High o’er his world as thus Columbus gazed,
And Hesper still the changing scene emblazed,
Round all the realms increasing lustre flew
And raised new wonders to the Patriarch’s view.
He saw at once, as far as eye could rove,
Like scattering herds, the swarthy people move
In tribes innumerable; all the waste,
Wide as their walks, a varying shadow cast.
As airy shapes, beneath the moon’s pale eye,
People the clouds that sail the midnight sky,
Dance through the grove and flit along the glade
And cast their grisly phantoms on the shade,
So move the hordes in thickets half conceal’d
Or vagrant stalking through the fenceless field.
Here tribes untamed, who scorn to fix their home,
O’er shadowy streams and trackless deserts roam;
While others there in settled hamlets rest,
And corn-clad vales a happier state attest.
Crowds of war painted chiefs, athirst for gore,
Beat their own breasts and tone their hideous roar;
From hill to hill the startling war song flies
And tribes on tribes in dread disorder rise,
Track the mute foe and scour the howling wood
Loud as a storm, ungovern’d as a flood;
Or deep in groves the silent ambush lay,
Lead the false flight, decoy and seize their prey,
Their captives torture, butcher for their food,
Suck the warm veins and grime their cheeks with blood.
In doubt he stood and question’d thus the seer,
What class of nature’s sons behold we here?
Their human frames with brutal souls combine,
No power can tame them and no arts refine;
Can these be fashion’d on the social plan,
Or boast a lineage with the race of man?
When found in that my first discover’d isle,
They used no force, and seem’d to know no guile.
A timorous herd like harmless roes they ran
And call’d us gods, from whom their tribes began.
But when, their fears allay’d, in us they trace
Men of this earth, a social mortal race,
When Spanish blood their eyes with joy beheld,
A frantic rage their changing bosoms swell’d;
They roused their bands from numerous hills afar
To feast their souls on ruin, waste and war;
Nor plighted vows nor sure defeat control
The same indignant savageness of soul.
Tell then, my seer, from what dire sons of earth
The brutal people drew their ancient birth;
If these forgotten shores and useless tides
Have form’d them different from the world besides,
Born to subjection, when in happier time
A nobler race should reach their fruitful clime;
Or if a common source all nations claim,
Their lineage, form and faculties the same,
What sovereign secret cause, yet undisplay’d,
This wondrous change in nature’s work has made;
Why various powers of soul and tints of face
In different lands diversify the race.
To whom the Guide: Unnumber’d causes lie
In earth and sea, in climate, soil and sky,
That fire the soul or damp the genial flame
And work their wonders on the human frame.
See beauty, form and color change with place;
Here charms of health the lively visage grace,
There pale diseases float in every wind,
Deform the figure, and degrade the mind.
From earth’s own elements thy race at first
Rose into life, the children of the dust;
These kindred elements, by various use,
Nourish the growth and every change produce,
In each ascending stage the man sustain,
His breath, his food, his physic and his bane.
In due proportions where these atoms lie,
A certain form their equal aids supply;
And while unchanged the efficient causes reign,
Age following age the certain form maintain.
But where crude atoms disproportion’d rise
And cast their sickening vapors round the skies,
Unlike that harmony of human frame,
That moulded first and reproduce the same,
The tribes ill form’d, attempering to the clime,
Still vary downward with the years of time;
More perfect some and some less perfect yield
Their reproductions in this wondrous field;
Till fixt at last their characters abide
And local likeness feeds their local pride.
The soul too, varying with the change of clime,
Feeble or fierce, or groveling or sublime,
Forms with the body to a kindred plan
And lives the same, a nation or a man.
Yet think not clime alone the tint controls,
On every shore, by altitude of poles;
A different cast the glowing zone demands,
In Paria’s groves, from Tombut’s11 burning sands.
Unheeded agents, for the sense too fine,
With every pulse, with every thought combine,
Through air and ocean with their changes run,
Breathe from the ground or circle with the sun.
Where these long continents their shores outspread,
See the same form all different tribes pervade.
Through all alike the fertile forests bloom,
And all, uncultured, shed a solemn gloom;
Through all, great nature’s boldest features rise,
Sink into vales or tower amid the skies;
Streams darkly winding stretch a broader sway,
The groves and mountains bolder walks display;
A dread sublimity informs the whole,
And rears a dread sublimity of soul.
Yet time and art shall other changes find,
And open still and vary still the mind.
The countless clans that tread these dank abodes,
Who glean spontaneous fruits and range the woods,
Fixt here for ages in their swarthy face
Display the wild complexion of the place.
Yet when the hordes to happy nations rise
And earth by culture warms12 the genial skies,
A fairer tint and more majestic grace
Shall flush their features and exalt the race;
While milder arts, with social joys refined,
Inspire new beauties in the growing mind.
Thy followers too, old Europe’s noblest pride,
When future gales shall wing them o’er the tide,
A ruddier hue and deeper shade shall gain
And stalk in statelier figures,13 on the plain.
While nature’s grandeur lifts the eye abroad
O’er these last labors of the forming God,
Wing’d on a wider glance the venturous soul
Bids greater powers and bolder thoughts unroll;
The sage, the chief, the patriot unconfined
Shield the weak world and meliorate mankind.
But think not thou, in all the range of man,
That different pairs each different cast began;
Or tribes distinct, by signal marks confest,
Were born to serve or subjugate the rest.
The Hero heard and thus resumed the strain:
Who led these wanderers o’er the dreary main?
Could their weak sires, unskill’d in human lore,
Build the bold bark to seek an unknown shore?
A shore so distant from the world beside,
So dark the tempests and so wild the tide,
That
