Hernando

Soft!--or Columbus will detect your murmuring--This new found isle has re-instated himIn all our favours--see you yonder sands?--Why, if you see them, swear that they are gold,And gold like this shall be our homeward freight,Gladding the heart of Ferdinand the great,Who, when he sees it, shall say smilingly,"Well done, advent'rous fellows, you have brought"The treasure we expected and deserv'd!"--Hold!--I am wrong--there goes a savage manWith gold suspended from his ragged ears:I'll brain the monster for the sake of gold;There, savage, try the power of Spanish steel--'Tis of Toledo--true and trusty stuff!He falls! he falls! the gold, the gold is mine!First acquisition in this golden isle!--

Sweet sylvan scenes of innocence and ease,How calm and joyous pass the seasons here!No splendid towns or spiry turrets rise,No lordly palaces--no tyrant kingsEnact hard laws to crush fair freedom here;No gloomy jails to shut up wretched men;All, all are free!--here God and nature reign;Their works unsullied by the hands of men.--Ha! what is this--a murder'd wretch I see,His blood yet warm--O hapless islander,Who could have thus so basely mangled thee,Who never offer'd insult to our shore--Was it for those poor trinkets in your earsWhich by the custom of your tribe you wore,--Now seiz'd away--and which would not have weigh'dOne poor piastre!Is this the fruit of my discovery!If the first scene is murder, what shall followBut havock, slaughter, chains and devastationIn every dress and form of cruelty!O injur'd Nature, whelm me in the deep,And let not Europe hope for my return,Or guess at worlds upon whose threshold nowSo black a deed has just been perpetrated!--We must away--enjoy your woods in peace,Poor, wretched, injur'd, harmless islanders;--On Hayti's isle you say vast stores are foundOf this destructive gold--which without murderPerhaps, we may possess!--away, away!And southward, pilots, seek another isle,Fertile they say, and of immense extent:There we may fortune find without a crime.