THE RISING EMPIRE[4]

On American Antiquity.[5]

America, to every climate known,
Spreads her broad bosom to the burning zone,
To either pole extends her vast domain
Where varying suns o'er different summers reign.
Wide wandering streams, vast plains, and pathless woods,
Bold shores, confined by circumscribing floods,
Denote this land, whose fertile, flowery breast
Teems with all life—and man, its nobler guest.
In days of old, from ocean's deepest bed,
Gulphs unexplored, and countries of the dead,
Rous'd by some voice, that shook all nature's frame,
From the vast depths this new creation came:
Perpetual change its varying nature feels,
The wave once flow'd that now with frost congeals,
Suns on its breast have shed a feebler fire,
Oceans have roll'd where mountains now aspire.
The soil's proud lord a changeful temper knows,
From differing earths his various nature grows:
Long, long before the time that sophists plan
Existed in these woods the race of man,
Warm'd into life by some creating flame,
All worlds pervading, and through all, the same!
Not from the west their swarthy tribes they brought,
As Europe's pride and Asia's folly taught;—
With the same ease the great disposing power
Produced a man, a reptile, or a flower:—
See the swift deer, in lonely wilds that strays,
See the tall elk, that in the valley plays,
See the fierce tiger's raging, ravenous band,
And wolves (their race as ancient as the land)
Did these of old from bleak Kamschatka come,
And traverse seas, to find a happier home?—
No?—from the dust, this common dust, they drew
Their different forms, proud man, that moulded you.
At first, half beasts, untaught to till the land,
Careless, you fed from Nature's fostering hand;
In depths of deserts dream'd your lives away,
Sought no new worlds, nor look'd beyond to-day:
The Almighty power, that lives and breathes through all,
Bade some faint rays on these dark nations fall;
Early, to them did reasoning souls impart,
Inventive genius, and some dawn of art;
Then left them here, with sense enough to win,
Or cheat the bear, or panther of his skin;
Mean huts to build, regardless of their form,
Completely blest, if shelter'd from the storm;
To see the seasons change, day turn to night:
Bow to the lamps of heaven that gave them light,
Beam'd on the spring, or bade the summer glow,
Their harvests ripen, and their gardens grow—

A View of Rhode Island[6]

Wash'd by surrounding seas, and bold her coasts,
A grateful soil the fair Rhode Island boasts.
The admiring eye no happier fields can trace,
Here seas are crowned with the scaly race,
Nature has strove to make her native blest
And owns no fairer Eden in the west:
Here lovliest dames in frequent circles seen,
Catch the fine tint of health from beauty's queen,
No aid they want to seize the enraptur'd view
Nor art's false colours to improve the true;
Here, love the traveller holds—loth to depart
Some charming creature slays his wandering heart,
Bids him forget from clime to clime to rove,
And even dull prudence—here—submits to love.
On grassy farms, their souls enslav'd to gain,
Reside the masters of the rural reign;
Vast herds they feed, that glut the abundant pail,
Break the stiff sod, or freight the adventurous sail;
The nervous steed, the stanchest of the kind
Here walks his rounds in pastures unconfin'd:—
Half that the lands produce or seas contain
To other shores transported o'er the main
Returns in coin, to cheer the miser's eye,
In foreign sweets, that fancied wants supply,
Or tawdry stuffs, to deck the limbs of pride,
That thus expends what avarice strove to hide.
But, hostile to themselves, this jarring race
In desperate interests, different plans embrace—
One, bold in wrong, his paper fabric rears
And steels his bosom to the orphan's tears
To those he ruin'd grants no late relief!
But leaves the wretched to subsist on grief!
In lost advice his days the gownsman spends,
He gives his prayers and teachings to the winds,—
In vain he tells of virtue's sure reward;
No words but this attract a swain's regard—
Talk not of Laws!—where innocence must fall,
One spark of honour more than damns them all;
And vainly Science her assistance lends
Where knavery shapes it to the basest ends,
Fraud walks at large,—each selfish passion reigns,
And cheats enforce what honesty disdains.
Hurt at the view, I leave the ungrateful shore
And thy rough soil, Connecticut, explore:

Terra Vulpina, or, the Land of Foxes[7]

Here fond remembrance stampt her much loved names,
Here boasts the soil its London and its Thames;
Through all her shores commodious ports abound,
Clear flow the waters of the unequal ground;
Cold nipping winds a lengthened winter bring,
Late rise the products of the unwilling spring,
The impoverished fields the labourer's pains disgrace,
And hawks and vultures scream through all the place;
The broken soil a nervous breed requires,
Where the rough glebe no generous crops admires—
Dame Nature meanly did her gifts impart,
But smiles to see how much is forced by art.
As Boreas keen, who guides their wintry reign,
All bow to lucre, all are bent on gain.
In contact close their neat abodes are thrown,
Its house, each acre; every mile, its town;
With glittering spire the frequent church is seen,[8]
Where yews and myrtles wave their gloomy green,
Where fast-day sermons tell the hungry guest
That a cameleon's dinner is the best:
There mobs of deacons awe the ungodly wight,
And hell's black master meets the unequal fight—
Eternal squabblings grease the lawyer's paw,
All have their suits, and all have studied Law:
With tongue, that Art and Nature taught to speak,
Some rave in Latin, some dispute in Greek:
Proud of their parts, in ancient lore they shine,
And one month's study makes a learned Divine;[9]
Bards of huge fame in every hamlet rise,
Each (in idea) of Virgilian size:
Even beardless lads a rhyming knack display—
Iliads begun, and finished in a day!
Rhymes, that of old on Blackmore's wheel were spun,
Come rattling down on Zion's reverend son;[10]
Madly presumed time's vortex to defy!
Things born to live an hour—then squeak and die.
Some, to grow rich, through Indian forests roam,
Some deem it best to stay and thrive at home:
In spite of all the priest and squire can say,
This world—this wicked world—will have its way;
Honest through fear, religious by constraint,
How hard to tell the sharper from the saint!—
Fond of discourse, with deep designing views
They pump the unwary traveller of his news;
Fond of that news, but fonder to be paid,
Each house a tavern, claims a tavern's trade,
While he that comes as surely hears them praise
The hospitality of modern days.
Yet, brave in arms, of enterprizing soul,
They tempt old Neptune to the farthest pole,
In learning's walks explore the mazy way,
(For genius there has shed his golden ray)
In war's bold art through many a contest tried
True to themselves, they took the nobler side,
And party feuds forgot, joined to agree
That power alone supreme—that left them free.

Massachusetts[11]

Here, in vast flocks, the fleecy nation strays,
Here, endless herds the upland meadow graze,
Here smiling plenty crowns the labourer's pain
And blooming beauty weds the industrious swain:
Were this thy all, what happier state could be!—
But avarice drives the native to the sea,
Fictitious wants all thoughts of ease controul,
Proud Independence sways the aspiring soul,
'Midst foreign waves, a stranger to repose,
Through the moist world the keen adventurer goes;
Not India's seas restrain his daring sail,
Far to the south he seeks the polar whale:
From those vast banks where frequent tempests rave,
And fogs eternal brood upon the wave,
There (furled his sail) his daring hold he keeps,
Drags from their depths the natives of those deeps;
Then to some distant clime explores his way,
Bold avarice spurs him on—he must obey.
Yet from such aims one great effect we trace
That holds in happier bonds this restless race;
Like some deep lake, by circling shores comprest,
Man's nature tends to universal rest:
Unfed by springs, that find some secret pass
To mix their current with the mightier mass,
Unmoved by moons, that some strange impulse guides
To lift its waters, and propel its tides,
Unvext by winds, that scowl across its waste,
Tear up the wave, and discompose its breast,
Soon would that lake (a putrid nuisance grown,)
Lose all its virtue, praised or prized by none:
Thus, avarice lends new vigour to mankind,
Not vainly planted in the unsteady mind;
With her, Ambition linked, they proudly drive,
Rule all our race, and keep the world alive.
Here, first, to quench her once loved Freedom's flame,
With their proud fleets, Britannia's warriors came;
Here, sure to conquer, she began her fires,
Here, sent her lords, her admirals, and her squires:
All, all too weak to effect the vast design[12]
For which we saw half Europe's arms combine,
Uncounted navies rove from main to main,
Threats, bribery, treachery—tried and tried again;
Mandate on mandate, edict, and decree,
To rivet fetters, and enslave the free!
Long, long from Boston's hills shall strangers gaze
On those vast mounds that magic seemed to raise;
Stupendous piles that hastened Britain's flight,
Extended hills, the offspring of a night!—
In that devoted town they hoped to stay
And, fed by rapine, sleep soft years away:
Vain hopes, vain schemes—the unconquered spirit rose
That still survived through all succeeding woes;
Imprisoned crowds, in cruel durance held,
Disarmed, restrained from honour's earliest field;
Imprisoned thousands, worn with poignant grief,
Now, half adoring, met their guardian chief,[A]
Whose thundering cannon bade the foe retreat,
Disgrace their portion, and their rout complete.

[A] Washington.—Freneau's note.