The subject proposed.—The discovery of America by Columbus.—A philosophical enquiry into the origin of the savages of America.—The first planters from Europe.—Causes of their migration to America.—The difficulties they encountered from the jealousy of the natives.—Agriculture descanted on.—Commerce and navigation.—Science.—Future prospects of British usurpation, tyranny, and devastation on this side the Atlantic.—The more comfortable one of Independence, Liberty and Peace.—Conclusion.
Acasto
Now shall the adventurous muse attempt a theme
More new, more noble and more flush of fame
Than all that went before—
Now through the veil of ancient days renew
The period famed when first Columbus touched5
These shores so long unknown—through various toils,
Famine, and death, the hero forced his way,
Through oceans pregnant with perpetual storms,
And climates hostile to adventurous man.
But why, to prompt your tears, should we resume,10
The tale of Cortez, furious chief, ordained
With Indian blood to dye the sands, and choak,
Famed Mexico, thy streams with dead? or why
Once more revive the tale so oft rehearsed
Of Atabilipa, by thirst of gold,15
(Too conquering motive in the human breast,)
Deprived of life, which not Peru's rich ore
Nor Mexico's vast mines could then redeem?
Better these northern realms demand our song,
Designed by nature for the rural reign,20
For agriculture's toil.—No blood we shed
For metals buried in a rocky waste.—
Cursed be that ore, which brutal makes our race
And prompts mankind to shed their kindred blood.
Eugenio
But whence arose25
That vagrant race who love the shady vale,
And choose the forest for their dark abode?—
For long has this perplext the sages' skill
To investigate.—Tradition lends no aid
To unveil this secret to the human eye,30
When first these various nations, north and south,
Possest these shores, or from what countries came;
Whether they sprang from some primæval head
In their own lands, like Adam in the east,—
Yet this the sacred oracles deny,35
And reason, too, reclaims against the thought:
For when the general deluge drowned the world
Where could their tribes have found security,
Where find their fate, but in the ghastly deep?—
Unless, as others dream, some chosen few40
High on the Andes 'scaped the general death,
High on the Andes, wrapt in endless snow,
Where winter in his wildest fury reigns,
And subtile æther scarce our life maintains.
But here philosophers oppose the scheme:45
This earth, say they, nor hills nor mountains knew
Ere yet the universal flood prevailed;
But when the mighty waters rose aloft,
Roused by the winds, they shook their solid base,
And, in convulsions, tore the deluged world,50
'Till by the winds assuaged, again they fell,
And all their ragged bed exposed to view.
Perhaps far wandering toward the northern pole
The streights of Zembla, and the frozen zone,
And where the eastern Greenland almost joins55
America's north point, the hardy tribes
Of banished Jews, Siberians, Tartars wild
Came over icy mountains, or on floats,
First reached these coasts, hid from the world beside.—
And yet another argument more strange,60
Reserved for men of deeper thought, and late,
Presents itself to view:—In Peleg's days,
(So says the Hebrew seer's unerring pen)
This mighty mass of earth, this solid globe,
Was cleft in twain,—"divided" east and west,65
While then perhaps the deep Atlantic roll'd,—
Through the vast chasm, and laved the solid world;
And traces indisputable remain
Of this primæval land now sunk and lost.—
The islands rising in our eastern main70
Are but small fragments of this continent,
Whose two extremities were Newfoundland
And St. Helena.—One far in the north,
Where shivering seamen view with strange surprize
The guiding pole-star glittering o'er their heads;75
The other near the southern tropic rears
Its head above the waves—Bermuda's isles,
Cape Verd, Canary, Britain, and the Azores,
With fam'd Hibernia, are but broken parts
Of some prodigious waste, which once sustain'd80
Nations and tribes, of vanished memory,
Forests and towns, and beasts of every class,
Where navies now explore their briny way.
Leander
Your sophistry, Eugenio, makes me smile;
The roving mind of man delights to dwell85
On hidden things, merely because they're hid:
He thinks his knowledge far beyond all limit,
And boldly fathoms Nature's darkest haunts;—
But for uncertainties, your broken isles,
Your northern Tartars, and your wandering Jews,90
(The flimsy cobwebs of a sophist's brain)
Hear what the voice of history proclaims:—
The Carthagenians, ere the Roman yoke
Broke their proud spirits, and enslaved them too,
For navigation were renowned as much95
As haughty Tyre with all her hundred fleets.
Full many a league their venturous seamen sailed
Through streight Gibraltar, down the western shore
Of Africa, to the Canary isles:
By them called Fortunate; so Flaccus sings.100
Because eternal spring there clothes the fields
And fruits delicious bloom throughout the year.—
From voyaging here, this inference I draw,
Perhaps some barque with all her numerous crew
Falling to leeward of her destined port,105
Caught by the eastern Trade, was hurried on
Before the unceasing blast to Indian isles,
Brazil, La Plata, or the coasts more south—
There stranded, and unable to return,
Forever from their native skies estranged.110
Doubtless they made these virgin climes their own,
And in the course of long revolving years
A numerous progeny from these arose,
And spread throughout the coasts—those whom we call
Brazilians, Mexicans, Peruvians rich,115
The tribes of Chili, Patagon, and those
Who till the shores of Amazon's long stream.—
When first the power of Europe here attained,
Vast empires, kingdoms, cities, palaces
And polished nations stock'd the fertile land.120
Who has not heard of Cusco, Lima, and
The town of Mexico—huge cities form'd
From Indian architecture; ere the arms
Of haughty Spain disturb'd the peaceful soil?—
But here, amid this northern dark domain,125
No towns were seen to rise.—No arts were here;
The tribes unskill'd to raise the lofty mast,
Or force the daring prow thro' adverse waves,
Gazed on the pregnant soil, and craved alone
Life from the unaided genius of the ground,—130
This indicates they were a different race;
From whom descended, 'tis not ours to say—
That power, no doubt, who furnish'd trees, and plants,
And animals to this vast continent,
Spoke into being man among the rest,—135
But what a change is here!—what arts arise!
What towns and capitals! how commerce waves
Her gaudy flags, where silence reign'd before!
Acasto
Speak, learned Eugenio, for I've heard you tell
The dismal story, and the cause that brought140
The first adventurers to these western shores!
The glorious cause that urged our fathers first
To visit climes unknown, and wilder woods
Than e'er Tartarian or Norwegian saw,
And with fair culture to adorn a soil145
That never felt the industrious swain before.
Eugenio