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.