Enough, enough!—such dismal scenes you paint,
I almost shudder at the recollection.—425
What! are they dogs that they would mangle us?—
Are these the men that come with base design
To rob the hive, and kill the industrious bee!—
To brighter skies I turn my ravished view,
And fairer prospects from the future draw:—430
Here independent power shall hold her sway,
And public virtue warm the patriot breast:
No traces shall remain of tyranny,
And laws, a pattern to the world beside,
Be here enacted first.——435
Acasto
And when a train of rolling years are past,
(So sung the exiled seer in Patmos isle)
A new Jerusalem, sent down from heaven.
Shall grace our happy earth,—perhaps this land,
Whose ample bosom shall receive, though late,440
Myriads of saints, with their immortal king,
To live and reign on earth a thousand years,
Thence called Millennium. Paradise anew
Shall flourish, by no second Adam lost,
No dangerous tree with deadly fruit shall grow,445
No tempting serpent to allure the soul
From native innocence.—A Canaan here,
Another Canaan shall excel the old,
And from a fairer Pisgah's top be seen.
No thistle here, nor thorn, nor briar shall spring,450
Earth's curse before: the lion and the lamb
In mutual friendship linked, shall browse the shrub.
And timorous deer with softened tygers stray
O'er mead, or lofty hill, or grassy plain;
Another Jordan's stream shall glide along,455
And Siloah's brook in circling eddies flow:
Groves shall adorn their verdant banks, on which
The happy people, free from toils and death.
Shall find secure repose. No fierce disease,
No fevers, slow consumption, ghastly plague,460
(Fate's ancient ministers) again proclaim
Perpetual war with man: fair fruits shall bloom,
Fair to the eye, and sweeter to the taste;
Nature's loud storms be hushed, and seas no more
Rage hostile to mankind—and, worse than all,465
The fiercer passions of the human breast
Shall kindle up to deeds of death no more,
But all subside in universal peace.——
Such days the world,
And such America at last shall have470
When ages, yet to come, have run their round,
And future years of bliss alone remain.
[45] The text is from the edition of 1809. The poem, given originally as the graduating address of Freneau and Brackenridge at Princeton, Brackenridge delivering it, was first published In 1772 at Philadelphia, by Joseph Crukshank, for R. Aitken, bookseller. This pamphlet edition is the only one extant of the original poem. Freneau reprinted his own part, with many modifications and additions, in the first edition of his poems, 1786, explaining it with the following note: "This poem is a little altered from the original (published in Philadelphia in 1772), such parts being only inserted here as were written by the author of this volume. A few more modern lines towards the conclusion are incorporated with the rest, being a supposed prophetical anticipation of subsequent events." The text of the edition of 1772, which is now exceedingly rare, is as follows:
A POEM ON THE RISING GLORY OF AMERICA
Being an Exercise delivered at the Public Commencement at Nassau-Hall, September 25, 1771.
Argument
The subject proposed.—The discovery of America by Columbus and others.—A philosophical enquiry into the origin of the savages of America.—Their uncultivated state.—The first planters of America.—The cause of their migration from Europe.—The difficulties they encountered from the resentment of the natives and other circumstances.—The French war in North America.—The most distinguished heroes who fell in it; Wolf, Braddock, &c.—General Johnson,—his character.—North America, why superior to South.—On Agriculture.—On commerce.—On science.—Whitefield,—his character.—The present glory of America.—A prospect of its future glory, in science,—in liberty,—and the gospel.—The conclusion of the whole.
Leander
No more of Memphis and her mighty kings.
Or Alexandria, where the Ptolomies
Taught golden commerce to unfurl her sails,
And bid fair science smile: No more of Greece
Where learning next her early visit paid,
And spread her glories to illume the world;
No more of Athens, where she flourished,
And saw her sons of mighty genius rise,
Smooth flowing Plato, Socrates and him
Who with resistless eloquence reviv'd
The spirit of Liberty, and shook the thrones
Of Macedon and Persia's haughty king.
No more of Rome, enlighten'd by her beams,
Fresh kindling there the fire of eloquence,
And poesy divine; imperial Rome!
Whose wide dominion reach'd o'er half the globe;
Whose eagle flew o'er Ganges to the East,
And in the West far to the British isles.
No more of Britain and her kings renown'd,
Edward's and Henry's thunderbolts of war;
Her chiefs victorious o'er the Gallic foe;
Illustrious senators, immortal bards,
And wise philosophers, of these no more.
A Theme more new, tho' not less noble, claims
Our ev'ry thought on this auspicious day;
The rising glory of this western world.
Where now the dawning light of science spreads
Her orient ray, and wakes the muse's song;
Where freedom holds her sacred standard high,
And commerce rolls her golden tides profuse
Of elegance and ev'ry joy of life.