COMMERCE[162]
That internal commerce only, promotes the morals of a country situated
like America, and prevents its growth of luxury,
and its consequent vices
To every clime, through every sea
The bold adventurer steers;
In bounding barque, through each degree
His country's produce bears.—
How far more blest to stay at home
Than thus on Neptune's wastes to roam,
Where fervors melt, or frosts congeal—
Ah ye! with toils and hardships worn,
Condemn'd to face the briny foam;
Ah! from such fatal projects turn
The wave-dividing keel.
The product of the furrow'd plain—
Transferr'd to foreign shores,
To pamper pride and please the vain
The reign of kings restores:
Hence, every vice the sail imports,
The glare of crowns, the pomp of courts,
And War, with all his crimson train!
Thus man design'd to till the ground,
A stranger to himself is found—
Is sent to toil on yonder wave,
Is made the dreary ocean's sport,
Since commerce first to avarice gave
To sail the ocean round.
How far more wise the grave Chinese,
Who ne'er remotely stray,
But bid the world surmount the seas
And hard-earn'd tribute pay.
Hence, treasure to their country flows
Freed from the danger, and the woes
Of distant seas and dreary shores.
There commerce breeds no foreign war;
At home they find their wants supplied,
And ask, why nations come so far
To seek superfluous stores?
Americans! why half neglect
The culture of your soil?
From distant traffic why expect
The harvest of your toil?
At home a surer harvest springs
From mutual interchange of things,
Domestic duties to fulfil.—
Vast lakes within your realm abound
Where commerce now expands her sail,
Where hostile navies are not found
To bend you to their will.
[162] From the edition of 1815.