Mound after mound impetuous Tigris rends,
Curved Ista folds whole countries in his bends,
Vast Orinoco, summon’d forth to bring
His far fetcht honors to the sateless king,
Drives on his own strong course to gain the shore,
But sends Catuba here with half his store;
Like a broad Bosphorus here Negro guides
The gather’d mass of fifty furious tides;
From his waste world, by nameless fountains fed,
Wild Purus wears his long and lonely bed;
O’er twelve degrees of earth Madera flows,
And robs the south of half its treasured snows;
Zingus, of equal length and heavier force,
Rolls on, for months, the same continuous course
To reach his master’s bank, that here constrains
Topayo, charged with all Brazilla’s rains;
While inland seas and lakes unknown to fame
Send their full tributes to the monarch stream;
Who, swell’d with growing conquest, wheels abroad,
Drains every land, and gathers all his flood,
Then far from clime to clime majestic goes,
Enlarging, widening, deepening as he flows;
Like heaven’s broad milky way he shines alone,
Spreads o’er the globe its equatorial zone,
Weighs the cleft continent and pushes wide
Its balanced mountains from each crumbling side.
Sire Ocean hears his proud Maragnon roar,
Moves up his bed and seeks in vain the shore,
Then surging strong, with high and hoary tide,
Whelms back the Stream and checks his rolling pride.
The Stream ungovernable foams with ire,
Climbs, combs tempestuous, and attacks the Sire;
Earth feels the conflict; onward still it spreads,
Her isles and uplands hide their woody heads;
League after league from land to water change,
From realm to realm the seaborn monsters range;
Vast midland heights but pierce the liquid plain,
Old Andes tremble for their proud domain;
Till the fresh Flood regains his forceful sway,
Drives back his father Ocean lasht with spray;
Whose ebbing waters lead the downward sweep,
And waves and trees and banks roll whirling to the deep.
Where suns less ardent cast their golden beams,
And minor Andes pour a waste of streams,
The marsh of Moxoe scoops the world, and fills
(From Bahia’s coast to Cochabamba’s hills)
A thousand leagues of bog; he strives in vain
Their floods to centre and their lakes retain;
His gulfs o’ercharged their opening sides display,
And southern vales prolong the seaward way.
Columbus traced, with swift exploring eye,
The immense of waves that here exalted lie,
The realms that mound the unmeasured magazine,
The far blue main, the climes that stretch between.
He saw Xaraya’s diamond banks unfold,
And Paraguay’s deep channel paved6 with gold,
Saw proud Potosi lift his glittering head
And pour down Plata through his tinctured bed.
Rich with the spoils of many a distant mine,
In his broad silver sea their floods combine;
Wide over earth his annual freshet strays
And her long months of gradual waste repays;
Her thirsty regions wait his glad return
And drink their future harvest from his urn.
Where the cold circles gird the southern sky,
Brave Magellan’s wild channel caught his eye;
The long cleft ridges wall’d the spreading way,
That gleams far westward to an unknown sea.
Soon as the distant swell was seen to roll,
His ancient wishes7 reabsorb’d his soul;
Warm from his heaving heart a sudden sigh
Burst through his lips; he turn’d his moisten’d eye
And thus besought his Angel: speak, my guide,
Where leads the pass? and what yon purple tide?
How the dim waves in blending ether stray!
No lands behind them rise, no pinions on them play.
There spreads, belike, that other unsail’d main
I sought so long, and sought, alas, in vain,
To gird this watery globe, and bring to light
Old India’s coast and regions wrapt in night.
Restore, celestial friend, my youthful morn,
Call back my years, and let my fame return;
Grant me to trace, beyond that pathless sea,
Some happier shore from lust of empire free,
To find in that far world a peaceful bower,
From envy safe and curst Ovando’s power.
Earth’s happiest realms let not their distance hide,
Nor seas forever roll their useless tide.
For nations yet unborn, that wait thy time,
Demand their seats in that secluded clime;
Ah, grant me still, their passage to prepare,
One venturous bark, and be my life thy care.
So pray’d the Hero; Hesper mild replies,
Divine compassion softening in his eyes:
Though still to virtuous deeds thy mind aspires,
And these glad visions kindle new desires,
Yet hear with reverence what attends thy state,
Nor wish to pass the eternal bounds of fate.
Led by this sacred light thou soon shalt see
That half mankind shall owe their home to thee;
Freedom’s first empire claim its promised birth
In these rich rounds of sea-encircled earth;
Let other years, by thine example prest,
Call forth their heroes to explore the rest.
Through different seas a twofold passage lies
To where sweet India scents a waste of skies.
The circling course, by Madagascar’s shores,
Round Afric’s cape, bold Gama now explores;
Thy well plann’d path these gleamy straits provide,
Nor long shall rest the daring search untried.
This idle frith must open soon to fame,
Here a lost Lusitanian8 fix his name,
From that new main in furious waves be tost
And fall neglected on the barbarous coast.
But lo the chief! bright Albion bids him rise,
Speed in his pinions, ardor in his eyes;
Hither, O Drake, display thy hastening sails,
Widen ye passes, and awake ye gales,
March thou before him, courteous king of day,
Wind his long course, illumine his pathless way;
Earth’s distant shores, in circling bands unite,
Lands, learn your fame, and oceans, roll in light
Round all the watery globe his flag be hurl’d,
A new Columbus to the astonisht world.
He spoke; and silent tow’rd the northern sky
Wide o’er the hills the Hero cast his eye,
Saw the long floods through devious channels pour
And wind their currents to the opening shore;
Interior seas and lonely lakes display
Their glittering glories to the beams of day.
Thy capes, Virginia, towering from the tide,
Raise their blue banks and slope thy barriers wide,
To future sails unfold an inland way
And guard secure thy multifluvian bay,
That drains uncounted realms and here unites
The liquid mass from Alleganian heights.
York leads his wave, imbankt in flowery pride,
And nobler James falls winding by his side;
Back to the hills, through many a silent vale,
Wild Rappahanock seems to lure the sail,
Patapsco’s bosom courts the hand to toil,
Dull Susquehanna laves a length of soil;
But mightier far, in sealike azure spread,
Potomac sweeps his earth disparting bed.
Long dwelt his eye where these commingling pour’d,
Their waves unkeel’d, their havens unexplored;
Where frowning forests stretch the dusky wing,
And deadly damps forbid the flowers to
