Raised and resign’d his tide-created shore,
Call’d from his Ethiop hills their hardy swains
And waved their harvests o’er his newborn plains;
Earth’s richest realm from his tamed current sprung;
There nascent science toned her infant tongue,
Taught the young arts their tender force to try,
To state the seasons and unfold the sky;
Till o’er the world extended and refined,
They rule the destinies of humankind.
Now had Columbus well enjoy’d the sight
Of armies vanquisht and of fleets in flight,
From all Hesperia’s heaven the darkness flown,
And colon crowds to sovereign sages grown.
To cast new glories o’er the changing clime,
The guardian Power reversed the flight of time,
Roll’d back the years that led their course before,
Stretcht out immense the wild uncultured shore;
Then shifts the total scene, and rears to view
Arts and the men that useful arts pursue.
As o’er the canvas when the painter’s mind
Glows with a future landscape well design’d,
While Panorama’s wondrous aid he calls
To crowd whole realms within his circling walls,
Lakes, fields and forests, ports and navies rise,
A new creation to his kindling eyes;
He smiles o’er all; and in delightful strife
The pencil moves and calls the whole to life.
So while Columbia’s patriarch stood sublime
And saw rude nature clothe the trackless clime;
The green banks heave, the winding currents pour,
The bays and harbors cleave the yielding shore,
The champaigns spread, the solemn groves arise
And the rough mountains lengthen round the skies;
Through all their bounds he traced with skilful ken
The unform’d seats and future walks of men;
Markt where the field should bloom, the pennon play,
Great cities grow and empires claim their sway;
When, sudden waked by Hesper’s waving hand,
They rose obedient round the cultured land.
In western tracts, where still the wildmen tread,
From sea to sea an inland commerce spread;
On the dim streams and through the gloomy grove
The trading bauds their cumbrous burdens move;
Furs, peltry, drugs, and all the native store
Of midland realms descended to the shore.
Where summer suns, along the northern coast,
With feeble force dissolve the chains of frost,
Prolific waves the scaly nations trace
And tempt the toils of man’s laborious race.
Though rich Brazilian strands, beneath the tide,
Their shells of pearl and sparkling pebbles hide,
While for the gaudy prize, a venturous train
Plunge the dark deep and brave the surging main,
Drag forth the shining gewgaws into air
To stud a sceptre or emblaze a star;
Far wealthier stores these genial tides display,
And works less dangerous with their spoils repay.
The Hero saw the hardy crews advance,
Cast the long line and aim the barbed lance,
Load the deep floating barks, and bear abroad
To every land the life-sustaining food;
Renascent swarms by nature’s care supplied,
Repeople still the shoals and fin the fruitful tide.
Where southern streams through broad savannas bend,
The rice-clad vales their verdant rounds extend;
Tobago’s plant its leaf expanding yields,
The maize luxuriant clothes a thousand fields;
Steeds, herds and flocks o’er northern regions rove,
Embrown the hill and wanton through the grove.
The woodlands wide their sturdy honors bend,
The pines, the liveoaks to the shores descend,
There couch the keels, the crooked ribs arise,
Hulls heave aloft and mastheads mount the skies;
Launcht on the deep o’er every wave they fly,
Feed tropic isles and Europe’s looms supply.
To nurse the arts and fashion freedom’s lore
Young schools of science rise along the shore;
Great without pomp their modest walls expand,
Harvard and Yale and Princeton grace the land,
Penn’s student halls his youths with gladness greet,
On James’s bank Virginian Muses meet,
Manhattan’s mart collegiate domes command,
Bosom’d in groves, see growing Dartmouth stand;
Bright o’er its realm reflecting solar fires,
On yon tall hill Rhode Island’s seat aspires.
Thousands of humbler name around them rise,
Where homebred freemen seize the solid prize;
Fixt in small spheres, with safer beams to shine,
They reach the useful and refuse the fine,
Found, on its proper base, the social plan,
The broad plain truths, the common sense of man,
His obvious wants, his mutual aids discern,
His rights familiarize, his duties learn,
Feel moral fitness all its force dilate,
Embrace the village and comprise the state.
Each rustic here who turns the furrow’d soil,
The maid, the youth that ply mechanic toil,
In equal rights, in useful arts inured,
Know their just claims and see their claims secured;
They watch their delegates, each law revise,
Its faults designate and its merits prize,
Obey, but scrutinize; and let the test
Of sage experience prove and fix the best.
Here, fired by virtue’s animating flame,
The preacher’s task persuasive sages claim,
To mold religion to the moral mind,
In bands of peace to harmonize mankind,
To life, to light, to promised joys above
The soften’d soul with ardent hope to move.
No dark intolerance blinds the zealous throng,
No arm of power attendant on their tongue;
Vext Inquisition with her flaming brand
Shuns their mild march nor dares approach the land.
Though different creeds their priestly robes denote,
Their orders various and their rites remote,
Yet one their voice, their labors all combined,
Lights of the world and friends of humankind.
So the bright galaxy o’er heaven displays
Of various stars the same unbounded blaze;
Where great and small their mingling rays unite,
And earth and skies exchange the friendly light.
And lo, my son, that other sapient band,
The torch of science flaming in their hand!
Through nature’s range their searching souls aspire
Or wake to life the canvas and the lyre.
Fixt in sublimest thought, behold them rise
World after world unfolding to their eyes,
Lead, light, allure them through the total plan,
And give new guidance to the paths of man.
Yon meteor-mantled hill see Franklin tread,
Heaven’s awful thunders tolling o’er his head,
Convolving clouds the billowy skies deform,
And forky flames emblaze the blackening storm.
See the descending streams around him burn,
Glance on his rod and with his finger turn;
He bids conflicting fulminants expire
The guided blast, and holds the imprison’d fire.
No more, when doubling storms the vault o’erspread,
The livid glare shall strike thy race with dread,
Nor towers nor temples shuddering with the sound
Sink in the flames and shake the sheeted ground.
His well tried wires, that every tempest wait,
Shall teach mankind to ward the bolts of fate,
With pointed gold o’ertop the trembling spire
And lead from untoucht walls the harmless flre;
Fill’d with his fame while distant climes rejoice,
Wherever lightning shines or thunder rears its voice.
And see sage Rittenhouse with ardent eye
Lift the long tube and pierce the starry sky;
Clear in his view the circling planets roll,
And suns and satellites their course control.
He marks what laws the widest wanderers bind,
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