Or Chile bluffs or Plata flats the coast.
Where, clothed in splendor, his Atlantic way
Spreads the blue borders of Hesperian day,
From all his havens, with majestic sweep,
The swiftest boldest daughters of the deep
Swarm forth before him; till the cloudlike train
From pole to pole o’ersheet the whitening main.
So some primeval seraph, placed on high,
From heaven’s sublimest point o’erlookt the sky,
When space unfolding heard the voice of God,
And suns and stars and systems roll’d abroad,
Caught their first splendors from his beamful eye,
Began their years and vaulted round their sky;
Their social spheres in bright confusion play,
Exchange their beams and fill the newborn day.
Nor seas alone the countless barks behold;
Earth’s inland realms their naval paths unfold.
Her plains, long portless, now no more complain
Of useless rills and fountains nursed in vain;
Canals curve through them many a liquid line,
Prune their wild streams, their lakes and oceans join.
Where Darien hills o’erlook the gulfy tide,
Cleft in his view the enormous banks divide;
Ascending sails their opening pass pursue
And waft the sparkling treasures of Peru.
Moxoe resigns his stagnant world of fen,
Allures, rewards the cheerful toils of men,
Leads their long new made rivers round his reign,
Drives off the stench and waves his golden grain,
Feeds a whole nation from his cultured shore,
Where not a bird could skim the skies before.
From Mohawk’s mouth, far westing with the sun,
Long bright canals through all the midlands run,
Tap the redundant lakes, the broad hills brave,
And Hudson marry with Missouri’s wave.
From dim Superior, whose uncounted sails
Shade his full seas and bosom all his gales,
New paths unfolding seek Mackensie’s tide,
And towns and empires rise along their side;
Slave’s crystal highways all his north adorn,
Like coruscations from the boreal morn.
Proud Mississippi, tamed and taught his road,
Flings forth irriguous from his generous flood
Ten thousand watery glades; that, round him curl’d,
Vein the broad bosom of the western world.
From the red banks of Arab’s odorous tide
Their Isthmus opens and strange waters glide;
Europe from all her shores with crowded sails,
Looks through the pass and calls the Asian gales.
Volga and Obi distant oceans join,
Delighted Danube weds the wasting Rhine;
Elbe, Oder, Neister channel many a plain,
Exchange their barks and try each other’s main.
All infant streams and every mountain rill
Choose their new paths, some useful task to fill,
Each acre irrigate, re-road the earth
And serve at last the purpose of their birth.
Earth, garden’d all, a tenfold burden brings;
Her fruits, her odors, her salubrious springs
Swell, breathe and bubble from the soil they grace,
String with strong nerves the renovating race,
Their numbers multiply in every land,
Their toils diminish and their powers expand;
And while she rears them with a statelier frame
Their soul she kindles with diviner flame,
Leads their bright intellect with fervid glow
Through all the mass of things that still remain to know.
He saw the aspiring genius of the age
Soar in the Bard and strengthen in the Sage:
The Bard with bolder hand assumes the lyre,
Warms the glad nations with unwonted fire,
Attunes to virtue all the tones that roll
Their tides of transport through the expanding soul.
For him no more, beneath their furious gods,
Old ocean crimsons and Olympus nods,
Uprooted mountains sweep the dark profound
Or Titans groan beneath the rending ground.
No more his clangor maddens up the mind,
To crush, to conquer and enslave mankind,
To build on ruin’d realms the shrines of fame,
And load his numbers50 with a tyrant’s name.
Far nobler objects animate his tongue
And give new energies to epic song;
To moral charms he bids the world attend,
Fraternal states their mutual ties extend,
O’er cultured earth the rage of conquest cease,
War sink in night and nature smile in peace.
Soaring with science then he learns to string
Her highest harp, and brace her broadest wing,
With her own force to fray the paths untrod,
With her own glance to ken the total God,
Through heavens o’ercanopied by heavens behold
New suns ascend and other skies unfold,
Social and system’d worlds around him shine,
And lift his living strains to harmony divine.
The Sage with steadier lights directs his ken,
Through twofold nature leads the walks of men,
Remolds her moral and material frames,
Their mutual aids, their sister laws proclaims.
Disease before him with its causes flies,
And boasts no more of sickly soils and skies;
His well proved codes the healing science aid,
Its base establish and its blessing spread,
With long wrought life to teach the race to glow,
And vigorous nerves to grace the locks of snow.
From every shape that varying matter gives,
That rests or ripens, vegetates or lives,
His chymic powers new combinations plan,
Yield new creations, finer forms to man,
High springs of health for mind and body trace,
Add force and beauty to the joyous race,
Arm with new engines his adventurous hand,
Stretch o’er these elements his wide command,
Lay the proud storm submissive at his feet,
Change, temper, tame all subterranean heat,
Probe laboring earth, and drag from her dark side
The young Volcano, ere its force be tried;
Walk under ocean, ride the buoyant air,
Brew the soft shower, the labor’d land repair,
A fruitful soil o’er sandy deserts spread
And clothe with culture every mountain’s head.
Where system’d realms their mutual glories lend,
And well-taught sires the cares of state attend,
Through every maze of man they learn to wind,
Note each device that prompts the Proteus mind,
What soft restraints the tempered breast requires
To taste new joys and cherish new desires,
Expand the selfish to the social flame,
And rear the soul to deeds of nobler fame.
They mark, in all the past records of praise,
What partial views heroic zeal could raise;
What mighty states on others’ ruins stood
And built unsafe their haughty seats in blood;
How public virtue’s ever borrow’d name
With proud applauses graced the deeds of shame,
Bade each imperial standard wave sublime,
And wild ambition havoc every clime;
From chief to chief the kindling spirit ran,
Heirs of false fame and enemies of man.
Where Grecian states in even balance hung
And warm’d with jealous fires the patriot’s tongue,
The exclusive ardor cherisht in the breast
Love to one land and hatred to the rest.
And where the flames of civil discord rage,
And Roman arms with Roman arms engage,
The mime of virtue rises still the same
To build a Caesar’s as a Pompey’s name.
But now no more the patriotic mind,
To narrow views and local laws confined,
Gainst neighboring lands directs the public rage,
Plods for a clan or counsels for an age;
But soars to
