Have shunn’d the task and left the fame to me.
When first thy roving race, the Power replied,
Learn’d by the stars the devious sail to guide,
From stormy Hellespont explored the way
And sought the limits of the Midland sea,
Before Alcides form’d his impious plan
To check the sail and bound the steps of man,
This hand had led them to this rich abode
And braved the wrath of that strong demigod.
Driven from the Calpian strait, a hapless train
Roll’d on the waves that sweep the western main;
Storms from the orient blacken’d heaven with shade,
Nor sun nor stars could yield their wonted aid.
For many a darksome day o’erwhelm’d and tost,
Their sails, their oars in swallowing surges lost,
At length, the clouds withdrawn, they sad descry
Their course directing from their native sky.
No hope remains; far onward o’er the zone,
The trade wind bears them with the circling sun;
Till wreckt and stranded here, the sylvan coast
Receives to lonely seats the suffering host.
The fruitful vales invite their steps to roam
Renounce their sorrows and forget their home;
Revolving years their ceaseless wanderings led,
And from their sons descending nations spread.
These in the torrid tracts began their sway,
Whose cultured fields their growing arts display.
The northern tribes a later stock may boast,
A race descended from the Asian coast.
High in the arctic, where Anadir glides,
A narrow strait the impinging worlds divides;
There Tartar fugitives from famine sail,
And migrant tribes these fruitful shorelands hail.
He spoke; when Behren’s pass before them lay,
And moving nations on the margin stray
Thick swarming, venturous; sail and oar they ply
Climb on the surge and o’er the billows fly.
As when autumnal storms awake their force
The storks foreboding tempt their southern course,
From all the fields collecting throngs arise,
Mount on the wing and crowd along the skies;
Thus, to his eye, from bleak Tartaria’s shore,
Through isles and seas the gathering people pour,
Change their cold regions for a happier strand,
Leap from the wave and tread the welcome land,
In growing tribes extend their southern sway
And wander wide beneath a warmer day.
But why, the Chief replied, if ages past
Led the bold vagrants to so mild a waste,
If human souls for social compact given
Imprest their nature with the stamp of heaven,
Why the wild woods forever must they rove,
Nor arts nor social joys their passions move?
Long is the lapse of ages, since thy hand
Conducted here thy first adventurous band.
On other shores, in every eastern clime,
Since that unletter’d, distant tract of time,
What arts have sprung, imperial powers to grace!
What sceptres sway’d the many-master’d race!
Guilt, grandeur, glory from their seats been hurl’d
And dire divulsions shook the changing world!
Ere Rome’s first Eagle clave the frighted air,
Ere Sparta form’d her deathlike sons of war,
Ere Tyre and Ilion saw their towers arise,
Or Memphian pyramids usurpt the skies,
These tribes have forester’d the fruitful zone,
Their seats unsettled and their name unknown.
Hesper to this replied: A scanty train
In that far age approacht the wide domain;
The wide domain with game and fruitage crown’d
Supplied their food uncultured from the ground.
By nature form’d to rove, the human kind,
Of freedom fond, will ramble unconfined,
Till all the region fills, and rival right
Restrains their steps and bids their force unite;
When common safety builds a common cause,
Conforms their interest and inspires their laws,
By mutual checks their different manners blend,
Their fields bloom joyous and their walls ascend.
Here to the vagrant tribes no bounds arose,
They form’d no union, as they fear’d no foes;
Wandering and wild, from sire to son they stray
A thousand ages, scorning every sway.
And what a world their seatless tribes embraced!
A total hemisphere’s extended waste;
See the lands lengthen, see the rivers roll
To each blue main, each far dissunder’d pole!
But lo, at last the destined course is run,
The realms are peopled and their arts begun.
Where yon mid region elevated lies,
A few famed cities glitter to the skies;
There move in eastern pomp the toils of state,
And temples heave magnificently great.
The Hero turn’d to greet the novel sight,
When three far splendors, yet confusedly bright,
Rose like a constellation; till more near,
Distinctly markt their different sites appear;
Diverging still, beneath their roofs of gold,
Three cities gay their mural towers unfold.
So, led by visions of his guiding God,
The seer of Patmos o’er the welkin trod,
Saw the new heaven its flamy cope unbend
And walls and gates and spiry domes descend;
His well known sacred city grows, and gains
Her new built towers, her renovated fanes;
With golden skies and suns and rainbows crown’d
Jerusalem looks forth and lights the world around.
Bright on the north imperial Mexic rose,
A mimic morn her sparkling vanes disclose,
Her opening streets concentred hues display,
Give back the sun, and shed internal day;
The circling wall with guardian turrets frown’d
And lookt defiance to the realms around;
A glimmering lake without the wall retires,
Inverts the towers, and seems a grove of spires.
Proud o’er the midst, on columns lifted high,
A giant structure claims a loftier sky;
O’er the tall gates sublimer arches bend,
Courts larger lengthen, bolder walks ascend,
Starr’d with superior gems the porches shine
And speak the royal residence within.
There, deckt in state robes on his golden throne
Mid suppliant kings, dread Montezuma shone;
Mild in his eye a temper’d grandeur sate,
High seem’d his soul, with conscious power elate;
In aspect open, social and serene,
Enclosed by favorites, and of friends unseen.
Round the rich throne, in various lustre dight,
Gems undistinguisht cast a changing light;
Sapphire and emerald soften down the scene,
Cold azure mingling with the vernal green,
Pearl, amber, ruby warmer flames unfold
And diamonds brighten from the burning gold;
Through all the dome the living blazes blend
And shoot their rainbows where the arches bend.
On every ceiling, painted light and gay,
Symbolic forms their graphic art display,
Recording, confident of endless fame,
Each feat of arms, each patriarchal name,
Like Memphian hieroglyphs,14 to stretch the span
Of memory frail in momentary man.
Pour’d through the gates a hundred nations greet,
Throng the rich mart and line each ample street,
Ply different labors, walls and structures rear
Or till the fields or train the ranks of war.
Through spreading states the skirts of empire bend,
New temples rise and other plains extend;
Thrice ten wide provinces, in culture gay,
Bless the same king and daily firm the sway.
A smile benignant kindling in his eyes,
O happy realm! the glad Columbus cries;
Far in the midland, safe from every foe,
Thy
