+or this knowledge in the writers of their histories, that the republican
+principle of government is so generally associated, even at this day, with
+the idea of insurrection, anarchy and the desire of conquest. Whereas it
+is in fact the _want_ of the republican principle, not the
+_practice_ of it, which has occasioned all the insurrections, anarchy
+and desire of conquest, that have disturbed the order of society both in
+ancient and modern times.
+
+Again: in relating the destruction of Carthage, a measure which the zealous
+patriots, both before and after, considered so essential to the glory of
+the Roman state, and which has immortalized so many heroes as the authors
+and projectors of that destruction, I believe no historian has told us that
+the disease, decay and downfall of Rome itself were occasioned by that
+measure, and must be dated from that epoch; and that the actions of Regulus
+and Scipio, the themes of universal applause, were really more injurious to
+their country than those of Marias and Sylla, the objects (and justly so)
+of universal detestation.
+
+If these principles had been understood by Polybius and his successors in
+the brilliant heritage of history, and had been properly impressed on the
+minds of their readers, we should not have heard old Cato's vociferation
+_delenda est Carthago_ applied to the American states by an orator of
+the British parliament, as we did during the war; because every member of
+that parliament must have understood that the prosperity of these states
+would be highly advantageous to Britain, from the extensive commercial
+intercourse that the relative situation of the two countries required.
+Neither should we see at this day the French English nations seeking
+to impoverish and extirpate each other; each of them entertaining the
+erroneous and absurd opinion that its own prosperity is to be increased by
+the adversity of its neighbor. We should have learned long ago from the
+plain dictates of reason, instead of having it beat into us some ages hence
+by costly experience, that the true dignity of a state is in the happiness
+of its members; and that their happiness is best promoted by the pursuit of
+industry at home and the free exchange of their productions abroad.
+
+We should have perceived the real and constant interest that every nation
+has in the prosperity of its neighbors, instead of their destruction.
+France would have perceived that the wealth of the English would be
+beneficial to her, by enabling them to receive and pay for more of her
+produce. England would have seen the same thing with regard to the French;
+and such would have been the sentiments of other nations reciprocally and
+universally.
+
+I know I must be called an extravagant theorist if I insinuate that all
+these good things would have resulted from having history well written and
+poetry well conceived. No man will doubt however that such would have been
+the tendency; nor can we deny that the contrary has resulted, at least in
+some degree, from the manner in which such writings have been composed. And
+why should we write at all, if not to benefit mankind? The public mind, as
+well as the individual mind, receives its propensities; it is equally the
+creature of habit. Nations are educated, like a single child. They only
+require a longer time and a greater number of teachers.
+
+
+
+No. 50.
+
+
+  _For that fine apologue, in mystic strain,
+  Gave like the rest a golden age to man,_
+
+  Book X. Line 393.
+
+Absurdities in speculative opinion are commonly considered as innocent
+things; and we are told every day that they are not worth refuting. So
+far as opinions are sure to rest merely in speculation, and cannot in any
+degree become practical, this is doubtless the proper way of treating them.
+But there are few opinions of this dormant and indifferent kind, especially
+among those that become general and classical among the nations.
+
+The activity of such, tho imperceptible, is extensive. They get wrought
+into our intellectual existence, and govern our modes of acting as well as
+thinking. The interest of society therefore requires that they should be
+scrutinized, and that such as are erroneous should be exposed, in order to
+be rejected; when their place may be supplied by truth and reason, which
+nourish the mind and accelerate the progress of improvement.
+
+Among the absurd notions which early turned the heads of the teachers of
+mankind, and which are so ridiculous as generally to escape our censure, is
+that of a Golden Age; or the idea that men were more perfect, more moral
+and more happy in some early stage of their intercourse, before they
+cultivated the earth and formed great societies.
+
+The author of Don Quixote has played his artillery upon this doctrine to
+very good effect; he has summoned against it all the force of our contempt
+by making it the text of one of the gravest discourses of his hero. But
+my sensibility is such on moral and political errors, as rarely to be
+satisfied with the weapon of ridicule; tho I know it to be one of the most
+mortal of intellectual weapons.
+
+The notion that the social state of men cannot ameliorate, that they have
+formerly been better than they now are, and that they are continually
+growing worse, is pregnant with infinite mischief. I know no doctrine in
+the whole labyrinth of imposture that has a more immoral tendency. It
+discourages the efforts of all political virtue; it is a constant and
+practical apology for oppression, tyranny, despotism, in every shape,
+in every corner of society, as well as from the throne, the pulpit, the
+tribunal and the camp. It inculcates the belief that ignorance is better
+than knowledge; that war and violence are more natural than industry and
+peace; that deserts and tombs are more glorious than joyful cities and
+cultivated fields.
+
+One of the most operative means of bringing forward our improvements and
+of making mankind wiser and better than they are, is to convince them that
+they are capable of becoming so. Without this conviction they may indeed
+improve slowly, unsteadily and almost imperceptibly, as they have done
+within the period in which our histories are able to trace them. But this
+conviction, impressed on the minds of the chiefs and teachers of nations,
+and inculcated in their schools, would greatly expedite our advancement in
+public happiness and virtue. Perhaps it would in a great measure insure the
+world against any future shocks and retrograde steps, such as heretofore it
+has often, experienced.
+
+
+
+
+Postscript.
+
+
+
+I am well aware that some readers will be dissatisfied in certain instances
+with my orthography. Their judgments are respectable; and as it is not a
+wanton deviation from ancient usage on my part, the subject may justify a
+moment's retrospect from this place. Since we have arrived at the end of a
+work that has given me more pleasure in the composition than it probably
+will in its reception by the public, they must pardon me if I thus linger
+awhile in taking leave. It is a favorite object of amusement as well as
+labor, which I cannot hope to replace.
+
+Our language is constantly and rapidly improving. The unexampled progress
+of the sciences and arts for the last thirty years has enriched it with a
+great number of new words, which are now become as necessary to the writer
+as his ancient mother tongue. The same progress which leads to farther
+extensions of ideas will still extend the vocabulary; and our neology must
+and will keep pace with the advancement of our knowledge. Hence will
+follow a closer definition and more accurate use of words, with a stricter
+attention to their orthography.
+
+Such innovations ought undoubtedly to be admitted with caution; and they
+will of course be severely scrutinized by men of letters. A language is
+public property, in the most extensive sense of the word; and readers as
+well as writers arc its guardians. But they ought to have no objection to
+improving the estate as it passes thro their hands, by making a liberal tho
+rigid estimate of what may be offered as ameliorations. Some respectable
+philologists have proposed a total and immediate reform of our orthography
+and even of our alphabet; but the great body of proprietors in this
+heritage are of opinion that the attempt would be less advantageous than
+the slow and certain improvements which are going forward, and which will
+necessarily continue to attend the active state of our literature.
+
+We have long since laid aside the Latin diphthongs æ and oe in common
+English words, and in some proper names tho not in all. Uniformity in this
+respect is desirable and will prevail. Names of that description which
+occur in this work I have therefore written with the simple vowel, as
+_Cesar_, _Phenicia_, _Etna_, _Medea_.
+
+Another class of our words are in a gradual state of reform. They are those
+Latin nouns ending in _or_, which having past thro France on their
+way from Rome, changed their _o_ into _eu_. The Norman English
+writers restored the Latin _o_, but retained the French _u;_
+and tho the latter has been since rejected in most of these words, yet
+in others it is still retained by many writers. It is quite useless in
+pronunciation; and propriety as well as analogy requires that the reform
+should be carried thro. No writer at this day retains the _u_ in
+_actor_, _author_, _emperor_ and the far greater part, perhaps nine
+tenths, of this class of nouns; why then should it be continued in the few
+that remain, such as _labor_, _honor?_ The most accurate authors
+reject it in all these, and I have followed the example.
+
+I have also respectable authorities in prose as well as poetry for
+expunging the three last letters in _though_ and _through;_ they
+being totally disregarded in pronunciation and awkward in appearance. The
+long sound of _o_ in many words, as _go, fro_, puts it out of
+doubt with respect to _tho;_ and its sound of _oo_, which, frequently
+occurs, as in _prove, move_, is an equal justification of _thro_.
+All the British poets, from Pope downwards, and several eminent prose
+writers, including Shaftsbury and Staunton, have by their practice
+supported this orthography.
+
+Some verbs in the past tense, where the usual ending in _ed_ is
+harsh and uncouth, hare long ago changed it for _t_, as _fixt_,
+_capt_, _meant_, _past_, _blest_. Poetry has extended this innovation
+to many other verbs which are necessarily uttered with the sound of _t_,
+tho in prose they may still retain for a while their ancient _ed_.
+I consider this reform as a valuable improvement in the language, because
+it brings a numerous class of words to be written as they are spoken; and
+the proportion of the reformed ones is already so considerable that
+analogy, or regularity of conjugation, requires us to complete the list.
+I have not carried this reform much farther than other poets have done
+before me. Examples might perhaps be found for nearly all the instances in
+which I have indulged it, such as _perisht_, _astonisht_, tho I have
+not been solicitous to seek them. The correction might well be extended to
+several remaining verbs of the same class; but it is difficult in this
+particular case to fix the proper limit.
+
+With regard to the apostrophe, as employed to mark the elision in the past
+tense of verbs, I have followed the example of the most accurate poets; who
+use it where the verb in the present tense does not end in _e_, as
+_furl'd_, because the _ed_ would add a syllable and destroy the
+measure. But where the present tense ends in _e_, it is retained in
+the past with the _d_, as _robed_, because it does not add a
+syllable.
+
+The letter _k_ we borrowed from the Greek, and the _c_ from the
+Latin. The power of each of these letters at the end of a word is precisely
+the same; and the power of one is the same as that of both. Yet our early
+writers placed them both at the end of certain words, with the _c_
+before the _k_, as _musick_, _publick_, why they did not put the _k_ first,
+as being the most ancient character, does not appear. Modern authors have
+rejected the _k_ sit the end of this class of words; and no correct
+writer will think of replacing such an inconvenient appendage.
+
+The idea of putting a stop to innovation in a living language is absurd,
+unless we put a stop to thinking. When a language becomes fixt it becomes
+a dead language. Men must leave it for a living one, in which they can
+express their ideas with all their changes, extensions and corrections. The
+duty of the critic in this case is only to keep a steady watch over the
+innovations that are offered, and require a rigid conformity to the general
+principles of the idiom. Noah Webster, to whose philological labors our
+language will be much indebted for its purity and regularity, has pointed
+out the advantages of a steady course of improvement, and how it ought to
+be conducted. The Preface to his new Dictionary is an able performance. He
+might advantageously give it more development, with some correction, and
+publish it as a Prospectus to the great work he now has in hand.
+
+The uniform tendency of our language is towards simplicity as well as
+regularity. With this view the final e, in words where it is quite silent
+and useless, is dropping off, and will soon disappear. Having long
+since resigned the place it held in the greater part of these words, as
+_joye_, _ruine_, and more recently in some others, it must finally quit
+the remainder where it is still found a superfluous letter, as _active_,
+_decisive_, _determine_.
+
+We may even hazard a prediction that our whole class of adjectives ending
+in _ous_ will be reformed and brought nearer to their pronunciation by
+rejecting the _o_. A similar change may be expected in words ending
+in _ss_. These words have already undergone one reform; they were
+formerly written with a final _e_, as _wildernesse_. They have
+lost the _e_ because it was useless; and as the final _s_ has now
+become equally useless, it might be dismissed with as little violence
+to the language. But these two projected innovations have not yet been
+ventured upon in any degree; and it is not desirable to be the first in so
+daring an enterprise, when it is not immediately important.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Columbiad, by Joel Barlow
+
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+<title>The Columbiad, by Joel Barlow</title>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Columbiad, by Joel Barlow
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+Author: Joel Barlow
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+
+
+<h1>The Columbiad</h1>
+
+<h2>A Poem.</h2>
+
+<h3>By Joel Barlow.</h3>
+
+
+
+<blockquote> Tu spiegherai, Colombo, a un novo polo<br />
+  Lontane s&igrave; le fortunate antenne, <br />
+  Ch'a pena seguir&agrave; con gli occhi il volo<br />
+  La Fama, ch' h&agrave; mille occhi e mille penne. <br />
+  Canti ella Alcide, e Bacco; e di te solo<br />
+  Basti a i posteri tuoi, ch' alquanto accenne: <br />
+  Ch&egrave; quel poco dar&agrave; lunga memoria<br />
+  Di poema degnissima, e d'istoria.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>  Gierus, Lib. Can. xv.</blockquote>
+
+
+
+
+
+<h4>1809</h4>
+
+
+
+
+<h1>Preface.</h1>
+
+
+
+<p>In preparing this work for publication it seems proper to offer some
+observations explanatory of its design. The classical reader will perceive
+the obstacles which necessarily presented themselves in reconciling the
+nature of the subject with such a manner of treating it as should appear
+the most poetical, and at the same time the most likely to arrive at that
+degree of dignity and usefulness to which it ought to aspire.</p>
+
+<p>The Columbiad is a patriotic poem; the subject is national and historical.
+Thus far it must be interesting to my countrymen. But most of the events
+were so recent, so important and so well known, as to render them
+inflexible to the hand of fiction. The poem therefore could not with
+propriety be modelled after that regular epic form which the more splendid
+works of this kind have taken, and on which their success is supposed in a
+great measure to depend. The attempt would have been highly injudicious;
+it must have diminished and debased a series of actions which were really
+great in themselves, and could not be disfigured without losing their
+interest.</p>
+
+<p>I shall enter into no discussion on the nature of the epopea, nor attempt
+to prove by any latitude of reasoning that I have written an Epic Poem.
+The subject indeed is vast; far superior to any one of those on which the
+celebrated poems of this description have been constructed; and I have no
+doubt but the form I have given to the work is the best that the subject
+would admit. It may be added that in no poem are the unities of time, place
+and action more rigidly observed: the action, in the technical sense of
+the word, consisting only of what takes place between Columbus and Hesper;
+which must be supposed to occupy but few hours, and is confined to the
+prison and the mount of vision.</p>
+
+<p>But these circumstances of classical regularity are of little consideration
+in estimating the real merit of any work of this nature. Its merit must
+depend on the importance of the action, the disposition of the parts, the
+invention and application of incidents, the propriety of the illustrations,
+the liveliness and chastity of the images, the suitable intervention of
+machinery, the moral tendency of the manners, the strength and sublimity of
+the sentiments; the whole being clothed in language whose energy, harmony
+and elegance shall constitute a style every where suited to the matter they
+have to treat. It is impossible for me to determine how far I may have
+succeeded in any of these particulars. This must be decided by others, the
+result of whose decision I shall never know. But there is one point of view
+in which I wish the reader to place the character of my work, before he
+pronounces on its merit: I mean its political tendency. There are two
+distinct objects to be kept in view in the conduct of a narrative poem; the
+<i>poetical</i> object and the <i>moral</i> object. The poetical is the
+fictitious design of the action; the moral is the real design of the poem.</p>
+
+<p>In the Iliad of Homer the poetical object is to kindle, nourish, sustain
+and allay the anger of Achilles. This end is constantly kept in view; and
+the action proper to attain it is conducted with wonderful judgment thro a
+long series of incidents, which elevate the mind of the reader, and excite
+not only a veneration for the creative powers of the poet, but an ardent
+emulation of his heroes, a desire to imitate and rival some of the great
+actors in the splendid scene; perhaps to endeavor to carry into real life
+the fictions with which we are so much enchanted.</p>
+
+<p>Such a high degree of interest excited by the first object above mentioned,
+the fictitious design of the action, would make it extremely important that
+the second object, the real design of the poem, should be beneficial to
+society. But the real design in the Iliad was directly the reverse.
+Its obvious tendency was to inflame the minds of young readers with an
+enthusiastic ardor for military fame; to inculcate the pernicious doctrine
+of the divine right of kings; to teach both prince and people that military
+plunder was the most honorable mode of acquiring property; and that
+conquest, violence and war were the best employment of nations, the most
+glorious prerogative of bodily strength and of cultivated mind.</p>
+
+<p>How much of the fatal policy of states, and of the miseries and
+degradations of social man, have been occasioned by the false notions of
+honor inspired by the works of Homer, it is not easy to ascertain. The
+probability is, that however astonishing they are as monuments of human
+intellect, and how long soever they have been the subject of universal
+praise, they have unhappily done more harm than good. My veneration for his
+genius is equal to that of his most idolatrous readers; but my reflections
+on the history of human errors have forced upon me the opinion that his
+existence has really proved one of the signal misfortunes of mankind.</p>
+
+<p>The moral tendency of the AEneid of Virgil is nearly as pernicious as that
+of the works of Homer. Its poetical or fictitious design, the settlement
+of his hero in Italy, is well delineated and steadily pursued. This object
+must have been far more interesting to the Romans than the anger of
+Achilles could have been to the Greeks. Had Virgil written his poem one or
+two centuries earlier than he did, while his countrymen felt that they had
+a country and were not themselves the property of a master, they must have
+glowed with enthusiasm in reciting the fabulous labors of their ancestors,
+and adored the songster who could have thus elevated so endearing a
+subject; who could have adorned it with such an interesting variety of
+incidents, such weight of pathos, such majesty of sentiment and harmony of
+verse. But Virgil wrote and felt like a subject, not like a citizen. The
+real design of his poem was to increase the veneration of the people for a
+master, whoever he might be, and to encourage like Homer the great system
+of military depredation.</p>
+
+<p>Lucan is the only republican among the ancient epic poets. But the action
+of his rambling tho majestic poem is so badly arranged as to destroy, in
+a poetical sense, the life and interest of the great national subject on
+which it is founded; at the same time that it abounds in the most exalted
+sentiments and original views of manners, highly favorable to the love of
+justice and the detestation of war. If a mind, formed like that of Lucan,
+as to its moral and political cast, and endowed with the creative energy
+of Homer, had sung to the early Greeks the fall of Troy or the labors
+of Hercules, his work (taking the place which those of Homer have
+unfortunately occupied) as a splendid model for all succeeding ages, would
+have given a very different turn to the pursuits of heroes and the policy
+of nations. Ambition might then have become a useful passion, instead of a
+destructive disease.</p>
+
+<p>In the poem here presented to the public the objects, as in other works of
+the kind, are two, the fictitious object of the action and the real object
+of the poem. The first of these is to sooth and satisfy the desponding
+mind of Columbus; to show him that his labors, tho ill rewarded by his
+contemporaries, had not been performed in vain; that he had opened the way
+to the most extensive career of civilization and public happiness; and that
+he would one day be recognised as the author of the greatest benefits to
+the human race. This object is steadily kept in view; and the actions,
+images and sentiments are so disposed as probably to attain the end. But
+the real object of the poem embraces a larger scope; it is to inculcate the
+love of rational liberty, and to discountenance the deleterious passion for
+violence and war; to show that on the basis of the republican principle all
+good morals, as well as good government and hopes of permanent peace, must
+be founded; and to convince the student in political science, that the
+theoretical question of the future advancement of human society, till
+states as well as individuals arrive at universal civilization, is held in
+dispute and still unsettled only because we have had too little experience
+of organized liberty in the government of nations to have well considered
+its effects.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot expect that every reader, nor even every republican reader, will
+join me in opinion with respect to the future progress of society and the
+civilization of states; but there are two sentiments in which I think
+all men will agree: that the event is desirable, and that to believe it
+practicable is one step towards rendering it so. This being the case, they
+ought to pardon a writer, if not applaud him, for endeavoring to inculcate
+this belief.</p>
+
+<p>I have taken the liberty, notwithstanding the recency of the events,
+to make some changes in the order of several of the principal battles
+described in this poem. I have associated the actions of Starke, Herkimer,
+Brown and Francis in the battle of Saratoga, tho they happened at some
+distance from that battle, both as to time and place. A like circumstance
+will be noticed with respect to Sumter, Jackson of Georgia and some others
+in the battle of Eutaw. I have supposed a citadel mined and blown up in
+the siege of York, and two ships of war grappled and blown up in the naval
+battle of Degrasse and Graves. It is presumed that these circumstances
+require no apology; as in the two latter cases the events are incidental to
+such situations, and they here serve the principal purpose, being meant to
+increase our natural horror for the havoc and miseries of war in general.
+And with regard to the two former cases we ought to consider that, in the
+epic field, the interest to be excited by the action cannot be sustained
+by following the gazette, as Lucan has done. The desultory parts of the
+historical action must be brought together and be made to elevate and
+strengthen each other, so as to press upon the mind with the full force of
+their symmetry and unity. Where the events are recent and the actors known,
+the only duty imposed by that circumstance on the poet is to do them
+historical justice, and not ascribe to one hero the actions of another. But
+the scales of justice in this case are not necessarily accompanied by the
+calendar and the map.</p>
+
+<p>It will occur to most of my readers that the modern modes of fighting, as
+likewise the instruments and terms now used in war, are not yet rendered
+familiar in poetical language. It is doubtless from an unwarrantable
+timidity, or want of confidence in their own powers of description, that
+modern poets have made so little use of this kind of riches that lay before
+them. I confess that I imbibed the common prejudice, and remained a long
+time in the error of supposing that the ancients had a poetical advantage
+over us in respect to the dignity of the names of the weapons used in war,
+if not in their number and variety. And when I published a sketch of the
+present poem, under the title of The Vision of Columbus, I labored under
+the embarrassment of that idea. I am now convinced that the advantage, at
+least as to the weapons, is on the side of the moderns. There are better
+sounding names and more variety in the instruments, works, stratagems and
+other artifices employed in our war system than in theirs. In short, the
+modern military dictionary is more copious than the ancient, and the words
+at least as poetical.</p>
+
+<p>As to the mode of fighting, we have, poetically speaking, lost something in
+one respect, but we have gained much in another. Our battles indeed admit
+but few single combats, or trials of individual prowess. They do admit them
+however; and it is not impossible to describe them with as much detail and
+interest as the nature of the action requires; as Voltaire has proved in
+the single combat of Aumale and Turenne in the Henriad. Had he managed his
+general descriptions and the other parts of the conduct of his poem as
+well, he would have made it a far more interesting work than he has.
+However, since our single combats must be insignificant in their
+consequences, not deciding any thing as to the result of the battle,
+it would be inconvenient and misplaced to make much use of them in our
+descriptions. And here lies our disadvantage, compared with the ancients.</p>
+
+<p>But in a general engagement, the shock of modern armies is, beyond
+comparison, more magnificent, more sonorous and more discoloring to the
+face of nature, than the ancient could have been; and is consequently
+susceptible of more pomp and variety of description. Our heaven and earth
+are not only shaken and tormented with greater noise, but filled and
+suffocated with fire and smoke. If Homer, with his Grecian tongue and all
+its dialects, had had the battle of Blenheim to describe, the world would
+have possessed a picture and a piece of music which now it will never
+possess. The description would have astonished all ages, and enriched every
+language into which it might have been translated.</p>
+
+<p>With regard to naval battles the moderns have altogether the advantage. But
+there has been no naval battle described in modern poetry; neither is there
+any remaining to us from the ancients, except that in the bay of Marseilles
+by Lucan, and that near Syracuse by Silius. It would seem strange indeed
+that Homer, whose wonderful powers of fiction were not embarrassed by
+historical realities, and who in other respects is so insatiable of
+variety, did not introduce a sea fight either in the defence of Troy, or
+in the disastrous voyages of Ulysses. But the want of this in Homer's two
+poems amounts almost to a proof that in his time the nations had not yet
+adopted any method of fighting at sea; so that the poet could have no such
+image in his mind.</p>
+
+<p>The business of war, with all its varieties, makes but a small part of the
+subject of my poem; it ought therefore to occupy but a small portion of its
+scenery. This is the reason why I have not been more solicitous to vary and
+heighten the descriptions of battles and other military operations. I make
+this observation to satisfy those readers who being accustomed to see a
+long poem chiefly occupied with this sort of bustle conceive that the life
+and interest of such compositions depend upon it. How far the majesty or
+interest of epic song really depends upon the tumultuous conflicts of war I
+will not decide; but I can assure the reader, so far as my experience goes,
+that these parts of the work are not the most difficult to write. They are
+scenes that exhibit those vigorous traits of human character which strike
+the beholder most forcibly and leave the deepest impression. They delight
+in violent attitudes; and, painting themselves in the strongest colors on
+the poet's fancy, they are easy at any time to recal. He varies them at
+pleasure, he adorns them readily with incidents, and imparts them with
+spirit to the reader.</p>
+
+<p>My object is altogether of a moral and political nature I wish to encourage
+and strengthen in the rising generation, a sense of the importance of
+republican institutions; as being the great foundation of public and
+private happiness, the necessary aliment of future and permanent
+ameliorations in the condition of human nature.</p>
+
+<p>This is the moment in America to give such a direction to poetry, painting
+and the other fine arts, that true and useful ideas of glory may be
+implanted in the minds of men here, to take place of the false and
+destructive ones that have degraded the species in other countries;
+impressions which have become so wrought into their most sacred
+institutions, that it is there thought impious to detect them and dangerous
+to root them out, tho acknowledged to be false. Wo be to the republican
+principle and to all the institutions it supports, when once the pernicious
+doctrine of the holiness of error shall creep into the creed of our schools
+and distort the intellect of our citizens!</p>
+
+<p>The Columbiad, in its present form, is such as I shall probably leave it to
+its fate. Whether it be destined to survive its author, is a question that
+gives me no other concern than what arises from the most pure and ardent
+desire of doing good to my country. To my country therefore, with every
+sentiment of veneration and affection I dedicate my labors.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<h1>Introduction.</h1>
+
+
+
+<p>Every circumstance relating to the discovery and settlement of America
+is an interesting object of inquiry, especially to the great and growing
+nations of this hemisphere, who owe their existence to those arduous
+labors. Yet it is presumed that many persons, who might be entertained
+with a poem on this subject, are but slightly acquainted with the life and
+character of the hero whose extraordinary genius led him to discover the
+continent, and whose singular sufferings, arising from that service, ought
+to excite the indignation of the world.</p>
+
+<p>Christopher Columbus was born in Genoa about the year 1447, when the
+navigation of Europe was scarcely extended beyond the limits of the
+Mediterranean and the other narrow seas that border the great ocean. The
+mariner's compass had been invented and in common use for more than a
+century; yet with the help of this sure guide, and prompted by a laudable
+spirit of discovery, the mariners of those days rarely ventured from the
+sight of land.</p>
+
+<p>They acquired wonderful applause by sailing along the coast of Africa,
+and discovering some of the neighboring islands; and after pushing their
+researches with great industry for half a century, the Portuguese, who were
+the most fortunate and enterprising, extended their voyages southward no
+farther than the equator.</p>
+
+<p>The rich commodities of the East had, for several ages, been brought into
+Europe by the Red Sea and the Mediterranean; and it had now become the
+object of the Portuguese to find a passage to India by sailing round the
+southern extremity of Africa, and then taking an eastern course. This great
+object engaged the general attention, and drew into the Portuguese service
+adventurers from the other maritime nations of Europe. Every year added to
+their experience in navigation, and seemed to promise some distant reward
+to their industry. The prospect however of arriving at India by that route
+was still by no means encouraging. Fifty years perseverance in the same
+track having brought them only to the equator, it was probable that as many
+more would elapse before they could accomplish their purpose.</p>
+
+<p>But Columbus, by an uncommon exertion of genius, formed a design no less
+astonishing to the age in which he lived than beneficial to posterity. This
+design was to sail to India by taking a western direction. By the accounts
+of travellers who had visited that part of Asia, it seemed almost without
+limits on the east; and by attending to the spherical figure of the earth
+Columbus drew the natural conclusion, that the Atlantic ocean must be
+bounded on the west either by India itself, or by some continent not far
+distant from it.</p>
+
+<p>This illustrious navigator, who was then about twenty-seven years of age,
+appears to have possessed every talent requisite to form and execute the
+greatest enterprises. He was early educated in such of the useful sciences
+as were taught in that day. He had made great proficiency in geography,
+astronomy and drawing, as they were necessary to his favorite pursuit of
+navigation. He had been a number of years in the service of the Portuguese,
+and had acquired all the experience that their voyages and discoveries
+could afford. His courage had been put to the severest test; and the
+exercise of every amiable as well as heroic virtue, the kindred qualities
+of a great mind, had secured him an extensive reputation. He had married a
+Portuguese lady, by whom he had two sons, Diego and Ferdinand; the younger
+of these is the historian of his life.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the situation of Columbus, when he formed and digested a plan,
+which, in its operation and consequences, has unfolded to the view of
+mankind one half of the globe, diffused wealth and industry over the other,
+and is extending commerce and civilization thro the whole. To corroborate
+the theory he had formed of the existence of a western continent, his
+discerning mind, which knew the application of every circumstance that fell
+in his way, had observed several facts which by others would have passed
+unnoticed. In his voyages to the African islands he had found, floating
+ashore after a long western storm, pieces of wood carved in a curious
+manner, canes of a size unknown in that quarter of the world, and human
+bodies with very singular features.</p>
+
+<p>The opinion being well established in his mind that a considerable portion
+of the earth still remained to be discovered, his temper was too vigorous
+and persevering to suffer an idea of this importance to rest merely in
+speculation, as it had done with Plato and Seneca, who seem to have
+entertained conjectures of a similar nature. He determined therefore to
+bring his theory to the test of experiment. But an object of that magnitude
+required the patronage of a prince; and a design so extraordinary met
+with all the obstructions that an age of superstition could invent, and
+personal jealousy enhance.</p>
+
+<p>It is happy for mankind that, in this instance, a genius capable of
+devising the greatest undertakings associated in itself a degree of
+patience and enterprise, modesty and confidence, which rendered him
+superior to these misfortunes, and enabled him to meet with fortitude all
+the future calamities of his life. Excited by an ardent enthusiasm to
+become a discoverer of new countries, and fully sensible of the advantages
+that would result to mankind from such discoveries, he had the cruel
+mortification to wear away eighteen years of his life, after his system
+was well established in his own mind, before he could obtain the means of
+executing his projected voyage. The greatest part of this period was spent
+in successive solicitations in Genoa, Portugal and Spain.</p>
+
+<p>As a duty to his native country he made his first proposal to the senate of
+Genoa, where it was soon rejected. Conscious of the truth of his theory,
+and of his own abilities to execute his plan, he retired without dejection
+from a body of men who were incapable of forming any just ideas upon
+the subject, and applied with fresh confidence to John Second, king of
+Portugal; who had distinguished himself as the great patron of navigation,
+and in whose service Columbus had acquired a reputation which entitled him
+and his project to general confidence. But here he experienced a treatment
+much more insulting than a direct refusal. After referring the examination
+of his scheme to the council who had the direction of naval affairs, and
+drawing from him his general ideas of the length of the voyage and the
+course he meant to take, that splendid monarch had the meanness to conspire
+with this council to rob Columbus of the glory and advantage he expected
+to derive from his undertaking. While Columbus was amused with the
+negotiation, in hopes of having his scheme adopted, a vessel was secretly
+dispatched by order of the king to make the intended discovery. Want of
+skill or courage in the pilot rendered the plot unsuccessful; and Columbus,
+on discovering the treachery, retired with an ingenuous indignation from a
+court which could be capable of such duplicity.</p>
+
+<p>Having now performed what was due to the country that gave him birth, and
+to the one that had adopted him as a subject, he was at liberty to court
+the patronage of any other which should have the wisdom to accept his
+proposals. He had communicated his ideas to his brother Bartholomew, whom
+he sent to England to negotiate with Henry Seventh; at the same time he
+went himself into Spain to apply in person to Ferdinand and Isabella, who
+governed the united kingdoms of Arragon and Castile.</p>
+
+<p>The circumstances of his brother's application in England, which appears
+to have been unsuccessful, are not to my purpose to relate; and the
+limits prescribed to this biographical sketch will prevent the detail of
+particulars respecting his own negotiation in Spain. This occupied him
+eight years; in which the various agitations of suspense, expectation and
+disappointment must have borne hard upon his patience. At length his scheme
+was adopted by Isabella; who undertook, as queen of Castile, to defray the
+expenses of the expedition, and declared herself ever after the friend and
+patron of the hero who projected it.</p>
+
+<p>Columbus, who during his ill success in the negotiation never abated any
+thing of the honors and emoluments which he expected to acquire in the
+expedition, obtained from Ferdinand and Isabella a stipulation of every
+article contained in his first proposals. He was constituted high admiral
+and viceroy of all the seas, islands and continents which he should
+discover; with power to receive one tenth of the profits arising from their
+productions and commerce. Which offices and emoluments were to be made
+hereditary in his family.</p>
+
+<p>These articles being adjusted, the preparations for the voyage were brought
+forward with rapidity; but they were by no means adequate to the importance
+of the expedition. Three small vessels, scarcely sufficient in size to be
+employed in the coasting business, were appointed to traverse the vast
+Atlantic, and to encounter the storms and currents always to be expected in
+tropical climates, uncertain seasons and unknown seas. These vessels, as we
+must suppose them in the infancy of navigation, were ill constructed, in a
+poor condition, and manned by seamen unaccustomed to distant voyages. But
+the tedious length of trip which Columbus had passed in solicitation and
+suspense, and the prospect of being able soon to obtain the object of his
+wishes, induced him to overlook what he could not easily remedy; and led
+him to disregard those circumstances which would have intimidated any other
+mind. He accordingly equipped his small squadron with as much expedition as
+possible, manned with ninety men and victualled for one year. With these,
+on the third of August 1492, amidst a vast crowd of spectators, he set sail
+on an enterprise which, if we consider the ill condition of his ships,
+the inexperience of his sailors, the length and precarious nature of his
+voyage, and the consequences that flowed from it, was the most daring and
+important that ever was undertaken. He touched at some of the Portuguese
+settlements in the Canary Isles; where, altho he had been but a few days
+at sea, he found his vessels needed refitting. He soon made the necessary
+repairs, and took his departure from the westermost islands that had
+hitherto been discovered. Here he left the former track of navigation, and
+steered his course due west. Not many days after he laid this course he
+perceived the symptoms of a new scene of difficulty. The sailors now began
+to contemplate the dangers and uncertain issue of a voyage, the nature
+and length of which were left entirely open to conjecture. Besides the
+fickleness and timidity natural to men unaccustomed to the discipline of a
+seafaring life, several circumstances contributed to inspire an obstinate
+and mutinous disposition; which required the most consummate art as well as
+fortitude in the admiral to control. Having been three weeks at sea, and
+experienced the uniform course of the trade winds, they contended that,
+should they continue the same course for a longer time, the same winds
+would never permit them to return to Spain. The magnetic needle began to
+vary its direction. This being the first time that this phenomenon was ever
+noticed, it was viewed by the sailors with astonishment; they thought it an
+indication that nature itself had changed its laws, and that Providence was
+about to punish their audacity in venturing so far beyond the bounds of
+man. They declared that the commands of the government had been fully
+obeyed in their proceeding so many days in the same course, and so far
+surpassing all former navigators in quest of discoveries.</p>
+
+<p>Every talent requisite for governing, soothing and tempering the passions
+of men is conspicuous in the conduct of Columbus on this occasion. The
+dignity and affability of his manners, his surprising knowledge and
+experience in naval affairs, his unwearied and minute attention to the
+duties of his command, gave him a great ascendency over the minds of his
+men, and inspired that degree of confidence which would have maintained his
+authority in almost any circumstances. But here, from the nature of the
+undertaking, every man had leisure to feed his imagination with the
+gloominess and uncertainty of the prospect. They found from day to day the
+same steady gales wafting them with rapidity from their native country, and
+indeed from all countries of which they had any knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>He addressed himself to their passions with all the variety of management
+that the situation would admit, sometimes by soothing them with the
+prognostics of approaching land, sometimes by flattering their ambition and
+feasting their avarice with the glory and wealth they would acquire from
+discovering the rich countries beyond the Atlantic, and sometimes by
+threatening them with the displeasure of their king, should their
+disobedience defeat so great an object. But every argument soon lost its
+effect; and their uneasiness still increased. From secret whisperings it
+arose to open mutiny and dangerous conspiracy. At length they determined to
+rid themselves of the remonstrances of Columbus by throwing him into the
+sea. The infection spread from ship to ship, and involved officers as well
+as sailors. They finally lost all sense of subordination and addressed
+their commander in an insolent manner, demanding to be conducted
+immediately back to Spain; or, they assured him, they would seek their own
+safety by taking away his life.</p>
+
+<p>Columbus, whose sagacity had discerned every symptom of the disorder, was
+prepared for this last stage of it; and was sufficiently apprized of the
+danger that awaited him. He found it vain to contend with passions he could
+no longer control. He therefore proposed that they should obey his orders
+for three days longer; and should they not discover land in that time, he
+would then direct his course for Spain. They complied with his proposal;
+and, happily for mankind, in three days they discovered land. This was
+a small island, to which he gave the name of San Salvador. His first
+interview with the natives was a scene of compassion on the one part and
+astonishment on the other, but highly interesting to both. The natives were
+entirely naked, simple and timorous; and they viewed the Spaniards as a
+superior order of beings descended from the sun; which, in that island and
+in most parts of America, was worshipped as a Deity. By this it was easy
+for Columbus to perceive the line of conduct proper to be observed toward
+that simple and inoffensive people. Had his companions and successors
+of the Spanish nation possessed the wisdom and humanity of this great
+discoverer, the benevolent mind would have had to experience no sensations
+of regret in contemplating the extensive advantages arising to mankind from
+the discovery of America.</p>
+
+<p>In this voyage Columbus discovered the islands of Cuba and Hispaniola, on
+the latter of which he erected a small fort; and having left a garrison of
+thirty-eight men he set sail for Spain. Returning across the Atlantic, he
+was overtaken by a violent storm, which lasted several days, and increased
+to such a degree as baffled his naval skill and threatened immediate
+destruction. In this situation when all were in a state of despair, and
+it was expected that every sea would swallow up the crazy vessel, he
+manifested a serenity and presence of mind seldom equalled in cases of like
+extremity. He wrote a short account of his voyage and of the discoveries he
+had made; this he hastily wrapt in an oiled cloth, then enclosed it in a
+cake of wax and put it into an empty cask, which he threw overboard, in
+hopes that some fortunate accident might preserve a deposit of so much
+importance to the world.</p>
+
+<p>The storm however abated, and he at length arrived in Spain, after having
+been driven by stress of weather into the port of Lisbon; where he had
+opportunity, in an interview with the king of Portugal, to prove the
+truth of his system by arguments more convincing than those he had before
+advanced in the character of a bold projector but humble suitor. He was
+received every where in Spain with royal honors; his family was ennobled,
+and his former stipulation respecting his offices and emoluments was
+ratified in the most solemn manner by Ferdinand and Isabella; while
+all Europe resounded his praises, and reciprocated their joy and
+congratulations on the discovery of what they called a new world.</p>
+
+<p>The immediate consequence was a second voyage, in which Columbus took
+charge of a squadron of seventeen ships of considerable burden. Volunteers
+of all ranks solicited to be employed in this expedition. He carried over
+fifteen hundred persons, with the necessaries for establishing a colony
+and extending his discoveries. In this voyage he explored most of the West
+India islands; but on his arrival at Hispaniola he found that the garrison
+he had left there had been all destroyed by the natives, and the fort
+demolished. He proceeded however in the planting of his colony; and by his
+prudent and humane conduct towards the natives he effectually established
+the Spanish authority in that island. But while he was thus laying the
+foundation of European dominion in America, some discontented persons,
+who had returned to Spain, uniting with his former opponents and powerful
+enemies at court, conspired to accomplish his ruin.</p>
+
+<p>They represented his conduct in such a light as to create uneasiness in
+the jealous mind of Ferdinand, and make it necessary for Columbus again to
+return to Spain, to counteract their machinations and obtain such farther
+supplies as were necessary to his great political and beneficent purposes.
+On his arriving at court, and stating with his usual dignity and confidence
+the whole history of his transactions abroad, every thing wore a favorable
+appearance. He was received with the same honors as before, and solicited
+to take charge of another squadron, to carry out farther supplies, to
+pursue his discoveries, and in every respect to use his discretion in
+extending the Spanish empire in the new world.</p>
+
+<p>In this third voyage he discovered the continent of America at the mouth
+of the river Orinoco. He rectified many disorders in his government of
+Hispaniola, which had happened in his absence; and every thing was going on
+in a prosperous train, when an event was announced to him, which completed
+his own ruin and gave a fatal turn to the Spanish policy and conduct in
+America. This was the arrival of Francis de Bovadilla, with a commission
+to supersede Columbus in his government, to arraign him as a criminal, and
+pronounce judgment on all his former administration.</p>
+
+<p>It seems that by this time the enemies of Columbus, despairing to complete
+his overthrow by groundless insinuations of malconduct, had taken the more
+effectual method of exciting the jealousy of their sovereigns. From the
+promising samples of gold and other valuable commodities brought from
+America, they took occasion to represent to the king and queen that the
+prodigious wealth and extent of the countries he had discovered would soon
+throw such power into the hands of the viceroy, that he would trample on
+the royal authority and bid defiance to the Spanish power. These arguments
+were well calculated for the cold and suspicious temper of Ferdinand; and
+they must have had some effect upon the mind of Isabella. The consequence
+was the appointment of Bovadilla, the inveterate enemy of Columbus, to take
+the government from his hands. This first tyrant of the Spanish nation in
+America began his administration by ordering Columbus to be put in chains
+on board of a ship, and sending him prisoner to Spain. By relaxing all
+discipline he introduced disorder and licentiousness thro the colony.
+He subjected the unhappy natives to a most miserable servitude, and
+apportioned them out in large numbers among his adherents. Under this
+severe treatment perished in a short time many thousands of those innocent
+people.</p>
+
+<p>Columbus was carried in his fetters to the Spanish court, where the king
+and queen either feigned or felt a sufficient regret at the conduct of
+Bovadilla towards their illustrious prisoner. He was not only released from
+confinement; he was treated with all imaginable respect. But, altho
+the king endeavored to expiate the offence by censuring and recalling
+Bovadilla, yet we may judge of his sincerity from his appointing Nicholas
+de Ovando, another well known enemy of Columbus, to succeed in the
+government; and from his ever after refusing to reinstate Columbus, or to
+fulfil any of the conditions on which the discoveries had been undertaken.</p>
+
+<p>After two years of solicitation for this or some other employment, he
+at length obtained a squadron of four small vessels to attempt new
+discoveries. He then set out, with the enthusiasm of a young adventurer, in
+quest of what was always his favorite object, a passage into the South Sea,
+by which he might sail to India. He touched at Hispaniola, where Ovando the
+governor refused him admittance on shore, even to take shelter during
+a hurricane, the prognostics of which his experience had taught him to
+discern. By putting into a creek he rode out the storm, and then bore away
+for the continent. He spent several months, the most boisterous of the
+year, in exploring the coast round the gulph of Mexico, in hopes of finding
+the intended navigation to India. At length he was shipwrecked, and driven
+ashore on the island of Jamaica.</p>
+
+<p>His cup of calamities seemed now to be full. He was cast upon an island of
+savages, without provisions, without a vessel, and thirty leagues from any
+Spanish settlement. But the greatest physical misfortunes are capable of
+being imbittered by the insults of our fellow creatures. A few of his
+companions generously offered, in two Indian canoes, to attempt a voyage to
+Hispaniola, in hopes of obtaining a vessel for the relief of the unhappy
+crew. After suffering every extremity of danger and fatigue, they arrived
+at the Spanish colony in ten days. Ovando, excited by personal malice
+against Columbus, detained these messengers for eight months, and then
+despatched a vessel to Jamaica to spy out the condition of Columbus and
+his crew, with positive instructions to the captain not to afford them any
+relief. This order was punctually executed. The captain approached the
+shore, delivered a letter of empty compliment from Ovando to the admiral,
+received his answer and returned. About four months afterwards a vessel
+came to their relief; and Columbus, worn out with fatigues and broken by
+misfortunes, returned for the last time to Spain. Here a new distress
+awaited him, which he considered as one of the greatest of his whole life:
+this was the death of queen Isabella, his last and most powerful friend.</p>
+
+<p>He did not suddenly abandon himself to despair. He called upon the
+gratitude and justice of the king; and in terms of dignity demanded the
+fulfilment of his former contract. Notwithstanding his age and infirmities,
+he even solicited to be farther employed in extending the career of
+discovery, without a prospect of any other reward than the pleasure of
+doing good to mankind. But Ferdinand, cold ungrateful and timid, dared not
+comply with any proposal of this kind, lest he should increase his own
+obligations to a man, whose services he thought it dangerous to reward. He
+therefore delayed and avoided any decision on these subjects, in hopes
+that the declining health of Columbus would soon rid the court of the
+remonstrances of a suitor, whose unexampled merit was, in their opinion, a
+sufficient reason for destroying him. In this they were not disappointed.
+Columbus languished a short time, and gladly resigned a life which had been
+worn out in the most signal services perhaps that have been rendered by any
+one man to an ungrateful world.</p>
+
+<p>Posterity is sometimes more just to the memory of great men than
+contemporaries were to their persons. But even this consolation, if it be
+one, has been wanting to the discoverer of our hemisphere. The continent,
+instead of bearing his name, has been called after one of his followers,
+a man of no particular merit. And in the modern city of Mexico there is
+instituted and perpetuated, by order of government, an annual festival in
+honour of Hernando Cortez, the perfidious butcher of its ancient race;
+while no public honors have been decreed to Christopher Columbus, one of
+the wisest and best among the benefactors of mankind.</p>
+
+<p>After his last return from America he seems to have past the short
+remainder of his life at Valladolid, the capital of Old Castile, and then
+the seat of the Spanish government. He died in that city on the twentieth
+of August 1506, and was buried in one of its churches. Over his body is a
+plain stone inscribed simply with his name, as it is written in Spanish,
+<span class="smallcaps">Christoval Colon</span>.</p>
+
+<p>His son, who wrote his life, has left us a particular description of his
+person, manners and private character; all of which were agreeable and
+interesting. His portrait is in possession of the author of this poem.
+It is painted in oil, half length and the size of life, copied from an
+original picture in the gallery of Florence.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<h1>The Columbiad.</h1>
+
+
+
+
+<h1>Book I.</h1>
+
+
+
+<h3>Argument.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="arg">    Subject of the Poem, and invocation to Freedom. Condition of Columbus
+    in a Spanish prison. His monologue on the great actions of his life,
+    and the manner in which they had been rewarded. Appearance and speech
+    of Hesper, the guardian Genius of the western continent. They quit the
+    dungeon, and ascend the mount of vision, which rises over the western
+    coast of Spain; Europe settling from their sight, and the Atlantic
+    ocean spreading far beneath their feet. Continent of America draws into
+    view, and is described by its mountains, rivers, lakes, soil and some
+    of the natural productions.</p>
+
+
+<p>I sing the Mariner who first unfurl'd<br />
+An eastern banner o'er the western world,<br />
+And taught mankind where future empires lay<br />
+In these fair confines of descending day;<br />
+Who sway'd a moment, with vicarious power,<br />
+Iberia's sceptre on the new found shore,<br />
+Then saw the paths his virtuous steps had trod<br />
+Pursued by avarice and defiled with blood,<br />
+The tribes he foster'd with paternal toil<br />
+Snatch'd from his hand, and slaughter'd for their spoil.</p>
+
+<p>Slaves, kings, adventurers, envious of his name,<br />
+Enjoy'd his labours and purloin'd his fame,<br />
+And gave the Viceroy, from his high seat hurl'd.<br />
+Chains for a crown, a prison for a world<br />
+Long overwhelm'd in woes, and sickening there,<br />
+He met the slow still march of black despair,<br />
+Sought the last refuge from his hopeless doom,<br />
+And wish'd from thankless men a peaceful tomb:<br />
+Till vision'd ages, opening on his eyes,<br />
+Cheer'd his sad soul, and bade new nations rise;<br />
+He saw the Atlantic heaven with light o'ercast,<br />
+And Freedom crown his glorious work at last.</p>
+
+<p>Almighty Freedom! give my venturous song<br />
+The force, the charm that to thy voice belong;<br />
+Tis thine to shape my course, to light my way,<br />
+To nerve my country with the patriot lay,<br />
+To teach all men where all their interest lies,<br />
+How rulers may be just and nations wise:<br />
+Strong in thy strength I bend no suppliant knee,<br />
+Invoke no miracle, no Muse but thee.</p>
+
+<p>Night held on old Castile her silent reign,<br />
+Her half orb'd moon declining to the main;<br />
+O'er Valladolid's regal turrets hazed<br />
+The drizzly fogs from dull Pisuerga raised;<br />
+Whose hovering sheets, along the welkin driven,<br />
+Thinn'd the pale stars, and shut the eye from heaven.<br />
+Cold-hearted Ferdinand his pillow prest,<br />
+Nor dream'd of those his mandates robb'd of rest,<br />
+Of him who gemm'd his crown, who stretch'd his reign<br />
+To realms that weigh'd the tenfold poise of Spain;<br />
+Who now beneath his tower indungeon'd lies,<br />
+Sweats the chill sod and breathes inclement skies.</p>
+
+<p>His feverish pulse, slow laboring thro his frame,<br />
+Feeds with scant force its fast expiring flame;<br />
+A far dim watch-lamp's thrice reflected beam<br />
+Throws thro his grates a mist-encumber'd gleam,<br />
+Paints the dun vapors that the cell invade,<br />
+And fills with spectred forms the midnight shade;<br />
+When from a visionary short repose,<br />
+That nursed new cares and temper'd keener woes,<br />
+Columbus woke, and to the walls addrest<br />
+The deep felt sorrows bursting from his breast:</p>
+
+<p>Here lies the purchase, here the wretched spoil<br />
+Of painful years and persevering toil.<br />
+For these damp caves, this hideous haunt of<br />
+pain,<br />
+I traced new regions o'er the chartless main,<br />
+Tamed all the dangers of untraversed waves,<br />
+Hung o'er their clefts, and topt their surging graves,<br />
+Saw traitorous seas o'er coral mountains sweep,<br />
+Red thunders rock the pole and scorch the deep,<br />
+Death rear his front in every varying form,<br />
+Gape from the shoals and ride the roaring storm,<br />
+My struggling bark her seamy planks disjoin,<br />
+Rake the rude rock and drink the copious brine.<br />
+Till the tired elements are lull'd at last,<br />
+And milder suns allay the billowing blast,<br />
+Lead on the trade winds with unvarying force,<br />
+And long and landless curve our constant course.</p>
+
+<p>Our homeward heaven recoils; each night forlorn<br />
+Calls up new stars, and backward rolls the morn;<br />
+The boreal vault descends with Europe's shore,<br />
+And bright Calisto shuns the wave no more,<br />
+The Dragon dips his fiery-foaming jole,<br />
+The affrighted magnet flies the faithless pole;<br />
+Nature portends a general change of laws,<br />
+My daring deeds are deemed the guilty cause;<br />
+The desperate crew, to insurrection driven,<br />
+Devote their captain to the wrath of heaven,<br />
+Resolve at once to end the audacious strife,<br />
+And buy their safety with his forfeit life.</p>
+
+<p>In that sad hour, this feeble frame to save,<br />
+(Unblest reprieve) and rob the gaping wave,<br />
+The morn broke forth, these tearful orbs descried<br />
+The golden banks that bound the western tide.<br />
+With full success I calm'd the clamorous race,<br />
+Bade heaven's blue arch a second earth embrace;<br />
+And gave the astonish'd age that bounteous shore,<br />
+Their wealth to nations, and to kings their power.</p>
+
+<p>Land of delights! ah, dear delusive coast,<br />
+To these fond aged eyes forever lost!<br />
+No more thy flowery vales I travel o'er,<br />
+For me thy mountains rear the head no more,<br />
+For me thy rocks no sparkling gems unfold,<br />
+Nor streams luxuriant wear their paths in gold;<br />
+From realms of promised peace forever borne,<br />
+I hail mute anguish, and in secret mourn.</p>
+
+<p>But dangers past, a world explored in vain,<br />
+And foes triumphant show but half my pain.<br />
+Dissembling friends, each early joy who gave,<br />
+And fired my youth the storms of fate to brave,<br />
+Swarm'd in the sunshine of my happier days,<br />
+Pursued the fortune and partook the praise,<br />
+Now pass my cell with smiles of sour disdain,<br />
+Insult my woes and triumph in my pain.</p>
+
+<p>One gentle guardian once could shield the brave;<br />
+But now that guardian slumbers in the grave.<br />
+Hear from above, thou dear departed shade;<br />
+As once my hopes, my present sorrows aid,<br />
+Burst my full heart, afford that last relief,<br />
+Breathe back my sighs and reinspire my grief;<br />
+Still in my sight thy royal form appears,<br />
+Reproves my silence and demands my tears.<br />
+Even on that hour no more I joy to dwell,<br />
+When thy protection bade the canvass swell;<br />
+When kings and churchmen found their factions vain,<br />
+Blind superstition shrunk beneath her chain,<br />
+The sun's glad beam led on the circling way,<br />
+And isles rose beauteous in Atlantic day.<br />
+For on those silvery shores, that new domain,<br />
+What crowds of tyrants fix their murderous reign!<br />
+Her infant realm indignant Freedom flies,<br />
+Truth leaves the world, and Isabella dies.</p>
+
+<p>Ah, lend thy friendly shroud to veil my sight,<br />
+That these pain'd eyes may dread no more the light;<br />
+These welcome shades shall close my instant doom,<br />
+And this drear mansion moulder to a tornb.</p>
+
+<p>Thus mourn'd the hapless man: a thundering sound<br />
+Roll'd thro the shuddering walls and shook the ground;<br />
+O'er all the dungeon, where black arches bend,<br />
+The roofs unfold, and streams of light descend;<br />
+The growing splendor fills the astonish'd room,<br />
+And gales etherial breathe a glad perfume.<br />
+Robed in the radiance, moves a form serene,<br />
+Of human structure, but of heavenly mien;<br />
+Near to the prisoner's couch he takes his stand,<br />
+And waves, in sign of peace, his holy hand.<br />
+Tall rose his stature, youth's endearing grace<br />
+Adorn'd his limbs and brighten'd in his face;<br />
+Loose o'er his locks the star of evening hung,<br />
+And sounds melodious moved his cheerful tongue:</p>
+
+<p>Rise, trembling chief, to scenes of rapture rise;<br />
+This voice awaits thee from the western skies;<br />
+Indulge no longer that desponding strain,<br />
+Nor count thy toils, nor deem thy virtues vain.<br />
+Thou seest in me the guardian Power who keeps<br />
+The new found world that skirts Atlantic deeps,<br />
+Hesper my name, my seat the brightest throne<br />
+In night's whole heaven, my sire the living sun,<br />
+My brother Atlas with his name divine<br />
+Stampt the wild wave; the solid coast is mine.</p>
+
+<p>[Note: Atlas and Hesper were of the race of Titans. They were sons of
+Uranus, or of Japetus, according as the fable is traced to different
+countries, whose supreme God (originally the sun) was called by different
+names. Atlas, from being king of Mauritania, became a mountain to support
+the heavens, and gave his name to the western ocean. Hesper frequented that
+mountain in the study of astronomy; till one evening he disappeared, and
+returned no more. He was then placed in the western heaven; and, having
+been a beautiful young man, he became a beautiful planet, called the
+evening star. This circumstance gave his name to the western regions of the
+earth indefinitely. Italy was called Hesperia by the Greeks, because it
+lay west from them, and seemed under the influence of the star of evening;
+Spain was called Hesperia by the Romans, for the same reason.</p>
+
+<p>If the nations which adopted this fable had known of a country west of the
+Atlantic, that country must have been Hesperia to them all; and pursuing
+this analogy I have so named it, in several instances, in the course of
+this poem. Considering Hesper as the guardian Genius, and Columbus as the
+Discoverer, of the western continent, it may derive its name, in poetical
+language, from either of theirs indifferently, and be called Hesperia or
+Columbia.</p>
+
+<p>Atlas is considered in this poem as the guardian Genius of Africa. See his
+speech, in the eighth book, on the slavery of his people.</p>
+
+<p>This explanation seemed of such immediate importance for understanding
+the machinery of the poem, as to require its being placed here. The other
+notes, being numerous and some of them long, have been forced to yield
+to typographical elegance; and are placed at the end of the volume, with
+suitable reference to the passages to which they belong.]</p>
+
+<p>This hand, which form'd, and in the tides of time<br />
+Laves and improves the meliorating clime,<br />
+Which taught thy prow to cleave the trackless way,<br />
+And hail'd thee first in occidental day,<br />
+To all thy worth shall vindicate thy claim,<br />
+And raise up nations to revere thy name.</p>
+
+<p>In this dark age tho blinded faction sways,<br />
+And wealth and conquest gain the palm of praise;<br />
+Awed into slaves while groveling millions groan,<br />
+And blood-stain'd steps lead upward to a throne;<br />
+Far other wreaths thy virtuous temples twine,<br />
+Far nobler triumphs crown a life like thine;<br />
+Thine be the joys that minds immortal grace,<br />
+As thine the deeds that bless a kindred race.<br />
+Now raise thy sorrowed soul to views more bright,<br />
+The vision'd ages rushing on thy sight;<br />
+Worlds beyond worlds shall bring to light their stores,<br />
+Time, nature, science blend their utmost powers,<br />
+To show, concentred in one blaze of fame,<br />
+The ungather'd glories that await thy name.</p>
+
+<p>As that great seer, whose animating rod<br />
+Taught Jacob's sons their wonder-working God,<br />
+Who led thro dreary wastes the murmuring band,<br />
+And reach'd the confines of their promised land,<br />
+Opprest with years, from Pisgah's towering height,<br />
+On fruitful Canaan feasted long his sight;<br />
+The bliss of unborn nations warm'd his breast,<br />
+Repaid his toils and sooth'd his soul to rest;<br />
+Thus o'er thy subject wave shalt thou behold<br />
+Far happier realms their future charms unfold,<br />
+In nobler pomp another Pisgah rise,<br />
+Beneath whose foot thy new found Canaan lies;<br />
+There, rapt in vision, hail my favorite clime,<br />
+And taste the blessings of remotest time.</p>
+
+<p>So Hesper spoke; Columbus raised his head;<br />
+His chains dropt off; the cave, the castle fled.<br />
+Forth walked the Pair; when steep before them stood;<br />
+Slope from the town, a heaven-illumined road;<br />
+That thro disparting shades arose on high,<br />
+Reach'd o'er the hills, and lengthen'd up the sky,<br />
+Show'd a clear summit, rich with rising flowers,<br />
+That breathe their odors thro celestial bowers.<br />
+O'er the proud Pyrenees it looks sublime,<br />
+Subjects the Alps, and levels Europe's clime;<br />
+Spain, lessening to a chart, beneath it swims,<br />
+And shrouds her dungeons in the void she dims.</p>
+
+<p>Led by the Power, the Hero gain'd the height,<br />
+New strength and brilliance flush'd his mortal sight;<br />
+When calm before them flow'd the western main,<br />
+Far stretch'd, immense, a sky-encircled plain.<br />
+No sail, no isle, no cloud invests the bound,<br />
+Nor billowy surge disturbs the vast profound;<br />
+Till, deep in distant heavens, the sun's blue ray<br />
+Topt unknown cliffs and call'd them up to day;<br />
+Slow glimmering into sight wide regions drew,<br />
+And rose and brighten'd on the expanding view;<br />
+Fair sweep the waves, the lessening ocean smiles,<br />
+In misty radiance loom a thousand isles;<br />
+Near and more near the long drawn coasts arise,<br />
+Bays stretch their arms and mountains lift the skies,<br />
+The lakes, high mounded, point the streams their way,<br />
+Slopes, ridges, plains their spreading skirts display,<br />
+The vales branch forth, high walk approaching groves,<br />
+And all the majesty of nature moves.</p>
+
+<p>O'er the wild hemisphere his glances fly,<br />
+Its form unfolding as it still draws nigh,<br />
+As all its salient sides force far their sway,<br />
+Crowd back the ocean and indent the day.<br />
+He saw, thro central zones, the winding shore<br />
+Spread the deep Gulph his sail had traced before,<br />
+The Darien isthmus check the raging tide,<br />
+Join distant lands, and neighboring seas divide;<br />
+On either hand the shores unbounded bend,<br />
+Push wide their waves, to each dim pole ascend;<br />
+The two twin continents united rise,<br />
+Broad as the main, and lengthen'd with the skies.</p>
+
+<p>Long gazed the Mariner; when thus the Guide:<br />
+Here spreads the world thy daring sail descried,<br />
+Hesperia call'd, from my anterior claim;<br />
+But now Columbia, from thy patriarch name.<br />
+So from Phenicia's peopled strand of yore<br />
+Europa sail'd, and sought an unknown shore;<br />
+There stampt her sacred name; and thence her race,<br />
+Hale, venturous, bold, from Jove's divine embrace,<br />
+Ranged o'er the world, predestined to bestride<br />
+Earth's elder continents and each far tide.</p>
+
+<p>Ages unborn shall bless the happier day,<br />
+That saw thy streamer shape the guideless way,<br />
+Their bravest heroes trace the path you led,<br />
+And sires of nations thro the regions spread.<br />
+Behold yon isles, where first thy flag unfurl'd<br />
+In bloodless triumph o'er the younger world;<br />
+As, awed to silence, savage bands gave place,<br />
+And hail'd with joy the sun-descended race.</p>
+
+<p>Retrace the banks yon rushing waters lave;<br />
+There Orinoco checks great ocean's wave;<br />
+Thine is the stream; it cleaves the well known coast,<br />
+Where Paria's walks thy former footsteps boast.<br />
+But these no more thy wide discoveries bound;<br />
+Superior prospects lead their swelling round;<br />
+Nature's remotest scenes before thee roll,<br />
+And years and empires open on thy soul.</p>
+
+<p>To yon dim rounds first elevate thy view;<br />
+See Quito's plains o'erlook their proud Peru;<br />
+On whose huge base, like isles amid sky driven,<br />
+A vast protuberance props the cope of heaven;<br />
+Earth's loftiest turrets there contend for height,<br />
+And all our Andes fill the bounded sight.<br />
+From south to north what long blue swells arise,<br />
+Built thro the clouds, and lost in ambient skies!<br />
+Approaching slow they heave expanding bounds,<br />
+The yielding concave bends sublimer rounds;<br />
+Whose wearied stars, high curving to the west,<br />
+Pause on the summits for a moment's rest;<br />
+Recumbent there they renovate their force,<br />
+And roll rejoicing on their downward course.</p>
+
+<p>Round each bluff base the sloping ravine bends;<br />
+Hills forms on hills, and croupe o'er croupe extends;<br />
+Ascending, whitening, how the crags are lost,<br />
+O'erhung with headcliffs of eternal frost!<br />
+Broad fields of ice give back the morning ray,<br />
+Like walls of suns, or heaven's perennial day.</p>
+
+<p>There folding storms on eastern pinions ride,<br />
+Veil the black void, and wrap the mountains side,<br />
+Rude thunders rake the crags, the rains descend,<br />
+And the long lightnings o'er the vallies bend;<br />
+While blasts unburden'd sweep the cliffs of snow,<br />
+The whirlwinds wheel above, the floods convolve<br />
+below.</p>
+
+<p>There molten rocks explosive rend their tomb;<br />
+Volcanos, laboring many a nation's doom,<br />
+Wild o'er the regions pour their floods of fire;<br />
+The shores heave backward, and the seas retire.<br />
+There lava waits my late reluctant call,<br />
+To roar aloft and shake some guilty wall;<br />
+Thy pride, O Lima, swells the sulphurous wave,<br />
+And fanes and priests and idols crowd thy grave.</p>
+
+<p>But cease, my son, these dread events to trace,<br />
+Nor learn the woes that here await thy race.<br />
+Anorth from that broad gulph, where verdant rise<br />
+Those gentler mounds that skirt the temperate skies,<br />
+A happier hemisphere invites thy view;<br />
+Tis there the old world shall embrace the new:<br />
+There Europe's better sons their seat shall trace,<br />
+And change of government improve the race.<br />
+Thro all the midsky zones, to yon blue pole,<br />
+Their green hills lengthen, their bright rivers roll;<br />
+And swelling westward, how their champaigns run!<br />
+How slope their uplands to the morning sun!</p>
+
+<p>So spoke the blest Immortal; when more near<br />
+His northern wilds in all their breadth appear;<br />
+Lands yet unknown, and streams without a name<br />
+Rise into vision and demand their fame.<br />
+As when some saint first gains his bright abode,<br />
+Vaults o'er the spheres and views the works of God,<br />
+Sees earth, his kindred orb, beneath him roll,<br />
+Here glow the centre, and there point the pole;<br />
+O'er land and sea his eyes delighted rove,<br />
+And human thoughts his heavenly joys improve;<br />
+With equal scope the raptured Hero's sight<br />
+Ranged the low vale, or climb'd the cloudy height,<br />
+As, fixt in ardent look, his opening mind,<br />
+Explored the realms that here invite mankind.</p>
+
+<p>From sultry Mobile's gulph-indented shore<br />
+To where Ontario hears his Laurence roar,<br />
+Stretch'd o'er the broadback'd hills, in long array.<br />
+The tenfold Alleganies meet the day.<br />
+And show, far sloping from the plains and streams,<br />
+The forest azure streak'd with orient beams.<br />
+High moved the scene, Columbus gazed sublime,<br />
+And thus in prospect hail'd the happy clime:<br />
+Blest be the race my guardian guide shall lead<br />
+Where these wide vales their various bounties spread!<br />
+What treasured stores the hills must here combine!<br />
+Sleep still ye diamonds, and ye ores refine;<br />
+Exalt your heads ye oaks, ye pines ascend,<br />
+Till future navies bid your branches bend;<br />
+Then spread the canvass o'er the watery way,<br />
+Explore new worlds and teach the old your sway.</p>
+
+<p>He said, and northward cast his curious eyes<br />
+On other cliffs of more exalted size.<br />
+Where Maine's bleak breakers line the dangerous coast,<br />
+And isles and shoals their latent horrors boast,<br />
+High lantern'd in his heaven the cloudless White<br />
+Heaves the glad sailor an eternal light;<br />
+Who far thro troubled ocean greets the guide,<br />
+And stems with steadier helm the stormful tide.</p>
+
+<p>Nor could those heights unnoticed raise their head,<br />
+That swell sublime o'er Hudson's shadowy bed;<br />
+Tho fiction ne'er has hung them in the skies,<br />
+Tho White and Andes far superior rise,<br />
+Yet hoary Kaatskill, where the storms divide,<br />
+Would lift the heavens from Atlas' laboring pride.</p>
+
+<p>Land after land his passing notice claim,<br />
+And hills by hundreds rise without a name;<br />
+Hills yet unsung, their mystic powers untold;<br />
+Celestials there no sacred senates hold;<br />
+No chain'd Prometheus feasts the vulture there,<br />
+No Cyclop forges thro their summits glare,<br />
+To Phrygian Jove no victim smoke is curl'd,<br />
+Nor ark high landing quits a deluged world.<br />
+But were these masses piled on Asia's shore,<br />
+Taurus would shrink, Hemodia strut no more,<br />
+Indus and Ganges scorn their humble sires,<br />
+And rising suns salute superior fires;<br />
+Whose watchful priest would meet, with matin blaze,<br />
+His earlier God, and sooner chaunt his praise.<br />
+For here great nature, with a bolder hand,<br />
+Roll'd the broad stream, and heaved the lifted land;<br />
+And here from finish'd earth, triumphant trod<br />
+The last ascending steps of her creating God.</p>
+
+<p>He saw these mountains ope their watery stores,<br />
+Floods quit their caves and seek the distant shores;<br />
+Wilcl thro disparting plains their waves expand,<br />
+And lave the banks where future towns must stand.<br />
+Whirl'd from the monstrous Andes' bursting sides,<br />
+Maragnon leads his congregating tides;<br />
+A thousand Alps for him dissolve their snow,<br />
+A thousand Rhones obedient bend below,<br />
+From different zones their ways converging wind,<br />
+Sweep beds of ore, and leave their gold behind,<br />
+In headlong cataracts indignant rave,<br />
+Rush to his banks and swell the swallowing wave.<br />
+Ucayla, first of all his mighty sons,<br />
+From Cusco's walls a wearied journey runs;<br />
+Pastaza mines proud Pambamarca's base,<br />
+And holds thro sundering hills his lawless race;<br />
+Aloft, where Cotopaxa flames on high,<br />
+The roaring Napo quits his misty sky,<br />
+Down the long steeps in whitening torrents driven,<br />
+Like Nile descending from his fabled heaven;<br />
+Mound after mound impetuous Tigris rends,<br />
+Curved Ista folds whole countries in his bends;<br />
+Vast Orinoco, summon'd forth to bring<br />
+His far fetch'd honors to the sateless king,<br />
+Drives on his own strong course to gain the shore,<br />
+But sends Catuba here with half his store;<br />
+Like a broad Bosphorus here Negro guides<br />
+The gather'd mass of fifty furious tides;<br />
+From his waste world, by nameless fountains fed,<br />
+Wild Purus wears his long and lonely bed;<br />
+O'er twelve degrees of earth Madera flows,<br />
+And robs the south of half its treasured snows;<br />
+Zingus, of equal length and heavier force,<br />
+Rolls on, for months, the same continuous course<br />
+To reach his master's bank; that here constrains<br />
+Topayo, charged with all Brazilians rains;<br />
+While inland seas, and lakes unknown to fame,<br />
+Send their full tributes to the monarch stream;<br />
+Who, swell'd with growing conquest, wheels abroad,<br />
+Drains every land, and gathers all his flood;<br />
+Then far from clime to clime majestic goes,<br />
+Enlarging, widening, deepening as he flows;<br />
+Like heaven's broad milky way he shines alone,<br />
+Spreads o'er the globe its equatorial zone,<br />
+Weighs the cleft continent, and pushes wide<br />
+Its balanced mountains from each crumbling side.<br />
+Sire Ocean hears his proud Maragnon roar,<br />
+Moves up his bed, and seeks in vain the shore,<br />
+Then surging strong, with high and hoary tide,<br />
+Whelms back the Stream and checks his rolling pride.<br />
+The stream ungovernable foams with ire,<br />
+Climbs, combs tempestuous, and attacks the Sire;<br />
+Earth feels the conflict o'er her bosom spread,<br />
+Her isles and uplands hide their wood-crown'd head;<br />
+League after league from land to water change,<br />
+From realm to realm the seaborn monsters range;<br />
+Vast midland heights but pierce the liquid plain,<br />
+Old Andes tremble for their proud domain;<br />
+Till the fresh Flood regains his forceful sway,<br />
+Drives back his father Ocean, lash'd with spray;<br />
+Whose ebbing waters lead the downward sweep,<br />
+And waves and trees and banks roll whirling to the deep.<br />
+Where suns less ardent cast their golden beams,<br />
+And minor Andes pour a waste of streams,<br />
+The marsh of Moxoe scoops the world, and fills<br />
+(From Bahia's coast to Cochabamba's hills)<br />
+A thousand leagues of bog; he strives in vain<br />
+Their floods to centre and their lakes retain;<br />
+His gulphs o'ercharged their opening sides display,<br />
+And southern vales prolong the seaward way.<br />
+Columbus traced, with swift exploring eye,<br />
+The immense of waves that here exalted lie,<br />
+The realms that mound the unmeasured magazine,<br />
+The far blue main, the climes that stretch between.<br />
+He saw Xaraya's diamond banks unfold,<br />
+And Paraguay's deep channel paved with gold,<br />
+Saw proud Potosi lift his glittering head,<br />
+And pour down Plata thro his tinctured bed.<br />
+Rich with the spoils of many a distant mine,<br />
+In his broad silver sea their floods combine;<br />
+Wide over earth his annual freshet strays,<br />
+And highland drains with lowland drench repays;<br />
+Her thirsty regions wait his glad return,<br />
+And drink their future harvest from his urn.</p>
+
+<p>Where the cold circles gird the southern sky.<br />
+Brave Magellan's wild channel caught his eye;<br />
+The long cleft ridges wall'd the spreading way.<br />
+That gleams far westward to an unknown sea.<br />
+Soon as the distant swell was seen to roll,<br />
+His ancient wishes reabsorb'd his soul;<br />
+Warm from his heaving heart a sudden sigh<br />
+Burst thro his lips; he turn'd his moisten'd eye,<br />
+And thus besought his Angel: speak, my guide,<br />
+Where leads the pass? and what yon purple tide?<br />
+How the dim waves in blending ether stray!<br />
+No lands behind them rise, no pinions on them play.<br />
+There spreads, belike, that other unsail'd main<br />
+I sought so long, and sought, alas, in vain;<br />
+To gird this watery globe, and bring to light<br />
+Old India's coast; and regions wrapt in night.<br />
+Restore, celestial friend, my youthful morn,<br />
+Call back my years, and let my fame return;<br />
+Grant me to trace, beyond that pathless sea,<br />
+Some happier shore from lust of empire free;<br />
+To find in that far world a peaceful bower,<br />
+From envy safe and curst Ovando's power.<br />
+Earth's happiest realms let not their distance hide,<br />
+Nor seas forever roll their useless tide.<br />
+For nations yet unborn, that wait thy time,<br />
+Demand their seats in that secluded clime;<br />
+Ah, grant me still, their passage to prepare.<br />
+One venturous bark, and be my life thy care.</p>
+
+<p>So pray'd the Hero; Hesper mild replies,<br />
+Divine compassion softening in his eyes,<br />
+Tho still to virtuous deeds thy mind aspires,<br />
+And these glad visions kindle new desires,<br />
+Yet hear with reverence what attends thy state,<br />
+Nor wish to pass the eternal bounds of fate.<br />
+Led by this sacred light thou soon shalt see<br />
+That half mankind shall owe their seats to thee,<br />
+Freedom's first empire claim its promised birth<br />
+In these rich rounds of sea-encircled earth;<br />
+Let other years, by thine example prest,<br />
+Call forth their heroes to explore the rest.</p>
+
+<p>Thro different seas a twofold passage lies<br />
+To where sweet India scents a waste of skies.<br />
+The circling course, by Madagascar's shores,<br />
+Round Afric's cape, bold Gama now explores;<br />
+Thy well plann'd path these gleamy straits provide,<br />
+Nor long shall rest the daring search untried.<br />
+This idle frith must open soon to fame,<br />
+Here a lost Lusitanian fix his name,<br />
+From that new main in furious waves be tost,<br />
+And fall neglected on the barbarous coast.</p>
+
+<p>But lo the Chief! bright Albion bids him rise,<br />
+Speed in his pinions, ardor in his eyes!<br />
+Hither, O Drake, display thy hastening sails,<br />
+Widen ye passes, and awake ye gales,<br />
+March thou before him, heaven-revolving sun,<br />
+Wind his long course, and teach him where to run;<br />
+Earth's distant shores, in circling bands unite,<br />
+Lands, learn your fame, and oceans, roll in light,<br />
+Round all the watery globe his flag be hurl'd,<br />
+A new Columbus to the astonish'd world.</p>
+
+<p>He spoke; and silent tow'rd the northern sky<br />
+Wide o'er the hills the Hero cast his eye,<br />
+Saw the long floods thro devious channels pour,<br />
+And wind their currents to the opening shore;<br />
+Interior seas and lonely lakes display<br />
+Their glittering glories to the beams of day.<br />
+Thy capes, Virginia, towering from the tide,<br />
+Raise their blue banks, and slope thy barriers wide,<br />
+To future sails unfold an inland way,<br />
+And guard secure thy multifluvian Bay;<br />
+That drains uncounted realms, and here unites<br />
+The liquid mass from Alleganian heights.<br />
+York leads his wave, imbank'd in flowery pride,<br />
+And nobler James falls winding by his side;<br />
+Back to the hills, thro many a silent vale,<br />
+While Rappahanok seems to lure the sail,<br />
+Patapsco's bosom courts the hand of toil,<br />
+Dull Susquehanna laves a length of soil;<br />
+But mightier far, in sealike azure spread,<br />
+Potowmak sweeps his earth disparting bed.</p>
+
+<p>Long dwelt his eye where these commingling pour'd,<br />
+Their waves unkeel'd, their havens unexplored;<br />
+Where frowning forests stretch the dusky wing,<br />
+And deadly damps forbid the flowers to spring;<br />
+No seasons clothe the field with cultured grain,<br />
+No buoyant ship attempts the chartless main;<br />
+Then with impatient voice: My Seer, he cried,<br />
+When shall my children cross the lonely tide?<br />
+Here, here my sons, the hand of culture bring,<br />
+Here teach the lawn to smile, the grove to sing:<br />
+Ye laboring floods, no longer vainly glide,<br />
+Ye harvests load them, and ye forests ride;<br />
+Bear the deep burden from the joyous swain,<br />
+And tell the world where peace and plenty reign.</p>
+
+<p>Hesper to this return'd him no reply,<br />
+But raised new visions to his roving eye.<br />
+He saw broad Delaware the shores divide,<br />
+He saw majestic Hudson pour his tide;<br />
+Thy stream, my Hartford, thro its misty robe,<br />
+Play'd in the sunbeams, belting far the globe;<br />
+No watery glades thro richer vallies shine,<br />
+Nor drinks the sea a lovelier wave than thine.</p>
+
+<p>Mystick and Charles refresh their seaward isles,<br />
+And gay Piscateway pays his passing smiles;<br />
+Swift Kenebec, high bursting from his lakes,<br />
+Shoots down the hillsides thro the clouds he makes;<br />
+And hoarse resounding, gulphing wide the shore,<br />
+Dread Laurence labors with tremendous roar;<br />
+Laurence, great son of Ocean! lorn he lies,<br />
+And braves the blasts of hyperborean skies.<br />
+Where hoary winter holds his howling reign,<br />
+And April flings her timid showers in vain,<br />
+Groans the choked Flood, in frozen fetters bound,<br />
+And isles of ice his angry front surround.</p>
+
+<p>As old Enceladus, in durance vile,<br />
+Spreads his huge length beneath Sicilia's isle,<br />
+Feels mountains, crush'd by mountains, on him prest,<br />
+Close not his veins, nor still his laboring breast;<br />
+His limbs convulse, his heart rebellious rolls,<br />
+Earth shakes responsive to her utmost poles,<br />
+While rumbling, bursting, boils his ceaseless ire,<br />
+Flames to mid heaven, and sets the skies on fire.<br />
+So the contristed Laurence lays him low,<br />
+And hills of sleet and continents of snow<br />
+Rise on his crystal breast; his heaving sides<br />
+Crash with the weight, and pour their gushing tides,<br />
+Asouth, whence all his hundred branches bend,<br />
+Relenting airs with boreal blasts contend;<br />
+Far in his vast extremes he swells and thaws,<br />
+And seas foam wide between his ice-bound jaws.<br />
+Indignant Frost, to hold his captive, plies<br />
+His hosted fiends that vex the polar skies,<br />
+Unlocks his magazines of nitric stores,<br />
+Azotic charms and muriatic powers;<br />
+Hail, with its glassy globes, and brume congeal'd,<br />
+Rime's fleecy flakes, and storm that heaps the field<br />
+Strike thro the sullen Stream with numbing force,<br />
+Obstruct his sluices and impede his course.<br />
+In vain he strives; his might interior fails;<br />
+Nor spring's approach, nor earth's whole heat avails;<br />
+He calls his hoary Sire; old Ocean roars<br />
+Responsive echoes thro the Shetland shores.<br />
+He comes, the Father! from his bleak domains,<br />
+To break with liquid arms the sounding chains;<br />
+Clothed in white majesty, he leads from far<br />
+His tides high foaming to the wintry war.<br />
+Billows on billows lift the maddening brine,<br />
+And seas and clouds in battling conflict join,<br />
+O'erturn the vast gulph glade with rending sweep,<br />
+And crash the crust that bridged the boiling deep;<br />
+Till forced aloft, bright bounding thro the air,<br />
+Moves the blear ice, and sheds a dazzling glare;<br />
+The torn foundations on the surface ride,<br />
+And wrecks of winter load the downward tide.</p>
+
+<p>The loosen'd ice-isles o'er the main advance,<br />
+Toss on the surge, and thro the concave dance;<br />
+Whirl'd high, conjoin'd, in crystal mountains driven,<br />
+Alp over Alp, they build a midway heaven;<br />
+Whose million mirrors mock the solar ray,<br />
+And give condensed the tenfold glare of day.<br />
+As tow'rd the south the mass enormous glides.<br />
+And brineless rivers furrow down its sides;<br />
+The thirsty sailor steals a glad supply,<br />
+And sultry trade winds quaff the boreal sky.</p>
+
+<p>But oft insidious death, with mist o'erstrown,<br />
+Rides the dark ocean on this icy throne;<br />
+When ships thro vernal seas with light airs steer<br />
+Their midnight march, and deem no danger near.<br />
+The steerman gaily helms his course along,<br />
+And laughs and listens to the watchman's song,<br />
+Who walks the deck, enjoys the murky fog,<br />
+Sure of his chart, his magnet and his log;<br />
+Their shipmates dreaming, while their slumbers last,<br />
+Of joys to come, of toils and dangers past.<br />
+Sudden a chilling blast comes roaring thro<br />
+The trembling shrouds, and startles all the crew;<br />
+They spring to quarters, and perceive too late<br />
+The mount of death, the giant strides of fate.<br />
+The fullsail'd ship, with instantaneous shock,<br />
+Dash'd into fragments by the floating rock,<br />
+Plunges beneath its basement thro the wave,<br />
+And crew and cargo glut the watery grave.</p>
+
+<p>Say, Palfrey, brave good man, was this thy doom?<br />
+Dwells here the secret of thy midsea tomb?<br />
+But, Susan, why that tear? my lovely friend,<br />
+Regret may last, but grief should have an end.<br />
+An infant then, thy memory scarce can trace<br />
+The lines, tho sacred, of thy father's face;<br />
+A generous spouse has well replaced the sire;<br />
+New duties hence new sentiments require.</p>
+
+<p>Now where the lakes, those midland oceans, lie,<br />
+Columbus turn'd his heaven-illumined eye.<br />
+Ontario's banks, unable to retain<br />
+The five great Caspians from the distant main,<br />
+Burst with the ponderous mass, and forceful whirl'd<br />
+His Laurence forth, to balance thus the world.<br />
+Above, bold Erie's wave sublimely stood,<br />
+Look'd o'er the cliff, and heaved his headlong flood;<br />
+Where dread Niagara bluffs high his brow,<br />
+And frowns defiance to the world below.<br />
+White clouds of mist expanding o'er him play,<br />
+That tinge their skirts in all the beams of day;<br />
+Pleased Iris wantons in perpetual pride,<br />
+And bends her rainbows o'er the dashing tide.<br />
+Far glimmering in the north, bleak Huron runs,<br />
+Clear Michigan reflects a thousand suns,<br />
+And bason'd high, on earth's broad bosom gay,<br />
+The bright Superior silvers down the day.</p>
+
+<p>Blue mounds beyond them far in ether fade,<br />
+Deep groves between them cast a solemn shade,<br />
+Slow moves their settling mist in lurid streams,<br />
+And dusky radiance streaks the solar beams.<br />
+Fixt on the view the great discoverer stood,<br />
+And thus addrest the messenger of good:<br />
+But why these seats, that seem reserved to grace<br />
+The social toils of some illustrious race,<br />
+Why spread so wide and form'd so fair in vain?<br />
+And why so distant rolls the bounteous main?<br />
+These happy regions must forever rest,<br />
+Of man unseen, by native beasts possest;<br />
+And the best heritage my sons could boast<br />
+Illude their search in far dim deserts lost,<br />
+For see, no ship can point her pendants here,<br />
+No stream conducts nor ocean wanders near;<br />
+Frost, crags and cataracts their north invest,<br />
+And the tired sun scarce finds their bounds awest.</p>
+
+<p>To whom the Seraph: Here indeed retires<br />
+The happiest land that feels my fostering fires;<br />
+Here too shall numerous nations found their seat,<br />
+And peace and freedom bless the kind retreat.<br />
+Led by this arm thy sons shall hither come,<br />
+And streams obedient yield the heroes room,<br />
+Spread a broad passage to their well known main,<br />
+Nor sluice their lakes, nor form their soils in vain.</p>
+
+<p>Here my bold Missisippi bends his way,<br />
+Scorns the dim bounds of yon bleak boreal day,<br />
+And calls from western heavens, to feed his stream,<br />
+The rains and floods that Asian seas might claim.<br />
+Strong in his march, and charged with all the fates<br />
+Of regions pregnant with a hundred states.<br />
+He holds in balance, ranged on either hand,<br />
+Two distant oceans and their sundering land;<br />
+Commands and drains the interior tracts that lie<br />
+Outmeasuring Europe's total breadth of sky.</p>
+
+<p>High in the north his parent fountains wed,<br />
+And oozing urns adorn his infant head;<br />
+In vain proud Frost his nursing lakes would close,<br />
+And choke his channel with perennial snows;<br />
+From all their slopes he curves his countless rills,<br />
+Sweeps their long marshes, saps their settling hills;<br />
+Then stretching, straighteningsouth, he gaily gleams,<br />
+Swells thro the climes, and swallows all their streams;<br />
+From zone to zone, o'er earth's broad surface curl'd,<br />
+He cleaves his course, he furrows half the world,<br />
+Now roaring wild thro bursting mountains driven,<br />
+Now calm reflecting all the host of heaven;<br />
+Where Cynthia pausing, her own face admires,<br />
+And suns and stars repeat their dancing fires.<br />
+Wide o'er his meadowy lawns he spreads and feeds<br />
+His realms of canes, his waving world of reeds;<br />
+Where mammoth grazed the renovating groves,<br />
+Slaked his huge thirst, and chill'd his fruitless loves;<br />
+Where elks, rejoicing o'er the extinguished race,<br />
+By myriads rise to fill the vacant space.<br />
+Earth's widest gulph expands to meet his wave,<br />
+Vast isles of ocean in his current lave;<br />
+Glad Thetis greets him from his finish'd course,<br />
+And bathes her Nereids in his freshening source.</p>
+
+<p>To his broad bed their tributary stores<br />
+Wisconsin here, there lonely Peter pours;<br />
+Croix, from the northeast wilds his channel fills,<br />
+Ohio, gather'd from his myriad hills,<br />
+Yazoo and Black, surcharged by Georgian springs,<br />
+Rich Illinois his copious treasure brings;<br />
+Arkansa, measuring back the sun's long course,<br />
+Moine, Francis, Rouge augment the father's force.<br />
+But chief of all his family of floods<br />
+Missouri marches thro his world of woods;<br />
+He scorns to mingle with the filial train,<br />
+Takes every course to reach alone the main;<br />
+Orient awhile his bending swreep he tries,<br />
+Now drains the southern, now the northern skies,<br />
+Searches and sunders far the globe's vast frame,<br />
+Reluctant joins the sire, and takes at last his name.</p>
+
+<p>There lies the path thy future sons shall trace,<br />
+Plant here their arts, and rear their vigorous race:<br />
+A race predestined, in these choice abodes,<br />
+To teach mankind to tame their fluvial floods,<br />
+Retain from ocean, as their work requires,<br />
+These great auxiliars, raised by solar fires,<br />
+Force them to form ten thousand roads, and girth<br />
+With liquid belts each verdant mound of earth,<br />
+To aid the colon's as the carrier's toil,<br />
+To drive the coulter, and to fat the soil,<br />
+Learn all mechanic arts, and oft regain<br />
+Their native hills in vapor and in rain.</p>
+
+<p>So taught the Saint. The regions nearer drew,<br />
+And raised resplendent to their Hero's view<br />
+Rich nature's triple reign; for here elate<br />
+She stored the noblest treasures of her state,<br />
+Adorn'd exuberant this her last domain,<br />
+As yet unalter'd by her mimic man,<br />
+Sow'd liveliest gems, and plants of proudest grace,<br />
+And strung with strongest nerves her animated race.</p>
+
+<p>Retiring far round Hudson's frozen bay,<br />
+Earth's lessening circles shrink beyond the day;<br />
+Snows ever rising with the toils of time<br />
+Choke the chill shrubs that brave the dismal clime;<br />
+The beasts all whitening roam the lifeless plain,<br />
+And caves unfrequent scoop the couch for man.</p>
+
+<p>Where Spring's coy steps in cold Canadia stray,<br />
+And joyless seasons hold unequal sway,<br />
+He saw the pine its daring mantle rear,<br />
+Break the rude blast, and mock the brumal year,<br />
+Shag the green zone that bounds the boreal skies,<br />
+And bid all southern vegetation rise.<br />
+Wild o'er the vast impenetrable round<br />
+The untrod bowers of shadowy nature frown'd;<br />
+Millennial cedars wave their honors wide,<br />
+The fir's tall boughs, the oak's umbrageous pride,<br />
+The branching beech, the aspen's trembling shade<br />
+Veil the dim heaven, and brown the dusky glade.<br />
+For in dense crowds these sturdy sons of earth,<br />
+In frosty regions, claim a stronger birth;<br />
+Where heavy beams the sheltering dome requires,<br />
+And copious trunks to feed its wintry fires.</p>
+
+<p>But warmer suns, that southern zones emblaze,<br />
+A cool thin umbrage o'er their woodland raise;<br />
+Floridia's shores their blooms around him spread.<br />
+And Georgian hills erect their shady head;<br />
+Whose flowery shrubs regale the passing air<br />
+With all the untasted fragrance of the year.<br />
+Beneath tall trees, dispersed in loose array,<br />
+The rice-grown lawns their humble garb display;<br />
+The infant maize, unconscious of its worth,<br />
+Points the green spire and bends the foliage forth;<br />
+In various forms unbidden harvests rise,<br />
+And blooming life repays the genial skies.</p>
+
+<p>Where Mexic hills the breezy gulph defend,<br />
+Spontaneous groves with richer burdens bend.<br />
+Anana's stalk its shaggy honors yields,<br />
+Acassia's flowers perfume a thousand fields,<br />
+Their cluster'd dates the mast-like palms unfold,<br />
+The spreading orange waves a load of gold,<br />
+Connubial vines o'ertop the larch they climb,<br />
+The long-lived olive mocks the moth of time,<br />
+Pomona's pride, that old Grenada claims,<br />
+Here smiles and reddens in diviner flames;<br />
+Pimento, citron scent the sky serene,<br />
+White woolly clusters fringe the cotton's green,<br />
+The sturdy fig, the frail deciduous cane<br />
+And foodful cocoa fan the sultry plain.</p>
+
+<p>Here, in one view, the same glad branches bring<br />
+The fruits of autumn and the flowers of spring;<br />
+No wintry blasts the unchanging year deform,<br />
+Nor beasts unshelter'd fear the pinching storm;<br />
+But vernal breezes o'er the blossoms rove,<br />
+And breathe the ripen'd juices thro the grove.</p>
+
+<p>Beneath the crystal wave's inconstant light<br />
+Pearls burst their shells to greet the Hero's sight;<br />
+From opening earth in living lustre shine<br />
+The various treasures of the blazing mine;<br />
+Hills cleft before him all their stores unfold,<br />
+The pale platina and the burning gold;<br />
+Silver whole mounds, and gems of dazzling ray<br />
+Illume the rocks and shed the beams of day.</p>
+
+
+
+<h1>Book II</h1>.
+
+
+
+<h3>Argument.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="arg">
+    Natives of America appear in vision. Their manners and characters.
+    Columbus demands the cause of the dissimilarity of men in different
+    countries, Hesper replies, That the human body is composed of a due
+    proportion of the elements suited to the place of its first formation;
+    that these elements, differently proportioned, produce all the changes
+    of health, sickness, growth and decay; and may likewise produce any
+    other changes which occasion the diversity of men; that these elemental
+    proportions are varied, not more by climate than temperature and other
+    local circumstances; that the mind is likewise in a state of change,
+    and will take its physical character from the body and from external
+    objects: examples. Inquiry concerning the first peopling of America.
+    View of Mexico. Its destruction by Cortez. View of Cusco and Quito,
+    cities of Peru. Tradition of Capac and Oella, founders of the Peruvian
+    empire. Columbus inquires into their real history. Hesper gives an
+    account of their origin, and relates the stratagems they used in
+    establishing that empire. </p>
+
+
+<p>High o'er his world as thus Columbus gazed,<br />
+And Hesper still the changing scene emblazed,<br />
+Round all the realms increasing lustre flew,<br />
+And raised new wonders to the Patriarch's view.</p>
+
+<p>He saw at once, as far as eye could rove,<br />
+Like scattering herds, the swarthy people move<br />
+In tribes innumerable; all the waste,<br />
+Wide as their walks, a varying shadow cast.<br />
+As airy shapes, beneath the moon's pale eye,<br />
+People the clouds that sail the midnight sky,<br />
+Dance thro the grove and flit along the glade,<br />
+And cast their grisly phantoms on the shade;<br />
+So move the hordes, in thickets half conceal'd,<br />
+Or vagrant stalking thro the fenceless field,<br />
+Here tribes untamed, who scorn to fix their home,<br />
+O'er shadowy streams and trackless deserts roam;<br />
+While others there in settled hamlets rest,<br />
+And corn-clad vales a happier state attest.</p>
+
+<p>The painted chiefs, in guise terrific drest,<br />
+Rise fierce to war, and beat their savage breast;<br />
+Dark round their steps collecting warriors pour,<br />
+Some fell revenge begins the hideous roar;<br />
+From hill to hill the startling war-song flies,<br />
+And tribes on tribes in dread disorder rise,<br />
+Track the mute foe and scour the howling wood,<br />
+Loud as a storm, ungovern'd as a flood;<br />
+Or deep in groves the silent ambush lay,<br />
+Lead the false flight, decoy and seize their prey,<br />
+Their captives torture, butcher and devour,<br />
+Drink the warm blood and paint their cheeks with gore.</p>
+
+<p>Awhile he paused, with dubious thoughts opprest,<br />
+And thus to Hesper's ear his doubts addrest:<br />
+Say, to what class of nature's sons belong<br />
+The countless tribes of this untutor'd throng?<br />
+Where human frames and brutal souls combine,<br />
+No force can tame them, and no arts refine.<br />
+Can these be fashion'd on the social plan,<br />
+Or boast a lineage with the race of man?<br />
+When first we found them in yon hapless isle,<br />
+They seem'd to know and seem'd to fear no guile;<br />
+A timorous herd, like harmless roes, they ran,<br />
+And call'd us Gods, from whom their tribes began.<br />
+But when, their fears allay'd, in us they trace<br />
+The well-known image of a mortal race,<br />
+When Spanish blood their wondering eyes beheld,<br />
+A frantic rage their changing bosoms swell'd;<br />
+They roused their bands from numerous hills afar,<br />
+To feast their souls on ruin, waste and war.<br />
+Nor plighted vows nor sure defeat control<br />
+The same indignant savageness of soul.</p>
+
+<p>Tell then, my Seer, from what dire sons of earth<br />
+The brutal people drew their ancient birth;<br />
+If these forgotten shores and useless tides<br />
+Have form'd them different from the world besides,<br />
+Born to subjection, when in happier time<br />
+A nobler race should reach their fruitful clime;<br />
+Or, if a common source all nations claim,<br />
+Their lineage, form and faculties the same,<br />
+What sovereign secret cause, yet undisplay'd,<br />
+This wondrous change in nature's work has made;<br />
+Why various powers of soul and tints of face<br />
+In different lands diversify the race;<br />
+To whom the Guide: Unnumbered causes lie,<br />
+In earth and sea, in climate, soil and sky,<br />
+That fire the soul, or damp the genial flame,<br />
+And work their wonders on the human frame.<br />
+See beauty, form and color change with place;<br />
+Here charms of health the lively visage grace;<br />
+There pale diseases float in every wind,<br />
+Deform the figure, and degrade the mind.</p>
+
+<p>From earth's own elements thy race at first<br />
+Rose into life, the children of the dust;<br />
+These kindred elements, by various use,<br />
+Nourish the growth and every change produce;<br />
+In each ascending stage the man sustain,<br />
+His breath, his food, his physic and his bane.<br />
+In due proportions where these atoms lie,<br />
+A certain form their equal aids supply;<br />
+And while unchanged the efficient causes reign,<br />
+Age following age the certain form maintain.<br />
+But where crude atoms disproportion'd rise,<br />
+And cast their sickening vapors round the skies,<br />
+Unlike that harmony of human frame,<br />
+That moulded first and reproduce the same,<br />
+The tribes ill form'd, attempering to the clime,<br />
+Still vary downward with the years of time;<br />
+More perfect some, and some less perfect yield<br />
+Their reproductions in this wondrous field;<br />
+Till fixt at last their characters abide,<br />
+And local likeness feeds their local pride.<br />
+The soul too, varying with the change of clime,<br />
+Feeble or fierce, or groveling or sublime,<br />
+Forms with the body to a kindred plan,<br />
+And lives the same, a nation or a man.</p>
+
+<p>Yet think not clime alone the tint controls,<br />
+On every shore, by altitude of poles;<br />
+A different cast the glowing zone demands,<br />
+In Paria's groves, from Tombut's burning sands,<br />
+Unheeded agents, for the sense too fine,<br />
+With every pulse, with every thought combine,<br />
+Thro air and ocean, with their changes run,<br />
+Breathe from the ground, or circle with the sun.<br />
+Where these long continents their shores outspread,<br />
+See the same form all different tribes pervade;<br />
+Thro all alike the fertile forests bloom,<br />
+And all, uncultured, shed a solemn gloom;<br />
+Thro all great nature's boldest features rise,<br />
+Sink into vales or tower amid the skies;<br />
+Streams darkly winding stretch a broader sway,<br />
+The groves and mountains bolder walks display;<br />
+A dread sublimity informs the whole,<br />
+And rears a dread sublimity of soul.</p>
+
+<p>Yet time and art shall other changes find,<br />
+And open still and vary still the mind.<br />
+The countless clans that tread these dank abodes,<br />
+Who glean spontaneous fruits and range the woods,<br />
+Fixt here for ages, in their swarthy face<br />
+Display the wild complexion of the place.<br />
+Yet when the hordes to happy nations rise,<br />
+And earth By culture warms the genial skies,<br />
+A fairer tint and more majestic grace<br />
+Shall flush their features and exalt the race;<br />
+While milder arts, with social joys refined,<br />
+Inspire new beauties in the growing mind.</p>
+
+<p>Thy followers too, old Europe's noblest pride,<br />
+When future gales shall wing them o'er the tide,<br />
+A ruddier hue and deeper shade shall gain,<br />
+And stalk, in statelier figures, on the plain.<br />
+While nature's grandeur lifts the eye abroad<br />
+O'er these last labors of the forming God,<br />
+Wing'd on a wider glance the venturous soul<br />
+Bids greater powers and bolder thoughts unrol;<br />
+The sage, the chief, the patriot unconfined,<br />
+Shield the weak world and meliorate mankind.<br />
+But think not thou, in all the range of man,<br />
+That different pairs each different cast began;<br />
+Or tribes distinct, by signal marks confest,<br />
+Were born to serve or subjugate the rest.</p>
+
+<p>The Hero heard, and thus resumed the strain:<br />
+Who led these wanderers o'er the dreary main?<br />
+Could their weak sires, unskill'd in human lore,<br />
+Build the bold bark, to seek an unknown shore?<br />
+A shore so distant from the world beside,<br />
+So dark the tempests, and so wild the tide,<br />
+That Greece and Tyre, and all who tempt the sea,<br />
+Have shunn'd the task, and left the fame to me.</p>
+
+<p>When first thy roving race, the Power replied,<br />
+Learn'd by the stars the devious sail to guide,<br />
+From stormy Hellespont explored the way,<br />
+And sought the limits of the Midland sea;<br />
+Before Alcides form'd his impious plan<br />
+To check the sail, and bound the steps of man,<br />
+This hand had led them to this rich abode,<br />
+And braved the wrath of that strong demigod.</p>
+
+<p>Driven from the Calpian strait, a hapless train<br />
+Roll'd on the waves that sweep the western main;<br />
+Storms from the orient bhcken'd heaven with shade,<br />
+Nor sun nor stars could yield their wonted aid.<br />
+For many a darksome day o'erwhelm'd and tost,<br />
+Their sails, their oars in swallowing surges lost,<br />
+At length, the clouds withdrawn, they sad descry<br />
+Their course directing from their native sky.<br />
+No hope remains; far onward o'er the zone<br />
+The trade wind bears them with the circling sun;<br />
+Till wreck'd and stranded here, the sylvan coast<br />
+Receives to lonely seats the suffering host.<br />
+The fruitful vales invite their steps to roam,<br />
+Renounce their sorrows and forget their home;<br />
+Revolving years their ceaseless wanderings led,<br />
+And from their sons descending nations spread.</p>
+
+<p>These in the torrid tracts began their sway,<br />
+Whose cultured fields their growing arts display;<br />
+The northern tribes a later stock may boast,<br />
+A race descended from the Asian coast.<br />
+High in the Arctic, where Anadir glides,<br />
+A narrow strait the impinging worlds divides;<br />
+There Tartar fugitives from famine sail,<br />
+And migrant tribes these fruitful shorelands hail.</p>
+
+<p>He spoke; when Behren's pass before them lay,<br />
+And moving nations on the margin stray,<br />
+Thick swarming, venturous; sail and oar they ply,<br />
+Climb on the surge and o'er the billows fly.<br />
+As when autumnal storms awake their force.<br />
+The storks foreboding tempt their southern course;<br />
+From all the fields collecting throngs arise,<br />
+Mount on the wing and crowd along the skies:<br />
+Thus, to his eye, from bleak Tartaria's shore,<br />
+Thro isles and seas, the gathering people pour,<br />
+Change their cold regions for a happier strand,<br />
+Leap from the wave and tread the welcome land;<br />
+In growing tribes extend their southern sway,<br />
+And wander wide beneath a warmer day.</p>
+
+<p>But why, the Chief replied, if ages past<br />
+Led the bold vagrants to so mild a waste;<br />
+If human souls, for social compact given,<br />
+Inform their nature with the stamp of heaven.<br />
+Why the wild woods for ever must they rove,<br />
+Nor arts nor social joys their passions move?<br />
+Long is the lapse of ages, since thy hand<br />
+Conducted here thy first adventurous band.<br />
+On other shores, in every eastern clime,<br />
+Since that unletter'd, distant tract of time,<br />
+What arts have sprung, imperial powers to grace!<br />
+What sceptres sway'd the many-master'd race!<br />
+Guilt, grandeur, glory from their seats been hurl'd,<br />
+And dire divulsions shook the changing world!</p>
+
+<p>Ere Rome's first Eagle clave the frighted air,<br />
+Ere Sparta form'd her deathlike sons of war,<br />
+Ere Tyre and Ilion saw their towers arise,<br />
+Or Memphian pyramids usurp'd the skies,<br />
+These tribes have forester'd the fruitful zone,<br />
+Their seats unsettled, and their name unknown.</p>
+
+<p>Hesper to this replied: A scanty train,<br />
+In that far age, approach'd the wide domain;<br />
+The wide domain, with game and fruitage crown'd,<br />
+Supplied their food uncultured from the ground.<br />
+By nature form'd to rove, the humankind,<br />
+Of freedom fond, will ramble unconfined,<br />
+Till all the region fills, and rival right<br />
+Restrains their steps, and bids their force unite;<br />
+When common safety builds a common cause,<br />
+Conforms their interest and inspires their laws;<br />
+By mutual checks their different manners blend,<br />
+Their fields bloom joyous, and their walls ascend.<br />
+Here to the vagrant tribes no bounds arose,<br />
+They form'd no union, as they fear'd no foes;<br />
+Wandering and wild, from sire to son they stray,<br />
+A thousand ages, scorning every sway.<br />
+And what a world their seatless nations led!<br />
+A total hemisphere around them spread;<br />
+See the lands lengthen, see the rivers roll,<br />
+To each far main, to each extended pole!</p>
+
+<p>But lo, at last the destined course is run,<br />
+The realms are peopled and their arts begun.<br />
+Where yon mid region elevated lies,<br />
+A few famed cities glitter to the skies;<br />
+There move, in eastern pomp, the toils of state,<br />
+And temples heave, magnificently great.</p>
+
+<p>The Hero turn'd to greet the novel sight;<br />
+When three far splendors, yet confusedly bright,<br />
+Rose like a constellation; till more near,<br />
+Distinctly mark'd their different sites appear;<br />
+Diverging still, beneath their roofs of gold,<br />
+Three cities gay their mural towers unfold.<br />
+So, led by visions of his guiding God,<br />
+The seer of Patmos o'er the welkin trod,<br />
+Saw the new heaven its flamy cope unbend,<br />
+And walls and gates and spiry domes descend;<br />
+His well known sacred city grows, and gains<br />
+Her new built towers, her renovated fanes;<br />
+With golden skies and suns and rainbows crown'd,<br />
+Jerusalem looks forth and lights the world around.</p>
+
+<p>Bright on the north imperial Mexic rose;<br />
+A mimic morn her sparkling vanes disclose,<br />
+Her opening streets concentred hues display,<br />
+Give back the sun, and shed internal day;<br />
+The circling wall with guardian turrets frown'd,<br />
+And look'd defiance to the realms around;<br />
+A glimmering lake without the wall retires,<br />
+Inverts the towers, and seems a grove of spires.</p>
+
+<p>Proud o'er the midst, on columns lifted high,<br />
+A giant structure claims a loftier sky;<br />
+O'er the tall gates sublimer arches bend,<br />
+Courts larger lengthen, bolder walks ascend,<br />
+Starr'd with superior gems the porches shine,<br />
+And speak the royal residence writhin.<br />
+There, deck'd in state robes, on his golden throne,<br />
+Mid suppliant kings, dread Montezuma shone;<br />
+Mild in his eye a temper'd grandeur sate,<br />
+High seem'd his soul, with conscious power elate;<br />
+In aspect open, social and serene,<br />
+Enclosed by favorites, and of friends unseen.</p>
+
+<p>Round the rich throne, in various lustre dight,<br />
+Gems undistinguished cast a changing light;<br />
+Sapphire and emerald soften down the scene,<br />
+Cold azure mingling with the vernal green,<br />
+Pearl, amber, ruby warmer flames unfold,<br />
+And diamonds brighten from the burning gold;<br />
+Thro all the dome the living blazes blend,<br />
+And shoot their rainbows where the arches bend.<br />
+On every ceiling, painted light and gay,<br />
+Symbolic forms their graphic art display;<br />
+Recording, confident of endless fame,<br />
+Each feat of arms, each patriarchal name;<br />
+Like Memphian hieroglyphs, to stretch the span<br />
+Of memory frail in momentary man.</p>
+
+<p>Pour'd thro the gates a hundred nations greet,<br />
+Throng the rich mart and line each ample street,<br />
+Ply different labors, walls and structures rear,<br />
+Or till the fields, or train the ranks of war.<br />
+Thro spreading states the skirts of empire bend,<br />
+New temples rise and other plains extend;<br />
+Thrice ten wide provinces, in culture gay,<br />
+Bless the same king, and daily firm the sway.</p>
+
+<p>A smile benignant kindling in his eyes,<br />
+O happy realm! the glad Columbus cries,<br />
+Far in the midland, safe from every foe,<br />
+Thy arts shall flourish as thy virtues grow,<br />
+To endless years thy rising fame extend,<br />
+And sires of nations from thy sons descend.<br />
+May no gold-thirsty race thy temples tread,<br />
+Insult thy rites, nor heap thy plains with dead;<br />
+No Bovadilla seize the tempting spoil,<br />
+No dark Ovando, no religious Boyle,<br />
+In mimic priesthood grave, or robed in state,<br />
+Overwhelm thy glories in oblivious fate!</p>
+
+<p>Vain are thy hopes, the sainted Power replied,<br />
+These rich abodes from Spanish hordes to hide,<br />
+Or teach hard guilt and cruelty to spare<br />
+The guardless prize of sacrilegious war.<br />
+Think not the vulture, mid the field of slain,<br />
+Where base and brave promiscuous strow the plain,<br />
+Where the young hero in the pride of charms<br />
+Pours brighter crimson o'er his spotless arms,<br />
+Will pass the tempting prey, and glut his rage<br />
+On harder flesh, and carnage black with age;<br />
+O'er all alike he darts his eager eye,<br />
+Whets the blunt beak and hovers down the sky,<br />
+From countless corses picks the dainty food,<br />
+And screams and fattens in the purest blood.<br />
+So the vile hosts, that hither trace thy way,<br />
+On happiest tribes with fiercest fury prey.<br />
+Thine the dread task, O Cortez, here to show<br />
+What unknown crimes can heighten human woe,<br />
+On these fair fields the blood of realms to pour,<br />
+Tread sceptres down, and print thy steps in gore,<br />
+With gold and carnage swell thy sateless mind,<br />
+And live and die the blackest of mankind.</p>
+
+<p>He gains the shore. Behold his fortress rise,<br />
+His fleet high flaming suffocates the skies.<br />
+The march begins; the nations in affright<br />
+Quake as he moves, and wage the fruitless fight;<br />
+Thro the rich provinces he bends his way,<br />
+Kings in his chain, and kingdoms for his prey;<br />
+Full on the imperial town infuriate falls,<br />
+And pours destruction o'er its batter'd walls.</p>
+
+<p>In quest of peace great Montezuma stands,<br />
+A sovereign supplicant with lifted hands,<br />
+Brings all his treasure, yields the regal sway,<br />
+Bids vassal millions their new lord obey;<br />
+And plies the victor with incessant prayer,<br />
+Thro ravaged realms the harmless race to spare.<br />
+But treasures, tears and sceptres plead in vain,<br />
+Nor threats can move him, nor a world restrain;<br />
+While blind religion's prostituted name<br />
+And monkish fury guide the sacred flame.<br />
+O'er crowded fanes their fires unhallow'd bend,<br />
+Climb the wide roofs, the lofty towers ascend,<br />
+Pour thro the lowering skies the smoky flood,<br />
+And stain the fields, and quench the blaze in blood.</p>
+
+<p>Columbus heard; and, with a heaving sigh,<br />
+Dropt the full tear that started in his eye:<br />
+O hapless day! his trembling voice replied,<br />
+That saw my wandering pennon mount the tide.<br />
+Had but the lamp of heaven to that bold sail<br />
+Ne'er mark'd the passage nor awoke the gale,<br />
+Taught foreign prows these peopled shores to find,<br />
+Nor led those tigers forth to fang mankind;<br />
+Then had the tribes beneath these bounteous skies<br />
+Seen their walls widen and their harvests rise;<br />
+Down the long tracts of time their glory shone,<br />
+Broad as the day and lasting as the sun.<br />
+The growing realms, behind thy shield that rest,<br />
+Paternal monarch, still thy power had blest,<br />
+Enjoy'd the pleasures that surround thy throne,<br />
+Survey'd thy virtues and improved their own.</p>
+
+<p>Forgive me, prince; this luckless arm hath led<br />
+The storm unseen that hovers o'er thy head;<br />
+Taught the dark sons of slaughter where to roam,<br />
+To seize thy crown and seal the nation's doom.<br />
+Arm, sleeping empire, meet the murderous band,<br />
+Drive back the invaders, save the sinking land.--<br />
+But vain the call! behold the streaming blood!<br />
+Forgive me, Nature! and forgive me, God!</p>
+
+<p>While sorrows thus his patriarch pride control,<br />
+Hesper reproving sooths his tender soul:<br />
+Father of this new world, thy tears give o'er,<br />
+Let virtue grieve and heaven be blamed no more.<br />
+Enough for man, with persevering mind,<br />
+To act his part and strive to bless his kind;<br />
+Enough for thee, o'er thy dark age to soar,<br />
+And raise to light that long-secluded shore.<br />
+For this my guardian care thy youth inspired,<br />
+To virtue rear'd thee, and with glory fired,<br />
+Bade in thy plan each distant world unite,<br />
+And wing'd thy vessel for the venturous flight.</p>
+
+<p>Nor think the labors vain; to good they tend;<br />
+Tyrants like these shall ne'er defeat their end;<br />
+Their end that opens far beyond the scope<br />
+Of man's past efforts and his present hope.<br />
+Long has thy race, to narrow shores confined,<br />
+Trod the same round that fetter'd fast the mind;<br />
+Now, borne on bolder plumes, with happier flight,<br />
+The world's broad bounds unfolding to the sight,<br />
+The mind shall soar; the coming age expand<br />
+Their arts and lore to every barbarous land;<br />
+And buried gold, drawn copious from the mine,<br />
+Give wings to commerce and the world refine.</p>
+
+<p>Now to yon southern cities turn thy view,<br />
+And mark the rival seats of rich Peru.<br />
+See Quito's airy plains, exalted high,<br />
+With loftier temples rise along the sky;<br />
+And elder Cusco's shining roofs unfold,<br />
+Flame on the day, and shed their suns of gold.<br />
+Another range, in these pacific climes,<br />
+Spreads a broad theatre for unborn crimes;<br />
+Another Cortez shall their treasures view,<br />
+His rage rekindle and his guilt renew;<br />
+His treason, fraud, and every fell design,<br />
+O curst Pizarro, shall revive in thine.</p>
+
+<p>Here reigns a prince, whose heritage proclaims<br />
+A long bright lineage of imperial names;<br />
+Where the brave roll of Incas love to trace<br />
+The distant father of their realm and race,<br />
+Immortal Capac. He, in youthful pride,<br />
+With young Oella his illustrious bride,<br />
+Announced their birth divine; a race begun<br />
+From heaven, the children of their God the Sun;<br />
+By him sent forth a polish'd state to frame,<br />
+Crush the fiend Gods that human victims claim,<br />
+With cheerful rites their pure devotions pay<br />
+To the bright orb that gives the changing day.</p>
+
+<p>On this great plan, as children of the skies,<br />
+They plied their arts and saw their hamlets rise.<br />
+First of their works, and sacred to their fame.<br />
+Yon proud metropolis received its name,<br />
+Cusco the seat of states, in peace design'd<br />
+To reach o'er earth, and civilize mankind.<br />
+Succeeding sovereigns spread their limits far,<br />
+Tamed every tribe, and sooth'd the rage of war;<br />
+Till Quito bow'd; and all the heliac zone<br />
+Felt the same sceptre, and confirm'd the throne.</p>
+
+<p>Near Cusco's walls, where still their hallow'd isle<br />
+Bathes in its lake and wears its verdant smile,<br />
+Where these prime parents of the sceptred line<br />
+Their advent made, and spoke their birth divine,<br />
+Behold their temple stand; its glittering spires<br />
+Light the glad waves and aid their father's fires.<br />
+Arch'd in the walls of gold, its portal gleams<br />
+With various gems of intermingling beams;<br />
+And flaming from the front, with borrow'd ray,<br />
+A diamond circlet gives the rival day;<br />
+In whose bright face forever looks abroad<br />
+The labor'd image of the radiant God.<br />
+There dwells the royal priest, whose inner shrine<br />
+Conceals his lore; tis there his voice divine<br />
+Proclaims the laws; and there a cloister'd quire<br />
+Of holy virgins keep the sacred fire.</p>
+
+<p>Columbus heard; and curious to be taught<br />
+What pious fraud such wondrous changes wrought,<br />
+Ask'd by what mystic charm, in that dark age,<br />
+They quell'd in savage souls the barbarous rage,<br />
+By leagues of peace combined a wide domain,<br />
+And taught the virtues in their laws to reign.</p>
+
+<p>Long is the tale; but tho their labors rest<br />
+By years obscured, in flowery fiction drest,<br />
+My voice, said Hesper, shall revive their name,<br />
+And give their merits to immortal fame.<br />
+Led by his father's wars, in early prime<br />
+Young Capac left his native northern clime;<br />
+The clime where Quito since hath rear'd her fanes,<br />
+And now no more her barbarous rites maintains.<br />
+He saw these vales in richer blooms array'd,<br />
+And tribes more numerous haunt the woodland shade,<br />
+Saw rival clans their local Gods adore,<br />
+Their altars staining with their children's gore,<br />
+Yet mark'd their reverence for the Sun, whose beam<br />
+Proclaims his bounties and his power supreme;<br />
+Who sails in happier skies, diffusing good,<br />
+Demands no victim and receives no blood.</p>
+
+<p>In peace return'd with his victorious sire,<br />
+New charms of glory all his soul inspire;<br />
+To conquer nations on a different plan,<br />
+And build his greatness on the good of man.</p>
+
+<p>By nature form'd for hardiest deeds of fame,<br />
+Tall, bold and full-proportion'd rose his frame;<br />
+Strong moved his limbs, a mild majestic grace<br />
+Beam'd from his eyes and open'd in his face;<br />
+O'er the dark world his mind superior shone,<br />
+And seem'd the semblance of his parent Sun.<br />
+But tho fame's airy visions lift his eyes,<br />
+And future empires from his labors rise;<br />
+Yet softer fires his daring views control,<br />
+And mixt emotions fill his changing soul.<br />
+Shall genius rare, that might the world improve,<br />
+Bend to the milder voice of careless love,<br />
+That bounds his glories, and forbids to part<br />
+From bowers that woo'd his fluctuating heart?<br />
+Or shall the toils imperial heroes claim<br />
+Fire his brave bosom with a patriot flame,<br />
+Bid sceptres wait him on Peruvia's shore,<br />
+And loved Oella meet his eyes no more?</p>
+
+<p>Still unresolved he sought the lonely maid,<br />
+Who plied her labors in the silvan shade;<br />
+Her locks loose rolling mantle deep her breast,<br />
+And wave luxuriant round her slender waist,<br />
+Gay wreaths of flowers her pensive brows adorn,<br />
+And her white raiment mocks the light of morn.<br />
+Her busy hand sustains a bending bough,<br />
+Where cotton clusters spread their robes of snow,<br />
+From opening pods unbinds the fleecy store,<br />
+And culls her labors for the evening bower.</p>
+
+<p>For she, the first in all Hesperia, fed<br />
+The turning spindle with the twisting thread;<br />
+The woof, the shuttle follow'd her command,<br />
+Till various garments grew beneath her hand.<br />
+And now, while all her thoughts with Capac rove<br />
+Thro former scenes of innocence and love,<br />
+In distant fight his fancied dangers share,<br />
+Or wait him glorious from the finish'd war;<br />
+Blest with the ardent hope, her sprightly mind<br />
+A vesture white had for the prince design'd;<br />
+And here she seeks the wool to web the fleece,<br />
+The sacred emblem of returning peace.</p>
+
+<p>Sudden his near approach the maid alarms;<br />
+He flew enraptured to her yielding arms,<br />
+And lost, dissolving in a softer flame,<br />
+His distant empire and the fire of fame.<br />
+At length, retiring thro the homeward field,<br />
+Their glowing souls to cooler converse yield;<br />
+O'er various scenes of blissful life they ran,<br />
+When thus the warrior to the maid began:</p>
+
+<p>Long have we mark'd the inauspicious reign<br />
+That waits our sceptre in this rough domain;<br />
+A soil ungrateful and a wayward race,<br />
+Their game but scanty, and confined their space.<br />
+Where late my steps the southern war pursued,<br />
+The fertile plains grew boundless as I view'd;<br />
+More numerous nations trod the grassy wild,<br />
+And joyous nature more delightful smiled.<br />
+No changing seasons there the flowers deform,<br />
+No dread volcano and no mountain storm;<br />
+Rains ne'er invade, nor livid lightnings play,<br />
+Nor clouds obscure the radiant King of day.<br />
+But while his orb, in ceaseless glory bright,<br />
+Rolls the rich day and fires his stars by night,<br />
+Unbounded fulness flows beneath his reign,<br />
+Seas yield their treasures, fruits adorn the plain;<br />
+His melting mountains spread their annual flood,<br />
+Night sheds her dews, the day-breeze fans the God.<br />
+Tis he inspires me with the vast design<br />
+To form those nations to a sway divine;<br />
+Destroy the rites of every demon Power,<br />
+Whose altars smoke with sacrilegious gore;<br />
+To laws and labor teach the tribes to yield,<br />
+And richer fruits to grace the cultured field.</p>
+
+<p>But great, my charmer, is the task of fame,<br />
+Their faith to fashion and their lives to tame;<br />
+Full many a spacious wild these eyes must see<br />
+Spread dreary bounds between my love and me;<br />
+And yon bright Godhead circle thrice the year,<br />
+Each lonely evening number'd with a tear.<br />
+Long robes of white my shoulders must embrace,<br />
+To speak my lineage of ethereal race;<br />
+That simple men may reverence and obey<br />
+The radiant offspring of the Power of day.</p>
+
+<p>When these my deeds the faith of nations gain,<br />
+And happy millions bless thy Capac's reign,<br />
+Then shall he feign a journey to the Sun,<br />
+To bring the partner of his well-earn'd throne;<br />
+So shall descending kings the line sustain,<br />
+Till earth's whole regions join the vast domain.</p>
+
+<p>Will then my fair, at my returning hour,<br />
+Forsake these wilds and hail a happier bower?<br />
+Will she consenting now resume her smiles,<br />
+Send forth her warrior to his glorious toils;<br />
+And, sweetly patient, wait the flight of days,<br />
+That crown our labors with immortal praise?</p>
+
+<p>Silent the damsel heard; her moistening eye<br />
+Spoke the full soul, nor could her voice reply;<br />
+Till softer accents sooth'd her wounded ear,<br />
+Composed her tumult and allay'd her fear:<br />
+Think not, heroic maid, my steps would part<br />
+While silent sorrows heave that tender heart.<br />
+Oella's peace more dear shall prove to me<br />
+Than all the realms that bound the raging sea;<br />
+Nor thou, bright Sun, shalt bribe my soul to rest,<br />
+And leave one struggle in her lovely breast.</p>
+
+<p>Yet think in tribes so vast, my gentle fair,<br />
+What millions merit our instructive care;<br />
+How age to age leads on their joyless gloom,<br />
+Habitual slaughter their poor piteous doom;<br />
+No social ties their wayward passions prove,<br />
+Nor peace nor pleasure treads the howling grove;<br />
+Mid thousand heroes and a thousand fair<br />
+No fond Oella meets her Capac there.<br />
+Yet, taught by thee domestic joys to prize,<br />
+With softer charms the virgin race shall rise,<br />
+Awake new virtues, every grace improve,<br />
+And form their minds for happiness and love.</p>
+
+<p>Ah think, as future years thro time descend,<br />
+What wide creations on thy voice depend;<br />
+And, like the Sun, whose all-delighting ray<br />
+To those mild regions gives his purest day,<br />
+Diffuse thy bounties, let me instant fly;<br />
+In three short moons the generous task I'll try;<br />
+Then swift returning, I'll conduct my fair<br />
+Where realms submissive wait her fostering care.</p>
+
+<p>And will my prince, my Capac, borne away,<br />
+Thro those dark wilds in quest of empire stray,<br />
+Where tigers fierce command the shuddering wood,<br />
+And men like tigers thirst for human blood?<br />
+Think'st thou no dangerous deed the course attends,<br />
+Alone, unaided by thy sire and friends?<br />
+Even chains and death may meet my hero there,<br />
+Nor his last groan could reach Oella's ear.</p>
+
+<p>But no! nor death nor chains shall Capac prove<br />
+Unknown to her, while she has power to rove.<br />
+Close by thy side, where'er thy wanderings stray,<br />
+My equal steps shall measure all the way;<br />
+With borrow'd soul each chance of fate I'll dare,<br />
+Thy toils to lessen and thy dangers share.<br />
+Quick shall my ready hand two garments weave,<br />
+Whose sunny whiteness shall the tribes deceive;<br />
+Thus clad, their homage shall secure our sway.<br />
+And hail us children of the God of day.</p>
+
+<p>The lovely counsel pleased. The smiling chief<br />
+Approved her courage and dispell'd her grief;<br />
+Then to their homely bower in haste they move.<br />
+Begin their labors and prepare to rove.<br />
+Soon grow the robes beneath her forming care,<br />
+And the fond parents wed the wondrous pair;<br />
+But whelm'd in grief beheld the following dawn,<br />
+Their joys all vanish'd and their children gone.<br />
+Nine days they march'd; the tenth effulgent morn<br />
+Saw their white forms that sacred isle adorn.<br />
+The work begins; they preach to every band<br />
+The well-form'd fiction, and their faith demand;<br />
+With various miracles their powers display,<br />
+To prove their lineage and confirm their sway.<br />
+They form to different arts the hand of toil,<br />
+To whirl the spindle and to spade the soil,<br />
+The Sun's bright march with pious finger trace,<br />
+And his pale sister with her changing face;<br />
+Show how their bounties clothe the labor'd plain,<br />
+The green maize shooting from its golden grain,<br />
+How the white cotton tree's expanding lobes<br />
+File into threads, and swell to fleecy robes;<br />
+While the tamed Llama aids the wondrous plan,<br />
+And lends his garment to the loins of man.</p>
+
+<p>The astonish'd tribes believe, with glad surprise,<br />
+The Gods descended from the favoring skies,<br />
+Adore their persons robed in shining white.<br />
+Receive their laws and leave each horrid rite,<br />
+Build with assisting hands the golden throne,<br />
+And hail and bless the sceptre of the Sun.</p>
+
+
+
+<h1>Book III</h1>.
+
+
+
+<h3>Argument.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="arg">
+    Actions of the Inca Capac. A general invasion of his dominions
+    threatened by the mountain savages. Rocha, the Inca's son, sent with a
+    few companions to offer terms of peace. His embassy. His adventure with
+    the worshippers of the volcano. With those of the storm, on the Andes.
+    Falls in with the savage armies. Character and speech of Zamor, their
+    chief. Capture of Rocha and his companions. Sacrifice of the latter.
+    Death song of Azonto. War dance. March of the savage armies down the
+    mountains to Peru. Incan army meets them. Battle joins. Peruvians
+    terrified by an eclipse of the sun, and routed. They fly to Cusco.
+    Grief of Oella, supposing the darkness to be occasioned by the death of
+    Rocha. Sun appears. Peruvians from the city wall discover Roch
+    an altar in the savage camp. They march in haste out of the city and
+    engage the savages. Exploits of Capac. Death of Zamor. Recovery of
+    Rocha, and submission of the enemy. </p>
+
+
+<p>Now twenty years these children of the skies<br />
+Beheld their gradual growing empire rise.<br />
+They ruled with rigid but with generous care,<br />
+Diffused their arts and sooth'd the rage of war,<br />
+Bade yon tall temple grace their favorite isle,<br />
+The mines unfold, the cultured valleys smile,<br />
+Those broad foundations bend their arches high,<br />
+And rear imperial Cusco to the sky;<br />
+Wealth, wisdom, force consolidate the reign<br />
+From the rude Andes to the western main.</p>
+
+<p>But frequent inroads from the savage bands<br />
+Lead fire and slaughter o'er the labor'd lands;<br />
+They sack the temples, the gay fields deface,<br />
+And vow destruction to the Incan race.<br />
+The king, undaunted in defensive war,<br />
+Repels their hordes, and speeds their flight afar;<br />
+Stung with defeat, they range a wider wood,<br />
+And rouse fresh tribes for future fields of blood.</p>
+
+<p>Where yon blue ridges hang their cliffs on high,<br />
+And suns infulminate the stormful sky,<br />
+The nations, temper'd to the turbid air,<br />
+Breathe deadly strife, and sigh for battle's blare;<br />
+Tis here they meditate, with one vast blow,<br />
+To crush the race that rules the plains below.<br />
+Capac with caution views the dark design,<br />
+Learns from all points what hostile myriads join.<br />
+And seeks in time by proffer'd leagues to gain<br />
+A bloodless victory, and enlarge his reign.</p>
+
+<p>His eldest hope, young Rocha, at his call,<br />
+Resigns his charge within the temple wall;<br />
+In whom began, with reverend forms of awe,<br />
+The functions grave of priesthood and of law,</p>
+
+<p>In early youth, ere yet the ripening sun<br />
+Had three short lustres o'er his childhood run,<br />
+The prince had learnt, beneath his father's hand,<br />
+The well-framed code that sway'd the sacred land;<br />
+With rites mysterious served the Power divine,<br />
+Prepared the altar and adorn'd the shrine,<br />
+Responsive hail'd, with still returning praise,<br />
+Each circling season that the God displays,<br />
+Sooth'd with funereal hymns the parting dead,<br />
+At nuptial feasts the joyful chorus led;<br />
+While evening incense and the morning song<br />
+Rose from his hand or trembled on his tongue.</p>
+
+<p>Thus form'd for empire ere he gain'd the sway,<br />
+To rule with reverence and with power obey,<br />
+Reflect the glories of the parent Sun,<br />
+And shine the Capac of his future throne,<br />
+Employed his docile years; till now from far<br />
+The rumor'd leagues proclaim approaching war;<br />
+Matured for active scenes he quits the shrine,<br />
+To aid in council or in arms to shine.</p>
+
+<p>Amid the chieftains that the court compose,<br />
+In modest mien the stripling pontiff rose,<br />
+With reverence bow'd, conspicuous o'er the rest,<br />
+Approach'd the throne, and thus the sire addrest:<br />
+Great king of nations, heaven-descended sage,<br />
+Thy second heir has reach'd the destined age<br />
+To take these priestly robes; to his pure hand<br />
+I yield them pure, and wait thy kind command.<br />
+Should foes invade, permit this arm to share<br />
+The toils, the triumphs, every chance of war;<br />
+For this dread conflict all our force demands,<br />
+In one wide field to whelm the brutal bands,<br />
+Pour to the mountain gods their wonted food,<br />
+And save thy realms from future leagues of blood.<br />
+Yet oh, may sovereign mercy first ordain<br />
+Propounded compact to the savage train!<br />
+I'll go with terms of peace to spread thy sway,<br />
+And teach the blessings of the God of day.</p>
+
+<p>The sire return'd: My great desire you know,<br />
+To shield from slaughter and preserve the foe,<br />
+In bands of concord all their tribes to bind,<br />
+And live the friend and guardian of mankind.<br />
+Should strife begin, thy youthful arm shall share<br />
+The toils of glory thro the walks of war;<br />
+But o'er their hills to seek alone the foes,<br />
+To gain their confidence or brave their blows,<br />
+Bend their proud souls to reason's voice divine,<br />
+Claims hardier limbs and riper years than thine.<br />
+Yet one of heavenly race the task requires,<br />
+Whose mystic rites control the solar fires;<br />
+So the sooth'd Godhead proves to faithless eyes<br />
+His love to man, his empire of the skies.</p>
+
+<p>Some veteran chief, in those rough labors tried,<br />
+Shall aid thee on, and go thy faithful guide;<br />
+O'er dreary heights thy sinking limbs sustain.<br />
+Teach the dark wiles of each insidious train,<br />
+Thro all extremes of life thy voice attend,<br />
+In counsel lead thee, or in arms defend.<br />
+And three firm youths, thy chosen friends, shall go<br />
+To learn the climes and meditate the foe;<br />
+That wars of future years their skill may find,<br />
+To serve the realm and save the savage kind.</p>
+
+<p>Rise then, my son, first partner of my fame,<br />
+With early toils to build thy sacred name;<br />
+In high behest, for his own legate known,<br />
+Proclaim the bounties of our sire the Sun.<br />
+Tell how his fruits beneath our culture rise,<br />
+His stars, how glorious, gem our cloudless skies;<br />
+And how to us his hand hath kindly given<br />
+His peaceful laws, the purest grace of heaven,<br />
+With power to widen his terrestrial sway,<br />
+And give our blessings where he gives the day.<br />
+Yet, should the stubborn nations still prepare<br />
+The shaft of slaughter for the barbarous war,<br />
+Tell them we know to tread the crimson plain,<br />
+And God's own children never yield to man.</p>
+
+<p>But ah, my child, with steps of caution go,<br />
+The ways are hideous, and enraged the foe;<br />
+Blood stains their altars, all their feasts are blood,<br />
+Death their delight, and darkness reigns their God;<br />
+Tigers and vultures, storms and earthquakes share<br />
+Their rites of worship and their spoils of war.<br />
+Shouldst thou, my Rocha, tempt too far their ire,<br />
+Should those dear relics feed a murderous fire,<br />
+Deep sighs would rend thy wretched mother's breast,<br />
+The pale Sun sink in clouds of darkness drest,<br />
+Thy sire and mournful nations rue the day<br />
+That drew thy steps from these sad walls away.</p>
+
+<p>Yet go; tis virtue calls; and realms unknown,<br />
+Won by these works, may bless thy future throne;<br />
+Millions of unborn souls in time may see<br />
+Their doom reversed, and owe their peace to thee,<br />
+Deluded sires, with murdering hands, no more<br />
+Feed fancied demons with their children's gore,<br />
+But, sway'd by happier sceptres, here behold<br />
+The rites of freedom and the shrines of gold.<br />
+Be wise, be mindful of thy realm and throne;<br />
+God speed thy labors and preserve my son!</p>
+
+<p>Soon the glad prince, in robes of white array'd,<br />
+Call'd his attendants and the sire obey'd.<br />
+A diamond broad, in burning gold imprest,<br />
+Display'd the sun's bright image on his breast;<br />
+A pearl-dropt girdle bound his waist below,<br />
+And the white lautu graced his lofty brow.<br />
+They journey'd forth, o'ermarching far the mound<br />
+That flank'd the kingdom on its Andean bound;<br />
+Ridge after ridge thro vagrant hordes they past,<br />
+Where each new tribe seem'd wilder than the last;<br />
+To all they preach and prove the solar sway,<br />
+And climb fresh mountains on their tedious way.</p>
+
+<p>At length, as thro disparting clouds they rise,<br />
+And hills above them still obstruct the skies,<br />
+While a dead calm o'er all the region stood?<br />
+And not a leaf could fan its parent wood,<br />
+Sudden a strange portentous noise began;<br />
+The birds fled wild, the beasts for shelter ran;<br />
+Slow, sullen, loud, with deep astounding blare,<br />
+Swell the strong tones of subterranean war;<br />
+Behind, before, beneath them groans the ground,<br />
+Earth heaves and labors with the shuddering sound;<br />
+Columns of smoke, that cap the rumbling height,<br />
+Roll reddening far thro heaven, and choke the light;<br />
+From tottering steeps descend their cliffs of snow,<br />
+The mountains reel, the valleys rend below;<br />
+The headlong streams forget their usual round,<br />
+And shrink and vanish in the gaping ground.<br />
+The sun descends; but night recals in vain<br />
+Her silent shades, to recommence her reign;<br />
+The bursting mount gapes high, a sudden glare<br />
+Coruscates wide, till all the purpling air<br />
+Breaks into flame, and wheels and roars and raves<br />
+And wraps the welkin in its folding waves;<br />
+Light sailing cinders, thro its vortex driven,<br />
+Stream high and brighten to the midst of heaven;<br />
+And, following slow, full floods of boiling ore<br />
+Swell, swoop aloft and thro the concave roar.<br />
+Torrents of molten rocks, on every side,<br />
+Lead o'er the shelves of ice their fiery tide;<br />
+Hills slide before them, skies around them burn,<br />
+Towns sink beneath and heaving plains upturn;<br />
+O'er many a league the flaming deluge hurl'd,<br />
+Sweeps total nations from the staggering world.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, at distance thro the livid light,<br />
+A busy concourse met their wondering sight;<br />
+The prince drew near; where lo! an altar stood,<br />
+Rude in its form, and fill'd with burning wood;<br />
+Wrapt in the flames a youth expiring lay,<br />
+And the fond father thus was heard to pray:<br />
+Receive, O dreadful Power, from feeble age,<br />
+This last pure offering to thy sateless rage;<br />
+Thrice has thy vengeance on this hated land<br />
+Claim'd a dear infant from my yielding hand;<br />
+Thrice have those lovely lips the victim prest,<br />
+And all the mother torn that tender breast;<br />
+When the dread duty stifled every sigh,<br />
+And not a tear escaped her beauteous eye.<br />
+Our fourth and last now meets the fatal doom;<br />
+Groan not, my child, thy God remands thee home;<br />
+Attend once more, thou dark infernal Name,<br />
+From yon far streaming pyramid of flame;<br />
+Snatch from his heaving flesh the blasted breath.<br />
+Sacred to thee and all the fiends of death;<br />
+Then in thy hall, with spoils of nations crown'd,<br />
+Confine thy walks beneath the rending ground;<br />
+No more on earth the embowel'd flames to pour,<br />
+And scourge my people and my race no more.</p>
+
+<p>Thus Rocha heard; and to the trembling crowd<br />
+Turn'd the bright image of his beaming God.<br />
+The afflicted chief, with fear and grief opprest,<br />
+Beheld the sign, and thus the prince addrest:<br />
+From what far land, O royal stranger, say,<br />
+Ascend thy wandering steps this nightly way?<br />
+From plains like ours, by holy demons fired?<br />
+Have thy brave people in the flames expired?<br />
+And hast thou now, to stay the whelming flood,<br />
+No son to offer to the furious God?</p>
+
+<p>From happier lands I came, the prince returns,<br />
+Where no red flaming flood the concave burns,<br />
+No furious God bestorms our soil and skies,<br />
+Nor yield our hands the bloody sacrifice;<br />
+But life and joy the Power delights to give,<br />
+And bids his children but rejoice and live.<br />
+Thou seest thro heaven the day-dispensing Sun<br />
+In living radiance wheel his golden throne,<br />
+O'er earth's gay surface send his genial beams,<br />
+Force from yon cliffs of ice the vernal streams;<br />
+While fruits and flowers adorn the cultured field,<br />
+And seas and lakes their copious treasures yield;<br />
+He reigns our only God. In him we trace<br />
+The friend, the father of our happy race.<br />
+Late the lone tribes, on those unlabor'd shores,<br />
+Ran wild and served imaginary Powers;<br />
+Till he, in pity, taught their feuds to cease,<br />
+Devised their laws, and fashion'd all for peace.<br />
+My sacred parents first the reign began,<br />
+Sent from his courts to guide the paths of man,<br />
+To plant his fruits, to manifest his sway,<br />
+And give their blessings where he gives the day.</p>
+
+<p>The sachem proud replied: Thy garb and face<br />
+Proclaim thy lineage of superior race;<br />
+And our progenitors, no less than thine,<br />
+Sprang from a God, and own a birth divine.<br />
+From that sky-scorching mount, on floods of flame,<br />
+In elder times my great forefathers came;<br />
+There dwells the Sire, and from his dark abode<br />
+Oft claims, as now, the tribute of a God.<br />
+This victim due when willing mortals pay,<br />
+His terrors lessen and his fires decay;<br />
+While purer sleet regales the mountain air,<br />
+And our glad hosts are fired for fiercer war.</p>
+
+<p>Yet know, dread chief, the pious youth rejoin'd,<br />
+Some one prime Power produced all human kind:<br />
+Some Sire supreme, whose ever-ruling soul<br />
+Creates, preserves, and regulates the whole.<br />
+That Sire supreme must roll his radiant eye<br />
+Round the wide earth and thro the boundless sky;<br />
+That all their habitants, their gods and men,<br />
+May rise unveil'd beneath his careful ken.<br />
+Could thy dark fiend, that hides his blind abode,<br />
+And cauldrons in his cave that fiery flood,<br />
+Yield the rich fruits that distant nations find?<br />
+Or praise or punish or behold mankind?<br />
+But when my God, resurging from the night,<br />
+Shall gild his chambers with the morning light,<br />
+By mystic rites he'll vindicate his throne,<br />
+And own thy servant for his duteous son.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime, the chief replied, thy cares releast,<br />
+Rest here the night and share our scanty feast;<br />
+Which, driven in hasty rout, our train supplied,<br />
+When trembling earth foretold the boiling tide.<br />
+They fared, they rested; till with lucid horn<br />
+All-cheering Phosphor led the lively morn;<br />
+The prince arose, an altar rear'd in haste,<br />
+And watch'd the splendors of the reddening east.</p>
+
+<p>As o'er the mountain flamed the sun's broad eye,<br />
+He call'd the host, his holy rites to try;<br />
+Then took the loaves of maize, the bounties brake,<br />
+Gave to the chief, and bade them all partake;<br />
+The hallow'd relics on the pile he placed,<br />
+With tufts of flowers the simple offering graced,<br />
+Held to the sun the image from his breast,<br />
+Whose glowing concave all the God exprest;<br />
+O'er the dried leaves the rays concentred fly,<br />
+And thus his voice ascends the listening sky:<br />
+O thou, whose splendors kindle heaven with fire.<br />
+Great Soul of nature, man's immortal Sire,<br />
+If e'er my father found thy sovereign grace,<br />
+Or thy blest will ordain'd the Incan race,<br />
+Give these lorn tribes to learn thy awful name,<br />
+Receive this offering, and the pile inflame;<br />
+So shall thy laws o'er wider bounds be known,<br />
+And earth's whole race be happy as thy own.</p>
+
+<p>Thus pray'd the prince; the focal flames aspire,<br />
+The mute beholders tremble and retire,<br />
+Gaze on the miracle, full credence own,<br />
+And vow obedience to the sacred Sun.</p>
+
+<p>The legates now their farther course descried,<br />
+A young cazique attending as a guide,<br />
+O'er craggy cliffs pursued their eastern way,<br />
+Trod loftier champaigns, meeting high the day,<br />
+Saw timorous tribes, in these sublime abodes,<br />
+Adore the blasts and turn the storms to gods;<br />
+While every cloud that thunders thro the skies<br />
+Claims from their hands a human sacrifice.<br />
+Awhile the youth, their better faith to gain,<br />
+Strives with his usual art, but strives in vain;<br />
+In vain he pleads the mildness of the sun;<br />
+A gale refutes him ere his speech be done;<br />
+Continual tempests from their orient blow,<br />
+And load the mountains with eternal snow.<br />
+The sun's own beam, the timid clans declare,<br />
+Drives all their evils on the tortured air;<br />
+He draws the vapors up their eastern sky,<br />
+That sail and centre round his dazzling eye;<br />
+Leads the loud storms along his midday course,<br />
+And bids the Andes meet their sweeping force;<br />
+Builds their bleak summits with an icy throne,<br />
+To shine thro heaven, a semblance of his own;<br />
+Hence the sharp sleet, these lifted lawns that wait,<br />
+And all the scourges that attend their state.</p>
+
+<p>Two toilsome days the virtuous Inca strove<br />
+To social life their savage minds to move;<br />
+When the third morning glow'd serenely bright,<br />
+He led their elders to an eastern height;<br />
+The world unlimited beneath them lay,<br />
+And not a cloud obscured the rising day.<br />
+Vast Amazonia, starr'd with twinkling streams,<br />
+In azure drest, a heaven inverted seems;<br />
+Dim Paraguay extends the aching sight,<br />
+Xaraya glimmers like the moon of night,<br />
+Land, water, sky in blending borders play,<br />
+And smile and brighten to the lamp of day.<br />
+When thus the prince: What majesty divine!<br />
+What robes of gold! what flames about him shine!<br />
+There walks the God! his starry sons on high<br />
+Draw their dim veil and shrink behind the sky;<br />
+Earth with surrounding nature's born anew,<br />
+And men by millions greet the glorious view!<br />
+Who can behold his all-delighting soul<br />
+Give life and joy, and heaven and earth control,<br />
+Bid death and darkness from his presence move,<br />
+Who can behold, and not adore and love?<br />
+Those plains, immensely circling, feel his beams,<br />
+He greens the groves, he silvers gay the streams,<br />
+Swells the wild fruitage, gives the beast his food,<br />
+And mute creation hails the genial God.<br />
+But richer boons his righteous laws impart,<br />
+To aid the life and mould the social heart,<br />
+His arts of peace thro happy realms to spread,<br />
+And altars grace with sacrificial bread;<br />
+Such our distinguish'd lot, who own his sway,<br />
+Mild as his morning stars and liberal as the day.</p>
+
+<p>His unknown laws, the mountain chief replied,<br />
+May serve perchance your boasted race to guide;<br />
+And yon low plains, that drink his partial ray,<br />
+At his glad shrine their just devotions pay.<br />
+But we nor fear his frown nor trust his smile;<br />
+Vain as our prayers is every anxious toil;<br />
+Our beasts are buried in his whirls of snow,<br />
+Our cabins drifted to his slaves below.<br />
+Even now his placid looks thy hopes beguile,<br />
+He lures thy raptures with a morning smile;<br />
+But soon (for so those saffron robes proclaim)<br />
+His own black tempest shall obstruct his flame,<br />
+Storm, thunder, fire, against the mountains driven,<br />
+Rake deep their sulphur'd sides, disgorging here his<br />
+heaven.</p>
+
+<p>He spoke; they waited, till the fervid ray<br />
+High from the noontide shot the faithless day;<br />
+When lo, far gathering under eastern skies,<br />
+Solemn and slow, the dark red vapors rise;<br />
+Full clouds, convolving on the turbid air,<br />
+Move like an ocean to the watery war.<br />
+The host, securely raised, no dangers harm,<br />
+They sit unclouded and o'erlook the storm;<br />
+While far beneath, the sky-borne waters ride,<br />
+Veil the dark deep and sheet the mountain's side;<br />
+The lightning's glancing fires, in fury curl'd,<br />
+Bend their long forky foldings o'er the world;<br />
+Torrents and broken crags and floods of rain<br />
+From steep to steep roll down their force amain,<br />
+In dreadful cataracts; the bolts confound<br />
+The tumbling clouds, and rock the solid ground.</p>
+
+<p>The blasts unburden'd take their upward course,<br />
+And o'er the mountain top resume their force.<br />
+Swift thro the long white ridges from the north<br />
+The rapid whirlwinds lead their terrors forth;<br />
+High walks the storm, the circling surges rise,<br />
+And wild gyrations wheel the hovering skies;<br />
+Vast hills of snow, in sweeping columns driven,<br />
+Deluge the air and choke the void of heaven;<br />
+Floods burst their bounds, the rocks forget their place,<br />
+And the firm Andes tremble to their base.</p>
+
+<p>Long gazed the host; when thus the stubborn chief,<br />
+With eyes on fire, and fill'd with sullen grief:<br />
+Behold thy careless god, secure on high,<br />
+Laughs at our woes and peaceful walks the sky,<br />
+Drives all his evils on these seats sublime,<br />
+And wafts his favors to a happier clime;<br />
+Sire of the dastard race thy words disclose,<br />
+There glads his children, here afflicts his foes.<br />
+Hence! speed thy flight! pursue him where he leads;<br />
+Lest vengeance seize thee for thy father's deeds,<br />
+Thy immolated limbs assuage the fire<br />
+Of those curst Powers, who now a gift require.</p>
+
+<p>The youth in haste collects his scanty train,<br />
+And, with the sun, flies o'er the western plain;<br />
+The fading orb with plaintive voice he plies,<br />
+To guide his steps and light him down the skies.<br />
+So when the moon and all the host of even<br />
+Hang pale and trembling on the verge of heaven,<br />
+While storms ascending threat their nightly reign,<br />
+They seek their absent sire, and sink below the main.</p>
+
+<p>Now to the south he turns; where one vast plain<br />
+Calls from a hundred hordes the warrior train;<br />
+Of various dress and various form they show'd;<br />
+Each wore the ensign of his local god.</p>
+
+<p>From eastern hills a grisly troop descends,<br />
+Whose war song wild the shuddering concave rends;<br />
+Cloak'd in a tiger's hide their grim chief towers,<br />
+And apes the brinded god his tribe adores.<br />
+The tusky jaws grin o'er the sachem's brow,<br />
+The bald eyes glare, the paws depend below,<br />
+From his bored ears contorted serpents hung,<br />
+And drops of gore seem'd rolling on his tongue.<br />
+The northern glens pour forth the Vulture-race;<br />
+Brown tufts of quills their shaded foreheads grace;<br />
+The claws branch wide, the beak expands for blood,<br />
+And all the armor imitates the god.<br />
+The Condor, frowning from a southern plain,<br />
+Borne on a standard, leads a numerous train:<br />
+Clench'd in his talons hangs an infant dead,<br />
+His long bill pointing where the sachems tread,<br />
+His wings, tho lifeless, frighten still the wind,<br />
+And his broad tail o'ershades the file behind.<br />
+From other plains and other hills afar,<br />
+The tribes throng dreadful to the promised war;<br />
+Some twine their forelock with a crested snake,<br />
+Some wear the emblems of a stream or lake;<br />
+All from the Power they serve assume their mode,<br />
+And foam and yell to taste the Incan blood.</p>
+
+<p>The prince incautious with his men drew near,<br />
+Known for an Inca by his dress and air;<br />
+Till coop'd and caught amid the warrior trains,<br />
+They bow in silence to the victor's chains.<br />
+When now the gather'd thousands throng the plain,<br />
+And echoing skies the rending shouts retain;<br />
+Zamor, the chieftain of the Tiger-band,<br />
+By choice appointed to the first command,<br />
+Shrugg'd up his brinded spoils above the rest,<br />
+And grimly frowning thus the crowd addrest:</p>
+
+<p>Warriors, attend! tomorrow leads abroad<br />
+Our sacred vengeance for our brothers' blood.<br />
+On those scorch'd plains for ever must they lie,<br />
+Their bones still naked to the burning sky?<br />
+Left in the field for foreign hawks to tear,<br />
+Nor our own vultures can the banquet share.<br />
+But soon, ye mountain gods, yon dreary west<br />
+Shall sate your hunger with an ampler feast;<br />
+When the proud Sun, that terror of the plain,<br />
+Shall grieve in heaven for all his children slain,<br />
+As o'er his realm our slaughtering armies roam,<br />
+And give to your sad Powers a happier home.<br />
+Meanwhile, ye tribes, these men of solar race,<br />
+Food for the flames, your bloody rites shall grace;<br />
+Each to a different god his panting breath<br />
+Resigns in fire; this night demands their death:<br />
+All but the Inca; him reserved in state<br />
+These conquering hands ere long shall immolate<br />
+To all the Powers at once that storm the skies,<br />
+A grateful gift, before his mother's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>The sachem ceased; the chiefs of every race<br />
+Lead the bold captives to their destined place;<br />
+The sun descends, the parting day expires,<br />
+And earth and heaven display their sparkling fires.<br />
+Soon the raised altars kindle round the gloom,<br />
+And call the victims to their vengeful doom;<br />
+Led to their pyres, in sullen pomp they tread,<br />
+And sing by turns the triumphs of the dead.<br />
+Amid the crowd beside his altar stood<br />
+The youth devoted to the Tiger-god;<br />
+A beauteous form he rose, of noble grace,<br />
+The only hope of his illustrious race.<br />
+His aged sire, for numerous years, had shone<br />
+The first supporter of the Incan throne;<br />
+Wise Capac loved the youth, and graced his hand<br />
+With a fair virgin from a neighboring band;<br />
+And him the legate prince, in equal prime,<br />
+Had chose to share his mission round the clime.<br />
+He mounts the pyre, the flames approach his breath.<br />
+And thus he wakes the dauntless song of death:</p>
+
+<p>Dark vault of heaven, that greet his daily throne.<br />
+Where flee the glories of your absent Sun?<br />
+Ye starry hosts, who kindle from his eye,<br />
+Can you behold him in the western sky?<br />
+Or if unseen beneath his watery bed,<br />
+The wearied God reclines his radiant head,<br />
+When next his morning steps your courts inflame,<br />
+And seek on earth for young Azonto's name,<br />
+Then point these ashes, mark the smoky pile,<br />
+And say the hero suffer'd with a smile.<br />
+So shall the Power in vengeance view the place,<br />
+In crimson clothe his terror-beaming face,<br />
+Pour swift destruction on these curst abodes,<br />
+Whelm the grim tribes and all their savage gods.</p>
+
+<p>But ah, forbear to tell my stooping sire<br />
+His darling hopes have fed a coward fire;<br />
+Why should he know the tortures of the brave?<br />
+Why fruitless sorrows bend him to the grave?<br />
+Nor shalt thou e'er be told, my bridal fair,<br />
+What silent pangs these panting vitals tear;<br />
+But blooming still the patient hours employ<br />
+On the blind hope of future scenes of joy.<br />
+Now haste, ye fiends of death; the Sire of day<br />
+In absent slumber gives your malice way;<br />
+While fainter light these livid flames supply,<br />
+And short-lived thousands learn of me to die,</p>
+
+<p>He ceased not speaking; when the yell of war<br />
+Drowns all their death songs in a hideous jar;<br />
+The cries rebounding from the hillsides pour,<br />
+And wolves and tigers catch the distant roar.<br />
+Now more concordant all their voices join,<br />
+And round the plain they form the festive line;<br />
+When, to the music of the dismal din,<br />
+Indignant Zamor bids the dance begin.<br />
+Dim thro the shadowy fires each changing form<br />
+Moves like a cloud before an evening storm,<br />
+When o'er the moon's pale face and starry plain<br />
+The shifting shades lead on their broken train;<br />
+The mingling tribes their mazy gambols tread,<br />
+Till the last groan proclaims the victims dead,<br />
+Then part the smoky flesh, enjoy the feast,<br />
+And lose their labors in oblivious rest.</p>
+
+<p>Soon as the western hills announced the morn,<br />
+And falling fires were scarcely seen to burn,<br />
+Grimm'd by the horrors of the dreadful night,<br />
+The hosts woke fiercer for the promised fight;<br />
+And dark and silent thro the frowning grove<br />
+The different tribes beneath their standards move.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime the solar king collects from far<br />
+His martial bands, to meet the expected war,<br />
+Camps on the confines of an eastern plain<br />
+That skirts the steep rough limit of his reign;<br />
+He trains their ranks, their pliant force combines,<br />
+To close in columns or extend in lines,<br />
+To wheel, change front, in broken files dispart,<br />
+And draw new strength from all the warrior's art.</p>
+
+<p>But now the rising sun relumes the plain,<br />
+And calls to arms the well-accustom'd train.<br />
+High in the front imperial Capac strode,<br />
+In fair effulgence like the beaming God;<br />
+A golden girdle bound his snowy vest,<br />
+A mimic sun hung sparkling on his breast;<br />
+The lautu's horned wreath his temples twined,<br />
+The bow, the quiver shade his waist behind;<br />
+Raised high in air his golden sceptre burn'd,<br />
+And hosts surrounding trembled as he turn'd.</p>
+
+<p>O'er eastern hills he cast his watchful eye,<br />
+Thro the broad breaks that lengthen down the sky;<br />
+In whose blue clefts the sloping pathways bend,<br />
+Where annual floods from melting snows descend.<br />
+Now dry and deep, they lead from every height<br />
+The savage files that headlong rush to fight;<br />
+They throng and thicken thro the smoky air,<br />
+And every breach pours down the dusky war.<br />
+So when a hundred streams explore their way,<br />
+Down the same slopes, convolving to the sea,<br />
+They boil, they bend, they force their floods amain,<br />
+Swell o'er obstructing crags, and sweep the plain.</p>
+
+<p>Capac beholds and waits the coming shock,<br />
+As for the billows waits the storm-beat rock;<br />
+And while for fight his ardent troops prepare,<br />
+Thus thro the ranks he breathes the soul of war:<br />
+Ye tribes that flourish in the Sun's mild reign,<br />
+Long have your flocks adorn'd the peaceful plain,<br />
+As o'er the realm his smiles persuasive flow'd,<br />
+And conquer'd all without the stain of blood;<br />
+But lo, at last that wild infuriate band<br />
+With savage war demands your happy land.<br />
+Beneath the dark immeasurable host,<br />
+Descending, swarming, how the crags are lost!<br />
+Already now their ravening eyes behold<br />
+Your star-bright temples and your gates of gold;<br />
+And to their gods in fancied goblets pour<br />
+The warm libation of your children's gore.<br />
+Move then to vengeance, meet the sons of blood,<br />
+Led by this arm and lighted by that God;<br />
+The strife is fierce, your fanes and fields the prize,<br />
+The warrior conquers or the infant dies.</p>
+
+<p>Fill'd with his fire, the troops in squared array<br />
+Wait the wild hordes loose huddling to the fray;<br />
+Their pointed arrows, rising on the bow,<br />
+Look up the sky and chide the lagging foe.</p>
+
+<p>Dread Zamor leads the homicidious train,<br />
+Moves from the clefts and stretches o'er the plain.<br />
+He gives the shriek; the deep convulsing sound<br />
+The hosts reecho, and the hills around<br />
+Retain the rending tumult; all the air<br />
+Clangs in the conflict of the clashing war;<br />
+But firm undaunted as a shelvy strand<br />
+That meets the surge, the bold Peruvians stand,<br />
+With steady aim the sounding bowstring ply,<br />
+And showers of arrows thicken thro the sky;<br />
+When each grim host, in closer conflict join'd,<br />
+Clench the dire ax and cast the bow behind;<br />
+Thro broken ranks sweep wide their slaughtering course.<br />
+Now struggle back, now sidelong swray the force.<br />
+Here from grim chiefs is lopt the grisly head;<br />
+All gride the dying, all deface the dead;<br />
+There scattering o'er the field in thin array,<br />
+Man tugs with man, and clubs with axes play;<br />
+With broken shafts they follow and they fly,<br />
+And yells and groans and shouts invade the sky;<br />
+Round all the shatter'd groves the ground is strow'd<br />
+With sever'd limbs and corses bathed in blood.<br />
+Long raged the strife; and where, on either side,<br />
+A friend, a father or a brother died,<br />
+No trace remain'd of what he was before,<br />
+Mangled with horrid wounds and black with gore.</p>
+
+<p>Now the Peruvians, in collected might,<br />
+With one wide stroke had wing'd the savage flighty<br />
+But their bright Godhead, in his midday race,<br />
+With glooms unusual veil'd his radiant face,<br />
+Quench'd all his beams, tho cloudless, in affright,<br />
+As loth to view from heaven the finish'd fight.<br />
+A trembling twilight o'er the welkin moves,<br />
+Browns the dim void, and darkens deep the groves;<br />
+The waking stars, embolden'd at the sight,<br />
+Peep out and gem the anticipated night;<br />
+Day-birds, and beasts of light to covert fly,<br />
+And owls and wolves begin their evening cry.<br />
+The astonish'd Inca marks, with wild surprise,<br />
+Dead chills on earth, no cloud in all the skies,<br />
+His host o'ershaded in the field of blood,<br />
+Gored by his foes, deserted by his God.<br />
+Mute with amaze, they cease the war to wage,<br />
+Gaze on their leaders and forget their rage;<br />
+When pious Capac to the listening crowd<br />
+Raised high his wand and pour'd his voice aloud:<br />
+Ye chiefs and warriors of Peruvian race,<br />
+Some sore offence obscures my father's face;<br />
+What moves the Numen to desert the plain,<br />
+Nor save his children, nor behold them slain?<br />
+Fly! speed your course, regain the guardian town,<br />
+Ere darkness shroud you in a deeper frown;<br />
+The faithful walls your squadrons shall defend,<br />
+While my sad steps the sacred dome ascend,<br />
+To learn the cause, and ward the woes we fear:<br />
+Haste, haste, my sons! I guard the flying rear.</p>
+
+<p>The hero spoke; the trembling tribes obey,<br />
+While deeper glooms obscure the source of day.<br />
+Sudden the savage bands collect amain,<br />
+Hang on the rear and sweep them o'er the plain;<br />
+Their shouts, redoubling with the flying war.<br />
+Drown the loud groans and torture all the air.<br />
+The hawks of heaven, that o'er the field had stood,<br />
+Scared by the tumult from the scent of blood,<br />
+Cleave the far gloom; the beasts forget their prey,<br />
+And scour the waste, and give the war its way.</p>
+
+<p>Zamor elate with horrid joy beheld<br />
+The Sun depart, his children fly the field,<br />
+And raised his rending voice: Thou darkening sky,<br />
+Deepen thy damps, the fiend of death is nigh;<br />
+Behold him rising from his shadowy throne,<br />
+To veil this heaven and drive the conquer'd Sun;<br />
+The glaring Godhead yields to sacred night,<br />
+And his foil'd armies imitate his flight.<br />
+Confirm, infernal Power, thy rightful reign,<br />
+Give deadlier shades and heap the piles of slain;<br />
+Soon the young captive prince shall roll in fire,<br />
+And all his race accumulate the pyre.<br />
+Ye mountain vultures, here your food explore,<br />
+Tigers and condors, all ye gods of gore,<br />
+In these rich fields, beneath your frowning sky,<br />
+A plenteous feast shall every god supply.<br />
+Rush forward, warriors, hide the plains with dead;<br />
+Twas here our friends in former combat bled;<br />
+Strow'd thro the waste their naked bones demand<br />
+This tardy vengeance from our conquering hand.</p>
+
+<p>He said; and high before the Tiger-train<br />
+With longer strides hangs forward o'er the slain,<br />
+Bends like a falling tree to reach the foe,<br />
+And o'er tall Capac aims a forceful blow.<br />
+The king beheld the ax, and with his wand<br />
+Struck the raised weapon from the sachem's hand;<br />
+Then clench'd the falling helve, and whirling round,<br />
+Fell'd a close file of heroes to the ground;<br />
+Nor stay'd, but follow'd where his people run,<br />
+Fearing to fight, forsaken by the Sun;<br />
+Till Cusco's walls salute their longing sight,<br />
+And the wide gates receive their rapid flight.<br />
+The folds are barr'd, the foes in shade conceal'd,<br />
+Like howling wolves, rave round the frighted field.</p>
+
+<p>The monarch now ascends the sacred dome;<br />
+The Sun's fixt image there partakes the gloom;<br />
+Thro all the shrines, where erst on new-moon day<br />
+Swell'd the full quires of consecrated praise,<br />
+A tomb-like silence reigns; till female cries<br />
+Burst forth at last, and these sad accents rise:<br />
+Was it for this, my son to distant lands<br />
+Must trace the wilds, and tempt those lawless bands?<br />
+And does the God obscure his golden throne<br />
+In mournful darkness for my slaughter'd son?<br />
+Oh, had his beam; ere that disastrous day<br />
+That call'd the youth from these fond arms away,<br />
+Received my spirit to its native sky,<br />
+That sad Oella might have seen him die!</p>
+
+<p>Where slept thy shaft of vengeance, O my God,<br />
+When those fell tigers drank his sacred blood?<br />
+Did not the pious prince, with rites divine,<br />
+Feed the pure flame in this thy hallow'd shrine;<br />
+And early learn, beneath his father's hand,<br />
+To shed thy blessings round the favor'd land?<br />
+Form'd by thy laws the royal seat to grace,<br />
+Son of thy son, and glory of his race.<br />
+Where, my lost Rocha, rests thy lovely head?<br />
+Where the rent robes thy hapless mother made?<br />
+I see thee, mid those hideous hills of snow,<br />
+Pursued and slaughter'd by the wildman foe;<br />
+Or, doom'd a feast for some pretended god,<br />
+Drench his black altar with celestial blood.<br />
+Snatch me, O Sun, to happier worlds of light--<br />
+No: shroud me, shroud me with thyself in night.<br />
+Thou hear'st me not, thou dread departed Power,<br />
+Thy face is dark, and Rocha lives no more.</p>
+
+<p>Thus heard the silent king; his equal heart<br />
+Caught all her grief, and bore a father's part.<br />
+The cause, suggested by her tender moan,<br />
+The cause perchance that veil'd the midday sun,<br />
+And shouts that spoke the still approaching foe,<br />
+Fixt him suspense, in all the strength of woe.<br />
+A doubtful moment held his changing choice;<br />
+Now would he sooth her, half assumes his voice;<br />
+But greater cares the rising wish control,<br />
+And call forth all his energy of soul.<br />
+Why should he cease to ward the coming fate?<br />
+Or she be told the foes besiege the gate?<br />
+He turn'd in haste; and now their image-god<br />
+High on the spire with newborn lustre glow'd;<br />
+Swift thro the portal flew the hero's eye,<br />
+And hail'd the growing splendor in the sky.</p>
+
+<p>The troops courageous at return of light<br />
+Throng round the dome, impatient for the fight;<br />
+The king descending in the portal stood,<br />
+And thus addrest the all-delighting God:<br />
+O sovereign Soul of heaven, thy changing face<br />
+Makes or destroys the glory of thy race.<br />
+If from this mortal life my child he fled,<br />
+First of thy line that ever graced the dead;<br />
+If thy bright splendor ceased on high to burn<br />
+For that loved youth who never must return.<br />
+Forgive thine armies, when in fields of blood<br />
+They lose their strength and fear the frowning God.<br />
+As now thy glory, with superior day,<br />
+Glows thro the field and leads the warrior's way,<br />
+May our exalted souls, to vengeance driven,<br />
+Burn with new brightness in the cause of heaven!<br />
+For thy slain son the murderous horde shall bleed;<br />
+We mourn the hero, but avenge the deed.</p>
+
+<p>He said; and from the battlement on high<br />
+A watchful warrior raised a sudden cry:<br />
+"An Inca white on yonder altar tied--<br />
+Tis Rocha's self--the flame ascends his side."</p>
+
+<p>In sweeping haste the bursting gates unbar,<br />
+And flood the champaign with a tide of war;<br />
+A cloud of arrows leads the rapid train,<br />
+They shout, they swarm, they hide the dusty plain;<br />
+Bows, quivers, girdles strow the field behind,<br />
+And the raised axes cleave the passing wind.<br />
+The prince, confest to every warrior's sight,<br />
+Inspires each soul and centres all the fight;<br />
+Each hopes to snatch him from the kindling pyre,<br />
+Each fears his breath already flits in fire.<br />
+Here Zamor ranged his ax-men deep and wide,<br />
+Wedged like a wall, and thus the king defied:<br />
+Haste, son of Light, pour fast the winged war,<br />
+The prince, the dying prince demands your care;<br />
+Hear how his death song chides your dull delay,<br />
+Lift longer strides, bend forward to the fray,<br />
+Ere flames infolding suffocate his groan,<br />
+Child of your beaming God, a victim to our own.</p>
+
+<p>This said, he raised his shaggy shoulders high,<br />
+And bade the shafts glide thicker thro the sky.<br />
+Like the broad billows of the lifted main,<br />
+Rolls into sight the long Peruvian train;<br />
+A white sail bounding, on the billows tost,<br />
+Is Capac towering o'er the furious host.</p>
+
+<p>Now meet the dreadful chiefs, with eyes on fire;<br />
+Beneath their blows the parting ranks retire;<br />
+In whirlwind-sweep their meeting axes bound,<br />
+Wheel, crash in air, and plow the trembling ground;<br />
+Their sinewy limbs in fierce contortions bend,<br />
+And mutual strokes with equal force descend,<br />
+Parried with equal art, now gyring prest<br />
+High at the head, now plunging for the breast.<br />
+The king starts backward from the struggling foe,<br />
+Collects new strength, and with a circling blow<br />
+Rush'd furious on; his flinty edge, whirl'd wide,<br />
+Met Zamor's helve, and glancing grazed his side<br />
+And settled in his groin; so plunged it lay,<br />
+That scarce the king could tear his ax away.<br />
+The savage fell; when thro the Tiger-train<br />
+The driving Inca turns his force amain;<br />
+Where still compact they hem the murderous pyre,<br />
+And Rocha's voice seems faltering to expire.<br />
+The phrensied father rages, thunders wild,<br />
+Hews armies down, to save the sinking child;<br />
+The ranks fall staggering where he lifts his arm,<br />
+Or roll before him like a billowy storm;<br />
+Behind his steps collecting warriors close;<br />
+Deep centred in a circling ridge of foes<br />
+He cleaves his wasting way; the prince unties,<br />
+And thus his voice: Dread Sovereign of the skies.<br />
+Accept my living son, again bestow'd<br />
+To grace with rites the temple of his God.<br />
+Move, heroes, move; complete the work begun.<br />
+Crush the grim race, avenge your injured Sun.</p>
+
+<p>The savage host, that view'd the daring deed,<br />
+And saw their nations with their leader bleed,<br />
+Raised high the shriek of horror; all the plain<br />
+Is trod with flight and cover'd with the slain.<br />
+The bold Peruvians compass round the field,<br />
+Confine their flight, and force the rest to yield;<br />
+When Capac raised his placid voice again;<br />
+Ye conquering troops, collect the vanquish'd train;<br />
+The Sun commands to stay the rage of war,<br />
+He knows to conquer, but he loves to spare.</p>
+
+<p>He ceased; and where the savage leader lay<br />
+Weltering in gore, directs his eager way,<br />
+Unwraps the tiger's hide, and strives in vain<br />
+To close the wound, and mitigate the pain;<br />
+And while compassion for a foe distrest<br />
+Mixt with reproach, he thus the chief addrest:<br />
+Too long, proud prince, thy fearless heart withstood<br />
+Our sacred arms, and braved the living God;<br />
+His sovereign will commands all feuds to cease,<br />
+His realm is concord and his pleasure peace;<br />
+This copious carnage, spreading far the plain,<br />
+Insults his bounties, but confirms his reign.<br />
+Enough! tis past; thy parting breath demands<br />
+The last sad office from my yielding hands.<br />
+To share thy pains and feel thy hopeless woe,<br />
+Are rites ungrateful to a fallen foe:<br />
+Yet rest in peace; and know, a chief so brave,<br />
+When life departs, shall find an honor'd grave;<br />
+Myself in princely pomp thy tomb shall rear,<br />
+And tribes unborn thy hapless fate declare.</p>
+
+<p>Insult me not with tombs! the monster cried,<br />
+Let closing clods thy coward carcase hide;<br />
+But these brave bones, unburied on the plain,<br />
+Touch not with dust, nor dare with rites profane;<br />
+Let no curst earth conceal this gory head,<br />
+Nor songs proclaim the dreadful Zamor dead,<br />
+Me, whom the hungry gods from plain to plain<br />
+Have follow'd, feasting on thy slaughter'd train,<br />
+Me wouldst thou cover? No! from yonder sky,<br />
+The wide-beak'd hawk, that now beholds me die,<br />
+Soon with his cowering train my flesh shall tear,<br />
+And wolves and tigers vindicate their share.<br />
+Receive, dread Powers (since I can slay no more),<br />
+My last glad victim, this devoved gore.</p>
+
+<p>Thus pour'd the vengeful chief his fainting breath,<br />
+And lost his utterance in the gasp of death.<br />
+The sad remaining tribes confess the Power,<br />
+That sheds his bounties round Peruvia's shore;<br />
+All bow obedient to the Incan throne,<br />
+And blest Oella hails her living son.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<h1>Book IV</h1>.
+
+
+
+<h3>Argument.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="arg">
+    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. </p>
+
+
+<p>In one dark age, beneath a single hand,<br />
+Thus rose an empire in the savage land.<br />
+Its wealth and power with following years increase,<br />
+Its growing nations spread the walks of peace;<br />
+Religion here, that universal name,<br />
+Man's proudest passion, most ungovern'd flame,<br />
+Erects her altars on the same bright base,<br />
+That dazzled erst, and still deludes the race;<br />
+Sun, moon, all powers that forceful strike his eyes,<br />
+Earth-shaking storms and constellated skies.</p>
+
+<p>Yet all the pomp his labors here unfold,<br />
+The vales of verdure and the towers of gold,<br />
+Those infant arts and sovereign seats of state,<br />
+In short-lived glory hasten to their fate.<br />
+Thy followers, rushing like an angry flood,<br />
+Too soon shall drench them in the nation's blood;<br />
+Nor thou, Las Casas, best of men, shalt stay<br />
+The ravening legions from their guardless prey.<br />
+O hapless prelate! hero, saint and sage,<br />
+Foredoom'd with crimes a fruitless war to wage,<br />
+To see at last (thy life of virtue run)<br />
+A realm unpeopled and a world undone!<br />
+While pious Valverde mock of priesthood stands,<br />
+Guilt in his heart, the gospel in his hands,<br />
+Bids, in one field, their unarm'd thousands bleed,<br />
+Smiles o'er the scene and sanctifies the deed.<br />
+And thou, brave Gasca, with persuasive strain,<br />
+Shalt lift thy voice and urge thy power in vain;<br />
+Vain are thy hopes the sinking land to save,<br />
+Or call her slaughter'd millions from the grave.</p>
+
+<p>Here Hesper paused. Columbus with a sigh<br />
+Cast o'er the continent his moisten'd eye,<br />
+And thus replied: Ah, hide me in the tomb;<br />
+Why should I live to see the impending doom?<br />
+If such foul deeds the scheme of heaven compose,<br />
+And virtue's toils induce redoubled woes,<br />
+Unfold no more; but grant a kind release;<br />
+Give me, tis all I ask, to rest in peace.</p>
+
+<p>And thou shalt rest in peace, the Saint rejoin'd,<br />
+Ere these conflicting shades involve mankind.<br />
+But broader views shall first thy mind engage,<br />
+Years far advanced beyond this darksome age<br />
+Shall feast thee here; the fruits of thy long care<br />
+A grateful world beneath thy ken shall share.<br />
+Europe's contending kings shall soon behold<br />
+These fertile plains and hills of treasured gold;<br />
+And in the path of thy adventurous sail<br />
+Their countless navies float on every gale,<br />
+For wealth and commerce search the western shore.<br />
+And load each ocean with the shining ore.</p>
+
+<p>As up the orient heaven the dawning ray<br />
+Smiles o'er the hills and gives the promised day,<br />
+Drives fraud and rapine from their nightly spoil,<br />
+And social nature wakes to various toil;<br />
+So from the blazing mine the golden store<br />
+Mid rival states shall spread from shore to shore,<br />
+Unite their force, its opulence to share,<br />
+Extend the pomp but sooth the rage of war;<br />
+Wide thro the world while genius unconfined<br />
+Tempts loftier flights, and opens all the mind,<br />
+Dissolves the slavish bands of monkish lore,<br />
+Wakes the bold arts and bids the Muses soar.<br />
+Then shall thy northern climes their seats display<br />
+United nations there commence their sway;<br />
+O'er earth and ocean spread their peerless fame,<br />
+And send thro time thy patriarchal name.</p>
+
+<p>Now turn thy view to Europe; see the rage<br />
+Of feudal faction every court engage;<br />
+All honest labor, all commercial ties<br />
+Their kings discountenance, their lords despise.<br />
+The naked harbors, looking to the main,<br />
+Rear their kind cliffs and break the storms in vain,<br />
+The willing wave no foreign treasures lade,<br />
+Nor sails nor cities cast a watery shade;<br />
+Save, where yon opening gulph the strand divides,<br />
+Proud Venice bathes her in the broken tides,<br />
+Weds her tamed sea, shakes every distant throne,<br />
+And deems by right the naval world her own.</p>
+
+<p>Yet must we mark, the bondage of the mind<br />
+Spreads deeper glooms, and subj ugates mankind;<br />
+The zealots fierce, whom local creeds enrage,<br />
+In holy feuds perpetual combat wage,<br />
+Support all crimes by full indulgence given,<br />
+Usurp the power and wield the sword of heaven,</p>
+
+<p>But lo, where future years their scenes unrol,<br />
+The rising arts inspire the venturous soul.<br />
+From all the ports that cleave the coast of Spain,<br />
+New fleets ascending streak the western main;<br />
+From Tago's bank, from Albion's rocky round,<br />
+Commercing squadrons o'er the billows bound;<br />
+Thro Afric's isles observe the sweeping sails,<br />
+Full pinions tossing in Arabian gales,<br />
+Indus and Ganges deep in canvass lost,<br />
+And navies crowding round Cambodia's coast;<br />
+New nations rise, all climes and oceans brave,<br />
+And shade with sheets the immeasurable wave.</p>
+
+<p>See lofty Ximenes with solemn gait<br />
+Move from the cloister to the walks of state,<br />
+And thro the factious monarchies of Spain,<br />
+Curb the fierce lords and fix one royal reign.<br />
+Behold dread Charles the imperial seat ascends,<br />
+O'er Europe's thrones his conquering arm extends;<br />
+While wealthier shores, beneath the western day,<br />
+Unfold their treasures to confirm his sway.</p>
+
+<p>Roused at false glory's fascinating call,<br />
+See Francis train the gallant youths of Gaul,<br />
+O'erstrain the strength of her extended states,<br />
+Scale the proud Alps, or burst their granite gates,<br />
+On Pavia's plain for Cesar's crown contend,<br />
+Of arms the votary, but of arts the friend.</p>
+
+<p>And see proud Wolsey rise, securely great,<br />
+Kings at his call and mitres round him wait;<br />
+From monkish walls the hoarded wealth he draws<br />
+To aid the tyrant and restrain the laws,<br />
+Wakes Albion's genius, neighboring princes braves,<br />
+And shares with them the commonwealth of waves,</p>
+
+<p>Behold dark Solyman, from eastern skies,<br />
+With his grim host magnificently rise,<br />
+Wave his broad crescent o'er the Midland sea,<br />
+Thro vast Hungaria drive his conquering way,<br />
+Crowd close the Christian powers, and carry far<br />
+The rules of homicide, the lore of war.</p>
+
+<p>The Tuscan dukes excite a nobler strife;<br />
+Lorenzo calls the Fine Arts forth to life,<br />
+Fair nature's mimic maids; whose powers divine<br />
+Her charms develop and her laws define;<br />
+From sire to son the splendid labors spread,<br />
+And Leo follows where good Cosmo led.<br />
+Waked from the ground that Gothic rovers trod,<br />
+Starts the bronze hero and the marble god;<br />
+Monks, prelates, pontiffs pay the reverence due<br />
+To that bold taste their Grecian masters knew;<br />
+Resurgent temples throng the Latian shore,<br />
+The Pencil triumphs and the Muses soar.</p>
+
+<p>O'er the dark world Erasmus rears his eye,<br />
+In schoolman lore sees kings and nations lie,<br />
+With strength of judgment and with fancy warm,<br />
+Derides their follies and dissolves the charm,<br />
+Tears the deep veil that bigot zeal has thrown<br />
+On pagan books and science long unknown,<br />
+From faith in senseless rites relieves mankind,<br />
+And seats bold virtue in the conscious mind.<br />
+But still the frightful task, to face alone<br />
+The jealous vengeance of the papal throne,<br />
+Restrains his hand: he gives the contest o'er,<br />
+And leaves his hardier sons to curb that power.</p>
+
+<p>Luther walks forth in yon majestic frame,<br />
+Bright beam of heaven, and heir of endless fame,<br />
+Born, like thyself, thro toils and griefs to wind,<br />
+From slavery's chains to free the captive mind,<br />
+Brave adverse crowns, control the pontiff sway,<br />
+And bring benighted nations into day.</p>
+
+<p>Remark what crowds his name around him brings,<br />
+Schools, synods, prelates, potentates and kings,<br />
+All gaining knowledge from his boundless store,<br />
+And join'd to shield him from the papal power.<br />
+First of his friends, see Frederic's princely form<br />
+Ward from the sage divine the gathering storm,<br />
+In learned Wittemburgh secure his seat,<br />
+High throne of thought, religion's safe retreat.<br />
+There sits Melancthon, mild as morning light,<br />
+And feuds, tho sacred, soften in his sight;<br />
+In terms so gentle flows his tuneful tongue,<br />
+Even cloister'd bigots join the pupil throng;<br />
+By all sectarian chiefs he lives approved,<br />
+By monarchs courted and by men beloved.</p>
+
+<p>And lo, where Europe's utmost limits bend,<br />
+From this new source what various lights ascend!<br />
+See haughty Henry from the papal tie<br />
+His realms dissever, and the priest defy;<br />
+While Albion's sons disdain a foreign throne,<br />
+And learn to bound the oppressions of their own.</p>
+
+<p>Then rises Loyola, a strange new name,<br />
+By paths unseen to reach the goal of fame;<br />
+Thro courts and camps he teaches how to wind,<br />
+To mine whole states and overreach mankind.<br />
+Train'd in his school, a bold and artful race<br />
+Range o'er the world, and every sect embrace,<br />
+All creeds and powers and policies explore,<br />
+New seats of science raise on every shore;<br />
+Till their wide empire gains a wondrous birth,<br />
+Built in all empires o'er this ancient earth.<br />
+Our wildmen too, the tribes of Paraguay,<br />
+Receive their rites and bow beneath their sway.</p>
+
+<p>The world of men thus moving in thy view<br />
+Improve their state, more useful works pursue;<br />
+Unwonted deeds in rival greatness shine,<br />
+Call'd into life, and first inspired by thine.<br />
+So while imperial Homer tunes the lyre,<br />
+His living lays unnumber'd bards inspire;<br />
+From age to age the kindling spirit flies,<br />
+Sounds thro the earth and echoes to the skies.</p>
+
+<p>Now roll the years, when Europe's ample space<br />
+By peace and culture rears a wiser race,<br />
+Men bred to labor, school'd in freedom's lore,<br />
+And formed to colonize our favorite shore.<br />
+To speed their course, the sons of bigot rage<br />
+In persecution whelm the inquiring age;<br />
+Myriads of martyr'd heroes mount the pyre,<br />
+And blind devotion lights the sacred fire.</p>
+
+<p>Led by the dark Dominicans of Spain,<br />
+A newborn Fury walks the wide domain,<br />
+Gaunt INQUISITION; mark her giant stride,<br />
+Her blood-nursed vulture screaming at her side.<br />
+Her priestly train the tools of torment brings.<br />
+Racks, wheels and crosses, faggots, stakes and strings;<br />
+Scaffolds and cages round her altar stand,<br />
+And, tipt with sulphur, waves her flaming brand.<br />
+Her imps of inquest round the Fiend advance,<br />
+Suspectors grave, and spies with eye askance,<br />
+Pretended heretics who worm the soul,<br />
+And sly confessors with their secret scroll,<br />
+Accusers hired, for each conviction paid,<br />
+Judges retain'd and witnesses by trade.</p>
+
+<p>Dragged from a thousand jails her victim trains,<br />
+Jews, Moors and Christians, clank alike their chains,<br />
+Read their known sentence in her fiery eyes,<br />
+And breathe to heaven their unavailing cries;<br />
+Lash'd on the pile their writhing bodies turn,<br />
+And, veil'd in doubling smoke, begin to burn.<br />
+Where the flames open, lo! their limbs in vain<br />
+Reach out for help, distorted by the pain;<br />
+Till folded in the fires they disappear,<br />
+And not a sound invades the startled ear.</p>
+
+<p>See Philip, throned in insolence and pride,<br />
+Enjoy their wailings and their pangs deride;<br />
+While o'er the same dread scenes, on Albion's isles,<br />
+His well-taught spouse, the cruel Mary, smiles.<br />
+What clouds of smoke hang heavy round the shore!<br />
+What altars hecatomb'd with Christian gore!<br />
+Her sire's best friends, the wise, the brave, the good,<br />
+Roll in the flames or fly the land of blood.</p>
+
+<p>To Gallia's plains the maddening phrensy turns.<br />
+Religion raves and civil discord burns;<br />
+Leaguers and Huguenots their vengeance pour,<br />
+They swell Bartholemy's wide feast of gore,<br />
+Alternate victors bid their gibbets rise,<br />
+And the foul stench of victims chokes the skies.</p>
+
+<p>Now cease the factions with the Valois line,<br />
+And Bourbon's virtues every voice combine.<br />
+Quell'd by his fame, the furious sects accord,<br />
+Europe respires beneath his guardian sword;<br />
+Batavia's states to independence soar,<br />
+And curb the cohorts of Iberian power.<br />
+From Albion's ports her infant navies heave,<br />
+Stretch forth and thunder on the Flandrian wave;<br />
+Her Howard there first foils the force of Spain,<br />
+And there begins her mastery of the main.</p>
+
+<p>The Seraph spoke; when full beneath their eye<br />
+A new-form'd squadron rose along the sky.<br />
+High on the tallest deck majestic shone<br />
+Sage Raleigh, pointing to the western sun;<br />
+His eye, bent forward, ardent and sublime,<br />
+Seem'd piercing nature and evolving time;<br />
+Beside him stood a globe, whose figures traced<br />
+A future empire in each present waste;<br />
+All former works of men behind him shone<br />
+Graved by his hand in ever-during stone;<br />
+On his calm brow a various crown displays<br />
+The hero's laurel and the scholar's bays;<br />
+His graceful limbs in steely mail were drest,<br />
+The bright star burning on his lofty breast;<br />
+His sword, high waving, flash'd the solar ray.<br />
+Illumed the shrouds and rainbow'd far the spray;<br />
+The smiling crew rose resolute and brave,<br />
+And the glad sails hung bounding o'er the wave.</p>
+
+<p>Storms of wild Hatteras, suspend your roar,<br />
+Ye tumbling billows, cease to shake the shore;<br />
+Look thro the doubling clouds, thou lamp of day,<br />
+Teach the bold Argonauts their chartless way;<br />
+Your viewless capes, broad Chesapeak, unfold,<br />
+And show your promised Colchis fleeced with gold.<br />
+No plundering squadron your new Jason brings;<br />
+No pirate demigods nor hordes of kings<br />
+From shore to shore a faithless miscreant steers,<br />
+To steal a maid and leave a sire in tears.<br />
+But yon wise chief conducts with careful ken<br />
+The queen of colonies, the best of men,<br />
+To wake to fruitful life your slumbering soil,<br />
+And rear an empire with the hand of toil.<br />
+Your fond Medea too, whose dauntless breast<br />
+All danger braves to screen her hunted guest.<br />
+Shall quit her native tribe, but never share<br />
+The crimes and sufferings of the Colchian fair.<br />
+Blest Pocahontas! fear no lurking guile;<br />
+Thy hero's love shall well reward thy smile.<br />
+Ah sooth the wanderer in his desperate plight,<br />
+Hide him by day and calm his cares by night;<br />
+Tho savage nations with thy vengeful sire<br />
+Pursue their victim with unceasing ire,<br />
+And tho their threats thy startled ear assail,<br />
+Let virtue's voice o'er filial fears prevail.<br />
+Fly with the faithful youth, his steps to guide,<br />
+Pierce the known thicket, breast the fordless tide,<br />
+Illude the scout, avoid the ambush'd line,<br />
+And lead him safely to his friends and thine;<br />
+For thine shall be his friends, his heart, his name;<br />
+His camp shall shout, his nation boast thy fame.</p>
+
+<p>But now the Bay unfolds a passage wide,<br />
+And leads the squadron up the freshening tide;<br />
+Where Pohatan spreads deep her sylvan soil,<br />
+And grassy lawns allure the steps of toil.<br />
+Here, lodged in peace, they tread the welcome land.<br />
+An instant harvest waves beneath their hand,<br />
+Spontaneous fruits their easy cares beguile,<br />
+And opening fields in living culture smile.</p>
+
+<p>With joy Columbus view'd; when thus his voice:<br />
+Ye grove-clad shores, ye generous hosts, rejoice!<br />
+Exchange your benefits, your gifts combine;<br />
+What nature fashions, let her sons refine.</p>
+
+<p>Be thou, my Seer, the people's guardian friend,<br />
+Protect their virtues and their lives defend;<br />
+May wealth and wisdom with their arts unfold,<br />
+Yet save, oh, save them from the thirst of gold!<br />
+Let the poor guardless natives never feel<br />
+The flamen's fraud, the soldier's fateful steel;<br />
+But learn the blessings that alone attend<br />
+On civil rights where social virtues blend,<br />
+In these brave leaders find a welcome guide,<br />
+And rear their fanes and empires by their side.<br />
+Smile, great Hesperia, smile; the star of morn<br />
+Illumes thy heavens and bids thy day be born;<br />
+Thy opening forests show the work begun,<br />
+Thy plains unshaded drink a purer sun;<br />
+Yield now thy bounties, load the laboring main,<br />
+Give birth to nations, and begin thy reign.</p>
+
+<p>The Hero spoke; when thus the Saint rejoin'd,<br />
+Approved his joy, and feasted still his mind:<br />
+Well may thy voice, with patriarch pride elate,<br />
+Burst forth triumphant at a scene so great;<br />
+Here springs indeed the day, since time began,<br />
+The brightest, broadest, happiest morn of man.<br />
+In these prime settlements thy raptures trace<br />
+The germ, the genius of a sapient race,<br />
+Predestined here to methodise and mould<br />
+New codes of empire to reform the old.</p>
+
+<p>A work so vast a second world required,<br />
+By oceans bourn'd, from elder states retired;<br />
+Where, uncontaminated, unconfined,<br />
+Free contemplation might expand the mind,<br />
+To form, fix, prove the well-adjusted plan,<br />
+And base and build the commonwealth of man.</p>
+
+<p>This arm, that leads the stellar host of even,<br />
+That stretch'd o'er yon rude ridge the western heaven,<br />
+That heal'd the wounded earth, when from her side<br />
+The moon burst forth, and left the South Sea tide,<br />
+That calm'd these elements, and taught them where<br />
+To mould their mass and rib the crusted sphere,<br />
+Line the closed continent with wrecks of life,<br />
+And recommence their generating strife,<br />
+That rear'd the mountain, spread the subject plain,<br />
+Led the long stream and roll'd the billowy main,<br />
+Stole from retiring tides the growing strand,<br />
+Heaved the green banks, the shadowy inlets plann'd,<br />
+Strow'd the wild fruitage, gave the beast his place,<br />
+And form'd the region for thy filial race,--<br />
+This arm prepared their future seats of state,<br />
+Design'd their limits and prescribed their date.</p>
+
+<p>When first the staggering globe its breach repair'd,<br />
+And this bold hemisphere its shoulders rear'd,<br />
+Back to those heights, whose hovering vapor shrouds<br />
+My rock-raised world in Alleganian clouds,<br />
+The Atlantic waste its coral kingdom spread,<br />
+And scaly nations here their gambols led;<br />
+Till by degrees, thro following tracts of time,<br />
+From laboring ocean rose the sedgy clime,<br />
+As from unloaded waves the rising sand<br />
+Swell'd into light and gently drew to land.<br />
+For, moved by trade winds o'er the flaming zone,<br />
+The waves roll westward with the constant sun,<br />
+Meet my firm isthmus, scoop that gulphy bed,<br />
+Wheel to the north, and here their current spread.<br />
+Those ravaged banks, that move beneath their force,<br />
+Borne on the tide and lost along their course,<br />
+Create the shore, consolidate the soil.<br />
+And hither lead the enlighten'd steps of toil.</p>
+
+<p>Think not the lust of gold shall here annoy,<br />
+Enslave the nation and its nerve destroy.<br />
+No useles mine these northern hills enclose,<br />
+No ruby ripens and no diamond glows;<br />
+But richer stores and rocks of useful mould<br />
+Repay in wealth the penury of gold.<br />
+Freedom's unconquer'd race, with healthy toil,<br />
+Shall lop the grove and warm the furrow'd soil,<br />
+From iron ridges break the rugged ore,<br />
+And plant with men the man-ennobling shore;<br />
+Sails, villas, towers and temples round them heave,<br />
+Shine o'er the realms and light the distant wave.<br />
+Nor think the native tribes shall rue the day<br />
+That leads our heroes o'er the watery way.<br />
+A cause like theirs no mean device can mar,<br />
+Nor bigot rage nor sacerdotal war.<br />
+From eastern tyrants driven, resolved and brave,<br />
+To build new states or seek a distant grave,<br />
+Our sons shall try a new colonial plan,<br />
+To tame the soil, but spare their kindred man.</p>
+
+<p>Thro Europe's wilds when feudal nations spread.<br />
+The pride of conquest every legion led.<br />
+Each fur-clad chief, by servile crowds adored,<br />
+O'er conquer'd realms assumed the name of lord,<br />
+Built the proud castle, ranged the savage wood,<br />
+Fired his grim host to frequent fields of blood,<br />
+With new-made honors lured his subject bands,<br />
+Price of their lives, and purchase of their lands;<br />
+For names and titles bade the world resign<br />
+Their faith, their freedom and their rights divine.</p>
+
+<p>Contending baronies their terrors spread,<br />
+And slavery follow'd where the standard led;<br />
+Till, little tyrants by the great o'erthrown,<br />
+The spoils of nobles build the regal crown;<br />
+Wealth, wisdom, virtue, every claim of man<br />
+Unguarded fall to consummate the plan.<br />
+Ambitious cares, that nature never gave,<br />
+Torment alike the monarch and the slave,<br />
+Thro all degrees in gradual pomp ascend,<br />
+Honor the name, but tyranny the end.</p>
+
+<p>Far different honors here the heart shall claim,<br />
+Sublimer objects, deeds of happier fame;<br />
+A new creation waits the western shore,<br />
+And moral triumphs o'er monarchic power.<br />
+Thy freeborn sons, with genius unconfined,<br />
+Nor sloth can slacken nor a tyrant bind;<br />
+With self-wrought fame and worth internal blest,<br />
+No venal star shall brighten on their breast,<br />
+Nor king-created name nor courtly art<br />
+Damp the bold thought or desiccate the heart.<br />
+Above all fraud, beyond all titles great,<br />
+Truth in their voice and sceptres at their feet,<br />
+Like sires of unborn states they move sublime,<br />
+Look empires thro and span the breadth of time,<br />
+Hold o'er the world, that men may choose from far,<br />
+The palm of peace, or scourge of barbarous war;<br />
+Till their example every nation charms,<br />
+Commands its friendship and its rage disarms.</p>
+
+<p>Here social man a second birth shall find,<br />
+And a new range of reason lift his mind,<br />
+Feed his strong intellect with purer light,<br />
+A nobler sense of duty and of right,<br />
+The sense of liberty; whose holy fire<br />
+His life shall temper and his laws inspire,<br />
+Purge from all shades the world-embracing scope<br />
+That prompts his genius and expands his hope.</p>
+
+<p>When first his form arose erect on earth,<br />
+Parturient nature hail'd the wondrous birth,<br />
+With fairest limbs and finest fibres wrought,<br />
+And framed for vast and various toils of thought.<br />
+To aid his promised powers with loftier flight,<br />
+And stretch his views beyond corporeal sight,<br />
+Prometheus came, and from the floods of day<br />
+Sunn'd his clear soul with heaven's internal ray,<br />
+The expanding spark divine; that round him springs,<br />
+And leads and lights him thro the immense of things,<br />
+Probes the dense earth, explores the soundless main,<br />
+Remoulds their mass thro all its threefold reign,<br />
+O'er great, o'er small extends his physic laws,<br />
+Empalms the empyrean or dissects a gaz,<br />
+Weighs the vast orbs of heaven, bestrides the sky,<br />
+Walks on the windows of an insect's eye;<br />
+Turns then to self, more curious still to trace<br />
+The whirls of passion that involve the race,<br />
+That cloud with mist the visual lamp of God,<br />
+And plunge the poniard in fraternal blood.<br />
+Here fails his light. The proud Titanian ray<br />
+O'er physic nature sheds indeed its day;<br />
+Yet leaves the moral in chaotic jars,<br />
+The spoil of violence, the sport of wars,<br />
+Presents contrasted parts of one great plan,<br />
+Earth, heaven subdued, but man at swords with man;<br />
+His wars, his errors into science grown,<br />
+And the great cause of all his ills unknown.</p>
+
+<p>But when he steps on these regenerate shores,<br />
+His mind unfolding for superior powers,<br />
+FREEDOM, his new Prometheus, here shall rise,<br />
+Light her new torch in my refulgent skies,<br />
+Touch with a stronger life his opening soul,<br />
+Of moral systems fix the central goal,<br />
+Her own resplendent essence. Thence expand<br />
+The rays of reason that illume the land;<br />
+Thence equal rights proceed, and equal laws,<br />
+Thence holy Justice all her reverence draws;<br />
+Truth with untarnish'd beam descending thence,<br />
+Strikes every eye, and quickens every sense,<br />
+Bids bright Instruction spread her ample page,<br />
+To drive dark dogmas from the inquiring age,<br />
+Ope the true treasures of the earth and skies,<br />
+And teach the student where his object lies.</p>
+
+<p>Sun of the moral world! effulgent source<br />
+Of man's best wisdom and his steadiest force,<br />
+Soul-searching Freedom! here assume thy stand,<br />
+And radiate hence to every distant land;<br />
+Point out and prove how all the scenes of strife,<br />
+The shock of states, the impassion'd broils of life,<br />
+Spring from unequal sway; and how they fly<br />
+Before the splendor of thy peaceful eye;<br />
+Unfold at last the genuine social plan,<br />
+The mind's full scope, the dignity of man,<br />
+Bold nature bursting thro her long disguise,<br />
+And nations daring to be just and wise.</p>
+
+<p>Yes! righteous Freedom, heaven and earth and sea<br />
+Yield or withold their various gifts for thee;<br />
+Protected Industry beneath thy reign<br />
+Leads all the virtues in her filial train;<br />
+Courageous Probity with brow serene,<br />
+And Temperance calm presents her placid mien<br />
+Contentment, Moderation, Labor, Art,<br />
+Mould the new man and humanize his heart;<br />
+To public plenty private ease dilates,<br />
+Domestic peace to harmony of states.<br />
+Protected Industry, careering far,<br />
+Detects the cause and cures the rage of war,<br />
+And sweeps, with forceful arm, to their last graves,<br />
+Kings from the earth and pirates from the waves.</p>
+
+<p>But slow proceeds the work. Long toils, my son,<br />
+Must base the fabric of so vast a throne;<br />
+Where Freedom founds her everlasting reign,<br />
+And earth's whole empires form the fair domain.<br />
+That great coloniarch, whose exalted soul<br />
+Pervades all scenes that future years unrol,<br />
+Must yield the palm, and at a courtier's shrine<br />
+His plans relinquish and his life resign;<br />
+His life that brightens, as his death shall stain,<br />
+The fair, foul annals of his master's reign.</p>
+
+<p>That feeble band, the lonely wilds who tread,<br />
+Their sire, their genius in their Raleigh dead,<br />
+Shall pine and perish in the savage gloom,<br />
+Or mount the wave and seek their ancient home.<br />
+Others in vain the generous task pursue,<br />
+The dangers tempt and all the strife renew;<br />
+While kings and ministers obstruct the plan,<br />
+Unfaithful guardians of the weal of man.</p>
+
+<p>At last brave Delaware, with his blithe host,<br />
+Sails in full triumph to the well-known coast,<br />
+Aids with a liberal hand the patriot cause,<br />
+Reforms their policy, designs their laws;<br />
+Till o'er Virginia's plains they spread their sway,<br />
+And push their hamlets tow'rd the setting day.<br />
+He comes, my Delaware! how mild and bland<br />
+My zephyrs greet him from the long-sought land!<br />
+From fluvial glades that thro my cantons run,<br />
+From those rich mounds that mask the falling sun.</p>
+
+<p>Borne up my Chesapeak, as first he hails<br />
+The flowery banks that scent his slackening sails,<br />
+Descending twilight mellows down the gleam<br />
+That spreads far forward on the broad blue stream;<br />
+The moonbeam dancing, as the pendants glide,<br />
+Silvers with trembling tints the ripply tide;<br />
+The sand-sown beach, the rocky bluff repays<br />
+The faint effulgence with their amber'd rays;<br />
+O'er greenwood glens a browner lustre flies,<br />
+And bright-hair'd hills walk shadowy round the skies.</p>
+
+<p>Profound solicitude and strong delight<br />
+Absorb the chief, as thro the waste of night<br />
+He walks the lonely deck, and skirts the lands<br />
+That wait their nations from his guiding hands.<br />
+Tall thro the tide the river Sires by turns<br />
+Rise round the bark and blend their social urns;<br />
+Majestic brotherhood! each feels the power<br />
+To feed an empire from his future store.<br />
+They stand stupendous, flooding full the bay,<br />
+And pointing each thro different climes the way.</p>
+
+<p>Resplendent o'er the rest, the regent god<br />
+Potowmak towers, and sways the swelling flood;<br />
+Vines clothe his arms, wild fruits o'erfill his horn,<br />
+Wreaths of green maize his reverend brows adorn,<br />
+His silver beard reflects the lunar day,<br />
+And round his loins the scaly nations play.<br />
+The breeze falls calm, the sails in silence rest,<br />
+While thus his greetings cheer the stranger guest:</p>
+
+<p>Blest be the bark that seized the promised hour<br />
+To waft thee welcome to this friendly shore!<br />
+Long have we learnt the fame that here awaits<br />
+The future sires of our unplanted states;<br />
+We all salute thee with our mingling tides,<br />
+Our high-fenced havens and our fruitful sides.<br />
+The hundred realms our myriad fountains drain<br />
+Shall lose their limits in the vast domain;<br />
+But my bold banks with proud impatience wait<br />
+The palm of glory in a work so great;<br />
+On me thy sons their central seat shall raise,<br />
+And crown my labors with distinguish'd praise.<br />
+For this, from rock-ribb'd lakes I forced my birth,<br />
+And climb'd and sunder'd many a mound of earth,<br />
+Rent the huge hills that yonder heave on high<br />
+And with their tenfold ridges rake the sky,<br />
+Removed whole mountains in my headlong way,<br />
+Strow'd a strong soil around this branching Bay,<br />
+Scoop'd wide his basins to the distant main,<br />
+And hung with headlands every marsh they drain.</p>
+
+<p>Haste then, my heroes, tempt the fearless toil,<br />
+Enrich your nations with the nurturing spoil;<br />
+O'er my vast vales let yellow harvests wave,<br />
+Quay the calm ports and dike the lawns I lave.<br />
+Win from the waters every stagnant fen,<br />
+Where truant rills escape my conscious ken;<br />
+And break those remnant rocks that still impede<br />
+My current crowding thro the gaps I made.</p>
+
+<p>So shall your barks pursue my branching bed,<br />
+Slope after slope, to every fountain's head,<br />
+Seat your contiguous towns on all my shores,<br />
+And charge my channel with their seaward stores.<br />
+Freedom and Peace shall well reward your care,<br />
+My guardian mounds protect the friendly pair;<br />
+Or if delirious War shall dare draw nigh,<br />
+And eastern storms o'ercast the western sky,<br />
+My soil shall rear the chief to guide your host,<br />
+And drive the demon cringing from the coast;<br />
+Yon verdant hill his sylvan seat shall claim,<br />
+And grow immortal from his deathless fame.</p>
+
+<p>Then shall your federal towers my bank adorn,<br />
+And hail with me the great millennial morn<br />
+That gilds your capitol. Thence earth shall draw<br />
+Her first clear codes of liberty and law;<br />
+There public right a settled form shall find,<br />
+Truth trim her lamp to lighten humankind,<br />
+Old Afric's sons their shameful fetters cast,<br />
+Our wild Hesperians humanize at last,<br />
+All men participate, all time expand<br />
+The source of good my liberal sages plann'd.</p>
+
+<p>This said, he plunges in the sacred flood;<br />
+That closes calm and lulls the cradled god.<br />
+Exulting at his words, the gallant crew<br />
+Brace the broad canvass and their course pursue:<br />
+For now the breathing airs, from ocean born,<br />
+Breeze up the bay, and lead the lively morn<br />
+That lights them to their port. Tis here they join<br />
+Their bold precursors in the work divine;<br />
+And here their followers, yet a numerous train,<br />
+Wind o'er the wave and swell the new domain.<br />
+For impious Laud, on England's wasted shore,<br />
+Renews the flames that Mary fed before;<br />
+Contristed sects his sullen fury fly,<br />
+To seek new seats beneath a safer sky;<br />
+Where faith and freedom yield a forceful charm,<br />
+And toils and dangers every bosom warm.</p>
+
+<p>Amid the tried unconquerable train,<br />
+Whom tyrants press and seas oppose in vain,<br />
+See Plymouth colons stretch their standards o'er,<br />
+Face the dark wildmen and the wintry shore;<br />
+See virtuous Baltimore ascend the wave,<br />
+See peaceful Penn its unknown terrors brave;<br />
+Swedes, Belgians, Gauls their various flags display,<br />
+Full pinions crowding on the watery way;<br />
+All from their different ports, their sails unfurl'd,<br />
+Point their glad streamers to the western world.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<h1>Book V</h1>.
+
+
+
+<h3>Argument.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="arg">    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. </p>
+
+
+<p>Columbus hail'd them with a father's smile,<br />
+Fruits of his cares and children of his toil;<br />
+While still his eyes, thro tears of joy, descried<br />
+Their course adventurous on the distant tide.<br />
+Thus, when o'er deluged earth her Numen stood,<br />
+The tost ark bounding on the shoreless flood,<br />
+The sacred treasure fixt his guardian view,<br />
+While climes unnoticed in the wave withdrew.</p>
+
+<p>The Hero saw them reach the rising strand,<br />
+Leap from their ships and share the joyous land;<br />
+Receding forests yield the laborers room,<br />
+And opening wilds with fields and gardens bloom.<br />
+Fill'd with the glance ecstatic, all his soul<br />
+Now seems unbounded with the scene to roll,<br />
+And now impatient, with retorted eye,<br />
+Perceives his station in another sky:<br />
+Waft me, indulgent Angel, waft me o'er,<br />
+With those blest heroes, to the happy shore;<br />
+There let me live and die. But all appears<br />
+A fleeting vision! these are future years.<br />
+Yet grant the illusion still may nearer spread,<br />
+And my glad steps may seem their walks to tread;<br />
+While Europe, wrapt in momentary night,<br />
+Shall rise no more to intercept the sight.</p>
+
+<p>Columbus thus; when Hesper's potent hand<br />
+Moves brightening o'er the visionary land;<br />
+The height that bore them still sublimer grew,<br />
+And earth's whole circuit settled from their view.<br />
+A dusky deep, serene as breathless even,<br />
+Seem'd vaulting downward like another heaven;<br />
+The sun, rejoicing on his western way,<br />
+Stampt his fair image in the inverted day:<br />
+When now Hesperia's coast arose more nigh,<br />
+And life and action fill'd the dancing eye.</p>
+
+<p>Between the gulphs, where Laurence drains the world<br />
+And where Floridia's farthest floods are curl'd,<br />
+Where midlands broad their swelling mountains heave<br />
+And slope their champaigns to the Atlantic wave,<br />
+The sandy streambank and the woodgreen plain<br />
+Raise into sight the new-made seats of man.<br />
+The placid ports, that break the seaborn gales,<br />
+Shoot forth their quays and stretch aloft their sails,<br />
+Full harvests wave, new groves with fruitage bend,<br />
+Gay villas smile, defensive towers ascend;<br />
+All the rich works of art their charms display,<br />
+To court the planter and his cares repay:<br />
+Till war invades; when soon the dales disclose<br />
+Their meadows path'd with files of savage foes;<br />
+High tufted quills their painted foreheads press,<br />
+Dark spoils of beasts their shaggy shoulders dress,<br />
+The bow bent forward for the combat strung,<br />
+Ax, quiver, scalpknife on the girdle hung;<br />
+Discordant yells, convulsing long the air,<br />
+Tone forth at last the war whoop's hideous blare.</p>
+
+<p>The Patriarch look'd; and every frontier height<br />
+Pours down the swarthy nations to the fight.<br />
+Where Kennebec's high source forsakes the sky,<br />
+Where long Champlain's yet unkeel'd waters lie,<br />
+Where Hudson crowds his hill-dissundering tide,<br />
+Where Kaatskill dares the starry vault divide,<br />
+Where the dim Alleganies sit sublime<br />
+And give their streams to every neighboring clime,<br />
+The swarms descended like an evening shade,<br />
+And wolves and vultures follow'd where they spread.<br />
+Thus when a storm, on eastern pinions driven,<br />
+Meets the firm Andes in the midst of heaven,<br />
+The clouds convulse, the torrents pour amain,<br />
+And the black waters sweep the subject plain.</p>
+
+<p>Thro harvest fields the bloody myriads tread,<br />
+Sack the lone village, strow the streets with dead;<br />
+The flames in spiry volumes round them rise,<br />
+And shrieks and shouts redoubling rend the skies.<br />
+Fair babes and matrons in their domes expire,<br />
+Or bursting frantic thro the folding fire<br />
+They scream, fly, fall; promiscuous rave along<br />
+The yelling victors and the driven throng;<br />
+The streams run purple; all the peopled shore<br />
+Is wrapt in flames and trod with steps of gore.<br />
+Till colons, gathering from the shorelands far,<br />
+Stretch their new standards and oppose the war,<br />
+With muskets match the many-shafted bow,<br />
+With loud artillery stun the astonish'd foe.<br />
+When, like a broken wave, the barbarous train<br />
+Lead back the flight and scatter from the plain<br />
+Slay their weak captives, drop their shafts in haste,<br />
+Forget their spoils and scour the trackless waste;<br />
+From wood to wood in wild confusion hurl'd,<br />
+They hurry o'er the hills far thro the savage world.</p>
+
+<p>Now move secure the cheerful works of peace,<br />
+New temples rise and fruitful fields increase.<br />
+Where Delaware's wide waves behold with pride<br />
+Penn's beauteous town ascending on their side,<br />
+The crossing streets in just allinement run,<br />
+The walls and pavements sparkle to the sun,<br />
+Like that famed city rose the checker'd plan,<br />
+Whose spacious towers Semiramis began;<br />
+Long ages finish'd what her hand design'd,<br />
+The pride of kings and wonder of mankind.</p>
+
+<p>Newyork ascends o'er Hudson's seaward isles,<br />
+And flings the sunbeams from her glittering tiles;<br />
+Albania, opening thro the distant wood,<br />
+Rolls her rich treasures on her parent flood;<br />
+Amid a thousand sails young Boston laves,<br />
+High looms majestic Newport o'er the waves,<br />
+Patapsco's bay contracts his yielding side,<br />
+As spreading Baltimore invades his tide;<br />
+Aspiring Richmond tops the bank of James,<br />
+And Charleston sways her two contending streams.</p>
+
+<p>Thro each colonial realm, for wisdom great,<br />
+Elected sires assume the cares of state;<br />
+Nursed in equality, to freedom bred,<br />
+Firm is their step and straight the paths they tread;<br />
+Dispensing justice with paternal hand,<br />
+By laws of peace they rule the happy land;<br />
+While reason's page their statute codes unfold,<br />
+And rites and charters flame in figured gold.<br />
+All rights that Britons know they here transfuse,<br />
+Their sense invigorate and expand their views,<br />
+Dare every height of human soul to scan,<br />
+Find, fathom, scope the moral breadth of man,<br />
+Learn how his social powers may still dilate,<br />
+And tone their tension to a stronger state.</p>
+
+<p>Round the long glade where lordly Laurence strays,<br />
+Gaul's migrant sons their forts and villas raise,<br />
+Stretch over Canada their colon sway,<br />
+And circling far beneath the western day<br />
+Plant sylvan Wabash with a watchful post,<br />
+O'er Missisippi spread a mantling host,<br />
+Bid Louisiana's lovely clime prepare<br />
+New arts to prove and infant states to rear;<br />
+While the bright lakes, that wide behind them spread,<br />
+Unfold their channels to the paths of trade,<br />
+Ohio's waves their destined honors claim,<br />
+And smile, as conscious of approaching fame.</p>
+
+<p>But Gallic planters still their trammels wear,<br />
+Their feudal genius still attends them here;<br />
+Dependent feelings for a distant throne<br />
+Gyve the crampt soul that fears to think alone,<br />
+Demand their rulers from the parent land,<br />
+Laws ready made, and generals to command.<br />
+Judge, priest and pedagogue, and all the slaves<br />
+Of foreign masters, crowding o'er the waves,<br />
+Spread thick the shades of vassalage and sloth,<br />
+Absorb their labors and prevent their growth,<br />
+Damp every thought that might their tyrants brave,<br />
+And keep the vast domain a desert and a grave.</p>
+
+<p>Too soon the mother states, with jealous fear,<br />
+Transport their feuds and homebred quarrels here.<br />
+Now Gallia's war-built barks ascend in sight,<br />
+White flags unfold, and armies robed in white<br />
+On all the frontier streams their forts prepare,<br />
+And coop our cantons with surrounding war.<br />
+Quebec, as proud she rears her rocky seat,<br />
+Feeds their full camp and shades their anchored fleet:<br />
+Oswego's rampart frowns athwart his flood,<br />
+And wild Ontario swells beneath his load.</p>
+
+<p>And now a friendly host from Albion's strand<br />
+Arrives to aid her young colonial band.<br />
+They join their force, and tow'rd the falling day<br />
+Impetuous Braddock leads their hasty way;<br />
+O'er Allegany heights, like streams of fire,<br />
+The red flags wave and glittering arms aspire<br />
+To meet the savage hordes, who there advance<br />
+Their skulking files to join the arms of France.</p>
+
+<p>Where, old as earth, yet still unstain'd with blood,<br />
+Monongahela roll'd his careless flood,<br />
+Flankt with his mantling groves the fountful hills,<br />
+Drain'd the vast region thro his thousand rills,<br />
+Lured o'er his lawns the buffle herds, and spread<br />
+For all his fowls his piscatory glade;<br />
+But now perceives, with hostile flag unfurl'd,<br />
+A Gallic fortress awe the western world;<br />
+There Braddock bends his march; the troops within<br />
+Behold their danger and the fire begin.<br />
+Forth bursting from the gates they rush amain,<br />
+Front, flank and charge the fast approaching train;<br />
+The batteries blaze, the leaden volleys pour,<br />
+The vales, the streams, the solid mountains roar;<br />
+Clouds of convolving smoke the welkin spread,<br />
+The champaign shrouding in sulphureous shade.<br />
+Lost in the rocking thunder's loud career,<br />
+No shouts nor groans invade the Patriarch's ear,<br />
+Nor valorous feats are seen, nor flight nor fall,<br />
+But one broad burst of darkness buries all;<br />
+Till chased by rising winds the smoke withdrew,<br />
+And the wide slaughter open'd on his view.<br />
+He saw the British leader borne afar,<br />
+In dust and gore, beyond the wings of war;<br />
+And while delirious panic seized his host,<br />
+Their flags, their arms in wild confusion tost,<br />
+Bold in the midst a youthful warrior strode,<br />
+And tower'd undaunted o'er the field of blood;<br />
+He checks the shameful rout, with vengeance burns,<br />
+And the pale Britons brighten where he turns.<br />
+So, when thick vapors veil the nightly sky,<br />
+The starry host in half-seen lustre fly,<br />
+Till Phosphor rises o'er the twinkling crowd,<br />
+And gives new splendor thro his parting cloud.</p>
+
+<p>Swift on a fiery steed the stripling rose,<br />
+Form'd the light files to pierce the line of foes;<br />
+Then waved his gleamy sword that flash'd the day,<br />
+And thro the Gallic legions hew'd his way:<br />
+His troops press forward like a loose-broke flood,<br />
+Sweep ranks away and smear their paths in blood;<br />
+The hovering foes pursue the combat far,<br />
+And shower their balls along the flying war;<br />
+When the new leader turns his single force,<br />
+Points the flight forward, speeds his backward course;<br />
+The French recoiling half their victory yield,<br />
+And the glad Britons quit the fatal field.</p>
+
+<p>These deathful deeds as great Columbus eyed,<br />
+With anxious tone he thus addrest the Guide:<br />
+Why combat here these transatlantic bands,<br />
+And strow their corses thro thy pathless lands?<br />
+Can Europe's realms, the seat of endless strife,<br />
+Afford no trophies for the waste of life?<br />
+Can monarchs there no proud applauses gain,<br />
+No living laurel for their people slain?<br />
+Nor Belgia's plains, so fertile made with gore,<br />
+Hide heroes' bones nor feast the vultures more?<br />
+Will Rhine no longer cleanse the crimson stain,<br />
+Nor Danube bear their bodies to the main,<br />
+That infant empires here the shock must feel,<br />
+And these pure streams with foreign carnage swell?<br />
+But who that chief? his name, his nation say,<br />
+Whose lifeblood seems his follies to repay;<br />
+And who the youth, that from the combat lost<br />
+Springs up and saves the remnant of his host?</p>
+
+<p>The Power replied: Each age successive brings<br />
+Their varying views to earth's contentious kings;<br />
+Here roll the years when Albion's parent hand,<br />
+In aid of thy brave children, guards the land;<br />
+That growing states their veteran force may train,<br />
+A nobler prize in later fields to gain;<br />
+In fields where Albion's self shall turn their foe,<br />
+Spread broader sails and aim a deadlier blow,<br />
+Recross, in evil hour, the astonish'd wave,<br />
+Her own brave sons to ravage and enslave.<br />
+But here she combats with the powers of Gaul:<br />
+Here her bold Braddock finds his destined fall;<br />
+Thy Washington, in that young martial frame,<br />
+From yon lost field begins a life of fame.<br />
+Tis he, in future straits, with loftier stride,<br />
+The colon states to sovereign rule shall guide;<br />
+When, prest by wrongs, their own full force they find,<br />
+To wield the sword for man, and bulwark humankind.</p>
+
+<p>The Seraph spoke; when thro the purpled air<br />
+The northern armies spread the flames of war.<br />
+Swift o'er the lake, to Crownpoint's fortful strand,<br />
+Rash Abercrombie leads his headlong band<br />
+To fierce unequal fight; the batteries roar,<br />
+Shield the strong foes and rake the banner'd shore;<br />
+Britannia's sons again the contest yield,<br />
+Again proud Gaul triumphant sweeps the field.</p>
+
+<p>But Amherst quick renews the raging toil,<br />
+And drives wide hosting o'er Acadia's isle;<br />
+Young Wolfe beside him points the lifted lance,<br />
+The boast of Britain and the scourge of France.<br />
+The tide of victory here the heroes turn,<br />
+And Gallic navies in their harbors burn;<br />
+High flame the ships, the billows swell with gore,<br />
+And the red standard shades the conquer'd shore.</p>
+
+<p>Wolfe, now detacht and bent on bolder deeds,<br />
+A sail-borne host up sealike Laurence leads,<br />
+Stems the long lessening tide; till Abraham's height<br />
+And famed Quebec rise frowning into sight.<br />
+Swift bounding on the bank, the foe they claim.<br />
+Climb the tall mountain like a rolling flame,<br />
+Push wide their wings, high bannering bright the air,<br />
+And move to fight as comets cope in war.<br />
+The smoke falls folding thro the downward sky.<br />
+And shrouds the mountain from the Patriarch's eye,<br />
+While on the towering top, in glare of day,<br />
+The flashing swords in fiery arches play.<br />
+As on a side-seen storm, adistance driven,<br />
+The flames fork round the semivault of heaven,<br />
+Thick thunders roll, descending torrents flow,<br />
+Dash down the clouds and whelm the hills below;<br />
+Or as on plains of light when Michael strove,<br />
+The swords of cherubim to combat move,<br />
+Ten thousand fiery forms together fray,<br />
+And flash new lightning on empyreal day.</p>
+
+<p>Long raged promiscuous combat, half conceal'd,<br />
+When sudden parle suspended all the field;<br />
+Then roar the shouts, the smoke forsakes the plain<br />
+And the huge hill is topt with heaps of slain.<br />
+Stretch'd high in air Britannia's standard waved,<br />
+And good Columbus hail'd his country saved;<br />
+While calm and silent, where the ranks retire,<br />
+He saw brave Wolfe in victory's arms expire.<br />
+So the pale moon, when morning beams arise,<br />
+Veils her lone visage in her midway skies;<br />
+She needs no longer drive the shades away,<br />
+Nor waits to view the glories of the day.</p>
+
+<p>Again the towns aspire; the cultured field<br />
+And crowded mart their copious treasures yield;<br />
+Back to his plough the colon soldier moves,<br />
+And songs of triumph fill the warbling groves,<br />
+The conscious flocks, returning joys that share,<br />
+Spread thro the grassland o'er the walks of war,<br />
+Streams, freed of gore, their crystal course regain,<br />
+Serener sunbeams gild the tentless plain;<br />
+A general jubilee, o'er earth and heaven,<br />
+Leads the gay morn and lights the lambent even.</p>
+
+<p>Rejoicing, confident of long repose,<br />
+(Their friends triumphant, far retired their foes,)<br />
+The British colonies now feel their sway<br />
+Span the whole north and crowd the western day.<br />
+Acadia, Canada, earth's total side,<br />
+From Slave's long lake to Pensacola's tide,<br />
+Expand their soils for them; and here unfold<br />
+A range of highest hope, a promised age of gold.</p>
+
+<p>But soon from eastern seas dark vapors rise,<br />
+Sweep the vast Occident and shroud the skies,<br />
+Snatch all the vision from the Hero's sight,<br />
+And wrap the coast in sudden shades of night.<br />
+He turn'd, and sorrowful besought the Power:<br />
+Why sinks the scene, or must I view no more?<br />
+Must here the fame of that young world descend?<br />
+Shall our brave children find so quick their end?<br />
+Where then the promised grace? "Thou soon shalt see<br />
+That half mankind shall owe their seats to thee."</p>
+
+<p>The Saint replied: Ere long, beneath thy view<br />
+The scene shall brighten and thy joys renew.<br />
+Here march the troublous years, when goaded sore<br />
+Thy sons shall rise to change the ruling power;<br />
+When Albion's prince, who sways the happy land,<br />
+To lawless rule extends his tyrant hand,<br />
+To bind in slavery's bands the peaceful host,<br />
+Their rights unguarded and their charters lost.<br />
+Now raise thine eye; from this delusive plain;<br />
+What nations leap to life, what deeds adorn their fame!</p>
+
+<p>Columbus look'd; and still around them spread,<br />
+From south to north, the immeasurable shade;<br />
+At last the central darkness burst away,<br />
+And rising regions opened on the day.<br />
+Once more bright Delaware's commercial stream<br />
+And Penn's throng'd city cast a cheerful gleam;<br />
+The dome of state, as conscious of his eye,<br />
+Now seem'd to silver in a loftier sky,<br />
+Unfolding fair its gates; when lo, within<br />
+The assembled states in solemn Congress shine.</p>
+
+<p>The sires elect from every province came,<br />
+Where wide Columbia bore the British name,<br />
+Where Freedom's sons their highborn lineage trace,<br />
+And homebred bravery still exalts the race:<br />
+Her sons who plant each various vast domain<br />
+That Chesapeak's uncounted currents drain;<br />
+The race who Roanoke's clear stream bestride,<br />
+Who fell the pine on Apalachia's side,<br />
+To Albemarle's wide wave who trust their store,<br />
+Who dike proud Pamlico's unstable shore.<br />
+Whose groaning barks o'erload the long Santee,<br />
+Wind thro the realms and labor to the sea,<br />
+(Their cumbrous cargoes, to the sail consign'd,<br />
+Seek distant worlds, and feed and clothe mankind;)<br />
+The race whose rice-fields suck Savanna's urn,<br />
+Whose verdant vines Oconee's bank adorn;<br />
+Who freight the Delaware with golden grain,<br />
+Who tame their steeds on Monmouth's flowery plain,<br />
+From huge Toconnok hills who drag their ore,<br />
+And sledge their corn to Hudson's quay-built shore.<br />
+Who keel Connecticut's long meadowy tide,<br />
+With patient plough his fallow plains divide,<br />
+Spread their white flocks o'er Narraganset's vale,<br />
+Or chase to each chill pole the monstrous whale;<br />
+Whose venturous prows have borne their fame afar,<br />
+Tamed all the seas and steer'd by every star,<br />
+Dispensed to earth's whole habitants their store,<br />
+And with their biting flukes have harrow'd every shore.</p>
+
+<p>The virtuous delegates behold with pain<br />
+The hostile Britons hovering o'er the main,<br />
+Lament the strife that bids two worlds engage,<br />
+And blot their annals with fraternal rage;<br />
+Two worlds in one broad state! whose bounds bestride,<br />
+Like heaven's blue arch, the vast Atlantic tide,<br />
+By language, laws and liberty combined,<br />
+Great nurse of thought, example to mankind.<br />
+Columbia rears her warning voice in vain,<br />
+Brothers to brothers call across the main;<br />
+Britannia's patriots lend a listening ear,<br />
+But kings and courtiers push their mad career;<br />
+Dissension raves, the sheathless falchions glare,<br />
+And earth and ocean tremble at the war.</p>
+
+<p>Thus with stern brow, as worn by cares of state,<br />
+His bosom big with dark unfolding fate,<br />
+High o'er his lance the sacred Eagle spread,<br />
+And earth's whole crown still resting on his head,<br />
+Rome's hoary Genius rose, and mournful stood<br />
+On roaring Rubicon's forbidden flood,<br />
+When Cesar's ensigns swept the Alpine air,<br />
+Led their long legions from the Gallic war,<br />
+Paused on the opposing bank with wings unfurl'd,<br />
+And waved portentous o'er the shuddering world.<br />
+The god, with outstretch'd arm and awful look,<br />
+Call'd the proud victor and prophetic spoke:<br />
+Arrest, my son, thy parricidious hate,<br />
+Pass not the stream nor stab my filial state,<br />
+Stab not thyself, thy friends, thy total kind,<br />
+And worlds and ages in one state combined.<br />
+The chief, regardless of the warning god,<br />
+Rein'd his rude steed and headlong past the flood,<br />
+Cried, Farewel, Peace! took Fortune for his guide,<br />
+And o'er his country pour'd the slaughtering tide.</p>
+
+<p>High on the foremost seat, in living light,<br />
+Resplendent Randolph caught the world's full sight.<br />
+He opes the cause, and points in prospect far<br />
+Thro all the toils that wait impending war:<br />
+But, reverend sage! thy race must soon be o'er,<br />
+To lend thy lustre and to shine no more.<br />
+So the mild morning star, from shades of even,<br />
+Leads up the dawn and lights the front of heaven,<br />
+Points to the waking world the sun's broad way,<br />
+Then veils his own, and vaults above the day.<br />
+And see bright Washington behind thee rise,<br />
+Thy following sun, to gild our morning skies,<br />
+O'er shadowy climes to pour enlivening flame,<br />
+The charms of freedom and the fire of fame.<br />
+For him the patriot bay beheld with pride<br />
+The hero's laurel springing by its side;<br />
+His sword still sleeping rested on his thigh,<br />
+On Britain still he cast a filial eye;<br />
+But sovereign fortitude his visage bore,<br />
+To meet her legions on the invaded shore.</p>
+
+<p>Sage Franklin next arose with cheerful mien,<br />
+And smiled unruffled o'er the solemn scene;<br />
+His locks of age a various wreath embraced,<br />
+Palm of all arts that e'er a mortal graced;<br />
+Beneath him lay the sceptre kings had borne,<br />
+And the tame thunder from the tempest torn.</p>
+
+<p>Wythe, Mason, Pendleton with Henry join'd,<br />
+Rush, Rodney, Langdon, friends of humankind,<br />
+Persuasive Dickinson, the former's boast,<br />
+Recording Thomson, pride of all the host,<br />
+Nash, Jay, the Livingstons, in council great,<br />
+Rutledge and Laurens held the rolls of fate,<br />
+O'er wide creation turn'd their ardent eyes,<br />
+And bade the opprest to selfexistence rise;<br />
+All powers of state, in their extended plan,<br />
+Spring from consent, to shield the rights of man.<br />
+Undaunted Wolcott urged the holy cause,<br />
+With steady hand the solemn scene he draws;<br />
+Stern thoughtful temperance with his ardorjoin'd,<br />
+Nor kings nor worlds could warp his steadfast mind.</p>
+
+<p>With graceful ease but energetic tones;<br />
+And eloquence that shook a thousand thrones,<br />
+Majestic Hosmer stood; the expanding soul<br />
+Darts from his eyebeams while his accents roll.<br />
+But lo! the shaft of death untimely flew,<br />
+And fell'd the patriot from the Hero's view;<br />
+Wrapt in the funeral shroud he sees descend<br />
+The guide of nations and the Muse's friend.<br />
+Columbus dropt a tear; while Hesper's eye<br />
+Traced the freed spirit mounting thro the sky.</p>
+
+<p>Each generous Adams, freedom's favorite pair,<br />
+And Hancock rose the tyrant's rage to dare,<br />
+Groupt with firm Jefferson, her steadiest hope,<br />
+Of modest mien but vast unclouded scope.<br />
+Like four strong pillars of her state they stand,<br />
+They clear from doubt her brave but wavering band;<br />
+Colonial charters in their hands they bore,<br />
+And lawless acts of ministerial power.<br />
+Some injured right in every page appears,<br />
+A king in terrors and a land in tears;<br />
+From all his guileful plots the veil they drew,<br />
+With eye retortive look'd creation thro,<br />
+Traced moral nature thro her total plan,<br />
+Markt all the steps of liberty and man;<br />
+Crowds rose to reason while their accents rung.<br />
+And INDEPENDENCE thunder'd from their tongue.</p>
+
+<p>Columbus turn'd; when rolling to the shore<br />
+Swells o'er the seas an undulating roar;<br />
+Slow, dark, portentous, as the meteors sweep.<br />
+And curtain black the illimitable deep,<br />
+High stalks, from surge to surge, a demon Form,<br />
+That howls thro heaven and breathes a billowing storm.<br />
+His head is hung with clouds; his giant hand<br />
+Flings a blue flame far flickering to the land;<br />
+His blood-stain'd limbs drip carnage as he strides,<br />
+And taint with gory grume the staggering tides;<br />
+Like two red suns his quivering eyeballs glare,<br />
+His mouth disgorges all the stores of war,<br />
+Pikes, muskets, mortars, guns and globes of fire.<br />
+And lighted bombs that fusing trails exspire.<br />
+Percht on his helmet, two twin sisters rode,<br />
+The favorite offspring of the murderous god,<br />
+Famine and Pestilence; whom whilom bore<br />
+His wife, grim Discord, on Trinacria's shore;<br />
+When first their Cyclop sons, from Etna's forge,<br />
+Fill'd his foul magazine, his gaping gorge:<br />
+Then earth convulsive groan'd, high shriek'd the air.<br />
+And hell in gratulation call'd him War.</p>
+
+<p>Behind the fiend, swift hovering for the coast,<br />
+Hangs o'er the wave Britannia's sail-wing'd host;<br />
+They crowd the main, they spread their sheets abroad,<br />
+From the wide Laurence to the Georgian flood,<br />
+Point their black batteries to the peopled shore,<br />
+And spouting flames commence the hideous roar.</p>
+
+<p>Where fortless Falmouth, looking o'er her bay,<br />
+In terror saw the approaching thunders play,<br />
+The fire begins; the shells o'er arching fly,<br />
+And shoot a thousand rainbows thro the sky;<br />
+On Charlestown spires, on Bedford roofs they light,<br />
+Groton and Fairfield kindle from the flight,<br />
+Norwalk expands the blaze; o'er Reading hills<br />
+High flaming Danbury the welkin fills;<br />
+Esopus burns, Newyork's delightful fanes<br />
+And sea-nursed Norfolk light the neighboring plains.<br />
+From realm to realm the smoky volumes bend,<br />
+Reach round the bays and up the streams extend;<br />
+Deep o'er the concave heavy wreaths are roll'd,<br />
+And midland towns and distant groves infold.</p>
+
+<p>Thro solid curls of smoke, the bursting fires<br />
+Climb in tall pyramids above the spires,<br />
+Concentring all the winds; whose forces, driven<br />
+With equal rage from every point of heaven,<br />
+Whirl into conflict, round the scantling pour<br />
+The twisting flames and thro the rafters roar,<br />
+Suck up the cinders, send them sailing far,<br />
+To warn the nations of the raging war,<br />
+Bend high the blazing vortex, swell'd and curl'd,<br />
+Careering, brightening o'er the lustred world,<br />
+Absorb the reddening clouds that round them run,<br />
+Lick the pale stars, and mock their absent sun:<br />
+Seas catch the splendor, kindling skies resound,<br />
+And falling structures shake the smouldering ground.</p>
+
+<p>Crowds of wild fugitives, with frantic tread,<br />
+Flit thro the flames that pierce the midnight shade,<br />
+Back on the burning domes revert their eyes,<br />
+Where some lost friend, some perisht infant lies.<br />
+Their maim'd, their sick, their age-enfeebled sires<br />
+Have sunk sad victims to the sateless fires;<br />
+They greet with one last look their tottering walls,<br />
+See the blaze thicken, as the ruin falls,<br />
+Then o'er the country train their dumb despair,<br />
+And far behind them leave the dancing glare;<br />
+Their own crusht roofs still lend a trembling light,<br />
+Point their long shadows and direct their flight.<br />
+Till wandering wide they seek some cottage door,<br />
+Ask the vile pittance due the vagrant poor;<br />
+Or faint and faltering on the devious road,<br />
+They sink at last and yield their mortal load.</p>
+
+<p>But where the sheeted flames thro Charlestown roar,<br />
+And lashing waves hiss round the burning shore,<br />
+Thro the deep folding fires dread Bunker's height<br />
+Thunders o'er all and shows a field of fight.<br />
+Like nightly shadows thro a flaming grove,<br />
+To the dark fray the closing squadrons move;<br />
+They join, they break, they thicken thro the glare,<br />
+And blazing batteries burst along the war;<br />
+Now wrapt in reddening smoke, now dim in sight,<br />
+They rake the hill, or wing the downward flight;<br />
+Here, wheel'd and wedged, Britannia's veterans turn,<br />
+And the long lightnings from their muskets burn;<br />
+There scattering strive the thin colonial train,<br />
+Whose broken platoons still the field maintain;<br />
+Till Britain's fresh battalions rise the height,<br />
+And with increasing vollies give the fight.<br />
+When, choked with dust, discolor'd deep in gore,<br />
+And gall'd on all sides from the ships and shore,<br />
+Hesperia's host moves off the field afar,<br />
+And saves, by slow retreat, the sad remains of war.</p>
+
+<p>There strides bold Putnam, and from all the plains<br />
+Calls the tired troops, the tardy rear sustains,<br />
+And, mid the whizzing balls that skim the lowe,<br />
+Waves back his sword, defies the following foe.</p>
+
+<p>In this prime prelude of the toil that waits<br />
+The nascent glories of his infant states,<br />
+Columbus mourn'd the slain. A numerous crowd,<br />
+Half of each host, had bought their fame with blood;<br />
+From the whole hill he saw the lifestream pour,<br />
+And sloping pathways trod with tracks of gore.<br />
+Here, glorious Warren, thy cold earth was seen,<br />
+Here spring thy laurels in immortal green;<br />
+Dearest of chiefs that ever prest the plain,<br />
+In freedom's cause with early honors slain;<br />
+Still dear in death, as when before our sight<br />
+You graced the senate, or you led the fight.<br />
+The grateful Muse shall tell the world your fame,<br />
+And unborn realms resound the deathless name.</p>
+
+<p>Now from all plains, as settling smokes decay,<br />
+The banded freemen rise in open day;<br />
+Tall thro the lessening shadows, half conceal'd,<br />
+They throng and gather in a central field;<br />
+In unskill'd ranks but ardent soul they stand,<br />
+Claim quick the foe, and eager strife demand.</p>
+
+<p>In front firm Washington superior shone,<br />
+His eye directed to the half-seen sun;<br />
+As thro the cloud the bursting splendors glow,<br />
+And light the passage to the distant foe.<br />
+His waving steel returns the living day,<br />
+And points, thro unfought fields, the warrior's way;<br />
+His valorous deeds to be confined no more,<br />
+Monongahela, to thy desert shore.<br />
+Matured with years, with nobler glory warm,<br />
+Fate in his eye and empire on his arm,<br />
+He feels his sword the strength of nations wield,<br />
+And moves before them with a broader shield.</p>
+
+<p>Greene rose beside him emulous in arms,<br />
+His genius brightening as the danger warms,<br />
+In counsel great, in every science skill'd,<br />
+Pride of the camp and terror of the field.<br />
+With eager look, conspicuous o'er the crowd,<br />
+And port majestic, brave Montgomery strode,<br />
+Bared his tried blade, with honor's call elate,<br />
+Claim'd the first field and hasten'd to his fate.<br />
+Lincoln, with force unfolding as he rose,<br />
+Scoped the whole war and measured well the foes;<br />
+Calm, cautious, firm, for frugal counsels known,<br />
+Frugal of other's blood but liberal of his own.<br />
+Heath for impending toil his falchion draws,<br />
+And fearless Wooster aids the sacred cause,<br />
+Mercer advanced an early death to prove,<br />
+Sinclair and Mifflin swift to combat move;<br />
+Here stood stern Putnam, scored with ancient scars.<br />
+The living records of his country's wars;<br />
+Wayne, like a moving tower, assumes his post.<br />
+Fires the whole field, and is himself a host;<br />
+Undaunted Stirling, prompt to meet his foes,<br />
+And Gates and Sullivan for action rose;<br />
+Macdougal, Clinton, guardians of the state,<br />
+Stretch the nerved arm to pierce the depth of fate;<br />
+Marion with rapture seized the sword of fame,<br />
+Young Laurens graced a father's patriot name;<br />
+Moultrie and Sumter lead their banded powers,<br />
+Morgan in front of his bold riflers towers,<br />
+His host of keen-eyed marksmen, skill'd to pour<br />
+Their slugs unerring from the twisted bore.<br />
+No sword, no bayonet they learn to wield,<br />
+They gall the flank, they skirt the battling field,<br />
+Cull out the distant foe in full horse speed,<br />
+Couch the long tube and eye the silver bead,<br />
+Turn as he turns, dismiss the whizzing lead,<br />
+And lodge the death-ball in his heedless head.</p>
+
+<p>So toil'd the huntsman Tell. His quivering dart,<br />
+Prest by the bended bowstring, fears to part,<br />
+Dreads the tremendous task, to graze but shun<br />
+The tender temples of his infant son;<br />
+As the loved youth (the tyrant's victim led)<br />
+Bears the poised apple tottering on his head.<br />
+The sullen father, with reverted eye,<br />
+Now marks the satrap, now the bright-hair'd boy;<br />
+His second shaft impatient lies, athirst<br />
+To mend the expected error of the first,<br />
+To pierce the monster, mid the insulted crowd,<br />
+And steep the pangs of nature in his blood.<br />
+Deep doubling tow'rd his breast, well poised and slow.<br />
+Curve the strain'd horns of his indignant bow;<br />
+His left arm straightens as the dexter bends,<br />
+And his nerved knuckle with the gripe distends;<br />
+Soft slides the reed back with the stiff drawn strand,<br />
+Till the steel point has reacht his steady hand;<br />
+Then to his keen fixt eye the shank he brings,<br />
+Twangs the loud cord, the feather'd arrow sings.<br />
+Picks off the pippin from the smiling boy,<br />
+And Uri's rocks resound with shouts of joy.<br />
+Soon by an equal dart the tyrant bleeds,<br />
+The cantons league, the work of fate proceeds;<br />
+Till Austria's titled hordes, with their own gore,<br />
+Fat the fair fields they lorded long before;<br />
+On Gothard's height while freedom first unfurl'd<br />
+Her infant banner o'er the modern world.</p>
+
+<p>Bland, Moylan, Sheldon the long lines enforce<br />
+With light-arm'd scouts, with solid squares of horse;<br />
+And Knox from his full park to battle brings<br />
+His brazen tubes, the last resort of kings.<br />
+The long black rows in sullen silence wait,<br />
+Their grim jaws gaping, soon to utter fate;<br />
+When at his word the carbon clouds shall rise,<br />
+And well aim'd thunders rock the shores and skies.</p>
+
+<p>Two foreign Youths had caught the splendent flame,<br />
+To Fame's hard school the warm disciples came;<br />
+To learn sage Liberty's unlesson'd lore,<br />
+To brave the tempest on her war-beat shore,<br />
+Prometheus like, to snatch a beam of day,<br />
+And homeward bear the unscintillating ray,<br />
+To pour new life on Europe's languid horde,<br />
+Where millions crouch beneath one stupid lord.<br />
+Tho Austria's keiser and the Russian czar<br />
+To dungeons doom them, and with fetters mar,<br />
+Fayette o'er Gaul's vast realm some light shall spread,<br />
+Brave Kosciusko rear Sarmatia's head;<br />
+From Garonne's bank to Duna's wintry skies,<br />
+The morn shall move, and slumbering nations rise.<br />
+And tho their despots quake with wild alarms,<br />
+And lash and agonize the world to arms,<br />
+Whelm for a while the untutor'd race in blood,<br />
+And turn against themselves the raging flood;<br />
+Yet shall the undying dawn, with silent pace,<br />
+Reach over earth and every land embrace;<br />
+Till Europe's well taught sons the boon shall share,<br />
+And bless the labors of the imprison'd Pair.</p>
+
+<p>So Leda's Twins from Colchis raped the Fleece,<br />
+And brought the treasure to their native Greece.<br />
+She hail'd her heroes from their finished wars,<br />
+Assigned their place amid the cluster'd stars,<br />
+Bade round the eternal sky their trophies flame,<br />
+And charged the zodiac with their deathless fame.<br />
+--Here move the Strangers, here in freedom's cause<br />
+His untried blade each stripling hero draws,<br />
+On the great chief their eyes in transport roll,<br />
+And war and Washington renerve the soul.</p>
+
+<p>Steuben advanced, in veteran armor drest,<br />
+For Prussian lore distinguish'd o'er the rest,<br />
+The tactic lore; to this he bends his care,<br />
+And here transplants the discipline of war.<br />
+Other brave chieftains of illustrious name<br />
+Rise into sight and equal honors claim;<br />
+But who can tell the dew-drops of the morn,<br />
+Or count the rays that in the diamond burn?<br />
+--Grieve not, my valiant friends; the faithful song<br />
+Shall soon redress the momentary wrong;<br />
+Your own bright swords have cleaved your course to fame,<br />
+And all her hundred tongues recognize every claim.</p>
+
+<p>Now the broad field as untaught warriors shade,<br />
+The sun's glad beam their shining arms display'd;<br />
+High waved great Washington his glittering steel,<br />
+Bade the long train in circling order wheel;<br />
+And, while the banner'd youths around him prest,<br />
+With voice revered he thus the ranks addrest:<br />
+Ye generous bands, behold the task to save,<br />
+Or yield whole nations to an instant grave.<br />
+See hosted myriads crowding to your shore,<br />
+Hear from all ports their vollied thunders roar;<br />
+From Boston heights their bloody standards play,<br />
+O'er long Champlain they lead their northern way,<br />
+Virginian banks behold their streamers glide,<br />
+And hostile navies load each southern tide.<br />
+Beneath their steps your towns in ashes lie,<br />
+Your inland empires feast their greedy eye;<br />
+Soon shall your fields to lordly parks be turn'd,<br />
+Your children butcher'd and your villas burn'd;<br />
+While following millions, thro the reign of time.<br />
+Who claim their birth in this indulgent clime,<br />
+Bend the weak knee, to servile toils consigned,<br />
+And sloth and slavery still degrade mankind.<br />
+Rise then to war, to timely vengeance rise,<br />
+Ere the gray sire, the helpless infant dies;<br />
+Look thro the world, see endless years descend,<br />
+What realms, what ages on your arms depend!<br />
+Reverse the fate, avenge the insulted sky,<br />
+Move to the work; we conquer or we die.</p>
+
+<p>So spoke Columbia's chief; his guiding hand<br />
+Points out their march to every ardent band,<br />
+Assigns to each brave leader, as they claim,<br />
+His test of valor and his task of fame.<br />
+With his young host Montgomery first moves forth,<br />
+To crush the vast invasion of the north;<br />
+O'er streams and lakes their flags far onward play,<br />
+Navies and forts surrendering mark their way;<br />
+Rocks, fens and deserts thwart the paths they go,<br />
+And hills before them lose their crags in snow.<br />
+Loud Laurence, clogg'd with ice, indignant feels<br />
+Their sleet-clad oars, choked helms and crusted keels;<br />
+They buffet long his tides; when rise in sight<br />
+Quebec's dread walls, and Wolfe's unclouded height<br />
+Already there a few brave patriots stood,<br />
+Worn down with toil, by famine half subdued;<br />
+Untrench'd before the town, they dare oppose<br />
+Their fielded cohorts to the forted foes.<br />
+Ah gallant troop! deprived of half the praise<br />
+That deeds like yours in other times repays,<br />
+Since your prime chief (the favorite erst of fame)<br />
+Hath sunk so deep his hateful, hideous name,<br />
+That every honest Muse with horror flings<br />
+The name unsounded from her sacred strings;<br />
+Else what high tones of rapture must have told<br />
+The first great action of a chief so bold!<br />
+Twas his, twas yours, to brave unusual storms,<br />
+To tame rude nature in her drearest forms;<br />
+Foodless and guideless, thro that waste of earth,<br />
+You march'd long months; and, sore reduced by dearth,<br />
+Reach'd the proud capital, too feeble far<br />
+To tempt unaided such a task of war;<br />
+Till now Montgomery's host, with hopes elate,<br />
+Joins your scant powers, to try the test of fate.</p>
+
+<p>With skilful glance he views the fortress round.<br />
+Bristled with pikes, with dark artillery crown'd;<br />
+Resolves with naked steel to scale the towers,<br />
+And snatch a realm from Britain's hostile powers.<br />
+Now drear December's boreal blasts arise,<br />
+A roaring hailstorm sweeps the shuddering skies,<br />
+Night with condensing horror mantles all,<br />
+And trembling watch-lights glimmer from the wall.<br />
+From bombs o'erarching, fusing, bursting high,<br />
+The glare scarce wanders thro the loaded sky;<br />
+And in the louder shock of meteors drown'd,<br />
+The accustom'd ear in vain expects the sound.</p>
+
+<p>He points the assault; and, thro the howling air,<br />
+O'er rocky ramparts leads audacious war.<br />
+Swift rise the rapid files; the walls are red<br />
+With flashing flames, that show the piles of dead;<br />
+Till back recoiling from the ranks of slain,<br />
+They leave their leader with a feeble train,<br />
+Begirt with foes within the sounding wall,<br />
+Who thick beneath his single falchion fall.<br />
+But short the conflict; others hemm'd him round,<br />
+And brave Montgomery prest the gory ground.<br />
+A second Wolfe Columbus here beheld,<br />
+In youthful charms, a soul undaunted yield;<br />
+Forlorn, o'erpower'd, his hardy host remains,<br />
+Stretch'd by his side, or led in captive chains.<br />
+Macpherson, Cheesman share their general's doom;<br />
+Meigs, Morgan, Dearborn, planning deeds to come,<br />
+Resign impatient prisoners; soon to wield<br />
+Their happier swords in many a broader field.</p>
+
+<p>Triumphant to Newyork's ill forted post<br />
+Britannia turns her vast amphibious host,<br />
+That seas and storms, obedient to her hand,<br />
+Heave and discharge on every distant land;<br />
+Fleets, floating batteries shake Manhattan's shore,<br />
+And Hellgate rocks reverberate the roar.<br />
+Swift o'er the shuddering isles that line the bay<br />
+The red flags wave, and battering engines play;<br />
+Howe leads aland the interminable train,<br />
+While his bold brother still bestorms the main,<br />
+Great Albion's double pride; both famed afar<br />
+On each vext element, each world of war;<br />
+Where British rapine follows peaceful toil,<br />
+And murders nations but to seize their spoil.</p>
+
+<p>Wide sweep the veteran myriads o'er the strand,<br />
+Outnumbering thrice the raw colonial band;<br />
+Flatbush and Harlem sink beneath their fires,<br />
+Brave Stirling yields, and Sullivan retires.<br />
+In vain sage Washington, from hill to hill,<br />
+Plays round his foes with more than Fabian skill,<br />
+Retreats, advances, lures them to his snare,<br />
+To balance numbers by the shifts of war.<br />
+For not their swords alone, but fell disease<br />
+Thins his chill camp and chokes the neighboring seas.<br />
+The baleful malady, from Syrius sent,<br />
+floats in each breeze, impesting every tent,<br />
+Strikes the young soldier with the morning ray,<br />
+And lays him lifeless ere the close of day,<br />
+Far from his father's house, his mother's care,<br />
+And all the charities that nursed him there.</p>
+
+<p>Damp'd is the native rage that first impell'd<br />
+The insulted colons to the battling field;<br />
+When first their high-soul'd sentiment of right<br />
+And full-vein'd vigor nerved their arm to fight.<br />
+For stript of health, benumb'd thy vital flood,<br />
+Thy muscles lax'd and decomposed thy blood,<br />
+What is thy courage, man? a foodless flame,<br />
+A light unseen, a soul without a frame.</p>
+
+<p>Each day the decimated ranks forgo<br />
+Their dying comrades to repulse the foe,<br />
+And each damp night, along the slippery trench,<br />
+Breathe at their post the suffocating stench;<br />
+They sink by hundreds on the vapory soil,<br />
+Till a new fight relieves their deadlier toil.<br />
+At last from fruitless combat, sore defeat,<br />
+To Croton hills they lead a long retreat;<br />
+Pale, curbed, exanimate, in dull despair,<br />
+Train the scant relics of the twofold war:<br />
+The sword, the pestilence press hard behind;<br />
+The body both assail, and one beats down the mind.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<h1>Book VI</h1>.
+
+
+
+<h3>Argument.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="arg">    British cruelty to American prisoners. Prison Ship. Retreat of
+    Washington with the relics of his army, pursued by Howe. Washington
+    recrossing the Delaware in the night, to surprise the British van, is
+    opposed by uncommon obstacles. His success in this audacious enterprise
+    lays the foundation of the American empire. A monument to be ere
+    on the bank of the Delaware. Approach of Burgoyne, sailing up the St.
+    Laurence with an army of Britons and various other nations. Indignant
+    energy of the colonies, compared to that of Greece in opposing the
+    invasion of Xerxes. Formation of an army of citizens, under the command
+    of Gates. Review of the American and British armies, and of the savage
+    tribes who join the British standard. Battle of Saratoga. Story of
+    Lucinda. Second battle, and capture of Burgoyne and his army. </p>
+
+
+<p>But of all tales that war's black annals hold,<br />
+The darkest, foulest still remains untold;<br />
+New modes of torture wait the shameful strife,<br />
+And Britain wantons in the waste of life.</p>
+
+<p>Cold-blooded Cruelty, first fiend of hell,<br />
+Ah think no more with savage hordes to dwell;<br />
+Quit the Caribian tribes who eat their slain,<br />
+Fly that grim gang, the Inquisitors of Spain,<br />
+Boast not thy deeds in Moloch's shrines of old,<br />
+Leave Barbary's pirates to their blood-bought gold,<br />
+Let Holland steal her victims, force them o'er<br />
+To toils and death on Java's morbid shore;<br />
+Some cloak, some color all these crimes may plead;<br />
+Tis avarice, passion, blind religion's deed;<br />
+But Britons here, in this fraternal broil,<br />
+Grave, cool, deliberate in thy service toil.<br />
+Far from the nation's eye, whose nobler soul<br />
+Their wars would humanize, their pride control,<br />
+They lose the lessons that her laws impart,<br />
+And change the British for the brutal heart.<br />
+Fired by no passion, madden'd by no zeal,<br />
+No priest, no Plutus bids them not to feel;<br />
+Unpaid, gratuitous, on torture bent,<br />
+Their sport is death, their pastime to torment;<br />
+All other gods they scorn, but bow the knee,<br />
+And curb, well pleased, O Cruelty, to thee.</p>
+
+<p>Come then, curst goddess, where thy votaries reign,<br />
+Inhale their incense from the land and main;<br />
+Come to Newyork, their conquering arms to greet,<br />
+Brood o'er their camp and breathe along their fleet;<br />
+The brother chiefs of Howe's illustrious name<br />
+Demand thy labors to complete their fame.<br />
+What shrieks of agony thy praises sound!<br />
+What grateless dungeons groan beneath the ground!<br />
+See the black Prison Ship's expanding womb<br />
+Impested thousands, quick and dead, entomb.<br />
+Barks after barks the captured seamen bear,<br />
+Transboard and lodge thy silent victims there;<br />
+A hundred scows, from all the neighboring shore,<br />
+Spread the dull sail and ply the constant oar,<br />
+Waft wrecks of armies from the well fought field,<br />
+And famisht garrisons who bravely yield;<br />
+They mount the hulk, and, cramm'd within the cave,<br />
+Hail their last house, their living, floating grave.</p>
+
+<p>She comes, the Fiend! her grinning jaws expand,<br />
+Her brazen eyes cast lightning o'er the strand,<br />
+Her wings like thunder-clouds the welkin sweep,<br />
+Brush the tall spires and shade the shuddering deep;<br />
+She gains the deck, displays her wonted store,<br />
+Her cords and scourges wet with prisoners' gore;<br />
+Gripes, pincers, thumb-screws spread beneath her feet,<br />
+Slow poisonous drugs and loads of putrid meat;<br />
+Disease hangs drizzling from her slimy locks,<br />
+And hot contagion issues from her box.</p>
+
+<p>O'er the closed hatches ere she takes her place,<br />
+She moves the massy planks a little space,<br />
+Opes a small passage to the cries below,<br />
+That feast her soul on messages of woe;<br />
+There sits with gaping ear and changeless eye,<br />
+Drinks every groan and treasures every sigh,<br />
+Sustains the faint, their miseries to prolong,<br />
+Revives the dying and unnerves the strong.</p>
+
+<p>But as the infected mass resign their breath.<br />
+She keeps with joy the register of death.<br />
+As tost thro portholes from the encumber'd cave,<br />
+Corpse after corpse fall dashing in the wave;<br />
+Corpse after corpse, for days and months and years,<br />
+The tide bears off, and still its current clears;<br />
+At last, o'erloaded with the putrid gore,<br />
+The slime-clad waters thicken round the shore.<br />
+Green Ocean's self, that oft his wave renews,<br />
+That drinks whole fleets with all their battling crews,<br />
+That laves, that purifies the earth and sky,<br />
+Yet ne'er before resign'd his natural dye,<br />
+Here purples, blushes for the race he bore<br />
+To rob and ravage this unconquer'd shore;<br />
+The scaly nations, as they travel by,<br />
+Catch the contagion, sicken, gasp and die.</p>
+
+<p>Now Hesper turns the Hero's tearful eye<br />
+To other fields where other standards fly;<br />
+For here constrain'd new warfare to disclose,<br />
+And show the feats of more than mortal foes,<br />
+Where interposing with celestial might,<br />
+His own dread labors must decide the fight,<br />
+He bids the scene with pomp unusual rise,<br />
+To teach Columbus how to read the skies.</p>
+
+<p>He marks the trace of Howe's triumphant course,<br />
+And wheels o'er Jersey plains his gathering force;<br />
+Where dauntless Washington, begirt with foes,<br />
+Still greater rises as the danger grows,<br />
+And wearied troops, o'er kindred warriors slain,<br />
+Attend his march thro many a sanguine plain.</p>
+
+<p>From Hudson's bank to Trenton's wintry strand,<br />
+He guards in firm retreat his feeble band;<br />
+Britons by thousands on his flanks advance,<br />
+Bend o'er his rear and point the lifted lance.<br />
+Past Delaware's frozen stream, with scanty force,<br />
+He checks retreat; then turning back his course,<br />
+Remounts the wave, and thro the mingled roar<br />
+Of ice and storm reseeks the hostile shore,<br />
+Wrapt in the gloom of night. The offended Flood<br />
+Starts from his cave, assumes the indignant god,<br />
+Rears thro the parting tide his foamy form,<br />
+And with his fiery eyeballs lights the storm.<br />
+He stares around him on the host he heard,<br />
+Clears his choked urn and smooths his icy beard,<br />
+And thus: Audacious chief, this troubled wave<br />
+Tempt not; or tempting, here shall gape thy grave.<br />
+Is nothing sacred to thy venturous might?<br />
+The howling storm, the holy truce of night,<br />
+High tossing ice-isles crashing round thy side,<br />
+Insidious rocks that pierce the tumbling tide?<br />
+Fear then this forceful arm, and hear once more,<br />
+Death stands between thee and that shelvy shore.</p>
+
+<p>The chief beholds the god, and notes his cry,<br />
+But onward drives, nor pauses to reply;<br />
+Calls to each bark, and spirits every host<br />
+To toil, gain, tempt the interdicted coast.<br />
+The crews, regardless of the doubling roar,<br />
+Breast the strong helm, and wrestle with the oar,<br />
+Stem with resurgent prow the struggling spray,<br />
+And with phosphoric lanterns shape their way.</p>
+
+<p>The god perceived his warning words were vain,<br />
+And rose more furious to assert his reign,<br />
+Lash'd up a loftier surge, and heaved on high<br />
+A ridge of billows that obstruct the sky;<br />
+And, as the accumulated mass he rolls,<br />
+Bares the sharp rocks and lifts the gaping shoals.<br />
+Forward the fearless barges plunge and bound,<br />
+Top the curl'd wave, or grind the flinty ground,<br />
+Careen, whirl, right, and sidelong dasht and tost,<br />
+Now seem to reach and now to lose the coast.</p>
+
+<p>Still unsubdued the sea-drench'd army toils,<br />
+Each buoyant skiff the flouncing godhead foils;<br />
+He raves and roars, and in delirious woe<br />
+Calls to his aid his ancient hoary foe,<br />
+Almighty Frost; when thus the vanquish'd Flood<br />
+Bespeaks in haste the great earth-rending god:<br />
+Father of storms! behold this mortal race<br />
+Confound my force and brave me to my face.<br />
+Not all my waves by all my tempests driven,<br />
+Nor black night brooding o'er the starless heaven,<br />
+Can check their course; they toss and plunge amain,<br />
+And lo, my guardian rocks project their points in vain.</p>
+
+<p>Come to my help, and with thy stiffening breath<br />
+Clog their strain'd helms, distend their limbs indeath.<br />
+Tho ancient enmity our realms divide,<br />
+And oft thy chains arrest my laboring tide,<br />
+Let strong necessity our cause combine,<br />
+Thy own disgrace anticipate in mine;<br />
+Even now their oars thy sleet in vain congeals,<br />
+Thy crumbling ice-cakes crash beneath their keels;<br />
+Their impious arms already cope with ours,<br />
+And mortal man defies immortal Powers.</p>
+
+<p>Roused at the call, the Monarch mounts the storm;<br />
+In muriat flakes he robes his nitrous form,<br />
+Glares thro the compound, all its blast inhales,<br />
+And seas turn crystal where he breathes his gales.<br />
+He comes careering o'er his bleak domain,<br />
+But comes untended by his usual train;<br />
+Hail, sleet and snow-rack far behind him fly,<br />
+Too weak to wade thro this petrific sky,<br />
+Whose air consolidates and cuts and stings,<br />
+And shakes hoar tinsel from its flickering wings.<br />
+Earth heaves and cracks beneath the alighting god;<br />
+He gains the pass, bestrides the roaring flood,<br />
+Shoots from his nostrils one wide withering sheet<br />
+Of treasured meteors on the struggling fleet;<br />
+The waves conglaciate instant, fix in air,<br />
+Stand like a ridge of rocks, and shiver there.<br />
+The barks, confounded in their headlong surge,<br />
+Or wedged in crystal, cease their oars to urge;<br />
+Some with prone prow, as plunging down the deep,<br />
+And some remounting o'er the slippery steep<br />
+Seem laboring still, but moveless, lifeless all;<br />
+And the chill'd army here awaits its fall.</p>
+
+<p>But Hesper, guardian of Hesperia's right,<br />
+From his far heaven looks thro the rayless night;<br />
+And, stung to vengeance at the unequal strife,<br />
+To save her host, in jeopardy of life,<br />
+Starts from his throne, ascends his flamy car.<br />
+And turns tremendous to the field of war.<br />
+His wheels, resurging from the depth of even,<br />
+Roll back the night, streak wide the startled heaven,<br />
+Regain their easting with reverted gyres,<br />
+And stud their path with scintillating fires.<br />
+He cleaves the clouds; and, swift as beams of day,<br />
+O'er California sweeps his splendid way;<br />
+Missouri's mountains at his passage nod,<br />
+And now sad Delaware feels the present god,<br />
+And trembles at his tread. For here to fight<br />
+Rush two dread Powers of such unmeasured might,<br />
+As threats to annihilate his doubtful reign,<br />
+Convulse the heaven and mingle earth and main.</p>
+
+<p>Frost views his brilliant foe with scornful eye,<br />
+And whirls a tenfold tempest thro the sky;<br />
+Where each fine atom of the immense of air,<br />
+Steel'd, pointed, barb'd for unexampled war,<br />
+Sings o'er the shuddering ground; when thus he broke<br />
+Contemptuous silence, and to Hesper spoke:<br />
+Thou comest in time to share their last disgrace,<br />
+To change to crystal with thy rebel race,<br />
+Stretch thy huge corse o'er Delaware's bank afar,<br />
+And learn the force of elemental war.<br />
+Or if undying life thy lamp inspire,<br />
+Take that one blast and to thy sky retire;<br />
+There, roll'd eternal round the heavens, proclaim<br />
+Thy own disaster and my deathless fame.</p>
+
+<p>I come, said Hesper, not to insult the brave,<br />
+But break thy sceptre and let loose my wave,<br />
+Teach the proud Stream more peaceful tides to roll,<br />
+And send thee howling to thy stormy pole;<br />
+That drear dominion shall thy rage confine;<br />
+This land, these waters and those troops are mine.</p>
+
+<p>He added not; and now the sable storm,<br />
+Pierced by strong splendor, burst before his form;<br />
+His visage stern an awful lustre shed,<br />
+His pearly planet play'd around his head.<br />
+He seized a lofty pine, whose roots of yore<br />
+Struck deep in earth, to guard the sandy shore<br />
+From hostile ravage of the mining tide,<br />
+That rakes with spoils of earth its crumbling side.<br />
+He wrencht it from the soil, and o'er the foe<br />
+Whirl'd the strong trunk, and aim'd a sweeping blow,<br />
+That sung thro air, but miss'd the moving god,<br />
+And fell wide crashing on the frozen flood.<br />
+For many a rood the shivering ice it tore,<br />
+Loosed every bark and shook the sounding shore;<br />
+Stroke after stroke with doubling force he plied,<br />
+Foil'd the hoar Fiend and pulverized the tide.<br />
+The baffled tyrant quits the desperate cause;<br />
+From Hesper's heat the river swells and thaws,<br />
+The fleet rolls gently to the Jersey coast,<br />
+And morning splendors greet the landing host.</p>
+
+<p>Tis here dread Washington, when first the day<br />
+O'er Trenton beam'd to light his rapid way,<br />
+Pour'd the rude shock on Britain's vanguard train,<br />
+And led whole squadrons in his captive chain;<br />
+Where veteran troops to half their numbers yield,<br />
+Tread back their steps, or press the sanguine field,<br />
+To Princeton plains precipitate their flight,<br />
+Thro new disasters and unfinish'd fight,<br />
+Resign their conquests by one sad surprise,<br />
+Sink in their pride and see their rivals rise.</p>
+
+<p>Here dawn'd the daystar of Hesperia's fame,<br />
+Here herald glory first emblazed her name;<br />
+On Delaware's bank her base of empire stands,<br />
+The work of Washington's immortal hands;<br />
+Prompt at his side while gallant Mercer trod,<br />
+And seal'd the firm foundation with his blood.</p>
+
+<p>In future years, if right the Muse divine,<br />
+Some great memorial on this bank shall shine;<br />
+A column bold its granite shaft shall rear,<br />
+Swell o'er the strand and check the passing air,<br />
+Cast its broad image on the watery glade,<br />
+And Bristol greet the monumental shade;<br />
+Eternal emblem of that gloomy hour,<br />
+When the great general left her storm-beat shore,<br />
+To tempest, night and his own sword consign'd<br />
+His country's fates, the fortunes of mankind.</p>
+
+<p>Where sealike Laurence, rolling in his pride,<br />
+With Ocean's self disputes the tossing tide,<br />
+From shore to shore, thro dim distending skies,<br />
+Beneath full sails imbanded nations rise.<br />
+Britain and Brunswick here their flags unfold,<br />
+Here Hessia's hordes, for toils of slaughter sold,<br />
+Anspach and Darmstadt swell the hireling train,<br />
+Proud Caledonia crowds the masted main,<br />
+Hibernian kerns and Hanoverian slaves<br />
+Move o'er the decks and darken wide the waves.</p>
+
+<p>Tall on the boldest bark superior shone<br />
+A warrior ensign'd with a various crown;<br />
+Myrtles and laurels equal honors join'd,<br />
+Which arms had purchased and the Muses twined;<br />
+His sword waved forward, and his ardent eye<br />
+Seem'd sharing empires in the southern sky.<br />
+Beside him rose a herald to proclaim<br />
+His various honors, titles, feats and fame;<br />
+Who raised an opening scroll, where proudly shone<br />
+<i>Burgoyne and vengeance from the British throne.</i></p>
+
+<p>Champlain receives the congregated host,<br />
+And his husht waves beneath the sails are lost;<br />
+Ticonderoga rears his rocks in vain,<br />
+Nor Edward's walls the weighty shock sustain;<br />
+Deep George's loaded lake reluctant guides<br />
+Their bounding barges o'er his sacred tides.<br />
+State after state the splendid pomp appalls,<br />
+Each town surrenders, every fortress falls;<br />
+Sinclair retires; and with his feeble train,<br />
+In slow retreat o'er many a fatal plain,<br />
+Allures their march; wide moves their furious force,<br />
+And flaming hamlets mark their wasting course;<br />
+Thro fortless realms their spreading ranks are wheel'd,<br />
+On Mohawk's wrestern wave, on Bennington's dread field.</p>
+
+<p>At last where Hudson, with majestic pace,<br />
+Swells at the sight, and checks his rapid race,<br />
+Thro dark Stillwater slow and silent moves,<br />
+And flying troops with sullen pause reproves,<br />
+A few firm bands their starry standard rear,<br />
+Wheel, front and face the desolating war.<br />
+Sudden the patriot flame each province warms,<br />
+Deep danger calls, the freemen quit their farms,<br />
+Seize their tried muskets, name their chiefs to lead,<br />
+Endorse their knapsacks and to vengeance speed.<br />
+O'er all the land the kindling ardor flies,<br />
+Troop follows troop, and flags on flags arise,<br />
+Concentred, train'd, their forming files unite,<br />
+Swell into squadrons and demand the fight.</p>
+
+<p>When Xerxes, raving at his sire's disgrace,<br />
+Pour'd his dark millions on the coast of Thrace,<br />
+O'er groaning Hellespont his broad bridge hurl'd,<br />
+Hew'd ponderous Athos from the trembling world,<br />
+Still'd with his weight of ships the struggling main,<br />
+And bound the billows in his boasted chain,<br />
+Wide o'er proud Macedon he wheel'd his course,<br />
+Thrace, Thebes, Thessalia join'd his furious force.<br />
+Thro six torn states his hovering swarms increase,<br />
+And hang tremendous on the skirts of Greece;<br />
+Deep groan the shrines of all her guardian gods,<br />
+Sad Pelion shakes, divine Olympus nods,<br />
+Shock'd Ossa sheds his hundred hills of snow,<br />
+And Tempe swells her murmuring brook below;<br />
+Wild in her starts of rage the Pythian shrieks,<br />
+Dodona's Oak the pangs of nature speaks,<br />
+Eleusis quakes thro all her mystic caves,<br />
+And black Trophonius gapes a thousand graves.<br />
+But soon the freeborn Greeks to vengeance rise,<br />
+Brave Sparta springs where first the danger lies,<br />
+Her self-devoted Band, in one steel'd mass,<br />
+Plunge in the gorge of death, and choke the Pass,<br />
+Athenian youths, the unwieldy war to meet,<br />
+Couch the stiff lance, or mount the well arm'd fleet;<br />
+They sweep the incumber'd seas of their vast load,<br />
+And fat their fields with lakes of Asian blood.</p>
+
+<p>So leapt our youths to meet the invading hordes,<br />
+Fame fired their courage, freedom edged their swords.<br />
+Gates in their van on high-hill'd Bemus rose,<br />
+Waved his blue steel and dared the headlong foes;<br />
+Undaunted Lincoln, laboring on his right,<br />
+Urged every arm, and gave them hearts to fight;<br />
+Starke, at the dexter flank, the onset claims,<br />
+Indignant Herkimer the left inflames;<br />
+He bounds exulting to commence the strife.<br />
+And buy the victory with his barter'd life.</p>
+
+<p>And why, sweet Minstrel, from the harp of fame<br />
+Withhold so long that once resounding name?<br />
+The chief who, steering by the boreal star,<br />
+O'er wild Canadia led our infant war,<br />
+In desperate straits superior powers display'd,<br />
+Burgoyne's dread scourge, Montgomery's ablest aid;<br />
+Ridgefield and Compo saw his valorous might<br />
+With ill-arm'd swains put veteran troops to flight.<br />
+Tho treason foul hath since absorb'd his soul,<br />
+Bade waves of dark oblivion round him roll,<br />
+Sunk his proud heart abhorrent and abhorr'd,<br />
+Effaced his memory and defiled his sword;<br />
+Yet then untarnisht roll'd his conquering car;<br />
+Then famed and foremost in the ranks of war<br />
+Brave Arnold trod; high valor warm'd his breast,<br />
+And beams of glory play'd around his crest.<br />
+Here toils the chief; whole armies from his eye<br />
+Resume their souls, and swift to combat fly.</p>
+
+<p>Camp'd on a hundred hills, and trench'd in form,<br />
+Burgoyne's long legions view the gathering storm;<br />
+Uncounted nations round their general stand,<br />
+And wait the signal from his guiding hand.<br />
+Canadia crowds her Gallic colons there,<br />
+Ontario's yelling tribes torment the air,<br />
+Wild Huron sends his lurking hordes from far,<br />
+Insidious Mohawk swells the woodland war;<br />
+Scalpers and ax-men rush from Erie's shore,<br />
+And Iroquois augments the war whoop roar;<br />
+While all his ancient troops his train supply,<br />
+Half Europe's banners waving thro the sky;<br />
+Deep squadron'd horse support his endless flanks,<br />
+And park'd artillery frowns behind the ranks.<br />
+Flush'd with the conquest of a thousand fields,<br />
+And rich with spoils that all the region yields,<br />
+They burn with zeal to close the long campaign,<br />
+And crush Columbia on this final plain.</p>
+
+<p>His fellow chiefs inhale the hero's flame,<br />
+Nerves of his arm and partners in his fame:<br />
+Phillips, with treasured thunders poised and wheel'd<br />
+In brazen tubes, prepares to rake the field;<br />
+The trench-tops darken with the sable rows,<br />
+And, tipt with fire, the waving match-rope glows.<br />
+There gallant Reidesel in German guise,<br />
+And Specht and Breyman, prompt for action, rise;<br />
+His savage hordes the murderous Johnson leads,<br />
+Files thro the woods and treads the tangled weeds,<br />
+Shuns open combat, teaches where to run,<br />
+Skulk, couch the ambush, aim the hunter's gun,<br />
+Whirl the sly tomahawk, the war whoop sing,<br />
+Divide the spoils and pack the scalps they bring.</p>
+
+<p>Frazer in quest of glory seeks the field;--<br />
+False glare of glory, what hast thou to yield?<br />
+How long, deluding phantom, wilt thou blind,<br />
+Mislead, debase, unhumanize mankind?<br />
+Bid the bold youth, his headlong sword who draws,<br />
+Heed not the object, nor inquire the cause;<br />
+But seek adventuring, like an errant knight,<br />
+Wars not his own, gratuitous in fight,<br />
+Greet the gored field, then plunging thro the fire,<br />
+Mow down his men, with stupid pride expire,<br />
+Shed from his closing eyes the finish'd flame,<br />
+And ask, for all his crimes, a deathless name?<br />
+And when shall solid glory, pure and bright,<br />
+Alone inspire us, and our deeds requite?<br />
+When shall the applause of men their chiefs pursue<br />
+In just proportion to the good they do,<br />
+On virtue's base erect the shrine of fame,<br />
+Define her empire, and her code proclaim?</p>
+
+<p>Unhappy Frazer! little hast thou weigh'd<br />
+The crirneful cause thy valor comes to aid.<br />
+Far from thy native land, thy sire, thy wife,<br />
+Love's lisping race that cling about thy life,<br />
+Thy soul beats high, thy thoughts expanding roam<br />
+On battles past, and laurels yet to come:<br />
+Alas, what laurels? where the lasting gain?<br />
+A pompous funeral on a desert plain!<br />
+The cannon's roar, the muffled drums proclaim,<br />
+In one short blast, thy momentary fame,<br />
+And some war minister per-hazard reads<br />
+In what far field the tool of placemen bleeds.</p>
+
+<p>Brave Heartly strode in youth's o'erweening pride;<br />
+Housed in the camp he left his blooming bride,<br />
+The sweet Lucinda; whom her sire from far,<br />
+On steeds high bounding o'er the waste of war,<br />
+Had guided thro the lines, and hither led,<br />
+That fateful morn, the plighted chief to wed.<br />
+He deem'd, deluded sire! the contest o'er,<br />
+That routed rebels dared the fight no more;<br />
+And came to mingle, as the tumult ceased,<br />
+The victor's triumph with the nuptial feast.<br />
+They reach'd his tent; when now with loud alarms<br />
+The morn burst forth and roused the camp to arms;<br />
+Conflicting passions seized the lover's breast,<br />
+Bright honor call'd, and bright Lucinda prest:--<br />
+And wilt thou leave me for that clangorous call?<br />
+Traced I these deserts but to see thee fall?<br />
+I know thy valorous heart, thy zeal that speeds<br />
+Where dangers press and boldest battle bleeds.<br />
+My father said blest Hymen here should join<br />
+With sacred Love to make Lucinda thine;<br />
+But other union these dire drums foredoom,<br />
+The dark dead union of the eternal tomb.<br />
+On yonder plain, soon sheeted o'er with blood,<br />
+Our nuptial couch shall prove a crimson clod;<br />
+For there this night thy livid corse must lie,<br />
+I'll seek it there, and on that bosom die.<br />
+Yet go; tis duty calls; but o'er thy head<br />
+Let this white plume its floating foliage spread;<br />
+That from the rampart, thro the troubled air,<br />
+These eyes may trace thee toiling in the war.<br />
+She fixt the feather on his crest above,<br />
+Bound with the mystic knot, the knot of love;<br />
+He parted silent, but in silent prayer<br />
+Bade Love and Hymen guard the timorous fair.</p>
+
+<p>Where Saratoga show'd her champaign side,<br />
+That Hudson bathed with still untainted tide,<br />
+The opposing pickets push'd their scouting files,<br />
+Wheel'd skirmisht, halted, practised all their wiles;<br />
+Each to mislead, insnare, exhaust their foes,<br />
+And court the conquest ere the armies close.</p>
+
+<p>Now roll like winged storms the solid lines,<br />
+The clarion thunders and the battle joins,<br />
+Thick flames in vollied flashes load the air,<br />
+And echoing mountains give the noise of war;<br />
+Sulphureous clouds rise reddening round the height,<br />
+And veil the skies, and wrap the sounding fight.<br />
+Soon from the skirts of smoke, where thousands toil,<br />
+Ranks roll away and into light recoil;<br />
+Starke pours upon them in a storm of lead;<br />
+His hosted swains bestrew the field with dead,<br />
+Pierce with strong bayonets the German reins,<br />
+Whelm two battalions in their captive chains,<br />
+Bid Baum, with wounds enfeebled, quit the field,<br />
+And Breyman next his gushing lifeblood yield.</p>
+
+<p>This Frazer sees, and thither turns his course,<br />
+Bears down before them with Britannia's force,<br />
+Wheels a broad column on the victor flank,<br />
+And springs to vengeance thro the foremost rank.<br />
+Lincoln, to meet the hero, sweeps the plain;<br />
+His ready bands the laboring Starke sustain;<br />
+Host matching host, the doubtful battle burns,<br />
+And now the Britons, now their foes by turns<br />
+Regain the ground; till Frazer feels the force<br />
+Of a rude grapeshot in his flouncing horse;<br />
+Nor knew the chief, till struggling from the fall,<br />
+That his gored thigh had first received the ball.<br />
+He sinks expiring on the slippery soil;<br />
+Shock'd at the sight, his baffled troops recoil;<br />
+Where Lincoln, pressing with redoubled might,<br />
+Broke thro their squadrons and confirmed the flight;<br />
+When this brave leader met a stunning blow,<br />
+That stopt his progress and avenged the foe.<br />
+He left the field; but prodigal of life,<br />
+Unwearied Francis still prolong'd the strife;<br />
+Till a chance carabine attained his head,<br />
+And stretch'd the hero mid the vulgar dead.<br />
+His near companions rush with ardent gait,<br />
+Swift to revenge, but soon to share his fate;<br />
+Brown, Adams, Coburn, falling side by side,<br />
+Drench the chill sod with all their vital tide.</p>
+
+<p>Firm on the west bold Herkimer sustains<br />
+The gather'd shock of all Canadia's trains;<br />
+Colons and wildmen post their skulkers there,<br />
+Outflank his pickets and assail his rear,<br />
+Drive in his distant scouts with hideous blare,<br />
+And press, on three sides close, the hovering war.<br />
+Johnson's own shrieks commence the deafening din,<br />
+Rouse every ambush and the storm begin.<br />
+A thousand thickets, thro each opening glen,<br />
+Pour forth their hunters to the chase of men;<br />
+Trunks of huge trees, and rocks and ravines lend<br />
+Unnumber'd batteries and their files defend;<br />
+They fire, they squat, they rise, advance and fly,<br />
+And yells and groans alternate rend the sky.<br />
+The well aim'd hatchet cleaves the helmless head,<br />
+Mute showers of arrows and loud storms of lead<br />
+Rain thick from hands unseen, and sudden fling<br />
+A deep confusion thro the laboring wing.</p>
+
+<p>But Herkimer undaunted quits the stand,<br />
+Breaks in loose files his disencumbered band,<br />
+Wheels on the howling glens each light-arm'd troop,<br />
+And leads himself where Johnson tones his whoop,<br />
+Pours thro his copse a well directed fire;<br />
+The semisavage sees his tribes retire,<br />
+Then follows thro the brush in full horse speed,<br />
+And gains the hilltop where the Hurons lead;<br />
+Here turns his courser; when a grateful sight<br />
+Recals his stragglers, and restrains his flight.<br />
+For Herkimer no longer now sustains<br />
+The loss of blood that his faint vitals drains:<br />
+A ball had pierced him ere he changed his field;<br />
+The slow sure death his prudence had conceal'd,<br />
+Till dark derouted foes should yield to flight,<br />
+And his firm friends could finish well the fight.</p>
+
+<p>Lopt from his horse the hero sinks at last;<br />
+The Hurons ken him, and with hallooing blast<br />
+Shake the vast wilderness; the tribes around<br />
+Drink with broad ears and swell the rending sound,<br />
+Rush back to vengeance with tempestuous might,<br />
+Sweep the long slopes from every neighboring height,<br />
+Full on their check'd pursuers; who regain,<br />
+From all their woods, the first contested plain.<br />
+Here open fight begins; and sure defeat<br />
+Had forced that column to a swift retreat,<br />
+But Arnold, toiling thro the distant smoke,<br />
+Beheld their plight, a small detachment took,<br />
+Bore down behind them with his field-park loud,<br />
+And hail'd his grapeshot thro the savage crowd;<br />
+Strow'd every copse with dead, and chased afar<br />
+The affrighted relics from the skirts of war.</p>
+
+<p>But on the centre swells the heaviest charge,<br />
+The squares develop and the lines enlarge.<br />
+Here Kosciusko's mantling works conceal'd<br />
+His batteries mute, but soon to scour the field;<br />
+Morgan with all his marksmen flanks the foe,<br />
+Hull, Brooks and Courtlandt in the vanguard glow;<br />
+Here gallant Dearborn leads his light-arm'd train,<br />
+Here Scammel towers, here Silly shakes the plain.</p>
+
+<p>Gates guides the onset with his waving brand,<br />
+Assigns their task to each unfolding band,<br />
+Sustains, inspirits, prompts the warrior's rage,<br />
+Now bids the flank and now the front engage,<br />
+Points the stern riflers where their slugs to pour,<br />
+And tells the unmasking batteries when to roar.<br />
+For here impetuous Powell wheels and veers<br />
+His royal guards, his British grenadiers;<br />
+His Highland broadswords cut their wasting course,<br />
+His horse-artillery whirls its furious force.<br />
+Here Specht and Reidesel to battle bring<br />
+Their scattering yagers from each folding wing;<br />
+And here, concentred in tremendous might,<br />
+Britain's whole park, descending to the fight,<br />
+Roars thro the ranks; tis Phillips leads the train,<br />
+And toils and thunders o'er the shuddering plain.</p>
+
+<p>Burgoyne, secure of victory, from his height,<br />
+Eyes the whole field and orders all the fight,<br />
+Marks where his veterans plunge their fiercest fire,<br />
+And where his foes seem halting to retire,<br />
+Already sees the starry staff give way.<br />
+And British ensigns gaining on the day;<br />
+When from the western wing, in steely glare,<br />
+All-conquering Arnold surged the tide of war.<br />
+Columbia kindles as her hero comes;<br />
+Her trump's shrill clangor and her deafening drums<br />
+Redoubling sound the charge; they rage, they burn,<br />
+And hosted Europe trembles in her turn.<br />
+So when Pelides' absence check'd her fate,<br />
+All Ilion issued from her guardian gate;<br />
+Her huddling squadrons like a tempest pour'd,<br />
+Each man a hero and each dart a sword,<br />
+Full on retiring Greece tumultuous fall,<br />
+And Greece reluctant seeks her sheltering wall;<br />
+But Pelius' son rebounding o'er the plain,<br />
+Troy backward starts and seeks her towers again.</p>
+
+<p>Arnold's dread falchion, with terrific sway,<br />
+Rolls on the ranks and rules the doubtful day,<br />
+Confounds with one wide sweep the astonish'd foes,<br />
+And bids at last the scene of slaughter close.<br />
+Pale rout begins, Britannia's broken train<br />
+Tread back their steps and scatter from the plain,<br />
+To their strong camp precipitate retire,<br />
+And wide behind them streams the roaring fire.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime, the skirts of war as Johnson gored,<br />
+His kindred cannibals desert their lord;<br />
+They scour the waste for undistinguish'd prey,<br />
+Howl thro the night the horrors of the day,<br />
+Scalp every straggler from all parties stray'd,<br />
+Each wounded wanderer thro the moonlight glade;<br />
+And while the absent armies give them place,<br />
+Each camp they plunder and each world disgrace.</p>
+
+<p>One deed shall tell what fame great Albion draws<br />
+From these auxiliars in her barbarous cause,<br />
+Lucinda's fate; the tale, ye nations, hear;<br />
+Eternal ages, trace it with a tear.<br />
+Long from the rampart, thro the imbattled field,<br />
+She spied her Heartly where his column wheel'd,<br />
+Traced him with steadfast eye and tortured breast,<br />
+That heaved in concert with his dancing crest;<br />
+And oft, with head advanced and hand outspread,<br />
+Seem'd from her Love to ward the flying lead;<br />
+Till, dimm'd by distance and the gathering cloud;<br />
+At last he vanish'd in the warrior crowd.<br />
+She thought he fell; and wild with fearless air,<br />
+She left the camp to brave the woodland war,<br />
+Made a long circuit, all her friends to shun,<br />
+And wander'd wide beneath the falling sun;<br />
+Then veering to the field, the pickets past,<br />
+To gain the hillock where she miss'd him last.<br />
+Fond maid, he rests not there; from finish'd fight<br />
+He sought the camp, and closed the rear of flight.</p>
+
+<p>He hurries to his tent;--oh rage! despair!<br />
+No glimpse, no tidings of the frantic fair;<br />
+Save that some carmen, as acamp they drove,<br />
+Had seen her coursing for the western grove.<br />
+Faint with fatigue and choked with burning thirst,<br />
+Forth from his friends with bounding leap he burst,<br />
+Vaults o'er the palisade with eyes on flame,<br />
+And fills the welkin with Lucinda's name,<br />
+Swift thro the wild wood paths phrenetic springs,--<br />
+Lucind! Lucinda! thro the wild wood rings.<br />
+All night he wanders; barking wolves alone<br />
+And screaming night-birds answer to his moan;<br />
+For war had roused them from their savage den;<br />
+They scent the field, they snuff the walks of men.</p>
+
+<p>The fair one too, of every aid forlorn,<br />
+Had raved and wander'd, till officipus morn<br />
+Awaked the Mohawks from their short repose,<br />
+To glean the plunder, ere their comrades rose.<br />
+Two Mohawks met the maid,--historian, hold!--<br />
+Poor Human Nature! must thy shame be told?<br />
+Where then that proud preeminence of birth,<br />
+Thy Moral Sense? the brightest boast of earth.<br />
+Had but the tiger changed his heart for thine,<br />
+Could rocks their bowels with that heart combine,<br />
+Thy tear had gusht, thy hand relieved her pain,<br />
+And led Lucinda to her lord again.</p>
+
+<p>She starts, with eyes upturn'd and fleeting breath,<br />
+In their raised axes views her instant death,<br />
+Spreads her white hands to heaven in frantic prayer,<br />
+Then runs to grasp their knees, and crouches there.<br />
+Her hair, half lost along the shrubs she past,<br />
+Rolls in loose tangles round her lovely waist;<br />
+Her kerchief torn betrays the globes of snow<br />
+That heave responsive to her weight of woe.<br />
+Does all this eloquence suspend the knife?<br />
+Does no superior bribe contest her life?<br />
+There does: the scalps by British gold are paid;<br />
+A long-hair'd scalp adorns that heavenly head;<br />
+Arid comes the sacred spoil from friend or foe,<br />
+No marks distinguish, and no man can know.</p>
+
+<p>With calculating pause and demon grin,<br />
+They seize her hands, and thro her face divine<br />
+Drive the descending ax; the shriek she sent<br />
+Attain'd her lover's ear; he thither bent<br />
+With all the speed his wearied limbs could yield,<br />
+Whirl'd his keen blade, and stretch'd upon the field<br />
+The yelling fiends; who there disputing stood<br />
+Her gory scalp, their horrid prize of blood.<br />
+He sunk delirious on her lifeless clay,<br />
+And past, in starts of sense, the dreadful day.</p>
+
+<p>Are these thy trophies, Carleton! these the swords<br />
+Thy hand unsheath'd and gave the savage hordes,<br />
+Thy boasted friends, by treaties brought from far,<br />
+To aid thy master in his murderous war?</p>
+
+<p>But now Britannia's chief, with proud disdain<br />
+Coop'd in his camp, demands the field again.<br />
+Back to their fate his splendid host he drew,<br />
+Swell'd high their rage, and led the charge anew;<br />
+Again the batteries roar, the lightnings play,<br />
+Again they fall, again they roll away;<br />
+For now Columbia, with rebounding might,<br />
+Foil'd quick their columns, but confined their flight.<br />
+Her wings, like fierce tornados, gyring ran,<br />
+Crusht their wide flanks and gain'd their flying van;<br />
+Here Arnold charged; the hero storm'd and pour'd<br />
+A thousand thunders where he turn'<br />
+No pause, no parley; onward far he fray'd,<br />
+Dispersed whole squadrons every bound he made,<br />
+Broke thro their rampart, seized theircampand stores<br />
+And pluck'd the standard from their broken towers.</p>
+
+<p>Aghast, confounded in the midway field,<br />
+They drop their arms; the banded nations yield.<br />
+When sad Burgoyne, in one disastrous day,<br />
+Sees future crowns and former wreaths decay,<br />
+His banners furl'd, his long battalions wheel'd<br />
+To pile their muskets on the battle field;<br />
+While two pacific armies shade one plain,<br />
+The mighty victors and the captive train.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<h1>Book VII</h1>.
+
+
+
+
+<h3>Argument.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="arg">    Coast of France rises in vision. Louis, to humble the British power,
+    forms an alliance with the American states. This brings France, Spain
+    and Holland into the war, and rouses Hyder Ally to attack the English
+    in India. The vision returns to America, where the military operations
+    continue with various success. Battle of Monmouth. Storming of
+    Stonypoint by Wayne. Actions of Lincoln, and surrender of Charleston.
+    Movements of Cornwallis. Actions of Greene, and battle of Eutaw. French
+    army arrives, and joins the American. They march to besiege the English
+    army of Cornwallis in York and Gloster. Naval battle of Degrasse and
+    Graves. Two of their ships grappled and blown up. Progress of the
+    siege. A citadel mined and blown up. Capture of Cornwallis and his
+    army. Their banners furled and muskets piled on the field of battle. </p>
+
+
+<p>Thus view'd the Pair; when lo, in eastern skies,<br />
+From glooms unfolding, Gallia's coasts arise.<br />
+Bright o'er the scenes of state a golden throne,<br />
+Instarr'd with gems and hung with purple, shone;<br />
+Young Bourbon there in royal splendor sat,<br />
+And fleets and moving armies round him wait.<br />
+For now the contest, with increased alarms,<br />
+Fill'd every court and roused the world to arms;<br />
+As Hesper's hand, that light from darkness brings,<br />
+And good to nations from the scourge of kings,<br />
+In this dread hour bade broader beams unfold,<br />
+And the new world illuminate the old.</p>
+
+<p>In Europe's realms a school of sages trace<br />
+The expanding dawn that waits the Reasoning Race;<br />
+On the bright Occident they fix their eyes,<br />
+Thro glorious toils where struggling nations rise;<br />
+Where each firm deed, each new illustrious name<br />
+Calls into light a field of nobler fame:<br />
+A field that feeds their hope, confirms the plan<br />
+Of well poized freedom and the weal of man.<br />
+They scheme, they theorize, expand their scope,<br />
+Glance o'er Hesperia to her utmost cope;<br />
+Where streams unknown for other oceans stray,<br />
+Where suns unseen their waste of beams display,<br />
+Where sires of unborn nations claim their birth,<br />
+And ask their empires in those wilds of earth.<br />
+While round all eastern climes, with painful eye,<br />
+In slavery sunk they see the kingdoms lie,<br />
+Whole states exhausted to enrich a throne,<br />
+Their fruits untasted and their rights unknown;<br />
+Thro tears of grief that speak the well taught mind,<br />
+They hail the &aelig;ra that relieves mankind.</p>
+
+<p>Of these the first, the Gallic sages stand,<br />
+And urge their king to lift an aiding hand.<br />
+The cause of humankind their souls inspired,<br />
+Columbia's wrongs their indignation fired;<br />
+To share her fateful deeds their counsel moved,<br />
+To base in practice what in theme they proved:<br />
+That no proud privilege from birth can spring,<br />
+No right divine, nor compact form a king;<br />
+That in the people dwells the sovereign sway,<br />
+Who rule by proxy, by themselves obey;<br />
+That virtues, talents are the test of awe,<br />
+And Equal Rights the only source of law.<br />
+Surrounding heroes wait the monarch's word,<br />
+In foreign fields to draw the patriot sword,<br />
+Prepared with joy to join those infant powers,<br />
+Who build republics on the western shores.</p>
+
+<p>By honest guile the royal ear they bend,<br />
+And lure him on, blest Freedom to defend;<br />
+That, once recognised, once establisht there,<br />
+The world might learn her profer'd boon to share.<br />
+But artful arguments their plan disguise,<br />
+Garb'd in the gloss that suits a monarch's eyes.<br />
+By arms to humble Britain's haughty power,<br />
+From her to sever that extended shore,<br />
+Contents his utmost wish. For this he lends<br />
+His powerful aid, and calls the opprest his friends.<br />
+The league proposed, he lifts his arm to save,<br />
+And speaks the borrow'd language of the brave:</p>
+
+<p>Ye states of France, and ye of rising name<br />
+Who work those distant miracles of fame,<br />
+Hear and attend; let heaven the witness bear,<br />
+We wed the cause, we join the righteous war.<br />
+Let leagues eternal bind each friendly land,<br />
+Given by our voice, and stablisht by our hand;<br />
+Let that brave people fix their infant sway,<br />
+And spread their blessings with the bounds of day.<br />
+Yet know, ye nations; hear, ye Powers above,<br />
+Our purposed aid no views of conquest move;<br />
+In that young world revives no ancient claim<br />
+Of regions peopled by the Gallic name;<br />
+Our envied bounds, already stretch'd afar,<br />
+Nor ask the sword, nor fear encroaching war;<br />
+But virtue, coping with the tyrant power<br />
+That drenches earth in her best children's gore,<br />
+With nature's foes bids former compact cease;<br />
+We war reluctant, and our wish is peace;<br />
+For man's whole race the sword of France we draw;<br />
+Such is our will, and let our will be law.</p>
+
+<p>He spoke; his moving armies veil'd the plain,<br />
+His fleets rode bounding on the western main;<br />
+O'er lands and seas the loud applauses rung,<br />
+And war and union dwelt on every tongue.</p>
+
+<p>The other Bourbon caught the splendid strain,<br />
+To Gallia's arms he joins the powers of Spain;<br />
+Their sails assemble; Crillon lifts the sword,<br />
+Minorca bows and owns her ancient lord.<br />
+But while dread Elliott shakes the Midland wave,<br />
+They strive in vain the Calpian rock to brave.<br />
+Batavia's states with equal speed prepare<br />
+Thro western isles to meet the naval war;<br />
+For Albion there rakes rude the tortured main,<br />
+And foils the force of Holland, France and Spain.</p>
+
+<p>Where old Indostan still perfumes the skies,<br />
+To furious strife his ardent myriads rise;<br />
+Fierce Hyder there, unconquerably bold,<br />
+Bids a new flag its horned moons unfold,<br />
+Spreads o'er Carnatic kings his splendid force,<br />
+And checks the Britons in their waiting course.</p>
+
+<p>Europe's pacific powers their counsels join,<br />
+The laws of trade to settle and define.<br />
+The imperial Moscovite around him draws<br />
+Each Baltic state to join the righteous cause;<br />
+Whose arm'd Neutrality the way prepares<br />
+To check the ravages of future wars;<br />
+Till by degrees the wasting sword shall cease,<br />
+And commerce lead to universal peace.</p>
+
+<p>Thus all the ancient world with anxious eyes<br />
+Enjoy the lights that gild Atlantic skies,<br />
+Wake to new life, assume a borrow'd flame,<br />
+Enlarge the lustre and partake the fame.<br />
+So mounts of ice, that polar heavens invade,<br />
+Tho piled unseen thro night's long wintry shade.<br />
+When morn at last illumes their glaring throne,<br />
+Give back the day and imitate the sun.</p>
+
+<p>But still Columbus, on his war-beat shore,<br />
+Sees Albion's fleets her new battalions pour;<br />
+The states unconquer'd still their terrors wield,<br />
+And stain with mingled gore the embattled field.<br />
+On Pennsylvania's various plains they move,<br />
+And adverse armies equal slaughter prove;<br />
+Columbia mourns her Nash in combat slain,<br />
+Britons around him press the gory plain;<br />
+Skirmish and cannonade and distant fire<br />
+Each power diminish and each nation tire.<br />
+Till Howe from fruitless toil demands repose,<br />
+And leaves despairing in a land of foes<br />
+His wearied host; who now, to reach their fleet,<br />
+O'er Jersey hills commence their long retreat,<br />
+Tread back the steps their chief had led before,<br />
+And ask in vain the late abandon'd shore,<br />
+Where Hudson meets, the main; for on their rear<br />
+Columbia moves; and checks their swift career.</p>
+
+<p>But where green Monmouth lifts his grassy height,<br />
+They halt, they face, they dare the coming fight.<br />
+Howe's proud successor, Clinton, hosting there,<br />
+To tempt once more the desperate chance of war,<br />
+Towers at their head, in hopes to work relief,<br />
+And mend the errors of his former chief.<br />
+Here shines his day; and here with loud acclaim<br />
+Begins and ends his little task of fame.<br />
+He vaults before them with his balanced blade,<br />
+Wheels the bright van, and forms the long parade;<br />
+Where Britons, Hessians crowd the glittering field,<br />
+And all their powers for ready combat wield.<br />
+As the dim sun, beneath the skirts of even,<br />
+Crimsons the clouds that sail the western heaven;<br />
+So, in red wavy rows, where spread the train<br />
+Of men and standards, shone the fateful plain.</p>
+
+<p>They shone, till Washington obscured their light,<br />
+And his long ranks roll'd forward to the fight.<br />
+He points the charge; the mounted thunders roar,<br />
+And rake the champaign to the distant shore.<br />
+Above the folds of smoke that veil the war,<br />
+His guiding sword illumes the fields of air;<br />
+And vollied flames, bright bursting o'er the plain,<br />
+Break the brown clouds, discovering far the slain:<br />
+Till flight begins; the smoke is roll'd away,<br />
+And the red standards open into day.<br />
+Britons and Germans hurry from the field,<br />
+Now wrapt in dust, and now to sight reveal'd;<br />
+Behind, swift Washington his falchion drives,<br />
+Thins the pale ranks, but saves submissive lives.<br />
+Hosts captive bow and move behind his arm,<br />
+And hosts before him wing the sounding storm;<br />
+When the glad sea salutes their fainting sight,<br />
+And Albion's fleet wide thundering aids their flight;<br />
+They steer to sad Newyork their hasty way,<br />
+And rue the toils of Monmouth's mournful day.</p>
+
+<p>But Hudson still, with his interior tide,<br />
+Laves a rude rock that bears Britannia's pride,<br />
+Swells round the headland with indignant roar,<br />
+And mocks her thunders from his murmuring shore;<br />
+When a firm cohort starts from Peekskill plain,<br />
+To crush the invaders and the post regain.<br />
+Here, gallant Hull, again thy sword is tried,<br />
+Meigs, Fleury, Butler, laboring side by side,<br />
+Wayne takes the guidance, culls the vigorous band,<br />
+Strikes out the flint, and bids the nervous hand<br />
+Trust the mute bayonet and midnight skies,<br />
+To stretch o'er craggy walls the dark surprise.<br />
+With axes, handspikes on the shoulder hung,<br />
+And the sly watchword whisper'd from the tongue,<br />
+Thro different paths the silent march they take,<br />
+Plunge, climb the ditch, the palisado break,<br />
+Secure each sentinel, each picket shun,<br />
+Grope the dim postern where the byways run.<br />
+Soon the roused garrison perceives its plight;<br />
+Small time to rally and no means of flight,<br />
+They spring confused to every post they know,<br />
+Point their poized cannon where they hear the foe,<br />
+Streak the dark welkin with the flames they pour,<br />
+And rock the mountain with convulsive roar.</p>
+
+<p>The swift assailants still no fire return,<br />
+But, tow'rd the batteries that above them burn,<br />
+Climb hard from crag to crag; and scaling higher<br />
+They pierce the long dense canopy of fire<br />
+That sheeted all the sky; then rush amain,<br />
+Storm every outwork, each dread summit gain,<br />
+Hew timber'd gates, the sullen drawbridge fall,<br />
+File thro and form within the sounding wall.<br />
+The Britons strike their flag, the fort forgo,<br />
+Descend sad prisoners to the plain below.<br />
+A thousand veterans, ere the morning rose,<br />
+Received their handcuffs from five hundred foes;<br />
+And Stonypoint beheld, with dawning day,<br />
+His own starr'd standard on his rampart play.</p>
+
+<p>From sack'd Savanna, whelm'd in hostile fires,<br />
+A few raw troops brave Lincoln now retires; 2l<br />
+With rapid march to suffering Charleston goes,<br />
+To meet the myriads of concentring foes,<br />
+Who shade the pointed strand. Each fluvial flood<br />
+Their gathering fleets and floating batteries load,<br />
+Close their black sails, debark the amphibious host,<br />
+And with their moony anchors fang the coast.</p>
+
+<p>The bold beleaguer'd post the hero gains,<br />
+And the hard siege with various fate sustains.<br />
+Cornwallis, towering at the British van,<br />
+In these fierce toils his wild career began;<br />
+He mounts the forky streams, and soon bestrides<br />
+The narrow neck that parts converging tides,<br />
+Sinks the deep trench, erects the mantling tower,<br />
+Lines with strong forts the desolated shore,<br />
+Hems on all sides the long unsuccour'd place,<br />
+With mines and parallels contracts the space;<br />
+Then bids the battering floats his labors crown,<br />
+And pour their bombard on the shuddering town.</p>
+
+<p>High from the decks the mortar's bursting fires<br />
+Sweep the full streets, and splinter down the spires.<br />
+Blaze-trailing fuses vault the night's dim round,<br />
+And shells and langrage lacerate the ground;<br />
+Till all the tented plain, where heroes tread,<br />
+Is torn with crags and cover'd with the dead.<br />
+Each shower of flames renews the townsmen's woe,<br />
+They wail the fight, they dread the cruel foe.<br />
+Matrons in crowds, while tears bedew their charms,<br />
+Babes at their sides and infants in their arms,<br />
+Press round their Lincoln and his hand implore,<br />
+To save them trembling from the tyrant's power.<br />
+He shares their anguish with a moistening eye,<br />
+And bids the balls rain thicker thro the sky;<br />
+Tries every aid that art and valor yield,<br />
+The sap, the countermine, the battling field,<br />
+The bold sortie, by famine urged afar,<br />
+That dreadful daughter of earth-wasting War.<br />
+But vain the conflict now; on all the shore<br />
+The foes in fresh brigades around him pour;<br />
+He yields at last the well contested prize,<br />
+And freedom's banners quit the southern skies.</p>
+
+<p>The victor Britons soon the champaign tread,<br />
+And far anorth their fire and slaughter spread;<br />
+Thro fortless realms, where unarm'd peasants fly,<br />
+Cornwallis bears his bloody standard high;<br />
+O'er Carolina rolls his growing force,<br />
+And thousands fall and thousands aid his course;<br />
+While in his march athwart the wide domain,<br />
+Colonial dastards join his splendid train.<br />
+So mountain streams thro slopes of melting snow<br />
+Swell their foul waves and flood the world below.</p>
+
+<p>Awhile the Patriarch saw, with heaving sighs,<br />
+These crimson flags insult the saddening skies,<br />
+Saw desolation whelm his favorite coast,<br />
+His children scattered and their vigor lost,<br />
+Dekalb in furious combat press the plain,<br />
+Morgan and Smallwood every shock sustain,<br />
+Gates, now no more triumphant, quit the field,<br />
+Indignant Davidson his lifeblood yield,<br />
+Blount, Gregory, Williamson, with souls of fire<br />
+But slender force, from hill to hill retire;<br />
+When Greene in lonely greatness takes the ground,<br />
+And bids at last the trump of vengeance sound.</p>
+
+<p>A few firm patriots to the chief repair,<br />
+Raise the star standard and demand the war.<br />
+But o'er the regions as he turns his eyes,<br />
+What foes develop! and what forts arise!<br />
+Rawdon with rapid marches leads their course,<br />
+From state to state Cornwallis whirls their force,<br />
+Impetuous Tarleton like a torrent pours,<br />
+And fresh battalions land along the shores;<br />
+Where, now resurgent from his captive chain,<br />
+Phillips wide storming shakes the field again;<br />
+And traitor Arnold, lured by plunder o'er,<br />
+Joins the proud powers his valor foil'd before.</p>
+
+<p>Greene views the tempest with collected soul,<br />
+Arid fates of empires in his bosom roll;<br />
+So small his force, where shall he lift the steel?<br />
+(Superior hosts o'er every canton wheel)<br />
+Or how behold their wanton carnage spread,<br />
+Himself stand idle and his country bleed?<br />
+Fixt in a moment's pause the general stood,<br />
+And held his warriors from the field of blood;<br />
+Then points the British legions where to steer,<br />
+Marks to their chief a rapid wild career,<br />
+Wide o'er Virginia lets him foeless roam,<br />
+To search for pillage and to find his doom,<br />
+With short-lived glory feeds his sateless flame,<br />
+But leaves the victory to a nobler name,<br />
+Gives to great Washington to meet his way,<br />
+Nor claims the honors of so bright a day.</p>
+
+<p>Now to the conquer'd south he turns his force,<br />
+Renerves the nation by his rapid course;<br />
+Forts fall around him, hosts before him fly,<br />
+And captive bands his growing train supply;<br />
+A hundred leagues of coast, in one campaign,<br />
+Return reconquer'd to their lords again.<br />
+At last Britannia's vanguard, near the strand,<br />
+Veers on her foe to make one vigorous stand.<br />
+Her gallant Stuart here amass'd from far<br />
+The veteran legions of the Georgian war,<br />
+To aid her hard-pusht powers, and quick restore<br />
+The British name to that extended shore.<br />
+He checks their flight, and chooses well their field,<br />
+Flank'd with a marsh, by lofty woods concealed;<br />
+Where Eutaw's fountains, tinged of old with gore,<br />
+Still murmuring swell'd amid the bones they bore,<br />
+Destined again to foul their pebbly stream,<br />
+The mournful monuments of human fame;<br />
+There Albion's columns, ranged in order bright,<br />
+Stand like a fiery wall and wait the shock of fight.</p>
+
+<p>Swift on the neighboring hill as Greene arose,<br />
+He view'd, with rapid glance, the glittering foes,<br />
+Disposed for combat all his ardent train,<br />
+To charge, change front, each echelon sustain;<br />
+Roused well their rage, superior force to prove,<br />
+Waved his bright blade and bade the onset move.<br />
+As hovering clouds, when morning beams arise,<br />
+Hang their red curtains round our eastern skies,<br />
+Unfold a space to hail the promised sun,<br />
+And catch their splendors from his rising throne;<br />
+Thus glow'd the opposing fronts, whose steely glare<br />
+Glanced o'er the shuddering interval of war.</p>
+
+<p>From Albion's left the cannonade began,<br />
+And pour'd thick thunders on Hesperia's van,<br />
+Forced in her dexter guards, that skirmisht wide<br />
+To prove what powers the forest hills might hide;<br />
+They break, fall back, with measured quickstep tread,<br />
+Form close, and flank the solid squares they led.<br />
+Now roll, with kindling haste, the long stark lines,<br />
+From wing to wing the sounding battle joins;<br />
+Batteries and field-parks and platoons of fire,<br />
+In mingled shocks their roaring blasts exspire.<br />
+Each front approaching fast, with equal pace,<br />
+Devours undaunted their dividing space;<br />
+Till, dark beneath the smoke, the meeting ranks<br />
+Slope their strong bayonets, with short firm shanks<br />
+Protruded from their tubes; each bristling van,<br />
+Steel fronting steel, and man encountering man,<br />
+In dreadful silence tread. As, wrapt from sight,<br />
+The nightly ambush moves to secret fight;<br />
+So rush the raging files, and sightless close<br />
+In plunging thrust with fierce conflicting foes.<br />
+They reach, they strike, they stagger o'er the slain,<br />
+Deal doubtful blows, or closing clench their man,<br />
+Intwine their twisting limbs, the gun forgo,<br />
+Wrench off the bayonet and dirk the foe;<br />
+Then struggling back, reseize the musket bare,<br />
+Club the broad breech, and headlong whirl to war<br />
+Ranks crush on ranks with equal slaughter gored;<br />
+Warm dripping streams from every lifted sword<br />
+Stain the thin carnaged corps who still maintain,<br />
+With mutual shocks, the vengeance of the plain.<br />
+At last where Williams fought and Campbell fell,<br />
+Unwonted strokes the British line repel.<br />
+The rout begins; the shattered wings afar<br />
+Roll back in haste and scatter from the war;<br />
+They drop their arms, they scour the marshy field,<br />
+Whole squadrons fall and faint battalions yield.</p>
+
+<p>The great Observer, fixt in his midsky,<br />
+View'd the whole combat, saw them fall and fly:<br />
+He mark'd where Greene with every onset drove,<br />
+Saw death and victory with his presence move,<br />
+Beneath his arm saw Marion, Sumter, Gaine,<br />
+Pickens and Sumner shake the astonish'd plain;<br />
+He saw young Washington, the child of fame,<br />
+Preserve in fight the honors of his name.<br />
+Lee, Jackson, Hampton, Pinckney, matcht in might,<br />
+Roll'd on the storm and hurried fast the flight:<br />
+While numerous chiefs, that equal trophies raise,<br />
+Wrought, not unseen, the deeds of deathless praise.</p>
+
+<p>As Europe now the newborn states beheld<br />
+The shock sustain of many a hard-fought field;<br />
+Swift o'er the main, with high-spread sails, advance<br />
+Our brave auxiliars from the coast of France.<br />
+On the tall decks their curious chiefs explore,<br />
+With optic tube, our camp-encumber'd shore;<br />
+And, as the lessening wave behind them flies,<br />
+Wide scenes of conflict open on their eyes.<br />
+Rochambeau foremost with his gleamy brand<br />
+Points to each field and singles every band,<br />
+Sees Washington the power of nations guide,<br />
+And longs to toil and conquer by his side.<br />
+Two brother chiefs, Viominil the name,<br />
+Brothers in birth but twins in generous fame,<br />
+Behold with steadfast eye the plains disclose,<br />
+Uncase their arms and claim the promised foes.<br />
+Biron, beneath his sail, in armor bright,<br />
+Frown'd o'er the wave impatient for the fight;<br />
+A fiery steed beside the hero stood,<br />
+And his blue blade waved forward o'er the crowd.</p>
+
+<p>With eager haste descending on the coast,<br />
+Thro the glad states they march their veteran host,<br />
+From sea-nursed Newport file o'er western roads,<br />
+Pitch many a camp, and bridge a hundred floods,<br />
+Pass the full towns, where joyful crowds admire<br />
+Their foreign speech, gay mien and gilt attire,<br />
+Applaud their generous deeds, the zeal that draws<br />
+Their swords untried in freedom's doubtful cause.<br />
+Thro Hartford plains, on Litchfield hills they gleam,<br />
+Wave their white flags o'er Hudson's loaded stream,<br />
+Band after band with Delaware's current pour,<br />
+Shade Schuylkill's wave and Elk's indented shore,<br />
+Join their new friends, where allied banners lead,<br />
+Demand the foe and bid the war proceed.</p>
+
+<p>Again Columbus turn'd his anxious eye<br />
+Where Britain's banner waved along the sky;<br />
+And, graced with spoils of many fields of blood,<br />
+Cornwallis boastful on a bulwark stood.<br />
+Where York and Gloster's rocky towers bestride<br />
+Their parent stream, Virginia's midmost tide,<br />
+He camp'd his hundred nations, to regain<br />
+Their force, exhausted in the long campaign;<br />
+Paused for a moment on a scene so vast,<br />
+To plan the future and review the past.<br />
+Thro vanquisht provinces and towns in flame<br />
+He mark'd his recent monuments of fame,<br />
+His checker'd marches, long and various toils,<br />
+And camp well stored with wide collected spoils.</p>
+
+<p>High glittering to the sun his hands unfold<br />
+A map new drafted on a sheet of gold;<br />
+There in delusive haste his burin graved<br />
+A country conquer'd and a race enslaved.<br />
+Its middle realm, by fairer figures known<br />
+And rich with fruits, lay bounded for his own;<br />
+Deep thro the centre spreads a branching bay,<br />
+Full sails ascend and golden rivers stray;<br />
+Bright palaces arise relieved in gold,<br />
+And gates and streets the crossing lines unfold.<br />
+James furrows o'er the plate with turgid tide,<br />
+Young Richmond roughens on his masted side;<br />
+Reviving Norfolk from her ashes springs,<br />
+A golden phoenix on refulgent wings;<br />
+Potowmak's yellow waves reluctant spread,<br />
+And Vernon rears his rich and radiant head,<br />
+Tis here the chief his pointed graver stays,<br />
+The bank to burnish with a purer blaze,<br />
+Gives all his art, on this bright hill to trace<br />
+His future seat and glory of his race;<br />
+Deems his long line of lords the realm shall own,<br />
+The kings predestined to Columbia's throne.</p>
+
+<p>But while his mind thus quafft its airy food,<br />
+And gazing thousands round the rampart stood,<br />
+Whom future ease and golden dreams employ,<br />
+The songs of triumph and the feast of joy;<br />
+Sudden great Washington arose in view,<br />
+And allied flags his stately steps pursue;<br />
+Gaul's veteran host and young Hesperia's pride<br />
+Bend the long march concentring at his side,<br />
+Stream over Chesapeak, like sheets of flame,<br />
+And drive tempestuous to the field of fame.</p>
+
+<p>Far on the wild expanse, where ocean lies,<br />
+And scorns all confines but incumbent skies,<br />
+Scorns to retain the imprinted paths of men<br />
+To guide their wanderings or direct their ken;<br />
+Where warring vagrants, raging as they go,<br />
+Ask of the stars their way to find the foe,<br />
+Columbus saw two hovering fleets advance,<br />
+And rival ensigns o'er their pinions dance.<br />
+Graves, on the north, with Albion's flag unfurl'd,<br />
+Waves proud defiance to the watery world;<br />
+Degrasse, from southern isles, conducts his train,<br />
+And shades with Gallic sheets the moving main.</p>
+
+<p>Now Morn, unconscious of the coming fray<br />
+That soon shall storm the crystal cope of day,<br />
+Glows o'er the heavens, and with her orient breeze<br />
+Fans her fair face and curls the summer seas.<br />
+The swelling sails, as far as eye can sweep,<br />
+Look thro the skies and awe the shadowy deep,<br />
+Lead their long bending lines; and, ere they close,<br />
+To count, recognise, circumvent their foes,<br />
+Each hauls his wind, the weathergage to gain<br />
+And master all the movements of the plain;<br />
+Or bears before the breeze with loftier gait,<br />
+And, beam to beam, begins the work of fate.</p>
+
+<p>As when the warring winds, from each far pole,<br />
+Their adverse storms across the concave roll,<br />
+Thin fleecy vapors thro the expansion run,<br />
+Veil the blue vault and tremble o'er the sun,<br />
+Till the dark folding wings together drive,<br />
+And, ridged with fire and rock'd with thunder, strive;<br />
+So, hazing thro the void, at first appear<br />
+White clouds of canvass floating on the air,<br />
+Then frown the broad black decks, the sails are stay'd,<br />
+The gaping portholes cast a frightful shade,<br />
+Flames, triple tier'd, and tides of smoke, arise.<br />
+And fulminations rock the seas and skies.</p>
+
+<p>From van to rear the roaring deluge runs,<br />
+The storm disgorging from a thousand guns,<br />
+Each like a vast volcano, spouting wide<br />
+His hissing hell-dogs o'er the shuddering tide,<br />
+Whirls high his chainshot, cleaves the mast and strews<br />
+The shiver'd fragments on the staggering foes;<br />
+Whose gunwale sides with iron globes are gored,<br />
+And a wild storm of splinters sweeps the board.<br />
+Husht are the winds of heaven; no more the gale<br />
+Breaks the red rolls of smoke nor flaps the sail;<br />
+A dark dead calm continuous cloaks the glare,<br />
+And holds the clouds of sulphur on the war,<br />
+Convolving o'er the space that yawns and shines,<br />
+With frequent flash, between the laboring lines.<br />
+Nor sun nor sea nor skyborn lightning gleams,<br />
+But flaming Phlegethon's asphaltic steams<br />
+Streak the long gaping gulph; where varying glow<br />
+Carbonic curls above, blue flakes of fire below.</p>
+
+<p>Hither two hostile ships to contact run,<br />
+Both grappling, board to board and gun to gun;<br />
+Each thro the adverse ports their contents pour,<br />
+Rake the lower decks, the interior timbers bore,<br />
+Drive into chinks the illumined wads unseen,<br />
+Whose flames approach the unguarded magazine.<br />
+Above, with shrouds afoul and gunwales mann'd,<br />
+Thick halberds clash; and, closing hand to hand,<br />
+The huddling troops, infuriate from despair,<br />
+Tug at the toils of death, and perish there;<br />
+Grenados, carcasses their fragments spread,<br />
+And pikes and pistols strow the decks with dead.<br />
+Now on the Gallic board the Britons rush,<br />
+The intrepid Gauls the rash adventurers crush;<br />
+And now, to vengeance Stung, with frantic air,<br />
+Back on the British maindeck roll the war.<br />
+There swells the carnage; all the tar-beat floor<br />
+Is clogg'd with spatter'd brains and glued with gore;<br />
+And down the ship's black waist fresh brooks of blood<br />
+Course o'er their clots, and tinge the sable flood.<br />
+Till War, impatient of the lingering strife<br />
+That tires and slackens with the waste of life,<br />
+Opes with engulphing gape the astonish'd wave,<br />
+And whelms the combat whole, in one vast grave.<br />
+For now the imprison'd powder caught the flames,<br />
+And into atoms whirl'd the monstrous frames<br />
+Of both the entangled ships; the vortex wide<br />
+Roars like an &AElig;tna thro the belching tide,<br />
+And blazing into heaven, and bursting high,<br />
+Shells, carriages and guns obstruct the sky;<br />
+Cords, timbers, trunks of men the welkin sweep,<br />
+And fall on distant ships, or shower along the deep.</p>
+
+<p>The matcht armadas still the fight maintain,<br />
+But cautious, distant; lest the staggering main<br />
+Drive their whole lines afoul, and one dark day<br />
+Glut the proud ocean with too rich a prey.<br />
+At last, where scattering fires the cloud disclose,<br />
+Hulls heave in sight and blood the decks o'erflows;<br />
+Here from the field tost navies rise to view,<br />
+Drive hack to vengeance and the roar renew,<br />
+There shatter'd ships commence their flight afar,<br />
+Tow'd thro the smoke, hard struggling from the war;<br />
+And some, half seen amid the gaping wave,<br />
+Plunge in the whirl they make, and gorge their grave.</p>
+
+<p>Soon the dark smoky volumes roll'd away,<br />
+And a long line ascended into day;<br />
+The pinions swell'd, Britannia's cross arose<br />
+And flew the terrors of triumphing foes;<br />
+When to Virginia's bay, new shocks to brave,<br />
+The Gallic powers their conquering banners wave.<br />
+Glad Chesapeak unfolds his bosom wide,<br />
+And leads their prows to York's contracting tide;<br />
+Where still dread Washington directs his way,<br />
+And seas and continents his voice obey;<br />
+While brave Cornwallis, mid the gathering host,<br />
+Perceives his glories gone, his promised empire lost.</p>
+
+<p>Columbus here with silent joy beheld<br />
+His favorite sons the fates of nations wield.<br />
+Here joyous Lincoln rose in arms again,<br />
+Nelson and Knox moved ardent o'er the plain;<br />
+Scammel alert with force unusual trod,<br />
+Prepared to seal their victory with his blood;<br />
+Cobb, Dearborn, Laurens, Tilghman, green in years<br />
+But ripe in glory, tower'd amid their peers;<br />
+Death-daring Hamilton with splendor shone,<br />
+And claim'd each post of danger for his own,<br />
+Skill'd every arm in war's whole hell to wield,<br />
+An Ithacus in camp, an Ajax in the field.</p>
+
+<p>Their Gallic friends an equal ardor fires;<br />
+Brisk emulation every troop inspires:<br />
+Where Tarleton turns, with hopes of flight elate,<br />
+Brave Biron moves and drives him back to fate,<br />
+Hems in his host, to wait, on Gloster plains,<br />
+Their finish'd labors and their destined chains.</p>
+
+<p>Two British forts the growing siege outflank,<br />
+Rake its wide works and awe the tide-beat bank;<br />
+Swift from the lines two chosen bands advance,<br />
+Our light-arm'd scouts, the grenadiers of France;<br />
+These young Viominil conducts to fame,<br />
+And those Fayette's unerring guidance claim.<br />
+No cramm'd cartouch their belted back attires,<br />
+No grains of sleeping thunder wait their fires;<br />
+The flint, the ramrod spurn'd, away they cast;<br />
+The strong bright bayonet, imbeaded fast,<br />
+Stands beaming from the bore; with this they tread,<br />
+Nor heed from high-wall'd foes their showers of lead.<br />
+Each rival band, tho wide and distant far,<br />
+Springs simultaneous to this task of war;<br />
+For here a twofold force each hero draws,<br />
+His own proud country and the general cause;<br />
+And each with twofold energy contends,<br />
+His foes to vanquish and outstrip his friends.<br />
+They summon all their zeal, and wild and warm<br />
+O'er flaming ramparts pour the maddening storm,<br />
+The mounted cannons crush, and lead the foe<br />
+Two trains of captives to the plain below;<br />
+An equal prize each gallant troop ameeds,<br />
+Alike their numbers and alike their deeds.</p>
+
+<p>A strong high citadel still thundering stood,<br />
+And stream'd her standard o'er the field of blood,<br />
+Check'd long the siege with fulminating blare,<br />
+Scorn'd all the steel and every globe of war,<br />
+Defied fell famine, heapt her growing store,<br />
+And housed in bombproof all the host she bore.<br />
+No rude assault can stretch the scale so high,<br />
+In vain the battering siege-guns round her ply;<br />
+Mortars well poized their deafening deluge rain,<br />
+Load the red skies and shake the shores in vain;<br />
+Her huge rock battlements rebound the blow,<br />
+And roll their loose crags on the men below.</p>
+
+<p>But while the fusing fireballs scorch the sky,<br />
+Their mining arts the staunch besiegers ply,<br />
+Delve from the bank of York, and gallery far,<br />
+Deep subterranean, to the mount of war;<br />
+Beneath the ditch, thro rocks and fens they go,<br />
+Scoop the dark chamber plumb beneath the foe;<br />
+There lodge their tons of powder and retire,<br />
+Mure the dread passage, wave the fatal fire,<br />
+Send a swift messenger to warn the foe<br />
+To seek his safety and the post forgo.<br />
+A taunting answer comes; he dares defy<br />
+To spring the mine and all its &AElig;tnas try;<br />
+When a black miner seized the sulphur'd brand,<br />
+Shriek'd high for joy, and with untrembling hand<br />
+Touch'd quick the insidious train; lest here the chief<br />
+Should change his counsel and afford relief:<br />
+For hard the general's task, to speak the doom<br />
+That sends a thousand heroes to the tomb;<br />
+Heroes who know no wrong; who thoughtless speed<br />
+Where kings command or where their captains lead,<br />
+--Burst with the blast, the reeling mountain roars,<br />
+Heaves, labors, boils, and thro the concave pours<br />
+His flaming contents high; he chokes the air<br />
+With all his warriors and their works of war;<br />
+Guns, bastions, magazines confounded fly,<br />
+Vault wide their fresh explosions o'er the sky,<br />
+Encumber each far camp, and plough profound<br />
+With their rude fragments every neighboring ground.</p>
+
+<p>Britain's brave leader, where he sought repose,<br />
+And deem'd his hill-fort still repulsed the foes,<br />
+Starts at the astounding earthquake, and descries<br />
+His chosen veterans whirling down the skies.<br />
+Their mangled members round his balcon fall,<br />
+Scorch'd in the flames, and dasht on every wall:<br />
+Sad field of contemplation! Here, ye great,<br />
+Kings, priests of God, and ministers of state,<br />
+Review your system here! behold and scan<br />
+Your own fair deeds, your benefits to man!<br />
+You will not leave him to his natural toil,<br />
+To tame these elements and till the soil.<br />
+To reap, share, tithe you what his hand has sown,<br />
+Enjoy his treasures and increase your own,<br />
+Build up his virtues on the base design'd,<br />
+The well-toned harmonies of humankind.<br />
+You choose to check his toil, and band his eyes<br />
+To all that's honest and to all that's wise;<br />
+Lure with false fame, false morals and false lore,<br />
+To barter fields of corn for fields of gore,<br />
+To take by bands what single thieves would spare,<br />
+And methodise his murders into war.</p>
+
+<p>Now the prest garrison fresh danger warms;<br />
+They rush impetuous to each post of arms,<br />
+Man the long trench, each embrasure sustain,<br />
+And pour their langrage on the allied train;<br />
+Whose swift approaches, crowding on the line,<br />
+Each wing envelop and each front confine.<br />
+O'er all sage Washington his arm extends,<br />
+Points every movement, every work defends,<br />
+Bids closer quarters, bloodier strokes proceed,<br />
+New batteries blaze and heavier squadrons bleed.<br />
+Line within line fresh parallels enclose;<br />
+Here runs a zigzag, there a mantlet grows,<br />
+Round the pent foe approaching breastworks rise,<br />
+And bombs, like meteors, vault the flaming skies.<br />
+Night, with her hovering wings, asserts in vain<br />
+The shades, the silence of her rightful reign;<br />
+High roars her canopy with fiery flakes,<br />
+And War stalks wilder thro the glare he makes.</p>
+
+<p>With dire dismay the British chief beheld<br />
+The foe advance, his veterans shun the field,<br />
+Despair and slaughter where he turns his eye,<br />
+No hope in combat and no power to fly;<br />
+Degrasse victorious shakes the shadowy tide,<br />
+Imbodied nations all the champaign hide,<br />
+Fosses and batteries, growing on the sight,<br />
+Still pour new thunders and increase the fight;<br />
+Shells rain before him, rending every mound,<br />
+Crags, gunstones, balls o'erturn the tented ground,<br />
+From post to post his driven ranks retire,<br />
+The earth in crimson and the skies on fire.</p>
+
+<p>Death wantons proud in this decisive round,<br />
+For here his hand its favorite victim found;<br />
+Brave Scammel perisht here. Ah! short, my friend,<br />
+Thy bright career, but glorious to its end.<br />
+Go join thy Warren's ghost, your fates compare,<br />
+His that commenced, with thine that closed the war;<br />
+Freedom, with laurel'd brow but tearful eyes,<br />
+Bewails her first and last, her twinlike sacrifice.</p>
+
+<p>Now grateful truce suspends the burning war,<br />
+And groans and shouts promiscuous load the air;<br />
+When the tired Britons, where the smokes decay,<br />
+Quit their strong station and resign the day.<br />
+Slow files along the immeasurable train,<br />
+Thousands on thousands redden all the plain,<br />
+Furl their torn bandrols, all their plunder yield.<br />
+And pile their muskets on the battle field.<br />
+Their wide auxiliar nations swell the crowd,<br />
+And the coop'd navies, from the neighboring flood,<br />
+Repeat surrendering signals, and obey<br />
+The landmen's fate on this concluding day.</p>
+
+<p>Cornwallis first, their late all-conquering lord,<br />
+Bears to the victor chief his conquer'd sword,<br />
+Presents the burnisht hilt, and yields with pain<br />
+The gift of kings, here brandisht long in vain.<br />
+Then bow their hundred banners, trailing far<br />
+Their wearied wings from all the skirts of war.<br />
+Battalion'd infantry and squadron'd horse<br />
+Dash the silk tassel and the golden torse;<br />
+Flags from the forts and ensigns from the fleet<br />
+Roll in the dust, and at Columbia's feet<br />
+Prostrate the pride of thrones; they firm the base<br />
+Of Freedom's temple, while her arms they grace.<br />
+Here Albion's crimson Cross the soil o'erspreads,<br />
+Her Lion crouches and her Thistle fades;<br />
+Indignant Erin rues her trampled Lyre,<br />
+Brunswick's pale Steed forgets his foamy fire,<br />
+Proud Hessia's Castle lies in dust o'erthrown,<br />
+And venal Anspach quits her broken Crown.</p>
+
+<p>Long trains of wheel'd artillery shade the shore,<br />
+Quench their blue matches and forget to roar;<br />
+Along the encumber'd plain, thick planted rise<br />
+High stacks of muskets glittering to the skies,<br />
+Numerous and vast. As when the toiling swains<br />
+Heap their whole harvest on the stubbly plains,<br />
+Gerb after gerb the bearded shock expands,<br />
+Shocks, ranged in rows, hill high the burden'd lands;<br />
+The joyous master numbers all the piles,<br />
+And o'er his well-earn'd crop complacent smiles:<br />
+Such growing heaps this iron harvest yield,<br />
+So tread the victors this their final field.</p>
+
+<p>Triumphant Washington, with brow serene,<br />
+Regards unmoved the exhilarating scene,<br />
+Weighs in his balanced thought the silent grief<br />
+That sinks the bosom of the fallen chief.<br />
+With all the joy that laurel crowns bestow,<br />
+A world reconquer'd and a vanquished foe.<br />
+Thus thro extremes of life, in every state,<br />
+Shines the clear soul, beyond all fortune great;<br />
+While smaller minds, the dupes of fickle chance,<br />
+Slight woes o'erwhelm and sudden joys entrance.<br />
+So the full sun, thro all the changing sky,<br />
+Nor blasts nor overpowers the naked eye;<br />
+Tho transient splendors, borrowed from his light,<br />
+Glance on the mirror and destroy the sight.</p>
+
+<p>He bids brave Lincoln guide with modest air<br />
+The last glad triumph of the finish'd war;<br />
+Who sees, once more, two armies shade one plain,<br />
+The mighty victors and the captive train.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<h1>Book VIII</h1>.
+
+
+
+
+<h3>Argument.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="arg">
+    Hymn to Peace. Eulogy on the heroes slain in the war; in which the
+    Author finds occasion to mention his Brother. Address to the patriots
+    who have survived the conflict; exhorting them to preserve
+    liberty they have established. The danger of losing it by inattention
+    illustrated in the rape of the Golden Fleece. Freedom succeeding to
+    Despotism in the moral world, like Order succeeding to Chaos in the
+    physical world. Atlas, the guardian Genius of Africa, denounces to
+    Hesper the crimes of his people in the slavery of the Afripans. The
+    Author addresses his countrymen on that subject, and on the principles
+    of their government.</p>
+
+<p class="arg">    Hesper, recurring to his object of showing Columbus the importance of
+    his discoveries, reverses the order of time, and exhibits the continent
+    again in its savage state. He then displays the progress of arts in
+    America. Fur-trade. Fisheries. Productions. Commerce. Education.
+    Philosophical discoveries. Painting. Poetry. </p>
+
+
+<p>Hail, holy Peace, from thy sublime abode<br />
+Mid circling saints that grace the throne of God!<br />
+Before his arm around our embryon earth<br />
+Stretch'd the dim void, and gave to nature birth.<br />
+Ere morning stars his glowing chambers hung,<br />
+Or songs of gladness woke an angel's tongue,<br />
+Veil'd in the splendors of his beamful mind,<br />
+In blest repose thy placid form reclined,<br />
+Lived in his life, his inward sapience caught,<br />
+And traced and toned his universe of thought.<br />
+Borne thro the expanse with his creating voice<br />
+Thy presence bade the unfolding worlds rejoice,<br />
+Led forth the systems on their bright career,<br />
+Shaped all their curves and fashion'd every sphere,<br />
+Spaced out their suns, and round each radiant goal,<br />
+Orb over orb, compell'd their train to roll,<br />
+Bade heaven's own harmony their force combine.<br />
+Taught all their host symphonious strains to join,<br />
+Gave to seraphic harps their sounding lays,<br />
+Their joys to angels, and to men their praise.</p>
+
+<p>From scenes of blood, these verdant shores that stain,<br />
+From numerous friends in recent battle slain,<br />
+From blazing towns that scorch the purple sky,<br />
+From houseless hordes their smoking walls that fly,<br />
+From the black prison ships, those groaning graves,<br />
+From warring fleets that vex the gory waves,<br />
+From a storm'd world, long taught thy flight to mourn,<br />
+I rise, delightful Peace, and greet thy glad return.</p>
+
+<p>For now the untuneful trump shall grate no more;<br />
+Ye silver streams, no longer swell with gore,<br />
+Bear from your war-beat banks the guilty stain<br />
+With yon retiring navies to the main.<br />
+While other views, unfolding on my eyes,<br />
+And happier themes bid bolder numbers rise;<br />
+Bring, bounteous Peace, in thy celestial throng.<br />
+Life to my soul, and rapture to my song;<br />
+Give me to trace, with pure unclouded ray,<br />
+The arts and virtues that attend thy sway,<br />
+To see thy blissful charms, that here descend,<br />
+Thro distant realms and endless years extend.</p>
+
+<p>Too long the groans of death and battle's bray<br />
+Have rung discordant thro my turgid lay:<br />
+The drum's rude clang, the war wolfs hideous howl<br />
+Convulsed my nerves and agonized my soul,<br />
+Untuned the harp for all but misery's pains,<br />
+And chased the Muse from corse-encumber'd plains.<br />
+Let memory's balm its pious fragrance shed<br />
+On heroes' wounds and patriot warriors dead;<br />
+Accept, departed Shades, these grateful sighs,<br />
+Your fond attendants thro your homeward skies.</p>
+
+<p>And thou, my earliest friend, my Brother dear,<br />
+Thy fall untimely still renews my tear.<br />
+In youthful sports, in toils, in taste allied,<br />
+My kind companion and my faithful guide,<br />
+When death's dread summons, from our infant eyes,<br />
+Had call'd our last loved parent to the skies.<br />
+Tho young in arms, and still obscure thy name,<br />
+Thy bosom panted for the deeds of fame;<br />
+Beneath Montgomery's eye, when by thy steel<br />
+In northern wilds the frequent savage fell.<br />
+Fired by his voice, and foremost at his call,<br />
+To mount the breach or scale the flamy wall,<br />
+Thy daring hand had many a laurel gain'd,<br />
+If years had ripen'd what thy fancy feign'd.<br />
+Lamented Youth! when thy great leader bled,<br />
+Thro the same wound thy parting spirit fled,<br />
+Join'd the long train, the self-devoted band,<br />
+The gods, the saviors of their native land.</p>
+
+<p>On fame's high pinnacle their names shall shine,<br />
+Unending ages greet the group divine,<br />
+Whose holy hands our banners first unfurl'd,<br />
+And conquer'd freedom for the grateful world.</p>
+
+<p>And you, their peers, whose steel avenged their blood,<br />
+Whose breasts with theirs our sacred rampart stood,<br />
+Illustrious relics of a thousand fields!<br />
+To you at last the foe reluctant yields.<br />
+But tho the Muse, too prodigal of praise,<br />
+Dares with the dead your living worth to raise,<br />
+Think not, my friends, the patriot's task is done,<br />
+Or Freedom safe, because the battle's won.<br />
+Unnumber'd foes, far different arms that wield,<br />
+Wait the weak moment when she quits her shield,<br />
+To plunge in her bold breast the insidious dart,<br />
+Or pour keen poison round her thoughtless heart.<br />
+Perhaps they'll strive her votaries to divide,<br />
+From their own veins to draw the vital tide;<br />
+Perhaps, by cooler calculation shown,<br />
+Create materials to construct a throne,<br />
+Dazzle her guardians with the glare of state,<br />
+Corrupt with power, with borrowed pomp inflate,<br />
+Bid thro the land the soft infection creep,<br />
+Whelm all her sons in one lethargic sleep,<br />
+Crush her vast empire in its brilliant birth,<br />
+And chase the goddess from the ravaged earth.</p>
+
+<p>The Dragon thus, that watch'd the Colchian fleece,<br />
+Foil'd the fierce warriors of wide-plundering Greece;<br />
+Warriors of matchless might and wondrous birth,<br />
+Jove's sceptred sons and demigods of earth.<br />
+High on the sacred tree, the glittering prize<br />
+Hangs o'er its guard, and tires the warriors' eyes;<br />
+First their hurl'd spears his spiral folds assail,<br />
+Their spears fall pointless from his flaky mail;<br />
+Onward with dauntless swords they plunge amain;<br />
+He shuns their blows, recoils his twisting train,<br />
+Darts forth his forky tongue, heaves high in air<br />
+His fiery crest, and sheds a hideous glare,<br />
+Champs, churns his poisonous juice, and hissing loud<br />
+Spouts thick the stifling tempest o'er the crowd;<br />
+Then, with one sweep of convoluted train,<br />
+Rolls back all Greece, and besoms wide the plain,<br />
+O'erturns the sons of gods, dispersing far<br />
+The pirate horde, and closes quick the war.<br />
+From his red jaws tremendous triumph roars,<br />
+Dark Euxine trembles to its distant shores,<br />
+Proud Jason starts, confounded in his might,<br />
+Leads back his peers, and dares no more the fight.<br />
+But the sly Priestess brings her opiate spell,<br />
+Soft charms that hush the triple hound of hell,<br />
+Bids Orpheus tune his all-enchanting lyre,<br />
+And join to calm the guardian's sleepless ire.<br />
+Soon from the tepid ground blue vapors rise,<br />
+And sounds melodious move along the skies;<br />
+A settling tremor thro his folds extends,<br />
+His crest contracts, his rainbow heck unbends,<br />
+O'er all his hundred hoops the languor crawls,<br />
+Each curve develops, every volute falls,<br />
+His broad back flattens as he spreads the plain,<br />
+And sleep consigns him to his lifeless reign.<br />
+Flusht at the sight the pirates seize the spoil,<br />
+And ravaged Colchis rues the insidious toil.</p>
+
+<p>Yes! fellow freemen, sons of high renown,<br />
+Chant your loud peans, weave your civic crown;<br />
+But know, the goddess you've so long adored,<br />
+Tho now she scabbards your avenging sword,<br />
+Calls you to vigil ance, to manlier cares,<br />
+To prove in peace the men she proved in wars:<br />
+Superior task! severer test of soul!<br />
+Tis here bold virtue plays her noblest role<br />
+And merits most of praise. The warrior's name,<br />
+Tho peal'd and chimed on all the tongues of fame,<br />
+Sounds less harmonious to the grateful mind<br />
+Than his who fashions and improves mankind.</p>
+
+<p>And what high meed your new vocation waits!<br />
+Freedom, parturient with a hundred states,<br />
+Confides them to your hand; the nascent prize<br />
+Claims all your care, your soundest wisdom tries.<br />
+Ah nurture, temper, train your infant charge,<br />
+Its force develop and its life enlarge,<br />
+Unfold each day some adolescent grace,<br />
+Some right recognise or some duty trace;<br />
+Mould a fair model for the realms of earth,<br />
+Call moral nature to a second birth,<br />
+Reach, renovate the world's great social plan,<br />
+And here commence the sober sense of man,</p>
+
+<p>For lo, in other climes and elder states,<br />
+What strange inversion all his works awaits!<br />
+From age to age, on every peopled shore,<br />
+Stalks the fell Demon of despotic power,<br />
+Sweeps in his march the mounds of art away.<br />
+Blots with his breath the trembling disk of day,<br />
+Treads down whole nations every stride he takes,<br />
+And wraps their labors in his fiery flakes.</p>
+
+<p>As Anarch erst around his regions hurl'd<br />
+The wrecks, long crush'd, of time's anterior world;<br />
+While nature mourn'd, in wild confusion tost,<br />
+Her suns extinguisht and her systems lost;<br />
+Light, life and instinct shared the dreary trance,<br />
+And gravitation fled the field of chance;<br />
+No laws remain'd of matter, motion, space;<br />
+Time lost his count, the universe his place;<br />
+Till Order came, in her cerulean robes,<br />
+And launch'd and rein'd the renovated globes,<br />
+Stock'd with harmonious worlds the vast Inane,<br />
+Archt her new heaven and fixt her boundless reign:<br />
+So kings convulse the moral frame, the base<br />
+Of all the codes that can accord the race;<br />
+And so from their broad grasp, their deadly ban,<br />
+Tis yours to snatch this earth, to raise regenerateman.</p>
+
+<p>My friends, I love your fame, I joy to raise<br />
+The high-toned anthem of my country's praise;<br />
+To sing her victories, virtues, wisdom, weal,<br />
+Boast with loud voice the patriot pride I feel;<br />
+Warm wild I sing; and, to her failings blind,<br />
+Mislead myself, perhaps mislead mankind.<br />
+Land that I love! is this the whole we owe?<br />
+Thy pride to pamper, thy fair face to show;<br />
+Dwells there no blemish where such glories shine?<br />
+And lurks no spot in that bright sun of thine?<br />
+Hark! a dread voice, with heaven-astounding strain,<br />
+Swells Wee a thousand thunders o'er the main,<br />
+Rolls and reverberates around thy hills,<br />
+And Hesper's heart with pangs paternal fills.<br />
+Thou hearst him not; tis Atlas, throned sublime.<br />
+Great brother guardian of old Afric's clime;<br />
+High o'er his coast he rears his frowning form,<br />
+Overlooks and calms his sky-borne fields of storm,<br />
+Flings off the clouds that round his shoulders hung,<br />
+And breaks from clogs of ice his trembling tongue;<br />
+While far thro space with rage and grief he glares,<br />
+Heaves his hoar head and shakes the heaven he bears:<br />
+--Son of my sire! O latest brightest birth<br />
+That sprang from his fair spouse, prolific earth!<br />
+Great Hesper, say what sordid ceaseless hate<br />
+Impels thee thus to mar my elder state.<br />
+Our sire assign'd thee thy more glorious reign,<br />
+Secured and bounded by our laboring main;<br />
+That main (tho still my birthright name it bear)<br />
+Thy sails o'ershadow, thy brave children share;<br />
+I grant it thus; while air surrounds the ball,<br />
+Let breezes blow, let oceans roll for all.<br />
+But thy proud sons, a strange ungenerous race,<br />
+Enslave my tribes, and each fair world disgrace,<br />
+Provoke wide vengeance on their lawless land,<br />
+The bolt ill placed in thy forbearing hand.--<br />
+Enslave my tribes! then boast their cantons free,<br />
+Preach faith and justice, bend the sainted knee,<br />
+Invite all men their liberty to share,<br />
+Seek public peace, defy the assaults of war,<br />
+Plant, reap, consume, enjoy their fearless toil,<br />
+Tame their wild floods, to fatten still their soil,<br />
+Enrich all nations with their nurturing store,<br />
+And rake with venturous fluke each wondering shore.--</p>
+
+<p>Enslave my tribes! what, half mankind imban,<br />
+Then read, expound, enforce the rights of man!<br />
+Prove plain and clear how nature's hand of old<br />
+Cast all men equal in her human mould!<br />
+Their fibres, feelings, reasoning powers the same,<br />
+Like wants await them, like desires inflame.<br />
+Thro former times with learned book they tread,<br />
+Revise past ages and rejudge the dead,<br />
+Write, speak, avenge, for ancient sufferings feel,<br />
+Impale each tyrant on their pens of steel,<br />
+Declare how freemen can a world create,<br />
+And slaves and masters ruin every state.--<br />
+Enslave my tribes! and think, with dumb disdain,<br />
+To scape this arm and prove my vengeance vain!<br />
+But look! methinks beneath my foot I ken<br />
+A few chain'd things that seem no longer men;<br />
+Thy sons perchance! whom Barbary's coast can tell<br />
+The sweets of that loved scourge they wield so well.<br />
+Link'd in a line, beneath the driver's goad,<br />
+See how they stagger with their lifted load;<br />
+The shoulder'd rock, just wrencht from off my hill<br />
+And wet with drops their straining orbs distil,<br />
+Galls, grinds them sore, along the rarnpart led,<br />
+And the chain clanking counts the steps they tread.</p>
+
+<p>By night close bolted in the bagnio's gloom,<br />
+Think how they ponder on their dreadful doom,<br />
+Recal the tender sire, the weeping bride,<br />
+The home, far sunder'd by a waste of tide,<br />
+Brood all the ties that once endear'd them there,<br />
+But now, strung stronger, edge their keen despair.<br />
+Till here a fouler fiend arrests their pace:<br />
+Plague, with his burning breath and bloated face,<br />
+With saffron eyes that thro the dungeon shine,<br />
+And the black tumors bursting from the groin,<br />
+Stalks o'er the slave; who, cowering on the sod,<br />
+Shrinks from the Demon and invokes his God,<br />
+Sucks hot contagion with his quivering breath,<br />
+And, rack'd with rending torture, sinks in death.</p>
+
+<p>Nor shall these pangs atone the nation's crime;<br />
+Far heavier vengeance, in the march of time,<br />
+Attends them still; if still they dare debase<br />
+And hold inthrall'd the millions of my race;<br />
+A vengeance that shall shake the world's deep frame,<br />
+That heaven abhors, and hell might shrink to name.<br />
+Nature, long outraged, delves the crusted sphere,<br />
+And moulds the mining mischief dark and drear;<br />
+Europa too the penal shock shall find,<br />
+The rude soul-selling monsters of mankind:</p>
+
+<p>Where Alps and Andes at their bases meet,<br />
+In earth's mid caves to lock their granite feet,<br />
+Heave their broad spines, expand each breathing lobe,<br />
+And with their massy members rib the globe,<br />
+Her cauldron'd floods of fire their blast prepare;<br />
+Her wallowing womb of subterranean war<br />
+Waits but the fissure that my wave shall find,<br />
+To force the foldings of the rocky rind,<br />
+Crash your curst continent, and whirl on high<br />
+The vast avulsion vaulting thro the sky,<br />
+Fling far the bursting fragments, scattering wide<br />
+Rocks, mountains, nations o'er the swallowing tide.<br />
+Plunging and surging with alternate sweep,<br />
+They storm the day-vault and lay bare the deep,<br />
+Toss, tumble, plough their place, then slow subside,<br />
+And swell each ocean as their bulk they hide;<br />
+Two oceans dasht in one! that climbs and roars,<br />
+And seeks in vain the exterminated shores,<br />
+The deep drencht hemisphere. Far sunk from day,<br />
+It crumbles, rolls, it churns the settling sea,<br />
+Turns up each prominence, heaves every side,<br />
+To pierce once more the landless length of tide;<br />
+Till some poized Pambamarca looms at last<br />
+A dim lone island in the watery waste,<br />
+Mourns all his minor mountains wreck'd and hurl'd,<br />
+Stands the sad relic of a ruin'd world,<br />
+Attests the wrath our mother kept in store,<br />
+And rues her judgments on the race she bore.<br />
+No saving Ark around him rides the main,<br />
+Nor Dove weak-wing'd her footing finds again;<br />
+His own bald Eagle skims alone the sky,<br />
+Darts from all points of heaven her searching eye,<br />
+Kens, thro the gloom, her ancient rock of rest,<br />
+And finds her cavern'd crag, her solitary nest.</p>
+
+<p>Thus toned the Titan his tremendous knell,<br />
+And lash'd his ocean to a loftier swell;<br />
+Earth groans responsive, and with laboring woes<br />
+Leans o'er the surge and stills the storm he throws.</p>
+
+<p>Fathers and friends, I know the boding fears<br />
+Of angry genii and of rending spheres<br />
+Assail not souls like yours; whom Science bright<br />
+Thro shadowy nature leads with surer light;<br />
+For whom she strips the heavens of love and hate,<br />
+Strikes from Jove's hand the brandisht bolt of fate,<br />
+Gives each effect its own indubious cause,<br />
+Divides her moral from her physic laws,<br />
+Shows where the virtues find their nurturing food,<br />
+And men their motives to be just and good.</p>
+
+<p>You scorn the Titan's threat; nor shall I strain<br />
+The powers of pathos in a task so vain<br />
+As Afric's wrongs to sing; for what avails<br />
+To harp for you these known familiar tales?<br />
+To tongue mute misery, and re-rack the soul<br />
+With crimes oft copied from that bloody scroll<br />
+Where Slavery pens her woes; tho tis but there<br />
+We learn the weight that mortal life can be.<br />
+The tale might startle still the accustom'd ear,<br />
+Still shake the nerve that pumps the pearly tear,<br />
+Melt every heart, and thro the nation gain<br />
+Full many a voice to break the barbarous chain.<br />
+But why to sympathy for guidance fly,<br />
+(Her aids uncertain and of scant supply)<br />
+When your own self-excited sense affords<br />
+A guide more sure, and every sense accords?<br />
+Where strong self-interest, join'd with duty, lies,<br />
+Where doing right demands no sacrifice,<br />
+Where profit, pleasure, life-expanding fame<br />
+League their allurements to support the claim,<br />
+Tis safest there the impleaded cause to trust;<br />
+Men well instructed will be always just.</p>
+
+<p>From slavery then your rising realms to save,<br />
+Regard the master, notice not the slave;<br />
+Consult alone for freemen, and bestow<br />
+Your best, your only cares, to keep them so.<br />
+Tyrants are never free; and, small and great,<br />
+All masters must be tyrants soon or late;<br />
+So nature works; and oft the lordling knave<br />
+Turns out at once a tyrant and a slave,<br />
+Struts, cringes, bullies, begs, as courtiers must,<br />
+Makes one a god, another treads in dust,<br />
+Fears all alike, and filches whom he can,<br />
+But knows no equal, finds no friend in man.</p>
+
+<p>Ah! would you not be slaves, with lords and kings,<br />
+Then be not masters; there the danger springs.<br />
+The whole crude system that torments this earth,<br />
+Of rank, privation, privilege of birth,<br />
+False honor, fraud, corruption, civil jars,<br />
+The rage of conquest and the curse of wars,<br />
+Pandora's total shower, all ills combined<br />
+That erst o'erwhelm'd and still distress mankind,<br />
+Box'd up secure in your deliberate hand,<br />
+Wait your behest, to fix or fly this land.</p>
+
+<p>Equality of Right is nature's plan;<br />
+And following nature is the march of man.<br />
+Whene'er he deviates in the least degree,<br />
+When, free himself, he would be more than free,<br />
+The baseless column, rear'd to bear his bust,<br />
+Falls as he mounts, and whelms him in the dust.</p>
+
+<p>See Rome's rude sires, with autocratic gait,<br />
+Tread down their tyrant and erect their state;<br />
+Their state secured, they deem it wise and brave<br />
+That every freeman should command a slave,<br />
+And, flusht with franchise of his camp and town,<br />
+Rove thro the world and hunt the nations down;<br />
+Master and man the same vile spirit gains,<br />
+Rome chains the world, and wears herself the chains.</p>
+
+<p>Mark modern Europe with her feudal codes,<br />
+Serfs, villains, vassals, nobles, kings and gods,<br />
+All slaves of different grades, corrupt and curst<br />
+With high and low, for senseless rank athirst,<br />
+Wage endless wars; not fighting to be free,<br />
+But <i>cujum pecus</i>, whose base herd they'll be.</p>
+
+<p>Too much of Europe, here transplanted o'er,<br />
+Nursed feudal feelings on your tented shore,<br />
+Brought sable serfs from Afric, call'd it gain,<br />
+And urged your sires to forge the fatal chain.<br />
+But now, the tents o'erturn'd, the war dogs fled,<br />
+Now fearless Freedom rears at last her head<br />
+Matcht with celestial Peace,--my friends, beware<br />
+To shade the splendors of so bright a pair;<br />
+Complete their triumph, fix their firm abode,<br />
+Purge all privations from your liberal code,<br />
+Restore their souls to men, give earth repose,<br />
+And save your sons from slavery, wars and woes.</p>
+
+<p>Based on its rock of Right your empire lies,<br />
+On walls of wisdom let the fabric rise;<br />
+Preserve your principles, their force unfold,<br />
+Let nations prove them and let kings behold.<br />
+EQUALITY, your first firm-grounded stand;<br />
+Then FREE ELECTION; then your FEDERAL BAND;<br />
+This holy Triad should forever shine<br />
+The great compendium of all rights divine,<br />
+Creed of all schools, whence youths by millions draw<br />
+Their themes of right, their decalogues of law;<br />
+Till men shall wonder (in these codes inured)<br />
+How wars were made, how tyrants were endured.</p>
+
+<p>Then shall your works of art superior rise,<br />
+Your fruits perfume a larger length of skies,<br />
+Canals careering climb your sunbright hills,<br />
+Vein the green slopes and strow their nurturing rills,<br />
+Thro tunnel'd heights and sundering ridges glide,<br />
+Rob the rich west of half Kenhawa's tide,<br />
+Mix your wide climates, all their stores confound,<br />
+And plant new ports in every midland mound.<br />
+Your lawless Missisippi, now who slimes<br />
+And drowns and desolates his waste of climes,<br />
+Ribb'd with your dikes, his torrent shall restrain,<br />
+And ask your leave to travel to the main;<br />
+Won from his wave while rising cantons smile,<br />
+Rear their glad nations and reward their toil.</p>
+
+<p>Thus Nile's proud flood to human hands of yore<br />
+Raised and resign'd his tide-created shore,<br />
+Call'd from his Ethiop hills their hardy swains,<br />
+And waved their harvests o'er his newborn plains;<br />
+Earth's richest realm from his tamed current sprung;<br />
+There nascent science toned her infant tongue,<br />
+Taught the young arts their tender force to try,<br />
+To state the seasons and unfold the sky;<br />
+Till o'er the world extended and refined,<br />
+They rule the destinies of humankind.</p>
+
+<p>Now had Columbus well enjoy'd the sight<br />
+Of armies vanquisht and of fleets in flight,<br />
+From all Hesperia's heaven the darkness flown,<br />
+And colon crowds to sovereign sages grown.<br />
+To cast new glories o'er the changing clime,<br />
+The guardian Power reversed the flight of time,<br />
+Roll'd back the years that led their course before,<br />
+Stretch'd out immense the wild uncultured shore;<br />
+Then shifts the total scene, and rears to view<br />
+Arts and the men that useful arts pursue.<br />
+As o'er the canvass when the painter's mind<br />
+Glows with a future landscape well design'd,<br />
+While Panorama's wondrous aid he calls,<br />
+To crowd whole realms within his circling walls,<br />
+Lakes, fields and forests, ports and navies rise,<br />
+A new creation to his kindling eyes;<br />
+He smiles o'er all; sand in delightful strife<br />
+The pencil moves and Calls the whole to life.<br />
+So while Columbia's patriarch stood sublime,<br />
+And saw rude nature clothe the trackless clime;<br />
+The green banks heave, the winding currents pour,<br />
+The bays and harbors cleave the yielding shore,<br />
+The champaigns spread, the solemn groves arise,<br />
+And the rough mountains lengthen round the skies;<br />
+Thro all their bounds he traced, with skilful ken,<br />
+The unform'd seats and future walks of men;<br />
+Mark'd where the field should bloom, the pennon play,<br />
+Great cities grow and empires claim their sway;<br />
+When, sudden waked by Hesper's waving hand,<br />
+They rose obedient round the cultured land.</p>
+
+<p>In western tracts, where still the wildmen tread,<br />
+From sea to sea an inland commerce spread;<br />
+On the dim streams and thro the gloomy grove<br />
+The trading bauds their cumbrous burdens move;<br />
+Furs, peltry, drugs, and all the native store<br />
+Of midland realms descended to the shore.</p>
+
+<p>Where summer suns, along the northern coast,<br />
+With feeble force dissolve the chains of frost,<br />
+Prolific waves the scaly nations trace,<br />
+And tempt the toils of man's laborious race.<br />
+Tho rich Brazilian strands, beneath the tide,<br />
+Their shells of pearl and sparkling pebbles hide,<br />
+While for the gaudy prize a venturous train<br />
+Plunge the dark deep and brave the surging main,<br />
+Drag forth the shining gewgaws into air,<br />
+To stud a sceptre or emblaze a star;<br />
+Far wealthier stores these genial tides display,<br />
+And works less dangerous with their spoils repay.<br />
+The Hero saw the hardy crews advance,<br />
+Cast the long line and aim the barbed lance;<br />
+Load the deep floating barks, and bear abroad<br />
+To every land the life-sustaining food;<br />
+Renascent swarms by nature's care supplied,<br />
+Repeople still the shoals and fin the fruitful tide.</p>
+
+<p>Where southern streams thro broad savannas bend,<br />
+The rice-clad vales their verdant rounds extend;<br />
+Tobago's plant its leaf expanding yields,<br />
+The maize luxuriant clothes a thousand fields;<br />
+Steeds, herds and flocks o'er northern regions rove,<br />
+Embrown the hill and wanton thro the grove.<br />
+The woodlands wide their sturdy honors bend,<br />
+The pines, the liveoaks to the shores descend,<br />
+There couch the keels, the crooked ribs arise,<br />
+Hulls heave aloft and mastheads mount the skies;<br />
+Launcht on the deep o'er every wave they<br />
+Feed tropic isles and Europe's looms supply.</p>
+
+<p>To nurse the arts and fashion freedom's lore<br />
+Young schools of science rise along the shore;<br />
+Great without pomp their modest walls expand,<br />
+Harvard and Yale and Princeton grace the land,<br />
+Penn's student halls his youths with gladness greet,<br />
+On James's bank Virginian Muses meet,<br />
+Manhattan's mart collegiate domes command,<br />
+Bosom'd in groves, see growing Dartmouth stand;<br />
+Bright o'er its realm reflecting solar fires,<br />
+On yon tall hill Rhode Island's seat aspires.</p>
+
+<p>Thousands of humbler name around them rise,<br />
+Where homebred freemen seize the solid prize;<br />
+Fixt in small spheres, with safer beams to shine,<br />
+They reach the useful and refuse the fine,<br />
+Found, on its proper base, the social plan,<br />
+The broad plain truths, the common sense of man,<br />
+His obvious wants, his mutual aids discern,<br />
+His rights familiarize, his duties learn,<br />
+Feel moral fitness all its force dilate,<br />
+Embrace the village and comprise the state.<br />
+Each rustic here who turns the furrow'd soil,<br />
+The maid, the youth that ply mechanic toil,<br />
+In equal rights, in useful arts inured,<br />
+Know their just claims, and see their claims secured;<br />
+They watch their delegates, each law revise,<br />
+Its faults designate and its merits prize,<br />
+Obey, but scrutinize; and let the test<br />
+Of sage experience prove and fix the best.</p>
+
+<p>Here, fired by virtue's animating flame,<br />
+The preacher's task persuasive sages claim,<br />
+To mould religion to the moral mind,<br />
+In bands of peace to harmonize mankind,<br />
+To life, to light, to promised joys above<br />
+The soften'd soul with ardent hope to move.<br />
+No dark intolerance blinds the zealous throng,<br />
+No arm of power attendant on their tongue;<br />
+Vext Inquisition, with her flaming brand,<br />
+Shuns their mild march, nor dares approach the land.<br />
+Tho different creeds their priestly robes denote,<br />
+Their orders various and their rites remote,<br />
+Yet one their voice, their labors all combined,<br />
+Lights of the world and friends of humankind.<br />
+So the bright galaxy o'er heaven displays<br />
+Of various stars the same unbounded blaze;<br />
+Where great and small their mingling rays unite,<br />
+And earth and skies exchange the friendly light.</p>
+
+<p>And lo, my son that other sapient band,<br />
+The torch of science flamiflg in their hand!<br />
+Thro nature's range their searching souls aspire,<br />
+Or wake to life the canvass and the lyre.<br />
+Fixt in sublimest thought, behold them rise<br />
+World after world unfolding to their eyes,<br />
+Lead, light, allure them thro the total plan,<br />
+And give new guidance to the paths of man.</p>
+
+<p>Yon meteor-mantled hill see Franklin tread,<br />
+Heaven's awful thunders tolling o'er his head,<br />
+Convolving clouds the billowy skies deform,<br />
+And forky flames emblaze the blackening storm,<br />
+See the descending streams around him burn,<br />
+Glance on his rod and with his finger turn;<br />
+He bids conflicting fulminants expire<br />
+The guided blast, and holds the imprison'd fire.<br />
+No more, when doubling storms the vault o'erspread,<br />
+The livid glare shall strike thy race with dread,<br />
+Nor towers nor temples, shuddering with the sound,<br />
+Sink in the flames and shake the sheeted ground.<br />
+His well tried wires, that every tempest wait,<br />
+Shall teach mankind to ward the bolts of fate,<br />
+With pointed steel o'ertop the trembling spire,<br />
+And lead from untouch'd walls the harmless flre;<br />
+Fill'd with his fame while distant climes rejoice,<br />
+Wherever lightning shines or thunder rears its voice.</p>
+
+<p>And see sage Rittenhouse, with ardent eye,<br />
+Lift the long tube and pierce the starry sky;<br />
+Clear in his view the circling planets roll,<br />
+And suns and satellites their course control.<br />
+He marks what laws the widest wanderers bind,<br />
+Copies creation in his forming mind,<br />
+Sees in his hall the total semblance rise,<br />
+And mimics there the labors of the skies.<br />
+There student youths without their tubes behold<br />
+The spangled heavens their mystic maze unfold,<br />
+And crowded schools their cheerful chambers grace<br />
+With all the spheres that cleave the vast of space.</p>
+
+<p>To guide the sailor in his wandering way,<br />
+See Godfrey's glass reverse the beams of day.<br />
+His lifted quadrant to the eye displays<br />
+From adverse skies the counteracting rays;<br />
+And marks, as devious sails bewilder'd roll,<br />
+Each nice gradation from the steadfast pole.</p>
+
+<p>West with his own great soul the canvass warms,<br />
+Creates, inspires, impassions human forms,<br />
+Spurns critic rules, and seizing safe the heart,<br />
+Breaks down the former frightful bounds of Art;<br />
+Where ancient manners, with exclusive reign,<br />
+From half mankind withheld her fair domain.<br />
+He calls to life each patriot, chief or sage,<br />
+Garb'd in the dress and drapery of his age.<br />
+Again bold Regulus to death returns,<br />
+Again her falling Wolfe Britannia mourns;<br />
+Lahogue, Boyne, Cressy, Nevilcross demand<br />
+And gain fresh lustre from his copious hand;<br />
+His Lear stalks wild with woes, the gods defies,<br />
+Insults the tempest and outstorms the skies;<br />
+Edward in arms to frowning combat moves,<br />
+Or, won to pity by the queen he loves,<br />
+Spares the devoted Six, whose deathless deed<br />
+Preserves the town his vengeance doom'd to bleed.</p>
+
+<p>With rival force, see Copley's pencil trace<br />
+The air of action and the charms of face.<br />
+Fair in his tints unfold the scenes of state,<br />
+The senate listens and the peers debate;<br />
+Pale consternation every heart appals,<br />
+In act to speak, when death-struck Chatham fails.<br />
+He bids dread Calpe cease to shake the waves,<br />
+While Elliott's arm the host of Bourbon saves;<br />
+O'er sail-wing'd batteries sinking in the flood,<br />
+Mid flames and darkness, drench'd in hostile blood,<br />
+Britannia's sons extend their generous hand<br />
+To rescue foes from death, and bear them to the land.</p>
+
+<p>Fired with the martial deeds that bathed in gore<br />
+His brave companions on his native shore,<br />
+Trumbull with daring hand their fame recals;<br />
+He shades with night Quebec's beleagured walls,<br />
+Thro flashing flames, that midnight war supplies,<br />
+The assailants yield, their great Montgomery dies.<br />
+On Bunker height, thro floods of hostile fire,<br />
+His Putnam toils till all the troops retire,<br />
+His Warren, pierced with balls, at last lies low,<br />
+And leaves a victory to the wasted foe.<br />
+Britannia too his glowing tint shall claim,<br />
+To pour new splendor on her Calpean fame;<br />
+He leads her bold sortie, and from their towers<br />
+O'erturns the Gallic and Iberian powers.</p>
+
+<p>See rural seats of innocence and ease,<br />
+High tufted towers and walks of waving trees,<br />
+The white wates dashing on the Craggy shores,<br />
+Meandring streams and meads of mingled flowers,<br />
+Where nature's sons their wild excursions tread,<br />
+In just design from Taylor's pencil spread.</p>
+
+<p>Stuart and Brown the moving portrait raise,<br />
+Each rival stroke the force of life conveys;<br />
+Heroes and beauties round their tablets stand,<br />
+And rise unfading from their plastic hand;<br />
+Each breathing form preserves its wonted grace,<br />
+And all the Soul stands speaking in the face.</p>
+
+<p>Two kindred arts the swelling statue heave,<br />
+Wake the dead wax, and teach the stone to live.<br />
+While the bold chissel claims the rugged strife,<br />
+To rouse the sceptred marble into life,</p>
+
+<p>See Wright's fair hands the livelier fire control,<br />
+In waxen forms she breathes impassion'd soul;<br />
+The pencil'd tint o'er moulded substance glows,<br />
+And different powers the peerless art compose.<br />
+Grief, rage and fear beneath her fingers start,<br />
+Roll the wild eye and pour the bursting heart;<br />
+The world's dead fathers wait her wakening call;<br />
+And distant ages fill the storied hall.</p>
+
+<p>To equal fame ascends thy tuneful throng,<br />
+The boast of genius and the pride of song;<br />
+Caught from the cast of every age and clime,<br />
+Their lays shall triumph o'er the lapse of time.</p>
+
+<p>With lynx-eyed glance thro nature far to pierce,<br />
+With all the powers and every charm of verse,<br />
+Each science opening in his ample mind,<br />
+His fancy glowing and his taste refined,<br />
+See Trumbull lead the train. His skilful hand<br />
+Hurls the keen darts of satire round the land.<br />
+Pride, knavery, dullness feel his mortal stings,<br />
+And listening virtue triumphs while he sings;<br />
+Britain's foil'd sons, victorious now no more,<br />
+In guilt retiring from the wasted shore,<br />
+Strive their curst cruelties to hide in vain;<br />
+The world resounds them in his deathless strain.</p>
+
+<p>On wings of faith to elevate the soul<br />
+Beyond the bourn of earth's benighted pole,<br />
+For Dwight's high harp the epic Muse sublime<br />
+Hails her new empire in the western clime.<br />
+Tuned from the tones by seers seraphic sung,<br />
+Heaven in his eye and rapture on his tongue,<br />
+His voice revives old Canaan's promised land,<br />
+The long-fought fields of Jacob's chosen band.<br />
+In Hanniel's fate, proud faction finds its doom,<br />
+Ai's midnight flames light nations to their tomb,<br />
+In visions bright supernal joys are given,<br />
+And all the dark futurities of heaven.</p>
+
+<p>While freedom's cause his patriot bosom warms,<br />
+In counsel sage, nor inexpert in arms,<br />
+See Humphreys glorious from the field retire,<br />
+Sheathe the glad sword and string the soothing lyre;<br />
+That lyre which erst, in hours of dark despair,<br />
+Roused the sad realms to finish well the war.<br />
+O'er fallen friends, with all the strength of woe,<br />
+Fraternal sighs in his strong numbers flow;<br />
+His country's wrongs, her duties, dangers, praise,<br />
+Fire his full soul and animate his lays:<br />
+Wisdom and War with equal joy shall own<br />
+So fond a votary and so brave a son.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<h1>Book IX</h1>.
+
+
+
+<h3>Argument.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="arg">    Vision suspended. Night scene, as contemplated from the mount of
+    vision. Columbus inquires the reason of the slow progress of science,
+    and its frequent interruptions. Hesper answers, that all things in the
+    physical as well as the moral and intellectual world are progressive in
+    like manner. He traces their progress from the birth of the universe to
+    the present state of the earth and its inhabitants; asserts the future
+    advancement of society, till perpetual peace shall be established.
+    Columbus proposes his doubts; alleges in support of them the successive
+    rise and downfal of ancient nations; and infers future and periodical
+    convulsions. Hesper, in answer, exhibits the great distinction between
+    the ancient and modern state of the arts and of society. Crusades.
+    Commerce. Hanseatic League. Copernicus. Kepler. Newton, Galileo.
+    Herschel. Descartes. Bacon. Printing Press. Magnetic Needle.
+    Geographical discoveries. Federal system in America. A similar system
+    to be extended over the whole earth. Columbus desires a view of this. </p>
+
+
+<p>But now had Hesper from the Hero's sight<br />
+Veil'd the vast world with sudden shades of night.<br />
+Earth, sea and heaven, where'er he turns his eye,<br />
+Arch out immense, like one surrounding sky<br />
+Lamp'd with reverberant fires. The starry train<br />
+Paint their fresh forms beneath the placid main;<br />
+Fair Cynthia here her face reflected laves,<br />
+Bright Venus gilds again her natal waves,<br />
+The Bear redoubling foams with fiery joles,<br />
+And two dire dragons twine two arctic poles.<br />
+Lights o'er the land, from cities lost in shade,<br />
+New constellations, new galaxies spread,<br />
+And each high pharos double flames provides,<br />
+One from its fires, one fainter from the tides.</p>
+
+<p>Centred sublime in this bivaulted sphere,<br />
+On all sides void, unbounded, calm and clear,<br />
+Soft o'er the Pair a lambent lustre plays,<br />
+Their seat still cheering with concentred rays;<br />
+To converse grave the soothing shades invite.<br />
+And on his Guide Columbus fixt his sight:<br />
+Kind messenger of heaven, he thus began,<br />
+Why this progressive laboring search of man?<br />
+If men by slow degrees have power to reach<br />
+These opening truths that long dim ages teach,<br />
+If, school'd in woes and tortured on to thought,<br />
+Passion absorbing what experience taught,<br />
+Still thro the devious painful paths they wind,<br />
+And to sound wisdom lead at last the mind,<br />
+Why did not bounteous nature, at their birth,<br />
+Give all their science to these sons of earth,<br />
+Pour on their reasoning powers pellucid day,<br />
+Their arts, their interests clear as light display?<br />
+That error, madness and sectarian strife<br />
+Might find no place to havock human life.</p>
+
+<p>To whom the guardian Power: To thee is given<br />
+To hold high converse and inquire of heaven,<br />
+To mark untraversed ages, and to trace<br />
+Whate'er improves and what impedes thy race.<br />
+Know then, progressive are the paths we go<br />
+In worlds above thee, as in thine below<br />
+Nature herself (whose grasp of time and place<br />
+Deals out duration and impalms all space)<br />
+Moves in progressive march; but where to tend,<br />
+What course to compass, how the march must end,<br />
+Her sons decide not; yet her works we greet<br />
+Imperfect in their parts, but in their whole complete.</p>
+
+<p>When erst her hand the crust of Chaos thirl'd,<br />
+And forced from his black breast the bursting world,<br />
+High swell'd the huge existence crude and crass,<br />
+A formless dark impermeated mass;<br />
+No light nor heat nor cold nor moist nor dry,<br />
+But all concocting in their causes lie.<br />
+Millions of periods, such as these her spheres<br />
+Learn since to measure and to call their years,<br />
+She broods the mass; then into motion brings<br />
+And seeks and sorts the principles of things,<br />
+Pours in the attractive and repulsive force,<br />
+Whirls forth her globes in cosmogyral course,<br />
+By myriads and by millions, scaled sublime,<br />
+To scoop their skies, and curve the rounds of time.</p>
+
+<p>She groups their systems, lots to each his place,<br />
+Strow'd thro immensity, and drown'd in space,<br />
+All yet unseen; till light at last begun,<br />
+And every system found a centred sun,<br />
+Call'd to his neighbor and exchanged from far<br />
+His infant gleams with every social star;<br />
+Rays thwarting rays and skies o'erarching skies<br />
+Robed their dim planets with commingling dyes,<br />
+Hung o'er each heaven their living lamps serene,<br />
+And tinged with blue the frore expanse between:<br />
+Then joyous Nature hail'd the golden morn,<br />
+Drank the young beam, beheld her empire born.</p>
+
+<p>Lo the majestic movement! there they trace<br />
+Their blank infinitudes of time and space,<br />
+Vault with careering curves her central goal,<br />
+Pour forth her day and stud her evening stole,<br />
+Heedless of count; their numbers still unknown,<br />
+Unmeasured still their progress round her throne;<br />
+For none of all her firstborn sons, endow'd<br />
+With heavenly sapience and pretensions proud,<br />
+No seraph bright, whose keen considering eye<br />
+And sunbeam speed ascend from sky to sky,<br />
+Has yet explored or counted all their spheres,<br />
+Or fixt or found their past record of years.<br />
+Nor can a ray from her remotest sun,<br />
+Shot forth when first their splendid morn begun,<br />
+Borne straight, continuous thro the void of space,<br />
+Doubling each thousand years its rapid pace<br />
+And hither posting, yet have reach'd this earth,<br />
+To bring the tidings of its master's birth.</p>
+
+<p>And mark thy native orb! tho later born,<br />
+Tho still unstored with light her silver horn,<br />
+As seen from sister planets, who repay<br />
+Far more than she their borrow'd streams of day,<br />
+Yet what an age her shell-rock ribs attest!<br />
+Her sparry spines, her coal-encumber'd breast!<br />
+Millions of generations toil'd and died<br />
+To crust with coral and to salt her tide,<br />
+And millions more, ere yet her soil began,<br />
+Ere yet she form'd or could have nursed her man.</p>
+
+<p>Then rose the proud phenomenon, the birth<br />
+Most richly wrought, the favorite child of earth;<br />
+But frail at first his frame, with nerves ill strung,<br />
+Unform'd his footsteps, long untoned his tongue,<br />
+Unhappy, unassociate, unrefined,<br />
+Unfledged the pinions of his lofty mind,<br />
+He wander'd wild, to every beast a prey,<br />
+More prest with wrants, and feebler far than they;<br />
+For countless ages forced from place to place,<br />
+Just reproduced but scarce preserved his race.<br />
+At last, a soil more fixt and streams more sweet<br />
+Inform the wretched migrant where to seat;<br />
+Euphrates' flowery banks begin to smile,<br />
+Fruits fringe the Ganges, gardens grace the Nile;<br />
+Nile, ribb'd with dikes, a length of coast creates,<br />
+And giant Thebes begins her hundred gates,<br />
+Mammoth of human works! her grandeur known<br />
+These thousand lustres by its wrecks alone;<br />
+Wrecks that humiliate still all modern states,<br />
+Press the poized earth with their enormous weights,<br />
+Refuse to quit their place, dissolve their frame<br />
+And trust, like Ilion, to the bards their fame.<br />
+Memphis amass'd her piles, that still o'erclimb<br />
+The clouds of heaven, and task the tooth of time;<br />
+Belus and Brama tame their vagrant throngs,<br />
+And Homer, with his monumental songs,<br />
+Builds far more durable his splendid throne<br />
+Than all the Pharaohs with their hills of stone.</p>
+
+<p>High roll'd the round of years that hung sublime<br />
+These wondrous beacons in the night of time;<br />
+Studs of renown! that to thine eyes attest<br />
+The waste of ages that beyond them rest;<br />
+Ages how fill'd with toils! how gloom'd with woes!<br />
+Trod with all steps that man's long march compose,<br />
+Dim drear disastrous; ere his foot could gain<br />
+A height so brilliant o'er the bestial train.</p>
+
+<p>In those blank periods, where no man can trace<br />
+The gleams of thought that first illumed his race,<br />
+His errors, twined with science, took their birth,<br />
+And forged their fetters for this child of earth.<br />
+And when, as oft, he dared expand his view,<br />
+And work with nature on the line she drew,<br />
+Some monster, gender'd in his fears, unmann'd<br />
+His opening soul, and marr'd the works he plann'd.<br />
+Fear, the first passion of his helpless state,<br />
+Redoubles all the woes that round him wait,<br />
+Blocks nature's path and sends him wandering wide,<br />
+Without a guardian and without a guide.</p>
+
+<p>Beat by the storm, refresht by gentle rain,<br />
+By sunbeams cheer'd or founder'd in the main,<br />
+He bows to every force he can't control,<br />
+Indows them all with intellect and soul,<br />
+With passions various, turbulent and strong,<br />
+Rewarding virtue and avenging wrong,<br />
+Gives heaven and earth to their supernal doom,<br />
+And swells their sway beyond the closing tomb.<br />
+Hence rose his gods, that mystic monstrous lore<br />
+Of blood-stain'd altars and of priestly power,<br />
+Hence blind credulity on all dark things,<br />
+False morals hence, and hence the yoke of kings.</p>
+
+<p>Yon starry vault that round him rolls the spheres,<br />
+And gives to earth her seasons, days and years,<br />
+The source designates and the clue imparts<br />
+Of all his errors and of all his arts.<br />
+There spreads the system that his ardent thought<br />
+First into emblems, then to spirits wrought;<br />
+Spirits that ruled all matter and all mind,<br />
+Nourish'd or famish'd, kill'd or cured mankind,<br />
+Bade him neglect the soil whereon he fed,<br />
+Work with hard hand for that which was not bread,<br />
+Erect the temple, darken deep the shrine,<br />
+Yield the full hecatomb with awe divine,<br />
+Despise this earth, and claim with lifted eyes<br />
+His health and harvest from the meteor'd skies.</p>
+
+<p>Accustom'd thus to bow the suppliant head,<br />
+And reverence powers that shake his heart with dread,<br />
+His pliant faith extends with easy ken<br />
+From heavenly hosts to heaven-anointed men;<br />
+The sword, the tripod join their mutual aids,<br />
+To film his eyes with more impervious shades,<br />
+Create a sceptred idol, and enshrine<br />
+The Robber Chief in attributes divine,<br />
+Arm the new phantom with the nation's rod,<br />
+And hail the dreadful delegate of God.<br />
+Two settled slaveries thus the race control,<br />
+Engross their labors and debase their soul;<br />
+Till creeds and crimes and feuds and fears compose<br />
+The seeds of war and all its kindred woes.</p>
+
+<p>Unfold, thou Memphian dungeon! there began<br />
+The lore of Mystery, the mask of man;<br />
+There Fraud with Science leagued, in early times,<br />
+Plann'd a resplendent course of holy crimes,<br />
+Stalk'd o'er the nations with gigantic pace,<br />
+With sacred symbols charm'd the cheated race,<br />
+Taught them new grades of ignorance to gain,<br />
+And punish truth with more than mortal pain,--<br />
+Unfold at last thy cope! that man may see<br />
+The mines of mischief he has drawn from thee.<br />
+--Wide gapes the porch with hieroglyphics hung,<br />
+And mimic zodiacs o'er its arches flung;<br />
+Close labyrinth'd here the feign'd Omniscient dwells,<br />
+Dupes from all nations seek the sacred cells;<br />
+Inquiring strangers, with astonish'd eyes,<br />
+Dive deep to read these subterranean skies,<br />
+To taste that holiness which faith bestows,<br />
+And fear promulgates thro its world of woes.<br />
+The bold Initiate takes his awful stand,<br />
+A thin pale taper trembling in his hand;<br />
+Thro hells of howling monsters lies the road,<br />
+To season souls and teach the ways of God.</p>
+
+<p>Down the crampt corridor, far sunk from day,<br />
+On hands and bended knees he gropes his way,<br />
+Swims roaring streams, thro dens of serpents crawls,<br />
+Descends deep wells and clambers flaming walls;<br />
+Now thwart his lane a lake of sulphur gleams,<br />
+With fiery waves and suffocating steams;<br />
+He dares not shun the ford; for full in view<br />
+Fierce lions rush behind and force him thro.<br />
+Long ladders heaved on end, with banded eyes<br />
+He mounts, and mounts, and seems to gain the skies;<br />
+Then backward falling, tranced with deadly fright,<br />
+Finds his own feet and stands restored to light.<br />
+Here all dread sights of torture round him rise;<br />
+Lash'd on a wheel, a whirling felon flies;<br />
+A wretch, with members chain'd and liver bare,<br />
+Writhes and disturbs the vulture feasting there:<br />
+One strains to roll his rock, recoiling still;<br />
+One, stretch'd recumbent o'er a limpid rill,<br />
+Burns with devouring thirst; his starting eyes,<br />
+Swell'd veins and frothy lips and piercing cries<br />
+Accuse the faithless eddies, as they shrink<br />
+And keep him panting still, still bending o'er the brink.</p>
+
+<p>At last Elysium to his ravisht eyes<br />
+Spreads flowery fields and opens golden skies;<br />
+Breathes Orphean music thro the dancing groves,<br />
+Trains the gay troops of Beauties, Graces, Loves,<br />
+Lures his delirious sense with sweet decoys,<br />
+Fine fancied foretaste of eternal joys,<br />
+Fastidious pomp or proud imperial state,--<br />
+Illusions all, that pass the Ivory Gate!</p>
+
+<p>Various and vast the fraudful drama grows,<br />
+Feign'd are the pleasures, as unfelt the woes;<br />
+Where sainted hierophants, with well taught mimes,<br />
+Play'd first the role for all succeeding times;<br />
+Which, vamp'd and varied as the clime required,<br />
+More trist or splendid, open or retired,<br />
+Forms local creeds, with multifarious lore,<br />
+Creates the God and bids the world adore.</p>
+
+<p>Lo at the Lama's feet, as lord of all,<br />
+Age following age in dumb devotion fall;<br />
+The youthful god, mid suppliant kings enshrined,<br />
+Dispensing fate and ruling half mankind,<br />
+Sits with contorted limbs, a silent slave,<br />
+An early victim of a secret grave;<br />
+His priests by myriads famish every clime<br />
+And sell salvation in the tones they chime.</p>
+
+<p>See India's Triad frame their blood-penn'd codes,<br />
+Old Ganges change his gardens for his gods,<br />
+Ask his own waves from their celestial hands,<br />
+And choke his channel with their sainted sands.<br />
+Mad with the mandates of their scriptured word,<br />
+And prompt to snatch from hell her dear dead lord,<br />
+The wife, still blooming, decks her sacred urns,<br />
+Mounts the gay pyre, and with his body burns.</p>
+
+<p>Shrined in his golden fane the Delphian stands,<br />
+Shakes distant thrones and taxes unknown lands.<br />
+Kings, consuls, khans from earth's whole regions come,<br />
+Pour in their wealth, and then inquire their doom;<br />
+Furious and wild the priestess rends her veil,<br />
+Sucks, thro the sacred stool, the maddening gale,<br />
+Starts reddens foams and screams and mutters loud,<br />
+Like a fell fiend, her oracles of God.<br />
+The dark enigma, by the pontiff scroll'd<br />
+In broken phrase, and close in parchment roll'd,<br />
+From his proud pulpit to the suppliant hurl'd,<br />
+Shall rive an empire and distract the world.</p>
+
+<p>And where the mosque's dim arches bend on high,<br />
+Mecca's dead prophet mounts the mimic sky;<br />
+Pilgrims, imbanded strong for mutual aid,<br />
+Thro dangerous deserts that their faith has made,<br />
+Train their long caravans, and famish'd come<br />
+To kiss the shrine and trembling touch the tomb,<br />
+By fire and sword the same fell faith extend,<br />
+And howl their homilies to earth's far end.</p>
+
+<p>Phenician altars reek with human gore,<br />
+Gods hiss from caverns or in cages roar,<br />
+Nile pours from heaven a tutelary flood,<br />
+And gardens grow the vegetable god.<br />
+Two rival powers the magian faith inspire,<br />
+Primeval Darkness and immortal Fire;<br />
+Evil and good in these contending rise,<br />
+And each by turns the sovereign of the skies.<br />
+Sun, stars and planets round the earth behold<br />
+Their fanes of marble and their shrines of gold;<br />
+The sea, the grove, the harvest and the vine<br />
+Spring from their gods and claim a birth divine;<br />
+While heroes, kings and sages of their times,<br />
+Those gods on earth, are gods in happier climes;<br />
+Minos in judgment sits, and Jove in power,<br />
+And Odin's friends are feasted there with gore.</p>
+
+<p>Man is an infant still; and slow and late<br />
+Must form and fix his adolescent state,<br />
+Mature his manhood, and at last behold<br />
+His reason ripen and his force unfold.<br />
+From that bright eminence he then shall cast<br />
+A look of wonder on his wanderings past,<br />
+Congratulate himself, and o'er the earth<br />
+Firm the full reign of peace predestined at his birth.</p>
+
+<p>So Hesper taught; and farther had pursued<br />
+A theme so grateful as a world renew'd;<br />
+But dubious thoughts disturb'd the Hero's breast,<br />
+Who thus with modest mien the Seer addrest:<br />
+Say, friend of man, in this unbounded range,<br />
+Where error vagrates and illusions change,<br />
+What hopes to see his baleful blunders cease,<br />
+And earth commence that promised age of peace?<br />
+Like a loose pendulum his mind is hung,<br />
+From wrong to wrong by ponderous passion swung,<br />
+It vibrates wide, and with unceasing flight<br />
+Sweeps all extremes and scorns the mean of right.<br />
+Tho in the times you trace he seems to gain<br />
+A steadier movement and a path more plain,<br />
+And tho experience will have taught him then<br />
+To mark some dangers, some delusions ken,<br />
+Yet who can tell what future shocks may spread<br />
+New shades of darkness round his lofty head,<br />
+Plunge him again in some broad gulph of woes,<br />
+Where long and oft he struggled, wreck'd and rose?</p>
+
+<p>What strides he took in those gigantic times<br />
+That sow'd with cities all his orient climes!<br />
+When earth's proud floods he tamed, made many a shore,<br />
+And talk'd with heaven from Babel's glittering tower!<br />
+Did not his Babylon exulting say,<br />
+I sit a queen, for ever stands my sway?<br />
+Thebes, Memphis, Nineveh, a countless throng,<br />
+Caught the same splendor and return'd the song;<br />
+Each boasted, promised o'er the world to rise,<br />
+Spouse of the sun, eternal as the skies.<br />
+Where shall we find them now? the very shore<br />
+Where Ninus rear'd his empire is no more:<br />
+The dikes decay'd, a putrid marsh regains<br />
+The sunken walls, the tomb-encumber'd plains,<br />
+Pursues the dwindling nations where they shrink,<br />
+And skirts with slime its deleterious brink.<br />
+The fox himself has fled his gilded den,<br />
+Nor holds the heritage he won from men;<br />
+Lapwing and reptile shun the curst abode,<br />
+And the foul dragon, now no more a god,<br />
+Trails off his train; the sickly raven flies;<br />
+A wide strong-stencht Avernus chokes the skies.<br />
+So pride and ignorance fall a certain prey<br />
+To the stanch bloodhound of despotic sway.</p>
+
+<p>Then past a long drear night, with here and there<br />
+A doubtful glimmering from a single star;<br />
+Tyre, Carthage, Syracuse the gleam increase,<br />
+Till dawns at last the effulgent morn of Greece,<br />
+Here all his Muses meet, all arts combine<br />
+To nerve his genius and his works refine;<br />
+Morals and laws and arms, and every grace<br />
+That e'er adorn'd or could exalt the race,<br />
+Wrought into science and arranged in rules,<br />
+Swell the proud splendor of her cluster'd schools,<br />
+Build and sustain the state with loud acclaim,<br />
+And work those deathless miracles of fame<br />
+That stand unrivall'd still; for who shall dare<br />
+Another field with Marathon compare?<br />
+Who speaks of eloquence or sacred song,<br />
+But calls on Greece to modulate his tongue?<br />
+And where has man's fine form so perfect shone<br />
+In tint or mould, in canvass or in stone?</p>
+
+<p>Yet from that splendid height o'erturn'd once more,<br />
+He dasht in dust the living lamp he bore.<br />
+Dazzled with her own glare, decoy'd and sold<br />
+For homebred faction and barbaric gold,<br />
+Greece treads on Greece, subduing and subdued,<br />
+New crimes inventing, all the old renew'd,<br />
+Canton o'er canton climbs; till, crush'd and broke,<br />
+All yield the sceptre and resume the yoke.</p>
+
+<p>Where shall we trace him next, the migrant man,<br />
+To try once more his meliorating plan?<br />
+Shall not the Macedonian, where he strides<br />
+O'er Asian worlds and Nile's neglected tides,<br />
+Prepare new seats of glory, to repay<br />
+The transient shadows with perpetual day?<br />
+His heirs erect their empires, and expand<br />
+The beams of Greece thro each benighted land;<br />
+Seleucia spreads o'er ten broad realms her sway,<br />
+And turns on eastern climes the western ray;<br />
+Palmyra brightens earth's commercial zone,<br />
+And sits an emblem of her god the sun;<br />
+While fond returning to that favorite shore<br />
+Where Ammon ruled and Hermes taught of yore,<br />
+All arts concentrate, force and grace combine<br />
+To rear and blend the useful with the fine,<br />
+Restore the Egyptian glories, and retain,<br />
+Where science dawn'd, her great resurgent reign.</p>
+
+<p>From Egypt chased again, he seeks his home,<br />
+More firmly fixt in sage considerate Rome.<br />
+Here all the virtues long resplendent shone<br />
+All that was Greek, barbarian and her own;<br />
+She school'd him sound, and boasted to extend<br />
+Thro time's long course and earth's remotest end<br />
+His glorious reign of reason; soon to cease<br />
+The clang of arms, and rule the world in peace.<br />
+Great was the sense he gain'd, and well defined<br />
+The various functions of his tutor'd mind;<br />
+Could but his sober sense have proved his guide,<br />
+And kind experience pruned the shoots of pride.</p>
+
+<p>A field magnificent before him lay;<br />
+Land after land received the spreading ray;<br />
+Franchise and friendship travell'd in his train,<br />
+Bandits of earth and pirates of the main<br />
+Rose into citizens, their rage resign'd.<br />
+And hail'd the great republic of mankind.<br />
+If ever then state slaughter was to pause,<br />
+And man from nature learn to frame his laws.<br />
+This was the moment; here the sunbeam rose<br />
+To hush the human storm and let the world repose.</p>
+
+<p>But drunk with pomp and sickening at the light,<br />
+He stagger d wild on this delirious height;<br />
+Forgot the plainest truths he learnt before,<br />
+And barter'd moral for material power.<br />
+From Calpe's rock to India's ardent skies,<br />
+O'er shuddering earth his talon'd Eagle flies,<br />
+To justice blind, and heedless where she drove,<br />
+As when she bore the brandisht bolt of Jove.</p>
+
+<p>Rome loads herself with chains, seals fast her eyes,<br />
+And tells the insulted nations when to rise;<br />
+And rise they do, like sweeping tempests driven,<br />
+Swarm following swarm, o'ershading earth and heaven,<br />
+Roll back her outrage, and indignant shed<br />
+The world's wide vengeance on her sevenfold head.<br />
+Then dwindling back to littleness and shade<br />
+Man soon forgets the gorgeous glare he made,<br />
+Sinks to a savage serf or monkish drone,<br />
+Roves in rude hordes or counts his beads alone,<br />
+Wars with his arts, obliterates his lore,<br />
+And burns the books that rear'd his race before.</p>
+
+<p>Shrouded in deeper darkness now he veers<br />
+The vast gyration of a thousand years,<br />
+Strikes out each lamp that would illume his way,<br />
+Disputes his food with every beast of prey;<br />
+Imbands his force to fence his trist abodes,<br />
+A wretched robber with his feudal codes.</p>
+
+<p>At length, it seems, some parsimonious rays<br />
+Collect from each far heaven a feeble blaze,<br />
+Dance o'er his Europe, and again excite<br />
+His numerous nations to receive the light.<br />
+But faint and slow the niggard dawn expands,<br />
+Diffused o'er various far dissunder'd lands,<br />
+Dreading, as well it may, to prove once more<br />
+The same sad chance so often proved before.</p>
+
+<p>And why not lapse again? Celestial Seer,<br />
+Forgive my doubts, and ah remove my fear!<br />
+Man is my brother; strong I feel the ties,<br />
+From strong solicitude my doubts arise;<br />
+My heart, while opening with the boundless scope<br />
+That swells before him and expands his hope,<br />
+Forebodes another fall; and tho at last<br />
+Thy world is planted and with light o'ercast,<br />
+Tho two broad continents their beams combine<br />
+Round his whole globe to stream his day divine,<br />
+Perchance some folly, yet uncured, may spread<br />
+A storm proportion'd to the lights they shed,<br />
+Veil both his continents, and leave again<br />
+Between them stretch'd the impermeable main;<br />
+All science buried, sails and cities lost,<br />
+Their lands uncultured, as their seas uncrost.<br />
+Till on thy coast, some thousand ages hence,<br />
+New pilots rise, bold enterprise commence,<br />
+Some new Columbus (happier let him be,<br />
+More wise and great and virtuous far than me)<br />
+Launch on the wave, and tow'rd the rising day<br />
+Like a strong eaglet steer his untaught way,<br />
+Gird half the globe, and to his age unfold<br />
+A strange new world, the world we call the old.<br />
+From Finland's glade to Calpe's storm-beat head<br />
+He'll find some tribes of scattering wildmen spread;<br />
+But one vast wilderness will shade the soil,<br />
+No wreck of art, no sign of ancient toil<br />
+Tell where a city stood; nor leave one trace<br />
+Of all that honors now, and all that shames the race.</p>
+
+<p>If such the round we run, what hope, my friend,<br />
+To see our madness and our miseries end?--<br />
+Here paused the Patriarch: mild the Saint return'd,<br />
+And as he spoke, fresh glories round him burn'd:<br />
+My son, I blame not but applaud thy grief;<br />
+Inquiries deep should lead to slow belief.<br />
+So small the portion of the range of man<br />
+His written stories reach or views can span,<br />
+That wild confusion seems to clog his march,<br />
+And the dull progress made illudes thy search.<br />
+But broad beyond compare, with steadier hand<br />
+Traced o'er his earth, his present paths expand.<br />
+In sober majesty and matron grace<br />
+Sage Science now conducts her filial race;<br />
+And if, while all their arts around them shine,<br />
+They culture more the solid than the fine,<br />
+Tis to correct their fatal faults of old,<br />
+When, caught by tinsel, they forgot the gold;<br />
+When their strong brilliant imitative lines<br />
+Traced nature only in her gay designs,<br />
+Rear'd the proud column, toned her chanting lyre,<br />
+Warm'd the full senate with her words of fire,<br />
+Pour'd on the canvass every pulse of life,<br />
+And bade the marble rage with human strife.</p>
+
+<p>These were the arts that nursed unequal sway,<br />
+That priests would pamper and that kings would pay,<br />
+That spoke to vulgar sense, and often stole<br />
+The sense of right and freedom from the soul.<br />
+While, circumscribed in some concentred clime,<br />
+They reach'd but one small nation at a time,<br />
+Dazzled that nation, pufft her local pride,<br />
+Proclaim'd her hatred to the world beside,<br />
+Drew back returning hatred from afar,<br />
+And sunk themselves beneath the storms of war.</p>
+
+<p>As, when the sun moves o'er the flaming zone,<br />
+Collecting clouds attend his fervid throne,<br />
+Superior splendors, in his morn display'd,<br />
+Prepare for noontide but a heavier shade;<br />
+Thus where the brilliant arts alone prevail'd,<br />
+Their shining course succeeding storms assail'd;<br />
+Pride, wrong and insult hemm'd their scanty reign,<br />
+A Nile their stream, a Hellespont their main,<br />
+Content with Tiber's narrow shores to wind,<br />
+They fledged their Eagle but to fang mankind;<br />
+Ere great inventions found a tardy birth,<br />
+And with their new creations blest the earth.</p>
+
+<p>Now sober'd man a steadier gait assumes,<br />
+Broad is the beam that breaks the Gothic glooms.<br />
+At once consenting nations lift their eyes,<br />
+And hail the holy dawn that streaks the skies;<br />
+Arabian caliphs rear the spires of Spain,<br />
+The Lombards keel their Adriatic main,<br />
+Great Charles, invading and reviving all,<br />
+Plants o'er with schools his numerous states of Gaul;<br />
+And Alfred opes the mines whence Albion draws<br />
+The ore of all her wealth,--her liberty and laws.</p>
+
+<p>Ausonian cities interchange and spread<br />
+The lights of learning on the wings of trade;<br />
+Bologna's student walls arise to fame,<br />
+Germania, thine their rival honors claim;<br />
+Halle, Gottinge, Upsal, Kiel and Leyden smile,<br />
+Oxonia, Cambridge cheer Britannia's isle;<br />
+Where, like her lark, gay Chaucer leads the lay,<br />
+The matin carol of his country's day.</p>
+
+<p>Blind War himself, that erst opposed all good,<br />
+And whelm'd meek Science in her votaries' blood,<br />
+Now smooths, by means unseen, her modest way,<br />
+Extends her limits and secures her sway.<br />
+From Europe's world his mad crusaders pour<br />
+Their banded myriads on the Asian shore;<br />
+The mystic Cross, thro famine toil and blood,<br />
+Leads their long marches to the tomb of God.<br />
+Thro realms of industry their passage lies,<br />
+And labor'd affluence feasts their curious eyes;<br />
+Till fields of slaughter whelm the broken host,<br />
+Their pride appall'd, their warmest zealots lost,<br />
+The wise remains to their own shores return,<br />
+Transplant all arts that Hagar's race adorn,<br />
+Learn from long intercourse their mutual ties,<br />
+And find in commerce where their interest lies.</p>
+
+<p>From Drave's long course to Biscay's bending shores,<br />
+Where Adria sleeps, to where the Bothnian roars,<br />
+In one great Hanse, for earth's whole trafic known,<br />
+Free cities rise, and in their golden zone<br />
+Bind all the interior states; nor princes dare<br />
+Infringe their franchise with voracious war.<br />
+All shield them safe, and joy to share the gain<br />
+That spreads o'er land from each surrounding main,<br />
+Makes Indian stuffs, Arabian gums their own,<br />
+Plants Persian gems on every Celtic crown,<br />
+Pours thro their opening woodlands milder day,<br />
+And gives to genius his expansive play.</p>
+
+<p>This blessed moment, from the towers of Thorn<br />
+New splendor rises; there the sage is born!<br />
+The sage who starts these planetary spheres,<br />
+Deals out their task to wind their own bright years,<br />
+Restores his station to the parent Sun,<br />
+And leads his duteous daughters round his throne.<br />
+Each mounts obedient on her wheels of fire,<br />
+Whirls round her sisters, and salutes the sire,<br />
+Guides her new car, her youthful coursers tries,<br />
+Curves careful paths along her alter'd skies,<br />
+Learns all her mazes thro the host of even,<br />
+And hails and joins the harmony of heaven.<br />
+--Fear not, Copernicus! let loose the rein,<br />
+Launch from their goals, and mark the moving train;<br />
+Fix at their sun thy calculating eye,<br />
+Compare and count their courses round their sky.<br />
+Fear no disaster from the slanting force<br />
+That warps them staggering in elliptic course;<br />
+Thy sons with steadier ken shall aid the search,<br />
+And firm and fashion their majestic march,<br />
+Kepler prescribe the laws no stars can shun,<br />
+And Newton tie them to the eternal sun.</p>
+
+<p>By thee inspired, his tube the Tuscan plies,<br />
+And sends new colonies to stock the skies,<br />
+Gives Jove his satellites, and first adorns<br />
+Effulgent Phosphor with his silver horns.<br />
+Herschel ascends himself with venturous wain,<br />
+And joins and flanks thy planetary train,<br />
+Perceives his distance from their elder spheres,<br />
+And guards with numerous moons the lonely round he steers.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, bright Copernicus, thy beams, far hurl'd,<br />
+Shall startle well this intellectual world,<br />
+Break the delusive dreams of ancient lore,<br />
+New floods of light on every subject pour,<br />
+Thro Physic Nature many a winding trace,<br />
+And seat the Moral on her sister's base.<br />
+Descartes with force gigantic toils alone,<br />
+Unshrines old errors and propounds his own;<br />
+Like a blind Samson, gropes their strong abodes,<br />
+Whelms deep in dust their temples and their gods,<br />
+Buries himself with those false codes they drew,<br />
+And makes his followers frame and fix the true.</p>
+
+<p>Bacon, with every power of genius fraught,<br />
+Spreads over worlds his mantling wings of thought,<br />
+Draws in firm lines, and tells in nervous tone<br />
+All that is yet and all that shall be known,<br />
+Withes Proteus Matter in his arms of might,<br />
+And drags her tortuous secrets forth to light,<br />
+Bids men their unproved systems all forgo,<br />
+Informs them what to learn, and how to know,<br />
+Waves the first flambeau thro the night that veils<br />
+Egyptian fables and Phenician tales,<br />
+Strips from all-plundering Greece the cloak she wore,<br />
+And shows the blunders of her borrow'd lore.</p>
+
+<p>One vast creation, lately borne abroad,<br />
+Cheers the young nations like a nurturing God,<br />
+Breathes thro them all the same wide-searching soul.<br />
+Forms, feeds, refines and animates the whole,<br />
+Guards every ground they gain, and forward brings<br />
+Glad Science soaring on cerulean wings,<br />
+Trims her gay plumes, directs her upward course,<br />
+Props her light pinions and sustains her force,<br />
+Instructs all men her golden gifts to prize,<br />
+And catch new glories from her beamful eyes,--<br />
+Tis the prolific Press; whose tablet, fraught<br />
+By graphic Genius with his painted thought,<br />
+Flings forth by millions the prodigious birth,<br />
+And in a moment stocks the astonish'd earth.</p>
+
+<p>Genius, enamor'd of his fruitful bride,<br />
+Assumes new force and elevates his pride.<br />
+No more, recumbent o'er his finger'd style,<br />
+He plods whole years each copy to compile,<br />
+Leaves to ludibrious winds the priceless page,<br />
+Or to chance fires the treasure of an age;<br />
+But bold and buoyant, with his sister Fame,<br />
+He strides o'er earth, holds high his ardent flame,<br />
+Calls up Discovery with her tube and scroll,<br />
+And points the trembling magnet to the pole.<br />
+Hence the brave Lusitanians stretch the sail,<br />
+Scorn guiding stars, and tame the midsea gale;<br />
+And hence thy prow deprest the boreal wain,<br />
+Rear'd adverse heavens, a second earth to gain,<br />
+Ran down old Night, her western curtain thirl'd,<br />
+And snatch'd from swaddling shades an infant world.</p>
+
+<p>Rome, Athens, Memphis, Tyre! had you butknown<br />
+This glorious triad, now familiar grown,<br />
+The Press, the Magnet faithful to its pole,<br />
+And earth's own Movement round her steadfast goal,<br />
+Ne'er had your science, from that splendid height,<br />
+Sunk in her strength, nor seen succeeding night.<br />
+Her own utility had forced her sway,<br />
+All nations caught the fast-extending ray,<br />
+Nature thro all her kingdoms oped the road,<br />
+Resign'd her secrets and her wealth bestow'd;<br />
+Her moral codes a like dominion rear'd,<br />
+Freedom been born and folly disappear'd,<br />
+War and his monsters sunk beneath her ban,<br />
+And left the world to reason and to man.</p>
+
+<p>But now behold him bend his broader way,<br />
+Lift keener eyes and drink diviner day,<br />
+All systems scrutinize, their truths unfold,<br />
+Prove well the recent, well revise the old,<br />
+Reject all mystery, and define with force<br />
+The point he aims at in his laboring course,--<br />
+To know these elements, learn how they wind<br />
+Their wondrous webs of matter and of mind,<br />
+What springs, what guides organic life requires,<br />
+To move, rule, rein its ever-changing gyres,<br />
+Improve and utilise each opening birth,<br />
+And aid the labors of this nurturing earth.</p>
+
+<p>But chief their moral soul he learns to trace,<br />
+That stronger chain which links and leads the race;<br />
+Which forms and sanctions every social tie,<br />
+And blinds or clears their intellectual eye.<br />
+He strips that soul from every filmy shade<br />
+That schools had caught, that oracles had made,<br />
+Relumes her visual nerve, develops strong<br />
+The rules of right, the subtle shifts of wrong;<br />
+Of civil power draws clear the sacred line,<br />
+Gives to just government its right divine,<br />
+Forms, varies, fashions, as his lights increase,<br />
+Till earth is fill'd with happiness and peace.</p>
+
+<p>Already taught, thou know'st the fame that waits<br />
+His rising seat in thy confederate states.<br />
+There stands the model, thence he long shall draw<br />
+His forms of policy, his traits of law;<br />
+Each land shall imitate, each nation join<br />
+The well-based brotherhood, the league divine,<br />
+Extend its empire with the circling sun,<br />
+And band the peopled globe beneath its federal zone.</p>
+
+<p>As thus he spoke, returning tears of joy<br />
+Suffused the Hero's cheek and pearl'd his eye:<br />
+Unveil, said he, my friend, and stretch once more<br />
+Beneath my view that heaven-illumined shore;<br />
+Let me behold her silver beams expand,<br />
+To lead all nations, lighten every land,<br />
+Instruct the total race, and teach at last<br />
+Their toils to lessen and their chains to cast,<br />
+Trace and attain the purpose of their birth,<br />
+And hold in peace this heritage of earth.<br />
+The Seraph smiled consent, the Hero's eye<br />
+Watch'd for the daybeam round the changing sky.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<h1>Book X</h1>.
+
+
+
+<h3>Argument.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="arg">    The vision resumed, and extended over the whole earth. Present
+    character of different nations. Future progress of society with respect
+    to commerce; discoveries; inland navigation; philosophical, med
+    and political knowledge. Science of government. Assimilation and final
+    union of all languages. Its effect on education, and on the advancement
+    of physical and moral science. The physical precedes the moral, as
+    Phosphor precedes the Sun. View of a general Congress from all nations,
+    assembled to establish the political harmony of mankind. Conclusion. </p>
+
+
+<p>Hesper again his heavenly power display'd,<br />
+And shook the yielding canopy of shade.<br />
+Sudden the stars their trembling fires withdrew.<br />
+Returning splendors burst upon the view,<br />
+Floods of unfolding light the skies adorn,<br />
+And more than midday glories grace the morn.<br />
+So shone the earth, as if the sideral train,<br />
+Broad as full suns, had sail'd the ethereal plain;<br />
+When no distinguisht orb could strike the sight,<br />
+But one clear blaze of all-surrounding light<br />
+O'erflow'd the vault of heaven. For now in view<br />
+Remoter climes and future ages drew;<br />
+Whose deeds of happier fame, in long array,<br />
+Call'd into vision, fill the newborn day.</p>
+
+<p>Far as seraphic power could lift the eye,<br />
+Or earth or ocean bend the yielding sky,<br />
+Or circling sutis awake the breathing gale,<br />
+Drake lead the way, or Cook extend the sail;<br />
+Where Behren sever'd, with adventurous prow,<br />
+Hesperia's headland from Tartaria's brow;<br />
+Where sage Vancouvre's patient leads were hurl'd,<br />
+Where Deimen stretch'd his solitary world;<br />
+All lands, all seas that boast a present name,<br />
+And all that unborn time shall give to fame,<br />
+Around the Pair in bright expansion rise,<br />
+And earth, in one vast level, bounds the skies.</p>
+
+<p>They saw the nations tread their different shores,<br />
+Ply their own toils and wield their local powers,<br />
+Their present state in all its views disclose,<br />
+Their gleams of happiness, their shades of woes,<br />
+Plodding in various stages thro the range<br />
+Of man's unheeded but unceasing change.<br />
+Columbus traced them with experienced eye,<br />
+And class'd and counted all the flags that fly;<br />
+He mark'd what tribes still rove the savage waste,<br />
+What cultured realms the sweets of plenty taste;<br />
+Where arts and virtues fix their golden reign,<br />
+Or peace adorns, or slaughter dyes the plain.</p>
+
+<p>He saw the restless Tartar, proud to roam,<br />
+Move with his herds and pitch a transient home;<br />
+Tibet's long tracts and China's fixt domain,<br />
+Dull as their despots, yield their cultured grain;<br />
+Cambodia, Siam, Asia's myriad isles<br />
+And old Indostan, with their wealthy spoils<br />
+Attract adventures masters, and o'ershade<br />
+Their sunbright ocean with the wings of trade.<br />
+Arabian robbers, Syrian Kurds combined,<br />
+Create their deserts and infest mankind;<br />
+The Turk's dim Crescent, like a day-struck star,<br />
+As Russia's Eagle shades their haunts of war,<br />
+Shrinks from insulted Europe, who divide<br />
+The shatter'd empire to the Pontic tide.<br />
+He mark'd impervious Afric, where alone<br />
+She lies encircled with the verdant zone<br />
+That lines her endless coast, and still sustains<br />
+Her northern pirates and her eastern swains,<br />
+Mourns her interior tribes purloined away,<br />
+And chain'd and sold beyond Atlantic day.<br />
+Brazilla's wilds, Mackensie's savage lands<br />
+With bickering strife inflame their furious bands;<br />
+Atlantic isles and Europe's cultured shores<br />
+Heap their vast wealth, exchange their growing stores,<br />
+All arts inculcate, new discoveries plan,<br />
+Tease and torment but school the race of man.<br />
+While his own federal states, extending far,<br />
+Calm their brave sons now breathing from the war,<br />
+Unfold their harbors, spread their genial soil,<br />
+And welcome freemen to the cheerful toil.</p>
+
+<p>A sight so solemn, as it varied sound,<br />
+Fill'd his fond heart with reveries profound;<br />
+He felt the infinitude of thoughts that pass<br />
+And guide and govern that enormous mass.<br />
+The cares that agitate, the creeds that blind,<br />
+The woes that waste the many-master'd kind,<br />
+The distance great that still remains to trace,<br />
+Ere sober sense can harmonize the race,<br />
+Held him suspense, imprest with reverence meek,<br />
+And choked his utterance as he wish'd to speak:<br />
+When Hesper thus: The paths they here pursue,<br />
+Wide as they seem unfolding to thy view,<br />
+Show but a point in that long circling course<br />
+Which cures their weakness and confirms their force,<br />
+Lends that experience which alone can close<br />
+The scenes of strife, and give the world repose.<br />
+Yet here thou seest the same progressive plan<br />
+That draws for mutual succour man to man,<br />
+From twain to tribe, from tribe to realm dilates,<br />
+In federal union groups a hundred states,<br />
+Thro all their turns with gradual scale ascends,<br />
+Their powers; their passions and their interest blends;<br />
+While growing arts their social virtues spread,<br />
+Enlarge their compacts and unlock their trade;<br />
+Till each remotest clan, by commerce join'd,<br />
+Links in the chain that binds all humankind,<br />
+Their bloody banners sink in darkness furl'd,<br />
+And one white flag of peace triumphant walks the world.</p>
+
+<p>As infant streams, from oozing earth at first<br />
+With feeble force and lonely murmurs burst,<br />
+From myriad unseen fountains draw the rills<br />
+And curl contentious round their hundred hills,<br />
+Meet, froth and foam, their dashing currents swell,<br />
+O'er crags and rocks their furious course impel,<br />
+Impetuous plunging plough the mounds of earth,<br />
+And tear the fostering flanks that gave them birth;<br />
+Mad with the strength they gain, they thicken deep<br />
+Their muddy waves and slow and sullen creep,<br />
+O'erspread whole regions in their lawless pride,<br />
+Then stagnate long, then shrink and curb their tide;<br />
+Anon more tranquil grown, with steadier sway,<br />
+Thro broader banks they shape their seaward way,<br />
+From different climes converging, join and spread<br />
+Their mingled waters in one widening bed,<br />
+Profound, transparent; till the liquid zone<br />
+Bands half the globe and drinks the golden sun,<br />
+Sweeps onward still the still expanding plain,<br />
+And moves majestic to the boundless main.<br />
+Tis thus Society's small sources rise;<br />
+Thro passions wild her infant progress lies;<br />
+Fear, with its host of follies, errors, woes,<br />
+Creates her obstacles and forms her foes;<br />
+Misguided interest, local pride withstand,<br />
+Till long-tried ills her growing views expand,<br />
+Till tribes and states and empires find their place,<br />
+Whose mutual wants her widest walks embrace;<br />
+Enlightened interest, moral sense at length<br />
+Combine their aids to elevate her strength,<br />
+Lead o'er the world her peace-commanding sway.<br />
+And light her steps with everlasting day.</p>
+
+<p>From that mark'd stage of man we now behold,<br />
+More rapid strides his coming paths unfold;<br />
+His continents are traced, his islands found,<br />
+His well-taught sails on all his billows bound,<br />
+His varying wants their new discoveries ply,<br />
+And seek in earth's whole range their sure supply.</p>
+
+<p>First of his future stages, thou shalt see<br />
+His trade unfetter'd and his ocean free.<br />
+From thy young states the code consoling springs,<br />
+To strip from vulture War his naval wings;<br />
+In views so just all Europe's powers combine,<br />
+And earth's full voice approves the vast design.<br />
+Tho still her inland realms the combat wage<br />
+And hold in lingering broils the unsettled age,<br />
+Yet no rude shocks that shake the crimson plain<br />
+Shall more disturb the labors of the main;<br />
+The main that spread so wide his travell'd way,<br />
+Liberal as air, impartial as the day,<br />
+That all thy race the common wealth might share,<br />
+Exchange their fruits and fill their treasures there,<br />
+Their speech assimilate, their counsels blend,<br />
+Till mutual interest fix the mutual friend.<br />
+Now see, my son, the destined hour advance;<br />
+Safe in their leagues commercial navies dance,<br />
+Leave their curst cannon on the quay-built strand,<br />
+And like the stars of heaven a fearless course command.</p>
+
+<p>The Hero look'd; beneath his wondering eyes<br />
+Gay streamers lengthen round the seas and skies;<br />
+The countless nations open all their stores,<br />
+Load every wave and crowd the lively shores;<br />
+Bright sails in mingling mazes streak the air,<br />
+And commerce triumphs o'er the rage of war.</p>
+
+<p>From Baltic streams, from Elba's opening side,<br />
+From Rhine's long course and Texel's laboring tide,<br />
+From Gaul, from Albion, tired of fruitless fight,<br />
+From green Hibernia, clothed in recent light,<br />
+Hispania's strand that two broad oceans lave,<br />
+From Senegal and Gambia's golden wave,<br />
+Tago the rich, and Douro's viny shores,<br />
+The sweet Canaries and the soft Azores,<br />
+Commingling barks their mutual banners hail,<br />
+And drink by turns the same distending gale.<br />
+Thro Calpe's strait that leads the Midland main,<br />
+From Adria, Pontus, Nile's resurgent reign,<br />
+The sails look forth and wave their bandrols high<br />
+And ask their breezes from a broader sky.<br />
+Where Asia's isles and utmost shorelands bend,<br />
+Like rising suns the sheeted masts ascend;<br />
+Coast after coast their flowing flags unrol,<br />
+From Deimen's rocks to Zembla's ice-propt pole,<br />
+Where Behren's pass collapsing worlds divides,<br />
+Where California breaks the billowy tides,<br />
+Peruvian streams their golden margins boast,<br />
+Or Chili bluffs or Plata flats the coast.<br />
+Where, clothed in splendor, his Atlantic way<br />
+Spreads the blue borders of Hesperian day,<br />
+From all his havens, with majestic sweep,<br />
+The swiftest boldest daughters of the deep<br />
+Swarm forth before him; till the cloudlike train<br />
+From pole to pole o'ersheet the whitening main.</p>
+
+<p>So some primeval seraph, placed on high,<br />
+From heaven's sublimest point o'erlooke'd the sky,<br />
+When space unfolding heard the voice of God,<br />
+And suns and stars and systems roll'd abroad,<br />
+Caught their first splendors from his beamful eye,<br />
+Began their years and vaulted round their sky;<br />
+Their social spheres in bright confusion play,<br />
+Exchange their beams and fill the newborn day.</p>
+
+<p>Nor seas alone the countless barks behold;<br />
+Earth's inland realms their naval paths unfold.<br />
+Her plains, long portless, now no more complain<br />
+Of useless rills and fountains nursed in vain;<br />
+Canals curve thro them many a liquid line,<br />
+Prune their wild streams, their lakes and oceans join.<br />
+Where Darien hills o'erlook the gulphy tide,<br />
+Cleft in his view the enormous banks divide;<br />
+Ascending sails their opening pass pursue,<br />
+And waft the sparkling treasures of Peru.<br />
+Moxoe resigns his stagnant world of fen,<br />
+Allures, rewards the cheerful toils of men,<br />
+Leads their long new-made rivers round his reign,<br />
+Drives off the stench and waves his golden grain,<br />
+Feeds a whole nation from his cultured shore,<br />
+Where not a bird could skim the skies before.</p>
+
+<p>From Mohawk's mouth, far westing with the sun,<br />
+Thro all the midlands recent channels run,<br />
+Tap the redundant lakes, the broad hills brave,<br />
+And Hudson marry with Missouri's wave.<br />
+From dim Superior, whose uncounted sails<br />
+Shade his full seas and bosom all his gales,<br />
+New paths unfolding seek Mackensie's tide,<br />
+And towns and empires rise along their side;<br />
+Slave's crystal highways all his north adorn,<br />
+Like coruscations from the boreal morn.<br />
+Proud Missisippi, tamed and taught his road,<br />
+Flings forth irriguous from his generous flood<br />
+Ten thousand watery glades; that, round him curl'd,<br />
+Vein the broad bosom of the western world.</p>
+
+<p>From the red banks of Arab's odorous tide<br />
+Their Isthmus opens, and strange waters glide;<br />
+Europe from all her shores, with crowded sails,<br />
+Looks thro the pass and calls the Asian gales.<br />
+Volga and Obi distant oceans join.<br />
+Delighted Danube weds the wasting Rhine;<br />
+Elbe, Oder, Neister channel many a plain,<br />
+Exchange their barks and try each other's main.<br />
+All infant streams and every mountain rill<br />
+Choose their new paths, some useful task to fill,<br />
+Each acre irrigate, re-road the earth,<br />
+And serve at last the purpose of their birth.</p>
+
+<p>Earth, garden'd all, a tenfold burden brings;<br />
+Her fruits, her odors, her salubrious springs<br />
+Swell, breathe and bubble from the soil they grace,<br />
+String with strong nerves the renovating race,<br />
+Their numbers multiply in every land,<br />
+Their toils diminish and their powers expand;<br />
+And while she rears them with a statelier frame<br />
+Their soul she kindles with diviner flame,<br />
+Leads their bright intellect with fervid glow<br />
+Thro all the mass of things that still remains to know.</p>
+
+<p>He saw the aspiring genius of the age<br />
+Soar in the Bard and strengthen in the Sage:<br />
+The Bard with bolder hand assumes the lyre,<br />
+Warms the glad nations with unwonted fire,<br />
+Attunes to virtue all the tones that roll<br />
+Their tides of transport thro the expanding soul.<br />
+For him no more, beneath their furious gods,<br />
+Old ocean crimsons and Olympus nods,<br />
+Uprooted mountains sweep the dark profound,<br />
+Or Titans groan beneath the rending ground,<br />
+No more his clangor maddens up the mind<br />
+To crush, to conquer and enslave mankind,<br />
+To build on ruin'd realms the shrines of fame,<br />
+And load his numbers with a tyrant's name.<br />
+Far nobler objects animate his tongue,<br />
+And give new energies to epic song;<br />
+To moral charms he bids the world attend,<br />
+Fraternal states their mutual ties extend,<br />
+O'er cultured earth the rage of conquest cease,<br />
+War sink in night and nature smile in peace.<br />
+Soaring with science then he learns to string<br />
+Her highest harp, and brace her broadest wing,<br />
+With her own force to fray the paths untrod,<br />
+With her own glance to ken the total God,<br />
+Thro heavens o'ercanopied by heavens behold<br />
+New suns ascend and other skies unfold,<br />
+Social and system'd worlds around him shine,<br />
+And lift his living strains to harmony divine.</p>
+
+<p>The Sage with steadier lights directs his ken,<br />
+Thro twofold nature leads the walks of men,<br />
+Remoulds her moral and material frames,<br />
+Their mutual aids, their sister laws proclaims,<br />
+Disease before him with its causes flies,<br />
+And boasts no more of sickly soils and skies;<br />
+His well-proved codes the healing science aid,<br />
+Its base establish and its blessing spread,<br />
+With long-wrought life to teach the race to glow,<br />
+And vigorous nerves to grace the locks of snow.</p>
+
+<p>From every shape that varying matter gives,<br />
+That rests or ripens, vegetates or lives,<br />
+His chymic powers new combinations plan,<br />
+Yield new creations, finer forms to man,<br />
+High springs of health for mind and body trace,<br />
+Add force and beauty to the joyous race,<br />
+Arm with new engines his adventurous hand,<br />
+Stretch o'er these elements his wide command,<br />
+Lay the proud storm submissive at his feet,<br />
+Change, temper, tame all subterranean heat,<br />
+Probe laboring earth and drag from her dark side<br />
+The mute volcano, ere its force be tried;<br />
+Walk under ocean, ride the buoyant air,<br />
+Brew the soft shower, the labor'd land repair,<br />
+A fruitful soil o'er sandy deserts spread,<br />
+And clothe with culture every mountain's head.</p>
+
+<p>Where system'd realms their mutual glories lend,<br />
+And well-taught sires the cares of state attend,<br />
+Thro every maze of man they learn to wind,<br />
+Note each device that prompts the Proteus mind,<br />
+What soft restraints the tempered breast requires,<br />
+To taste new joys and cherish new desires,<br />
+Expand the selfish to the social flame,<br />
+And rear the soul to deeds of nobler fame.</p>
+
+<p>They mark, in all the past records of praise,<br />
+What partial views heroic zeal could raise;<br />
+What mighty states on others' ruins stood,<br />
+And built unsafe their haughty seats in blood;<br />
+How public virtue's ever borrow'd name<br />
+With proud applauses graced the deeds of shame,<br />
+Bade each imperial standard wave sublime,<br />
+And wild ambition havoc every clime;<br />
+From chief to chief the kindling spirit ran,<br />
+Heirs of false fame and enemies of man.</p>
+
+<p>Where Grecian states in even balance hung,<br />
+And warm'd with jealous fires the patriot's tongue,<br />
+The exclusive ardor cherish'd in the breast<br />
+Love to one land and hatred to the rest.<br />
+And where the flames of civil discord rage,<br />
+And Roman arms with Roman arms engage,<br />
+The mime of virtue rises still the same,<br />
+To build a Cesar's as a Pompey's name.</p>
+
+<p>But now no more the patriotic mind,<br />
+To narrow views and local laws confined,<br />
+Gainst neighboring lands directs the public rage.<br />
+Plods for a clan or counsels for an age;<br />
+But soars to loftier thoughts, and reaches far<br />
+Beyond the power, beyond the wish of war;<br />
+For realms and ages forms the general aim,<br />
+Makes patriot views and moral views the same,<br />
+Works with enlighten'd zeal, to see combined<br />
+The strength and happiness of humankind.</p>
+
+<p>Long had Columbus with delighted eyes<br />
+Mark'd all the changes that around him rise,<br />
+Lived thro descending ages as they roll,<br />
+And feasted still the still expanding soul;<br />
+When now the peopled regions swell more near,<br />
+And a mixt noise tumultuous stuns his ear.<br />
+At first, like heavy thunders roll'd in air,<br />
+Or the rude shock of cannonading war,<br />
+Or waves resounding on the craggy shore,<br />
+Hoarse roll'd the loud-toned undulating roar.<br />
+But soon the sounds like human voices rise,<br />
+All nations pouring undistinguisht cries;<br />
+Till more distinct the wide concussion grown<br />
+Rolls forth at times an accent like his own.<br />
+By turns the tongues assimilating blend,<br />
+And smoother idioms over earth ascend;<br />
+Mingling and softening still in every gale,<br />
+O'er discord's din harmonious tones prevail.<br />
+At last a simple universal sound<br />
+Winds thro the welkin, sooths the world around,<br />
+From echoing shores in swelling strain replies,<br />
+And moves melodious o'er the warbling skies.</p>
+
+<p>Such wild commotions as he heard and view'd,<br />
+In fixt astonishment the Hero stood,<br />
+And thus besought the Guide: Celestial friend,<br />
+What good to man can these dread scenes intend?<br />
+Some sore distress attends that boding sound<br />
+That breathed hoarse thunder and convulsed the ground.<br />
+War sure hath ceased; or have my erring eyes<br />
+Misread the glorious visions of the skies?<br />
+Tell then, my Seer, if future earthquakes sleep,<br />
+Closed in the conscious caverns of the deep,<br />
+Waiting the day of vengeance, when to roll<br />
+And rock the rending pillars of the pole.<br />
+Or tell if aught more dreadful to my race<br />
+In these dark signs thy heavenly wisdom trace;<br />
+And why the loud discordance melts again<br />
+In the smooth glidings of a tuneful strain.</p>
+
+<p>The guardian god replied: Thy fears give o'er;<br />
+War's hosted hounds shall havoc earth no more;<br />
+No sore distress these signal sounds foredoom,<br />
+But give the pledge of peaceful years to come;<br />
+The tongues of nations here their accents blend.<br />
+Till one pure language thro the world extend.</p>
+
+<p>Thou know'st the tale of Babel; how the skies<br />
+Fear'd for their safety as they felt him rise,<br />
+Sent unknown jargons mid the laboring bands,<br />
+Confused their converse and unnerved their hands,<br />
+Dispersed the bickering tribes and drove them far,<br />
+From peaceful toil to violence and war;<br />
+Bade kings arise with bloody flags unfurl'd,<br />
+Bade pride and conquest wander o'er the world,<br />
+Taught adverse creeds, commutual hatreds bred,<br />
+Till holy homicide the climes o'erspread.<br />
+--For that fine apologue, writh mystic strain,<br />
+Gave like the rest a golden age to man,<br />
+Ascribed perfection to his infant state,<br />
+Science unsought and all his arts innate;<br />
+Supposed the experience of the growing race<br />
+Must lead him retrograde and cramp his pace,<br />
+Obscure his vision as his lights increast,<br />
+And sink him from an angel to a beast.</p>
+
+<p>Tis thus the teachers of despotic sway<br />
+Strive in all times to blot the beams of day,<br />
+To keep him curb'd, nor let him lift his eyes<br />
+To see where happiness, where misery lies.<br />
+They lead him blind, and thro the world's broad waste<br />
+Perpetual feuds, unceasing shadows cast,<br />
+Crush every art that might the mind expand,<br />
+And plant with demons every desert land;<br />
+That, fixt in straiten'd bounds, the lust of power<br />
+May ravage still and still the race devour,<br />
+An easy prey the hoodwink'd hordes remain,<br />
+And oceans roll and shores extend in vain.</p>
+
+<p>Long have they reign'd; till now the race at last<br />
+Shake off their manacles, their blinders cast,<br />
+Overrule the crimes their fraudful foes produce,<br />
+By ways unseen to serve the happiest use,<br />
+Tempt the wide wave, probe every yielding soil,<br />
+Fill with their fruits the hardy hand of toil,<br />
+Unite their forces, wheel the conquering car,<br />
+Deal mutual death, but civilize by war.</p>
+
+<p>Dear-bought the experiment and hard the strife<br />
+Of social man, that rear'd his arts to life.<br />
+His Passions wild that agitate the mind,<br />
+His Reason calm, their watchful guide designed,<br />
+While yet unreconciled, his march restrain,<br />
+Mislead the judgment and betray the man.<br />
+Fear, his first passion, long maintain'd the sway,<br />
+Long shrouded in its glooms the mental ray,<br />
+Shook, curb'd, controll'd his intellectual force,<br />
+And bore him wild thro many a devious course.<br />
+Long had his Reason, with experienced eye,<br />
+Perused the book of earth and scaled the sky,<br />
+Led fancy, memory, foresight in her train,<br />
+And o'er creation stretch'd her vast domain;<br />
+Yet would that rival Fear her strength appal;<br />
+In that one conflict always sure to fall,<br />
+Mild Reason shunn'd the foe she could not brave,<br />
+Renounced her empire and remained a slave.</p>
+
+<p>But deathless, tho debased, she still could find<br />
+Some beams of truth to pour upon the mind;<br />
+And tho she dared no moral code to scan,<br />
+Thro physic forms she learnt to lead the man;<br />
+To strengthen thus his opening orbs of sight,<br />
+And nerve and clear them for a stronger light.<br />
+That stronger light, from nature's double codes,<br />
+Now springs expanding and his doubts explodes;<br />
+All nations catch it, all their tongues combine<br />
+To hail the human morn and speak the day divine.</p>
+
+<p>At this blest period, when the total race<br />
+Shall speak one language and all truths embrace,<br />
+Instruction clear a speedier course shall find,<br />
+And open earlier on the infant mind.<br />
+No foreign terms shall crowd with barbarous rules<br />
+The dull unmeaning pageantry of schools;<br />
+Nor dark authorities nor names unknown<br />
+Fill the learnt head with ignorance not its own;<br />
+But wisdom's eye with beams unclouded shine,<br />
+And simplest rules her native charms define;<br />
+One living language, one unborrow'd dress<br />
+Her boldest flights with fullest force express;<br />
+Triumphant virtue, in the garb of truth,<br />
+Win a pure passage to the heart of youth,<br />
+Pervade all climes where suns or oceans roll,<br />
+And warm the world with one great moral soul,<br />
+To see, facilitate, attain the scope<br />
+Of all their labor and of all their hope.</p>
+
+<p>As early Phosphor, on his silver throne,<br />
+Fair type of truth and promise of the sun,<br />
+Smiles up the orient in his dew-dipt ray,<br />
+Illumes the front of heaven and leads the day;<br />
+Thus Physic Science, with exploring eyes,<br />
+First o'er the nations bids her beauties rise,<br />
+Prepares the glorious way to pour abroad<br />
+Her Sister's brighter beams, the purest light of God.<br />
+Then Moral Science leads the lively mind<br />
+Thro broader fields and pleasures more refined;<br />
+Teaches the temper'd soul, at one vast view,<br />
+To glance o'er time and look existence thro,<br />
+See worlds and worlds, to being's formless end,<br />
+With all their hosts on her prime power depend,<br />
+Seraphs and suns and systems, as they rise,<br />
+Live in her life and kindle from her eyes,<br />
+Her cloudless ken, her all-pervading soul<br />
+Illume, sublime and harmonize the whole;<br />
+Teaches the pride of man its breadth to bound<br />
+In one small point of this amazing round,<br />
+To shrink and rest where nature fixt its fate,<br />
+A line its space, a moment for its date;<br />
+Instructs the heart an ampler joy to taste,<br />
+And share its feelings with each human breast,<br />
+Expand its wish to grasp the total kind<br />
+Of sentient soul, of cogitative mind;<br />
+Till mutual love commands all strife to cease,<br />
+And earth join joyous in the songs of peace.</p>
+
+<p>Thus heard Columbus, eager to behold<br />
+The famed Apocalypse its years unfold;<br />
+The soul stood speaking thro his gazing eyes,<br />
+And thus his voice: Oh let the visions rise!<br />
+Command, celestial Guide, from each far pole,<br />
+John's vision'd morn to open on my soul,<br />
+And raise the scenes, by his reflected light,<br />
+Living and glorious to my longing sight.<br />
+Let heaven unfolding show the eternal throne,<br />
+And all the concave flame in one clear sun;<br />
+On clouds of fire, with angels at his side,<br />
+The Prince of Peace, the King of Salem ride,<br />
+With smiles of love to greet the bridal earth,<br />
+Call slumbering ages to a second birth,<br />
+With all his white-robed millions fill the train,<br />
+And here commence the interminable reign!<br />
+Such views, the Saint replies, for sense too bright,<br />
+Would seal thy vision in eternal night;<br />
+Man cannot face nor seraph power display<br />
+The mystic beams of such an awful day.<br />
+Enough for thee, that thy delighted mind<br />
+Should trace the temporal actions of thy kind;<br />
+That time's descending veil should ope so far<br />
+Beyond the reach of wretchedness and war,<br />
+Till all the paths in nature's sapient plan<br />
+Fair in thy presence lead the steps of man,<br />
+And form at last, on earth's extended ball,<br />
+Union of parts and happiness of all.<br />
+To thy glad ken these rolling years have shown<br />
+The boundless blessings thy vast labors crown,<br />
+That, with the joys of unborn ages blest,<br />
+Thy soul exulting may retire to rest,<br />
+But see once more! beneath a change of skies,<br />
+The last glad visions wait thy raptured eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Eager he look'd. Another train of years<br />
+Had roll'd unseen, and brighten'd still their spheres;<br />
+Earth more resplendent in the floods of day<br />
+Assumed new smiles, and flush'd around him lay.<br />
+Green swell the mountains, calm the oceans roll,<br />
+Fresh beams of beauty kindle round the pole;<br />
+Thro all the range where shores and seas extend,<br />
+In tenfold pomp the works of peace ascend.<br />
+Robed in the bloom of spring's eternal year,<br />
+And ripe with fruits the same glad fields appear;<br />
+O'er hills and vales perennial gardens run,<br />
+Cities unwall'd stand sparkling to the sun;<br />
+The streams all freighted from the bounteous plain<br />
+Swell with the load and labor to the main,<br />
+Whose stormless waves command a steadier gale<br />
+And prop the pinions of a bolder sail:<br />
+Sway'd with the floating weight each ocean toils,<br />
+And joyous nature's full perfection smiles.</p>
+
+<p>Fill'd with unfolding fate, the vision'd age<br />
+Now leads its actors on a broader stage;<br />
+When clothed majestic in the robes of state,<br />
+Moved by one voice, in general congress meet<br />
+The legates of all empires. Twas the place<br />
+Where wretched men first firm'd their wandering pace;<br />
+Ere yet beguiled, the dark delirious hordes<br />
+Began to fight for altars and for lords;<br />
+Nile washes still the soil, and feels once more<br />
+The works of wisdom press his peopled shore.</p>
+
+<p>In this mid site, this monumental clime,<br />
+Rear'd by all realms to brave the wrecks of time<br />
+A spacious dome swells up, commodious great,<br />
+The last resort, the unchanging scene of state.<br />
+On rocks of adamant the walls ascend,<br />
+Tall columns heave and sky-like arches bend;<br />
+Bright o'er the golden roofs the glittering spires<br />
+Far in the concave meet the solar fires;<br />
+Four blazing fronts, with gates unfolding high,<br />
+Look with immortal splendor round the sky:<br />
+Hither the delegated sires ascend,<br />
+And all the cares of every clime attend.</p>
+
+<p>As that blest band, the guardian guides of heaven,<br />
+To whom the care of stars and suns is given,<br />
+(When one great circuit shall have proved their spheres,<br />
+And time well taught them how to wind their years)<br />
+Shall meet in general council; call'd to state<br />
+The laws and labors that their charge await;<br />
+To learn, to teach, to settle how to hold<br />
+Their course more glorious, as their lights unfold:<br />
+From all the bounds of space (the mandate known)<br />
+They wing their passage to the eternal throne;<br />
+Each thro his far dim sky illumes the road,<br />
+And sails and centres tow'rd the mount of God;<br />
+There, in mid universe, their seats to rear,<br />
+Exchange their counsels and their works compare:<br />
+So, from all tracts of earth, this gathering throng<br />
+In ships and chariots shape their course along,<br />
+Reach with unwonted speed the place assign'd<br />
+To hear and give the counsels of mankind.</p>
+
+<p>South of the sacred mansion, first resort<br />
+The assembled sires, and pass the spacious court.<br />
+Here in his porch earth's figured Genius stands,<br />
+Truth's mighty mirror poizing in his hands;<br />
+Graved on the pedestal and chased in gold,<br />
+Man's noblest arts their symbol forms unfold,<br />
+His tillage and his trade; with all the store<br />
+Of wondrous fabrics and of useful lore:<br />
+Labors that fashion to his sovereign sway<br />
+Earth's total powers, her soil and air and sea;<br />
+Force them to yield their fruits at his known call,<br />
+And bear his mandates round the rolling ball.<br />
+Beneath the footstool all destructive things,<br />
+The mask of priesthood and the mace of kings,<br />
+Lie trampled in the dust; for here at last<br />
+Fraud, folly, error all their emblems cast.<br />
+Each envoy here unloads his wearied hand<br />
+Of some old idol from his native land;<br />
+One flings a pagod on the mingled heap,<br />
+One lays a crescent, one a cross to sleep;<br />
+Swords, sceptres, mitres, crowns and globes and stars,<br />
+Codes of false fame and stimulants to wars<br />
+Sink in the settling mass; since guile began,<br />
+These are the agents of the woes of man.</p>
+
+<p>Now the full concourse, where the arches bend,<br />
+Pour thro by thousands and their seats ascend.<br />
+Far as the centred eye can range around,<br />
+Or the deep trumpet's solemn voice resound,<br />
+Long rows of reverend sires sublime extend,<br />
+And cares of worlds on every brow suspend.<br />
+High in the front, for soundest wisdom known,<br />
+A sire elect in peerless grandeur shone;<br />
+He open'd calm the universal cause,<br />
+To give each realm its limit and its laws,<br />
+Bid the last breath of tired contention cease,<br />
+And bind all regions in the leagues of peace;<br />
+Till one confederate, condependent sway<br />
+Spread with the sun and bound the walks of day,<br />
+One centred system, one all-ruling soul<br />
+Live thro the parts and regulate the whole.</p>
+
+<p>Here then, said Hesper, with a blissful smile,<br />
+Behold the fruits of thy long years of toil.<br />
+To yon bright borders of Atlantic day<br />
+Thy swelling pinions led the trackless way,<br />
+And taught mankind such useful deeds to dare,<br />
+To trace new seas and happy nations rear;<br />
+Till by fraternal hands their sails unfurl'd<br />
+Have waved at last in union o'er the world.</p>
+
+<p>Then let thy steadfast soul no more complain<br />
+Of dangers braved and griefs endured in vain,<br />
+Of courts insidious, envy's poison'd stings,<br />
+The loss of empire and the frown of kings;<br />
+While these broad views thy better thoughts compose<br />
+To spurn the malice of insulting foes;<br />
+And all the joys descending ages gain,<br />
+Repay thy labors and remove thy pain.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<h1>Notes.</h1>
+
+
+
+<p>Tho it would be more convenient to the reader to find some of these notes,
+especially the shorter ones, at the bottom of the pages to which they
+refer, yet most of them are of such a length as would render that mode of
+placing them disadvantageous to the symmetry of the pages and the general
+appearance of the work. It seemed necessary that these should be collected
+at the end of the Poem; and it was thought proper that the others should
+not be separated from them.</p>
+
+<p>The notes will probably be found too voluminous for the taste of some
+readers; but others would doubtless be better pleased to see them still
+augmented, as several of the philosophical subjects and historical
+references are left unexplained. Were I to offer apologies in this case, I
+should hardly know on which side to begin. I will therefore only say that
+in this appendage, as in the body of the work, I have aimed, as well as I
+was able, at blending in due proportions the useful with the agreeable.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2>No. 1</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><i>One gentle guardian once could shield the brave;
+  But now that guardian slumbers in the grave.</i></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>Book I. Line 105.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The death of queen Isabella, which happened before the last return of
+Columbus from America, was a subject of great sorrow to him. In her he lost
+his only powerful friend in Spain, on whose influence he was accustomed to
+rely in counteracting the perpetual intrigues of a host of enemies, whose
+rank and fortune gave them a high standing at the court of Valladolid.
+Their situation and connexions must havee commanded a weight of authority
+not easily resisted by an individual foreigner, however illustrious from
+his merit.</p>
+
+<p>It was a grievous reflection for Columbus that his services, tho great in
+themselves and unequalled in their consequences to the world, had been
+performed in an age and for a nation which knew not their value, as well as
+for an ungrateful monarch who chose to disregard them.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2>No. 2</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><i>As, awed to silence, savage lands gave place,
+  And hail'd with joy the sun-descended race.</i></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>Book I. Line 243. </blockquote>
+
+<p>The original inhabitants of Hispaniola were worshippers of the sun. The
+Europeans, when they first landed there, were supposed by them to be gods,
+and consequently descended from the sun. See the subject of solar worship
+treated more at large in a subsequent note.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2>No. 3</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><i>High lanterned in his heaven the cloudless White
+  Heaves the glad sailor an eternal light;</i></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>Book I. Line 333. </blockquote>
+
+<p>The White Mountain of Newhampshire, tho eighty miles from the sea, is the
+first land to be discovered in approaching that part of the coast of North
+America. It serves as a landmark for a considerable length of coast, of
+difficult navigation.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2>No. 4</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><i>Whirl'd from the monstrous Andes' bursting sides,
+  Maragnon leads his congregating tides;</i></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>Book I. Line 365. </blockquote>
+
+<p>This river, from different circumstances, has obtained several different
+names. It has been called Amazon, from an idea that some part of the
+neighboring country was inhabited by a race of warlike women, resembling
+what Herodotus relates of the Amazons of Scythia. It has been called
+Orellana, from its having been discovered by a Spanish officer of that
+name, who, on a certain expedition, deserted from the younger Pizarro on
+one of the sources of this river, and navigated it from thence to the
+ocean. Maragnon is the original name given it by the natives; which name I
+choose to follow.</p>
+
+<p>If we estimate its magnitude by the length of its course and the quantity
+of water it throws into the sea, it is much the greatest river that has
+hitherto come to our knowledge. Its navigation is said by Condamine and
+others to be uninterrupted for four thousand miles from the sea. Its
+breadth, within the banks, is sixty geographical miles; it receives in its
+course a variety of great rivers, besides those described in the text. Many
+of these descend from elevated countries and mountains covered with snow,
+the melting of which annually swells the Maragnon above its banks; when it
+overflows and fertilizes a vast extent of territory.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2>No. 5</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><i>He saw Xaraycts diamond lanks unfold,
+  And Paraguay's deep channel paved with gold.</i></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>Book I. Line 435. </blockquote>
+
+<p>Some of the richest diamond mines are found on the banks of the lake
+Xaraya. The river Paraguay is remarkable for the quantities of gold dust
+found in its channel. The Rio de la Plata, properly so called, has
+its source in the mountains of Potosi; and it was probably from this
+circumstance that it received its name, which signifies River of Silver.
+This river, after having joined the Paraguay, which is larger than itself,
+retains its own name till it reaches the sea. Near the mouth, it is one
+hundred and fifty miles wide; but in other respects it is far inferior to
+the Maragnon.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2>No. 6</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><i>Soon as the distant swell was seen to roll,
+  His ancient wishes reabsorb'd his soul;</i></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>Book I. Line 449. </blockquote>
+
+<p>The great object of Columbus, in most of his voyages, was to discover a
+western passage to India. He navigated the Gulph of Mexico with particular
+attention to this object, and was much disappointed in not finding a pass
+into the South Sea. The view he is here supposed to have of that ocean
+would therefore naturally recal his former desire of sailing to India.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2>No. 7</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><i>This idle frith must open soon to fame,
+  Here a lost Lusitanian fix his name,</i></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>Book I. Line 491. </blockquote>
+
+<p>The straits of Magellan, so called from having been discovered by a
+Portuguese navigator of that name, who first attempted to sail round the
+world, and lost his life in the attempt.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2>No. 8</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><i>Say, Palfrey, brave good man, was this thy doom?
+  Dwells here the secret of thy midsea tomb?</i></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>Book I. Line 627. </blockquote>
+
+<p>Colonel Palfrey of Boston was an officer of distinction in the American
+army during the war of independence. Soon after the war he proposed to
+visit Europe, and embarked for England; but never more was heard of. The
+ship probably perished in the ice. His daughter, here alluded to, is now
+the wife of William Lee, American consul at Bordeaux.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2>No. 9</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><i>The beasts all whitening roam the lifeless plain,
+  And caves unfrequent scoop the couch for man.</i></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>Book I. Line 753. </blockquote>
+
+<p>The color of animals is acquired partly from the food they eat, thro
+successive generations, and partly from the objects with which they are
+usually surrounded. Dr. Darwin has a curious note on this subject, in which
+he remarks on the advantages that insects and other small animals derive
+from their color, as a means of rendering them invisible to their more
+powerful enemies; who thus find it difficult to distinguish them from other
+objects where they reside. Some animals which inhabit cold countries turn
+white in winter, when the earth is covered with snow; such as the snowbird
+of the Alps. Others in snowy regions are habitually white; such as the
+white bear of Russia.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2>No. 10</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><i>A different cast the glowing zone demands,
+  In Paria's blooms, from Tombut's burning sands.</i></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>Book II. Line 97. </blockquote>
+
+<p>Paria is a fertile country near the river Orinoco; the only part of the
+continent of America that Columbus had seen. Tombut, in the same latitude,
+is the most sterile part of Africa. America embraces a greater compass of
+latitude by many degrees than the other continent; and yet its inhabitants
+present a much less variety in their physical and moral character. When
+shall we be able to account for this fact?</p>
+
+
+
+<h2>No. 11</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><i>Yet when the hordes to happy nations rise,
+  And earth by culture warms the genial skies</i>,</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>  Book II. Line 119. </blockquote>
+
+<p>Without entering into any discussion on the theory of heat and cold
+(a point not yet settled in our academies) I would just observe, in
+vindication of the expression in the text, that some solid matter, such for
+instance as the surface of the earth, seems absolutely necessary to the
+production of heat. At least it must be a matter more compact than that of
+the sun's rays; and perhaps its power of producing heat is in proportion to
+its solidity.</p>
+
+<p>The warmth communicated to the atmosphere is doubtless produced by the
+combined causes of the earth and the sun; but the agency of the former is
+probably more powerful in this operation than that of the latter, and its
+presence more indispensable. For masses of matter will produce heat by
+friction, without the aid of the sun; but no experiment has yet proved that
+the rays of the sun are capable of producing heat without the aid of other
+and more solid matter. The air is temperate in those cavities of the earth
+where the sun is the most effectually excluded; whereas the coldest regions
+yet known to us are the tops of the Andes, where the sun's rays have the
+most direct operation, being the most vertical and the least obstructed by
+vapors. Those regions are deprived of heat by being so far removed from
+the broad surface of the earth; a body that appears requisite to warm the
+surrounding atmosphere by its cooperation with the action of the sun.</p>
+
+<p>From these principles we may conclude that cultivation, in a woody country,
+tends to warm the atmosphere and ameliorate a cold climate; as, by removing
+the forests and marshes, it opens the earth to the sun, and allows them to
+act in conjunction upon the air.</p>
+
+<p>According to the descriptions given of the middle parts of Europe by Cesar
+and Tacitus, it appears that those countries were much colder in their days
+than they are at present; cultivation seems to have softened that climate
+to a great degree. The same effect begins to be perceived in North America.
+Possibly it may in time become as apparent as the present difference in the
+temperature of the two continents.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2>No. 12</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><i>A ruddier hue and deeper shade shall gain,
+  And stalk, in statelier figures, on the plain.</i></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>Book II. Line 127. </blockquote>
+
+<p>The complexion of the inhabitants of North America, who are descended from
+the English and Dutch, is evidently darker, and their stature taller, than
+those of the English and Dutch in Europe.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2>No. 13</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><i>Like Memphian hieroglyphs, to stretch the span
+  Of memory frail in momentary man.</i></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>Book II. Line 287. </blockquote>
+
+<p>We may reckon three stages of improvement in the graphic art, or the art of
+communicating our thoughts to absent persons and to posterity by visible
+signs. First, The invention of <i>painting ideas,</i> or representing
+actions, dates and other circumstances of historical fact, by the images of
+material things, drawn usually on a flat surface, or sometimes carved or
+moulded in a more solid form. This was the state at which the art had
+arrived in Egypt before the introduction of letters, and in Mexico before
+the arrival of the Spaniards. The Greeks in Egypt called it hieroglyphic.</p>
+
+<p>Second, The invention of <i>painting sounds,</i> which we do by the use
+of letters, or the alphabet, and which we call writing. This was a vast
+improvement; as it simplified in a wonderful degree the communication of
+thought. For ideas are infinite in number and variety; while the simple
+sounds we use to convey them to the ear are few, distinct and easy to be
+understood. It would indeed be impossible to express all our ideas by
+distinct and visible images. And even if the writer were able to do this,
+not many readers could be made to understand him; since it would be
+necessary that every new idea should have a new image invented and agreed
+upon between the writer and the reader, before it could be used. Which
+preliminary could not be settled without the writer should see and converse
+with the reader. And he might as well, in this case, convey his ideas by
+oral speech; so that his writing could be of little use beyond a certain
+routine of established signs.</p>
+
+<p>The number of simple sounds in human language, used in discourse, is not
+above eighteen or twenty; and these are so varied in the succession in
+which they are uttered, as to express an inconceivable and endless variety
+of thought and sentiment. Then, by the help of an alphabet of about
+twenty-six letters or visible signs, these sounds are translated from the
+ear to the eye; and we are able, by thus painting the sound, to arrest its
+fleeting nature, render it permanent, and talk with distant nations and
+future ages, without any previous convention whatever, even supposing them
+to be ignorant of the language in which we write. This is the present state
+of the art, as commonly practised in all the countries where an alphabet
+is used. It is called the art of writing; and to understand it is called
+reading.</p>
+
+<p>Third, Another invention, which is still in its infancy, is the art of
+<i>painting phrases,</i> or sentences; commonly called shorthand writing.
+This is yet but little used, and only by a few dexterous persons, who make
+it a particular study. Probably the true principles on which it ought to be
+founded are yet to be discovered. But it may be presumed, that in this part
+of the graphic art there remains to the ingenuity of future generations a
+course of improvements totally inconceivable to the present; by which the
+whole train of impressions now made upon the mind by reading a long and
+well written treatise may be conveyed by a few strokes of the pen, and be
+received at a glance of the eye. This desideratum would be an abridgment
+of labor in our mental acquisitions, of which we cannot determine the
+consequences. It might make, in the progress of human knowledge, an epoch
+as remarkable as that which was made by the invention of alphabetical
+writing, and produce as great a change in the mode of transmitting the
+history of events.</p>
+
+<p>One consequence of the invention of alphabetical writing seems to have been
+to throw into oblivion all previous historical facts; and it has thus
+left an immense void, which the imagination knows not how to fill, in
+contemplating the progress of our race. How many important discoveries,
+which still remain to our use, must have taken their origin in that space
+of time which is thus left a void to us! A vast succession of ages, and
+ages of improvement, must have preceded (for example) the invention of the
+wheel. The wheel must have been in common use, we know not how long, before
+alphabetical writing; because we find its image employed in painting ideas,
+during the first stage of the graphic art above described. The wheel
+was likewise in use before the mysteries of Ceres or those of Isis were
+established; as is evident from its being imagined as an instrument
+of punishment in hell, in the case of Ixion, as represented in those
+mysteries. The taming of the ox and the horse, the use of the sickle
+and the bow and arrow, a considerable knowledge of astronomy, and its
+application to the purposes of agriculture and navigation, with many other
+circumstances, which show a prodigious improvement, must evidently have
+preceded the date of the zodiac; a date fixed by Dupuis, with a great
+degree of probability, at about seventeen thousand years from our time.
+This epoch would doubtless carry us back many thousand years beyond that of
+the alphabet; the invention of which was sufficient of itself to obliterate
+the details of previous history, as the event has proved.</p>
+
+<p>How far the loss of these historical details is to be regretted, as an
+impediment to our progress in useful knowledge, I will not decide; but
+in one view, which I am going to state, it may be justly considered as a
+misfortune.</p>
+
+<p>The art of painting ideas, being arrested in the state in which the use of
+the alphabet found it, went into general disuse for common purposes; and
+the works then extant, as well as the knowledge of writing in that mode,
+being no longer intelligible to the people, became objects of deep and
+laborious study, and known only to the learned; that is, to the men of
+leisure and contemplation. These men consequently ran it into mystery;
+making it a holy object, above the reach of vulgar inquiry. On this
+ground they established, in the course of ages, a profitable function
+or profession, in the practice of which a certain portion of men of the
+brightest talents could make a reputable living; taking care not to
+initiate more than a limited number of professors; no more than the people
+could maintain as priests. This mode of writing then assumed the name of
+hieroglyphic, or sacred painting, to distinguish it from that which had
+now become the vulgar mode of writing, by the use of the alphabet. This is
+perhaps the source of that ancient, vast and variegated system of false
+religion, with all its host of errors and miseries, which has so long and
+so grievously weighed upon the character of human nature.</p>
+
+<p>In noticing the distinction of the three stages in the graphic art above
+described, I have not mentioned the wonderful powers we derive from it
+in the language of the mathematics and the language of music. In each of
+these, though its effects are already astonishing, there is no doubt but
+great improvements are still to be made. Our present mode of writing
+in these, as in literature, belongs to the <i>second</i> or <i>alphabetical</i>
+stage of the graphic art. The ten ciphers, and the other signs used in
+the mathematical sciences, form the alphabet in which the language of
+those sciences is written. The few musical notes, and the other signs
+which accompany them, furnish an alphabet for writing the language of
+music.</p>
+
+<p>The mode of writing in China is still different from any of those I have
+mentioned. The Chinese neither paint ideas nor sounds: but they make a
+character for every word; which character must vary according to the
+different inflections and uses of that word. The characters must therefore
+be insupportably numerous, and be still increasing as the language is
+enriched with new words by the augmentation and correction of ideas.</p>
+
+<p>The English language is supposed to contain about twelve thousand distinct
+words, and the Italian about seventeen thousand, in the present state of
+our sciences. I know not how many the Chinese may contain; but if we were
+to write our languages in the Chinese method, it would be the business of a
+whole life for a man to learn his mother tongue, so as to read and write it
+for his ordinary purposes.</p>
+
+<p>As the Chinese have not adopted an alphabet, but have adhered to an
+invariable state of the graphic art, which is probably more ancient by
+several thousand years than our present method, may we not venture to
+conjecture that the traces of their very ancient history have been, for
+that reason, better preserved? and that their pretensions to a very high
+antiquity, which we have been used to think extravagant and ridiculous, are
+really not without foundation? If so, we might then allow a little more
+latitude to ourselves, and conclude that we are in fact as old as they, and
+might have been as sensible of it, if we had adhered to our ancient
+method of writing; and not changed it for a new one which, while it
+has facilitated the progress of our science, has humbled our pride of
+antiquity, by obliterating the dates of those labors and improvements of
+our early progenitors, to which we are indebted for more of the rudiments
+of our sciences and our arts than we usually imagine.</p>
+
+<p>It is much to be regretted, that the Spanish devastation in Mexico and Peru
+was so universal as to leave us but few monuments of the history of the
+human mind in those countries, which presented a state of manners so
+remarkably different from what can be found in any other part of the world.
+The pictorial writing of the Mexicans, tho sometimes called hieroglyphic,
+does not appear to merit that name, as it was not exclusively appropriated
+by the priests to sacred purposes. Indeed it could not be so appropriated
+till a more convenient method could be discovered and adopted for common
+purposes. For a thing cannot become sacred, in this sense of the word,
+until it ceases to be common.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>No. 14</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><i>No Bovadilla seize the tempting spoil,
+  No dark Ovando, no religious Boyle,</i></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>Book II. Line 303. </blockquote>
+
+<p>Bovadilla and Ovando are mentioned in the Introduction as the enemies and
+successors of Columbus in the government of Hispaniola. They began
+that system of cruelty towards the natives which in a few years almost
+depopulated that island, and was afterwards pursued by Cortez, Pizarro and
+others, in all the first settlements in Spanish America.</p>
+
+<p>Boyle was a fanatical priest who accompanied Ovando, and, under pretence of
+christianizing the natives by the sword, gave the sanction of the church to
+the most shocking and extensive scenes of slaughter.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2>No. 15</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><i>He gains the shore. Behold his fortress rise,
+  His fleet high flaming suffocates the skies.</i></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>Book II. Line 329. </blockquote>
+
+<p>The conduct of Cortez, when he first landed on the coast of Mexico, was as
+remarkable for that hardy spirit of adventure, to which success gives the
+name of policy, as his subsequent operations were for cruelty and perfidy.
+As soon as his army was on shore, he dismantled his fleet of such articles
+as would be useful in building a new one; he then set fire to his ships,
+and burnt them in presence of his men; that they might fight their battles
+with more desperate courage, knowing that it would be impossible to save
+themselves from a victorious enemy by flight. He constructed a fort, in
+which the iron and the rigging were preserved.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2>No. 16</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><i>With cheerful rites their pure devotions pay
+  To the bright orb that gives the changing day.</i></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>Book II. Line 421. </blockquote>
+
+<p>It is worthy of remark, that the countries where the worship of the sun has
+made the greatest figure are Egypt and Peru; the two regions of the earth
+the most habitually deprived of rain, and probably of clouds, which in
+other countries so frequently obstruct his rays and seem to dispute his
+influence. Tho in the rude ages of society it is certainly natural in all
+countries to pay adoration to the sun, as one of the visible agents of
+those changes in the atmosphere which most affect the people's happiness,
+yet it is reasonable to suppose that this adoration would be more unmixed,
+and consequently more durable, in climates where the agency of the sun
+appears unrivalled and supreme.</p>
+
+<p>On the supposition that Greece and Western Asia, regions whose early
+traditions are best known to us, derived their first theological ideas
+from Egypt, it is curious to observe how the pure heliosebia of Egypt
+degenerated in those climates in proportion as other visible agents seemed
+to exert their influence in human affairs. Greece is a mountainous country,
+subject to a great deal of lightning and other meteors, whose effects are
+tremendous and make stronger impressions on rude savages than the gentle
+energies of the sun.</p>
+
+<p>The Greeks therefore, having forgotten the source of their religious
+system, ceased to consider the sun as their supreme god; his agency being,
+in their opinion, subject to a more potent divinity, the Power of the air
+or Jupiter, whom they styled the Thunderer. So that Apollo, the god of
+light, became, in their mythology, the subject and offspring of the
+supreme god of the atmosphere. This religion became extremely confused
+and complicated with new fables, according to the temperature and other
+accidents of the different climates thro which it passed. The god of
+thunder obtained the supreme veneration generally in Europe: known in the
+south by the name of Jupiter or Zeus and in the north by that of Thor.</p>
+
+<p>Europe in general has an uneven surface and a vapory sky, liable to great
+concussions in the lower regions of the atmosphere which border the
+habitation of man. There is no wonder that in such a region the god of the
+air should appear more powerful than the god of light. This disposition of
+the elements has given a gloomy cast to the mind, and in the north more
+than in the south. The Thor of the Celtic nations was more tremendous, more
+feared and less beloved, than the Jupiter of the Greeks and Romans; he was
+worshipped accordingly with more bloody sacrifices. But in all Europe,
+Western Asia and the northwestern coast of Africa, where the earth is
+uneven and the climate variable, their religion was more gloomy and their
+gods more ferocious than among the ancient Egyptians.</p>
+
+<p>A like difference is observed in the religions of the two countries in
+America where civilization was most advanced before the arrival of the
+Spaniards. Peru enjoyed a climate of great serenity and regularity. Of
+all the sensible agents that operated on the earth and air, the sun was
+apparently the most uniform and energetic. The worship of the sun was
+therefore the most predominant and durable; and it inspired a mildness of
+manners analogous to his mild and beneficent influence. In Mexico and other
+uneven countries, where storms and earthquakes were frequent, the sun,
+altho he was reckoned among their deities, was not considered so powerful
+as those of a more boisterous and maleficent nature. The Mexican worship
+was therefore addressed chiefly to ferocious beings, enemies to human
+happiness, who delighted in the tears and blood of their votaries. The
+difference in the moral cast of religion in Peru and Mexico, as well as in
+Egypt and Greece, must have been greatly owing to climate. Indeed in what
+else should it be found? since the origin of religious ideas must have
+been in the energies of those visible agents which form the distinctive
+character of climates.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2>No. 17</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><i>Long is the tale; but tho their labors rest
+  By years obscured, in flowery fiction drest,</i></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>Book II. Line 455. </blockquote>
+
+<p>The traditions respecting these founders of the Peruvian empire are indeed
+obscure; but they excite in us the same sort of veneration that we feel
+for the most amiable and distinguished characters of remote antiquity. The
+honest zeal of Garcilasso de la Vega in collecting these traditions into
+one body of history, as a probable series of facts, is to be applauded;
+since he has there presented us with one of the most striking examples of
+the <i>beau ideal</i> in political character, that can be found in the
+whole range of literature. He treats his subject with more natural
+simplicity, tho with less talent, than Plutarch or Xenophon, when they
+undertake a similar task, that of drawing traditional characters to fill up
+the middle space between fable and history.</p>
+
+<p>With regard to the true position that the portrait of Manco Capac ought to
+hold in this middle space, how near it should stand to history and how
+near to fable, we should find it difficult to say, and perhaps useless to
+inquire. Plutarch has gravely given us the lives and actions of several
+heroes who are evidently more fabulous than Capac, and of others who should
+be placed on the same line with him. The existence of Theseus, Romulus
+and Numa is more doubtful and their actions less probable than his. The
+character of Capac, in regard to its reality, stands on a parallel with
+that of the Lycurgus of Plutarch and the Cyrus of Xenophon; not purely
+historical nor purely fabulous, but presented to us as a compendium of
+those talents and labors which might possibly be crowded into the capacity
+of one mind, and be achieved in one life, but which more probably belong
+to several generations; the talents and labors that could reduce a great
+number of ferocious tribes into one peaceable and industrious state.</p>
+
+<p>Garcilasso was himself an Inca by maternal descent, born and educated
+at Cusco after the Spanish conquest. He writes apparently with the most
+scrupulous regard to truth, with little judgment and no ornament. He
+discovers a credulous zeal to throw a lustre on his remote ancestor Manco
+Capac, not by inventing new incidents, but by collecting with great
+industry all that had been recorded in the annals of the family. And their
+manner of recording events, tho not so perfect as that of writing, was not
+so liable to error as traditions merely oral, like those of the Caledonian
+and other Celtic bards, with respect to the ancient heroes of their
+countries.</p>
+
+<p>His account states, that about four centuries previous to the discovery of
+that country by the Spaniards, the natives of Peru were as rude savages
+as any in America. They had no fixed habitations, no ideas of permanent
+property; they wandered naked like the beasts, and like them depended on
+the events of each day for a subsistence. At this period Manco Capac and
+his wife Mauna Oella appeared on a small island in the lake Titiaca, near
+which the city of Cusco was afterwards built. These persons, to establish a
+belief of their divinity in the minds of the people, were clothed in white
+garments of cotton, and declared themselves descended from the sun, who
+was their father and the god of that country. They affirmed that he was
+offended at their cruel and perpetual wars, their barbarous modes of
+worship, and their neglecting to make the best use of the blessings he was
+constantly bestowing, in fertilizing the earth and producing vegetation;
+that he pitied their wretched state, and had sent his own children to
+instruct them and to establish a number of wise regulations, by which they
+might be rendered happy.</p>
+
+<p>By some uncommon method of persuasion, these persons drew together a few
+of the savage tribes, laid the foundation of the city of Cusco, and
+established what is called the kingdom of the Sun, or the Peruvian empire.
+In the reign of Manco Capac, the dominion was extended about eight leagues
+from the city; and at the end of four centuries it was established fifteen
+hundred miles on the coast of the Pacific ocean, and from that ocean to
+the Andes. During this period, thro a succession of twelve monarchs, the
+original constitution, established by the first Inca, remained unaltered;
+and this constitution, with the empire itself, was at last overturned by an
+accident which no human wisdom could foresee or prevent.</p>
+
+<p>For a more particular detail of the character and institutions of this
+extraordinary personage the reader is referred to a subsequent note, in
+which he will find a dissertation on that subject.</p>
+
+<p>In the passage preceding this reference, I have alluded to the fabulous
+traditions relating to these children of the sun. In the remainder of the
+second and thro the whole of the third book, I have given what may be
+supposed a probable narrative of their real origin and actions. The space
+allowed to this episode may appear too considerable in a poem whose
+principal object is so different. But it may be useful to exhibit in action
+the manners and sentiments of savage tribes, whose aliment is war; that the
+contrast may show more forcibly the advantages of civilized life, whose
+aliment is peace.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2>No. 18</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><i>Long robes of white my shoulders must embrace,
+  To speak my lineage of ethereal race;</i></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>Book II. Line 553. </blockquote>
+
+<p>As the art of spinning is said to have been invented by Oella, it is no
+improbable fiction to imagine that they first assumed these white garments
+of cotton as an emblem of the sun, in order to inspire that reverence
+for their persons which was necessary to their success. Such a dress may
+likewise be supposed to have continued in the family as a badge of royalty.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2>No. 19</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote class="smallcaps">Dissertation on the Institutions of Manco Capac.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>  For the end of Book II. </blockquote>
+
+<p>Altho the original inhabitants of America in general deserve to be classed
+among the most unimproved savages that had been, discovered before those of
+New Holland, yet the Mexican and Peruvian governments exhibited remarkable
+exceptions, and seemed to be fast approaching to a state of civilization.
+In the difference of national character between the people of these two
+empires we may discern the influence of political systems on the human
+mind, and infer the importance of the task which a legislator undertakes,
+in attempting to reduce a barbarous people under the control of government
+and laws.</p>
+
+<p>The Mexican constitution was formed to render its subjects brave and
+powerful; but, while it succeeded in this object, it kept them far removed
+from the real blessings of society. According to the Spanish accounts
+(which for an obvious reason may however be suspected of exaggeration)
+the manners of the Mexicans were uncommonly ferocious, and their religion
+gloomy, sanguinary, and unrelenting. But the establishments of Manco Capac,
+if we may follow Garcilasso in attributing the whole of the Peruvian
+constitution to that wonderful personage, present the aspect of a most
+benevolent and pacific system; they tended to humanize the world and render
+his people happy; while his ideas of deity were so elevated as to bear a
+comparison with the sublime doctrines of Socrates or Plato.</p>
+
+<p>The characters, whether real or fabulous, who are the most distinguished
+as lawgivers among barbarous nations, are Moses, Lycurgus, Solon, Numa,
+Mahomet, and Peter of Russia. Of these, only the two former and the two
+latter appear really to deserve the character of lawgivers. Solon and Numa
+possessed not the opportunity of showing their talents in the work of
+original legislation. Athens and Rome were considerably civilized before
+these persons arose. The most they could do was to correct and amend
+constitutions already formed. Solon may be considered as a wise politician,
+but by no means as the founder of a nation. The Athenians were too
+far advanced in society to admit any radical change in their form of
+government; unless recourse could have been had to the representative
+system, by establishing an equality of rank, and instructing all the people
+in their duties and their rights; a system which was never understood by
+any ancient legislator.</p>
+
+<p>The institutions of Numa (if such a person as Numa really existed) were
+more effective and durable. His religious ceremonies were, for many ages,
+the most powerful check on the licentious and turbulent Romans, the greater
+part of whom were ignorant slaves. By inculcating a remarkable reverence
+for the gods, and making it necessary to consult the auspices when any
+thing important was to be transacted, his object was to render the popular
+superstition subservient to the views of policy, and thus to give the
+senate a steady check upon the plebeians. But the constitutions of Rome and
+Athens, notwithstanding the abundant applause that has been bestowed upon
+them, were never fixed on any permanent principles; tho the wisdom of some
+of their rulers, and the spirit of liberty that inspired the citizens, may
+justly demand our admiration.</p>
+
+<p>Each of the other legislators above mentioned deserves a particular
+consideration, as having acted in stations somewhat similar to that of the
+Peruvian patriarch. Three objects are to be attended to by the legislator
+of a barbarous people: First, That his system be such as is capable of
+reducing the greatest number of men under one jurisdiction: Second, That it
+apply to such principles in human nature for its support as are universal
+and permanent, in order to insure the duration of the government: Third,
+That it admit of improvements correspondent to any advancement in knowledge
+or variation of circumstances that may happen to its subjects, without
+endangering the principle of government by such innovations. So far as the
+systems of such legislators agree with these fundamental principles; they
+are worthy of respect; and so far as they deviate, they may be considered
+as defective.</p>
+
+<p>To begin with Moses and Lycurgus: It is proper to observe that, in order to
+judge of the merit of any institutions, we must take into view the peculiar
+character of the people for whom they were framed. For want of this
+attention, many of the laws of Moses and some of those of Lycurgus have
+been ridiculed and censured. The Jews, when led by Moses out of Egypt, were
+not only uncivilized, but having just risen to independence from a state
+of servitude they united the manners of servants and savages; and their
+national character was a compound of servility, ignorance, filthiness and
+cruelty. Of their cruelty as a people we need no other proof than the
+account of their avengers of blood, and the readiness with which the
+whole congregation turned executioners, and stoned to death the devoted
+offenders. The leprosy, a disease now scarcely known, was undoubtedly
+produced by a want of cleanliness continued for successive generations.
+In this view, their frequent ablutions, their peculiar modes of trial and
+several other institutions, may be vindicated from ridicule and proved to
+be wise regulations.</p>
+
+<p>The Spartan lawgiver has been censured for the toleration of theft and
+adultery. Among that race of barbarians these habits were too general to
+admit of total prevention or universal punishment. By vesting all property
+in the commonwealth, instead of encouraging theft, he removed the
+possibility of the crime; and, in a nation where licentiousness was
+generally indulged, it was a great step towards introducing a purity of
+manners, to punish adultery in all cases wherein it was committed without
+the consent of all parties interested in its consequences.</p>
+
+<p>Until the institution of representative republics, which are of recent
+date, it was found that those constitutions of government were best
+calculated for immediate energy and duration, which were interwoven with
+some religious system. The legislator who appears in the character of an
+inspired person renders his political institutions sacred, and interests
+the conscience as well as the judgment in their support. The Jewish
+lawgiver had this advantage over the Spartan: he appeared not in the
+character of a mere earthly governor, but as an interpreter of the divine
+will. By enjoining a religious observance of certain rites he formed his
+people to habitual obedience; by directing their cruelty against the
+breakers of the laws he at least mitigated the rancor of private hatred; by
+directing that real property should return to the original families in
+the year of Jubilee he prevented too great an equality of wealth; and by
+selecting a single tribe to be the interpreters of religion he prevented
+its mysteries from being the subject of profane and vulgar investigation.
+With a view of securing the permanence of his institutions, he prohibited
+intercourse with foreigners by severe restrictions, and formed his people
+to habits and a character disagreeable to other nations; so that any
+foreign intercourse was prevented by the mutual hatred of both parties.</p>
+
+<p>To these institutions the laws of Lycurgus bear a striking resemblance. The
+features of his constitution were severe and forbidding; it was however
+calculated to inspire the most enthusiastic love of liberty and martial
+honor. In no country was the patriotic passion more energetic than in
+Sparta; no laws ever excluded the idea of separate property in an equal
+degree, or inspired a greater contempt for the manners of other nations.
+The prohibition of money, commerce and almost every thing desirable to
+effeminate nations, excluded foreigners from Sparta; and while it inspired
+the people with contempt for strangers it made them agreeable to each
+other. By these means Lycurgus rendered the nation warlike; and to insure
+the duration of the government he endeavored to interest the consciences
+of his people by the aid of oracles, and by the oath he is said to have
+exacted from them to obey his laws till his return, when he went into
+perpetual exile.</p>
+
+<p>From this view of the Jewish and Spartan institutions, applied to
+the principles before stated, they appear in the two first articles
+considerably imperfect, and in the last totally defective. Neither of them
+was calculated to bring any considerable territory or number of men under
+one jurisdiction: from this circumstance alone they could not be rendered
+permanent, as nations so restricted in their means of extension must be
+constantly exposed to their more powerful neighbors. But the third object
+of legislation, that of providing for the future progress of society, which
+as it regards the happiness of mankind is the most important of the three,
+was in both instances entirely neglected. These symptoms appear to have
+been formed with an express design to prevent future improvement in
+knowledge or enlargement of the human mind, and to fix those nations in
+a state of ignorance and barbarism. To vindicate their authors from an
+imputation of weakness or inattention in this particular, it may be urged
+that they were each of them surrounded by nations more powerful than
+their own; it was therefore perhaps impossible for them to commence an
+establishment upon any other plan.</p>
+
+<p>The institutions of Mahomet are next to be considered. The first object of
+legislation appears to have been better understood by him than by either of
+the preceding sages; his jurisdiction was capable of being enlarged to any
+extent of territory, and governing any number of nations that might be
+subjugated by his enthusiastic armies; and his system of religion was
+admirably calculated to attain this object. Like Moses, he convinced his
+people that he acted as the vicegerent of God; but with this advantage,
+adapting his religion to the natural feelings and propensities of mankind,
+he multiplied his followers by the allurements of pleasure and the promise
+of a sensual paradise. These circumstances were likewise sure to render his
+constitution durable. His religious system was so easy to be understood, so
+splendid and so inviting, there could be no danger that the people would
+lose sight of its principles, and no necessity of future prophets to
+explain its doctrines or reform the nation. To these advantages if we add
+the exact and rigid military discipline, the splendor and sacredness of the
+monarch, and that total ignorance among the people which such a system
+will produce and perpetuate, the establishment must have been evidently
+calculated for a considerable extent and duration. But the last and
+most important end of government, that of mental improvement and social
+happiness, was deplorably lost in the institution. There was probably more
+learning and cultivated genius in Arabia, in the days of this extraordinary
+man, than can now be found in all the Mahometan dominions.</p>
+
+<p>On the contrary, the enterprising mind of the Russian monarch appears to
+have been wholly bent on the arts of civilization and the improvement of
+society among his subjects. Established in a legal title to a throne which
+already commanded a prodigious extent of country, he found the first object
+of government already secured; and by applying himself with great sagacity
+to the third object, that of improving his people, it was reasonable to
+suppose that the second, the durability of his system, would become a
+necessary consequence. He effected his purposes, important as they were,
+merely by the introduction of the arts and the encouragement of politer
+manners. The greatness of his character appears not so much in his
+institutions, which he copied from other nations, as in the extraordinary
+measures he followed to introduce them, the judgment he showed in selecting
+and adapting them to the genius of his subjects, and the surprising
+assiduity by which he raised a savage people to an elevated rank among
+European nations.</p>
+
+<p>To the nature and operation of the several forms of government above
+mentioned I will compare that of the Peruvian lawgiver. I have observed in
+a preceding note that the knowledge we have of Manco Capac is necessarily
+imperfect and obscure, derived thro traditions and family registers
+(without the aid of writing) for four hundred years; from the time he is
+supposed to have lived, till that of his historian and descendant, Inca
+Garcilasso de la Vega. About an equal interval elapsed from the supposed
+epoch of the first kings of Rome to that of their first historians; a
+longer space from Lycurgus to Herodotus; probably not a shorter one from
+the time of the great Cyrus to that of Xenophon, author of the elegant
+romance on the actions of that hero.</p>
+
+<p>I recal the reader's attention to these comparisons, not with a view of
+contending that our accounts of the actions ascribed to Capac are derived
+from authentic records, and that he is a subject of real history, like
+Mahomet or Peter; but to show that, our channels of information with regard
+to him being equally respectable with those that have brought us acquainted
+with the classical and venerable names of Lycurgus, Romulus, Numa and
+Cyrus, we may be as correct in our reasonings from the modern as from the
+ancient source of reference, and fancy ourselves treading a ground as
+sacred on the tomb of the western patriarch, as on those more frequented
+and less scrutinized in the east, consecrated to the demigods of Sparta,
+Rome and Persia.</p>
+
+<p>It is probable that the savages of Peru before the time of Capac, among
+other objects of adoration, paid homage to the sun. By availing himself
+of this popular sentiment he appeared, like Moses and Mahomet, in the
+character of a divine legislator endowed with supernatural powers. After
+impressing these ideas on the minds of the people, drawing together a
+number of the tribes and rendering them subservient to his benevolent
+purposes, he applied himself to forming the outlines of a plan of policy
+capable of founding and regulating an extensive empire, wisely calculated
+for long duration, and well adapted to improve the knowledge, peace and
+happiness of a considerable portion of mankind. In the allotment of the
+lands as private property he invented a mode somewhat resembling the feudal
+system of Europe: yet this system was checked in its operation by a law
+similar to that of Moses which regulated landed possessions in the year of
+Jubilee. He divided the lands into three parts; the first was consecrated
+to the uses of religion, as it was from the sacerdotal part of his system
+that he doubtless expected its most powerful support. The second portion
+was set apart for the Inca and his family, to enable him to defray the
+expenses of government and appear in the style of a monarch. The third and
+largest portion was allotted to the people; which allotment was repeated
+every year, and varied according to the number and exigences of each
+family.</p>
+
+<p>As the Incan race appeared in the character of divinities, it seemed
+necessary that a subordination of rank should be established, to render the
+distinction between the monarch and his people more perceptible. With this
+view he created a band of nobles, who were distinguished by personal and
+hereditary honors. These were united to the monarch by the strongest ties
+of interest; in peace they acted as judges and superintended the police of
+the empire; in war they commanded in the armies. The next order of men were
+the respectable landholders and cultivators, who composed the principal
+strength of the nation. Below these was a class of men who were the
+servants of the public and cultivated the public lands. They possessed
+no property, and their security depended on their regular industry and
+peaceable demeanor. Above all these orders were the Inca and his family. He
+possessed absolute and uncontrolable power; his mandates were regarded as
+the word of heaven, and the double guilt of impiety and rebellion attended
+on disobedience.</p>
+
+<p>To impress the utmost veneration for the Incan family, it was a fundamental
+principle that the royal blood should never be contaminated by any foreign
+alliance. The mysteries of religion were preserved sacred by the high
+priest of the royal family under the control of the king, and celebrated
+with rites capable of making the deepest impression on the multitude.
+The annual distribution of the lands, while it provided for the varying
+circumstances of each family, was designed to strengthen the bands of
+society by perpetuating that distinction of rank among the orders which is
+supposed necessary to a monarchical government; the peasants could not vie
+with their superiors, and the nobles could not be subjected by misfortune
+to a subordinate station. A constant habit of industry was inculcated upon
+all ranks by the force of example. The cultivation of the soil, which in
+most other countries is considered as one of the lowest employments, was
+here regarded as a divine art. Having had no knowledge of it before, and
+being taught it by the children of their god, the people viewed it as a
+sacred privilege, a national honor, to assist the sun in opening the bosom
+of the earth to produce vegetation. That the government might be able to
+exercise the endearing acts of beneficence, the produce of the public lands
+was reserved in magazines, to supply the wants of the unfortunate and as a
+resource in case of scarcity or invasion.</p>
+
+<p>These are the outlines of a government the most simple and energetic, and
+at least as capable as any monarchy within our knowledge of reducing
+great and populous countries under one jurisdiction; at the same time,
+accommodating its principle of action to every stage of improvement, by
+a singular and happy application to the passions of the human mind, it
+encouraged the advancement of knowledge without being endangered by
+success.</p>
+
+<p>In the traits of character which distinguish this institution we may
+discern all the great principles of each of the legislators above
+mentioned. The pretensions of Capac to divine authority were as artfully
+contrived and as effectual in their consequences as those of Mahomet; his
+exploding the worship of evil beings and objects of terror, forbidding
+human sacrifices and accommodating the rites of worship to a god of justice
+and benevolence, produced a greater change in the national character of his
+people than the laws of Moses did in his; like Peter he provided for the
+future improvement of society, while his actions were never measured on the
+contracted scale which limited the genius of Lycurgus.</p>
+
+<p>Thus far we find that altho the political system of Capac did not embrace
+that extensive scope of human nature which is necessary in forming
+republican institutions, and which can be drawn only from long and well
+recorded experience of the passions and tendencies of social man, yet
+it must be pronounced at least equal to those of the most celebrated
+monarchical law-givers, whether ancient or modern. But in some things his
+mind seems to have attained an elevation with which few of theirs will bear
+a comparison; I mean in his religious institutions, and the exalted ideas
+he had formed of the agency and attributes of supernatural beings.</p>
+
+<p>From what source he could have drawn these ideas it is difficult to form a
+satisfactory conjecture. The worship of the sun is so natural to an early
+state of society, in a mild climate with a clear atmosphere, that it may be
+as reasonable to suppose it would originate in Peru as in Egypt or Persia;
+where we find that a similar worship did originate and was wrought into
+a splendid system; whence it was probably extended, with various
+modifications, over most of the ancient world.</p>
+
+<p>Or if we reject this theory, and suppose that only one nation, from some
+circumstance peculiar to itself, could create the materials of such a
+system, and has consequently had the privilege of giving its religion
+to the human race; we may in this case imagine that the Phenicians (who
+colonized Cadiz and other places in the west of Europe, at the time when
+they possessed the solar worship in all its glory) must have had a vessel
+driven across the Atlantic; and thus conveyed a stock of inhabitants, with
+their own religious ideas, to the western continent.</p>
+
+<p>The first theory is doubtless the most plausible. And the mild regions of
+Peru, for the reasons mentioned in a former note, became, like Egypt, the
+seat of an institution so congenial to its climate. But in more boisterous
+climates, where storms and other violent agents prevail, many different
+fables have wrought themselves into the system, as remarked in the same
+note; and the solar religion in such countries has generally lost its name
+and the more beneficent parts of its influence. Being thus corrupted,
+religion in almost every part of the earth assumed a gloomy and sanguinary
+character.</p>
+
+<p>Savage nations create their gods from such materials as they have at hand,
+the most striking to their senses. And these are in general an assemblage
+of destructive attributes. They usually form no idea of a general
+superintending providence; they consider not their god as the author of
+their beings, the creator of the world and the dispenser of the happiness
+they enjoy; they discern him not in the usual course of nature, in the
+sunshine and in the shower, the productions of the earth and the blessing
+of society; they find a deity only in the storm, the earthquake and the
+whirlwind, or ascribe to him the evils of pestilence and famine; they
+consider him as interposing in wrath to change the course of nature and
+exercise the attributes of rage and revenge. They adore him with rites
+suited to these attributes, with horror, with penance and with sacrifice;
+they imagine him pleased with the severity of their mortifications, with
+the oblations of blood and the cries of human victims; and they hope
+to compound for greater judgments by voluntary sufferings and horrid
+sacrifices, suited to the relish of his taste.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps no single criterion can be given which will determine more
+accurately the state of society in any age or nation than their general
+ideas concerning the nature and attributes of deity. In the most
+enlightened periods of antiquity, only a few of their philosophers, a
+Socrates, Tully or Confucius, ever formed a rational idea on the subject,
+or described a god of purity, justice and benevolence. But Capac, erecting
+his institutions in a country where the visible agents of nature inspired
+more satisfactory feelings, adopted a milder system. As the sun, with its
+undisturbed influence, seemed to point itself out as the supreme controller
+and vital principle of nature, he formed the idea, as the Egyptians had
+done before, of constituting that luminary the chief object of adoration.
+He taught the nation to consider the sun as the parent of the universe, the
+god of order and regularity; ascribing to his influence the rotation of
+the seasons, the productions of the earth and the blessings of health;
+especially attributing to his inspiration the wisdom of their laws, and
+that happy constitution which was the delight and veneration of the people.</p>
+
+<p>A system so just and benevolent, as might be expected, was attended with
+success. In about four centuries the dominion of the Incas had extended
+fifteen hundred miles in length, and had introduced peace and prosperity
+thro the whole region. The arts of society had been carried to a
+considerable degree of improvement, and the authority of the Incan race
+universally acknowledged, when an event happened which disturbed the
+tranquillity of the empire. Huana Capac, the twelfth monarch, had reduced
+the powerful kingdom of Quito and annexed it to his dominions. To
+conciliate the affections of his new subjects, he married a daughter of the
+ancient king of Quito, who was not of the race of Incas. Thus, by violating
+a fundamental law of the empire, he left at his death a disputed succession
+to the throne. Atabalipa, the son of Huana by the heiress of Quito, being
+in possession of the principal force of the Peruvian armies, left at that
+place on the death of his father, gave battle to his brother Huascar, who
+was the elder son of Huana by a lawful wife, and legal heir to the crown.</p>
+
+<p>After a long and destructive civil war the former was victorious; and thus
+was that flourishing kingdom left a prey to regal dissensions and to the
+few soldiers of Pizarro, who happened at that juncture to make a descent
+upon the coast. In this manner he effected an easy conquest and an utter
+destruction of a numerous, brave, unfortunate people.</p>
+
+<p>It is however obvious that this deplorable event is not to be charged
+on Capac, as the consequence of any defect in his institution. It is
+impossible that an original legislator should effectually guard against the
+folly of all future sovereigns. Capac had not only removed every temptation
+that could induce a wise prince to wish for a change in the constitution,
+but had connected the ruin of his authority with the change; for he who
+disregards any part of institutions deemed sacred teaches his people to
+consider the whole as an imposture. Had he made a law ordaining that the
+Peruvians should be absolved from their allegiance to a prince who should
+violate the laws, it would have implied possible error and imperfection in
+those persons whom the people were ordered to regard as divinities; the
+reverence due to characters who made such high pretensions would have been
+weakened; and instead of rendering the constitution perfect, such a law
+would have been its greatest defect. Besides, it is probable the rupture
+might have been healed and the suecession settled, with as little
+difficulty as frequently happens with partial revolutions in other
+kingdoms, had not the descent of the Spaniards prevented it. And this
+event, for that age and country, must have been beyond the possibility of
+human foresight. But viewing the concurrence of these fatal accidents,
+which reduced this flourishing empire to a level with many other ruined and
+departed kingdoms, it only furnishes an additional proof that no political
+system has yet had the privilege to be perfect.</p>
+
+<p>On the whole it is evident that the system of Capac (if the Peruvian
+constitution may be so called) is one of the greatest exertions of genius
+to be found in the history of mankind. When, we consider him as an
+individual emerging from the midst of a barbarous people, having seen no
+example of the operation of laws in any country, originating a plan of
+religion and policy never equalled by the sages of antiquity, civilizing an
+extensive empire and rendering religion and government subservient to the
+general happiness of a great people, there is no danger that we grow too
+warm in his praise, or pronounce too high an eulogiurn on his character.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2>No. 20</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><i>Bade yon tall temple grace their favorite isle,
+  The mines unfold, the cultured valleys smile.</i></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>Book III. Line 5. </blockquote>
+
+<p>One of the great temples of the sun was built on an island in the lake
+Titiaca near Cusco, to consecrate the spot of ground where Capac and Oella
+first made their appearance and claimed divine honors as children of the
+sun.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2>No. 21</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><i>His eldest hope, young Rocha, at his call,
+  Resigns his charge within the temple, wall;</i></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>Book III. Line 29.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The high priest of the sun was always one of the royal family; and in every
+generation after the first, was brother to the king. This office probably
+began with Rocha; as he was the first who was capable of receiving it, and
+as it was necessary, in the education of the prince, that he should be
+initiated in the sacred mysteries.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2>No. 22</h2>
+
+<blockquote><i>A pearl-dropt girdle bound his waist below,
+  And the white lautu graced his lofty brow.</i></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>Book III. Line 135. </blockquote>
+
+<p>The lautu was a cotton band, twisted and worn on the head of the Incas as a
+badge of royalty. It made several turns round the head; and, according to
+the description of Garcilasso, it must have resembled the Turkish turban.</p>
+
+<p>It is possible that both the lautu and the turban had their remote origin
+in the ancient astronomical religion, whose principal god was the sun and
+usually represented under the figure of a man with the horns of the ram;
+that is, the sun in the sign of aries. The form of the lautu and of the
+turban (which I suppose to be the same) seems to indicate that they were
+originally designed as emblems or badges; and when properly twisted and
+wound round the head, as Turks of distinction usually wear the turban, they
+resemble the horns of the ram as represented in those figures of Jupiter
+Ammon where the horns curl close to the head.</p>
+
+<p>There is an engraving in Garcilasso representing the first Inca and his
+wife, Capac and Oella; and the heads of both are ornamented with rams'
+horns projecting out from the lautu. Whether the figures of these
+personages were usually so represented in Peru previous to the Spanish
+devastation, would be difficult at this day to ascertain. If it could be
+ascertained that they were usually so represented there, we might esteem
+it a remarkable circumstance in proof of the unity of the origin of their
+religion with that of the ancient Egyptians; from which all the early
+theological systems of Asia and Europe, as far as they have come to our
+knowledge, were evidently derived.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2>No. 23</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><i>Receive, O dreadful Power, from feeble age.
+  This last pure offering to thy sateless rage;</i></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>Book III. Line 181. </blockquote>
+
+<p>Garcilasso declares that the different tribes of those mountain savages
+worshipped the various objects of terror that annoyed the particular parts
+of the country where they dwelt; such as storms, volcanos, rivers, lakes,
+and several beasts and birds of prey. All of them believed that their
+forefathers were descended from the gods which they worshipped.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2>No. 24</h2>
+
+<blockquote><i>Held to the sun the image from his breast
+  Whose glowing concave all the god exprest;</i></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>Book III. Line 273. </blockquote>
+
+<p>The historian of the Incas relates that, by the laws of the empire, none
+but sacred fire could be used in sacrifices; and that there were three
+modes in which it might be procured. First, the most sacred fire was that
+which was drawn immediately from the sun himself by means of a concave
+mirror, which was usually made of gold or silver highly polished. Second,
+in case of cloudy weather or other accident, the fire might be taken from
+the temple, where it was preserved by the holy virgins; whose functions
+and discipline resembled those of the vestals of Rome. Third, when the
+sacrifice was to be made in the provinces at an inconvenient distance from
+the temple, and when the weather was such as to prevent drawing the fire
+immediately from the sun, it was permitted to procure it by the friction of
+two pieces of dry wood.</p>
+
+<p>The two latter modes were resorted to only in cases of necessity. Not to
+be able to obtain fire by means of the mirror was a bad omen, a sign of
+displeasure in the god; it cast a gloom over the whole ceremony and threw
+the people into lamentations, fearing their offering would not be well
+received.</p>
+
+<p>This method of procuring fire directly from the sun, to burn a sacrifice,
+must have appeared so miraculous to the savages who could not understand
+it, that it doubtless had a powerful effect in converting them to the solar
+religion and to the Incan government.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2>No. 25</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><i>Dim Paraguay extends the aching sight,
+  Xaraya glimmers like the moon of night,</i></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>Book III. Line 321. </blockquote>
+
+<p>Xaraya is a lake in the country of Paraguay, and is the principal source of
+the river Paraguay. This river is the largest branch of the Plata.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2>No. 26</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><i>The Condor frowning from a southern plain.
+  Borne on a standard, leads a numerous train:</i></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>Book III. Line 421. </blockquote>
+
+<p>The Condor is supposed to be the largest bird of prey hitherto known. His
+wings, from one extreme to the other, are said to measure fifteen feet; he
+is able to carry a sheep in his talons, and he sometimes attacks men. He
+inhabits the high mountains of Peru, and is supposed by some authors to be
+peculiar to the American continent. Buffon believes him to be of the same
+species with the laemmer-geyer (lamb-vulture) of the Alps. The similarity
+of their habitations favors this conjecture; but the truth is, the Condor
+of Peru has not been well examined, and his history is imperfectly known.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2>No. 27</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><i>So shall the Power in vengeance view the place,
+  In crimson clothe his terror-beaming face,</i></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>Book III. Line 493. </blockquote>
+
+<p>It is natural for the worshippers of the sun to consider any change in the
+atmosphere as indicative of the different passions of their deity. With the
+Peruvians a sanguine appearance in the sun denoted his anger.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2>No. 28</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><i>Thro all the shrines, where erst on new-moon days
+  Swell'd the full quires of consecrated praise,</i></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>Book III. Line 687. </blockquote>
+
+<p>New-moon days were days of high festival with the Incas, according to
+Garcilasso. Eclipses of the sun must therefore have happened on solemn
+days, and have interrupted the service of the temple.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2>No. 29</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><i>Las Casas. Valverde. Gasca.</i></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>Book IV. Line 17-27. </blockquote>
+
+<p><i>Bartholomew de las Casas</i> was a Dominican priest of a most amiable
+and heroic character. He first went to Hispaniola with Columbus in his
+second voyage, where he manifested an ardent but honest zeal, first in
+attempting to instruct the natives in the principles of the catholic
+faith, and afterwards in defending them against the insufferable cruelties
+exercised by the Spanish tyrants who succeeded Columbus in the discoveries
+and settlements in South America. He early declared himself <i>Protector
+of the Indians;</i> a title which seems to have been acknowledged by the
+Spanish government. He devoted himself ever after to the most indefatigable
+labors in the service of that unhappy people. He made several voyages to
+Spain, to solicit, first from Ferdinand, then from cardinal Ximenes, and
+finalty from Charles V, some effectual restrictions against the horrid
+career of depopulation which every where attended the Spanish arms. He
+followed these monsters of cruelty into all the conquered countries; where,
+by the power of his eloquence and that purity of morals which commands
+respect even from the worst of men, he doubtless saved the lives of many
+thousands of innocent people. His life was a continued struggle agaiust
+that deplorable system of tyranny, of which he gives a description in
+a treatise addressed to Philip prince of Spain, entitled <i>Brevissima
+Relacion de la Destruycion de las Yndias</i>.</p>
+
+<p>It is said by the Spanish writers that the inhabitants of Hispaniola, when
+first discovered by the Spaniards, amounted to more than one million. This
+incredible population was reduced, in fifteen years, to sixty thousand
+souls.</p>
+
+<p><i>Vincent Valverde</i> was a fanatical priest who accompanied Pizarro in
+his destructive expedition to Peru. If we were to search the history of
+mankind, we should not find another such example of the united efforts of
+ecclesiastical hypocrisy and military ferocity, of unresisted murder and
+insatiable plunder, as we meet with in the account of this expedition.</p>
+
+<p>Father Valverde, in a formal manner, gave the sanction of the church to the
+treacherous murder of Atabalipa and his relations; which was immediately
+followed by the destruction and almost entire depopulation of a flourishing
+empire.</p>
+
+<p><i>Pedro de la Gasca</i> was one of the few men whose virtues form a
+singular contrast with the vices which disgraced the age in which he lived
+and the country in which he acquired his glory. He was sent over to Peru by
+Charles V without any military force, to quell the rebellion of the younger
+Pizarro and to prevent a second depopulation, by a civil war, of that
+country which had just been drenched in the blood of its original
+inhabitants. He effected this great purpose by the weight only of his
+personal authority and the veneration inspired by his virtues. As soon
+as he had suppressed the rebellion and established the government of the
+colony he hastened to resign his authority into the hands of his master.
+And tho his victories had been obtained in the richest country on earth he
+returned to Spain as poor as Cincinnatus; having resisted every temptation
+to plunder, and refused to receive any emolument for his services.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2>No. 30</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><i>First of his friends, see Frederic's princely form
+  Ward from the sage divine the gathering storm;</i></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>Book IV. Line 157. </blockquote>
+
+<p>Frederic of Saxony, surnamed the Wise, was the first sovereign prince
+who favored the doctrines of Luther. He became at once his pupil and his
+patron, defended him from the persecutions of the pope, and gave him an
+establishment as professor in the university of Wittemburgh.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2>No. 31</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><i>By monarchs courted and by men beloved.</i></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>Book IV. Line 165. </blockquote>
+
+<p>Francis I, out of respect to the great learning and moderation of
+Melancthon, and disregarding the pretended danger of discussing the dogmas
+of the church, invited him to come to France and establish himself at
+Paris; but the intrigues of the cardinal de Tournon frustrated the king's
+intention.</p>
+
+<p>If every leader of religious sects had possessed the amiable qualities of
+Melancthon, and every monarch who wished to oppose the introduction of new
+opinions had partaken of the wisdom of Francis, the blood of many hundreds
+of millions of the human species, which has flowed at the shrine of
+fanaticism, would have been spared. This circumstance alone would have
+made of human society by this time a state totally different from what we
+actually experience; and its influence on the progress of improvement in
+national happiness and general civilization must have been beyond our
+ordinary calculation.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2>No. 32</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><i>While kings and ministers obstruct the plan,
+  Unfaithful guardians of the weal of man.</i></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>Book IV. Line 529.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The British colonies in all their early struggles for existence complained,
+and with reason, of the uniform indifference and discouragement which they
+experienced from the government of the mother country. But it was probably
+to that very indifference that they owed the remarkable spirit of liberty
+and self-dependence which created their prosperity, by inducing them
+uniformly to adopt republican institutions. These circumstances prepared
+the way for that mutual confidence and federal union which have finally
+formed them into a flourishing nation.</p>
+
+<p>Ministers who feel their power over a distant colony to be uncontrolled
+are so naturally inclined to govern too much, that it may be a fortunate
+circumstance for the colony to be neglected altogether. This neglect was
+indeed fatal to the first Virginia settlers sent out by Sir Walter Raleigh;
+and the companies who afterwards succeeded in their establishments at
+Jamestown in Virginia and at Plymouth in Massachusetts were very near
+sharing the fate of their predecessors. But after these settlements had
+acquired so much consistence as to assure their own continuance, it may
+be assumed as an historical fact, that the want of encouragement from
+government was rather beneficial than detrimental to the British colonies
+in general.</p>
+
+<p>These establishments were in the nature of private adventures, undertaken
+by a few individuals at their own expense, rather than organised colonies
+sent abroad for a public purpose. They were companies incorporated for
+plantation and trade. All they asked of the mother country (after obtaining
+acts of incorporation enabling them to acquire property and exercise other
+civil functions, such as incorporated companies at home could exercise) was
+to give them charters of political franchise, ascertaining the extent and
+limits of their rights and duties as subjects of the British crown forming
+nations in parts of the earth that had been found in an uncultivated state,
+and far removed from the mother country.</p>
+
+<p>As they could not in this situation be represented in the parliament of
+England, these charters stipulated their right of having parliaments
+or legislative assemblies of their own, with executive and judiciary
+institutions established within their territories.</p>
+
+<p>The acknowledgment of these rights placed them on a different footing from
+any other modern colonies; and the restricting clause, by which their trade
+was confined to the mother country, rendered their situation unlike that of
+the colonies of ancient Greece. Indeed the British system of colonization
+in America differed essentially from every other, whether ancient or
+modern; if that may properly be called a system, which was rather the
+result of early indifference to the cries of needy adventurers, and
+subsequent attempts to seize upon their earnings when they became objects
+of rapacity. This singular train of difficulties must be considered as one
+of the causes of our ancient prosperity and present freedom.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>No. 33</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><i>  Where Freedom's sons their high-born lineage trace,
+  And homebred bravery still exalts the race:</i></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>  Book V. Line 345.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The author of this poem will not be suspected of laying any stress on the
+mere circumstance of lineage or birth, as relating either to families or
+nations. The phrase however in the text is not without its meaning. Among
+the colonies derived from the several nations of Europe in modern times,
+those from the English have flourished far better than the others, under a
+parity of circumstances, such as climate, soil and productions. The reason
+of this undeniable fact deserves to be explained.</p>
+
+<p>Colonies naturally carry with them the civil, political and religious
+institutions of their mother countries. These institutions in England are
+much more favorable to liberty and the development of industry than in any
+other part of Europe which has sent colonies abroad. But this is not all:
+when men for several generations have been bred up in the habit of feeling
+and exercising such a portion of liberty as the English nation has enjoyed,
+their minds are prepared to open and expand themselves as occasion may
+offer. They are able to embrace new circumstances, to perceive the
+improvements that may be drawn from them, and not only make a temperate use
+of that portion of self-control to which they are accustomed, but devise
+the means of extending it to other objects of their political relations,
+till they become familiar with all the interests of men in society.</p>
+
+<p>The habitual use of the liberty of the press, of trial by jury in open
+court, of the accountability of public agents and of some voice in the
+election of legislators, must create, in a man or a nation, a character
+quite different from what it could be under the habitual disuse of these
+advantages. And when these habits are transplanted with a young colony to
+a distant region of the earth, enjoying a good soil and climate, with an
+unlimited and unoccupied country, the difference will necessarily be more
+remarkable.</p>
+
+<p>A most striking illustration of this principle is exhibited in the colonies
+of North America. This coast, from the St. Laurence to the Missisippi,
+was colonized by the French and English, (I make no account of the Dutch
+establishment on the Hudson nor of the Swedish on the Delaware; they being
+of little importance, and early absorbed in the English settlements.) If we
+look back only one hundred years from the present time, we find the French
+and English dominions here about equally important in point of extent and
+population. The French Canada, Acadia, Cape Breton, Newfoundland, Florida
+and Louisiana were then as far advanced in improvement as the English
+settlements which they flanked on each side. And the French had greatly
+the advantage in point of soil, interior navigation and capability of
+extension. They commanded and possessed the two great rivers which almost
+met together on the English frontier. And the space between the waters of
+those rivers on the west was planted with French military posts, so as to
+complete the investment.</p>
+
+<p>New Orleans was begun before Philadelphia, and was much better situated to
+become a great commercial capital. Quebec and Montreal were older, and had
+the advantage of most of our other cities. Add to this that the French
+nation at home was about twice as populous as the English nation at home;
+and as that part of the increase of colonial population which comes
+from emigration must naturally be derived from their respective mother
+countries, it might have been expected that the comparative rapidity of
+increase would have been in favor of the French at least two to one.</p>
+
+<p>But the French colonists had not been habituated to the use of liberty
+before their emigration; and they were not prepared nor permitted to enjoy
+it in any degree afterwards. Their laws were made for them in their mother
+country, by men who could not know their wants and who fell no interest in
+their prosperity; and then they were administered by a set of agents as
+ignorant as their masters; men who, from the nature of their employment and
+accountability, must in general be oppressive and rapacious.</p>
+
+<p>The result has solved a great problem in political combination. One of
+these clusters of colonies has grown to a powerful empire, giving examples
+to the universe in most of the great objects which constitute the dignity
+of nations. The other, after having been a constant expense to the mother
+country, and serving for barter and exchange in the capricious vicissitudes
+of European despotism, presents altogether at this day a mass of population
+and wealth scarcely equal to one of our provinces.</p>
+
+<p>This note is written at the moment when Louisiana, one of the most
+extensive but least peopled of the French colonies, is ceded to the United
+States. The world will see how far the above theory will now be confirmed
+by the rapid increase of population and improvement in that interesting
+portion of our continent.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2>No. 34</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><i>  Beneath him lay the sceptre kings had borne,
+  And the tame thunder from the tempest torn.</i></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>  Book V. Line 429.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>  Eripuit coelo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis</blockquote>
+
+<p>This epigraph, written by Turgot on the bust of Franklin, seems to have
+been imitated from a line in Manilius; where noticing the progress of
+science in ascribing things to their natural and proper causes instead of
+supernatural ones, he says,</p>
+
+<blockquote>  Eriput Jovi fulmen, viresque tonandi,
+  Et sonitum ventis concessit, nubibus ignem.</blockquote>
+
+
+
+<h2>No. 35</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><i>  And Knox from his full park to battle brings<br />
+  His brazen tubes, the last resort of kings.</i></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>  Book V. Line 665.</blockquote>
+
+<p>Ultima ratio regum; a device of Louis XIV engraved on his ordnance, and
+afterwards adopted by other powers. When we consider men as reasonable
+beings and endowed with the qualities requisite for living together in
+society, this device looks like a satire upon the species; but in reality
+it only proves the imperfect state to which their own principles of society
+have yet advanced them in the long and perhaps interminable progress of
+which they are susceptible. This <i>ultima ratio</i> being already taken
+out of the hands of individuals and confided only to the chiefs of nations
+is as clear a proof of a great progress already made, as its remaining in
+the hands of those chiefs is a proof that we still remain far short of that
+degree of wisdom and experience which will enable all the nations to live
+at peace one with another.</p>
+
+<p>There certainly was a time when the same device might have been written
+on the hatchet or club or fist of every man; and the best weapon of
+destruction that he could wield against his neighbour might have been
+called <i>ultima ratio virarum</i>, meaning that human reason could go no
+farther. But the wisdom we have drawn from experience has taught us to
+restrain the use of mortal weapons, making it unlawful and showing it to
+be unreasonable to use them in private disputes. The principles of social
+intercourse and the advantages of peace are so far understood as to enable
+men to form great societies, and to submit their personal misunderstandings
+to common judges; thus removing the ultima ratio from their own private
+hands to the hands of their government.</p>
+
+<p>Hitherto there has usually been a government to every nation; but the
+nations are increasing in size and diminishing in number; so that the hands
+which now hold the <i>ultima ratio</i> by delegation are few, compared
+with what they have been. I mean this observation to apply only to those
+extensions of nationality which have been formed on the true principles
+of society and acquiesced in from a sense of their utility. I mean not
+to apply it to those unnatural and unwieldy stretches of power, whose
+overthrow is often and erroneously cited as an argument against the
+progress of civilization; such as the conquests of Alexander, the Roman
+generals, Omar, Gengis Khan and others of that brilliant description. These
+are but meteors of compulsive force, which pass away and discourage, rather
+than promote, the spirit of national extension of which I speak.</p>
+
+<p>This spirit operates constantly and kindly; nor is its progress so slow
+but that it is easily perceived. Even within the short memorials of modern
+history we find a heptarchy in England. Ossian informs us that in his time
+there was a great number of warlike states in Ireland and as many more in
+Scotland. Without going back to the writings of Julius Cesar to discover
+the comparative condition of France, we may almost remember when she
+counted within her limits six or seven different governments, generally at
+war among themselves and inviting foreign enemies to come and help them
+destroy each other. Every province in Spain is still called a kingdom;
+and it is not long since they were really so in fact, with the <i>ultima
+ratio</i> in the hands of every king.</p>
+
+<p>The publicist who in any of those modern heroic ages could have imagined
+that all the hundred nations who inhabited the western borders of Europe,
+from the Orknies to Gibraltar, might one day become so far united in
+manners and interests as to form but three great nations, would certainly
+have passed for a madman. Had he been a minister of Phararnond or of Fingal
+he could no more have kept his place than Turgot could keep his after
+pointing out the means of promoting industry and preventing wars. He would
+have been told that the inhabitants of each side of the Humber were natural
+enemies one to the other; that if their chiefs were even disposed to live
+in peace they could not do it; their subjects would demand war and could
+not live without it. The same would have been said of the Seine, the Loire
+and every other dividing line between their petty communities. It would
+have been insisted on that such rivers were the natural boundaries of
+states and never could be otherwise.</p>
+
+<p>But now since the people of those districts find themselves no longer
+on the frontiers of little warlike states, but in the centre of great
+industrious nations, they have lost their relish for war, and consider it
+as a terrible calamity; they cherish the minister who gives them peace, and
+abhor the one who drives them into unnecessary wars. Their local disputes,
+which used to be settled by the sword, are now referred to the tribunals of
+the country. They have substituted a moral to a physical force. They
+have changed the habits of plunder for those of industry; and they find
+themselves richer and happier for the change.</p>
+
+<p>Who will say that the progress of society will stop short in the present
+stage of its career? that great communities will not discover a mode of
+arbitrating their disputes, as little ones have done? that nations will
+not lay aside their present ideas of independence and rivalship, and find
+themselves more happy and more secure in one great universal society,
+which shall contain within itself its own principles of defence, its own
+permanent security? It is evident that national security, in order to be
+permanent, must be founded on the moral force of society at large, and not
+on the physical force of each nation independently exerted. The <i>ultima
+ratio</i> must not be a cannon, but a reference to some rational mode of
+decision worthy of rational beings.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2>No. 36</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><i>Else what high tones of rapture must have told
+  The first great action of a chief so bold!</i></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>Book V. Line 767.</blockquote>
+
+<p>General Arnold, the leader of this detachment, had acquired by this
+and many other brilliant achievements a degree of military fame almost
+unequalled among the American generals. His shameful defection afterwards,
+by the foulest of treason, should be lamented as a national dishonor; it
+has not only obliterated his own glory, but it seems in some sort to have
+cast a shade on that of others whose brave actions had been associated with
+his in the acquisition of their common and unadulterated fame.</p>
+
+<p>The action here alluded to, the march thro the wilderness from Casco to
+Quebec, was compared in the gazettes of that day to the passage of the Alps
+by Hannibal. And really, considered as a scene of true military valor,
+patient suffering and heroic exertion (detached from the idea of subsequent
+success in the ulterior expedition) the comparison did not disgrace the
+Carthaginian. Yet since the defection of Arnold, which happened five
+years afterwards, this audacious and once celebrated exploit is
+scarcely mentioned in our annals. And Meigs, Dearborn, Morgan and other
+distinguished officers in the expedition, whom that alone might have
+immortalized, have been indebted to their subsequent exertions of patriotic
+valor for the share of celebrity their names now enjoy.</p>
+
+<p>See the character of Arnold treated more at large in the sixth book.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2>No. 37</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><i>See the black Prison Ship's expanding womb
+  Impested thousands, quick and dead, entomb.</i></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>Book VI. Line 35.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The systematic and inflexible course of cruelties exercised by the British
+armies on American prisoners during the three first years of the war were
+doubtless unexampled among civilized nations. Considering it as a war
+against rebels, neither their officers nor soldiers conceived themselves
+bound by the ordinary laws of war.</p>
+
+<p>The detail of facts on this subject, especially in what concerned the
+prison ships, has not been sufficiently noticed in our annals; at least not
+so much noticed as the interest of public morals would seem to require. Mr.
+Boudinot, who was the American commissary of prisoners at the time, has
+since informed the author of this poem that in one prison ship alone,
+called the Jersey, which was anchored near Newyork, <i>eleven thousand</i>
+American prisoners died in eighteen months; almost the whole of them from
+the barbarous treatment of being stifled in a crowded hold with infected
+air, and poisoned with unwholesome food.</p>
+
+<p>There were several other prison ships, as well as the sugar-house prison
+in the city, whose histories ought to be better known than they are. I say
+this not from any sort of enmity to the British nation, for I have none. I
+respect the British nation; as will be evident from the views I have given
+of her genius and institutions in the course of this work. I would at all
+times render that nation every service consistent with my duty to my own;
+and surely it is worthy of her magnanimity to consider as a real service
+every true information given her relative to the crimes of her agents in
+distant countries. These crimes are as contrary to the spirit of the nation
+at home as they are to the temper of her laws.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2>No. 38</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><i>Myrtles and laurels equal honors join'd,
+  Which arms had purchased and the Muses twined;</i></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>Book VI, Line 273. </blockquote>
+
+<p>General Burgoyne had gained some celebrity by his pen, as well as by his
+sword, previous to the American war. He was author of the comedy called
+<i>The Heiress</i>, and of some other theatrical pieces which had been well
+received on the London theatres.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2>No. 39</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><i>Deep George's loaded lake reluctant guides
+  Their bounding larges o'er his sacred tides.</i></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>Book VI. Line 285. </blockquote>
+
+<p>The water of Lake George was held in particular veneration by the French
+catholics of Canada. Of this they formerly made their holy water; which was
+carried and distributed to the churches thro the province, and probably
+produced part of the revenues of the clergy. This water is said to have
+been chosen for the purpose on account of its extreme clearness. The lake
+was called <i>Lac du Saint Sacrement</i>.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2>No. 40</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><i>His savage hordes the murderous Johnson leads,
+  Files thro the woods and treads the tangled weeds,</i></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>Book VI. Line 389. </blockquote>
+
+<p>This was general sir John Johnson, an American royalist in the British
+service. He was the son of sir William Johnson, who had been a rich
+proprietor and inhabitant in the Mohawk country, in the colony of New York,
+and had been employed by the king as superintendant of Indian affairs. Sir
+William had married a Mohawk savage wife; and it was supposed that the
+great influence which he had long exercised over that and the neighboring
+tribes must have descended to his son. It was on this account that he
+was employed on the expedition of Burgoyne; in which he had the rank of
+brigadier general, and the special direction of the savages.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2>No. 41</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><i>Are these thy trophies, Carleton! these the swords
+  Thy hand unsheath'd and gave the savage hordes,</i></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>Book VI. Line 685. </blockquote>
+
+<p>General sir Guy Carleton, afterwards lord Dorchester, was the British
+governor of Canada and superintendant of Indian affairs at the time of
+Burgoyne's campaign. Having great influence with the warlike tribes who
+inhabited the west of Canada and the borders of the Lakes, he was ordered
+by the minister to adopt the barbarous and unjustifiable measure of arming
+and bringing them into the king's service in aid of this expedition.</p>
+
+<p>This was doubtless done with the consent of Burgoyne, tho he seems to have
+been apprehensive of the difficulty of managing a race of men whose manners
+were so ferocious, and whose motives to action must have been so different
+from those of the principal parties in the war. Burgoyne, in his narrative
+of this campaign, informs us that he took precautions to discourage that
+inhuman mode of warfare which had been customary among those savages. He
+ordered them to kill none but such persons as they should find in arms
+fighting against the king's troops; to spare old men, women, children and
+prisoners; and not to scalp any but such as they should kill in open war.
+He intimated to them that he should not pay for any scalps but those thus
+taken from enemies killed in arms.</p>
+
+<p>It is unfortunate for the reputation of the general and of his government,
+that they did not reflect on the futility of such an order and the
+improbability of its being executed. A certain price was offered for
+scalps; the savages must know that in a bag of scalps, packed and dried and
+brought into camp and counted out before the commissary to receive payment,
+it would be impossible to distinguish the political opinions or the
+occupation, age or sex of the heads to which they had belonged; it could
+not be ascertained whether they had been taken from Americans or British,
+whigs or tories, soldiers killed in arms or killed after they had resigned
+their arms, militia men or peasants, old or young, male or female.</p>
+
+<p>The event proved the deplorable policy of employing such auxiliaries,
+especially in such multitudes as were brought together on this occasion. No
+sooner did hostilities begin between the two armies than these people, who
+could have no knowledge of the cause nor affection for either party, and
+whose only object was plunder and pay, began their indiscriminate and
+ungovernable ravages on both sides. They robbed and murdered peasants,
+whether royalists or others; men, women, children, straggling and wounded
+soldiers of both armies. The tragical catastrophe of a young lady of the
+name of Macrea, whose story is almost literally detailed in the foregoing
+paragraphs of the text, is well known. It made a great impression on the
+public mind at the time, both in England and America.</p>
+
+<p>General Carleton, in the preceding campaigns, when the war was carried into
+Canada, had been applauded for his humanity in the treatment of prisoners.
+But the part he took in this measure of associating the savages in the
+operations of the British army was a stain upon his character; and the
+measure was highly detrimental to the royal cause, on account of the
+general indignation it excited thro the country.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2>No. 42</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><i>That no proud privilege from birth can spring,
+  No right divine, nor compact form a king;</i></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>Book VII. Line 39. </blockquote>
+
+<p>The assumed right of kings, or that supreme authority which one man
+exercises over a nation, and for which he is not held accountable, has been
+contended for on various grounds. It has been sometimes called the <i>right
+of conquest;</i> in which is involved the absolute disposal of the lives
+and labors of the conquered nation, in favor of the victorious chief
+and his descendants to perpetuity. Sometimes it is called the <i>divine
+right;</i> in which case kings are considered as the vicegerents of God.</p>
+
+<p>This notion is very ancient, and it is almost universal among modern
+nations. Homer is full of it; and from his unaffected recurrence to the
+same idea every where in his poems, it is evident that in his day it was
+not called in question. The manner in which the Jews were set at work to
+constitute their first king proves that they were convinced that, if they
+must have a king, he must be given them from God, and receive that solemn
+consecration which should establish his authority on the same divine right
+which was common to other nations, from whom they borrowed the principle.</p>
+
+<p>There are some few instances in history wherein this divine right has
+been set aside; but it has generally been owing rather to the violence
+of circumstances, which sometimes drive men to act contrary to their
+prejudices, tho they still retain them, than to any effort of reasoning
+by which they convinced themselves that this was a prejudice, and that no
+divine right existed in reality. For it does not violate this supposed
+right, to change one king for another, or one race of kings for another,
+tho done in a manner the most unjust and inhuman. In this case the same
+divine right remains, and only changes, with the diadem, from one head to
+another. And tho this change should happen six times in one day (as in one
+instance it has done in Algiers by the murder of six successive kings) they
+would still say it was God who did it all; and the action would only tend
+to prove to the credulous people, that God was made after their own image,
+as changeable as themselves.</p>
+
+<p>It is only in the case of Tarquin and a few others (whose overthrow has
+been followed by a more popular form of government) that it can be said
+that the principle of the divine right has been disregarded, laid aside and
+forgotten for any length of time.</p>
+
+<p>The English are perhaps the first and only people that ever overturned
+this doctrine of the divinity of kings, without changing their form of
+government. This was brought on by circumstances, and took effect in the
+expulsion of James II. Books were then written to prove that the divine
+right of kings did not exist; at least, not in the sense in which it had
+been understood. And these writings completely silenced the old doctrine in
+England. This indeed was gaining an immense advantage in favor of liberty;
+tho the effort of reason, to arrive at it, seems to be so small.</p>
+
+<p>But while the English were discarding the old principle they set up a
+new one; which indeed is not so pernicious because it cannot become so
+extensive, but which is scarcely more reasonable: it is the right of kings
+by <i>compact;</i> that is, a compact, whether written or understood,
+by which the representatives of a nation are supposed to bind their
+constituents and their descendants to be the subjects of a certain prince
+and of his descendants to perpetuity. This singular doctrine is developed
+with perspicuity, but ill supported by argument, in Burke's <i>Reflections
+on the French Revolution.</i></p>
+
+<p>The principle of the American government denies the right of any
+representatives to make such a compact, and the right of any prince to
+carry it into execution if it were made. Whatever varieties or mixtures
+there may be in the <i>forms</i> of government, there are but two distinct
+principles on which government is founded. One supposes the source of power
+to be <i>out</i> of the people, and that the governor is not accountable to
+them for the manner of using it; the other supposes the source of power to
+be <i>in</i> the people, and that the governor is accountable to them for
+the manner of using it. The latter is our principle. In this sense no
+<i>right divine</i> nor <i>compact</i> can form a king; that is, a person,
+exercising underived and unreverting power.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2>No. 43</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><i>But while dread Elliott shakes the Midland wave,
+  They strive in vain the Calpian rock to brave.</i></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>Book VII. Line 89. </blockquote>
+
+<p>The English general Elliott commanded the post of Gibraltar, against which
+the combined forces of France and Spain made a vigorous but fruitless
+attack in the year 1781. This attack furnished the subjects for two
+celebrated pictures alluded to in the eighth book: <i>The burning of the
+Floating Batteries</i> painted by Copley; and <i>The Sortie</i>, painted by
+Trumbull.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2>No. 44</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><i>To guide the sailor in his wandering way,
+  See Godfrey's glass reverse the beams of day.</i></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>Book VIII. Line 681. </blockquote>
+
+<p>It is less from national vanity than from a regard to truth and a desire of
+rendering personal justice, that the author wishes to rectify the history
+of science in the circumstance here alluded to. The instrument known by the
+name of Hartley's Quadrant, now universally in use and generally attributed
+to Dr. Hartley, was invented by Thomas Godfrey of Philadelphia. See
+Jefferson's Notes on Virginia; likewise Miller's Retrospect of the
+Eighteenth Century, in which the original documents relative to Godfrey's
+invention are fully detailed.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2>No. 45</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><i>West with his own great soul the canvass warms,
+  Creates, inspires, impassions human forms.</i></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>Book VIII. Line 587. </blockquote>
+
+<p>Benjamin West, president of the Royal Academy in London, was born and
+educated in Pennsylvania. At the age of twenty-three he went to Italy to
+perfect his taste in the art to which his genius irresistibly impelled him;
+in which he was destined to cast a splendor upon the age in which he lives,
+and probably to excel all his cotemporaries, so far at least as we can
+judge from the present state of their works. After passing two years in
+that country of models, where canvass and marble seem to contribute their
+full proportion of the population, he went to London.</p>
+
+<p>Here he soon rendered himself conspicuous for the boldness of his designs,
+in daring to shake off the trammels of the art so far as to paint modern
+history in modern dress. He had already staggered the connoisseurs in Italy
+while he was there, by his picture of <i>The Savage Chief taking leave of
+his family on going to war</i>. This extraordinary effort of the American
+pencil on an American subject excited great admiration at Venice. The
+picture was engraved in that city by Bartolozzi, before either he or West
+went to England. The artists were surprised to find that the expression of
+the passions of men did not depend on the robes they wore. And his
+early works in London, <i>The Death of Wolfe</i>, <i>The Battles of the
+Boyne</i>, <i>Lahogue</i>, &amp;c., engraved by Woollett and others, not only
+established his reputation, but produced a revolution in the Art. So that
+modern dress has now become as familiar in fictitious as in real life; it
+being justly considered essential in painting modern history.</p>
+
+<p>The engraving from his Wolfe has been often copied in France, Italy and
+Germany; and it may be said that in this picture the revolution in painting
+really originated. It would now be reckoned as preposterous in an artist
+to dress modern personages in Grecian or Roman habits, as it was before to
+give them the garb of the age and country to which they belonged.</p>
+
+<p>The merit of Mr. West was early noticed and encouraged by the king; who
+took him into pay with a convenient salary, and the title of historical
+painter to his majesty. In this situation he has decorated the king's
+palaces, chapels and churches with most of those great pictures from the
+English history and from the Old and New Testament, which compose so
+considerable a portion of his works.</p>
+
+<p>The following catalogue of his pictures was furnished me by Mr. West
+himself in the year 1802. It comprises only his principal productions in
+<i>historical</i> painting, and only his <i>finished</i> pictures; without
+mentioning his numerous portraits, or his more numerous sketches and
+drawings.</p>
+
+<p>The pictures marked thus * have been engraved. The ciphers express the size
+of the pictures. When the same subject is mentioned more than once, there
+is more than one picture on that subject.</p>
+
+
+<p align="center">IN THE QUEEN'S HOUSE.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">  * Regulus departing from Rome.<br />
+  * Hannibal sworn when a child. <br />
+  * Death of Wolfe. <br />
+  Damsel accusing Peter. <br />
+  * Death of Epaminondas. <br />
+  Apotheosis of the two young princes. <br />
+  * Death of chevalier Bayard. <br />
+  Germanicus, with Segestus and his daughter prisoners. <br />
+  * Cyrus, with a king and family captives.</p>
+
+<p align="center">
+IN THE KING'S APARTMENTS AT WINDSOR.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Edward III crossing the Somme. <br />
+  Battle of Cressy, Edward embracing his son. <br />
+  Edward III crowning Ribemond at Calais. <br />
+  St. George destroying the Dragon. <br />
+  The Six Burgesses of Calais before Edward. <br />
+  Battle of Poietiers, king of France prisoner to the Black Prince. <br />
+  Institution of the Order of the Garter. <br />
+  Battle of Nevilcross. <br />
+  Christ's Crucifixion. <br />
+  The same on glass for the west window of the church at Windsor, 36 feet
+    by 28. <br />
+  Peter, John and women at the Sepulchre. <br />
+  The same on glass for the east window of the same church, 36 feet by 28. <br />
+  The Angels appearing to the Shepherds. <br />
+  Nativity of Christ. <br />
+  Kings presenting gifts to Christ.</p>
+
+<p align="center">
+IN THE MARBLE GALLERY, WINDSOR CASTLE.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Hymen dancing with the Hours  before Peace and Plenty. <br />
+  Boys with the insignia of the Fine Arts. <br />
+  Boys with the insignia of Riches.</p>
+
+<p align="center">
+IN THE KING'S CHAPEL AT WINDSOR.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A complete history of Revealed Religion, divided into four dispensations,
+and comprised in thirty-eight pictures.</p>
+
+<p align="center">
+PATRIARCHAL DISPENSATION.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Adam and Eve created. 9 feet by 6. <br />
+  Adam and Eve driven from Paradise. do. <br />
+  The Deluge. do. <br />
+  Noah sacrificing. do. <br />
+  Abraham going to sacrifice Isaac. do. <br />
+  Birth of Jacob and Esau. do. <br />
+  Death of Jacob, surrounded by his sons. do. <br />
+  Bondage of the Israelites in Egypt. do.</p>
+
+<p align="center">MOSAICAL DISPENSATION.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Moses called. do. <br />
+  Moses and Aaron before Pharaoh, their rods turned to serpents. 15 feet
+    by 10. <br />
+  Pharaoh's Army lost in the sea. <br />
+  Moses receiving the Law. 18 feet by 12. <br />
+  Hoses consecrating Aaron and his sons to the Priesthood. 15 feet by 10. <br />
+  Moses shows the Brazen Serpent. 15 feet by 10. <br />
+  Moses on Mount Pisgah sees the Promised Land and dies. 9 feet by 6. <br />
+  Joshua passing the Jordan, do. <br />
+  The twelve Tribes drawing their lots. do. <br />
+  David called and anointed, do.</p>
+
+<p align="center">GOSPEL DISPENSATION.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">John Baptist called and named. do. <br />
+  Christ born. do. <br />
+  Christ offered gifts by the Wise Men. do. <br />
+  Christ among the Doctors, do. <br />
+  Christ baptized, and the Holy Spirit descending on him. 15 feet by 10. <br />
+  Christ healing the Sick. do. <br />
+  Christ's last Supper. do. <br />
+  Christ's Crucifixion. 36 feet by 28. <br />
+  Christ's Resurrection, Peter, John and the women at the Sepulchre. do. <br />
+  * Christ's Ascension. 18 feet by 12. <br />
+  Peter's first Sermon, Descent of the Holy Spirit. 15 feet by 10. <br />
+  The Apostles preaching and working miracles. do. <br />
+  Paul and Barnabas turning from the Jews to the Gentiles. do.</p>
+
+<p align="center">APOCALYPTIC DISPENSATION.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">John seeing the Son of Man, and called to write. 9 feet by 6. <br />
+  The Throne surrounded by the Four Beasts, and Saints laying down their
+    crowns. 9 feet by 6. <br />
+  Death on the Pale Horse, and the Opening of the Seals. do. <br />
+  The White Horse and his legions, and the Man destroying the Old Beast.
+    do. <br />
+  General Resurrection, the end of Death. do. <br />
+  Christ's Second Coming. do. <br />
+  The New Jerusalem. do.</p>
+
+<p align="center">
+IN THE COLLECTION OF MR. BECKFORD.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Michael and his angels casting out the Red Dragon and his angels. <br />
+  The Woman clothed with the Sun. <br />
+  John called to write the Apocalypse. <br />
+  The Beast rising out of the sea. <br />
+  The mighty Angel, one foot on sea the other on land. <br />
+  St. Anthony of Padua. <br />
+  The Madre Dolorosa. <br />
+  Simeon with the Child in his arms. <br />
+  Landscape, with a Hunt in the back ground. <br />
+  Abraham and Isaac going to sacrifice. <br />
+  Thomas &agrave; Becket. <br />
+  Angel in the Sun. <br />
+  Order of the Garter, differing in composition from that at Windsor.</p>
+
+<p align="center">
+IN THE COLLECTION OF EARL GROSVENOR.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The Shunamite's son raised to life by Elisha. <br />
+  Jacob blessing the sons of Joseph. <br />
+  * Death of Wolfe. <br />
+  * Battle of Lahogue. <br />
+  * Battle of the Boyne. <br />
+  * Restoration of Charles II. <br />
+  * Cromwell dissolving the Parliament. <br />
+  The Golden Age. <br />
+  General Wolfe when a boy.</p>
+
+<p align="center">
+IN THE COLLECTION OF MR. HOPE.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">* Telemachus and Calypso. <br />
+  * Angelica and Madora. <br />
+  The Damsel and Orlando. <br />
+  Cicero at the tomb of Archimedes. <br />
+  St. Paul's Conversion. <br />
+  St. Paul persecuting the Christians. <br />
+  His restoration to sight by Ananias. <br />
+  Mr. Hope's family; nine figures, size of life.</p>
+
+<p align="center">
+IN THE HISTORICAL GALLERY, PALLMALL.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">The Queen soliciting king Henry to pardon her son John.</p>
+
+<p align="center">
+IN GREENWICH HOSPITAL.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Paul shaking the Viper from his finger. <br />
+  Paul preaching at Athens. <br />
+  Elymas the Sorcerer struck blind. <br />
+  Cornelius and the Angel. <br />
+  Peter delivered from prison. <br />
+  Conversion of St. Paul. <br />
+  Paul before Felix. <br />
+  Return of the Prodigal Son.</p>
+
+<p align="center">
+LARGE FIGURES OF</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Faith, <br />
+  Hope, <br />
+  Charity, <br />
+  Innocence, <br />
+  Matthew, <br />
+  Mark, <br />
+  Luke, <br />
+  Matthias, <br />
+  Thomas, <br />
+  Simon, <br />
+  James major, <br />
+  James minor, <br />
+  Philip, <br />
+  Peter, <br />
+  Malachi, <br />
+  Micah, <br />
+  Zachariah, <br />
+  Daniel, <br />
+  Jude, <br />
+  John, <br />
+  Andrew, <br />
+  Bartholomew.</p>
+
+<p align="center">
+IN DIFFERENT CHURCHES.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Michael chaining the Dragon. <br />
+  Angels announcing the birth of Christ. <br />
+  St. Stephen stoned to death. <br />
+  Raising of Lazarus. <br />
+  Paul shaking off the Viper. <br />
+  The last Supper. <br />
+  Resurrection of Christ. <br />
+  Peter denying Christ. <br />
+  Moses showing the Brazen Serpent. <br />
+  John seeing the Lamb of God. <br />
+  A Mother leading her children to the Temple of Virtue.</p>
+
+<p align="center">
+IN VARIOUS COLLECTIONS.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Lord Clive taking the dunny from the Mogul. <br />
+  The same. <br />
+  Christ receiving the Sick. <i>Pensyl. hospital.</i><br />
+  * Leonidas exiling Cleombrotus and family. <br />
+  The two Marys at the Sepulchre. <br />
+  Alexander and his Physician. <br />
+  Cesar reading the Life of Alexander. <br />
+  Death of Adonis. <br />
+  Continence of Scipio. <br />
+  * Savage Warrior taking leave of his family. <br />
+  Venus and Cupid. <br />
+  Alfred dividing his loaf with the Beggar. <br />
+  Helen presented to Paris. <br />
+  Cupid stung by a bee. <br />
+  Simeon and the Child. <br />
+  * William Penn treating with the Savages. <br />
+  Destruction of the Spanish Armada. <br />
+  Philippa soliciting of Edward the pardon of the citizens of Calais. <br />
+  Europa on the Bull. <br />
+  Death of Hyacinthus. <br />
+  Death of Cesar. <br />
+  Venus presenting her cestus to Juno. <br />
+  Rinaldo and Armida. <br />
+  Pharaoh's Daughter with the child Moses. <br />
+  The stolen Kiss. <br />
+  Angelica and Madora. <br />
+  Woman of Samaria at the well with Christ. <br />
+  Agrippina leaning on the urn of Germanicus. <br />
+  Death of Wolfe. <br />
+  The same; smaller size. <br />
+  Romeo and Juliet. <br />
+  King Lear and his Daughters. <br />
+  Belisarius and the Boy. <br />
+  Sir Francis Baring and family. <br />
+  * Mr. West and family. <br />
+  A Mother and Child. <br />
+  Jupiter and Semele. <br />
+  Petus and Arria. <br />
+  Venus and Cupid smiling at Europa when Jupiter had left her. <br />
+  Rebecca coming to Jacob. <br />
+  Rebecca receiving the bracelets at the well. <br />
+  Agrippina landing at Brundusium with the ashes of Germanieus, <br />
+  The same. <br />
+  The same. <br />
+  Endymion and Diana.</p>
+
+<p align="center">
+IN THE COLLECTION OF ROBERT FULTON.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Ophelia distracted, before the king and queen<br />
+  *King Lear in the storm,</p>
+
+<p align="center">
+IN MR. WEST'S OWN COLLECTION.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Hector taking leave of his Wife and Child. <br />
+  Elisha raising the Shunamite's Son. <br />
+  The raising of Lazarus. <br />
+  Macbeth and the Witches. <br />
+  The return of Tobias. <br />
+  Return of the Prodigal Son. <br />
+  Ariadne on the sea shore. <br />
+  Death of Adonis. <br />
+  King of France brought to the Black Prince. <br />
+  * Death of Wolfe. <br />
+  Venus and Adonis. <br />
+  Battle of Lahogue. <br />
+  Edward III crossing the Somme. <br />
+  Philippa at the Battle of Nevilcross. <br />
+  Angels announcing the birth of Christ. <br />
+  Kings bringing presents to Christ. <br />
+  View on the river Thames. <br />
+  View on the Susquehanna. <br />
+  Picture of Tankers Mill at Eton. <br />
+  Chryseis restored to her Father.<br />
+  Antiochus and Stratoftice. <br />
+  King Lear and his Daughters. <br />
+  Chryseus on the sea shore. <br />
+  Nathan and David. <i>Thou art the man</i>.<br />
+  Elijah raising the widow's Son. <br />
+  Choice of Hercules. <br />
+  Venus and Europa. <br />
+  Daniel interpreting the Writing on the Wall. <br />
+  Marius on the ruins of Carthage. <br />
+  * Cymon and Iphigenia. <br />
+  Cicero at the tomb of Archimedes. <br />
+  * Alexander, king of Scotland, rescued from the Stag. <br />
+  Battle of Cressy. <br />
+  * Mr. West and his family. <br />
+  * Anthony shows Cesar's Robe and Will. <br />
+  Egysthus viewing the body of Clytemnestra. <br />
+  Recovery of king George in 1789. <br />
+  A large landscape in Windsor Forest. <br />
+  Ophelia before the King and Queen. <br />
+  Leonidas taking leave of his family. <br />
+  Phaeton receiving from Apollo the chariot of the Sun. <br />
+  The Eagle giving the cup of water to Psyche. <br />
+  Moonlight and the Beckoning Ghost. <i>Pope.</i><br />
+  Angel sitting on the stone at the Sepulchre. <br />
+  The same subject differently composed. <br />
+  * Angelica and Madora. <br />
+  The Damsel and Orlando. <br />
+  The Good Samaritan. <br />
+  Old Beast and False Prophet destroyed. <br />
+  Christ healing the sick in the temple. <br />
+  Death on the Pale Horse. <br />
+  Jason and the Dragon. <br />
+  Venus and Adonis seeing the Cupids bathe. <br />
+  Moses and Aaron before Pharaoh. <br />
+  Passage boat on the Canal. <br />
+  Paul and Barnabas rejecting the Jews and turning to the Gentiles. <br />
+  Diomed, his horses struck with lightning. <br />
+  Milk-woman in St. James's Park. <br />
+  Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise. <br />
+  Order of the Garter. <br />
+  Orion on the Dolphin's back. <br />
+  The Deluge. <br />
+  Queen Elizabeth's Procession to St. Paul's. <br />
+  Christ showing a child, emblem of heaven. <br />
+  Harvest Home. <br />
+  Washing Sheep. <br />
+  St. Paul shaking off the Viper. <br />
+  Sun setting at Twickenham on Thames. <br />
+  Driving sheep and cows to water. <br />
+  Cattle drinking, and Mr. West drawing, in Windsor Park. <br />
+  Pharaoh and his boat in the Red Sea. <br />
+  Telemachus and Calypso. <br />
+  Moses consecrating Aaron and his sons. <br />
+  A Mother inviting her little boy to come to her thro a brook. <br />
+  Brewer's porter and hod carrier. <br />
+  Venus attended by the Graces. <br />
+  Naming of Samuel. <br />
+  Birth of Jacob and Esau. <br />
+  Ascension of Christ. <br />
+  Samuel presented to Eli. <br />
+  Moses shown the Promised Land. <br />
+  Christ among the Doctors. <br />
+  Reaping scene. <br />
+  Adonis and his dog. <br />
+  Mothers with their children in water. <br />
+  Joshua crossing the Jordan with the Ark. <br />
+  Christ's Nativity. <br />
+  * Pyrrhus when a child before king Glaucus. <br />
+  The Man laying his bread on the bridle of the dead Ass. <i>Sterne.</i><br />
+  The Captive. <i>Ditto.</i><br />
+  Cupid letting loose two Doves. <br />
+  Cupid asleep. <br />
+  Children eating cherries. <br />
+  St. Anthony of Padua and the Child. <br />
+  Jacob and Laban with his two daughters. <br />
+  The Women looking into the Sepulchre and seeing two Angels where the
+    Lord lay. <br />
+  The Angel unchaining Peter in prison. <br />
+  Death of sir Philip Sidney. <br />
+  Death of Epaminondas. <br />
+  Death of chevalier Bayard. <br />
+  Death of Cephalus. <br />
+  * Kosciusko on a couch. <br />
+  Abraham and Isaac. <i>Here is the wood and fire, but where is the lamb
+    to sacrifice?</i><br />
+  Eponina with her children giving bread to her husband when in
+    concealment. <br />
+  King Henry pardoning his brother.<br />
+  John at the prayer of his mother. <br />
+  Death of lord Chatham. Presentation of the Crown to William the
+    Conqueror. <br />
+  Europa crowning the Bull with flowers. <br />
+  West's garden, gallery and painting room. <br />
+  Cave of Despair. <i>Spencer</i>.<br />
+  Arethusa bathing. <br />
+  Cupid shows Venus his finger stung by a bee. <br />
+  Ubald brings his three daughters to Alfred for him to choose one for
+    his wife. <br />
+  * Pylades and Orestes.</p>
+
+<p>Besides the two hundred and ninety-nine large finished pictures here
+mentioned, Mr. West has done about one hundred portraits, and upwards of
+two hundred drawings with the pen; which last, for sublimity of conception,
+are among the finest of his works. So that the whole of his pieces amount
+to above six hundred. Some of them are larger in size than any in the
+national gallery of France; and he has not been assisted by any other
+painter.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. West is now about sixty-eight years of age. He discovers no abatement
+in the activity of his genius, nor in the laborious exercise of his
+talents. He has painted several fine pictures since the above catalogue
+was made. Three of which I have particularly noticed in his painting room:
+Tobet and Tobias with the fish; Abraham sending away Hagar with her child;
+Achilles receiving from Thetis the new armor; and we hear that he has
+lately painted the Death of Nelson. He may yet produce many more original
+works; tho it is presumed he has already exceeded all other historical
+painters, except Rubens, in the number and variety of his productions. With
+regard to the merit of his pictures, I cannot pretend to form a judgment
+that would be of any use in directing that of others. He is doubtless the
+most classical painter, except Raphael, whose works are known to us.</p>
+
+<p>The critics find fault with the coloring of Mr. West. But in his works,
+as in those of Raphael, we do not look for coloring. It is dignity of
+character, fine expression, delicate design, correct drawing and beautiful
+disposition of drapery which fix the suffrage of the real judge. All which
+qualities can only spring from an elevated mind.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2>No. 46</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><i>Nile pours from heaven a tutelary flood,
+  And gardens grow the vegetable god.</i></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>Book IX. Line 287.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>  O sanctas gentes, quibus haec nascuntur in hortis Numina.</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>  Juv. Sat. 15.</blockquote>
+
+
+
+<h2>No. 47</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><i>Tis to correct their fatal faults of old,
+  When, caught by tinsel, they forgot the gold.</i></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>Book IX. Line 499.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The state of the arts and sciences among the ancients, viewed with
+reference to the event of universal civilization, was faulty in two
+respects. First, In their comparative estimation: Second, In their
+flourishing only in one nation at a time. These circumstances might be
+favorable to the exertions of individual genius; and they may be assigned
+both as causes of the universal destruction of the arts and sciences by
+the Gothic conquest, and as reasons why we should not greatly lament that
+destruction.</p>
+
+<p>From the political state of mankind in the days of their ancient splendor
+it was natural that those arts which depend on the imagination, such as
+Architecture, Statuary, Painting, Eloquence and Poetry, should claim the
+highest rank in the estimation of a people. In several, perhaps all of
+these, the ancients remain unrivalled. But these are not the arts which
+tend the most to the general improvement of society. A man in those days
+would have rendered more service to the world by ascertaining the true
+figure and movements of the earth, than by originating a heaven and filling
+it with all the gods of Homer; and had the expenses of the Egyptian
+pyramids been employed in furnishing ships of discovery and sending them
+out of the Mediterranean, the nations called civilized would not have been
+afterwards overrun by Barbarians.</p>
+
+<p>But the sciences of Geography, Navigation and Commerce, with their
+consequent improvements in Natural Philosophy and Humanity, could not, from
+the nature of things at that time, become objects of great encouragement or
+enterprise. Talent was therefore confined to the cultivation of arts more
+striking to the senses. As these arts were adapted to gratify the vanity
+of princes, to help carry on the sacred frauds of priests, to fire the
+ambition of heroes, or to gain causes in popular assemblies, they were
+brought to a degree of perfection which prevented their being relished or
+understood by barbarous neighbors.</p>
+
+<p>The improvements of the world therefore, whether in literature, sciences or
+arts, descended with the line of conquest from one nation to another, till
+the whole were concentred in the Roman empire. Their tendency there was to
+inspire a contempt for nations less civilized, and to teach the Romans to
+consider all mankind as the proper objects of their military despotism.
+These circumstances prepared, thro a course of ages, and finally opened a
+scene of wretchedness at which the human mind has been taught to shudder.
+But some such convulsion seemed necessary to reduce the nations to a
+position capable of commencing regular improvements. And, however novel the
+sentiment may appear, I will venture to say that, as to the prospect of
+universal civilization, mankind were in a better situation in the time of
+Charlemagne than they were in the days of Augustus.</p>
+
+<p>The final destruction of the Roman empire left the nations of Europe
+in circumstances similar to each other; and their consequent rivalship
+prevented any disproportionate refinement from appearing in any particular
+region. The principles of government, firmly rooted in the Feudal System,
+unsocial and unphilosophical as they were, laid the foundation of that
+balance of power which discourages the Cesars and Alexanders of modern ages
+from attempting the conquest of the world.</p>
+
+<p>It seems necessary that the arrangement of events in civilizing the world
+should be in the following order: <i>first</i>, all parts of it must be
+considerably peopled; <i>second</i>, the different nations must be known
+to each other; <i>third</i>, their wants must be increased, in order to
+inspire a passion for commerce. The first of these objects was not probably
+accomplished till a late period. The second for three centuries past has
+been greatly accelerated. The third is a necessary consequence of the two
+former. The spirit of commerce is happily calculated to open an amicable
+intercourse between all countries, to soften the horrors of war, to enlarge
+the field of science, and to assimilate the manners, feelings and languages
+of all nations. This leading principle, in its remoter consequences,
+will produce advantages in favor of free government, give patriotism the
+character of philanthropy, induce all men to regard each other as brethren
+and friends, and teach them the benefits of peace and harmony among the
+nations.</p>
+
+<p>I conceive it no objection to this theory that the progress has hitherto
+been slow; when we consider the magnitude of the object, the obstructions
+that were to be removed, and the length of time taken to accomplish it.
+The future progress will probably be more rapid than the past. Since the
+invention of printing, the application of the properties of the magnet,
+and the knowledge of the structure of the solar system, it is difficult to
+conceive of a cause that can produce a new state of barbarism; unless it be
+some great convulsion in the physical world, so extensive as to change the
+face of the earth or a considerable part of it. This indeed may have been
+the case already more than once, since the earth was first peopled with
+men, and antecedent to our histories. But such events have nothing to do
+with the present argument.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2>No. 48</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><i>Herschel ascends himself with venturous wain,
+  And joins and flanks thy planetary train,</i></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>Book IX. Line 601.</blockquote>
+
+<p>The planet discovered by Herschel was called by him Georgium Sidus; but in
+all countries except England it is named Herschel, and probably will be so
+named there after his death and that of the patron to whom his gratitude
+led him to make this extraordinary dedication.</p>
+
+<p>I would observe that, besides the impropriety of giving it another name
+than that of the discoverer, it is inconvenient to use a double name, or a
+name composed of two words. Let it be either George or Herschel.</p>
+
+<p>The passage referred to in this note was written before the discovery of
+the three other planets which are now added to our catalogue. Could my
+voice have weight in deciding on the names to be given to these new
+children of the sun, I would call them by the names of their respective
+discoverers, Piazzi, Gibers and Harding, instead of the senseless and
+absurd appellations of Ceres, Pallas and Juno. The former method would at
+least assist us in preserving the history of science; the latter will only
+tend farther to confuse a very ancient mythology which is already extremely
+confused, and increase the difficulty of following the faint traces of real
+knowledge that seems couched under the mass of that mythology; traces which
+may one day lead to many useful truths in philosophy and morals.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2>No. 49</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><i>To build on ruin'd realms the shrine of fame,
+  And load his numbers with a tyrant's name.</i></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>Book X. Line 261. </blockquote>
+
+<p>A most useful book might be written on this subject. It should be a Review
+of Poets and Historians, as to the moral and political tendency of their
+works. It should likewise treat of the importance of the task assigned to
+these two classes of writers. It might attempt to point out the true object
+they ought to have in view; perhaps do this with such clearness and energy
+as to gain the attention of writers as well as readers, and thus serve in
+some measure as a guide to future historians and poets. At least it would
+prove a guide to readers; and by teaching them how to judge, and what
+to praise or blame in the accounts of human actions, whether real or
+fictitious, the public taste would be reformed by degrees. In this case the
+recorders of heroic actions, as well as the authors of them, would find it
+necessary to follow this reform, or they must necessarily fail of obtaining
+the celebrity to which they all aspire.</p>
+
+<p>I think every person who will give himself the trouble to form an opinion
+on the manner in which actions, called heroic, have been recorded, must
+find it faulty; and must lament, as one of the misfortunes of society, that
+writers of these two classes almost universally, from Homer down to Gibbon,
+have led astray the moral sense of man. In this view we may say in general
+of poets and historians, as we do of their heroes, that they have injured
+the cause of humanity almost in proportion to the fame they have acquired.</p>
+
+<p>I would not be understood by this observation to mean that such writers
+have done no good. Even the works of Homer, which have caused more mischief
+to mankind than those of any other, have likewise been a fruitful source of
+a certain species of benefits. They elevate the mind of every reader; they
+have called forth great exertions of genius in poets, artists, philosophers
+and heroes, thro a long succession of ages. But it remains to be considered
+what a fruitful source they have likewise been of those false notions of
+honor and erroneous systems of policy which have governed the actions of
+men from his day to ours.</p>
+
+<p>If, instead of the Iliad, he had given us a work of equal splendor founded
+on an opposite principle; whose object should have been to celebrate the
+useful arts of agriculture and navigation; to build the immortal fame
+of his heroes, and occupy his whole hierarchy of gods, on actions that
+contribute to the real advancement of society, instead of striking away
+every foundation on which society ought to be established or can be greatly
+advanced; mankind, enriched with such a work at that early period, would
+have given a useful turn to their ambition thro all succeeding ages.</p>
+
+<p>It is not easy to conceive how different the state of nations would have
+been at this day from what we now find it, had such a bent been given to
+the pursuits of genius, and such glory cast upon actions truly worthy of
+imitation. I have treated this subject more at large in the third chapter
+of <i>Advise to the Privileged Orders</i>.</p>
+
+<p>But it will be asked how this kind of censure can attach to the writers of
+history, whose business is to invent nothing, to confine themselves to
+the simple narration of facts, and relate the actions of men, not as they
+should be, but as they are. This is indeed a part of the duty of the
+historian; but it is not his whole duty. His narrative should be clear and
+simple; but he should likewise develop the political and moral tendency of
+the transactions he details.</p>
+
+<p>In reviewing actions or doctrines which favor despotism, injustice, false
+morals or political errors, he should not suffer them to pass without an
+open and well supported censure. He should show how the authors of such
+actions might have conducted themselves and succeeded in gaining the
+celebrity which they sought, by doing good instead of harm to the age and
+country where they acquired their fame.</p>
+
+<p>The history of human actions, in a political view, has generally been the
+history of human errors. The writers who have given it to us do not appear
+to have been sensible of this. How then are young readers to be sensible
+of it? Their minds are still to be formed; and those who are destined for
+public life must in a great measure take their bias from the study of
+history. But history in general, to answer the purpose of sound instruction
+to the future guides of nations, must be rewritten. For example: among the
+hundred historians who have treated of what is called the Roman Republic
+I know not one who has told us this important fact, that Rome never had a
+republic. The same may be said of Athens, and of several other turbulent
+associations of men in former ages. And it is for want of this attention
+or this knowledge in the writers of their histories, that the republican
+principle of government is so generally associated, even at this day, with
+the idea of insurrection, anarchy and the desire of conquest. Whereas it
+is in fact the <i>want</i> of the republican principle, not the
+<i>practice</i> of it, which has occasioned all the insurrections, anarchy
+and desire of conquest, that have disturbed the order of society both in
+ancient and modern times.</p>
+
+<p>Again: in relating the destruction of Carthage, a measure which the zealous
+patriots, both before and after, considered so essential to the glory of
+the Roman state, and which has immortalized so many heroes as the authors
+and projectors of that destruction, I believe no historian has told us that
+the disease, decay and downfall of Rome itself were occasioned by that
+measure, and must be dated from that epoch; and that the actions of Regulus
+and Scipio, the themes of universal applause, were really more injurious to
+their country than those of Marias and Sylla, the objects (and justly so)
+of universal detestation.</p>
+
+<p>If these principles had been understood by Polybius and his successors in
+the brilliant heritage of history, and had been properly impressed on the
+minds of their readers, we should not have heard old Cato's vociferation
+<i>delenda est Carthago</i> applied to the American states by an orator of
+the British parliament, as we did during the war; because every member of
+that parliament must have understood that the prosperity of these states
+would be highly advantageous to Britain, from the extensive commercial
+intercourse that the relative situation of the two countries required.
+Neither should we see at this day the French English nations seeking
+to impoverish and extirpate each other; each of them entertaining the
+erroneous and absurd opinion that its own prosperity is to be increased by
+the adversity of its neighbor. We should have learned long ago from the
+plain dictates of reason, instead of having it beat into us some ages hence
+by costly experience, that the true dignity of a state is in the happiness
+of its members; and that their happiness is best promoted by the pursuit of
+industry at home and the free exchange of their productions abroad.</p>
+
+<p>We should have perceived the real and constant interest that every nation
+has in the prosperity of its neighbors, instead of their destruction.
+France would have perceived that the wealth of the English would be
+beneficial to her, by enabling them to receive and pay for more of her
+produce. England would have seen the same thing with regard to the French;
+and such would have been the sentiments of other nations reciprocally and
+universally.</p>
+
+<p>I know I must be called an extravagant theorist if I insinuate that all
+these good things would have resulted from having history well written and
+poetry well conceived. No man will doubt however that such would have been
+the tendency; nor can we deny that the contrary has resulted, at least in
+some degree, from the manner in which such writings have been composed. And
+why should we write at all, if not to benefit mankind? The public mind, as
+well as the individual mind, receives its propensities; it is equally the
+creature of habit. Nations are educated, like a single child. They only
+require a longer time and a greater number of teachers.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2>No. 50</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><i>For that fine apologue, in mystic strain,
+  Gave like the rest a golden age to man,</i></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>Book X. Line 393. </blockquote>
+
+<p>Absurdities in speculative opinion are commonly considered as innocent
+things; and we are told every day that they are not worth refuting. So
+far as opinions are sure to rest merely in speculation, and cannot in any
+degree become practical, this is doubtless the proper way of treating them.
+But there are few opinions of this dormant and indifferent kind, especially
+among those that become general and classical among the nations.</p>
+
+<p>The activity of such, tho imperceptible, is extensive. They get wrought
+into our intellectual existence, and govern our modes of acting as well as
+thinking. The interest of society therefore requires that they should be
+scrutinized, and that such as are erroneous should be exposed, in order to
+be rejected; when their place may be supplied by truth and reason, which
+nourish the mind and accelerate the progress of improvement.</p>
+
+<p>Among the absurd notions which early turned the heads of the teachers of
+mankind, and which are so ridiculous as generally to escape our censure, is
+that of a Golden Age; or the idea that men were more perfect, more moral
+and more happy in some early stage of their intercourse, before they
+cultivated the earth and formed great societies.</p>
+
+<p>The author of Don Quixote has played his artillery upon this doctrine to
+very good effect; he has summoned against it all the force of our contempt
+by making it the text of one of the gravest discourses of his hero. But
+my sensibility is such on moral and political errors, as rarely to be
+satisfied with the weapon of ridicule; tho I know it to be one of the most
+mortal of intellectual weapons.</p>
+
+<p>The notion that the social state of men cannot ameliorate, that they have
+formerly been better than they now are, and that they are continually
+growing worse, is pregnant with infinite mischief. I know no doctrine in
+the whole labyrinth of imposture that has a more immoral tendency. It
+discourages the efforts of all political virtue; it is a constant and
+practical apology for oppression, tyranny, despotism, in every shape,
+in every corner of society, as well as from the throne, the pulpit, the
+tribunal and the camp. It inculcates the belief that ignorance is better
+than knowledge; that war and violence are more natural than industry and
+peace; that deserts and tombs are more glorious than joyful cities and
+cultivated fields.</p>
+
+<p>One of the most operative means of bringing forward our improvements and
+of making mankind wiser and better than they are, is to convince them that
+they are capable of becoming so. Without this conviction they may indeed
+improve slowly, unsteadily and almost imperceptibly, as they have done
+within the period in which our histories are able to trace them. But this
+conviction, impressed on the minds of the chiefs and teachers of nations,
+and inculcated in their schools, would greatly expedite our advancement in
+public happiness and virtue. Perhaps it would in a great measure insure the
+world against any future shocks and retrograde steps, such as heretofore it
+has often, experienced.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<h1>Postscript.</h1>
+
+
+
+<p>I am well aware that some readers will be dissatisfied in certain instances
+with my orthography. Their judgments are respectable; and as it is not a
+wanton deviation from ancient usage on my part, the subject may justify a
+moment's retrospect from this place. Since we have arrived at the end of a
+work that has given me more pleasure in the composition than it probably
+will in its reception by the public, they must pardon me if I thus linger
+awhile in taking leave. It is a favorite object of amusement as well as
+labor, which I cannot hope to replace.</p>
+
+<p>Our language is constantly and rapidly improving. The unexampled progress
+of the sciences and arts for the last thirty years has enriched it with a
+great number of new words, which are now become as necessary to the writer
+as his ancient mother tongue. The same progress which leads to farther
+extensions of ideas will still extend the vocabulary; and our neology must
+and will keep pace with the advancement of our knowledge. Hence will
+follow a closer definition and more accurate use of words, with a stricter
+attention to their orthography.</p>
+
+<p>Such innovations ought undoubtedly to be admitted with caution; and they
+will of course be severely scrutinized by men of letters. A language is
+public property, in the most extensive sense of the word; and readers as
+well as writers arc its guardians. But they ought to have no objection to
+improving the estate as it passes thro their hands, by making a liberal tho
+rigid estimate of what may be offered as ameliorations. Some respectable
+philologists have proposed a total and immediate reform of our orthography
+and even of our alphabet; but the great body of proprietors in this
+heritage are of opinion that the attempt would be less advantageous than
+the slow and certain improvements which are going forward, and which will
+necessarily continue to attend the active state of our literature.</p>
+
+<p>We have long since laid aside the Latin diphthongs &aelig; and oe in common
+English words, and in some proper names tho not in all. Uniformity in this
+respect is desirable and will prevail. Names of that description which
+occur in this work I have therefore written with the simple vowel, as
+<i>Cesar</i>, <i>Phenicia</i>, <i>Etna</i>, <i>Medea</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Another class of our words are in a gradual state of reform. They are those
+Latin nouns ending in <i>or</i>, which having past thro France on their
+way from Rome, changed their <i>o</i> into <i>eu</i>. The Norman English
+writers restored the Latin <i>o</i>, but retained the French <i>u;</i>
+and tho the latter has been since rejected in most of these words, yet
+in others it is still retained by many writers. It is quite useless in
+pronunciation; and propriety as well as analogy requires that the reform
+should be carried thro. No writer at this day retains the <i>u</i> in
+<i>actor</i>, <i>author</i>, <i>emperor</i> and the far greater part, perhaps nine
+tenths, of this class of nouns; why then should it be continued in the few
+that remain, such as <i>labor</i>, <i>honor?</i> The most accurate authors
+reject it in all these, and I have followed the example.</p>
+
+<p>I have also respectable authorities in prose as well as poetry for
+expunging the three last letters in <i>though</i> and <i>through;</i> they
+being totally disregarded in pronunciation and awkward in appearance. The
+long sound of <i>o</i> in many words, as <i>go, fro</i>, puts it out of
+doubt with respect to <i>tho;</i> and its sound of <i>oo</i>, which, frequently
+occurs, as in <i>prove, move</i>, is an equal justification of <i>thro</i>.
+All the British poets, from Pope downwards, and several eminent prose
+writers, including Shaftsbury and Staunton, have by their practice
+supported this orthography.</p>
+
+<p>Some verbs in the past tense, where the usual ending in <i>ed</i> is
+harsh and uncouth, hare long ago changed it for <i>t</i>, as <i>fixt</i>,
+<i>capt</i>, <i>meant</i>, <i>past</i>, <i>blest</i>. Poetry has extended this innovation
+to many other verbs which are necessarily uttered with the sound of <i>t</i>,
+tho in prose they may still retain for a while their ancient <i>ed</i>.
+I consider this reform as a valuable improvement in the language, because
+it brings a numerous class of words to be written as they are spoken; and
+the proportion of the reformed ones is already so considerable that
+analogy, or regularity of conjugation, requires us to complete the list.
+I have not carried this reform much farther than other poets have done
+before me. Examples might perhaps be found for nearly all the instances in
+which I have indulged it, such as <i>perisht</i>, <i>astonisht</i>, tho I have
+not been solicitous to seek them. The correction might well be extended to
+several remaining verbs of the same class; but it is difficult in this
+particular case to fix the proper limit.</p>
+
+<p>With regard to the apostrophe, as employed to mark the elision in the past
+tense of verbs, I have followed the example of the most accurate poets; who
+use it where the verb in the present tense does not end in <i>e</i>, as
+<i>furl'd</i>, because the <i>ed</i> would add a syllable and destroy the
+measure. But where the present tense ends in <i>e</i>, it is retained in
+the past with the <i>d</i>, as <i>robed</i>, because it does not add a
+syllable.</p>
+
+<p>The letter <i>k</i> we borrowed from the Greek, and the <i>c</i> from the
+Latin. The power of each of these letters at the end of a word is precisely
+the same; and the power of one is the same as that of both. Yet our early
+writers placed them both at the end of certain words, with the <i>c</i>
+before the <i>k</i>, as <i>musick</i>, <i>publick</i>, why they did not put the <i>k</i> first,
+as being the most ancient character, does not appear. Modern authors have
+rejected the <i>k</i> sit the end of this class of words; and no correct
+writer will think of replacing such an inconvenient appendage.</p>
+
+<p>The idea of putting a stop to innovation in a living language is absurd,
+unless we put a stop to thinking. When a language becomes fixt it becomes
+a dead language. Men must leave it for a living one, in which they can
+express their ideas with all their changes, extensions and corrections. The
+duty of the critic in this case is only to keep a steady watch over the
+innovations that are offered, and require a rigid conformity to the general
+principles of the idiom. Noah Webster, to whose philological labors our
+language will be much indebted for its purity and regularity, has pointed
+out the advantages of a steady course of improvement, and how it ought to
+be conducted. The Preface to his new Dictionary is an able performance. He
+might advantageously give it more development, with some correction, and
+publish it as a Prospectus to the great work he now has in hand.</p>
+
+<p>The uniform tendency of our language is towards simplicity as well as
+regularity. With this view the final e, in words where it is quite silent
+and useless, is dropping off, and will soon disappear. Having long
+since resigned the place it held in the greater part of these words, as
+<i>joye</i>, <i>ruine</i>, and more recently in some others, it must finally quit
+the remainder where it is still found a superfluous letter, as <i>active</i>,
+<i>decisive</i>, <i>determine</i>.</p>
+
+<p>We may even hazard a prediction that our whole class of adjectives ending
+in <i>ous</i> will be reformed and brought nearer to their pronunciation by
+rejecting the <i>o</i>. A similar change may be expected in words ending
+in <i>ss</i>. These words have already undergone one reform; they were
+formerly written with a final <i>e</i>, as <i>wildernesse</i>. They have
+lost the <i>e</i> because it was useless; and as the final <i>s</i> has now
+become equally useless, it might be dismissed with as little violence
+to the language. But these two projected innovations have not yet been
+ventured upon in any degree; and it is not desirable to be the first in so
+daring an enterprise, when it is not immediately important.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Columbiad, by Joel Barlow
+
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+</body>
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