The Rising Glory of America

Now shall the adventurous muse attempt a themeMore new, more noble and more flush of fameThan all that went before--Now through the veil of ancient days renewThe period famed when first Columbus touchedThese 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,The tale of Cortez, furious chief, ordainedWith Indian blood to dye the sands, and choak,Famed Mexico, thy streams with dead? or whyOnce more revive the tale so oft rehearsedOf Atabilipa, by thirst of gold,(Too conquering motive in the human breast,)Deprived of life, which not Peru's rich oreNor Mexico's vast mines could then redeem?Better these northern realms demand our song,Designed by nature for the rural reign,For agriculture's toil.--No blood we shedFor metals buried in a rocky waste.--Cursed be that ore, which brutal makes our raceAnd prompts mankind to shed their kindred blood.

But whence aroseThat vagrant race who love the shady vale,And choose the forest for their dark abode?--For long has this perplext the sages' skillTo investigate.--Tradition lends no aidTo unveil this secret to the human eye,When first these various nations, north and south,Possest these shores, or from what countries came;Whether they sprang from some primæval headIn their own lands, like Adam in the east,--Yet this the sacred oracles deny,And reason, too, reclaims against the thought:For when the general deluge drowned the worldWhere could their tribes have found security,Where find their fate, but in the ghastly deep?--Unless, as others dream, some chosen fewHigh 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:This earth, say they, nor hills nor mountains knewEre 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,'Till by the winds assuaged, again they fell,And all their ragged bed exposed to view.Perhaps far wandering toward the northern poleThe streights of Zembla, and the frozen zone,And where the eastern Greenland almost joinsAmerica's north point, the hardy tribesOf banished Jews, Siberians, Tartars wildCame over icy mountains, or on floats,First reached these coasts, hid from the world beside.--And yet another argument more strange,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,While then perhaps the deep Atlantic roll'd,--Through the vast chasm, and laved the solid world;And traces indisputable remainOf this primæval land now sunk and lost.--The islands rising in our eastern mainAre but small fragments of this continent,Whose two extremities were NewfoundlandAnd St. Helena.--One far in the north,Where shivering seamen view with strange surprizeThe guiding pole-star glittering o'er their heads;The other near the southern tropic rearsIts head above the waves--Bermuda's isles,Cape Verd, Canary, Britain, and the Azores,With fam'd Hibernia, are but broken partsOf some prodigious waste, which once sustain'dNations and tribes, of vanished memory,Forests and towns, and beasts of every class,Where navies now explore their briny way.

Your sophistry, Eugenio, makes me smile;The roving mind of man delights to dwellOn 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,(The flimsy cobwebs of a sophist's brain)Hear what the voice of history proclaims:--The Carthagenians, ere the Roman yokeBroke their proud spirits, and enslaved them too,For navigation were renowned as muchAs haughty Tyre with all her hundred fleets.Full many a league their venturous seamen sailedThrough streight Gibraltar, down the western shoreOf Africa, to the Canary isles:By them called Fortunate; so Flaccus sings.Because eternal spring there clothes the fieldsAnd fruits delicious bloom throughout the year.--From voyaging here, this inference I draw,Perhaps some barque with all her numerous crewFalling to leeward of her destined port,Caught by the eastern Trade, was hurried onBefore 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.Doubtless they made these virgin climes their own,And in the course of long revolving yearsA numerous progeny from these arose,And spread throughout the coasts--those whom we callBrazilians, Mexicans, Peruvians rich,The tribes of Chili, Patagon, and thoseWho till the shores of Amazon's long stream.--When first the power of Europe here attained,Vast empires, kingdoms, cities, palacesAnd polished nations stock'd the fertile land.Who has not heard of Cusco, Lima, andThe town of Mexico--huge cities form'dFrom Indian architecture; ere the armsOf haughty Spain disturb'd the peaceful soil?--But here, amid this northern dark domain,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 aloneLife from the unaided genius of the ground,--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,--But what a change is here!--what arts arise!What towns and capitals! how commerce wavesHer gaudy flags, where silence reign'd before!

Speak, learned Eugenio, for I've heard you tellThe dismal story, and the cause that broughtThe first adventurers to these western shores!The glorious cause that urged our fathers firstTo visit climes unknown, and wilder woodsThan e'er Tartarian or Norwegian saw,And with fair culture to adorn a soilThat never felt the industrious swain before.

All this long story to rehearse, would tire;Besides, the sun towards the west retreats,Nor can the noblest theme retard his speed,Nor loftiest verse--not that which sang the fallOf Troy divine, and fierce Achilles' ire.--Yet hear a part:--By persecution wrongedAnd sacerdotal rage, our fathers cameFrom Europe's hostile shores to these abodes,Here to enjoy a liberty in faith,Secure from tyranny and base controul.For this they left their country and their friends,And plough'd the Atlantic wave in quest of peace;And found new shores, and sylvan settlements,And men, alike unknowing and unknown.Hence, by the care of each adventurous chiefNew governments (their wealth unenvied yet)Were form'd on liberty and virtue's plan.These searching out uncultivated tractsConceived new plans of towns, and capitals,And spacious provinces.--Why should I nameThee, Penn, the Solon of our western lands;Sagacious legislator, whom the worldAdmires, long dead: an infant colony,Nursed by thy care, now rises o'er the restLike that tall pyramid in Egypt's wasteO'er all the neighbouring piles, they also great.Why should I name those heroes so well known,Who peopled all the rest from CanadaTo Georgia's farthest coasts, West Florida,Or Apalachian mountains?--Yet what streamsOf blood were shed! what Indian hosts were slain,Before the days of peace were quite restored!

Yes, while they overturn'd the rugged soilAnd swept the forests from the shaded plain'Midst dangers, foes, and death, fierce Indian tribesWith vengeful malice arm'd, and black design,Oft murdered, or dispersed, these colonies--Encouraged, too, by Gallia's hostile sons,A warlike race, who late their arms display'd,At Quebec, Montreal, and farthest coastsOf Labrador, or Cape Breton, where nowThe British standard awes the subject host.Here, those brave chiefs, who, lavish of their blood,Fought in Britannia's cause, in battle fell!--What heart but mourns the untimely fate of Wolfe,Who, dying, conquered!--or what breast but beatsTo share a fate like his, and die like him!

But why alone commemorate the dead,And pass those glorious heroes by, who yetBreathe the same air, and see the light with us?--The dead, Leander, are but empty names,And they who fall to-day the same to usAs they who fell ten centuries ago!--Lost are they all that shined on earth before;Rome's boldest champions in the dust are laid,Ajax and great Achilles are no more,And Philip's warlike son, an empty shade!--A Washington among our sons of fameWill rise conspicuous as the morning starAmong the inferior lights:--To distant wilds Virginia sent him forth--With her brave sons he gallantly opposedThe bold invaders of his country's rights,Where wild Ohio pours the mazy flood,And mighty meadows skirt his subject streams.--But now delighting in his elm tree's shade,Where deep Potowmac laves the enchanting shore,He prunes the tender vine, or bids the soilLuxuriant harvests to the sun display.--Behold a different scene--not thus employedWere Cortez, and Pizarro, pride of Spain,Whom blood and murder only satisfied,And all to glut their avarice and ambition!--

Such is the curse, Acasto, where the soulHumane is wanting--but we boast no featsOf cruelty like Europe's murdering breed:--Our milder epithet is merciful,And each American, true hearted, learnsTo conquer, and to spare; for coward soulsAlone seek vengeance on a vanquished foe.Gold, fatal gold, was the alluring baitTo Spain's rapacious tribes--hence rose the warsFrom Chili to the Caribbean sea,And Montezuma's Mexican domains:More blest are we, with whose unenvied soilNature decreed no mingling gold to shine,No flaming diamond, precious emerald,No blushing sapphire, ruby, chrysolite,Or jasper red--more noble riches flowFrom agriculture, and the industrious swain,Who tills the fertile vale, or mountain's brow.Content to lead a safe, a humble life,Among his native hills, romantic shadesSuch as the muse of Greece of old did feign,Allured the Olympian gods from chrystal skies,Envying such lovely scenes to mortal man.

Long has the rural life been justly fam'd,And bards of old their pleasing pictures drewOf flowery meads, and groves, and gliding streams:Hence, old Arcadia--wood-nymphs, satyrs, fauns;And hence Elysium, fancied heaven below!--Fair agriculture, not unworthy kings,Once exercised the royal hand, or thoseWhose virtues raised them to the rank of gods.See old Laertes in his shepherd weedsFar from his pompous throne and court august,Digging the grateful soil, where round him rise,Sons of the earth, the tall aspiring oaks,Or orchards, boasting of more fertile boughs,Laden with apples red, sweet scented peach,Pear, cherry, apricot, or spungy plumb;While through the glebe the industrious oxen drawThe earth-inverting plough.--Those Romans too,Fabricius and Camillus, loved a lifeOf neat simplicity and rustic bliss,And from the noisy Forum hastening far,From busy camps, and sycophants, and crowns,'Midst woods and fields spent the remains of life,Where full enjoyment still awaits the wise.How grateful, to behold the harvests rise,And mighty crops adorn the extended plains!--Fair plenty smiles throughout, while lowing herdsStalk o'er the shrubby hill or grassy mead,Or at some shallow river slake their thirst.--The inclosure, now, succeeds the shepherd's care,Yet milk-white flocks adorn the well stock'd farm,And court the attention of the industrious swain.--Their fleece rewards him well, and when the windsBlow with a keener blast, and from the northPour mingled tempests through a sunless sky(Ice, sleet, and rattling hail) secure he sitsWarm in his cottage, fearless of the storm,Enjoying now the toils of milder moons,Yet hoping for the spring.--Such are the joys,And such the toils of those whom heaven hath bless'dWith souls enamoured of a country life.

Such are the visions of the rustic reign--But this alone, the fountain of support,Would scarce employ the varying mind of man;Each seeks employ, and each a different way:Strip Commerce of her sail, and men once moreWould be converted into savages;--No nation e'er grew social and refined'Till Commerce first had wing'd the adventurous prow,Or sent the slow-paced caravan, afar,To waft their produce to some other clime,And bring the wished exchange--thus came, of old,Golconda's golden ore, and thus the wealthOf Ophir, to the wisest of mankind.

Great is the praise of Commerce, and the menDeserve our praise, who spread the undaunted sail,And traverse every sea--their dangers great,Death still to combat in the unfeeling gale,And every billow but a gaping grave:--There, skies and waters, wearying on the eye,For weeks and months no other prospect yieldBut barren wastes, unfathomed depths, where notThe blissful haunt of human form is seenTo cheer the unsocial horrors of the way.--Yet all these bold designs to Science oweTheir rise and glory.--Hail, fair Science! thou,Transplanted from the eastern skies, dost bloomIn these blest regions.--Greece and Rome no moreDetain the Muses on Citheron's brow,Or old Olympus, crowned with waving woods,Or Hæmus' top, where once was heard the harp,Sweet Orpheus' harp, that gained his cause below,And pierced the souls of Orcus and his bride;That hush'd to silence by its voice divineThy melancholy waters, and the galesO Hebrus! that o'er thy sad surface blow.--No more the maids round Alpheus' waters stray,Where he with Arethusa's stream doth mix,Or where swift Tiber disembogues his wavesInto the Italian sea, so long unsung;Hither they wing their way, the last, the bestOf countries, where the arts shall rise and grow,And arms shall have their day;--even now we boastA Franklin, prince of all philosophy,A genius piercing as the electric fire,Bright as the lightning's flash, explained so well,By him, the rival of Britannia's sage.--This is the land of every joyous sound,Of liberty and life, sweet liberty!Without whose aid the noblest genius fails,And Science irretrievably must die.

But come, Eugenio, since we know the past--What hinders to pervade with searching eyeThe mystic scenes of dark futurity?Say, shall we ask what empires yet must rise,What kingdoms, powers and states, where now are seenMere dreary wastes and awful solitude,Where Melancholy sits, with eye forlorn,And time anticipates, when we shall spreadDominion from the north, and south, and west,Far from the Atlantic to Pacific shores,And people half the convex of the main!--A glorious theme!--but how shall mortals dareTo pierce the dark events of future yearsAnd scenes unravel, only known to fate?This might we do, if warmed by that bright coalSnatch'd from the altar of cherubic fireWhich touched Isaiah's lips--or if the spiritOf Jeremy and Amos, prophets old,Might swell the heaving breast--I see, I seeFreedom's established reign; cities, and men,Numerous as sands upon the ocean shore,And empires rising where the sun descends!--The Ohio soon shall glide by many a townOf note; and where the Mississippi stream,By forests shaded, now runs weeping on,Nations shall grow, and states not less in fameThan Greece and Rome of old!--we too shall boastOur Scipios, Solons, Catos, sages, chiefsThat in the lap of time yet dormant lie,Waiting the joyous hour of life and light.--O snatch me hence, ye muses, to those daysWhen, through the veil of dark antiquity,A race shall hear of us as things remote,That blossomed in the morn of days.--Indeed,How could I weep that we exist so soon,Just in the dawning of these mighty times,Whose scenes are painting for eternity!Dissentions that shall swell the trump of fame,And ruin hovering o'er all monarchy!

Nor shall these angry tumults here subsideNor murder cease, through all these provinces,Till foreign crowns have vanished from our viewAnd dazzle here no more--no more presumeTo awe the spirit of fair Liberty;--Vengeance must cut the thread,--and Britain, sureWill curse her fatal obstinacy for it!Bent on the ruin of this injured country,She will not listen to our humble prayers.Though offered with submission:Like vagabonds and objects of destruction,Like those whom all mankind are sworn to hate,She casts us off from her protection,And will invite the nations round about,Russians and Germans, slaves and savages,To come and have a share in our perdition.--O cruel race, O unrelenting Britain,Who bloody beasts will hire to cut our throats,Who war will wage with prattling innocence,And basely murder unoffending women!--Will stab their prisoners when they cry for quarter,Will burn our towns, and from his lodging turnThe poor inhabitant to sleep in tempests!--These will be wrongs, indeed, and all sufficientTo kindle up our souls to deeds of horror,And give to every arm the nerves of Samson--These are the men that fill the world with ruin,And every region mourns their greedy sway,--Not only for ambition----But what are this world's goods, that they for themShould exercise perpetual butchery?What are these mighty riches we possess,That they should send so far to plunder them?--Already have we felt their potent arm--And ever since that inauspicious day,When first Sir Francis BernardHis ruffians planted at the council door,And made the assembly room a home for vagrants,And soldiers, rank and file--e'er since that dayThis wretched land, that drinks its children's gore,Has been a scene of tumult and confusion!--Are there not evils in the world enough?Are we so happy that they envy us?Have we not toiled to satisfy their harpies,Kings' deputies, that are insatiable;Whose practice is to incense the royal mindAnd make us despicable in his view?--Have we not all the evils to contend withThat, in this life, mankind are subject to,Pain, sickness, poverty, and natural death--But into every wound that nature gaveThey will a dagger plunge, and make them mortal!

Enough, enough!--such dismal scenes you paint,I almost shudder at the recollection.--What! are they dogs that they would mangle us?--Are these the men that come with base designTo rob the hive, and kill the industrious bee!--To brighter skies I turn my ravished view,And fairer prospects from the future draw:--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.----

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,Myriads of saints, with their immortal king,To live and reign on earth a thousand years,Thence called Millennium. Paradise anewShall flourish, by no second Adam lost,No dangerous tree with deadly fruit shall grow,No tempting serpent to allure the soulFrom 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,Earth's curse before: the lion and the lambIn mutual friendship linked, shall browse the shrub.And timorous deer with softened tygers strayO'er mead, or lofty hill, or grassy plain;Another Jordan's stream shall glide along,And Siloah's brook in circling eddies flow:Groves shall adorn their verdant banks, on whichThe happy people, free from toils and death.Shall find secure repose. No fierce disease,No fevers, slow consumption, ghastly plague,(Fate's ancient ministers) again proclaimPerpetual 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 moreRage hostile to mankind--and, worse than all,The fiercer passions of the human breastShall kindle up to deeds of death no more,But all subside in universal peace.----Such days the world,And such America at last shall haveWhen ages, yet to come, have run their round,And future years of bliss alone remain.