Where Freedom founds her everlasting reign,
And earth’s whole empires form the fair domain.
That great coloniarch, whose exalted soul
Pervades all scenes that future years unroll,
Must yield the palm and at a courtier’s shrine
His plans relinquish and his life resign;
His life that brightens, as his death shall stain
The fair, foul annals of his master’s reign.
That feeble band, the lonely wilds who tread,
Their sire, their genius in their Raleigh dead,
Shall pine and perish in the savage gloom
Or mount the wave and seek their ancient home.
Others in vain the generous task pursue,
The dangers tempt and all the strife renew;
While kings and ministers obstruct33 the plan,
Unfaithful guardians of the weal of man.
At last brave Delaware with his blithe host
Sails in full triumph to the well known coast,
Aids with a liberal hand the patriot cause,
Reforms their policy, designs their laws;
Till o’er Virginia’s plains they spread their sway
And push their hamlets tow’rd the setting day.
He comes, my Delaware! how mild and bland
My zephyrs greet him from the long-sought land!
From fluvial glades that through my cantons run,
From those rich mounds that mask the falling sun.
Borne up my Chesapeake, as first he hails
The flowery banks that scent his slackening sails,
Descending twilight mellows down the gleam
That spreads far forward on the broad blue stream;
The moonbeam dancing, as the pendants glide,
Silvers with trembling tints the ripply tide;
The sand-sown beach, the rocky bluff repays
The faint effulgence with their amber’d rays;
O’er greenwood glens a browner lustre flies
And bright-hair’d hills walk shadowy round the skies.
Profound solicitude and strong delight
Absorb the chief as through the waste of night
He walks the lonely deck and skirts the lands
That wait their nations from his guiding hands.
Tall through the tide the river gods by turns
Rise round the bark and blend their social urns;
Majestic brotherhood! each feels the power
To feed an empire from his future store,
They stand stupendous, flooding full the bay,
And pointing each through different climes the way.
Resplendent o’er the rest, the regent god
Potomac towers and sways the swelling flood;
Vines clothe his arms, wild fruits o’erfill his horn,
Wreaths of green maize his reverend brows adorn,
His silver beard reflects the lunar day,
And round his loins the scaly nations play.
The breeze falls calm, the sails in silence rest,
While thus his greetings cheer the stranger guest:
Blest be the bark that seized the promised hour
To waft thee welcome to this friendly shore.
Long have we learnt the fame that here awaits
The future sires of our unplanted states;
We all salute thee with our mingling tides,
Our high-fenced havens and our fruitful sides.
The hundred realms our myriad fountains drain
Shall lose their limits in the vast domain;
But my bold banks with proud impatience wait
The palm of glory in a work so great;
On me thy sons their central seat shall raise
And crown my labors with distinguisht praise.
For this, from rock-ribb’d lakes I forced my birth
And climb’d and sunder’d many a mound of earth,
Rent the huge hills that yonder heave on high
And with their tenfold ridges rake the sky,
Removed whole mountains in my headlong way,
Strow’d a strong soil around this branching bay,
Scoop’d wide his basins to the distant main
And hung with headlands every marsh they drain.
Haste then, my heroes, tempt the fearless toil,
Enrich your nations with the nurturing spoil;
O’er my vast vales let yellow harvests wave,
Quay the calm ports and dike the lawns I lave,
Win from the waters every stagnant fen,
Where truant rills escape my conscious ken;
And break those remnant rocks that still impede
My current crowding through the gaps I made.
So shall your barks pursue my branching bed,
Slope after slope, to every fountain’s head,
Seat your contiguous towns on all my shores
And charge my channel with their seaward stores.
Freedom and peace shall well reward your care,
My guardian mounds protect the friendly pair;
Or if delirious war shall dare draw nigh
And eastern storms o’ercast the western sky,
My soil shall rear the chief to guide your host
And drive the demon cringing from the coast;
Yon verdant hill his sylvan seat shall claim
And grow immortal from his deathless fame.
Then shall your federal towers my bank adorn
And hail with me the great millennial morn
That gilds your capitol. Thence earth shall draw
Her first clear codes of liberty and law;
There public right a settled form shall find,
Truth trim her lamp to lighten humankind,
Old Afric’s sons their shameful fetters cast,
Our wild Hesperians humanize at last,
All men participate, all time expand
The source of good my liberal sages plann’d.
This said, he plunges in the sacred flood;
That closes calm and lulls the cradled god.
Exulting at his words, the gallant crew
Brace the broad canvas and their course pursue:
For now the breathing airs, from ocean born,
Breeze up the bay, and lead the lively morn
That lights them to their port. ’Tis here they join
Their bold precursors in the work divine;
And here their followers, yet a numerous train,
Wind o’er the wave and swell the new domain.
For impious Laud, on England’s wasted shore
Renews the flames that Mary fed before;
Contristed sects his sullen fury fly
To seek new seats beneath a safer sky;
Where faith and freedom yield a forceful charm,
And toils and dangers every bosom warm.
Amid the tried unconquerable train,
Whom tyrants press and seas oppose in vain,
See Plymouth colons stretch their standards o’er,
Face the dark wildmen and the wintry shore;
See virtuous Baltimore ascend the wave,
See peaceful Penn its unknown terrors brave;
Swedes, Belgians, Gauls their various flags display,
Full pinions crowding on the watery way;
All from their different ports, their sails unfurl’d,
Point their glad streamers to the western world.
Book V
Vision confined to North America—Progress of the colonies—Troubles with the natives—Settlement of Canada—Spirit of the English and French colonies compared—Hostilities between France and England extended to America—Braddock’s defeat—Washington saves the relics of the English army—Actions of Abercrombie, Amherst, Wolfe—Peace—Darkness overspreads the continent—Apprehensions of Columbus from that appearance—Cause explained—Cloud bursts away in the centre—View of congress and of the different regions from which its members are delegated—Their endeavors to arrest the violence of England compared with those of the Genius of Rome to dissuade Caesar from passing the Rubicon—The demon War stalking over the ocean and leading on the English invasion—Conflagration of towns from Falmouth to Norfolk—Battle
