Sees in his hall the total semblance rise,
And mimics there the labors of the skies.
There student youths without their tubes behold
The spangled heavens their mystic maze unfold,
And crowded schools their cheerful chambers grace
With all the spheres that cleave the vast of space.
To guide the sailor in his wandering way
See Godfrey’s glass45 reverse the beams of day.
His lifted quadrant to the eye displays
From adverse skies the counteracting rays;
And marks, as devious sails bewilder’d roll,
Each nice gradation from the steadfast pole.
West46 with his own great soul the canvas warms,
Creates, inspires, impassions human forms,
Spurns critic rules, and seizing safe the heart,
Breaks down the former frightful bounds of Art;
Where ancient manners, with exclusive reign,
From half mankind withheld her fair domain.
He calls to life each patriot, chief or sage,
Garb’d in the dress and drapery of his age.
Again bold Regulus to death returns,
Again her falling Wolfe Britannia mourns;
Lahogue, Boyne, Cressy, Nevilcross demand
And gain fresh lustre from his copious hand;
His Lear stalks wild with woes, the gods defies,
Insults the tempest and outstorms the skies;
Edward in arms to frowning combat moves,
Or won to pity by the queen he loves,
Spares the devoted Six, whose deathless deed
Preserves the town his vengeance doom’d to bleed.
With rival force, see Copley’s pencil trace
The air of action and the charms of face.
Fair in his tints unfold the scenes of state,
The senate listens and the peers debate;
Pale consternation every heart appals,
In act to speak, when death-struck Chatham fails.
He bids dread Calpe cease to shake the waves,
While Elliott’s arm the host of Bourbon saves;
O’er sail-wing’d batteries sinking in the flood,
Mid flames and darkness, drencht in hostile blood,
Britannia’s sons extend their generous hand
To rescue foes from death and bear them to the land.
Fired with the martial deeds that bathed in gore
His brave companions on his native shore,
Trumbull with daring hand their fame recalls;
He shades with night Quebec’s beleagured walls,
Through flashing flames, that midnight war supplies,
The assailants yield, their great Montgomery dies.
On Bunker height, through floods of hostile fire,
His Putnam toils till all the troops retire,
His Warren, pierced with balls, at last lies low
And leaves a victory to the wasted foe.
Britannia too his glowing tint shall claim,
To pour new splendor on her Calpean fame;
He leads her bold sortie and from their towers
O’erturns the Gallic and Iberian powers.
See rural seats of innocence and ease,
High tufted towers and walks of waving trees,
The white waves dashing on the craggy shores,
Meandering streams and meads of mingled flowers,
Where nature’s sons their wild excursions tread,
In just design from Taylor’s pencil spread.
Stuart and Brown the moving portrait raise,
Each rival stroke the force of life conveys;
Heroes and beauties round their tablets stand,
And rise unfading from their plastic hand;
Each breathing form preserves its wonted grace,
And all the soul stands speaking in the face.
Two kindred arts the swelling statue heave,
Wake the dead wax and teach the stone to live.
While the bold chisel claims the rugged strife
To rouse the sceptred marble into life,
See Wright’s fair hands the livelier fire control,
In waxen forms she breathes impassion’d soul;
The pencil’d tint o’er moulded substance glows,
And different powers the peerless art compose.
Grief, rage and fear beneath her fingers start,
Roll the wild eye and pour the bursting heart;
The world’s dead fathers wait her wakening call,
And distant ages fill the storied hall.
To equal fame ascends thy tuneful throng,
The boast of genius and the pride of song;
Caught from the cast of every age and clime,
Their lays shall triumph o’er the lapse of time.
With lynx-eyed glance through nature far to pierce,
With all the powers and every charm of verse,
Each science opening in his ample mind,
His fancy glowing and his taste refined,
See Trumbull lead the train. His skilful hand
Hurls the keen darts of satire round the land.
Pride, knavery, dullness feel his mortal stings,
And listening virtue triumphs while he sings;
Britain’s foil’d sons, victorious now no more,
In guilt retiring from the wasted shore,
Strive their curst cruelties to hide in vain;
The world resounds them in his deathless strain.
On wings of faith to elevate the soul
Beyond the bourn of earth’s benighted pole,
For Dwight’s high harp the epic Muse sublime
Hails her new empire in the western clime.
Tuned from the tones by seers seraphic sung,
Heaven in his eye and rapture on his tongue,
His voice revives old Canaan’s promised land,
The long-fought fields of Jacob’s chosen band.
In Hanniel’s fate, proud faction finds its doom,
Ai’s midnight flames light nations to their tomb,
In visions bright supernal joys are given
And all the dark futurities of heaven.
While freedom’s cause his patriot bosom warms,
In counsel sage nor inexpert in arms,
See Humphreys glorious from the field retire,
Sheathe the glad sword and string the soothing lyre;
That lyre which erst, in hours of dark despair,
Roused the sad realms to finish well the war.
O’er fallen friends, with all the strength of woe,
Fraternal sighs in his strong numbers flow;
His country’s wrongs, her duties, dangers, praise,
Fire his full soul and animate his lays:
Wisdom and War with equal joy shall own
So fond a votary and so brave a son.
Book IX
Vision suspended—Night scene, as contemplated from the mount of vision—Columbus inquires the reason of the slow progress of science, and its frequent interruptions—Hesper answers, that all things in the physical, as well as the moral and intellectual world, are progressive in like manner—He traces their progress from the birth of the universe to the present state of the earth and its inhabitants; asserts the future advancement of society, till perpetual peace shall be established—Columbus proposes his doubts; alleges in support of them the successive rise and downfall of ancient nations; and infers future and periodical convulsions—Hesper, in answer, exhibits the great distinction between the ancient and modern state of the arts and of society—Crusades—Commerce—Hanseatic League—Copernicus—Kepler—Newton—Galileo—Herschel—Descartes—Bacon—Printing press—Magnetic Needle—Geographical discoveries—Federal system in America—A similar system to be extended over the whole earth—Columbus desires a view of this.
But now had Hesper from the Hero’s sight
Veil’d the vast world with sudden shades of night.
Earth, sea and heaven, where’er he turns his eye,
Arch out immense, like one surrounding sky
Lampt with reverberant fires. The starry train
Paint their fresh forms beneath the placid main;
Fair Cynthia here her face reflected
