Perceives his distance from their elder spheres
And guards with numerous moons the lonely round he steers.
Yes, bright Copernicus, thy beams far hurl’d
Shall startle well this intellectual world,
Break the delusive dreams of ancient lore,
New floods of light on every subject pour,
Through Physic Nature many a winding trace
And seat the Moral on her sister’s base.
Descartes with force gigantic toils alone,
Unshrines old errors and propounds his own;
Like a blind Samson, gropes their strong abodes,
Whelms deep in dust their temples and their gods,
Buries himself with those false codes they drew
And makes his followers frame and fix the true.
Bacon with every power of genius fraught,
Spreads over worlds his mantling wings of thought,
Draws in firm lines and tells in nervous tone
All that is yet and all that shall be known,
Withes Proteus Matter in his arms of might
And drags her tortuous secrets forth to light,
Bids men their unproved systems all forego,
Informs them what to learn, and how to know,
Waves the first flambeau through the night that veils
Egyptian fables and Phoenician tales,
Strips from all plundering Greece the cloak she wore
And shows the blunders of her borrow’d lore.
One vast creation, lately borne abroad,
Cheers the young nations like a nurturing god,
Breathes through them all the same wide searching soul.
Forms, feeds, refines and animates the whole,
Guards every ground they gain and forward brings
Glad science soaring on cerulean wings,
Instructs all men her golden gifts to prize
And catch new glories from her beamful eyes—
’Tis the prolific Press; whose tablet, fraught
By graphic Genius with his painted thought,
Flings forth by millions the prodigious birth
And in a moment stocks the astonisht earth.
Genius, enamor’d of his fruitful bride,
Assumes new force and elevates his pride.
No more, recumbent o’er his finger’d style,
He plods whole years each copy to compile,
Leaves to ludibrious winds the priceless page,
Or to chance fires the treasure of an age;
But bold and buoyant, with his sister Fame,
He strides o’er earth, holds high his ardent flame,
Calls up Discovery with her tube and scroll
And points the trembling magnet to the pole.
Hence the brave Lusitanians stretch the sail,
Scorn guiding stars and tame the midsea gale;
And hence thy prow deprest the boreal wain,
Rear’d adverse heavens, a second earth to gain,
Ran down old Night, her western curtain thirl’d
And snatcht from swaddling shades an infant world.
Rome, Athens, Memphis, Tyre! had you but known
This glorious triad, now familiar grown,
The Press, the Magnet faithful to its pole,
And earth’s own movement round her steadfast goal;
Ne’er had your science, from that splendid height,
Sunk in her strength nor seen succeeding night.
Her own utility had forced her sway,
All nations caught the fast extending ray,
Nature through all her kingdoms oped the road,
Resign’d her secrets and her wealth bestow’d;
Her moral codes a like dominion rear’d,
Freedom been born and folly disappear’d,
War and his monsters sunk beneath her ban
And left the world to reason and to man.
But now behold him bend his broader way,
Lift keener eyes and drink diviner day,
All systems scrutinize, their truths unfold,
Prove well the recent, well revise the old,
Reject all mystery, and define with force
The point he aims at in his laboring course—
To know these elements, learn how they wind,
Their wondrous webs of matter and of mind,
What springs, what guides organic life requires,
To move, rule, rein its ever-changing gyres,
Improve and utilise each opening birth
And aid the labors of this nurturing earth.
But chief their moral soul he learns to trace,
That stronger chain which links and leads the race;
Which forms and sanctions every social tie
And blinds or clears their intellectual eye.
He strips that soul from every filmy shade
That schools had caught, that oracles had made,
Relumes her visual nerve, develops strong
The rules of right, the subtle shifts of wrong;
Of civil power draws clear the sacred line,
Gives to just government its right divine,
Forms, varies, fashions, as his lights increase,
Till earth is fill’d with happiness and peace.
Already taught, thou know’st the fame that waits
His rising seat in thy confederate states:
There stands the model, thence he long shall draw
His forms of policy, his traits of law;
Each land shall imitate, each nation join
The well-based brotherhood, the league divine,
Extend its empire with the circling sun,
And band the peopled globe beneath its federal zone.
As thus he spoke, returning tears of joy
Suffused the Hero’s cheek and pearl’d his eye:
Unveil, said he, my friend, and stretch once more
Beneath my view that heaven-illumined shore;
Let me behold her silver beams expand
To lead all nations, lighten every land,
Instruct the total race and teach at last
Their toils to lessen and their chains to cast,
Trace and attain the purpose of their birth
And hold in peace this heritage of earth.
The Seraph smiled consent; the Hero’s eye
Watcht for the daybeam round the changing sky.
Book X
The vision resumed and extended over the whole earth—Present character of different nations—Future progress of society with respect to commerce; discoveries; inland navigation; philosophical, medical and political knowledge—Science of government—Assimilation and final union of all languages—Its effect on education and on the advancement of physical and moral science—The physical precedes the moral, as Phosphor precedes the Sun—View of a general Congress from all nations, assembled to establish the political harmony of mankind—Conclusion.
Hesper again his heavenly power display’d
And shook the yielding canopy of shade.
Sudden the stars their trembling fires withdrew,
Returning splendors burst upon the view,
Floods of unfolding light the skies adorn
And more than midday glories grace the morn.
So shone the earth, as if the sideral train,
Broad as full suns, had sail’d the ethereal plain;
When no distinguisht orb could strike the sight,
But one clear blaze of all surrounding light
O’erflow’d the vault of heaven. For now in view
Remoter climes and future ages drew;
Whose deeds of happier fame, in long array,
Call’d into vision, fill the newborn day.
Far as seraphic power could lift the eye,
Or earth or ocean bend the yielding sky,
Or circling suns awake the breathing gale,
Drake lead the way, or Cook extend the sail;
Where Behren sever’d, with adventurous prow,
Hesperia’s headland from Tartaria’s brow;
Where sage Vancouver’s patient leads were hurl’d,
Where Deimen stretcht his solitary world;
All lands, all seas that boast a present name
And all that unborn time shall give to fame
Around the Pair in bright expansion rise,
And earth in one vast level bounds the skies.
They saw
