Beyond the power, beyond the wish of war;
For realms and ages forms the general aim,
Makes patriot views and moral views the same,
Works with enlighten’d zeal, to see combined
The strength and happiness of humankind.
Long had Columbus with delighted eyes
Markt all the changes that around him rise,
Lived through descending ages as they roll
And feasted still the still expanding soul;
When now the peopled regions swell more near,
And a mixt noise tumultuous stuns his ear.
At first, like heavy thunders roll’d in air,
Or the rude shock of cannonading war,
Or waves resounding on the craggy shore,
Hoarse roll’d the loud-toned undulating roar.
But soon the sounds like human voices rise,
All nations pouring undistinguisht cries;
Till more distinct the wide concussion grown
Rolls forth at times an accent like his own.
By turns the tongues assimilating blend,
And smoother idioms over earth ascend;
Mingling and softening still in every gale,
O’er discord’s din, harmonious tones prevail.
At last a simple universal sound
Winds through the welkin, sooths the world around,
From echoing shores in swelling strain replies
And moves melodious o’er the warbling skies.
Such wild commotions as he heard and view’d,
In fixt astonishment the Hero stood
And thus besought the Guide: Celestial friend,
What good to man can these dread scenes intend?
Some sore distress attends that boding sound
That breathed its hoarse tonations o’er the ground.
War sure hath ceased; or have my erring eyes
Misread the glorious visions of the skies?
Tell then, my Seer, if future earthquakes sleep,
Closed in the conscious caverns of the deep,
Waiting the day of vengeance, when to roll
And rock the rending pillars of the pole.
Or tell if aught more dreadful to my race
In these dark signs thy heavenly wisdom trace;
And why the loud discordance melts again
In the smooth glidings of a tuneful strain.
The guardian god replied: Thy fears give o’er;
War’s hosted hounds shall havoc earth no more;
No sore distress these signal sounds foredoom,
But give the pledge of peaceful years to come;
The tongues of nations here their accents blend,
Till one pure language through the world extend.
Thou know’st the tale of Babel; how the skies
Fear’d for their safety as they felt him rise,
Sent unknown jargons mid the laboring bands,
Confused their converse and unnerved their hands,
Dispersed the bickering tribes and drove them far
From peaceful toil to violence and war;
Bade kings arise with bloody flags unfurl’d,
Bade pride and conquest wander o’er the world,
Taught adverse creeds, commutual hatreds bred,
Till holy homicide the climes o’erspread.
—For that fine apologue, with mystic strain,
Gave like the rest a golden age51 to man,
Ascribed perfection to his infant state,
Science unsought and all his arts innate;
Supposed the experience of the growing race
Must lead him retrograde and cramp his pace,
Obscure his vision as his lights increast
And sink him from an angel to a beast.
’Tis thus the teachers of despotic sway
Strive in all times to blot the beams of day,
To keep him curb’d nor let him lift his eyes
To see where happiness, where misery lies.
They lead him blind, and o’er each newborn light
Cast their own shadows, renovate the night,
Crush every art that might the mind expand
And plant with demons every desert land;
That, fixt in straiten’d bounds, the lust of power
May ravage still and still the race devour,
An easy prey the hoodwinkt hordes remain,
And oceans roll and shores extend in vain.
Long have they reign’d; till now the race at last
Shake off their manacles, their blinders cast,
O’errule the crimes their fraudful foes produce,
By ways unseen to serve the happiest use,
Tempt the wide wave, probe every yielding soil,
Fill with their fruits the hardy hand of toil,
Unite their forces, wheel the conquering car,
Deal mutual death, but civilize by war.
Dear bought the experiment and hard the strife
Of social man, that rear’d his arts to life.
His passions wild that agitate the mind,
His reason calm, their watchful guide design’d,
While yet unreconciled, his march restrain,
Mislead the judgment and betray the man.
Fear, his first passion, long maintain’d the sway,
Long shrouded in its glooms the mental ray,
Shook, curb’d, controll’d his intellectual force
And bore him wild through many a devious course.
Long had his Reason, with experienced eye,
Perused the book of earth and scaled the sky,
Led fancy, memory, foresight in her train,
And o’er creation stretcht her vast domain;
Yet would that rival Fear her strength appal;
In that one conflict always sure to fall,
Mild Reason shunn’d the foe she could not brave,
Renounced her empire and remained a slave.
But deathless, though debased, she still could find
Some beams of truth to pour upon the mind;
And though she dared no moral code to scan,
Through physic forms she learnt to lead the man;
To strengthen thus his opening orbs of sight
And nerve and clear them for a stronger light.
That stronger light, from nature’s double codes,
Now springs expanding and his doubts explodes;
All nations catch it, all their tongues combine
To hail the human morn and speak the day divine.
At this blest period, when the total race
Shall speak one language and all truths embrace,
Instruction clear a speedier course shall find,
And open earlier on the infant mind.
No foreign terms shall crowd with barbarous rules
The dull unmeaning pageantry of schools;
Nor dark authorities nor names unknown
Fill the learn’d head with ignorance not its own;
But wisdom’s eye with beams unclouded shine,
And simplest rules her native charms define;
One living language, one unborrow’d dress
Her boldest flights with fullest force express;
Triumphant virtue, in the garb of truth,
Win a pure passage to the heart of youth,
Pervade all climes where suns or oceans roll
And warm the world with one great moral soul,
To see, facilitate, attain the scope
Of all their labor and of all their hope.
As early Phosphor, on his silver throne,
Fair type of truth and promise of the sun,
Smiles up the orient in his dew-dipt ray,
Illumes the front of heaven and leads the day;
Thus Physic Science with exploring eyes
First o’er the nations bids her beauties rise,
Prepares the glorious way to pour abroad
Her Sister’s brighter beams, the purest light of God.
Then Moral Science leads the lively mind
Through broader fields and pleasures more refined;
Teaches the temper’d soul, at one vast view,
To glance o’er time and look existence through,
See worlds and worlds, to being’s formless end,
With all their hosts on her prime power depend,
Seraphs and suns and systems, as they rise,
Live in her life and kindle from her eyes,
Her cloudless
