The desert of the mind with virtue blooms,
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.
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,
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;
Glean'd scraps of Greek, and, curious, trac'd afar
Through Pope's clear glass the bright Mæonian 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,
And tell what lands beyond the Altantic 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,
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 hardy Sloth in life's sad evening far'd.
Ah me, while up the long, long vale of time
Reflection wanders towards 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,
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 sorrows 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
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,
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.
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;
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,
Now mud-wall'd cots sit sullen on the plain,
And wandering, fierce, and wild, sequester'd Arabs reign. 45
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;
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 55
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,
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 slow years decline,
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 rude rock and the desert shore,
Now pleasure sports, and business want beguiles,
And Commerce wings her flight to thousand isles;
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:
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' unmeasured 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,
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,
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:
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.
1787-94.
JOEL BARLOW
THE VISION OF COLUMBUS
Long had the Sage, the first who dar'd to brave
The unknown dangers of the western wave,
Who taught mankind where future empires lay
In these fair confines of descending day,
With cares o'erwhelm'd, in life's distressing gloom,
Wish'd from a thankless world a peaceful tomb;
While kings and nations, envious of his name,
Enjoy'd his labours and usurp'd his fame,
And gave the chief, from promis'd empire hurl'd,
Chains for a crown, a prison for a world.
Now night and silence held their lonely reign,
The half-orb'd moon declining to the main;
Descending clouds, o'er varying ether driven,
Obscur'd the stars, and shut the eye from heaven;
Cold mists through op'ning grates the cell invade,
And deathlike/terrors haunt the midnight shade;
When from a visionary, short repose,
That rais'd new cares and temper'd keener woęs,
Columbus woke, and to the walls address'd
The deep-felt sorrows of his manly breast.
"Here lies the purchase, here the wretched spoil, Of painful years and persevering toil:
For these dread walks, this hideous haunt of pain,
I trac'd new regions o'er the pathless main,
Dar'd all the dangers of the dreary wave,
Hung o'er its clefts and topp'd the surging grave,
Saw billowy seas in swelling mountains roll,
And bursting thunders, rock the reddening pole,
Death rear his front in every dreadful form,
Gape from beneath and blacken in the storm;
Till, tost far onward to the skirts of day,
Where milder suns dispens'd a smiling ray,
Through brighter skies my happier sails descry'd
The golden banks that bound the western tide,
And gave th' admiring world that bounteous shore,
Their wealth to nations and to kings their power.
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