Streams freed of gore their crystal course regain,
Serener sunbeams gild the tentless plain;
A general jubilee o’er earth and heaven
Leads the gay morn and lights the lambent even.
Rejoicing, confident of long repose,
(Their friends triumphant, far retired their foes)
The British colonies now feel their sway
Span the whole north and crowd the western day.
Acadia, Canada, earth’s total side,
From Slave’s long lake to Pensacola’s tide,
Expand their soils for them; and here unfold
A range of highest hope, a promised age of gold.
But soon from eastern seas dark vapors rise,
Sweep the vast Occident and shroud the skies,
Snatch all the vision from the Hero’s sight
And wrap the coast in sudden shades of night.
He turn’d, and sorrowful besought the Power:
Why sinks the scene, or must I view no more?
Must here the fame of that young world descend?
Shall our brave children find so quick their end?
Where then the promised grace? “Thou soon shalt see
That half mankind shall owe their home to thee.”
The Saint replied: Ere long, beneath thy view
The scene shall brighten and thy joys renew.
Here march the troublous years when goaded sore
Thy sons shall rise to change the ruling power;
When Albion’s prince, who sways the happy land,
To lawless rule extends his tyrant hand.
To bind in slavery’s bands the peaceful host,
Their rights unguarded and their charters lost.
Now raise thine eye; from this delusive claim
What nations leap to life, what deeds adorn their fame!
Columbus look’d; and still around them spread
From south to north the immeasurable shade;
At last the central darkness burst away,
And rising regions opened on the day,
Once more bright Delaware’s commercial stream
And Penn’s throng’d city cast a cheerful gleam;
The dome of state, as conscious of his eye,
Now seem’d to silver in a loftier sky,
Unfolding fair its gates; when lo, within
The assembled states in solemn Congress shine.
The sires elect from every province came,
Where wide Columbia bore the British name,
Where Freedom’s sons their highborn lineage34 trace,
And homebred bravery still exalts the race:
Her sons who plant each various vast domain
That Chesapeake’s uncounted currents drain;
The race who Roanoke’s clear stream bestride,
Who fell the pine on Appalachia’s side,
To Albemarle’s wide wave who trust their store,
Who dike proud Pamlico’s unstable shore,
Whose groaning barks o’erload the long Santee,
Wind through the realms and labor to the sea,
(Their cumbrous cargoes, to the sail consign’d,
Seek distant worlds, and feed and clothe mankind;)
The race whose rice-fields suck Savannah’s urn,
Whose verdant vines Oconee’s bank adorn;
Who freight the Delaware with golden grain,
Who tame their steeds on Monmouth’s flowery plain,
From huge Toconnok hills who drag their ore
And sledge their corn to Hudson’s quay-built shore,
Who keel Connecticut’s long meadowy tide,
With patient plow his fallow plains divide,
Spread their white flocks o’er Narraganset’s vale
Or chase to each chill pole the monstrous whale;
Whose venturous prows have borne their fame afar,
Tamed all the seas and steer’d by every star,
Dispensed to earth’s whole habitants their store
And with their biting flukes have harrow’d every shore.
The virtuous delegates behold with pain
The hostile Britons hovering o’er the main,
Lament the strife that bids two worlds engage
And blot their annals with fraternal rage;
Two worlds in one broad state, whose bounds bestride,
Like heaven’s blue arch, the vast Atlantic tide,
By language, laws and liberty combined,
Great nurse of thought, example to mankind.
Columbia rears her warning voice in vain,
Brothers to brothers call across the main;
Britannia’s patriots lend a listening ear,
But kings and courtiers push their mad career;
Dissension raves, the sheathless falchions glare,
And earth and ocean tremble at the war.
Thus with stern brow, as worn by cares of state,
His bosom big with dark unfolding fate,
High o’er his lance the sacred Eagle spread,
And earth’s whole crown still resting on his head,
Rome’s hoary Genius rose and mournful stood
On roaring Rubicon’s forbidden flood,
When Caesar’s ensigns swept the Alpine air,
Led their long legions from the Gallic war,
Paused on the opposing bank with wings unfurl’d,
And waved portentous o’er the shuddering world.
The god, with outstretcht arm and awful look,
Call’d the proud victor and prophetic spoke:
Arrest, my son, thy parricidious hate,
Pass not the stream nor stab my filial state,
Stab not thyself, thy friends, thy total kind
And worlds and ages in one state combined.
The chief, regardless of the warning god
Rein’d his rude steed and headlong past the flood,
Cried, farewell peace! took Fortune for his guide
And o’er his country pour’d the slaughtering tide.
High on the foremost seat in living light
Resplendent Randolph caught the world’s full sight.
He opes the cause, and points in prospect far
Through all the toils that wait impending war:
But, reverend sage! thy race must soon be o’er
To lend thy lustre and to shine no more.
So the mild morning star from shades of even
Leads up the dawn and lights the front of heaven,
Points to the waking world the sun’s broad way,
Then veils his own and vaults above the day.
And see bright Washington behind thee rise,
Thy following sun to gild our morning skies
O’er shadowy climes to pour enlivening flame,
The charms of freedom and the fire of fame.
For him the patriot bay beheld with pride
The hero’s laurel springing by its side;
His sword still sleeping rested on his thigh,
On Britain still he cast a filial eye;
But sovereign fortitude his visage bore,
To meet her legions on the invaded shore.
Sage Franklin next arose with cheerful mien
And smiled unruffled o’er the solemn scene;
His locks of age a various wreath embraced,
Palm of all arts that e’er a mortal graced;
Beneath him lay the sceptre kings had borne
And the tame thunder35 from the tempest torn.
Wythe, Mason, Pendleton with Henry join’d,
Rush, Rodney, Langdon, friends of humankind,
Persuasive Dickinson the former’s boast,
Recording Thomson pride of all the host,
Nash, Jay, the Livingstons, in council great,
Rutledge and Laurens held the rolls of fate,
O’er wide creation turn’d their ardent eyes
And bade the opprest to selfexistence rise;
All powers of state, in their extended plan,
Spring from consent, to shield the rights of man.
Undaunted Wolcott urged the holy cause,
With steady hand the solemn scene he draws;
Stern thoughtful temperance with his ardor join’d,
Nor kings nor worlds could warp his steadfast mind.
With graceful ease but energetic tones
And eloquence that shook a thousand thrones,
Majestic Hosmer stood; the expanding soul
Darts from his eyebeams while his accents roll.
But lo, the shaft of death untimely flew
And fell’d the
