GREENFIELD HILL:

A POEM IN SEVEN PARTS

I. The prospect.
II. The flourishing village.
III.
The burning of Fairfield.
IV. The destruction of the Pequods.
V. The clergyman’s advice to the villagers.
VI.
The farmer’s advice to the villagers.
VII. The vision, or prospect of the future happiness of America.

ByTimothy Dwight NEW YORK: PRINTED BY CHILDS AND SWAINE1794

THE INTRODUCTION

In the Parish of Greenfield, in the Town of Fairfield, in Connecticut, there is a pleasant and beautiful eminence,
called Greenfield Hill; at the distance of three miles from Long-Island Sound. On this eminence, there is a small but
handsome Village, a Church, Academy, &c.; all of them alluded to in the following Poem. From the highest part of the
eminence, the eye is presented with an extensive and delightful prospect of the surrounding Country, and of the Sound.
On this height, the Writer is supposed to stand. The First object, there offering itself to his view, is the Landscape;
which is accordingly made the governing subject of the First Part of the Poem. The flourishing and happy condition of the
Inhabitants very naturally suggested itself next; and became of course, the subject of the Second Part. The Town of
Fairfield, lying in full view, and, not long before the Poem was begun, and in a great measure written out, burnt by
a party of British Troops, under the command of Governor Tryon, furnished the theme of the Third Part. A Field, called
the Pequod Swamp, in which, most of the warriors of that nation, who survived the invasion of their country by Capt. Mason, were destroyed, lying about three miles from the eminence abovementioned, and on the margin of the Sound, suggested not unnaturally, the subject of the Fourth Part.
1.

As the writer is the Minister of Greenfield, he cannot be supposed to be uninterested in the welfare of his Parishioners. To excite their attention to the truths and duties of Religion (an object in such a situation, instinctively rising to his view,) is the design of the Fifth Part; And to promote in them just sentiments and useful conduct, for the present life, (an object closely connected with the preceding one) of the Sixth.
2.

Many of the subjects, mentioned in the Poem, and suggested by the general state of this Country, easily led a contemplative mind to look forward, and call up to view its probable situation at a distant approaching period. The solid foundations, which appear to be laid for the future greatness and prosperity of the American Republic, offered very pleasing views of this subject to a Poet; and of these the writer has, in the Seventh Part of the Work, endeavoured to avail himself.
3.

To contribute to the innocent amusement of his countrymen, and to their improvement in manners, and in oeconomical, political, and moral sentiments, is
the object which the writer wishes to accomplish. As he is firmly persuaded, that his countrymen are furnished by Providence with as extensive and advantageous means of prosperity, as the world has hitherto seen, so he thinks it the duty and the interest of every citizen, to promote it, by all the means in his power. Poetry appears to him to be one, among the probable means of advancing this purpose. “Allow me to make the Songs of a nation,” said a wise man, “and who will may make their Laws.” Poetry may not, perhaps, produce greater effects in promoting the prosperity of mankind, than philosophy; but the effects which it produces, are far from being small. Where truth requires little illustration, and only needs to be set in a strong and affecting light, Poetry appears to be as advantageous an instrument of making useful impressions, as can be easily conceived. It will be read by many persons, who would scarcely look at a logical discussion; by most readers it will be more deeply felt, and more lastingly remembered; and, to say the least, it will, in the present case, be an unusual, and for that reason may be a forcible method of treating several subjects, handled in this Poem. 4.

When the writer began the work, he had no design of publishing it; aiming merely to amuse his own mind, and to gain a temporary relief from the

pressure of melancholy. Hence it was dropped, at an early period; when other avocations, or amusements presented themselves. The greater part of it was written seven years ago. Additions have been made to it, at different periods, from that time to the present– This will account for the dates of several things mentioned in it, which would otherwise seem to be improperly connected.
5.

Originally the writer designed to imitate, in the several parts, the manner of as many British Poets; but finding himself too much occupied, when he projected the publication, to pursue that design, he relinquished it. The little appearance of such a design, still remaining, was the result of distant and general recollection. Much, of that nature, he has rejected, and all he would have rejected, had not even that rejection demanded more time than he could afford for such a purpose. These facts will, he hopes, apologize to the reader, for the mixed manner which he may, at times, observe in the performance.

6.

Greenfield, June 13th, 1794

GREENFIELD HILL

A POEM

THE ARGUMENT

SPRING–General Prospect–View of the Inland Country–Of the beauty of Vegetation at the time of Harvest–
Of the happy state of the Inhabitants–Men esteemed in New-England according to their
personal qualities–State of New-England–Connecticut–State of Society in Europe
contrasted to that of New-England–People of New-England exhorted not to copy the Government,
Manners, &c.; of other nations–Remembrance of the late Councils and Armies of the United States–
Prospect of the Country between Greenfield Hill and the Sound–Description of the Sound–Retrospect
of the troubles occasioned by the British Marauding Parties–Wish for perpetual Peace–Beauty of the
Scenes of Nature–Happiness of a Clergyman in the Country–Address to the Clergy.7.

GREENFIELD HILL.

PART I.

THE PROSPECT

FROM southern isles, on winds of gentlest wing,  
Sprinkled with morning dew, and rob’d in green,  
Life in her eye, and music in her voice,  
Lo Spring returns, and wakes the world to joy!  
Forth creep the smiling herbs; expand the flowers; 5.
New-loos’d, and bursting from their icy bonds,  
The streams fresh-warble, and through every mead  
Convey reviving verdure; every bough,  
Full-blown and lovely, teems with sweets and songs;  
And hills, and plains, and pastures feel the prime. 10.

As round me here I gaze, what prospects rise?  
Etherial! matchless! such as Albion’s sons,  
Could Albion’s isle an equal prospect boast,  
In all the harmony of numerous song,  
Had tun’d to rapture, and o’er Cooper’s hill, 5.
And Windsor’s beauteous forest, high uprais’d,  
And sent on fame’s light wing to every clime.  
Far inland, blended groves, and azure hills,  
Skirting the broad horizon, lift their pride.  
Beyond, a little chasm to view unfolds 10.
Cerulean mountains, verging high on HEAVEN,  
In misty grandeur. Stretch’d in nearer view,  
Unnumber’d farms salute the cheerful eye;  
Contracted there to little gardens; here outspread  
Spacious, with pastures, fields, and meadows rich; 15.
Where the young wheat it’s glowing green displays,  
Or the dark soil bespeaks the recent plough,  
Or flocks and herds along the lawn disport.  

Fair is the landschape; but a fairer still  
Shall soon inchant the soul–when harvest full  
Waves wide its bending wealth. Delightful task!  
To trace along the rich, enamell’d ground,  
The sweetly varied hues; from India’s corn, 5.
Whose black’ning verdure bodes a bounteous crop,  
Through lighter grass, and lighter still the flax,  
The paler oats, the yellowish barley, wheat  
In golden glow, and rye in brighter gold.  
These soon the sight shall bless. Now other scenes 10.
The heart dilate, where round, in rural pride  
The village spreads its tidy, snug retreats,  
That speak the industry of every hand.  

How bless’d the sight of such a numerous train 
In such small limits, tasting every good  
Of competence, of independence, peace,  
And liberty unmingled; every house  
On its own ground, and every happy swain 5.
Beholding no superior, but the laws,  
And such as virtue, knowledge, useful life,  
And zeal, exerted for the public good,  
Have rais’d above the throng. For here, in truth,  
Not in pretence, man is esteem’d as man. 10.
Not here how rich, of what peculiar blood,  
Or office high; but of what genuine worth,  
What talents bright and useful, what good deeds,  
What piety to God, what love to man,  
The question is. To this an answer fair 15.
The general heart secures. Full many a rich,  
Vile knave, full many a blockhead, proud  
Of ancient blood, these eyes have seen float down  
Life’s dirty kennel, trampled in the mud,  
Stepp’d o’er unheeded, or push’d rudely on; 20.
While Merit, rising from her humble skiff  
To barks of nobler, and still nobler size,  
Sail’d down the expanding stream, in triumph gay,  
By every ship saluted.  

Hail, O hail  
My much-lov’d native land! New Albion hail!  
The happiest realm, that, round his circling course,  
The all-searching sun beholds. What though the breath  
Of Zembla’s winter shuts thy lucid streams, 5.
And hardens into brass thy generous soil;  
Though, with one white, and cheerless robe, thy hills,  
Invested, rise a long and joyless waste;  
Leafless the grove, and dumb the lonely spray,  
And every pasture mute: What though with clear 10.
And fervid blaze, thy summer rolls his car,  
And drives the languid herd, and fainting flock  
To seek the shrouding umbrage of the dale;  
While Man, relax’d and feeble, anxious waits  
The dewy eve, to slake his thirsty frame: 15.
What though thy surface, rocky, rough, and rude,  
Scoop’d into vales, or heav’d in lofty hills,  
Or cloud-embosom’d mountains, dares the plough,  
And threatens toil intense to every swain:  
What though foul Calumny, with voice malign, 20.
Thy generous sons, with every virtue grac’d,  
Accus’d of every crime, and still rolls down  
The kennell’d stream of impudent abuse:  
Yet to high HEAVEN my ardent praises rise,  
That in thy lightsome vales he gave me birth, 25.
All-gracious, and allows me still to live.  

Cold is thy clime, but every western blast  
Brings health, and life, and vigour on his wings;  
Innerves the steely frame, and firms the soul  
With strength and hardihood; awakes each bold  
And manly purpose; bears above the ills, 5.
That stretch, upon the rack, the languid heart  
Of summer’s maiden sons, in pleasure’s lap,  
Dandled to dull repose. Exertion strong  
Marks their whole life. Mountains before them sink  
To mole-hills; oceans bar their course in vain. 10.
Thro’ the keen wintry wind they breast their way,  
Or summer’s fiercest flame. Dread dangers rouse  
Their hearts to pleasing conflict; toils and woes,  
Quicken their ardour: while, in milder climes,  
Their peers effeminate they see, with scorn 15.
On lazy plains, dissolv’d in putrid sloth,  
And struggling hard for being. Thy rough soil  
Tempts hardy labour, with his sturdy team,  
To turn, with sinewy hand, the stony glebe,  
And call forth every comfort from the mould, 20.
Unpromising, but kind. Thy houses, barns,  
Thy granaries, and thy cellars, hence are stor’d  
With all the sweets of life: while, thro’ thy realm,  
A native beggar rarely pains the sight.  

Thy summer glows with heat; but choicest fruits  
Hence purple in the sun; hence sparkling flowers  
Gem the rich landschape; double harvests hence  
Load the full fields: pale Famine scowls aloof,  
And Plenty wantons round thy varied year. 5.

Rough is thy surface; but each landschape bright,  
With all of beauty, all of grandeur dress’d,  
Of mountains, hills, and sweetly winding vales,  
Of forests, groves, and lawns, and meadows green,  
And waters, varied by the plastic hand, 5.
Through all their fairy splendour, ceaseless charms,  
Poetic eyes. Springs bubbling round the year,  
Gay-wand’ring brooks, wells at the surface full,  
Yield life, and health, and joy, to every house,  
And every vivid field. Rivers, with foamy course, 10.
Pour o’er the ragged cliff the white cascade,  
And roll unnumber’d mills; or, like the Nile,  
Fatten the beauteous interval; or bear  
The sails of commerce through the laughing groves.  

With wisdom, virtue, and the generous love  
Of learning, fraught, and freedom’s living flame,  
Electric, unextinguishable, fir’d,  
Our Sires established, in thy cheerful bounds,  
The noblest institutions, man has seen, 5.
Since time his reign began. In little farms  
They measur’d all thy realms, to every child  
In equal shares descending; no entail  
The first-born lifting into bloated pomp,  
Tainting with lust, and sloth, and pride, and rage, 10.
The world around him: all the race beside,  
Like brood of ostrich, left for chance to rear,  
And every foot to trample. Reason’s sway  
Elective, founded on the rock of truth,  
Wisdom their guide, and equal good their end, 15.
They built with strength, that mocks the battering storm,  
And spurns the mining flood; and every right  
Dispens’d alike to all. Beneath their eye,  
And forming hand, in every hamlet, rose  
The nurturing school; in every village, smil’d 20.
The heav’n-inviting church, and every town  
A world within itself, with order, peace,  
And harmony, adjusted all its weal.  

Hence every swain, free, happy, his own lord,  
With useful knowledge fraught, of business, laws,  
Morals, religion, life, unaw’d by man,  
And doing all, but ill, his heart can wish,  
Looks round, and finds strange happiness his own; 5.
And sees that happiness on laws depend.  
On this heav’n-laid foundation rests thy sway;  
On knowledge to discern, and sense to feel,  
That free-born rule is life’s perennial spring  
Of real good. On this alone it rests. 10.
For, could thy sons a full conviction feel,  
That government was noxious, without arms,  
Without intrigues, without a civil broil,  
As torrents sweep the sand-built structure down,  
A vote would wipe it’s every trace away. 15.
Hence too each breast is steel’d for bold defence;  
For each has much to lose. Chosen by all,  
The messenger of peace, by all belov’d,  
Spreads, hence, the truth and virtue, he commends.  
Hence manners mild, and sweet, their peaceful sway 20.
Widely extend. Refinement of the heart  
Illumes the general mass. Even those rude hills,  
Those deep embow’ring woods, in other lands  
Prowl’d round by savages, the same soft scenes,  
Mild manners, order, virtue, peace, disclose; 25.
The howling forest polish’d as the plain,  

From earliest years, the same enlightened soul  
Founded bright schools of science. Here the mind  
Learn’d to expand it’s wing, and stretch it’s flight  
Through truth’s broad fields. Divines, and lawyers, hence,  
Physicians, statesmen, all with wisdom fraught, 5.
And learning, suited to the use of life,  
And minds, by business, sharpen’d into sense,  
Sagacious of the duty, and the weal,  
Of man, spring numberless; and knowledge hence  
Pours it’s salubrious streams, through all the spheres 10.
Of human life. Its bounds, and generous scope,  
Hence Education opens, spreading far  
Through the bold yeomanry, that fill thy climes,  
Views more expanded, generous, just, refin’d,  
Than other nations know. In other lands, 15.
The mass of man, scarce rais’d above the brutes,  
Drags dull the horsemill round of sluggish life:  
Nought known, beyond their daily toil; all else  
By ignorance’ dark curtain hid from sight.  
Here, glorious contrast! every mind, inspir’d 20.
With active inquisition, restless wings  
Its flight to every flower, and, settling, drinks  
Largely the sweets of knowledge.  

Candour, say,  
Is this a state of life, thy honest tongue  
Could blacken? These a race of men, thy page  
Could hand to infamy? The shameful task  
Thy foes at first began, and still thy foes, 5.
Laborious, weave the web of lies. ‘Tis hence  
The generous traveller round him looks, amaz’d,  
And wonders at our unexpected bliss.  

But chief, Connecticut! on thy fair breast  
These splendours glow. A rich improvement smiles  
Around thy lovely borders; in thy fields  
And all that in thy fields delighted dwell.  
Here that pure, golden mean, so oft of yore 5.
By sages wish’d, and prais’d, by Agur’s voice  
Implor’d, while God th’ approving sanction gave  
Of wisdom infinite; that golden mean,  
Shines unalloy’d; and here the extended good,  
That mean alone secures, is ceaseless found. 10.

Oh, would some faithful, wise, laborious mind,  
Develope all thy springs of bliss to man;  
Soon would politic visions fleet away,  
Before awakening truth! Utopias then,  
Ancient and new, high fraught with fairy good, 5.
Would catch no more the heart. Philosophy  
Would bow to common-sense; and man, from facts,  
And real life, politic wisdom learn.  

Ah then, thou favour’d land, thyself revere!  
Look not to Europe, for examples just 
Of order, manners, customs, doctrines, laws,  
Of happiness, or virtue. Cast around  
The eye of searching reason, and declare 5.
What Europe proffers, but a patchwork sway;  
The garment Gothic, worn to fritter’d shreds,  
And eked from every loom of following times.  
Such as the sway, the system shows entire,  
Of silly pomp, and meanness train’d t’ adore; 10.
Of wealth enormous, and enormous want;  
Of lazy sinecures, and suffering toil;  
Of grey-beard systems, and meteorous dreams;  
Of lordly churches, and dissention fierce,  
Rites farsical, and phrenzied unbelief. 15.
See thick and fell her lowering gibbets stand,  
And gibbets still employ’d! while, through thy realms,  
The rare-seen felon startles every mind  
And fills each mouth with news. Behold her jails  
Countless, and stow’d with wretches of all kinds! 20.
Her brothels, circling, with their tainted walls,  
Unnumber’d female outcasts, shorne from life,  
Peace, penitence, and hope; and down, down plung’d  
In vice’ unbottom’d gulph! Ye demons, rise,  
Rise, and look upward, from your dread abode; 25.
And, if you’ve tears to shed, distil them here!  
See too, in countless herds, the mistress vile,  
Even to the teeth of matron sanctity,  
Lift up her shameless bronze, and elbow out  
The pure, the chaste, the lovely angel-form 30.
Of female excellence! while leachers rank, and  
Bloated, call aloud on vengeance’ worms,  
To seize their prey, on this side of the grave.  
See the foul theatre, with Upaz steams,  
Impoisoning half mankind! See every heart 35.
And head from dunghills up to thrones, moon’d high  
With fashion, frippery, falling humbly down  
To a new head-dress; barbers, milliners,  
Taylors, and mantua-makers, forming GODs,  
Their fellow-millions worship! See the world 40.
All set to sale; truth, friendship, public trust,  
A nation’s weal, religion, scripture, oaths,  
Struck off by inch of candle! Mark the mien,  
Out-changing the Cameleon; pleasing all,  
And all deceiving! Mark the snaky tongue, 45.
Now lightly vibrating, now hissing death!  
See war, from year to year, from age to age,  
Unceasing, open on mankind the gates  
Of devastation; earth wet-deep with blood,  
And pav’d with corpses; cities whelm’d in flames; 50.
And fathers, brothers, husbands, sons, and friends,  
In millions hurried to th’ untimely tomb;  
To gain a wigwam, built on Nootka Sound,  
Or Falkland’s fruitful isles; or to secure  
That rare soap-bubble, blown by children wise, 55.
Floated in air, and ting’d with colours fine,  
Pursu’d by thousands, and with rapture nam’d  
National honour. But what powers suffice  
To tell the sands, that form the endless beach,  
Or drops, that fill the immeasurable deep. 60.

Say then, ah say, would’st thou for these exchange  
Thy sacred institutions? thy mild laws?  
Thy pure religion? morals uncorrupt?  
Thy plain and honest manners? order, peace,  
And general weal? Think whence this weal arose.5.
From the same springs it still shall ceaseless rise.  
Preserve the fountains sweet, and sweetest streams  
Shall still flow from them. Change, but change alone,  
By wise improvement of thy blessings rare;  
And copy not from others. Shun the lures 10.
Of Europe. Cherish still, watch, hold,  
And hold through every trial, every snare,  
All that is thine. Amend, refine, complete;  
But still the glorious stamina retain.  
Still, as of yore, in church, and state, elect 15.
The virtuous, and the wise; men tried, and prov’d,  
Of steady virtue, all thy weal to guide;  
And HEAVEN shall bless thee, with a parent’s hand.  

When round I turn my raptur’d eyes, with joy  
O’erflowing, and thy wonderous bliss survey,  
I love to think of those, by whom that bliss  
Was purchas’d; those firm councils, that brave band,  
Who nobly jeoparded their lives, their all, 5.
And cross’d temptation’s whirlpool, to secure,  
For us, and ours, this rich estate of good.  
Ye souls illustrious, who, in danger’s field,  
Instinct with patriot fire, each terror brav’d;  
And fix’d as these firm hills, the shock withstood 10.
Of war’s convulsing earthquake, unappall’d,  
Whilst on your labours gaz’d, with reverent eyes,  
The pleas’d and wondering world; let every good,  
Life knows, let peace, esteem, domestic bliss,  
Approving conscience, and a grateful land, 15.
Glory through every age, and HEAVEN at last,  
To crown the splendid scene, your toils reward.  

HEAVENs, what a matchless group of beauties rare  
Southward expands! where, crown’d with yon tall oak,  
Round-hill the circling land and sea o’erlooks;  
Or, smoothly sloping, Grover’s beauteous rise,  
Spreads it’s green sides, and lifts its single tree, 5.
Glad mark for seamen; or, with ruder face,  
Orchards, and fields, and groves, and houses rare,  
And scatter’d cedars, Mill-hill meets the eye;  
Or where, beyond, with every beauty clad,  
More distant heights in vernal pride ascend. 10.
On either side, a long, continued range,  
In all the charms of rural nature dress’d,  
Slopes gently to the main. Ere Tryon sunk  
To infamy unfathom’d, thro’ yon groves  
Once glister’d Norwalk’s white-ascending spires, 15.
And soon, if HEAVEN permit, shall shine again.  
Here, sky-encircled, Stratford’s churches beam;  
And Stratfield’s turrets greet the roving eye.  
In clear, full view, with every varied charm,  
That forms the finish’d landschape, blending soft 20.
In matchless union, Fairfield and Green’s Farms  
Give lustre to the day. Here, crown’d with pines  
And skirting groves, with creeks and havens fair  
Embellish’d, fed with many a beauteous stream,  
Prince of the waves, and ocean’s favorite child, 25.
Far westward fading in confusion blue,  
And eastward stretch’d beyond the human ken,  
And mingled with the sky, there Longa’s Sound  
Glorious expands. All hail! of waters first  
In beauties of all kinds; in prospects rich 30.
Of bays, and arms, and groves, and little streams,  
Inchanting capes and isles, and rivers broad,  
That yield eternal tribute to thy wave!  
In use supreme: fish of all kinds, all tastes,  
Scaly or shell’d, with floating nations fill 35.
Thy spacious realms; while, o’er thy lucid waves,  
Unceasing Commerce wings her countless sails.  
Safe in thy arms, the treasure moves along,  
While, beat by Longa’s coast, old ocean roars  
Distant, but roars in vain. O’er all thy bounds, 40.
What varied beauties, changing with the sun,  
Or night’s more lovely queen, here splendid glow.  
Oft, on thy eastern wave, the orb of light  
Refulgent rising, kindles wide a field  
Of mimic day, slow sailing to the west, 45.
And fading with the eve; and oft, through clouds,  
Painting their dark skirts on the glassy plain,  
The strong, pervading lustre marks th’ expanse,  
With streaks of glowing silver, or with spots  
Of burnish’d gold; while clouds, of every hue, 50.
Their purple shed, their amber, yellow, grey,  
Along the faithful mirror. Oft, at eve,  
Thron’d in the eastern sky, th’ ascending moon,  
Distain’d with blood, sits awful o’er the wave,  
And, from the dim dark waters, troubled calls 55.
Her dreary image, trembling on the deep,  
And boding every horror. Round yon isles,  
Where every Triton, every Nereid, borne  
From eastern climes, would find perpetual home,  
Were Grecian fables true, what charms intrance 60.
The fascinated eye! where, half withdrawn  
Behind yon vivid slope, like blushing maids,  
They leave the raptur’d gaze. And O how fair  
Bright Longa spreads her terminating shore,  
Commix’d with whit’ning cliffs, with groves obscure, 65.
Farms shrunk to garden-beds, and forests fallen  
To little orchards, slow-ascending hills,  
And dusky vales, and plains! These the pleas’d eye  
Relieve, engage, delight; with one unchang’d,  
Unbounded ocean, wearied, and displeas’d. 70.

Yet scarce six suns are pass’d, since these wide bounds,  
So still so lovely now, were wanton’d o’er  
By sails of British foes, with thunders dread  
Announcing desolation to each field,  
Each town, and hamlet; in the sheltering night 5.
Wasting base throngs of plunderers to our coast,  
The bed of peace invading; herds and flocks  
Purloining from the swain; and oft the house  
Of innocence and peace, in cruel flames  
With fell revenge, encircling. Now, afar 10.
With shame retir’d, his bands no more, no more  
(And oh may HEAVEN the fond prediction seal)  
Shall hostile bands, from earth’s extended bounds,  
Th’ infernal task resume. Henceforth, through time,  
To peace devoted, ’till millenian suns 15.
Call forth returning Eden, arts of peace  
Shall triumph here. Speed, oh speed, ye days  
Of bliss divine! when all-involving HEAVEN,  
The mystery finish’d, come the second birth  
Of this sin-ruin’d, this apostate world, 20.
And clos’d the final scene of wild misrule,  
All climes shall clothe again with life, and joy,  
With peace, and purity; and deathless spring  
Again commence her bright, etherial reign.  

O who can paint, like Nature? who can boast  
Such scenes, as here inchant the lingering eye?  
Still to thy hand, great parent of the year!  
I turn obsequious; still to all thy works  
Of beauty, grandeur, novelty, and power, 5.
Of motion, light, and life, my beating heart  
Plays unison; and, with harmonious thrill,  
Inhales such joys, as Avarice never knew.  

Ah! knew he but his happiness, of men  
Not the least happy he, who, free from broils,  
And base ambition, vain and bust’ling pomp,  
Amid a friendly cure, and competence,  
Tastes the pure pleasures of parochial life. 5.
What though no crowd of clients, at his gate,  
To falshood, and injustice, bribe his tongue,  
And flatter into guilt; what though no bright,  
And gilded prospects lure ambition on  
To legislative pride, or chair of state; 10.
What though no golden dreams entice his mind  
To burrow, with the mole, in dirt, and mire;  
What though no splendid villa, Eden’d round  
With gardens of enchantment, walks of state,  
And all the grandeur of superfluous wealth, 15.
Invite the passenger to stay his steed,  
And ask the liveried foot-boy, “who dwells here?”  
What though no swarms, around his sumptuous board,  
Of soothing flatterers, humming in the shine  
Of opulence, and honey, from its flowers, 20.
Devouring, ’till their time arrives to sting,  
Inflate his mind; his virtues, round the year,  
Repeating, and his faults, with microscope  
Inverted, lessen, till they steal from sight:  
Yet, from the dire temptations, these present, 25.
His state is free; temptations, few can stem;  
Temptations, by whose sweeping torrent hurl’d  
Down the dire steep of guilt, unceasing fall,  
Sad victims, thousands of the brightest minds,  
That time’s dark reign adorn; minds, to whose grasp 30.
HEAVEN seems most freely offer’d; to man’s eye,  
Most hopeful candidates for angels’ joys.  

His lot, that wealth, and power, and pride forbids,  
Forbids him to become the tool of fraud,  
Injustice, misery, ruin; saves his soul  
From all the needless labours, griefs, and cares,  
That avarice, and ambition, agonize; 5.
From those cold nerves of wealth, that, palsied, feel  
No anguish, but its own; and ceaseless lead  
To thousand meannesses, as gain allures.  

Though oft compell’d to meet the gross attack  
Of shameless ridicule, and towering pride,  
Sufficient good is his; good, real, pure,  
With guilt unmingled. Rarely forc’d from home,  
Around his board, his wife and children smile; 5.
Communion sweetest, nature here can give,  
Each fond endearment, office of delight,  
With love and duty blending. Such the joy,  
My bosom oft has known. His, too, the task,  
To rear the infant plants, that bud around; 10.
To ope their little minds to truth’s pure light;  
To take them by the hand, and lead them on,  
In that straight, narrow road, where virtue walks;  
To guard them from a vain, deceiving world;  
And point their course to realms of promis’d life. 15.

His too th’ esteem of those, who weekly hear  
His words of truth divine; unnumber’d acts  
Of real love attesting, to his eye,  
Their filial tenderness. Where’er he walks,  
The friendly welcome and inviting smile 5.
Wait on his steps, and breathe a kindred joy.  

Oft too in friendliest Association join’d,  
He greets his brethren, with a flowing heart,  
Flowing with virtue; all rejoic’d to meet,  
And all reluctant parting; every aim,  
Benevolent, aiding with purpose kind; 5.
While, season’d with unblemish’d cheerfulness,  
Far distant from the tainted mirth of vice,  
Their hearts disclose each contemplation sweet  
Of things divine; and blend in friendship pure,  
Friendship sublim’d by piety and love. 10.

All virtue’s friends are his: the good, the just,  
The pious, to his house their visits pay,  
And converse high hold of the true, the fair,  
The wonderful, the moral, the divine:  
Of saints, and prophets, patterns bright of truth, 5.
Lent to a world of sin, to teach mankind,  
How virtue, in that world, can live, and shine;  
Of learning’s varied realms; of Nature’s works;  
And that bless’d book, which gilds man’s darksome way,  
With light from HEAVEN; of bless’d MESSIAH’s throne 10.
And kingdom; prophesies divine fulfill’d,  
And prophesies more glorious, yet to come,  
In renovated days; of that bright world,  
And all the happy trains, which that bright world  
Inhabit, whither virtue’s sons are gone: 15.
While God the whole inspires, adorns, exalts,  
The source, the end, the substance, and the soul.  

This too the task, the bless’d, the useful task,  
To invigour order, justice, law, and rule;  
Peace to extend, and bid contention cease;  
To teach the words of life; to lead mankind  
Back from the wild of guilt, and brink of woe, 5.
To virtue’s house and family; faith, hope,  
And joy, t’ inspire; to warm the soul,  
With love to God, and man; to cheer the sad,  
To fix the doubting, rouse the languid heart;  
The wandering to restore; to spread with down, 10.
The thorny bed of death; console the poor,  
Departing mind, and aid its lingering wing.  

To him, her choicest pages Truth expands,  
Unceasing, where the soul-intrancing scenes,  
Poetic fiction boasts, are real all:  
Where beauty, novelty, and grandeur, wear  
Superior charms, and moral worlds unfold 5.
Sublimities, transporting and divine.  

Not all the scenes, Philosophy can boast,  
Tho’ them with nobler truths he ceaseless blends,  
Compare with these. They, as they found the mind,  
Still leave it; more inform’d, but not more wise.  
These wiser, nobler, better, make the man. 5.

Thus every happy mean of solid good  
His life, his studies, and profession yield.  
With motives hourly new, each rolling day  
Allures, through wisdom’s path, and truth’s fair field,  
His feet to yonder skies. Before him HEAVEN 5.
Shines bright, the scope sublime of all his prayers,  
The meed of every sorrow, pain, and toil.  

Then, O ye happy few! whom God allows  
To stand his messengers, in this bad world,  
And call mankind to virtue, weep no more,  
Though pains and toils betide you: for what life,  
On earth, from pains and toils was ever free? 5.
When Wealth and Pride around you gaily spread  
Their vain and transient splendour, envy not.  
How oft (let virtue weep!) is this their all?  
For you, in sunny prospect, daily spring  
Joys, which nor Pride can Taste, nor Wealth can boast; 10.
That, planted here, beyond the wintery grave  
Revive and grow with ever vernal bloom.  

Hail these, oh hail! and be ‘t enough for you,  
To ‘scape a world unclean; a life to lead  
Of usefulness, and truth; a Prince to serve,  
Who suffers no sincere and humble toil  
To miss a rich reward; in Death’s dark vale, 5.
To meet unbosom’d light; beyond the grave  
To rise triumphant, freed from every stain,  
And cloth’d with every beauty; in the sky  
Stars to outshine; and, round th’ eternal year,  
With saints, with angels, and with Christ, to reign. 10.

END OF THE FIRST PART.

PART II.

The FLOURISHING VILLAGE.

ARGUMENT.

View of the Village invested with the pleasing appearances of Spring–Recollection of the Winter–Pleasures of Winter–Of Nature and humble life–March–Original subject resumed–Freedom of the Villagers from manorial evils– Address to Competence, reciting its pleasures, charitable effects, virtues attendant upon it, and its utility to the public–Contrasted by European artificial society–Further effects of Competence on Society, particularly in improving the People at large– African appears–State of Negro Slavery in Connecticut– Effects of Slavery on the African, from his childhood through life–Slavery generally characterized–West-Indian Slavery– True cause of the calamities of the West-Indies–Church– Effects of the Sabbath–Academic School–School-master– House of Sloth–Female Worthy–Inferior Schools–Female Visit–What is not, and what is, a social female visit–Pleasure of living in an improving state of society, contrasted by the dullness of stagnated society–Emigrations to the Western Country–Conclusion.8.

FAIR Verna! loveliest village of the west;  
Of every joy, and every charm, possess’d;  
How pleas’d amid thy varied walks I rove,  
Sweet, cheerful walks of innocence, and love,  
And o’er thy smiling prospects cast my eyes, 5.
And see the seats of peace, and pleasure, rise,  
And hear the voice of Industry resound,  
And mark the smile of Competence, around!  
Hail, happy village! O’er thy cheerful lawns,  
With earliest beauty, spring delighted dawns; 10.
The northward sun begins his vernal smile;  
The spring-bird carols o’er the cressy rill:  
The shower, that patters in the ruffled stream,  
The ploughboy’s voice, that chides the lingering team,  
The bee, industrious, with his busy song, 15.
The woodman’s axe, the distant groves among,  
The waggon, rattling down the rugged steep,  
The light wind, lulling every care to sleep,  
All these, with mingled music, from below,  
Deceive intruding sorrow, as I go. 20.

How pleas’d, fond Recollection, with a smile,  
Surveys the varied round of wintery toil!  
How pleas’d, amid the flowers, that scent the plain,  
Recalls the vanish’d frost, and sleeted rain;  
The chilling damp, the ice-endangering street, 5.
And treacherous earth that slump’d beneath the feet.  

Yet even stern winter’s glooms could joy inspire:  
Then social circles grac’d the nutwood fire;  
The axe resounded, at the sunny door;  
The swain, industrious, trimm’d his flaxen store;  
Or thresh’d, with vigorous flail, the bounding wheat, 5.
His poultry round him pilfering for their meat;  
Or slid his firewood on the creaking snow;  
Or bore his produce to the main below;  
Or o’er his rich returns exulting laugh’d;  
Or pledg’d the healthful orchard’s sparkling draught: 10.
While, on his board, for friends and neighbours spread,  
The turkey smoak’d, his busy housewife fed;  
And Hospitality look’d smiling round,  
And Leisure told his tale, with gleeful sound.  

Then too, the rough road hid beneath the sleigh,  
The distant friend despis’d a length of way,  
And join’d the warm embrace, and mingling smile,  
And told of all his bliss, and all his toil;  
And, many a month elaps’d, was pleas’d to view 5.
How well the houshold far’d, the children grew;  
While tales of sympathy deceiv’d the hour,  
And Sleep, amus’d, resign’d his wonted power.  

Yes! let the proud despise, the rich deride,  
These humble joys, to Competence allied:  
To me, they bloom, all fragrant to my heart,  
Nor ask the pomp of wealth, nor gloss of art.  
And as a bird, in prison long confin’d, 5.
Springs from his open’d cage, and mounts the wind,  
Thro’ fields of flowers, and fragrance, gaily flies,  
Or re-assumes his birth-right, in the skies:  
Unprison’d thus from artificial joys,  
Where pomp fatigues, and fussful fashion cloys, 10.
The soul, reviving, loves to wander free  
Thro’ native scenes of sweet simplicity;  
Thro’ Peace’ low vale, where Pleasure lingers long,  
And every songster tunes his sweetest song,  
And Zephyr hastes, to breathe his first perfume, 15.
And Autumn stays, to drop his latest bloom:  
‘Till grown mature, and gathering strength to roam,  
She lifts her lengthen’d wings, and seeks her home.  

But now the wintery glooms are vanish’d all;  
The lingering drift behind the shady wall;  
The dark-brown spots, that patch’d the snowy field;  
The surly frost, that every bud conceal’d;  
The russet veil, the way with slime o’erspread, 5.
And all the saddening scenes of March are fled.  

Sweet-smiling village! loveliest of the hills!  
How green thy groves! How pure thy glassy rills!  
With what new joy, I walk thy verdant streets!  
How often pause, to breathe thy gale of sweets;  
To mark thy well-built walls! thy budding fields! 5.
And every charm, that rural nature yields;  
And every joy, to Competence allied,  
And every good, that Virtue gains from Pride!  

No griping landlord here alarms the door,  
To halve, for rent, the poor man’s little store.  
No haughty owner drives the humble swain  
To some far refuge from his dread domain;  
Nor wastes, upon his robe of useless pride, 5.
The wealth, which shivering thousands want beside;  
Nor in one palace sinks a hundred cots;  
Nor in one manor drowns a thousand lots;  
Nor, on one table, spread for death and pain,  
Devours what would a village well sustain. 10.

O Competence, thou bless’d by HEAVEN’s decree,  
How well exchang’d is empty pride for thee!  
Oft to thy cot my feet delighted turn,  
To meet thy chearful smile, at peep of morn;  
To join thy toils, that bid the earth look gay; 5.
To mark thy sports, that hail the eve of May;  
To see thy ruddy children, at thy board,  
And share thy temperate meal, and frugal hoard;  
And every joy, by winning prattlers giv’n,  
And every earnest of a future HEAVEN. 10.

There the poor wanderer finds a table spread,  
The fireside welcome, and the peaceful bed.  
The needy neighbour, oft by wealth denied,  
There finds the little aids of life supplied;  
The horse, that bears to mill the hard-earn’d grain; 5.
The day’s work given, to reap the ripen’d plain;  
The useful team, to house the precious food,  
And all the offices of real good.  

There too, divine Religion is a guest,  
And all the Virtues join the daily feast.  
Kind Hospitality attends the door,  
To welcome in the stranger and the poor;  
Sweet Chastity, still blushing as she goes; 5.
And Patience smiling at her train of woes;  
And meek-eyed Innocence, and Truth refin’d,  
And Fortitude, of bold, but gentle mind.  

Thou pay’st the tax, the rich man will not pay;  
Thou feed’st the poor, the rich man drives away.  
Thy sons, for freedom, hazard limbs, and life,  
While pride applauds, but shuns the manly strife:  
Thou prop’st religion’s cause, the world around, 5.
And shew’st thy faith in works, and not in sound.  

Say, child of passion! while, with idiot stare,  
Thou seest proud grandeur wheel her sunny car;  
While kings, and nobles, roll bespangled by,  
And the tall palace lessens in the sky;  
Say, while with pomp thy giddy brain runs round, 5.
What joys, like these, in splendour can be found?  
Ah, yonder turn thy wealth-inchanted eyes,  
Where that poor, friendless wretch expiring lies!  
Hear his sad partner shriek, beside his bed,  
And call down curses on her landlord’s head, 10.
Who drove, from yon small cot, her houshold sweet,  
To pine with want, and perish in the street.  
See the pale tradesman toil, the livelong day,  
To deck imperious lords, who never pay!  
Who waste, at dice, their boundless breadth of soil, 15.
But grudge the scanty meed of honest toil.  
See hounds and horses riot on the store,  
By HEAVEN created for the hapless poor!  
See half a realm one tyrant scarce sustain,  
While meagre thousands round him glean the plain! 20.
See, for his mistress’ robe, a village sold,  
Whose matrons shrink from nakedness and cold!  
See too the Farmer prowl around the shed,  
To rob the starving houshold of their bread;  
And seize, with cruel fangs, the helpless swain, 25.
While wives, and daughters, plead, and weep, in vain;  
Or yield to infamy themselves, to save  
Their sire from prison, famine, and the grave.  

There too foul luxury taints the putrid mind,  
And slavery there imbrutes the reasoning kind:  
There humble worth, in damps of deep despair,  
Is bound by poverty’s eternal bar:  
No motives bright the etherial aim impart, 5.
Nor one fair ray of hope allures the heart.  

But, O sweet Competence! how chang’d the scene,  
Where thy soft footsteps lightly print the green!  
Where Freedom walks erect, with manly port,  
And all the blessings to his side resort,  
In every hamlet, Learning builds her schools, 5.
And beggars’ children gain her arts, and rules;  
And mild Simplicity o’er manners reigns,  
And blameless morals Purity sustains.  

From thee the rich enjoyments round me spring,  
Where every farmer reigns a little king;  
Where all to comfort, none to danger, rise;  
Where pride finds few, but nature all supplies;  
Where peace and sweet civility are seen, 5.
And meek good-neighbourhood endears the green.  
Here every class (if classes those we call,  
Where one extended class embraces all,  
All mingling, as the rainbow’s beauty blends,  
Unknown where every hue begins or ends) 10.
Each following, each, with uninvidious strife,  
Wears every feature of improving life.  
Each gains from other comeliness of dress,  
And learns, with gentle mein to win and bless,  
With welcome mild the stranger to receive, 15.
And with plain, pleasing decency to live.  
Refinement hence even humblest life improves;  
Not the loose fair, that form and frippery loves;  
But she, whose mansion is the gentle mind,  
In thought, and action, virtuously refin’d. 20.
Hence, wives and husbands act a lovelier part,  
More just the conduct, and more kind the heart;  
Hence brother, sister, parent, child, and friend,  
The harmony of life more sweetly blend;  
Hence labour brightens every rural scene; 25.
Hence cheerful plenty lives along the green;  
Still Prudence eyes her hoard, with watchful care,  
And robes of thrift and neatness, all things wear.  

But hark! what voice so gaily fills the wind?  
Of care oblivious, whose that laughing mind?  
‘Tis yon poor black, who ceases now his song,  
And whistling, drives the cumbrous wain along.  
He never, dragg’d, with groans, the galling chain; 5.
Nor hung, suspended, on th’ infernal crane;  
No dim, white spots deform his face, or hand,  
Memorials hellish of the marking brand!  
No seams of pincers, scars of scalding oil;  
No waste of famine, and no wear of toil. 10.
But kindly fed, and clad, and treated, he  
Slides on, thro’ life, with more than common glee.  
For here mild manners good to all impart,  
And stamp with infamy th’ unfeeling heart;  
Here law, from vengeful rage, the slave defends, 15.
And here the gospel peace on earth extends.  

He toils, ’tis true; but shares his master’s toil;  
With him, he feeds the herd, and trims the soil;  
Helps to sustain the house, with clothes, and food,  
And takes his portion of the common good:  
Lost liberty his sole, peculiar ill, 5.
And fix’d submission to another’s will.  
Ill, ah, how great! without that cheering sun,  
The world is chang’d to one wide, frigid zone;  
The mind, a chill’d exotic, cannot grow,  
Nor leaf with vigour, nor with promise blow; 10.
Pale, sickly, shrunk, it strives in vain to rise,  
Scarce lives, while living, and untimely dies.  

See fresh to life the Afric infant spring,  
And plume its powers, and spread its little wing!  
Firm is it’s frame, and vigorous is its mind,  
Too young to think, and yet to misery blind.  
But soon he sees himself to slavery born; 5.
Soon meets the voice of power, the eye of scorn;  
Sighs for the blessings of his peers, in vain;  
Condition’d as a brute, tho’ form’d a man.  
Around he casts his fond, instinctive eyes,  
And sees no good, to fill his wishes, rise: 10.
(No motive warms, with animating beam,  
Nor praise, nor property, nor kind esteem,  
Bless’d independence, on his native ground,  
Nor sweet equality with those around;)  
Himself, and his, another’s shrinks to find, 15.
Levell’d below the lot of human kind.  
Thus, shut from honour’s paths, he turns to shame,  
And filches the small good, he cannot claim.  
To sour, and stupid, sinks his active mind;  
Finds joys in drink, he cannot elsewhere find; 20.
Rule disobeys; of half his labour cheats;  
In some safe cot, the pilfer’d turkey eats;  
Rides hard, by night, the steed, his art purloins;  
Serene from conscience’ bar himself essoins;  
Sees from himself his sole redress must flow, 25.
And makes revenge the balsam of his woe.  

Thus slavery’s blast bids sense and virtue die;  
Thus lower’d to dust the sons of Afric lie.  
Hence sages grave, to lunar systems given,  
Shall ask, why two-legg’d brutes were made by HEAVEN;  
Home seek, what pair first peopled Afric’s vales, 5.
And nice Monboddo calculate their tails.  

O thou chief curse, since curses here began;  
First guilt, first woe, first infamy of man;  
Thou spot of hell, deep smirch’d on human kind,  
The uncur’d gangrene of the reasoning mind;  
Alike in church, in state, and houshold all, 5.
Supreme memorial of the world’s dread fall;  
O slavery! laurel of the Infernal mind,  
Proud Satan’s triumph over lost mankind!  

See the fell Spirit mount his sooty car!  
While Hell’s black trump proclaims the finish’d war;  
Her choicest fiends his wheels exulting draw,  
And scream the fall of God’s most holy law.  
In dread procession see the pomp begin, 5.
Sad pomp of woe, of madness, and of sin!  
Grav’d on the chariot, all earth’s ages roll,  
And all her climes, and realms, to either pole.  
Fierce in the flash of arms, see Europe spread!  
Her jails, and gibbets, fleets, and hosts, display’d! 10.
Awe-struck, see silken Asia silent bow!  
And feeble Afric writhe in blood below!  
Before, peace, freedom, virtue, bliss, move on,  
The spoils, the treasures, of a world undone;  
Behind, earth’s bedlam millions clank the chain, 15.
Hymn their disgrace, and celebrate their pain;  
Kings, nobles, priests, dread senate! lead the van,  
And shout “Te-Deum!” o’er defeated man.  

Oft, wing’d by thought, I seek those Indian isles,  
Where endless spring, with endless summer smiles,  
Where fruits of gold untir’d Vertumnus pours,  
And Flora dances o’er undying flowers.  
There, as I walk thro’ fields as Eden gay, 5.
And breathe the incense of immortal May,  
Ceaseless I hear the smacking whip resound;  
Hark! that shrill scream! that groan of death-bed sound!  
See those throng’d wretches pant along the plain,  
Tug the hard hoe, and sigh in hopeless pain! 10.
Yon mother, loaded with her sucking child,  
Her rags with frequent spots of blood defil’d,  
Drags slowly fainting on; the fiend is nigh;  
Rings the shrill cowskin; roars the tyger-cry;  
In pangs, th’ unfriended suppliant crawls along, 15.
And shrieks the prayer of agonizing wrong.  

Why glows yon oven with a sevenfold fire? 
Crisp’d in the flames, behold a man expire!  
Lo! by that vampyre’s hand, yon infant dies,  
It’s brains dash’d out, beneath it’s father’s eyes.  
Why shrinks yon slave, with horror, from his meat? 5.
HEAVENs! ’tis his flesh, the wretch is whipp’d to eat.  
Why streams the life-blood from that female’s throat?  
She sprinkled gravy on a guest’s new coat!  
[….. ] 
[….. ]10.

Why croud those quivering blacks yon dock around? 
Those screams announce; that cowskin’s shrilling sound.  
See, that poor victim hanging from the crane,  
While loaded weights his limbs to torture strain;  
At each keen stroke, far spouts the bursting gore, 5.
And shrieks, and dying groans, fill all the shore.  
Around, in throngs, his brother-victims wait,  
And feel, in every stroke, their coming fate;  
While each, with palsied hands, and shuddering fears,  
The cause, the rule, and price, of torment bears. 10.

Hark, hark, from morn to night, the realm around,  
The cracking whip, keen taunt, and shriek, resound!  
O’ercast are all the splendors of the spring;  
Sweets court in vain; in vain the warblers sing;  
Illusions all! ’tis Tartarus round me spreads 5.
His dismal screams, and melancholy shades.  
The damned, sure, here clank th’ eternal chain,  
And waste with grief, or agonize with pain.  
A Tartarus new! inversion strange strange of hell!  
Guilt wreaks the vengeance, and the guiltless feel. 10.
The heart, not form’d of flint, here all things rend;  
Each fair a fury, and each man a fiend;  
From childhood, train’d to every baleful ill,  
And their first sport, to torture, and to kill.  

Ask not, why earthquakes rock that fateful land;  
Fires waste the city; ocean whelms the strand;  
Why the fierce whirlwind, with electric sway,  
Springs from the storm, and fastens on his prey,  
Shakes HEAVEN, rends earth, upheaves the cumbrous wave, 5.
And with destruction’s besom fills the grave:  
Why dark disease roams swift her nightly round,  
Knocks at each door, and wakes the gasping sound.  

Ask, shuddering ask, why, earth-embosom’d sleep  
The unbroken fountains of the angry deep:  
Why, bound, and furnac’d, by the globe’s strong frame,  
In sullen quiet, waits the final flame:  
Why surge not, o’er yon isles it’s spouting fires, 5.
‘Till all their living world in dust expires.  
Crimes sound their ruin’s moral cause aloud,  
And all HEAVEN, sighing, rings with cries of brother’s blood.  

Beside yon church, that beams a modest ray,  
With tidy neatness reputably gay,  
When, mild and fair, as Eden’s seventh-day light,  
In silver silence, shines the Sabbath bright,  
In neat attire, the village housholds come, 5.
And learn the path-way to the eternal home.  
Hail solemn ordinance! worthy of the Skies;  
Whence thousand richest blessings daily rise;  
Peace, order, cleanliness, and manners sweet,  
A sober mind, to rule submission meet, 10.
Enlarging knowledge, life from guilt refin’d,  
And love to God, and friendship to mankind.  
In the clear splendour of thy vernal morn,  
New-quicken’d man to light, and life, is born;  
The desert of the mind with virtue blooms; 15.
It’s flowers unfold, it’s fruits exhale perfumes;  
Proud guilt dissolves, beneath the searching ray,  
And low debasement, trembling, creeps away;  
Vice bites the dust; foul Error seeks her den;  
And God, descending, dwells anew with men. 20.
Where yonder humbler spire salutes the eye,  
It’s vane slow turning in the liquid sky,  
Where, in light gambols, healthy striplings sport,  
Ambitious learning builds her outer court;  
A grave preceptor, there, her usher stands, 25.
And rules, without a rod, her little bands.  
Some half-grown sprigs of learning grac’d his brow:  
Little he knew, though much he wish’d to know,  
Inchanted hung o’er Virgil’s honey’d lay,  
And smil’d, to see desipient Horace play; 30.
Glean’d scraps of Greek; and, curious, trac’d afar,  
Through Pope’s clear glass, the bright Mæsonian star.  
Yet oft his students at his wisdom star’d,  
For many a student to his side repair’d,  
Surpriz’d, they heard him Dilworth’s knots untie, 35.
And tell, what lands beyond the Atlantic lie.  

Many his faults; his virtues small, and few;  
Some little good he did, or strove to do;  
Laborious still, he taught the early mind,  
And urg’d to manners meek, and thoughts refin’d;  
Truth he impress’d, and every virtue prais’d; 5.
While infant eyes, in wondering silence, gaz’d;  
The worth of time would, day by day, unfold,  
And tell them, every hour was made of gold.  
Brown Industry he lov’d; and oft declar’d  
How hardly Sloth, in life’s sad evening, far’d; 10.
Through grave examples, with sage meaning, ran,  
Whist was each form, and thus the tale began.  

“Beside yon lonely tree, whose branches bare  
Rise white, and murmur to the passing air,  
There, where the twining briars the yard enclose,  
The house of Sloth stands hush’d in long repose.”  

“In a late round of solitary care,  
My feet instinct to rove, they knew not where,  
I thither came. With yellow blossoms gay,  
The tall rank weed begirt the tangled way:  
Curious to view, I forc’d a path between, 5.
And climb’d the broken stile, and gaz’d the scene.”  

“O’er an old well, the curb half-fallen spread,  
Whose boards, end-loose, a mournful creaking made;  
Poiz’d on a leaning post, and ill-sustain’d,  
In ruin sad, a mouldering swepe remain’d;  
Useless, the crooked pole still dangling hung, 5.
And, tied with thrumbs, a broken bucket swung.”  

“A half-made wall around the garden lay,  
Mended, in gaps, with brushwood in decay.  
No culture through the woven briars was seen,  
Save a few sickly plants of faded green:  
The starv’d potatoe hung it’s blasted seeds, 5.
And fennel struggled to o’ertop the weeds,  
There gaz’d a ragged sheep, with wild surprise,  
And too lean geese upturn’d their slanting eyes.”  

“The cottage gap’d, with many a dismal yawn,  
Where, rent to burn, the covering boards were gone;  
Or, by one nail, where others endwise hung,  
The sky look’d thro’, and winds portentous rung.  
In waves, the yielding roof appear’d to run, 5.
And half the chimney-top was fallen down.”  

“The ancient cellar-door, of structure rude,  
With tatter’d garments calk’d, half open stood.  
There, as I peep’d, I saw the ruin’d bin;  
The sills were broke; the wall had crumbled in;  
A few, long-emptied casks lay mouldering round, 5.
And wasted ashes sprinkled o’er the ground;  
While, a sad sharer in the houshold ill,  
A half-starv’d rat crawl’d out, and bade farewell.”  

“One window dim, a loop-hole to the sight,  
Shed round the room a pale, penurious light;  
Here rags gay-colour’d eked the broken glass;  
There panes of wood supplied the vacant space.”  

“As, pondering deep, I gaz’d, with gritty roar,  
The hinges creak’d, and open stood the door.  
Two little boys, half-naked from the waist,  
With staring wonder, ey’d me, as I pass’d.  
The smile of Pity blended with her tear– 5.
Ah me! how rarely Comfort visits here!”  

“On a lean hammoc, once with feathers fill’d,  
His limbs by dirty tatters ill conceal’d,  
Tho’ now the sun had rounded half the day,  
Stretch’d at full length, the lounger snoring lay:  
While his sad wife, beside her dresser stood, 5.
And wash’d her hungry houshold’s meagre food,  
His aged sire, whose beard, and flowing hair,  
Wav’d silvery, o’er his antiquated chair,  
Rose from his seat; and, as he watch’d my eye,  
Deep from his bosom heav’d a mournful sigh– 10.
“Stranger, he cried, once better days I knew;”  
And, trembling, shed the venerable dew.  
I wish’d a kind reply; but wish’d in vain;  
No words came timely to relieve my pain:  
To the poor parent, and her infants dear, 15.
Two mites I gave, besprinkled with a tear;  
And, fix’d again to see the wretched shed,  
Withdrew in silence, clos’d the door, and fled.”  

“Yet this so lazy man I’ve often seen  
Hurrying, and bustling, round the busy green;  
The loudest prater, in a blacksmith’s shop;  
The wisest statesman, o’er a drunken cup;  
(His sharp-bon’d horse, the street that nightly fed, 5.
Tied, many an hour, in yonder tavern-shed)  
In every gambling, racing match, abroad:  
But a rare hearer, in the house of God.”  

“Such, such, my children, is the dismal cot,  
Where drowsy Sloth receives her wretched lot:  
But O how different is the charming cell,  
Where Industry and Virtue love to dwell!”  

“Beyond that hillock, topp’d with scatter’d trees,  
That meet, with freshest green, the hastening breeze,  
There, where the glassy brook reflects the day,  
Nor weeds, nor sedges, choke its crystal way,  
Where budding willows feel the earliest spring, 5.
And wonted red-breasts safely nest, and sing, 
A female Worthy lives; and all the poor  
Can point the way to her sequester’d door.”  

“She, unseduc’d by dress and idle shew,  
The forms, and rules, of fashion never knew;  
Nor glittering in the ball, her form display’d;  
Nor yet can tell a diamond, from a spade.  
Far other objects claim’d her steady care; 5.
The morning chapter, and the nightly prayer;  
The frequent visit to the poor man’s shed;  
The wakeful nursing, at the sick man’s bed;  
Each day, to rise, before the early sun;  
Each day, to see her daily duty done; 10.
To cheer the partner of her houshold cares,  
And mould her children, from their earliest years.  

“Small is her house; but fill’d with stores of good;  
Good, earn’d with toil, and with delight bestow’d.  
In the clean cellar, rang’d in order neat,  
Gay-smiling Plenty boasts her casks of meat,  
Points, to small eyes, the bins where apples glow, 5.
And marks her cyder-butts, in stately row.  
Her granary, fill’d with harvest’s various pride,  
Still sees the poor man’s bushel laid aside;  
Here swells the flaxen, there the fleecy store,  
And the long wood-pile mocks the winter’s power: 10.
White are the swine; the poultry plump and large;  
For every creature thrives, beneath her charge.”  

“Plenteous, and plain, the furniture is seen;  
All form’d for use, and all as silver clean.  
On the clean dresser, pewter shines arow;  
The clean-scower’d bowls are trimly set below;  
While the wash’d coverlet, and linen white, 5.
Assure the traveller a refreshing night.”  

“Oft have I seen, and oft still hope to see,  
This friend, this parent to the poor and me,  
Tho’ bent with years, and toil, and care, and woe,  
Age lightly silver’d on her surrow’d brow,  
Her frame still useful, and her mind still young, 5.
Her judgment vigorous, and her memory strong,  
Serene her spirits, and her temper sweet,  
And pleas’d the youthful circle still to meet,  
Cheerful, the long-accustom’d task pursue,  
Prevent the rust of age, and life renew; 10.
To church, still pleas’d, and able still, to come,  
And shame the lounging youth, who sleep at home.”  

“Such as her toils, has been the bright reward;  
For HEAVEN will always toils like these regard.  
Safe, on her love, her truth and wisdom tried,  
Her husband’s heart, thro’ lengthened life, relied;  
From little, daily saw his wealth increase, 5.
His neighbours love him, and his houshold bless;  
In peace and plenty liv’d, and died resign’d,  
And, dying, left six thousand pounds behind.  
Her children, train’d to usefulness alone,  
Still love the hand, which led them kindly on, 10.
With pious duty, own her wise behest,  
And, every day, rise up, and call her bless’d.”  

“More would ye know, of each poor hind enquire,  
Who sees no sun go down upon his hire;  
A cheerful witness, bid each neighbour come;  
Ask each sad wanderer, where he finds a home;  
His tribute even the vilest wretch will give, 5.
And praise the useful life, he will not live.”  

“Oft have the prattlers, God to me has giv’n,  
The flock, I hope, and strive, to train for HEAVEN,  
With little footsteps, sought her mansion dear,  
To meet the welcome, given with heart sincere;  
And cheer’d with all, that early minds can move, 5.
The smiles of gentleness, and acts of love,  
At home, in lisping tales, her worth display’d,  
And pour’d their infant blessings on her head.”  

“Ye kings, of pomp, ye nobles proud of blood,  
Heroes of arms, of science sages proud!  
Read, blush, and weep, to see, with all your store,  
Fame, genius, knowledge, bravery, wealth, and power,  
Crown’d, laurell’d, worshipp’d, GODs beneath the sun, 5.
Far less of real good enjoy’d, or done.”  

Such lessons, pleas’d, he taught. The precepts new  
Oft the young train to early wisdom drew;  
And, when his influence willing minds confess’d,  
The children lov’d him, and the parents bless’d;  
But, when by soft indulgence led astray, 5.
His pupil’s hearts had learn’d the idle way,  
Tho’ constant, kind, and hard, his toils had been,  
For all those toils, small thanks had he, I ween.  

Behold yon humbler mansion lift its head!  
Where infant minds to science door are led.  
As now, by kind indulgence looss’d to play,  
From place to place, from sport to sport, they stray,  
How light their gambols frolic o’er the green! 5.
How their shrill voices cheer the rural scene!  
Sweet harmless elves! in Freedom’s houshold born,  
Enjoy the raptures of your transient morn;  
And let no hour of anxious manhood see  
Your minds less innocent, or bless’d, or free! 10.

See too, in every hamlet, round me rise  
A central school-house, dress’d in modest guise!  
Where every child for useful life prepares,  
To business moulded, ere he knows its cares;  
In worth matures, to independence grows, 5.
And twines the civic garland o’er his brows.  

Mark, how invited by the vernal sky,  
Yon cheerful group of females passes by!  
Whose hearts, attun’d to social joy, prepare  
A friendly visit to some neighbouring fair.  
How neatness glistens from the lovely train! 5.
Bright charm! which pomp to rival tries in vain.  

Ye Muses! dames of dignified renown,  
Rever’d alike in country, and in town,  
Your bard the mysteries of a visit show;  
For sure your Ladyships those mysteries know:  
What is it then, obliging Sisters! say, 5.
The debt of social visiting to pay?  

‘Tis not to toil before the idol pier;  
To shine the first in fashion’s lunar sphere;  
By sad engagements forc’d, abroad to roam,  
And dread to find the expecting fair, at home!  
To stop at thirty doors, in half a day, 5.
Drop the gilt card, and proudly roll away;  
To alight, and yield the hand, with nice parade;  
Up stairs to rustle in the stiff brocade;  
Swim thro’ the drawing room, with studied air;  
Catch the pink’d beau, and shade the rival fair; 10.
To sit, to curb, to toss, with bridled mien,  
Mince the scant speech, and lose a glance between;  
Unfurl the fan, display the snowy arm,  
And ope, with each new motion, some new charm:  
Or sit, in silent solitude, to spy 15.
Each little failing, with malignant eye;  
Or chatter, with incessancy of tongue,  
Careless, if kind, or cruel, right, or wrong;  
To trill of us, and ours, of mine, and me,  
Our house, our coach, our friends, our family, 20.
While all th’ excluded circle sit in pain,  
And glance their cool contempt, or keen disdain:  
T’ inhale, from proud Nanking, a sip of tea,  
And wave a curtsey trim, and flirt away:  
Or waste, at cards, peace, temper, health and life, 25.
Begin with sullenness, and end in strife,  
Lose the rich feast, by friendly converse given,  
And backward turn from happiness, and HEAVEN.  

It is, in decent habit, plain and neat,  
To spend a few choice hours, in converse sweet;  
Careless of forms, to act th’ unstudied part,  
To mix in friendship, and to blend the heart;  
To choose those happy themes, which all must feel, 5.
The moral duties, and the houshold weal,  
The tale of sympathy, the kind design,  
Where rich affections soften, and refine;  
T’ amuse, to be amus’d, to bless, be bless’d,  
And tune to harmony the common breast; 10.
To cheer, with mild good-humour’s sprightly ray,  
And smooth life’s passage, o’er its thorny way;  
To circle round the hospitable board,  
And taste each good, our generous climes afford;  
To court a quick return, with accents kind, 15.
And leave, at parting, some regret behind.  

Such, here, the social intercourse is found;  
So slides the year, in smooth enjoyment, round.  

Thrice bless’d the life, in this glad region spent,  
In peace, in competence, and still content;  
Where bright, and brighter, all things daily smile,  
And rare and scanty, flow the streams of ill;  
Where undecaying youth sits blooming round, 5.
And Spring looks lovely on the happy ground;  
Improvement glows, along life’s cheerful way,  
And with soft lustre makes the passage gay.  
Thus oft, on yonder Sound, when evening gales  
Breath’d o’er th’ expanse, and gently fill’d the sails, 10.
The world was still, the HEAVENs were dress’d in smiles,  
And the clear moon-beam tipp’d the distant isles,  
On the blue plain a lucid image gave,  
And capp’d, with silver light, each little wave;  
The silent splendour, floating at our side, 15.
Mov’d as we mov’d, and wanton’d on the tide;  
While shadowy points, and havens, met the eye,  
And the faint-glimmering landmark told us home was nigh.  

Ah, dire reverse! in yonder eastern clime,  
Where heavy drags the sluggish car of time;  
The world unalter’d by the change of years,  
Age after age, the same dull aspect wears;  
On the bold mind the weight of system spread, 5.
Resistless lies, a cumbrous load of lead;  
One beaten course, the wheels politic keep,  
And slaves of custom, lose their woes in sleep;  
Stagnant is social life; no bright design,  
Quickens the sloth, or checks the sad decline. 10.
The friend of man casts round a wishful eye,  
And hopes, in vain, improving scenes to spy;  
Slow o’er his head, the dragging moments roll,  
And damp each cheerful purpose of the soul.  

Thus the bewilder’d traveller, forc’d to roam  
Through a lone forest, leaves his friends, and home;  
Dun evening hangs the sky; the woods around  
Join their sad umbrage o’er the russet ground;  
At every step, new gloom inshrouds the skies; 5.
His path grows doubtful, and his fears arise:  
No woodland songstress soothes his mournful way;  
No taper gilds the gloom with cheering ray;  
On the cold earth he laps his head forlorn,  
And watching, looks, and looks, to spy the lingering morn. 10.

And when new regions prompt their feet to roam,  
And fix, in untrod fields, another home,  
No dreary realms our happy race explore,  
Nor mourn their exile from their native shore.  
For there no endless frosts the glebe deform, 5.
Nor blows, with icy breath, perpetual storm:  
No wrathful suns, with sickly splendour glare,  
Nor moors, impoison’d, taint the balmy air,  
But medial climates change the healthful year;  
Pure streamlets wind, and gales of Eden cheer; 10.
In misty pomp the sky-topp’d mountains stand,  
And with green bosom humbler hills expand:  
With flowery brilliance smiles the woodland glade;  
Full teems the soil, and fragrant twines the shade.  
There cheaper fields the numerous houshold charm, 15.
And the glad sire gives every son a farm;  
In falling forests, Labour’s axe resounds;  
Opes the new field; and wind the fence’s bounds;  
The green wheat sparkles; nods the towering corn;  
And meads, and pastures, lessening wastes adorn. 20.
Where howl’d the forest, herds unnumber’d low;  
The fleecy wanderers fear no prowling foe;  
The village springs; the humble school aspires;  
And the church brightens in the morning fires!  
Young Freedom wantons; Art exalts her head; 25.
And infant Science prattles through the shade.  
There changing neighbours learn their manners mild;  
And toil and prudence dress th’ improving wild:  
The savage shrinks, nor dares the bliss annoy;  
And the glad traveller wonders at the joy. 30.

All hail, thou western world! by HEAVEN design’d  
Th’ example bright, to renovate mankind.  
Soon shall thy sons across the mainland roam;  
And claim, on far Pacific shores, their home;  
Their rule, religion, manners, arts, convey, 5.
And spread their freedom to the Asian sea.  
Where erst six thousand suns have roll’d the year  
O’er plains of slaughter, and o’er wilds of fear,  
Towns, cities, fanes, shall lift their towery pride;  
The village bloom, on every streamlets side; 10.
Proud Commerce’ mole the western surges lave;  
The long, white spire lie imag’d on the wave;  
O’er morn’s pellucid main expand their sails,  
And the starr’d ensign court Korean gales.  
Then nobler thoughts shall savage trains inform; 15.
Then barbarous passions cease the heart to storm:  
No more the captive circling flames devour;  
Through the war path the Indian creep no more;  
No midnight scout the slumbering village fire;  
Nor the scalp’d infant stain his gasping sire: 20.
But peace, and truth, illume the twilight mind,  
The gospel’s sunshine, and the purpose kind.  
Where marshes teem’d with death, shall meads unfold;  
Untrodden cliffs resign their stores of gold;  
The dance refin’d on Albion’s margin move, 25.
And her lone bowers rehearse the tale of love.  
Where slept perennial night, shall science rise,  
And new-born Oxfords cheer the evening skies;  
Miltonic strains the Mexic hills prolong,  
And Louis murmur to Sicilian song. 30.

Then to new climes the bliss shall trace its way,  
And Tartar desarts hail the rising day;  
From the long torpor startled China wake;  
Her chains of misery rous’d Peruvia break;  
Man link to man; with bosom bosom twine; 5.
And one great bond the house of Adam join:  
The sacred promise full completion know,  
And peace, and piety, the world o’erflow.  

END OF THE SECOND PART.

PART III.

The BURNING OF FAIRFIELD.

THE ARGUMENT.

In the beginning of July , the British, under the command of Sir George Collyer, and Governor Tryon, plundered New-Haven. Thence they sailed to Fairfield, plundered, and burned it. Eighty-five dwelling houses, two churches, a handsome court house, several school houses, together with a great number of barns, out-houses, & c. were consumed by the fire. Many other houses were set on fire; but were extinguished by the returning inhabitants. The distress, occasioned by this act of wanton barbarity, is inconceivable; and the name of Governor Tryon will, on account of it, be remembered with the most finished detestation.From l. , to l. , the story is related. The reader is then addressed with a representation of the happiness destroyed at Fairfield, and with an account of the prevalence of war, in ancient, and in modern times; its nature and its effects on the morals and happiness of mankind. This address extends to l, , and is succeeded by an Address to the Hero, returning victorious from war. He is first presented with a picture of the miseries of war, on the land; and is then conducted to the shore, to take a survey of maritime war.–Death–Speech of Death–Motives to abstain from war–Conclusion.9.

ON yon bright plain, with beauty gay,  
Where waters wind, and cattle play,  
Where gardens, groves, and orchards bloom,  
Unconscious of her coming doom,  
Once Fairfield smil’d. The tidy dome, 5.
Of pleasure, and of peace, the home,  
There rose; and there the glittering spire,  
Secure from sacrilegious fire.  

And now no scenes had brighter smil’d,  
No skies, with purer splendor mild,  
No greener wreathe had crown’d the spring,  
Nor sweeter breezes spread the wing,  
Nor streams thro’ gayer margins roll’d, 5.
Nor harvests wav’d with richer gold,  
Nor flocks on brighter hillocks play’d,  
Nor groves entwin’d a safer shade:  
But o’er her plains, infernal War  
Has whirl’d the terrors of his car, 10.
The vengeance pour’d of wasting flame,  
And blacken’d man with endless shame,  

Long had the Briton, round our coast,  
His bolts in every haven toss’d,  
Unceasing spread the trump’s alarms,  
And call’d the swains to daily arms.  
Success his wilder’d eye had charm’d, 5.
And hope with strong pulsations warm’d,  
And pride, with eagle pinion, borne  
Far in the blaze of splendid morn.  
With brightest beams, as rainbows rise  
To suns, departing from the skies, 10.
As morn, in April’s fairest form,  
Is quench’d, and buried, in the storm;  
So brighter all his prospects spread,  
Just as the gay enchantment fled.  
His efforts clos’d in shame forlorn; 15.
His pride provok’d the taunt of scorn;  
Sunbright, the transient meteor shone,  
And darker left the world, when gone.  

Soft rose the summer’s mildest morn;  
To yonder beach his fleet was borne;  
His canvas swell’d, his flag, unfurl’d,  
Hung ruin o’er the western world.  
Then forth his thickening thousands came; 5.
Their armour pour’d an eager flame,  
Confusion fill’d the realm around;  
The reaper left his sheaf unbound;  
The farmer, flying, dropp’d his goad,  
His oxen yok’d before the load; 10.
His plough the unfinish’d furrow held,  
And flocks unguided roam’d the field  
Forth from his shop the tradesman flew,  
His musket seizing, to pursue;  
From every house, the hurried swains, 15.
Tumultuous, throng’d the bust’ling plains;  
At race, the crossing steeds were seen,  
And crouds stood clustering on the green.  

Aghast the wretched townsmen fled;  
The youth with nimble vigour sped;  
The virgin, wild with throbbing woe,  
Flew swift, and swifter, from the foe;  
Pale Age slow totter’d on behind, 5.
His white hair streaming in the wind;  
The boy, with little footsteps, hied,  
And hung upon his grandsire’s side.  
Clasp’d close, and cherish’d at her breast,  
Her new-born babe the mother press’d; 10.
Oft toward the town was glanc’d her eye,  
And oft she listen’d to the cry–  
“Haste, haste, my babes! the foe draws near;  
Fly, lest he slay my children here”–  
Around, the affrighted charmers scower’d, 15.
And scream’d, as fierce the cannons roar’d.  

The pair, beyond expression lov’d,  
Apart, with lingering anguish, mov’d:  
He toward the war reluctant drew;  
She wav’d the long and last adieu.  

Through every field, and copse, astray,  
The unfriended mourners trac’d their way,  
That refuge in the waste to find,  
Denied them by the human kind:  
While waggons bore, behind the throng, 5.
The tythe of furniture along.  

Meantime, in combat’s ridgy van,  
Dark-lowering, man confronted man;  
Tempestuous, host with host engag’d;  
The shout of thundering onset rag’d;  
The cannon burst; the musquet roar’d; 5.
Long, smoky folds through ether pour’d;  
Loud rose the uproar wild; around,  
The world all trembled, at the sound:  
Now hollow groan’d the victim’s cries,  
And now shrill victory fill’d the skies. 10.

But ah! the rude Columbian host  
Nor leaders, arms, nor skill, could boast;  
To war untrain’d, they feebly bore  
The phalanx firm of veteran power,  
Scatter’d to neighbouring hills away, 5.
And gave the scarce-disputed day.  

Yet, though in battle’s rage untaught,  
Superior souls undaunted fought,  
Atchiev’d, with breast of generous mould,  
Such deeds, as Grecian bards have told,  
The patriot prov’d, the laurel gain’d, 5.
The brave avengers of their land.  

The work of crimson slaughter done,  
A sullen interval came on.  
The swains, escap’d from threat’ning ill,  
Hung, gloomy, round each neighbouring hill:  
From house to house th’ invaders flew, 5.
To waste, to plunder, and pursue.  
Whatee’r their russian strength could bear  
Useful, or pleasant, rich, or rare,  
From the poor earner’s feeble hand  
They snatch’d, and hurried to the strand. 10.

To bruise the head of silver hair,  
To agonize the imploring fair,  
The husband’s breast convulse with woe,  
The wife to wound with every throe,  
The feeble crush, the humble beat, 5.
And spurn pale Anguish from their feet,  
With gross assault to tear the heart,  
And smile, and revel, o’er the smart,  
To hiss the groan, to mock the prayer,  
Alike their transport, and their care. 10.

There Delicacy look’d, to meet  
Compassion, at Neronian feet;  
Compassion, puff’d in many a song,  
And prov’d by impudence of tongue;  
But found, deceiv’d by British breath, 5.
To hope was woe, to trust was death.  

Yet let not Indignation rude  
Commix the worthless with the good:  
Sweet Candour sings, with voice benign,  
And smiles to pen the generous line,  
Bright souls there were, who felt for woe, 5.
And own’d the merit of a foe;  
Bright British souls, with virtue warm’d,  
To reason, and to kindness, charm’d,  
Who sooth’d the wretch with tenderest care,  
Their leaders spurn’d, and curs’d the war, 10.
The sorrows wept of life’s short span,  
And felt the kindred ties of man.  

Yet these, even these (let Pity’s tale  
Their errors, while it tells, bewail)  
Thought sacred Duty’s stern commands  
Compell’d to ill their struggling hands.  
Fond man! can Duty bid thee do 5.
What thou must mourn, and others rue?  
Are crimes a debt by Virtue paid?  
Is God, where conscience shrinks, obey’d?  
God, who from every ill restrains,  
Tho’ greatest good the guilt obtains; 10.
Who, on the world’s funereal day,  
Will truth’s divine award display,  
Bid HEAVEN, and earth, his vengeance see,  
And judge thy guilty lord, and thee?  

Meantime, on yonder hills, forlorn,  
The townsmen stood, with anguish torne,  
Anguish for those, they left behind,  
To fears, and ills, and foes, consign’d;  
The husband, for his darling mate; 5.
The father, for his children’s fate;  
While prescience wrung with keenest throe,  
And fast enhanc’d suspended woe.  
When lo! dark-rolling thro’ the skies,  
Unnumber’d smokes began to rise: 10.
His mansion, long to each endear’d,  
Where peace, and joy, alone appear’d,  
Where all the charities of life,  
Of parents, children, husband, wife,  
With softest, tenderest bosoms strove, 15.
For garlands, in the strife of love;  
The morn with brighter beauty dress’d;  
The evening gladden’d in the west;  
Bade each gay sun more gaily roll,  
And twin’d the sympathy of soul; 20.
That mansion, malice’ seven-fold ire  
Now wrapp’d in swathes of circling fire,  
Scatter’d his darling bliss in air,  
And plung’d his heart in deep despair.  
O vilest of the crimes of War, 25.
Fell partner of his bloody car,  
Dread ill, to guilty mortals given,  
To mark the wrath of injur’d HEAVEN;  
O Conflagration! curse intire;  
The impoison’d sting of baffled ire; 30.
Of kings, of chiefs, th’ immortal shame;  
The rasure of the reasoning name!  
From thee, no aid the victor gains;  
Nor wealth, nor strength, rewards his pains:  
The fear, he fondly hopes impress’d, 35.
Is chang’d to rage, in every breast:  
The victim, maddening with his woe,  
With vengeance burns, a deadlier foe.  
‘Tis thine, to glean the wastes of war,  
The landschape of HEAVEN’s good to mar, 40.
Life’s latest refuge to consume,  
And make the world a general tomb.  

Say, Muse indignant! whose the hand  
That hurl’d the conflagrative brand?  
A foe to human feelings born,  
And of each future age the scorn,  
Tryon atchiev’d the deed malign, 5.
Tryon, the name of every sin.  
Hell’s basest fiends the flame survey’d,  
And smil’d, to see destruction spread;  
While Satan, blushing deep, look’d on,  
And Infamy disown’d her son. 10.

Now Night, of all her stars forlorn,  
Majestic, up the sky was borne.  
A cloud immense her misty car,  
Slow-sliding thro’ the burden’d air;  
Her wreathe of yew; a cypress wand 5.
Uplifted by her magic hand;  
Pale, shrouded fears her awful train,  
And spectres gliding on the plain:  
While Horror, o’er the sable world,  
His ensigns, thro’ the expanse, unfurl’d. 10.
When lo! the southern skies around,  
Expanded wide, with turrets crown’d,  
With umber’d skirts, with wavy gleam,  
Uprose an awful ridge of flame,  
Shed far it’s dreary lustre round, 15.
And dimly streak’d the twilight ground.  
Dark clouds, with many a dismal stain,  
Hung hov’ring o’er the gleamy main;  
While deep, the distant, hollow roar  
Wav’d, echoing from the illumin’d shore; 20.
And, from each HEAVEN-directed spire,  
Climb’d bending pyramids of fire.  

Meantime, a storm, in western skies,  
Thick, heavy, vast, began to rise,  
Roll’d swift, on burden’d winds, along,  
And brooded o’er the plundering throng,  
In deeper night the HEAVENs array’d 5.
And stretch’d it’s pall of boundless shade.  
Forth shot the fierce and lurid flame,  
(The world dim-rising in the beam)  
Lessen’d the conflagrative spires,  
And blended, with their light, it’s fires. 10.
Again new darkness spread the main,  
The splendors bright’ning rose again.  
The thunder, with earth-rending sound,  
Shook every vale, and hill around;  
While, at each pause, with solemn voice, 15.
The murmuring flames prolong’d the noise.  
It seem’d, the final day was come,  
The day of earth’s protracted doom;  
The Archangel’s voice began to call  
The nations of this guilty ball; 20.
The hills to cleave; the skies to rend;  
Tumultuous elements to blend;  
And HEAVEN, in pomp tremendous, came  
To light the last, funereal flame.  

The tumult pass’d, the morn’s meek eye  
Look’d soft, and silent, from the sky.  
Still on their hills the townsmen stood,  
And mark’d the scene of strife, and blood,  
Watching the progress of the day, 5.
That bore their plundering foes away  
Tumultuous, to the darkening strand  
From vengeance shrunk the guilty band,  
With loads of spoil, retir’d in haste,  
The spoil of domes, and churches, ras’d; 10.
Thence, to their ships, by boats convey’d,  
Their sails unfurl’d, their anchors weigh’d,  
Awak’d the Injurer’s sullen ire,  
And brooded o’er another fire.  

Each to his home, the townsmen flew,  
Where scenes of anguish met the view.  
Here spread the sunk, still-blazing wall,  
And there stood, nodding to its fall:  
Here rose the slow-declining fire, 5.
And smoke, reluctant to expire;  
There sable brands lay scatter’d round,  
And ashes vile defac’d the ground.  
The sullen chimney frown’d alone;  
The sad winds breath’d a hollow groan: 10.
His joys were fled; his hopes were gone;  
His houshold driven to haunts unknown:  
There peaceful slumber’d Ruin wild,  
And Horror rear’d his head, and smil’d.  

O thou! whose heart, with kind design,  
Explores, and feels this honest line;  
Before thee, lo! a village stands,  
In misery plung’d by hostile hands.  
Such, such is war’s pernicious rage, 5.
In every form, and clime, and age,  
It sweeps, where’er its horrors come,  
All human blessings to the tomb.  
Once, on this little spot, appear’d  
Whate’er the life of man endear’d, 10.
Peace, freedom, competence, and health,  
Enduring good, and real wealth;  
With Innocence, of tranquil breast,  
Their faithful friend, and constant guest;  
While all the village Virtues smil’d, 15.
And play’d, and sung their field-notes wild.  
The feast of temperate, houshold joy,  
That still delights, that cannot cloy,  
Went round the year. The husband’s toil  
Still bade the field and garden smile; 20.
With green adorn’d the vernal day;  
Awak’d the tended flock to play;  
Bade Summer lay his golden load,  
And Autumn drop his blooming good;  
Of frost, compell’d the rage to cease, 25.
And charm’d the wintry storm to peace.  
Her toils to his the wife conjoin’d,  
With sweetest unity of mind;  
Converted, all he earn’d, to good,  
The fleece to clothes, the corn to food; 30.
Preserv’d, with watchful eye, the hoard;  
With dainties crown’d the cheerful board;  
In every labour claim’d her share;  
And burnish’d joy, and gilded care;  
And, with a sweet, supporting smile, 35.
Seren’d, and lessen’d, every ill.  

Around, sustain’d, instructed, sway’d,  
Their little flock, as lambkins, play’d,  
With stripling sports, and smiling strife,  
Deceiv’d the thorny road of life;  
Clasp’d the fond heart; the bosom charm’d; 5.
And Labour’s icy sinews warm’d;  
With blossom’d hopes enchanted pain,  
And life’s brown autumn green’d again.  
The lovely scene the parents view’d,  
And daily saw their bliss renew’d, 10.
Beheld themselves, in theirs, revive,  
And thro’ succeeding ages live.  

Meantime, from house to house, went round  
The cup, with social pleasure crown’d;  
The bliss, good neighbourhood bestows,  
Immingling joys, and soothing woes;  
The feast, with spicy fragrance, cheer’d; 5.
With glee the evening hour endear’d;  
Laid sickness on a downy bed;  
And pillow’d soft the weary head;  
Smooth’d the stern brow of angry Strife,  
And added balm to drooping life. 10.

Here too, with fond, maternal hands,  
The school embrac’d her infant bands;  
To wisdom led the early mind,  
Affections soft, and actions kind;  
Prepar’d to fill the useful part, 5.
And form’d to worth the cultur’d heart.  

And here, when beam’d the sabbath’s ray,  
Bright earnest of immortal day,  
The bell the solemn warning rung;  
The temple’s doors unfolded hung:  
To pay, each grateful houshold came, 5.
Its tribute to th’ Unutter’d Name;  
And sent with HEAVEN-directed eyes,  
United incense to the skies.  

Where now, thou Child of Nature! where  
Is gone this humble bliss sincere?  
Lo! guilty War has wasted all,  
And Ruin, summon’d at his call,  
Has marr’d the good, th’ ETERNAL yields, 5.
And sown with salt the desert fields.  

Such, Child of Nature! such the scene,  
In every age, and clime, has been.  
Since Nimrod first the spoil began,  
Man still has toil’d to ruin man.  
Search, search, and tell me, what has most 5.
The toils, and powers, of men engross’d?  
The nerves of suffering Labour strain’d?  
Invention’s richest channels drain’d?  
Awak’d, and fir’d, the immense design?  
Devour’d th’ incalculable mine? 10.
And wing’d bold enterprise afar  
Through danger, death, and ruin? War.  
Peace’ lowly vale neglected lies,  
Unseen, or pass’d with glancing eyes.  
The cultur’d field, the mansion sweet, 15.
Where all the Loves, and Virtues meet,  
The calm, the meek, the useful life,  
The friend of man, the foe of strife,  
The heart to kindness tun’d, are things  
Too mean for statesmen, chiefs, and kings. 20.
For there no twining laurels bloom,  
Still verdant o’er the wintry tomb;  
No cliffs ambitious tempt to rise,  
And climb, and climb, to reach the skies;  
Nor fancy opes that bright abode, 25.
Where man’s transfigur’d to a GOD.  

Yet here whate’er the earth’s wide field,  
Of comfort, hope, or joy, can yield,  
Whate’er benignant SKIES design’d,  
To nurse the form, or cheer the mind,  
Our being’s scope, and use, and end, 5.
The arts, and acts, that life befriend,  
Whate’er adorns the reasoning name,  
Or emulates an angel’s fame,  
The just, the good, the humble, thrive,  
And in this sweet republic live. 10.

But these, too mean for kings, are seen  
For all the trains of kings too mean.  
For these no senate gold bestows;  
O’er these no statesman bends his brows;  
No garlands bloom, processions glare; 5.
Nor mobs, with idiot wonder, stare;  
No heralds blazon them to fame;  
They rise, they fall, without a name.  

Thro’ earth’s immeasurable bounds,  
Thro’ time’s interminable rounds,  
Each day has heard the clarion roar;  
Each land been bath’d in human gore.  
The Egyptian rule, the Assyrian throne, 5.
Was rear’d of spoils, and realms undone.  
Greece redden’d earth around with blood,  
And pour’d of woe an ocean’s flood;  
Then pointed at herself the dart,  
And brothers pierc’d a brother’s heart. 10.
The Persian ruin’d half mankind:  
The Macedonian wept, to find,  
While brooding o’er the wrecks of joy,  
No new world left him, to destroy.  
The structure mark of Rome’s dread power! 15.
Its marble bones! its cement gore!  
Her sway the waste of human joy;  
The art to plunder, and destroy,  
A curse to earth’s extended climes;  
A web of madness, woes, and crimes! 20.
Her towers were built by galled hands;  
In blood her proud Pantheon stands;  
Her triumphs show’d the tyger’s prey;  
And corpses pav’d her Appian way.  
In each tall temple’s dread abode, 25.
Pale spectres hover’d round the GOD,  
(The injur’d ghosts of countless lands,  
Cut off from life by Roman hands)  
Hung round, and claim’d the spoils their own,  
Shriek’d o’er their native realms undone, 30.
Haunted each shrine, with livid stare,  
And mingled groans with every prayer.  

Nor less, in modern days, when art  
Has led to nobler scenes the heart,  
When science beams with vernal rays,  
And lights to bliss ten thousand ways,  
The Gospel, found in every tongue, 5.
Has peace, and sweet salvation, sung,  
The tyger charm’d to quit his prey,  
And taught the wolf with lambs to play–  
Still roars the trump’s funereal sound;  
“To arms,” the startled hills rebound; 10.
War’s iron car in thunder rolls,  
From medial climes, to distant poles.  

Amaz’d, see Europe, first of all,  
Proud Empress of this suffering ball,  
The sun of power, and arts refin’d,  
The boast, and beauty, of mankind,  
The work of death, and plunder, spread, 5.
And riot on th’ untimely dead!  

When, borne by winds of softest wing,  
Returns the life-renewing spring,  
The tempest flies to earth’s far ends,  
And HEAVEN in peace and love descends,  
Shines in the sun’s serener ray, 5.
Breathes in the balmy breath of May,  
Distills in earth-dissolving showers,  
And glows in rainbow-painted flowers,  
While wisdom works, while goodness warms,  
In sky-born tints, and angel forms, 10.
The new, the sweet, creation springs,  
And beauty blooms, and rapture sings:  
Fast swell the teeming seeds of food;  
The world is heap’d with boundless good:  
In every scene, the GODHEAD smiles, 15.
And man of rage, and lust, beguiles.  
Then beats the drum its fierce alarm;  
Then millions, fir’d to madness, arm,  
Fight, plunder, desolate, devour,  
And drench the wasted world in gore. 20.

Whose name rolls down, from age to age?  
Whose splendours light th’ Historic page?  
Who wakes th’ inrapt Mæonian song?  
Who prompts the universal tongue?  
The world’s great guardian, genius, GOD? 5.
The Man of spoil, the Man of blood.  
Cæsar, the butcher of mankind,  
Loads with his praise each passing wind;  
The general thief, adulterer, brute;  
His boast to murder, waste, pollute; 10.
Dread rival of Apollyon’s fame;  
His labours, arts, and praise, the same.  
What most the heart with vice defiles;  
Of worth disrobes; of HEAVEN beguiles?  
What bids in storms the passions roll; 15.
Consigns to appetite the soul;  
Bids Pride ascend th’ ETERNAL’s throne,  
And claim the universe, her own;  
Ambition’s vulture-wing expands,  
Borne, hungry, keen, o’er suffering lands; 20.
The wide world talon’d to his sway,  
A field of death, and food, and prey?  
What lights, for fell Revenge, the pyre  
Of Malice heats the quenchless fire;  
And lifts Assassination’s knife 25.
Against a friend’s, or parent’s, life?  
What stretches Avarice’ gulphy maw,  
And opens wide her shark-tooth’d jaw,  
Both India’s bowels to devour,  
To drink the sea, and gorge the shore; 30.
Calls forth, in viper paths, Disguise,  
And points her thousand tongues with lies;  
Bold, bronzy Fraud invests in mail,  
And clips his weights, and lops his scale;  
For Honour’s house digs Forgery’s mine, 35.
And guilds his green, impoisoning coin;  
Breaks tyger Rapine’s iron cage,  
And sends him loose, to roam, and rage;  
Extortion rouses, from his lair,  
The cote t’ o’erleap, the flock to tear, 40.
To make the fenceless poor his food,  
And eat their flesh, and drink their blood?  
What fires, to phrenzy, Lewdness’ veins;  
Throws on Adultery’s neck the reins;  
Gives high-fed Rape at large to fly, 45.
And makes the world a general stye;  
Peoples a realm with sots, and swine,  
And bids men live, to drink, and dine;  
Tempts burrow’d Atheism abroad,  
To infuriate man, to hiss at God, 50.
To burst each moral bond divine,  
And nature’s magic links disjoin,  
The sense of common good erase,  
Th’ etherial stamp of HEAVEN deface,  
Dog gentle peace, bait generous worth, 55.
Hunt justice, truth, and law, from earth,  
And bid in hell’s subjected fire,  
Religion’s sky built fane expire?  

What licks the final dregs of joy,  
And leaves th’ inverted vessel dry;  
Makes earth, of virtue besom’d clean,  
The cage of every beast obscene;  
A ruin’d dome, whose walls around 5.
The hollow moan of death resound;  
An Afric sand; a Greenland shore;  
Where life and comfort spring no more;  
An image dark and drear of hell;  
Where fiends, invok’d, familiar dwell; 10.
Where lost immortals Angels weep;  
Where curses wake, and blessings sleep;  
And God, the rebels forc’d t’ abhor,  
Repents his marr’d creation? War.  

Say, Child of Nature! does thy tear  
Start, as thy pain’d eye wanders here?  
Thy cheek with manly blushes burn?  
Thy wonted praise to curses turn?  
Thy bosom waste with cankering woe? 5.
And thy heart heave th’ indignant throe?  

Go then, ah go! whate’er thy lot;  
Be thine the palace, or the cot,  
To wield the rod, the yoke to bear,  
A million, or a crown, to share,  
The senate’s guided hand to sway, 5.
Or bid thy little flock obey,  
Go, ere thy heart be chang’d to stone,  
Or ear find music in a groan,  
Or gold the gates of pity bar,  
Hate, curse, oppose, Tartarean war. 10.
Disdain, despise, with horror name,  
And give to never-dying shame,  
The King, that thron’d for human good,  
Consigns his realm to waste, and blood;  
Senates, that, form’d for general weal, 15.
Sanction the dread decree to kill;  
Statesmen, to tygers chang’d by power,  
That smile, and feast on human gore,  
And chiefs, that havoc love to spread,  
And pluck their wreaths from fields of dead. 20.

But round thee gentle peace diffuse,  
Her morning smiles, and evening dews;  
Thy sons with love of peace inform;  
Their hearts with sweet affections warm;  
Bid them pernicious strife abhor, 5.
And lisp the infant curse on war.  
Far round thee light the genial fire;  
Thy neighbours, and thy friends, inspire:  
United, lift the ardent prayer,  
That God thy ruin’d race may spare, 10.
Wake in their hearts affections mild,  
Sweet semblance of the meekly child,  
MESSIAH’s peaceful sway extend,  
Bid kings, and chiefs, to virtue bend,  
Protract of life the little span, 15.
And change the reasoning wolf to man.  

And O thou Sage, by Learning taught,  
With wisdom and with virtue fraught,  
Whose soul the breath of HEAVEN informs;  
Whose heart MESSIAH’s spirit warms;  
Sleep, sleep no more. For suffering men, 5.
Awake thy voice; arouse thy pen;  
The cause of peace and kindness plead;  
For misery let thy bosom bleed;  
To endless hate and shame consign  
The tyger thron’d, the titled swine; 10.
The charm of threescore centuries break,  
And bid the torpid slumberer wake;  
Burst with new sound the adder’s ear,  
And make th’ insensate marble hear,  
His interest know, his end discern, 15.
And o’er his slaughter’d kindred yearn,  
Feel the unmeasur’d curse of war,  
And all her crimson fiends abhor:  
Tread where th’ impassion’d saviour trode,  
And earth shall hail thee, Child of God. 20.

Go too, thou ardent Hero! go,  
Fresh from fields of war, and woe,  
From thy proud, triumphal car,  
Glittering with the spoils of war,  
While thy wheels majestic roll 5.
Onward to th’ immortal goal;  
While thy arms with lightning blaze;  
While extatic millions gaze;  
Shouts to HEAVEN thy triumphs wing,  
And imagin’d angels sing; 10.
Lessening in th’ immense parade,  
All preceding glories fade,  
Cæsar’s changing star retires,  
And eclips’d are Marlborough’s fires;  
Cast around thee searching eyes, 15.
Mark thy splendours, whence they rise!  
See, on fields, with corses spread,  
Thine exulting coursers tread!  
See, thy car, with garlands proud,  
Rolls thro’ streams of human blood! 20.
Blood from kindred bosoms pour’d!  
Brothers by a brother gor’d!  
Forth, from Adam’s veins, the stream,  
Living, ran through thee and them.  

Mark! around thy wandering eye,  
Wasted fields of culture lie,  
Late with plenteous harvests crown’d,  
Now in gulphs of ruin drown’d.  
There the HEAVENs their bounty shower’d; 5.
Seasons there their blessings pour’d;  
Health and comfort, clothes and food;  
Where is now the boundless good?  

See yon flames thro’ ether bend!  
See th’ immense of smoke ascend!  
Lost, asham’d, the sky retires,  
And the sun withdraws his fires.  
Cities there in ruin lie, 5.
Towns and villages of joy;  
Temples, where, to virtue given,  
Man was form’d for life, and HEAVEN;  
Domes of pomp, and seats of bliss  
Mansions sanctified to peace; 10.
Cots, where harmless housholds dwelt,  
And each soft emotion felt;  
Sportive play’d the wanton child,  
And white Age look’d on, and smil’d:  
Streets, were cheerful Business reign’d, 15.
Shops, where Toil his house sustain’d;  
Humble wishes sought, and found  
Life, with peace and comfort crown’d.  
Where are now the mansions dear?  
Scatter’d in the realms of air. 20.
Where are now the happy trains?  
Weltering on the bloody plains.  
Ruin’d walls deface the ground;  
Silence broods the domes around;  
Ravens flutter o’er the tomb, 25.
Vultures scream, and tygers roam.  

To the margin of the deep  
Bid thy wheels of grandeur sweep.  
See th’ imperial sail, unfurl’d,  
Wave triumphant o’er the world;  
Rows of sleeping cannon join’d; 5.
Streamers glorying on the wind!  

Lo! the proudly-swelling gales,  
Springing, fill the wanton sails;  
Marshal’d in sublime array,  
Winds the fleet its lordly way;  
Ocean greets the awful train, 5.
And expands his glassy plain.  
See the private barks of prey,  
Steal behind their creeping way;  
Arm’d, with piracy to spoil  
Hard-earn’d fruits of honest toil; 10.
By the voice of Law let loose,  
Death and beggary to diffuse;  
With the dye of endless shame  
Blackening man’s unhappy name!  

Thron’d upon th’ imperial stern,  
Death’s unfinish’d Form discern!  
Sooty clouds his limbs inclose;  
Thorns his mystic crown compose;  
In his hand, th’ uplifted dart 5.
Hastens to transfix the heart;  
From his scythe, with lurid gleam,  
Pale sulphureous lightnings stream.  

Hark, his hollow voice resounds,  
O’er the world’s unmeasur’d bounds!  
Ocean quakes, thro’ all his waves;  
Earth remurmurs, from her caves.  

“Cease, fond man! thy claims resign;  
Earth, with all her realms, is mine.  
Thron’d with all-subduing sway,  
Here I bid the world obey.  
Mine, these engines ocean brave; 5.
Mine, these crimson streamers wave;  
Mine, the winds to waft them blow;  
Mine, the purple deep below.  
O’er the sea, from sky to sky,  
Mortals, wing’d by terror, fly: 10.
Here, to farthest eve, and morn,  
Death’s resistless arms are borne;  
Floating hosts behind you pour;  
Hark! pursuing thunders roar.  
See your cities wrapp’d in fire! 15.
See your sons, and sires, expire!  
Infants, recent from the womb,  
Virgins, matrons, croud the tomb!  
Seas divided regions join:  
All the watery world is mine.” 20.

“I ordain the crimson day;  
I the embattled hosts array;  
Sound the trumpet, beat the alarm,  
And the heart with vengeance arm.  
I the ruddy standard spread, 5.
Pile the groaning fields with dead,  
Light the whelming flame, and sweep  
Every blessing to the deep.  

“Man, delighting to destroy,  
Hating peace, and shunning joy,  
Man, who feels his life too long,  
Child of madness, child of wrong,  
Man, obsequious to my will, 5.
Loves the glorious work of ill,  
Cuts off half his brother’s years,  
Swells my darling stream of tears,  
Bids destruction round him flow,  
Feasting sweet on human woe.” 10.

“Who so great a king as I?  
My pavilion is the sky;  
Earth my realm, my throne the air;  
Winds my coursers; clouds my car:  
Suns but light me to my prey; 5.
Midnight veils my secret way:  
O’er expiring worlds I ride;  
Dearth and Plague, before me stride:  
Storms, my besom, sweep the wave,  
And with thousands fill the grave; 10.
Chiefs and kings, my servants, toil,  
Butcher hosts, and countries spoil:  
Mortals every claim resign;  
Earth, air, ocean, all are mine.”  

Why, triumphant Hero! why  
Stares thy wild and tearless eye?  
Whence thy pale and spectred brow?  
Palsied limbs? and sighs of woe?  
Has the gloomy monarch’s dart 5.
Pierc’d with agony thy heart?  
Or has human misery riven?  
Or the advancing curse of HEAVEN?  

Thou hast shorten’d life’s short span;  
Thou hast emptied earth, of man?  
Breasts unnumber’d rack’d with fears;  
Eyes unnumber’d drown’d in tears;  
Bidden countless trains expire; 5.
Countless cities sunk in fire;  
Countless hearts with mourning riven;  
Countless souls shut out of HEAVEN.  

Art thou Atheist? Spare the span,  
Kinder Chance allows to man.  
Shallow is his cup of bliss;  
Make not, then, the portion less:  
Grudge not foes a boon so small; 5.
Spare, oh spare the little all!  

But, if rais’d from mole to man,  
Thou canst nobler objects scan,  
Lift thy curtain’d eyes abroad,  
And discern the present God;  
If MESSIAH’s solar ray 5.
Through thy night has pierc’d it’s way,  
And, subliming sense to thought,  
Has eternal wonders wrought;  
Think, oh think, the crimson tide  
Pours from those, for whom he died! 10.
He the millions bled to save,  
Thou hast hurried to the grave.  
He compels, with dread command,  
Every heart, and every hand,  
Man to clothe, sustain with food, 15.
And to bless with every good;  
But, obdurate to his call,  
Thou hast slain, and robb’d of all.  

Think how precious is the hour,  
Given, the wanderer to restore.  
Think, the heart shall ever find  
Pity from the ETERNAL MIND,  
That has learn’d for man to glow, 5.
Smile with joy, and weep with woe,  
Give the weary outcast rest,  
Draw the barb from Sorrow’s breast,  
And (the sole, alchymic stone)  
Make a brother’s weal it’s own: 10.
While th’ unfeeling wretch shall meet  
Vengeance at his MAKER’s feet.  

But thy heart, with ill uncloy’d,  
Woe has spread, and peace destroy’d,  
HEAVEN’s delightful work undone,  
And the task of Hell begun.  
Orphans’ cries thy car pursue; 5.
Parents’ tears thy path bedew;  
Widows’ shrieks thy music drown;  
Cypress wreaths invest thy crown;  
Spoils in all thy splendours glow;  
Nurs’d with blood, thy laurels grow; 10.
On the bones of slaughter’d bands  
See! thy arch triumphal stands.  

Lo! in yonder, verging skies,  
Myriad troops of spectres rise;  
Spirits of a distant world:  
By thy arm to ruin hurl’d.  
Bristling stands their bloody hair; 5.
On thee gleams their angry stare;  
In pale clouds approaching, see  
Every finger points at thee!  
“Thou,” they feebly murmuring cry,  
“Thou hast drunk our cup of joy; 10.
Ere the mortal race was run,  
Quench’d in blood our noon-day sun;  
Halv’d the hour, by Mercy given,  
To prepare for life, and HEAVEN;  
And, with all our guilt unpaid, 15.
Plung’d us to the untimely dead.”  

Fainting Hero! pangs unknown  
Break, and break, thy heart of stone;  
Short, and shorter, pants thy breath,  
And thine eye-balls swim in death;  
Death thy brow has whiten’d o’er; 5.
Thou art fallen, to rise no more.  

D OF THE THIRD PART.

PART IV.

The DESTRUCTION OF THE PEQUODS.

THE ARGUMENT.

The Pequods inhabited the branches of the Thames, which empties itself into the Sound, at New London. This nation, from the first settlement of the English Colonists, regarded them with jealousy; and attempted to engage the neighbouring tribes in a combination against them. Several of those tribes were, however, more jealous of the Pequods, than of the English, and rejected their solicitations Not discouraged by these disappointments, they resolved to attempt the destruction of the English, with the strength of their own tribe only; and cruelly assassinated Captains Stone, Norton, and Oldham, as they were trading peaceably in their neighbourhood. The English demanded the murderers; but were answered with disdain, and insult. Upon this, Captain Mason was dispatched into their country with a body of troops; and attacking one of their principal forts, destroyed it, together with a large number of their warriors. The rest of the nation fled. A large body of them came to a swamp, three miles westward of Fairfield. One of their number loitering behind the rest, was discovered by the English troops, then commanded by Captain Stoughton, of the Massachusetts; and was compelled to disclose their retreat. One hundred of them, it is said, surrendered. The rest, bravely resolving to live and die together, were attacked, and chiefly destroyed. [Footnote: Kb On this piece of History, the following part of the Poem is founded. It is introduced by reflections on the changes, wrought in the world by time. Ancient Empires. Great Britain. America. Story related, with reflections on the savages. Conclusion.10.

AH me! while up the long, long vale of time,  
Reflection wanders toward th’ eternal vast,  
How starts the eye, at many a change sublime,  
Unbosom’d dimly by the ages pass’d!  
What Mausoleums crowd the mournful waste! 5.
The tombs of empires fallen! and nations gone!  
Each, once inscrib’d, in gold, with “AYE TO LAST”  
Sate as a queen; proclaim’d the world her own,  
And proudly cried, “By me no sorrow shall be known.”  

Soon fleets the sunbright Form, by man ador’d.  
Soon fell the Head of gold, to Time a prey;  
The Arms, the Trunk, his cankering tooth devour’d;  
And whirlwinds blew the Iron dust away.  
Where dwelt imperial Timur? –far astray, 5.
Some lonely-musing pilgrim now enquires:  
And, rack’d by storms, and hastening to decay,  
Mohammed’s Mosque foresees it’s final fires;  
And Rome’s more lordly Temple day by day expires.  
As o’er proud Asian realms the traveller winds, 10.
His manly spirit, hush’d by terror, falls;  
When some deceased town’s lost site he finds,  
Where ruin wild his pondering eye appals;  
Where silence swims along the moulder’d walls,  
And broods upon departed Grandeur’s tomb. 15.
Through the lone, hollow aisles sad Echo calls,  
At each slow step; deep sighs the breathing gloom,  
And weeping fields, around, bewail their Empress’ doom.  

Where o’er an hundred realms, the throne uprose,  
The screech-owl nests, the panther builds his home;  
Sleep the dull newts, the lazy adders doze,  
Where pomp and luxury danc’d the golden room.  
Low lies in dust the sky-resembled dome; 5.
Tall grass around the broken column waves;  
And brambles climb, and lonely thistles bloom:  
The moulder’d arch the weedy streamlet laves,  
And low resound, beneath, unnumber’d sunken graves.  

Soon fleets the sun-bright Form, by man ador’d;  
And soon man’s dæmon chiefs from memory fade.  
In musty volume, now must be explor’d,  
Where dwelt imperial nations, long decay’d.  
The brightest meteors angry clouds invade; 5.
And where the wonders glitter’d, none explain.  
Where Carthage, with proud hand, the trident sway’d,  
Now mud-wall’d cots sit sullen on the plain,  
And wandering, fierce, and wild, sequester’d Arabs reign.  

In thee, O Albion! queen of nations, live  
Whatever splendours earth’s wide realms have known;  
In thee proud Persia sees her pomp revive;  
And Greece her arts, and Rome her lordly throne:  
By every wind, thy Tyrian fleets are blown; 5.
Supreme, on Fame’s dread roll, thy heroes stand;  
All ocean’s realms thy naval scepter own;  
Of bards, of sages, how august thy band!  
And one rich Eden blooms around thy garden’d land.  

But O how vast thy crimes! Through HEAVEN’s great year,  
When few centurial suns have trac’d their way;  
When southern Europe, worn by feuds severe;  
Weak, doating, fallen, has bow’d to Russian sway;  
And setting Glory beam’d her farewell ray; 5.
To wastes, perchance, thy brilliant fields shall turn;  
In dust, thy temples, towers, and towns decay;  
The forest howl, where London’s turrets burn;  
And all thy garlands deck thy sad, funereal urn.  

Some land, scarce glimmering in the light of fame,  
Scepter’d with arts, and arms (if I divine)  
Some unknown wild, some shore without a name,  
In all thy pomp, shall then majestic shine.  
As silver-headed Time’s flow years decline, 5.
Not ruins only meet th’ enquiring eye:  
Where round yon mouldering oak vain brambles twine,  
The filial stem, already towering high,  
Erelong shall stretch his arms, and nod in yonder sky.  

Where late resounded the wild, woodland roar,  
Now heaves the palace, now the temple smiles;  
Where frown’d the nude rock, and the desert shore,  
Now pleasure sports, and business want beguiles,  
And Commerce wings her flight to thousand isles; 5.
Culture walks forth; gay laugh the loaded fields;  
And jocund Labour plays his harmless wiles;  
Glad Science brightens; Art her mansion builds;  
And Peace uplifts her wand, and HEAVEN his blessing yields.  

O’er these sweet fields, so lovely now, and gay,  
Where modest Nature finds each want supplied,  
Where home-born Happiness delights to play,  
And counts her little flock, with houshold pride,  
Long frown’d, from age to age, a forest wide: 5.
Here hung the slumbering bat; the serpent dire  
Nested his brood, and drank th’ impoison’d tide;  
Wolves peal’d, the dark, drear night, in hideous choir;  
Nor shrunk th’ unmeasur’d howl from Sol’s terrific fire.  

No charming cot imbank’d the pebbly stream;  
No mansion tower’d, nor garden teem’d with good;  
No lawn expanded to the April beam;  
Nor mellow harvest hung it’s bending load;  
Nor science dawn’d; nor life with beauty glow’d; 5.
Nor temple whiten’d, in th’ enchanting dell;  
In clusters wild, the sluggish wigwam stood;  
And, borne in snaky paths the Indian fell  
Now aim’d the death unseen, now scream’d the tyger-yell.  

Even now, perhaps, on human dust I tread,  
Pondering, with solemn pause, the wrecks of time;  
Here sleeps, perchance, among the vulgar dead,  
Some Chief, the lofty theme of Indian rhyme,  
Who lov’d Ambition’s cloudy steep to climb, 5.
And smil’d, deaths, dangers, rivals, to engage;  
Who rous’d his followers’ souls to deeds sublime,  
Kindling to furnace heat vindictive rage,  
And soar’d Cæsarean heights, the Phoenix of his age.  

In yon small field, that dimly steals from sight,  
(From yon small field these meditations grow)  
Turning the sluggish soil, from morn to night,  
The plodding hind, laborious, drives his plough,  
Nor dreams, a nation sleeps, his foot below. 5.
There, undisturbed by the roaring wave,  
Releas’d from war, and far from deadly foe,  
Lies down, in endless rest, a nation brave,  
And trains, in tempests born, there find a quiet grave.  

Oft have I heard the tale, when matron sere  
Sung to my infant ear the song of woe;  
Of maiden meek, consum’d with pining care,  
Around whose tomb the wild-rose lov’d to blow:  
Or told, with swimming eyes, how, long age, 5.
Remorseless Indians, all in midnight dire,  
The little, sleeping village, did o’erthrow,  
Bidding the cruel flames to HEAVEN aspire,  
And scalp’d the hoary head, and burn’d the babe with fire.  

Then, fancy-fir’d, her memory wing’d it’s flight,  
To long-forgotten wars, and dread alarms,  
To chiefs obscure, but terrible in fight,  
Who mock’d each foe, and laugh’d at deadliest harms,  
Sydneys in zeal, and Washingtons in arms. 5.
By instinct tender to the woes of man,  
My heart bewildering with sweet pity’s charms,  
Thro’ solemn scenes, with Nature’s step, she ran,  
And hush’d her audience small, and thus the tale began.  

“Thro’ verdant banks where Thames’s branches glide,  
Long held the Pequods an extensive sway;  
Bold, savage, fierce, of arms the glorious pride,  
And bidding all the circling realms obey.  
Jealous, they saw the tribes, beyond the sea, 5.
Plant in their climes; and towns, and cities, rise;  
Ascending castles foreign flags display;  
Mysterious art new scenes of life devise;  
And steeds insult the plains, and cannon rend the skies.”  

“They saw, and soon the strangers’ fate decreed,  
And soon of war disclos’d the crimson sign;  
First, hapless Stone! they bade thy bosom bleed,  
A guiltless offering at th’ infernal shrine:  
Then, gallant Norton! the hard fate was thine, 5.
By ruffians butcher’d, and denied a grave:  
Thee, generous Oldham! next the doom malign  
Arrested; nor could all thy courage save;  
Forsaken, plunder’d, cleft, and buried in the wave.”  
“Soon the fad tidings reach’d the general ear; 10.
And prudence, pity, vengeance, all inspire:  
Invasive war their gallant friends prepare;  
And soon a noble band, with purpose dire,  
And threatening arms, the murderous fiends require:  
Small was the band, but never taught to yield; 15.
Breasts fac’d with steel, and souls instinct with fire:  
Such souls, from Sparta, Persia’s world repell’d,  
When nations pav’d the ground, and Xerxes flew the field.”  

“The rising cloud the Savage Chief descried,  
And, round the forest, bade his heroes arm;  
To arms the painted warriors proudly hied,  
And through surrounding nations rung the’ alarm.  
The nations heard; but smil’d, to see the storm, 5.
With ruin fraught, o’er Pequod mountains driven;  
And felt infernal joy the bosom warm,  
To see their light hang o’er the skirts of even,  
And other suns arise, to gild a kinder HEAVEN.”  

“Swift to the Pequod fortress Mason sped,  
Far in the wildering wood’s impervious gloom;  
A lonely castle, brown with twilight dread;  
Where oft th’ embowel’d captive met his doom,  
And frequent heav’d, around, the hollow tomb; 5.
Scalps hung in rows, and whitening bones were strow’d;  
Where, round the broiling babe, fresh from the womb,  
With howls the Powaw fill’d the dark abode,  
And screams, and midnight prayers, invok’d the Evil GOD.”  

“There too, with awful rites, the hoary priest,  
Without, beside the moss-grown altar, stood,  
His sable form in magic cincture dress’d,  
And heap’d the mingled offering to his GOD,  
What time, with golden light, calm evening glow’d. 5.
The mystic dust, the flower of silver bloom,  
And spicy herb, his hand in order strow’d;  
Bright rose the curling flame; and rich perfume  
On smoky wings upflew, or settled round the tomb.”  

“Then, o’er the circus, danc’d the maddening throng,  
As erst the Thyas roam’d dread Nysa round,  
And struck, to forest notes, th’ ecstatic song,  
While slow, beneath them, heav’d the wavy ground.  
With a low, lingering groan, of dying sound, 5.
The woodland rumbled; murmur’d deep each stream;  
Shrill sung the leaves; all ether sigh’d profound;  
Pale tufts of purple topp’d the silver flame,  
And many-colour’d Forms on evening breezes came.”  

“Thin, twilight Forms; attir’d in changing sheen  
Of plumes, high-tinctur’d in the western ray;  
Bending, they peep’d the fleecy folds between,  
Their wings light-rustling in the breath of May.  
Soft-hovering round the fire, in mystic play, 5.
They snuff’d the incense, wav’d in clouds afar,  
Then, silent, floated toward the setting day:  
Eve redden’d each fine form, each misty car;  
And through them faintly gleam’d, at times, the Western star.”  

“Then (so tradition sings), the train behind,  
In plumy zones of rainbow’d beauty dress’d,  
Rode the Great Spirit, on th’ obedient wind,  
In yellow clouds slow-sailing from the west.  
With dawning smiles, the God his votaries bless’d. 5.
And taught where deer retir’d to ivy dell;  
What chosen chief with proud command to’ invest;  
Where crept th’ approaching foe, with purpose fell,  
And where to wind the scout, and war’s dark storm dispel.”  

“There, on her lover’s tomb, in silence laid,  
While still, and sorrowing, shower’d the moon’s pale beam,  
At times, expectant, slept the widow’d maid,  
Her soul far-wandering on the sylph-wing’d dream.  
Wafted from evening skies, on sunny stream, 5.
Her darling Youth with silver pinions shone;  
With voice of music, tun’d to sweetest theme,  
He told of shell-bright bowers, beyond the sun,  
Where years of endless joy o’er Indian lovers run.”  

“But now no awful rites, nor potent spell,  
To silence charm’d the peals of coming war;  
Or told the dread recesses of the dell,  
Where glowing Mason led his bands from far:  
No spirit, buoyant on his airy car, 5.
Controul’d the whirlwind of invading fight:  
Deep died in blood, dun evening’s falling star  
Sent sad, o’er western hills, it’s parting light,  
And no returning morn dispers’d the long, dark night.”  

“On the drear walls a sudden splendour glow’d,  
There Mason shone, and there his veterans pour’d.  
Anew the Hero claim’d the fiends of blood,  
While answering storms of arrows round him shower’d,  
And the war-scream the ear with anguish gor’d. 5.
Alone, he burst the gate: the forest round  
Re-echoed death; the peal of onset roar’d;  
In rush’d the squadrons; earth in blood was drown’d;  
And gloomy spirits fled, and corses hid the ground.”  

Not long in dubious fight the host had striven,  
When, kindled by the musket’s potent flame,  
In clouds, and fire, the castle rose to HEAVEN,  
And gloom’d the world, with melancholy beam.  
Then hoarser groans, with deeper anguish, came; 5.
And fiercer fight the keen assault repell’d:  
Nor even these ills the savage breast could tame;  
Like hell’s deep caves, the hideous region yell’d,  
‘Till death, and sweeping fire, laid waste the hostile field.”  

“Soon the sad tale their friends surviving heard;  
And Mason, Mason, rung in every wind;  
Quick from their rugged wilds they disappear’d,  
Howl’d down the hills, and left the blast behind.  
Their fastening foes, by generous Stoughton join’d, 5.
Hung o’er the rear, and every brake explor’d;  
But such dire terror seiz’d the savage mind,  
So swift and black a storm behind them lowr’d,  
On wings of raging fear, thro’ spacious realms they scowr’d.”  

(O thou, to earth the second blessing given,  
Of heart divine, of aspect angel-sweet,  
O meek Religion! second-born of HEAVEN,  
Cloth’d with the sun, the world beneath thy feet!  
Softer than lambs on yonder hillocks bleat, 5.
Thy music charms to kindness savage man,  
Since first, from Calvary’s height, with love replete,  
Thy wondrous course, in sunny sheen, began,  
And, o’er the death-struck globe, thro’ startled nations ran.  

When pride and wrath awake the world to arms,  
How heaves thy snowy breast with fainting throe!  
While lust and rapine trumpet death’s alarms,  
And men ‘gainst men with fiery vengeance glow.  
In Europe oft, that land of war, and woe, 5.
As her sad steps the lingering mourner draws,  
How slowly did thy feet entangled go,  
Chain’d by vile tests, and prison’d round by laws;  
While bigotry and rage in blood insteep’d thy cause!  

When o’er th’ Atlantic wild, by Angels borne,  
Thy pilgrim barque explor’d it’s western way,  
With spring and beauty bloom’d the waste forlorn,  
And night and chaos shrunk from new-born day.  
Dumb was the savage howl; th’ instinctive lay 5.
Wav’d, with strange warblings, thro’ the woodland’s bound;  
The village smil’d; the temple’s golden ray  
Shot high to HEAVEN; fair culture clothed the ground;  
Art blossom’d; cities sprang; and sails the ocean crown’d.  
As on HEAVEN’s sacred hill, of hills the queen, 10.
At thy command, contention foul shall cease,  
Thy solar aspect every storm serene,  
And smooth the rugged wild of man to peace;  
So here thy voice (fair earnest of the bliss!)  
Transform’d the savage to the meekly child. 15.
Hell saw, with pangs, her hideous realm decrease;  
Wolves play’d with lambs; the tyger’s heart grew mild;  
And on his own bright work the GODHEAD look’d and smil’d.  

Hail Elliot! Mayhew hail! by HEAVEN inform’d  
With that pure love, which clasps the human kind;  
To virtue’s path even Indian feet you charm’d,  
And lit, with wisdom’s beam, the dusky mind:  
From torture, blood, and treachery, refin’d, 5.
The new-born convert lisp’d MESSIAH’s name.  
Mid Choirs complacent, in pure rapture join’d,  
Your praise resounds, on yonder starry frame,  
While souls, redeem’d from death, their earthly saviours claim.  

Oh had the same bright spirit ever reign’d; 
Nor trader villains foul’d the Savage mind;  
Nor Avarice pin’d for boundless breadth of land;  
Nor, with slow death, the wretches been consign’d  
To India’s curse, that poisons half mankind! 5.
Then, O divine Religion! torture’s blaze  
Less frequent round thy tender heart had twin’d;  
On the wild wigwam peace had cast it’s rays,  
And the tremendous whoop had chang’d to hymns of praise.  

Fierce, dark, and jealous, is the exotic soul,  
That, cell’d in secret, rules the savage breast.  
There treacherous thoughts of gloomy vengeance roll,  
And deadly deeds of malice unconfess’d;  
The viper’s poison rankling in it’s nest. 5.
Behind his tree, each Indian aims unseen:  
No sweet oblivion soothes the hate impress’d:  
Years fleet in vain: in vain realms intervene:  
The victim’s blood alone can quench the flames within.  

Their knives the tawny tribes in slaughter steep,  
When men, mistrustless, think them distant far;  
And, when blank midnight shrouds the world in sleep,  
The murderous yell announces first the war.  
In vain sweet smiles compel the fiends to spare; 5.
Th’ unpitied victim screams, in tortures dire;  
The life-blood stains the virgin’s bosom bare;  
Cherubic infants, limb by limb expire;  
And silver’d Age sinks down in slowly-curling fire.  

Yet savages are men. With glowing heat,  
Fix’d as their hatred, friendship fills their mind;  
By acts with justice, and with truth, replete,  
Their iron breasts to softness are inclin’d.  
But when could War of converts boast refin’d? 5.
Or when Revenge to peace and sweetness move?  
His heart, man yields alone to actions kind;  
His faith, to creeds, whose soundness virtues prove,  
Thawn in the April sun, and opening still to love.  

Senate august! that sway’st Columbian climes,  
Form’d of the wise, the noble, and humane,  
Cast back the glance through long-ascending times,  
And think what nations fill’d the western plain.  
Where are they now? What thoughts the bosom pain, 5.
From mild Religion’s eye how streams the tear,  
To see so far outspread the waste of man,  
And ask “How fell the myriads, HEAVEN plac’d here!”  
Reflect, be just, and feel for Indian woes severe.  

But cease, foul Calumny! with sooty tongue,  
No more the glory of our sires belie.  
They felt, and they redress’d, each nation’s wrong;  
Even Pequod foes they view’d with generous eye,  
And, pierc’d with injuries keen, that Virtue try, 5.
The savage faith, and friendship, strove to gain:  
And, had no base Canadian fiends been nigh,  
Even now soft Peace had smil’d on every plain,  
And tawny nations liv’d, and own’d MESSIAH’s reign.)  

“Amid a circling marsh, expanded wide,  
To a lone hill the Pequods wound their way; 
And none, but HEAVEN, the mansion had descried,  
Close-tangled, wild, impervious to the day;  
But one poor wanderer, loitering long astray. 5.
Wilder’d in labyrinths of pathless wood,  
In a tall tree embower’d, obscurely lay:  
Strait summon’d down, the trembling suppliant show’d  
Where lurk’d his vanish’d friends, within their drear abode.”  

“To death, the murderers were anew requir’d,  
A pardon proffer’d, and a peace assur’d;  
And, though with vengeful heat their foes were fir’d,  
Their lives, their freedom, and their lands, secur’d.  
Some yielding heard. In fastness strong immur’d, 5.
The rest the terms refus’d, with brave disdain,  
Near, and more near, the peaceful Herald lur’d;  
Then bade a shower of arrows round him rain,  
And wing’d him swift, from danger, to the distant plain.”  

“Through the sole, narrow way, to vengeance led,  
To final fight our generous heroes drew;  
And Stoughton now had pass’d the moor’s black shade,  
When hell’s terrific region scream’d anew.  
Undaunted, on their foes they fiercely flew; 5.
As fierce, the dusky warriors crowd the fight;  
Despair inspires; to combat’s face they glue;  
With groans, and shouts, they rage, unknowing flight,  
And close their sullen eyes, in shades of endless night.”  

Indulge, my native land! indulge the tear,  
That steals, impassion’d, o’er a nation’s doom:  
To me each twig, from Adam’s stock, is near,  
And sorrows fall upon an Indian’s tomb.  
And, O ye Chiefs! in yonder starry home, 5.
Accept the humble tribute of this rhyme.  
Your gallant deeds, in Greece, or haughty Rome,  
By Maro sung, or Homer’s harp sublime,  
Had charm’d the world’s wide round, and triumph’d overtime.  

END OF THE FOURTH PART.

PART V.

The CLERGYMAN’S ADVICE TO THE VILLAGERS.

THE ARGUMENT.

Subject introduced. Description of a happy village in New England. Character of the Clergyman. He gives his last advice, and blessing, to his Parishioners–recites his past, affectionate and faithful labours for their salvation, and proposes to close them with his last exhortation–estimates the pleasures of sin, and the value of the present life, and urges them to seek eternal life–informs them, that two endless journeys lie before them–of virtue, which guides to happiness; and of sin, which terminates in misery–and describes the nature of both. As means of salvation, he exhorts them to read the Bible, with diligence and care; to frequent public worship; to establish family religion, in their houses; religiously to educate their children; and to abound in all the duties of charity. He further informs them, that all things are labouring to promote this great purpose; recites to them the affectionate invitations of the Redeemer; and represents his own future happiness, as increased by their salvation. Conclusion.11.

WHILE thus, from winter’s transient death,  
The world revives to life, and breath;  
While round me all your blessings rise,  
And peace, and plenty, greet my eyes;  
Ah say! ye children of my care, 5.
Of every wish, of every prayer,  
Ordain’d my sacred charge below,  
The source of joy, the source of woe,  
Say, shall my heart on landschapes muse,  
And scenes of nobler kind refuse; 10.
Alone for hapless Indians feel;  
Forget, in others’ woes, your weal,  
Unmov’d, behold your footsteps roam,  
Nor guide the wayward pilgrim home?  
No, let the moral song prevail; 15.
List, list, to truth’s persuasive tale.  
While HEAVEN, by hoary Wisdom sung,  
Inspires my heart, and tunes my tongue,  
Oh hear, and from perdition rise,  
And point your pathway to the skies! 20.

Where western Albion’s happy clime  
Still brightens to the eye of time,  
A village lies. In all his round,  
The sun a fairer never found.  
The woods were tall, the hillocks green, 5.
The vallies laugh’d the hills between,  
Thro’ fairy meads the rivers roll’d,  
The meadows flower’d in vernal gold,  
The days were bright, the mornings fair,  
And evening lov’d to linger there. 10.
There, twinn’d in brilliant fields above,  
Sweet sisters! sported Peace and Love;  
While Virtue, like a blushing bride,  
Seren’d, and brighten’d, at their side.  

At distance from that happy way,  
The path of sensual Pleasure lay,  
Afar Ambition’s summit rose,  
And Avarice dug his mine of woes.  

The place, with east and western sides,  
A wide and verdant street divides:  
And here the houses fac’d the day,  
And there the lawns in beauty lay.  
There, turret-crown’d, and central, stood 5.
A neat, and solemn house of God.  
Across the way, beneath the shade,  
Two elms with sober silence spread,  
The Preacher liv’d. O’er all the place  
His mansion cast a Sunday grace; 10.
Dumb stillness sate the fields around;  
His garden seem’d a hallow’d ground;  
Swains ceas’d to laugh aloud, when near,  
And school-boys never sported there.  

In the same mild, and temperate zone,  
Twice twenty years, his course had run,  
His locks of flowing silver spread,  
A crown of glory o’er his head.  
His face, the image of his mind, 5.
With grave, and furrow’d wisdom shin’d;  
Not cold; but glowing still, and bright;  
Yet glowing with October light:  
As evening blends, with beauteous ray,  
Approaching night with shining day. 10.

His Cure his thoughts engross’d alone:  
For them his painful course was run:  
To bless, to save, his only care;  
To chill the guilty soul with fear;  
To point the pathway to the skies, 5.
And teach, and urge, and aid, to rise;  
Where strait, and difficult to keep,  
It climbs, and climbs, o’er Virtue’s steep.  

As now the evening of his day,  
Retiring, smil’d it’s warning ray;  
He heard, in angel-whispers, come,  
The welcome voice, that call’d him home.  
The little flock he nurs’d so long, 5.
And charm’d with mercy’s sweetest song,  
His heart with strong affections warm’d,  
His love provok’d, his fears alarm’d–  
Like him, who freed the chosen band,  
Like him, who op’d the promis’d land, 10.
His footsteps verging on the grave,  
His blessing thus the Prophet gave.  

“O priz’d beyond expression here,  
As sons belov’d, as daughters dear,  
Your Father’s dying voice receive,  
My counsels hear, obey, and live!”  

“For you my ceaseless toils ye know,  
My care, my faithfulness, and woe.  
For you I breath’d unnumber’d prayers;  
For you I shed unnumber’d tears;  
To living springs the thirsty led, 5.
The hungry cheer’d with living bread;  
Of grief allay’d the piercing smart,  
And sooth’d with balm the doubting heart;  
The wayward flock forbade to roam,  
And brought the wandering lambkin home.” 10.

“And now, my toils, my duties done,  
My crown of endless glory won,  
Ev’n while, invited to the skies,  
My wing begins through HEAVEN to rise,  
One solemn labour still is due, 5.
To close a life, consum’d for you.”  

“Say, what the gain? Oh search, and say!–  
To tread the fatal, sensual way?  
To bristle down in pleasure’s stye?  
To heap up silver, mountains high?  
With guilt to climb, with anguish keep, 5.
Ambition’s proud, and painful steep?  
Should earth for your enjoyment roll,  
Can earth redeem the deathless soul?”  

“This little life, my children! say,  
What is it? A departing day;  
An April morn, with frost behind;  
A bubble, bursting on the wind;  
A dew, exhal’d beneath the sun; 5.
A tale rehears’d; a vision gone.”  

“How oft too, in the bright career,  
Which Pride, and Pleasure wanton here,  
While Hope expands her painted wing,  
And all around is health, and spring;  

How oft resounds the awful knell,  
That seals to life a long farewell,  
“”Thou fool! dissolv’d in guilt and sense, 
This night, thy soul is summon’d hence.””  

“Yet on this little life depend  
Blessings, and woes, which cannot end.  
For Faith and Penitence below,  
Immortal life and rapture glow;  
For harden’d guilt, eternal ire, 5.
And waves, that surge unfathom’d fire.”  

“Then rise from death’s benumbing sleep!  
See, spread beneath, the yawning deep!  
Oh rise! and let salvation call  
Your time, your thoughts, and talents all.”  

“Two only paths before you spread;  
And long the way, your feet must tread.  
This straight, and rough, and narrow, lies  
The course direct to yonder skies.  
And now o’er hills, on hills, you climb, 5.
Deserted paths, and cliffs sublime;  
And now thro’ solitudes you go,  
Thro’ vales of care, and streams of woe.  
Tho’ oft you wander sad, forlorn,  
The mark of spite, the butt of scorn; 10.
Yet your’s the sweets, that cannot cloy,  
The Saviour’s peace, the Seraph’s joy;  
While nurture HEAVEN itself supplies,  
And fruits depend, and springs arise;  
And Health and Temperance, sisters gay, 15.
Despise the lessening length of way;  
And sweet, tho’ rare, companions smile,  
Deceive the road, and lose the toil;  
And Hope still points th’ approaching goal,  
As magnets tremble to the pole.” 20.

“As now at hand the realm appears,  
Where pains retire, and cares, and tears,  
Then smooths the rough, the rude refines,  
The desert blooms, the steep declines;  
Then bright, and brighter, spreads the plain, 5.
Where Love begins her vernal reign.  
And sweet as music of the skies,  
When hymns of bless’d Redemption rise,  
Your FATHER’s welcome hails you home;  
The LAMB, the SPIRIT bid you come; 10.
And all the Family around  
Salute you to the blissful ground,  
The heirs of life, the sons of God,  
And trophies of their SAVIOUR’s blood.”  

“Full wide the other path extends,  
And round, and round, serpentine bends.  
To sense, bewitching flow’rets bloom,  
And charm, and cheat, with strange perfume;  
Fruits hang dissolving poison nigh, 5.
And purpling death inchants the eye.  
Companions, frolicksome and gay,  
Laugh jocund on the downward way,  
With wiles entice a thoughtless throng,  
And, blinded, lead the blind along, 10.
Where smooth, and treacherous, and steep,  
It slides, impending, to the deep.”  

“At length, where Death dominion holds,  
A wide and gloomy gate unfolds–  
Thro’ solitudes immensely spread,  
The mourning mansions of the dead,  
A dreary tomb, that knows no bound, 5.
A midnight hung eternal round,  
Their journey winds–No friend appears  
To dry the stream of endless tears.  
Sweet Hope, that sooth’d their pains before,  
Returns to soothe their pains no more. 10.
Thro’ the long night, the eye looks on,  
But meets with no returning sun;  
While Peace resigns to blank Despair,  
And light is chang’d to darkness there.”  

“Then rise, and let salvation call  
Your time, your thoughts, your talents all!”  

“For this, the sacred page explore,  
Consult, and ponder, o’er and o’er;  
The words of endless life discern;  
The way, the means, the motives, learn;  
The hopes, the promises, enjoy, 5.
That ne’er deceive, that cannot cloy;  
Alarms to Guilt’s obdurate mind;  
Perennial bliss to Faith assign’d;  
The precepts, by MESSIAH given;  
His life, the image bright of HEAVEN; 10.
His death, self-ruin’d man to save;  
His rise, primitial, from the grave;  
Beyond all other love, his love;  
His name, all other names above.  
All duties to be learn’d, or done, 15.
All comforts to be gain’d, or known,  
To do, to gain, unceasing strive,  
The book of books explore, and live,”  

“When smiles the Sabbath’s genial morn,  
Instinctive to the Temple turn;  
Your housholds round you thither bring,  
Sweet off’ring to the SAVIOUR KING.  
There, on the mercy-seat, he shines, 5.
Receives our souls, forgets our sins,  
And welcomes, with resistless charms,  
Submitting rebels to his arms.  
That chosen, bless’d, accepted day  
Oh never never cast away!” 10.

“Let order round your houses reign,  
Religion rule, and peace sustain;  
Each morn, each eve, your prayers arise,  
As incense fragrant, to the skies;  
In beauteous groupe, your children join, 5.
And servants share the work divine:  
The voice, as is the interest, one,  
And one the blessing wrestled down.”  

“Each toil devote, each care, and pain,  
Your children for the skies to train.  
Allure, reprove, instruct, reclaim,  
Alarm, and warn, commend, and blame;  
To virtue force with gentle sway, 5.
And guide, and lead, yourselves, the way.  
Teach them, profaneness, falshood, fraud,  
Abuse to man, affronts to God,  
All things impure, obscene, debas’d,  
Tho’ oft with high examples grac’d, 10.
To shun beyond the adder’s breath,  
When hissing instantaneous death;  
But justice, truth, and love, to prize,  
Beyond the transports of the skies.”  

“Teach them, that, brighter than the sun,  
Th’ All-searching Eye looks flaming on,  
Each thought, each word, each act, descries,  
And sees the guilty motives rise;  
A Witness, and a Judge, that day, 5.
Whose light shall every heart display.  
Live what you teach–the HEAVENly Seer,  
Who spake, as man ne’er spake, when here,  
Taught all things just, and wise, and true,  
Shone, a divine example too.” 10.

“To all, around, your blessings lend,  
The sick relieve, the poor befriend,  
The sad console, the weak sustain,  
And soothe the wounded spirit’s pain.  
To you, think every blessing given, 5.
To shed abroad the alms of HEAVEN,  
To blunt the stings of human woe,  
And build his kingdom, here below.  
Let gentle Peace around you reign,  
Her influence spread, her cause sustain: 10.
To railing, answers mild return;  
Let love, oppos’d to anger, burn:  
Contention, ere begun, suppress,  
And bid the voice of party cease.  
The taleful tongue, the meddling mind, 15.
The jealous eye, the heart unkind,  
Far distant, far, from you remove;  
But ope your doors to Truth, and Love:  
The meek esteem, the humble praise,  
And Merit from her footstool raise.” 20.

“By every act of peace, and love,  
Thus win your way to climes above.  
In this great work, see all things strive!  
Nature toils that you may live:  

“Lo, to aid you to the skies,  
Seasons roll, and suns arise;  
Promis’d, see the seed-time come,  
And the harvest shouted home!”  

“All things, in their solemn round,  
Morn, with peace and beauty crown’d,  
Eve, with sweet, returning rest,  
Toil, with health and plenty bless’d,  
Help you on the ascending road, 5.
Pointing, leading, still to God:  
Joys to endless rapture charm;  
Woes, of endless woe, alarm.”  

“All things toil, that you may live–  
Rulers peace and freedom give:  
Seers diviner peace proclaim,  
Glorious to th’ Unutter’d NAME,  
Good, to guilty mortals given, 5.
Source of endless joy to HEAVEN.”  

“See the Sabbath’s peaceful morn,  
(Sabbaths still for you return),  
Opes the Temple to your feet,  
Chaunting sounds of Seraphs sweet–  
“HEAVEN unfolds, and God is near, 5.
Sinners haste, and enter here”–  
Grace and truth, from worlds above,  
Fruits of suffering, dying love,  
From the SACRED SPIRIT come,  
Wilder’d flocks inviting home.” 10.

“Hark, what living music plays!  
Catch the themes of HEAVENly praise;  
Themes, that tune seraphic strings,  
Notes, the bless’d REDEEMER sings.”  

“”Rise, my sons, and hither haste!  
Wintry time is overpass’d.  
See afar the rains have flown!  
See immortal spring begun!  
Streams with life and rapture flow; 5.
Fruits with life and rapture glow;  
Love the door of life unbars;  
Triumphs crown your finish’d wars:  
Fondly wait impatient skies,  
O’er you to renew their joys.”” 10.

“”Are you naked? here behold  
Robes of light, and crowns of gold!  
Famish’d? an eternal feast!  
Weary? everliving rest!  
Friendless? an ALMIGHTY FRIEND! 5.
Hopeless? transports ne’er to end!””  

“”Children, penitents, arise;  
Hasten to your native skies:  
Your arrival all things sing;  
Angels meet you on the wing;  
Saints with fairer beauty shine; 5.
Brighter years in HEAVEN begin;  
Round the Sun, that lights the skies,  
More refulgent glories rise.””  

“Thus, O my sons! MESSIAH’s voice  
Allures to never dying joys.  
That voice of endless love receive;  
Those counsels hear, obey, and live.”  

“Thus, from the climes beyond the tomb  
If God permit my soul to come,  
Again my little flock to view,  
To watch, and warn, and quicken you,  
With transport shall my bosom glow, 5.
To see each house an HEAVEN below,  
My sons ambitious of the skies,  
And future saints, and angels rise.  
And O, what brighter bliss shall bloom,  
To hail you victors o’er the tomb; 10.
To guide you, all th’ unmeasur’d way,  
And welcome to the gates of day;  
To hear your blessed Euge sound,  
And see th’ immortals smile around;  
To stand, to shine, by you confess’d 15.
Your friend your earthly saviour bless’d;  
To mingle joys, all joys above,  
And warm with ever-bright’ning love!”  

He spoke. The filial tear around,  
Responsive, trickled to the sound;  
He saw their hearts to wisdom won,  
And felt his final duty done–  
“Jesus! my soul receive”–he cried, 5.
And smil’d, and bow’d his head, and died.  

END OF THE FIFTH PART.

PART VI.

The FARMER’S ADVICE TO THE VILLAGERS.

THE ARGUMENT.

Introduction. Farmer introduced. Villagers assembled. He recommends to them an industrious and oeconomical life, the careful education and government of their children, and particularly the establishment of good habits in early life; enjoins upon them the offices of good neighbourhood, the avoidance of litigation, and the careful cultivation of parochial harmony. Conclusion.12.

YE children of my fondest care,  
With tenderest love, and frequent prayer,  
This solemn charge, my voice has given,  
To prompt, and guide, your steps to HEAVEN.  
Your present welfare now demands 5.
A different tribute, from my hands.  

Not long since liv’d a Farmer plain,  
Intent to gather honest gain,  
Laborious, prudent, thrifty, neat,  
Of judgment strong, experience great,  
In solid homespun clad, and tidy, 5.
And with no coxcomb learning giddy.  
Daily, to hear his maxims sound,  
Th’ approaching neighbours flock’d around;  
Daily they saw his counsels prove  
The source of union, peace, and love, 10.
The means of prudence, and of wealth,  
Of comfort, cheerfulness, and health:  
And all, who follow’d his advice,  
Appear’d more prosperous, as more wise.  

Wearied, at length, with many a call,  
The sage resolv’d to summon all:  
And gathering, on a pleasant monday,  
A crowd not always seen on sunday,  
Curious to hear, while hard they press’d him, 5.
In friendly terms, he thus address’d ’em.  

“My friends, you have my kindest wishes;  
Pray think a neighbour not officious,  
While thus, to teach you how to live,  
My very best advice I give.”  

“And first, industrious be your lives;  
Alike employ’d yourselves, and wives:  
Your children, join’d in labour gay,  
With something useful fill each day.  
Those little times of leisure save, 5.
Which most men lose, and all men have;  
The half days, when a job is done;  
The whole days, when a storm is on.  
Few know, without a strict account,  
To what these little times amount: 10.
If wasted, while the same your cost,  
The sums, you might have earn’d, are lost.”  

“Learn small things never to despise:  
You little think how fast they rise.  
A rich reward the mill obtains,  
Tho’ but two quarts a bushel gains:  
Still rolling on it’s steady rounds, 5.
The farthings soon are turn’d to pounds.”  

“Nor think a life of toil severe:  
No life has blessings so sincere.  
It’s meals so luscious, sleep so sweet,  
Such vigorous limbs, such health complete,  
A mind so active, brisk, and gay, 5.
As his, who toils the livelong day.  
A life of sloth drags hardly on;  
Suns set too late, and rise too soon;  
Youth, manhood, age, all linger slow,  
To him, who nothing has to do. 10.
The drone, a nuisance to the hive,  
Stays, but can scarce be said to live;  
And well the bees, those judges wise,  
Plague, chase, and sting him, ’till he dies.  
Lawrence, like him, tho’ sav’d from hanging, 15.
Yet every day deserves a banging.”  

“Let order o’er your time preside,  
And method all your business guide.  
Early begin, and end, your toil;  
Nor let great tasks your hands embroil.  
One thing at once, be still begun, 5.
Contriv’d, resolv’d, pursued, and done.  
Hire not, for what yourselves can do;  
And send not, when yourselves can go;  
Nor, ’till to-morrow’s light, delay  
What might as well be done to-day. 10.
By steady efforts all men thrive,  
And long by moderate labour live;  
While eager toil, and anxious care,  
Health, strength, and peace, and life, impair.”  

“What thus your hands with labour earn,  
To save, be now your next concern.  
Whate’er to health, or real use,  
Or true enjoyment, will conduce,  
Use freely, and with pleasure use; 5.
But ne’er the gifts of HEAVEN abuse:  
I joy to see your treasur’d stores,  
Which smiling Plenty copious pours;  
Your cattle sleek, your poultry fine,  
Your cider in the tumbler shine, 10.
Your tables, smoking from the hoard,  
And children smiling round the board.  
All rights to use in you conspire;  
The labourer’s worthy of his hire.  
Ne’er may that hated day arrive, 15.
When worse yourselves, or your’s, shall live;  
Your dress, your lodging, or your food,  
Be less abundant, neat, or good;  
Your dainties all to market go,  
To feast the epicure, and beau; 20.
But ever on your tables stand,  
Proofs of a free and happy land.”  

“Yet still, with prudence, wear, and taste;  
Use what you please, but nothing waste:  
On little, better far to live,  
Than, poor and pitied, much survive.  
Like ants, lay something up in store, 5.
Against the winter of threescore.  
Disease may long your strength annoy;  
Weakness and pain your limbs destroy;  
On sorrow’s bed your housholds lie;  
Your debtors fail, your cattle die; 10.
Your crops untimely seasons kill,  
And life be worn with many an ill.”  

“Lo too, your little flocks demand  
Much from the kind parental hand;  
Your sons or learning, trades, or farms;  
Your daughter’s portions, with their charms:  
From prudence, this provision flows, 5.
And all, from little savings, grows.”  
“And, O ye fair! this toil demands  
The efforts of your faithful-hands.  
If wealth, your husband’s hearts are wishing,  
Of you, they first must ask permission. 10.
By HEAVEN conjoin’d, to gain, and have,  
‘Tis their’s to earn; ’tis yours to save:  
Whatever from their labour grows,  
Careful, you keep, but, heedless, lose.”  

“‘Tis folly in th’ extreme, to till  
Extensive fields, and till them ill.  
The farmer, pleas’d, may boast aloud  
His bushels sown, his acres plough’d;  
And, pleas’d, indulge the cheering hope, 5.
That time will bring a plenteous crop.  
Shrewd Common-sense sits laughing by,  
And sees his hopes abortive die:  
For, when maturing seasons smile,  
Thin sheaves shall disappoint his toil. 10.
Advis’d, this empty pride expel;  
Till little, and that little well.  
Of taxes, fencing, toil, no more,  
Your ground requires, when rich, than poor;  
And more one fertile acre yields, 15.
Than the huge breadth of barren fields.  
That mould, the leaves, for ages, spread,  
Is, long since, with the forests, fled;  
That slender ploughing, trifling care,  
No longer will your fields prepare. 20.
Some new manure must now be found;  
Some better culture fit the ground. 
Oft turn the soil to feel the weather;  
Manure from every quarter gather,  
Weeds, ashes, Paris-plaister, lime, 25.
Marle, sea-weed, and the harbour slime.  
Like Germans bid your acres thrive;  
But not like stinting Germans live.  

“Let every grass of kindly seed  
Exterminate the noisome weed;  
The clover round your pastures blow;  
The rye-grass o’er your meadows bow:  
Hence the rich mow your barns shall fill; 5.
Hence with rich green your pastures smile;  
The ox, untir’d, his toil sustain,  
And fat steers frisk it, o’er the plain.”  

“Your herds feed well, increase, amend,  
And from the wintery storm defend.  
No source will surer profit give,  
Or furnish easier means to live.  
The grazier hugs his cool retreat, 5.
And smiles, to see the farmer sweat;  
To see much labour little yield,  
The gleanings of a worne-out field;  
While glistening beeves around him sport,  
And drovers to his house resort; 10.
Manur’d, huge swarths his meadows load,  
And heavy harvests proudly nod.”  

“Let useful flocks your care demand,  
Best riches of a happy land.  
From them, shall swell the fleecy store,  
And want, and rags, depart your door;  
Your daughters find a sweet employ, 5.
And, singing, turn the wheel with joy:  
With homespun rich the loom be gay;  
Your housholds clad in bright array;  
And female toil more profit yield,  
Than half the labours of the field.” 10.

“When first the market offers well,  
At once your yearly produce sell.  
A higher price you wait in vain,  
And ten times lose, where once you gain.  
The dog, that at the shadow caught, 5.
Miss’d all he had, and all he sought.  

Less, day by day, your store will grow,  
Gone, you scarce know or when, or how;  
Interest will eat, while you delay,  
And vermin steal your hopes away.  
In parcels sold, in ways unknown, 5.
It melts, and, unobserv’d, is gone.  
No solid purpose driblets aid,  
Spent, and forgot, as soon as paid:  
The sum, a year’s whole earnings yield,  
Will pay a debt, or buy a field.” 10.

“In time, whate’er your needs require,  
Lay in, of clothing, food, or fire.  
Your cellars, barns, and granaries fill;  
Your wood, in winter, round you pile:  
Let spring ne’er see th’ exhausted mow, 5.
Or oxen faint, before the plough;  
Nor summer, when it’s hurries come,  
Your wood, in harvest, carted home.”  

“Along the side of sloping hills,  
Conduct your numerous living rills.  
Thence bid them, sweetly-wandering, flow,  
To wake the grass, in fields below.  
Rich meadows in their course shall spring, 5.
And mowers whet the scythe, and sing.”  

“Look round, and see your woods decay’d,  
Your fuel scarce, your timber fled.  
What groves remain with care enclose,  
Nor e’er to biting herds expose.  
Your store with planted nuts renew, 5.
And acorns o’er each barren strew.  
Tho’ spring now smiles, yet winter’s blast  
Will soon the frozen skies o’ercast;  
And, pinch’d, your children crowding nigher,  
Hang shivering o’er the scanty sire: 10.
Rouse! your reluctant sloth o’ercome,  
And bid reviving forests bloom.”  

“Yearly the house, the barn, the fence,  
Demand much care, and some expence.  
Small sums, in time, with prudence paid,  
Will profit more than great, delay’d:  
Each year’s decays in time repair, 5.
Nor foolish waste, thro’ want of care.”  

“Neat be your farms: ’tis long confess’d,  
The neatest farmers are the best.  
Each bog, and marsh, industrious drain,  
Nor let vile balks deform the plain;  
No bushes on your headlands grow, 5.
Nor briars a sloven’s culture show.  
Neat be your barns; your houses neat;  
Your doors be clean; your court-yards sweet;  
No moss the sheltering roof inshroud;  
No wooden panes the window cloud; 10.
No filthy kennel foully flow;  
Nor weeds with rankling poison grow:  
But shades expand, and fruit-trees bloom,  
And flowering shrubs exhale perfume.  
With pales, your gardens circle round; 15.
Defend, enrich, and clean, the ground:  
Prize high this pleasing, useful rood,  
And fill with vegetable good.”  

“With punctual hand your taxes pay,  
Nor put far off the evil day.  
How soon to an enormous size,  
Taxes, succeeding taxes, rise!  
How easy, one by one, discharg’d! 5.
How hardly, in the mass enlarg’d!  
How humbling the intrusive dun!  
How fast, how far, th’ expences run!  
Fees, advertisements, travel, cost,  
And that sad end of all, the post! 10.
This gulph of quick perdition flee,  
And live, from duns and bailiffs free.”  

“In merchants’ books, from year to year,  
Be cautious how your names appear.  
How fast their little items count!  
How great, beyond your hopes, th’ amount!  
When shelves, o’er shelves, inviting stand, 5.
And wares allure, on either hand;  
While round, you turn enchanted eyes,  
And feel a thousand wants arise,  
(Ye young, ye fair, these counsels true  
Are penn’d for all, but most for you), 10.
Ere Fancy lead your hearts astray,  
Think of the means you have, to pay;  
What wants are nature’s; fancy’s what;  
What will yield real good, when bought;  
What certain, future means you find, 15.
To cancel contracts, left behind;  
What means to make the first of May  
To you, and your’s, a welcome day.”  

“To you, let each returning spring  
That day of certain reckoning bring;  
All debts to cancel, books t’ adjust,  
And check the wild career of trust.  
From frequent reckonings friendship grows, 5.
And peace, and sweet communion, flows.”  

“Meanwhile, of all your toil, and care,  
Your children claim the largest share.  
In health, and sickness, much they need,  
To nurse, to watch, to clothe, and feed;  
Their education much demands 5.
From faithful hearts, and active hands.”  

“First be their health your constant care;  
Give them to breathe the freest air:  
Their food be neither rich, nor dainty,  
But plain, and clean, and good, and plenty:  
Their clothes, let changing seasons rule, 5.
In winter warm, in summer cool,  
In your own houses spun, and dy’d,  
For comfort made, and not for pride.  
Hardy, not suffering, be their life,  
With heat, and cold, and storm, at strife; 10.
Accustom’d common ills to bear,  
To smile at danger, laugh at fear,  
Troubles to brave, with hardy breast,  
And seek, thro’ toilsome action, rest.  
Teach them each manly art to prize, 15.
And base effem’nacy despise,  
Teach them to wrestle, leap, and run,  
To win the palm, and prize it, won;  
To seek, in acts like these, and find  
A nervous frame, and vigorous mind.” 20.

“My country’s youth, I see with pain,  
The customs of their sires disdain,  
Quit the bold pastimes of the green,  
That strengthen striplings into men,  
Grovel in inns, at cards, and dice, 5.
The means of foul disease, and vice,  
And waste, in gaming, drink, and strife,  
Health, honour, fame, and peace, and life.”  

“With gentler hand, your daughters train,  
The housewife’s various arts to gain;  
O’er scenes domestic to preside;  
The needle, wheel, and shuttle, guide;  
The peacock’s gaudry to despise, 5.
And view vain sports with parents’ eyes;  
On things of use to fix the heart,  
And gild, with every graceful art.  
Teach them, with neatest, simplest dress,  
A neat, and lovely mind t’express; 10.
Th’ alluring female mien to wear;  
Gently to soothe corroding care;  
Bid life with added pleasure glow,  
And sweetly charm the bed of woe.  
To show, the giddy fair-one train’d, 15.
With every ugly spot is stain’d;  
While she, who lives to worth, and duty,  
Shines forth, in Wisdom’s eye, a beauty.”  

“With steady hand your houshold sway,  
And use them always to obey.  
Always their worthy acts commend;  
Always against their faults contend;  
The mind inform; the conscience move; 5.
And blame, with tenderness, and love.  
When round they flock, and smile, and tell  
Their lambkin sports, and infant weal,  
Nor foolish laugh, nor fret, nor frown;  
But all their little interests own; 10.
Like them, those trifles serious deem,  
And daily witness your esteem:  
Yourselves their best friends always prove,  
For filial duty springs from love.  
Teach them, with confidence t’ impart, 15.
Each secret purpose of the heart:  
Thrice happy parents, children bless’d,  
Of mutual confidence possess’d!  
Such parents shall their children see  
From vice, and shame, and anguish, free.” 20.

“Correct not, ’til the coming day  
Has fann’d resentment’s heat away.  
When passion rules, ’tis fear obeys;  
But duty serves, when reason sways.  
In earliest years, the rod will mend; 5.
In later, fails to reach the end.  
Still vary: let neglect, disgrace,  
Confinement, censure, find their place.  
Convince, ere you correct, and prove  
You punish, not from rage, but love; 10.
And teach them, with persuasion mild,  
You hate the fault, but love the child.”  

“All discipline, as facts attest,  
In private minister’d, is best.  
Vex’d to be seen disgrac’d, and sham’d,  
His passion rous’d, his pride inflam’d,  
Your child his guilt with care conceals, 5.
And pertly talks, and stoutly feels;  
From truth, with swift declension flies,  
To arts, equivocations, lies;  
And sullen broods, with sad design,  
O’er sweet revenge of future sin. 10.
Alone, before the parent’s bar,  
His conscience with himself at war,  
Of pride, and petulance, bereft,  
Without a hope, or refuge, left,  
He shrinks, beneath a father’s eye, 15.
And feels his firm perverseness die;  
Reveres the love, his sighs implore,  
And grateful turns, to sin no more.”  

“On uniformity depends  
All government, that gains its ends.  
The same things always praise, and blame,  
Your laws, and conduct, be the same.”  

“Let no discouragement deter,  
Nor sloth this daily task defer.  
Sloth and discouragement destroy  
The children’s weal, the parents’ joy.  
For one, who labor lothes, we find 5.
Ten thousand lothing toil of mind,  
That close attention, careful tho’t,  
With every real blessing fraught.  
Early the stubborn child transgresses;  
Denies it; nor, ’till forc’d, confesses: 10.
The fault, tho’ punish’d, he renews;  
New punishment the fault pursues:  
His heart by nature prone to sin,  
Agen he wounds you, and agen;  
Amaz’d, dishearten’d, in despair, 15.
To see so fruitless all your care,  
And wearied, by such fix’d attention  
To crimes, that suffer no prevention,  
Reluctant, by degrees, you yield,  
And leave him master of the field.” 20.

“Then with fond hope, that reason’s sway  
Will win him from his faults away,  
For decent power, alone you strive,  
Resign’d, if decently he’ll live.”  

“Vain hope! by reason’s power alone,  
From guilt, no heart was ever won.  
Decent, not good, may reason make him;  
By reason, crimes will ne’er forsake him.  
As weeds, self-sown, demand no toil, 5.
But flourish in their native soil,  
Root deep, grow high, with vigour bloom,  
And send forth poison, for perfume;  
So faults, inborn, spontaneous rise,  
And daily wax in strength, and size, 10.
Ripen, with neither toil, nor care,  
And choke each germ of virtue there.  
Virtues, like plants of nobler kind,  
Transferred from regions more refin’d,  
The gardener’s careful hand must sow; 15.
His culturing hand must bid them grow;  
Rains gently shower; skies softly shine,  
And blessings fall, from realms divine.”  

“Much time, and pain, and toil, and care,  
Must virtue’s habits plant, and rear:  
Habits alone thro’ life endure,  
Habits alone your child secure:  
To these be all your labours given; 5.
To these, your fervent prayers to HEAVEN.  
Nor faint, a thousand trials o’er,  
To see your pains effect no more;  
Love, duty, interest, bid you strive;  
Contend, and yield not, while you live; 10.
And know, for all your labours pass’d,  
Your eyes shall see a crop, at last.  
The smith beside his anvil stands,  
The lump of silver in his hands,  
A thousand strokes with patience gives, 15.
And still unform’d the work perceives;  
A thousand, and a thousand more,  
Unfinish’d leave it as before;  
Yet, though, from each, no print is found,  
Still toiling on his steady round, 20.
He sees the ductile mass refine,  
And in a beauteous vessel shine.”  

“Taverns, and shops, and lounging places,  
Vile comrades, gaming tables, races,  
Where youth to vice, and ruin, run,  
Teach them, as pits of death, to shun.  
At nine, when sounds the warning bell, 5.
Use them to bid their sports farewell;  
Health, order, temperance, every joy,  
As blasts, untimely hours destroy;  
At these dread hours, in places vile,  
Where all things tempt, betray, defile, 10.
Abroad, to every ill they roam,  
But peace, and safety, find at home.”  

“From licens’d talk their tongues restrain,  
And bridle, with discretion’s rein;  
Safety, and peace, reserve affords;  
But evil hides in many words.  
All wond’rous stories bid them shun, 5.
And the pernicious love of fun;  
In lies, great stories ever end,  
And fun will every vice befriend.  
What sports of real use you find,  
To brace the form, or nerve the mind, 10.
Freely indulge; such sports, as these,  
Will profit youth, as well as please.  
But from all arts and tricks dehort,  
And check th’ excessive love of sport.  
All buzzing tales, of private life, 15.
All scandals, form’d on houshold strife,  
The idle chatterings of the street,  
Early forbid them to repeat;  
But teach them, kindness, praise, and truth,  
Alone become the voice of youth.” 20.

“Their hearts with soft affections warm;  
Their taste, to gentle manners form;  
Let manly aims their bosoms fire,  
And sweet civility inspire.  
Bid them the stranger kindly greet, 5.
The friend with faithful friendship meet,  
And charm of life the little span,  
By general courtesy to man.”  

“Teach them to reverence righteous sway,  
With life defend, with love obey;  
Nor join that wretched band of scoffers,  
Who rail at every man in office.  
With freedom’s warmth their souls inspire, 5.
And light their brave forefathers’ fire.  
Bid them their privileges know;  
Bid them with love of country glow;  
With skill, their arms defensive wield,  
Nor shun the duties of the field.” 10.

“How bless’d this HEAVEN-distinguish’d land!  
Where schools in every hamlet stand;  
Far spread the beams of learning bright,  
And every child enjoys the light.  
At school, beneath a faithful guide, 5.
In teaching skill’d, of morals tried,  
And pleas’d the early mind to charm  
To every good, from every harm,  
Learn they to read, to write, to spell,  
And cast accompts, and learn them well: 10.
For, on this microscopic plan,  
Is form’d the wise, and useful man.  
Let him a taste for books inspire;  
While you, to nurse the young desire,  
A social library procure, 15.
And open knowledge to the poor.  
This useful taste imbib’d, your eyes  
Shall see a thousand blessings rise.  
From haunts, and comrades vile secure,  
Where gilded baits to vice allure, 20.
No more your sons abroad shall roam,  
But pleas’d, their evenings spend at home;  
Allurements more engaging find,  
And feast, with pure delight, the mind.  
The realms of earth, their tho’ts shall scan, 25.
And learn the works, and ways, of man;  
See, from the savage, to the sage,  
How nations ripen, age by age;  
How states, and men, by virtue rise;  
How both to ruin sink, by vice; 30.
How thro’ the world’s great prison-bounds,  
While one wide clank of chains resounds,  
Men slaves, while Angels weep to see,  
Some wise, and brave, and bless’d, are free.  
Thro’ moral scenes shall stretch their sight: 35.
Discern the bounds of wrong, and right;  
That lothe; this love; and, pleas’d, pursue  
Whate’er from man to man is due;  
And, from the page of HEAVEN derive  
The motives, and the means, to live.” 40.

“Nor think the scope, or task, too great;  
Coolly your leisure moments state;  
These, nicely reckon’d, will appear  
Enough for all, that’s promis’d here.  
Would you still higher proof behold? 5.
Plain facts that higher proof unfold.  
I know, and tell it with a smile,  
No narrow list of men of toil,  
Illum’d by no collegiate rays,  
And forc’d to tread in busy ways, 10.
Who yet, to read intensely loving,  
And every leisure hour improving,  
On wisdom’s heights distinguish’d stand,  
The boast, and blessing, of our land.  
This mystery learn: in great, or small things, 15.
‘THIS APPLICATION MASTERS ALL THINGS.”  

“Thus taught, in every state of life,  
Of child, of parent, husband, wife,  
They’ll wiser, better, happier, prove;  
Their freedom better know, and love;  
More pleasures gain, more hearts engage, 5.
And feast their own dull hours of age.”  

“Use them, and early use, to have,  
To earn, and what they earn, to save.  
From industry, and prudence, flow  
Relief of want, and balm of woe,  
Delightful sleep, enduring wealth, 5.
The purest peace, the firmest health,  
True independence of our peers,  
Support for sickness, and for years,  
Security from houshold strife,  
The conscience sweet of useful life, 10.
Esteem abroad, content at home,  
An easy passage to the tomb,  
With blessings numberless, that flow  
To neighbour, stranger, friend, and foe,  
That man to man resistless bind, 15.
And spread, and spread, to all mankind.”  

Would you for them this good acquire,  
Prudence, and industry, inspire;  
To habit bid the blessings grow;  
Habits alone yield good below.  
To these untrain’d, whate’er you give, 5.
Whate’er inheritance you leave,  
To every worthless passion given,  
And scatter’d to the winds of HEAVEN,  
Will foes, and strangers, clothe, and feed;  
While your own children pine with need, 10.
Their friends, pain’d, pitied, slighted, fly,  
Forgotten live, and wretched die.  

“In this New World, life’s changing round,  
In three descents, is often found.  
The first, firm, busy, plodding, poor,  
Earns, saves, and daily swells, his store;  
By farthings first, and pence, it grows; 5.
In shillings next, and pounds, it flows;  
Then spread his widening farms, abroad;  
His forests wave; his harvests nod;  
Fattening, his numerous cattle play,  
And debtors dread his reckoning day. 10.
Ambitious then t’adorn with knowledge  
His son, he places him at college;  
And sends, in smart attire, and neat,  
To travel, thro’ each neighbouring state;  
Builds him a handsome house, or buys, 15.
Sees him a gentleman, and dies.”  

“The second, born to wealth, and ease,  
And taught to think, converse, and please,  
Ambitious, with his lady-wife,  
Aims at a higher walk of life.  
Yet, in those wholesome habits train’d, 5.
By which his wealth, and weight, were gain’d,  
Bids care in hand with pleasure go,  
And blends oeconomy with show.  
His houses, fences, garden, dress,  
The neat and thrifty man confess. 10.
Improv’d, but with improvement plain,  
Intent on office, as on gain,  
Exploring, useful sweets to spy,  
To public life he turns his eye.  
A townsman first; a justice soon; 15.
A member of the house anon;  
Perhaps to board, or bench, invited,  
He sees the state, and subjects, righted;  
And, raptur’d with politic life,  
Consigns his children to his wife. 20.
Of houshold cares amid the round,  
For her, too hard the task is found.  
At first she struggles, and contends;  
Then doubts, desponds, laments, and bends;  
Her sons pursue the sad defeat, 25.
And shout their victory complete;  
Rejoicing, see their father roam,  
And riot, rake, and reign, at home.  
Too late he sees, and sees to mourn,  
His race of every hope forlorn, 30.
Abroad, for comfort, turns his eyes,  
Bewails his dire mistakes, and dies.”  

“His heir, train’d only to enjoy,  
Untaught his mind, or hands, t’ employ,  
Conscious of wealth enough for life,  
With business, care, and worth, at strife,  
By prudence, conscience, unrestrain’d, 5.
And none, but pleasure’s habits, gain’d,  
Whirls on the wild career of sense,  
Nor danger marks, nor heeds expense.  
Soon ended is the giddy round;  
And soon the fatal goal is found. 10.
His lands, secur’d for borrow’d gold,  
His houses, horses, herds, are sold.  
And now, no more for wealth respected,  
He sinks, by all his friends neglected;  
Friends, who, before, his vices flatter’d, 15.
And liv’d upon the loaves he scatter’d.  
Unacted every worthy part,  
And pining with a broken heart,  
To dirtiest company he flies,  
Whores, gambles, turns a sot, and dies. 20.
His children, born to fairer doom,  
In rags, pursue him to the tomb.”  

“Apprentic’d then to masters stern,  
Some real good the orphans learn;  
Are bred to toil, and hardy fare,  
And grow to usefulness, and care;  
And, following their great-grandsire’s plan, 5.
Each slow becomes a useful man.”  

“Such here is life’s swift-circling round;  
So soon are all its changes found.  
Would you prevent th’ allotment hard,  
And fortune’s rapid whirl retard,  
In all your race, industrious care 5.
Attentive plant, and faithful rear;  
With life, th’ important task begin,  
Nor but with life, the task resign;  
To habit, bid the blessings grow,  
Habits alone yield good below.” 10.

“But, to complete the bless’d design,  
Both parents must their efforts join;  
With kind regard, each other treat:  
In every plan, harmonious meet;  
The conduct each of each approve; 5.
Nor strive, but in the strife of love.  
What one commands, let both require;  
In counsels, smiles, and frowns, conspire;  
Alike oppose; alike befriend;  
And each the other’s choice commend. 10.
In sweetest union thus conjoin’d,  
And one the life, as one the mind,  
Your children cheerful will obey,  
And reverence undivided pay;  
The daily task be lightly done, 15.
And half the houshold troubles gone:  
While jars domestic weal destroy,  
And wither every hope of joy.”  

“Meantime, let peace around you rest,  
Nor feuds good neighbourhood molest.  
Your neighbour’s crops with justice eye,  
Nor let his hopes by trespass die.  
Your fence repair, your herds repel; 5.
Much virtue’s found in fencing well.  
With care his reputation guard;  
Sweet friendship will that care reward.  
No idle tatler e’er receive;  
No storied scandal e’er believe: 10.
What’s good, and kind, alone report;  
Tell nothing, which can others hurt:  
Oblige, lend, borrow–freely all–  
Rejoice not in another’s fall:  
When others need, assistance lend; 15.
Are others sick? their calls attend;  
Their visits hospitably greet,  
And pay, with cheerful kindness sweet.  
These things, or I mistake, will form,  
And keep the heart of friendship warm.” 20.

“But should contentions rise, and grudges,  
Which call for arbitrating judges,  
Still shun the law, that gulph of woe,  
Whose waves without a bottom flow:  
That gulph, by storms forever toss’d, 5.
Where all, that’s once afloat, is lost;  
Where friends, embark’d, are friends no more,  
And neither finds a peaceful shore:  
While thousand wrecks, as warnings, lie,  
The victims of an angry sky. 10.

“Each cause let mutual friends decide,  
With Common-sense alone to guide:  
If right, in silent peace be glad;  
If wrong, be neither sour, nor sad:  
As oft you’ll find full justice done, 5.
As when thro’ twenty terms you’ve run;  
And when, in travel, sees, and cost,  
Far more than can be won, is lost.”  

“Learn, this conclusion whence I draw.  
Mark what estates are spent in law!  
See men litigious business fly,  
And loungers live, and beggars die!  
What anger, hatred, malice fell, 5.
And fierce revenge their bosoms swell!  
What frauds, subornings, tamperings rise!  
What slanders foul! what shameful lies!  
What perjuries, blackening many a tongue!  
And what immensity of wrong! 10.
Where peace, and kindness, dwelt before,  
See peace, and kindness, dwell no more!  
Ills to good offices succeed,  
And neighbours bid each other bleed!”  

“Esop, the merry Phrygian sage,  
Worth half the Wise-men of his age,  
Has left to litigants a story,  
Which, with your leave, I’ll set before you.”  

“”The bear, and lion, on the lawn,  
Once found the carcase of a fawn.  
Both claim’d the dainty; neither gave it;  
But each swore roundly he would have it.  
They growl’d; they fought; but sought in vain; 5.
For neither could the prize obtain;  
And, while, to breathe, they both retreated,  
The lawyer fox, came in, and eat it.””  

“And would you useful live, and bless’d,  
Parochial heats, and jars, detest.  
Like you, their interests others feel;  
Have pride, and passions, warmth, and will.  
Those interests clash; those wills contend; 5.
And some, where all have votes, must bend.  
A yielding spirit hence maintain;  
Let all concede, that all may gain:  
Hence, when fierce heat the mass inspires,  
And Party blows her angry fires, 10.
For weeks, or months, or years, postpone  
What, prudence tells you, must be done:  
Time will command the flames to cease,  
And party soften into peace.”  

Thus spoke the sage. The crowd around,  
Applauding, heard the grateful sound:  
Each, deeply musing, homeward went,  
T’ amend his future life intent;  
And, pondering past delays, with sorrow, 5.
Resolv’d, he would begin, to-morrow.  

END OF THE SIXTH PART.

PART VII.

The VISION.

THE ARGUMENT.

Introduction. Vision. Scene the margin of the Sound. Genius of the Sound appears, and declares the future Glory of America. Splendour of Europe excelled by the Happiness of America. Happy local Situation of U. S. secure from the political evils of Europe. Magnificence of the works of nature, on this Continent. Healthfulness, and fruitfulness of the Seasons. Country divided into small Farms, equally descending to Children. Unhappy effects of an unequal Division of Property, and of Entailments. Stanislaus. Polish Nobility. State of Property in this Country resumed. Its Effects on Industry, Government, and Policy. U. S. contrasted to ancient Empires. Happiness of U. S. contrasted to Eastern Despotism. Universal Prevalence of Freedom. Unfortified, and therefore safe, state of U. S. Influence of our state of Society on the Mind. Public Property employed for the Public Benefit. Penal Administrations improved by Benevolence. Policy enlarges its scope. Knowledge promoted. Improvements in Astronomical and other Instruments of Science. Improvements of the Americans, in Natural Philosophy–Poetry–Music –and Moral Science. State of the American Clergy. Manners refined. Artificial Manners condemned. American Women. Cultivation advanced. Other Nations visit this Country, and learn the nature, and causes, of our happiness. Conclusion.13.

FROM these fair scenes, to wonders more refin’d,  
Instinctive turns the ever busy Mind:  
The present prospect but expands her sight;  
The present joy to others tempts her flight;  
Allur’d by each new good, she loves to roam, 5.
And spreads her wings, through ages long to come;  
Where Time, with hand prophetic, points her way,  
And HEAVENly visions HEAVENly scenes display.  

As late, when Spring awak’d the slumbering plains,  
The soul, extatic, burst her earthy chains,  
Approaching Morn assum’d her magic power,  
And bade her visions bless the fairy hour,  
In quick review, Columbia’s glories spread; 5.
The past roll on; the present swift succeed;  
Behind, rank after rank, the future rise,  
As clouds, successive, paint the changing skies.  

I stood, methought, beside yon azure plain;  
Still hung the concave; peaceful slept the main;  
In HEAVEN suspended, lingering Hesper shin’d,  
And purple evening breath’d her gentlest wind.  
At once I heard a solemn murmur rise, 5.
As thunders slowly swell, in distant skies;  
The waves, disturb’d, in deep convulsion lay;  
The world was hush’d; the airs forgot to play.  

At that still moment, from his sapphire bed,  
The Genius of the Sound uprear’d his head:  
Slow round his form a cloud of amber roll’d,  
Now hid, now splendent, through it’s skirts of gold.  
Gemm’d with new stars, his seagreen mitre shin’d; 5.
His scaly mantle rustled in the wind;  
A pictur’d shield his hand, uplifted, bore,  
Grav’d with the semblance of his double shore:  
Unnumber’d sails propitious breezes swell’d,  
And his strip’d flag disclos’d th’ unfinish’d field. 10.
Here Longa’s bays, and whitening coast, were seen,  
Small isles, around her, wrought in living green;  
The loftier Mainland there allur’d the eye,  
It’s margin winding toward the southern sky;  
The tall hill heav’d; expansive spread the plain; 15.
And groves, and gardens, streak’d the subject main:  
New Haven’s spires, in sculptur’d silver, rose,  
And York’s proud domes, escap’d the waste of foes.  
Here a new Thames an infant London laves;  
Through a new Tempe, roll Connecta’s waves; 20.
With foamy stream, another Avon glides,  
And Hudson triumphs in his freighted tides.  

“Rise, genial years! and haste, auspicious times!  
Ascend, and bless the true, Hesperian climes;  
O’er happy isles, and garden’d realms, display  
Th’ advancing splendours of prophetic day.”  

“Her themes of pride let savage Europe boast,  
Her bloody enginry, and marshall’d host,  
Her haughty flags, with purple stain’d, display,  
The car of triumph, and the pomp of sway;  
Or, wrought with Grecian skill, her columns raise, 5.
Bend the tall arch, and teach the dome to blaze;  
In art’s wide regions bid her laurels grow,  
And place the crown of science on her brow.  
Round the mild year, let Albion’s verdure run;  
Let Gallia’s opening vines allure the sun; 10.
O’er brighter realms, the Turkish crescent rise,  
Wash’d by fair seas, and warm’d by vernal skies;  
Let richer Ind, and prouder Persia, tell  
The diamond cavern, and the pearly shell;  
Peruvia vaunt her streams, in silver roll’d, 15.
And sunny Darien lift her hills of gold.  
Here the best blessings of those far-fam’d climes,  
Pure of their woes, and whiten’d from their crimes,  
Shall blend with nobler blessings, all my own;  
Here first th’ enduring reign of Peace be known: 20.
The voice of scepter’d Law wide realms obey,  
And choice erect, and freemen hail, the sway:  
The sun of knowledge light the general mind,  
And cheer, through every class, oppress’d mankind;  
Here Truth, and Virtue, doom’d no more to roam, 25.
Pilgrims in eastern climes, shall find their home;  
Age after age, exalt their glory higher,  
That light the soul, and this the life inspire;  
And Man once more, self-ruin’d Phoenix, rise,  
On wings of Eden, to his native skies.” 30.

“To build the finish’d bliss, see all things given,  
The goods of nature, and the smiles of HEAVEN,  
A site sequester’d, policy sublime,  
The noblest manners, and the happiest time.”  

“See this glad world remote from every foe,  
From Europe’s mischiefs, and from Europe’s woe!  
Th’ Atlantic’s guardian tide repelling far  
The jealous terror, and the vengeful war,  
The native malice, envy, pride, and strife, 5.
The plagues of rank, the rust of useless life,  
The cumbrous pomp, of general want the spring,  
The clashing commerce, and the rival king.  
See, far remote, the crimes of balanc’d sway!  
Where courts contract the debt, and subjects pay;10.
The black intrigue, the crush of self-defence,  
Th’ enlistment dire, foul press, and tax immense,  
Navies, and hosts, that gorge Potosi whole;  
Bribes, places, pensions, and the auction’d soul:  
Ills, that, each hour, invoke the wrath of God, 15.
And bid the world’s wide surface smoke with blood,  
Waste human good, in slavery nations bind,  
And speed untimely death to half mankind.”  

“Profusely scatter’d o’er these regions, lo! 
What scenes of grandeur, and of beauty, glow.  
It’s noblest wonders here Creation spreads;  
Hills, where skies rest, and Danubes pour cascades;  
Forests, that stretch from Cancer, to the Pole; 5.
Lakes, where seas lie, and rivers, where they roll;  
Landschapes, where Edens gild anew the ball,  
And plains, and meads, where suns arise, and fall:”  

“To these bright wonders, Nature’s hand sublime 
Has join’d the varied joys of circling clime.  
Winds purest breathe; benignest seasons smile;  
And double harvests gild the bounteous soil;  
The choicest sweets, unnumber’d fruits inhale, 5.
And Flora wantons, on the fragrant gale:  
Gains of true gold pursue th’ exploring plough,  
Wealth, that endures, and good unbought with woe;  
With richest ore, the useful mountains shine,  
And luscious treasures fill the teeming brine: 10.
Fell Famine sickens, at th’ o’erflowing good,  
And, hissing, flies the native land of food.”  

“See the wide realm in equal shares possess’d! 
How few the rich, or poor! how many bless’d!  
O happy state! the state, by HEAVEN design’d  
To rein, protect, employ, and bless mankind;  
Where Competence, in full enjoyment, flows; 5.
Where man least vice, and highest virtue, knows;  
Where the mind thrives; strong nerves th’ invention string;  
And daring Enterprize uplifts his wing;  
Where Splendour spreads, in vain, his peacock-hues;  
Where vagrant Sloth, the general hiss pursues; 10.
Where Business reigns, the universal queen;  
Where none are slaves, or lords; but all are men:  
No nuisant drones purloin the earner’s food;  
But each man’s labour swells the common good.”  

“O state, to my lov’d sons most kindly given;  
Of all their bliss, the basis laid by HEAVEN!  
Curs’d be the heart, that wishes to destroy,  
Curs’d be the hand, that mines this ground-work joy;  
Hung be his name, in infamy’s foul den; 5.
And let the wide world rise, and say Amen!”  

“Thrice wretched lands! where, thousands slaves to one,  
Sires know no child, beside the eldest son;  
Men know no rights; no justice nobles know;  
And kings no pleasure, but from subjects’ woe.  
There, wealth from plunder’d throngs by few engross’d, 5.
To rich, and poor, alike is virtue lost.  
The rich, to foul oppression born, and bred,  
To reason blinded, and to feeling dead,  
From childhood, train’d to wield the iron rod,  
Alike regard not man, and fear not God. 10.
Science they scorn, the public bar deride;  
And every feud by vengeful force decide;  
Honour their deity, and will their law,  
In private war, the sword of passion draw,  
O’er wretched vassals, death and ruin drive, 15.
Whose only hope, or comfort, was to live;  
Unbless’d, forbid all others bliss to find,  
Fools, atheists, bigots, curses to mankind.”  

“Mean, base, deceitful, dead to hope, and shame,  
At war with that hard world, which wars with them,  
Like trees, adhesive to their native plain, 
And given, or sold, as pleasure prompts, or gain,  
Dower of a daughter, purchase of a hound, 5.
Alike remov’d from worth, the poor are found.  
Mere tools of fraud, oppression, whim, or rage,  
No law t’ avenge their wrongs, nor friend t’ assuage,  
By passion tempested, by instinct sped,  
To’ obedience whipp’d, to action hunger-led, 10.
In knowledge brutes, in comfort brutes below,  
Forbid to taste the little good, they know,  
They envy the sleek dog, that passes by,  
They starve, and steal, blaspheme their God, and die.”  

“Thrice wretched lands! where wealth and splendour glow,  
And want, and misery, in dire contrast, show;  
On sheds, and pens, where palac’d pride looks down;  
A GOD the noble, and a beast the clown;  
Where tissue glares, and rags indecent yawn; 5.
Feet step in blood, and kingly cars are drawn;  
Where Luxury sickens, at Vitellius’ feast,  
And wretches starve, beneath the hedge, to rest;  
Furs guard the silky form from winter’s breath,  
And the bare corse defiles the frozen heath; 10.
Idolatry fans off the vernal breeze,  
And sun-struck Labour, phrenzied, sinks to peace.  
Such, Poland! long have mourn’d thy realms of woe;  
Such, Russia, such, Bohemia! thine are now.”  

“Hail, Prince of princes! first of modern thrones,  
Hail, Stanislaus! thou king, from nature’s sons!  
Hail, Child of HEAVEN! whose large, etherial mind  
Look’d into woe, and felt for poor mankind.  
Let fame eternal crown thy glorious brows, 5.
And ills glance from thee to thy savage foes.  
Be thine the peace, the bliss, of doing good,  
Delightful earnest of the blest abode!  
Sweet be thy day; thine eve supremely sweet;  
Death, fear, and sorrow, laid beneath thy feet: 10.
And oh! may He, for ruin’d man who died,  
Approve, accept, and hail thee to his side,  
Who, wielding earthly power, for HEAVENly ends,  
Had’st pity on the least, among his friends.”  

“And ye exalted Poles! whose generous mind,  
Offering august! your pomp, and power, resign’d,  
Pleas’d, with divine benignity to see  
Slaves chang’d to men, and wretches bless’d, and free;  
From the far evening of th’ Atlantic shore, 5.
If some soft gale should waft this whisper o’er,  
Know, for your weal, all Virtue’s children glow,  
Joy in your joy, and weep your every woe;  
Upward, each day, their prayers with fervour rise,  
And wrestle down the promise of the Skies,” 10.

“In these contrasted climes, how chang’d the scene,  
Where happiness expands, in living green!  
Through the whole realm, behold convenient farms  
Fed by small herds, and gay with cultur’d charms;  
To sons, in equal portions, handed down, 5.
The sire’s bold spirit kindling in the son;  
No tyrant riding o’er th’ indignant plain;  
A prince, a king, each independent swain;  
No servile thought, no vile submission, known;  
No rent to lords, nor homage to a throne; 10.
But sense to know, and virtue to extend,  
And nerves to feel the bliss, and bravery to defend!”  

“As o’er the lawns the humming nations play,  
Feel the soft sun, and bless reviving May,  
From field to field, the fragrant wax explore,  
And round each fountain, visit every flower,  
Approaching frost, with steady murmur, sing, 5.
Wake with the morn, and husband all the spring:  
Thus warm’d with industry, behold my swains!  
Guide the smooth plough, and dress the grateful plains;  
From earth’s rich bosom, bid all products rise,  
The bless’d creation of indulgent skies; 10.
The grass-grown hills with herds unnumber’d crown,  
And bid the fleecy nations fill the down;  
O’er countless fields, the flaxen treasure spread,  
And call the canvas, from it’s hempen bed:  
Or bid the loom with all earth’s fabrics shine, 15.
The useful strengthen, and the gay refine,  
Or ocean’s chambers, with bold hand, explore,  
And waft his endless treasures to the shore!”  

“Here first shall man, with full conviction, know  
Well-system’d rule the source of bliss below;  
Invent, refine, arrange, the sacred plan,  
Check pride, rein power, and save the rights of man!  
Here first, his savage independence bow, 5.
And, at the public shrine, spontaneous vow;  
The triumph, here, of Reason first display, 
A nation yielding to elective sway.”  

“See the charm’d States the glorious Rule complete,  
Each hastening to be wise, and good, and great;  
Power, nicely balanc’d, all the parts adjust,  
The source of union, and the seat of trust;  
Whence, men forgotten, Law supremely reigns, 5.
And justice flows, a river, o’er the plains!”  

“Her sky-crown’d pyramids let Egypt show,  
The tomb of folly, and the work of woe;  
Her walls, her gardens, Babylon display,  
The pomp of spoils, and pageant of a day;  
Greece, with fierce mobs, and rival fury, toss’d, 5.
Her baseless sway, and tottering freedom, boast;  
Her pride of empire haughty Rome unfold,  
A world despoil’d, for luxury, and gold:  
Here nobler wonders of the world shall rise;  
Far other empire here mankind surprize: 10.
Of orders pure, that ask no Grecian name,  
A new born structure here ascend to fame.  
The base, shall knowledge, choice, and freedom, form,  
Sapp’d by no flood, and shaken by no storm;  
Unpattern’d columns, union’d States ascend; 15.
Combining arches, virtuous manners bend;  
Of balanc’d powers, proportion’d stories rise,  
Like Babel’s dome, intended for the skies;  
One speech, one soul, to every builder given,  
And the tall summit shrouded high in HEAVEN.” 20.

“In this bright mansion, all my sons shall find  
Whatever rights their God has given mankind;  
To rich, and poor, alike, th’ avenues clear;  
Its gates, like Salem’s, open round the year;  
Hence justice, freedom, peace, and bounty, flow, 5.
Redress for injuries, and relief for woe.”  

“O blissful visions of the happy West!  
O how unlike the miseries of the East!  
There, in sad realms of desolating war,  
Fell Despotism ascends his iron car;  
Printed in blood, o’er all the moving throne, 5.
The motto glows, of–Millions made for one.  
Above, on either side, the Furies glare,  
Their scorpions brandish, and their snakes uprear;  
His breath their being, and his scourge their law,  
Unnumber’d haggard slaves the chariot draw; 10.
A villain, black as hell, his master guides,  
A guard of blacker villains round him rides.  
As rolls the pomp the wasted kingdom o’er,  
With corpses causey’d, and wet deep with gore,  
One wide Aceldama the region lies, 15.
And whitening Golgothas immingled rise:  
While nobles, pamper’d on the spoils of woe,  
Resound–”The knee to HEAVEN’s Vicegerent bow.””  

“Yet there, even there, Columbia’s bliss shall spring,  
Rous’d from dull sleep, astonish’d Europe sing,  
O’er Asia burst the renovating morn,  
And startled Afric in a day be born;  
As, from the tomb, when great MESSIAH rose, 5.
HEAVEN bloom’d with joy, and Earth forgot her woes,  
His saints, thro’ nature, truth and virtue spread,  
And light, and life, the Sacred Spirit shed;  
Thus, thro’ all climes, shall Freedom’s bliss extend,  
The world renew, and death, and bondage, end; 10.
All nations quicken with th’ ecstatic power,  
And one redemption reach to every shore.”  

“Unlike the East, whose castles rivet sway,  
Shield the fell guard, and force the realm t’ obey,  
A nations voice, with pointed cannon, brave,  
Meant to defend, but useful to enslave;  
Where foes victorious in dire safety stand, 5.
And six oppression on a hapless land,  
Here, without walls, the fields of safety spread,  
And, free as winds, ascends the peaceful shade;  
Invasion fierce, interfluent oceans bar;  
Streams hedge the foe, and mountains mock the war, 10.
In each dread pass, with naked side, he stands,  
To sudden terrors, and to unseen hands;  
On the broad plain, ten thousand ills invade,  
The day’s hard toils, the night’s ill-boding shade;  
Surrounding wilds, incessant, breathe alarms, 15.
And moors, and forests, pour harrassing swarms:  
Pain’d, at each step, he fears himself undone,  
And each new movement loses all he won.  
Thus shall my sons their shelter’d regions save,  
Firm as their hills, and as their fathers brave, 20.
On freedom’s force, with generous trust, rely,  
And ask no fortress, but the favouring SKY.”  

“Warm’d by that living fire, which HEAVEN bestows;  
Which Freedom lights, and Independence blows;  
By that bright pomp, which moral scenes display,  
The unrivall’d grandeur of elective sway;  
And manners, where effulgent nature shines, 5.
Nor tinsel glares, nor fashion false refines,  
At this best æra, when, with glory bright,  
Full-rising Science casts unclouded light,  
Up wisdom’s heights the soul shall wing her way,  
And climb thro’ realms of still improving day.” 10.

“Here wealth, from private misery wrench’d no more,  
To grace proud pomp, and swell a monarch’s store,  
Aid venal hosts to blast man’s little joy,  
And bid fell navies towns and realms destroy,  
For public bliss, from public hands, shall flow, 5.
And patriot works from patriot feelings grow.  
See Appian ways across the New World run!  
Here hail the rising, there the setting, sun:  
See long canals on earth’s great convex bend!  
Join unknown realms; and distant oceans blend; 10.
In the Calm Main, Atlantic tides arise,  
And Hudson wanton under torrid skies.  
O’er all my climes, see palac’d Science smile!  
And schools unnumber’d gem the golden soil;  
For want, for woe, the neat asylum rise, 15.
And countless temples call propitious skies.  
By locks immense see broken rivers join’d;  
And the vast bridge my Rhines, and Danubes, bind;  
For useful fabrics, spacious domes ascend;  
Huge engines roll, and streams their currents bend.” 20.

“Here too, each heart, alive to pity’s cause,  
Shall curse still-savage Europe’s reeking laws;  
That gibbets plant, as erst the forest stood;  
With horse-leach thirst, cry, “Give us daily blood;”  
Void, not of mercy, but of common sense, 5.
Commute a human life for thirteen pence;  
Poor debtors chain, to glut revenge and pride,  
And one man hang, that other men may ride.”  

“Here first, since earth beneath the deluge stood,  
Bloodshed alone shall be aton’d by blood:  
All other crimes, unfit with man to dwell,  
The wretch shall expiate, in the lonely cell:  
There awful Conscience, and an anguish’d heart, 5.
Shall stretch the rack, and wing the flaming dart;  
Approaching fiends with lowering vengeance glow,  
And gulphs yawn downward to the world of woe.  
Half seen, at times, and trembling faint, from far,  
Shall dawn sweet Mercy’s bright and beamy star; 10.
Hope enter, smite his chains, and set him free,  
And spread her wings, and whisper, “Follow me.” 
In this dread mansion, shall the culprit find  
His country’s laws, not just alone, but kind;  
And fed, and clad, and lodg’d, with comfort, feel 15.
Whatever good destroys not public weal.”  

“Here too, her scope shall Policy extend,  
Nor to check crimes be still her single end.  
Her hand shall aid the poor, the sad console,  
And lift up merit from it’s lowly stool,  
Reach to th’ industrious youth the means to thrive, 5.
The orphan shelter, bid the widow live,  
Nurse, with a fostering care, each art refin’d,  
That mends the manners, or that lights the mind,  
The choking damps of foul despair expel,  
And help aspiring genius to excel.” 10.

“See, in each village, treasur’d volumes stand!  
And spread pure knowledge through th’ enlighten’d land;  
Knowledge, the wise Republic’s standing force,  
Subjecting all things, with resistless course;  
That bids the ruler hold a righteous sway, 5.
And bends persuaded freemen to obey.  
Frequent, behold the rich Museum yield  
The wonders dread of Nature’s fruitful field!  
See strong invention engines strange devise,  
And ope the mysteries of earth, seas, and skies; 10.
Aid curious art to finish works refin’d,  
And teach abstrusest science to mankind.”  

“Up the dread vault, where stars immensely roll,  
To HEAVEN, Herschelian tubes conduct the soul;  
Where proud Orion heads th’ immortal train,  
And opes his lucid window through the main;  
Where, far beyond this limitary sky, 5.
Superior worlds of liquid splendour lie;  
Far other suns diffuse th’ unsetting ray,  
And other planets roll, in living day.  
Truth, bliss, and virtue, age by age, refine,  
And unknown nations bask in life divine,” 10.

“Even now fair beams around my concave burn,  
The golden Phosphor of th’ expanding morn.  
See raptur’d Franklin, when fierce tempests ride,  
Down the safe dome innoxious lightnings guide!  
The nice machine see self-taught Kingsley frame, 5.
That, unexampled, pours th’ electric flame!  
See Rittenhouse, and Pope, with art their own,  
Roll the small system round the mimic sun!  
See Bushnell’s strong, creative genius, fraught  
With all th’ assembled powers of skilful thought, 10.
His mystic vessel plunge beneath the waves,  
And glide thro’ dark retreats, and coral caves!  
While crowds, around them, join the glorious strife,  
And ease the load, that lies on human life.”  

“Nor less their strength shall private efforts blend,  
My sons t’ illume, refine, exalt, amend.  
Thro’ Nature’s field shall bold Inquiry stray,  
Where Europe’s Genius leads the splendid way;  
Tell why the winds with fickle wanderings blow, 5.
Thin vapours spring, and clouds condensing flow;  
From what strange cause th’ etherial phases rise,  
And gloom, and glory, change so soon the skies;  
How heat through nature spreads its chemic power;  
Wakes the soft spring, dissolves the icy shower, 10.
In fluid splendour bids the metal glow,  
Commands the stream to roll, the flower to blow,  
With golden beauty lights the starry choir,  
And warms th’ exhaustless sun with living fire.  
Or pierce the mist of elemental strife, 15.
See lazy matter rousing into life;  
It’s parts meet, mix, repel, attract, combine,  
And mould the plant with infinite design;  
Or through the grades of nobler life ascend,  
And the strange, acting, suffering Being blend; 20.
Or cease their hold, to bring new forms to light,  
And bid the fairy structure melt from sight;  
Or round the globe it’s wondrous strata spread,  
Fashion the hills, and vault the ocean’s bed;  
Imblaze the ore, th’ enticing gem unfold, 25.
And with pure sunbeams tinge the lasting gold.  
Here too shall Genius learn, by what controul,  
Th’ instinctive magner trembles to the pole;  
With curious eye, it’s system’d errors trace,  
And teach the mystic longitude of place: 30.
Or through the bright, Columbian science rove,  
Pursue the lightning’s path, in realms above,  
Or o’er earth’s bowels, mark it’s silent course,  
And see all nature own it’s magic force:  
Or ope more awful wonders to mankind, 35.
Evolve the terrors of the Indian wind,  
Tell whence volcanic fires the mount inform,  
Whence heave the plains, or bursts the raging storm;  
Whence the wide concave angry meteors rend,  
And shuddering earth quakes to it’s distant end: 40.
Or, in dark paths, where health’s fair streamlets stray,  
Thro’ plants, and mines, explore their chemic way,  
Redress the ravage of encroaching clime,  
Change the sad curse, rebuild the waste of time,  
Protract man’s date, bid age with verdure bloom, 45.
And strew with flowers the journey to the tomb.”  

“See rising bards ascend the steep of fame!  
Where truth commends, and virtue gives a name,  
With Homer’s life, with Milton’s strength, aspire,  
Or catch divine Isaiah’s hallow’d fire.  
No sickly spot shall soil the page refin’d; 5.
Lend vice a charm, or taint the artless mind;  
Another Pope inchanting themes rehearse,  
Nor the meek virgin blush to hear the verse;  
Improv’d, and clouded with no courtly stain,  
A whiter page than Addison’s remain.” 10.

“On the bright canvas, see the pencil trace  
Unrivall’d forms of glory, and of grace!  
In the fair field, no traits of vileness spring,  
No wanton lordling, and no bloody king,  
No strumpet, handed to perpetual fame, 5.
No scenes of lewdness, and no deeds of shame:  
But men, that counsell’d, fought, and bled, for men,  
And held, to death, the world-renewing pen;  
Scenes, that would Envy of her snakes beguile,  
Deeds, where fond Virtue loves to gaze, and smile: 10.
Such forms, such deeds, on Raphael’s tablets shine,  
And such, O Trumbull! glow alike on thine.”  

“No more shall Music trill, with raptures, o’er  
The swinish revel, and the lewd amour,  
The phrenzied ravage of the blood-stain’d car,  
Or the low triumphs of the Sylvan war.  
But Sorrow’s silent sadness sweetly charm, 5.
With love inspire, with real glory warm,  
Wake, in Religion’s cause, diviner lays,  
And fill the bosom with MESSIAH’s praise.”  

“But chief, my sons shall Moral science trace,  
Man’s nature, duties, dignity, and place;  
How, in each class, the nice relation springs,  
To God, to man, to subjects, and to kings;  
How taste, mysterious, in the HEAVENly plan, 5.
Improves, adorns, and elevates, the man;  
How balanc’d powers, in just gradation, prove  
The means of order, freedom, peace, and love,  
Of bliss, at home, of homage fair, abroad,  
Justice to man, and piety to GOD.” 10.

“For soon, no more to philosophic whims,  
To cloud-built theories, and lunar dreams,  
But to firm facts, shall human faith be given,  
The proofs of Reason, and the voice of HEAVEN.  
No more by light Voltaire with bubbles fed, 5.
With Hume’s vile husks no longer mock’d for bread,  
No more by St. John’s lantern lur’d astray,  
Through moors, and mazes, from the broad highway,  
Transported men the path of life shall know,  
And Angels’ food shower round them, as they go.” 10.

“The Word of life, a world of stores refin’d,  
The dress, the feast, the riches, of the mind,  
The bold Divine, commercing, shall explore,  
Search every realm, and visit every shore,  
Thence wines, and fruits, of every taste, and clime, 5.
Matur’d, and beauteous, in immortal prime,  
Thence gems collect, and gold from wisdom’s mine,  
Robes of pure white, and ornaments divine,  
(Whate’er can bid the famish’d wretch respire,  
Or clothe the naked in unstain’d attire) 10.
To HEAVEN’s high altar bring the offering bless’d,  
And all mankind, his Levites, share the feast.”  

For here, alike to want, and wealth, allied,  
Plac’d in the mean, ‘twixt poverty and pride,  
The goal, where faithful virtue most is found,  
The goal, where strong temptations least abound,  
Nor sloth benumbs, nor luxury betrays, 5.
Nor splendour awes, nor lures to dangerous ways,  
Where the poor boldly tell their woes severe,  
Fear no neglect, and find the mingling tear,  
From civil toils, cabals, and party-heat,  
My sacred clerks spontaneous shall retreat; 10.
To others leave to others what is given,  
And shine, the mere ambassadors of HEAVEN;  
Spread truth, build virtue, sorrow soothe, and pain,  
And rear primæval piety again.”  

“The noblest Manners too my realms shall cheer,  
With prudence, frank; obliging, yet sincere;  
Great, without pride; familiar, yet refin’d;  
The honest face disclosing all the mind;  
Stanhope abjur’d; the Gospel own’d alone; 5.
And all, from other’s claim’d, to others done  
Here nature’s sweet simplicity shall reign,  
And art’s foul tincture meet a just disdain;  
The waxen mien of Europe’s courtly lords;  
Love spent in looks, and honour lost in words; 10.
Where sad ambition, sickening, toils for show,  
And smiles, invented, mask the face of woe;  
Where life drags on, a disappointing round,  
Where hope’s a cheat, and happiness a sound.”  

“What though, like Europe’s titled train to live,  
Even in these climes, the splendid trifler strive;  
Pine, with a sickly appetite, for shew,  
And, every year, the income spend of two;  
With aukward folly, mimic toilsome sin, 5.
Parade without, and wretchedness within;  
Yet faint, and few, shall these corruptions spread,  
Seen but to be despis’d, and hiss’d, and fled.  
Strong sense shall here the life of reason yield,  
Each whim exploded, and each vice expell’d; 10.
From sweet affections actions sweet shall flow,  
All that makes joy, and all that quiets woe,  
Where nature, friendship, love, unrivall’d reign,  
And form anew the dignity of men.”  

“And O what beams shall light the Fair-one’s mind! 
How the soft eye-ball glisten truth refin’d!  
What featur’d harmony mild virtue form!  
With what sweet sympathy, the bosom warm!  
To wisdom pure, by useful science train’d, 5.
From fashions, cards, and plays, to reason gain’d,  
To show, to flattery, victims now no more,  
Vile forms extinct, and idle follies o’er,  
Anew to duty shall the heart be given,  
Love to mankind, and piety to HEAVEN. 10.
Grac’d with each beauty of th’ etherial form,  
Led by a heart, with rich affections warm,  
Each lovely daughter, sister, friend, and wife,  
Shall call forth roses, from the thorns of life;  
With soothing tenderness, rough man refine, 15.
Wake gentler thoughts, and prompt to deeds divine;  
Through wisdom’s paths, their tender offspring charm,  
And bear them upward, with supporting arm;  
Plant truth’s fair seeds; the budding virtues tend;  
And bid the nursling saint a cherub end. 20.
Like vernal dews, their kindness shall distil,  
Cheer the sad soul, and lighten every ill;  
Breathe balmy comfort round the wretches shed,  
And lay the outcast in a peaceful bed;  
Bid, round their mansions, bliss domestic rise, 25.
And fix a bright resemblance of the skies.”  

“Through this wide world, outspread from sky to sky,  
Thus envied scenes of rapture meet the eye.  
Then, on the borders of this sapphire plain,  
Shall growing beauties grace my fair domain.  
O’er these green hills, and in each smiling dell, 5.
Where elves might haunt, and says delighted dwell,  
From Thames’s walks, to Hudson’s verdant isles,  
See, with fair seats, my lovely margin smiles!  
No domes of pomp insult the smiling plain;  
Nor lords, nor princes, trample freeborn man. 10.
Man, the first title known beneath the skies;  
A prince, when virtuous, and a lord, when wise.  
See, circling each, with simple lustre, spread  
The neat inclosure, and the happy shade;  
Meads green with spring; with Autumn orchards fair; 15.
And fields, where culture bids all climes appear,  
Gay groves exult; Chinesian gardens glow,  
And bright reflections paint the wave below!”  

“On this blue plain, my eye shall then behold  
Earth’s distant realms immingled sails unfold;  
Proud Europe’s towers, her thunders laid asleep,  
Float, in calm silence, o’er th’ astonish’d deep;  
Peru unfetter’d lift her golden sails, 5.
And silken India waft on spicy gales;  
From death’s dull shade, awaken’d Afric rise,  
And roll the products of her sunny skies.  
Here shall they learn what manners bliss assure;  
What sway creates it, and what laws secure, 10.
See pride abas’d; the wolfish heart refin’d;  
Th’ unfetter’d conscience, and th’ unpinion’d mind;  
To human good all human efforts given;  
Nor war insult, nor bondage anger, HEAVEN;  
No savage course of Eastern glory run; 15.
Atchiev’d no conquest, and no realm undone.”  

“Here shall they see an æra new of Fame,  
Where science wreathes, and worth confers a name;  
No more her temple stand in human gore;  
Of human bones, her columns rise no more:  
The life, by poets sung, the HEAVENs approve, 5.
Wisdom commend, and future ages love.”.  

“From yon blue wave, to that far distant shore,  
Where suns decline, and evening oceans roar,  
Their eyes shall view one free elective sway;  
One blood, one kindred, reach from sea to sea;  
One language spread; one tide of manners run; 5.
One scheme of science, and of morals one;  
And, God’s own Word the structure, and the base,  
One faith extend, one worship, and one praise.”  

“These shall they see, amaz’d; and these convey,  
On rapture’s pinions, o’er the distant sea;  
New light, new glory, fire the general mind,  
And peace, and freedom, re-illume mankind.”  

END OF THE SEVENTH PART.

FINIS.