The Columbiad: A Poem Part 19

On wings of faith to elevate the soul Beyond the bourn of earth's benighted pole, For Dwight's high harp the epic Muse sublime Hails her new empire in the western clime.

Tuned from the tones by seers seraphic sung, Heaven in his eye and rapture on his tongue, His voice revives old Canaan's promised land, The long-fought fields of Jacob's chosen band.

In Hanniel's fate, proud faction finds its doom, Ai's midnight flames light nations to their tomb, In visions bright supernal joys are given, And all the dark futurities of heaven.

While freedom's cause his patriot bosom warms, In counsel sage, nor inexpert in arms, See Humphreys glorious from the field retire, Sheathe the glad sword and string the soothing lyre; That lyre which erst, in hours of dark despair, Roused the sad realms to finish well the war.

O'er fallen friends, with all the strength of woe, Fraternal sighs in his strong numbers flow; His country's wrongs, her duties, dangers, praise, Fire his full soul and animate his lays: Wisdom and War with equal joy shall own So fond a votary and so brave a son.

Book IX.

Argument.

Vision suspended. Night scene, as contemplated from the mount of vision. Columbus inquires the reason of the slow progress of science, and its frequent interruptions. Hesper answers, that all things in the physical as well as the moral and intellectual world are progressive in like manner. He traces their progress from the birth of the universe to the present state of the earth and its inhabitants; a.s.serts the future advancement of society, till perpetual peace shall be established.

Columbus proposes his doubts; alleges in support of them the successive rise and downfal of ancient nations; and infers future and periodical convulsions. Hesper, in answer, exhibits the great distinction between the ancient and modern state of the arts and of society. Crusades.

Commerce. Hanseatic League. Copernicus. Kepler. Newton, Galileo.

Herschel. Descartes. Bacon. Printing Press. Magnetic Needle.

Geographical discoveries. Federal system in America. A similar system to be extended over the whole earth. Columbus desires a view of this.

But now had Hesper from the Hero's sight Veil'd the vast world with sudden shades of night.

Earth, sea and heaven, where'er he turns his eye, Arch out immense, like one surrounding sky Lamp'd with reverberant fires. The starry train Paint their fresh forms beneath the placid main; Fair Cynthia here her face reflected laves, Bright Venus gilds again her natal waves, The Bear redoubling foams with fiery joles, And two dire dragons twine two arctic poles.

Lights o'er the land, from cities lost in shade, New constellations, new galaxies spread, And each high pharos double flames provides, One from its fires, one fainter from the tides.

Centred sublime in this bivaulted sphere, On all sides void, unbounded, calm and clear, Soft o'er the Pair a lambent l.u.s.tre plays, Their seat still cheering with concentred rays; To converse grave the soothing shades invite.

And on his Guide Columbus fixt his sight: Kind messenger of heaven, he thus began, Why this progressive laboring search of man?

If men by slow degrees have power to reach These opening truths that long dim ages teach, If, school'd in woes and tortured on to thought, Pa.s.sion absorbing what experience taught, Still thro the devious painful paths they wind, And to sound wisdom lead at last the mind, Why did not bounteous nature, at their birth, Give all their science to these sons of earth, Pour on their reasoning powers pellucid day, Their arts, their interests clear as light display?

That error, madness and sectarian strife Might find no place to havock human life.

To whom the guardian Power: To thee is given To hold high converse and inquire of heaven, To mark untraversed ages, and to trace Whate'er improves and what impedes thy race.

Know then, progressive are the paths we go In worlds above thee, as in thine below Nature herself (whose grasp of time and place Deals out duration and impalms all s.p.a.ce) Moves in progressive march; but where to tend, What course to compa.s.s, how the march must end, Her sons decide not; yet her works we greet Imperfect in their parts, but in their whole complete.

When erst her hand the crust of Chaos thirl'd, And forced from his black breast the bursting world, High swell'd the huge existence crude and cra.s.s, A formless dark impermeated ma.s.s; No light nor heat nor cold nor moist nor dry, But all concocting in their causes lie.

Millions of periods, such as these her spheres Learn since to measure and to call their years, She broods the ma.s.s; then into motion brings And seeks and sorts the principles of things, Pours in the attractive and repulsive force, Whirls forth her globes in cosmogyral course, By myriads and by millions, scaled sublime, To scoop their skies, and curve the rounds of time.

She groups their systems, lots to each his place, Strow'd thro immensity, and drown'd in s.p.a.ce, All yet unseen; till light at last begun, And every system found a centred sun, Call'd to his neighbor and exchanged from far His infant gleams with every social star; Rays thwarting rays and skies o'erarching skies Robed their dim planets with commingling dyes, Hung o'er each heaven their living lamps serene, And tinged with blue the frore expanse between: Then joyous Nature hail'd the golden morn, Drank the young beam, beheld her empire born.

Lo the majestic movement! there they trace Their blank infinitudes of time and s.p.a.ce, Vault with careering curves her central goal, Pour forth her day and stud her evening stole, Heedless of count; their numbers still unknown, Unmeasured still their progress round her throne; For none of all her firstborn sons, endow'd With heavenly sapience and pretensions proud, No seraph bright, whose keen considering eye And sunbeam speed ascend from sky to sky, Has yet explored or counted all their spheres, Or fixt or found their past record of years.

Nor can a ray from her remotest sun, Shot forth when first their splendid morn begun, Borne straight, continuous thro the void of s.p.a.ce, Doubling each thousand years its rapid pace And hither posting, yet have reach'd this earth, To bring the tidings of its master's birth.

And mark thy native orb! tho later born, Tho still unstored with light her silver horn, As seen from sister planets, who repay Far more than she their borrow'd streams of day, Yet what an age her sh.e.l.l-rock ribs attest!

Her sparry spines, her coal-enc.u.mber'd breast!

Millions of generations toil'd and died To crust with coral and to salt her tide, And millions more, ere yet her soil began, Ere yet she form'd or could have nursed her man.

Then rose the proud phenomenon, the birth Most richly wrought, the favorite child of earth; But frail at first his frame, with nerves ill strung, Unform'd his footsteps, long untoned his tongue, Unhappy, una.s.sociate, unrefined, Unfledged the pinions of his lofty mind, He wander'd wild, to every beast a prey, More prest with wrants, and feebler far than they; For countless ages forced from place to place, Just reproduced but scarce preserved his race.

At last, a soil more fixt and streams more sweet Inform the wretched migrant where to seat; Euphrates' flowery banks begin to smile, Fruits fringe the Ganges, gardens grace the Nile; Nile, ribb'd with dikes, a length of coast creates, And giant Thebes begins her hundred gates, Mammoth of human works! her grandeur known These thousand l.u.s.tres by its wrecks alone; Wrecks that humiliate still all modern states, Press the poized earth with their enormous weights, Refuse to quit their place, dissolve their frame And trust, like Ilion, to the bards their fame.

Memphis ama.s.s'd her piles, that still o'erclimb The clouds of heaven, and task the tooth of time; Belus and Brama tame their vagrant throngs, And Homer, with his monumental songs, Builds far more durable his splendid throne Than all the Pharaohs with their hills of stone.

High roll'd the round of years that hung sublime These wondrous beacons in the night of time; Studs of renown! that to thine eyes attest The waste of ages that beyond them rest; Ages how fill'd with toils! how gloom'd with woes!

Trod with all steps that man's long march compose, Dim drear disastrous; ere his foot could gain A height so brilliant o'er the b.e.s.t.i.a.l train.

In those blank periods, where no man can trace The gleams of thought that first illumed his race, His errors, twined with science, took their birth, And forged their fetters for this child of earth.

And when, as oft, he dared expand his view, And work with nature on the line she drew, Some monster, gender'd in his fears, unmann'd His opening soul, and marr'd the works he plann'd.

Fear, the first pa.s.sion of his helpless state, Redoubles all the woes that round him wait, Blocks nature's path and sends him wandering wide, Without a guardian and without a guide.

Beat by the storm, refresht by gentle rain, By sunbeams cheer'd or founder'd in the main, He bows to every force he can't control, Indows them all with intellect and soul, With pa.s.sions various, turbulent and strong, Rewarding virtue and avenging wrong, Gives heaven and earth to their supernal doom, And swells their sway beyond the closing tomb.

Hence rose his G.o.ds, that mystic monstrous lore Of blood-stain'd altars and of priestly power, Hence blind credulity on all dark things, False morals hence, and hence the yoke of kings.

Yon starry vault that round him rolls the spheres, And gives to earth her seasons, days and years, The source designates and the clue imparts Of all his errors and of all his arts.

There spreads the system that his ardent thought First into emblems, then to spirits wrought; Spirits that ruled all matter and all mind, Nourish'd or famish'd, kill'd or cured mankind, Bade him neglect the soil whereon he fed, Work with hard hand for that which was not bread, Erect the temple, darken deep the shrine, Yield the full hecatomb with awe divine, Despise this earth, and claim with lifted eyes His health and harvest from the meteor'd skies.

Accustom'd thus to bow the suppliant head, And reverence powers that shake his heart with dread, His pliant faith extends with easy ken From heavenly hosts to heaven-anointed men; The sword, the tripod join their mutual aids, To film his eyes with more impervious shades, Create a sceptred idol, and enshrine The Robber Chief in attributes divine, Arm the new phantom with the nation's rod, And hail the dreadful delegate of G.o.d.

Two settled slaveries thus the race control, Engross their labors and debase their soul; Till creeds and crimes and feuds and fears compose The seeds of war and all its kindred woes.

Unfold, thou Memphian dungeon! there began The lore of Mystery, the mask of man; There Fraud with Science leagued, in early times, Plann'd a resplendent course of holy crimes, Stalk'd o'er the nations with gigantic pace, With sacred symbols charm'd the cheated race, Taught them new grades of ignorance to gain, And punish truth with more than mortal pain,-- Unfold at last thy cope! that man may see The mines of mischief he has drawn from thee.

--Wide gapes the porch with hieroglyphics hung, And mimic zodiacs o'er its arches flung; Close labyrinth'd here the feign'd Omniscient dwells, Dupes from all nations seek the sacred cells; Inquiring strangers, with astonish'd eyes, Dive deep to read these subterranean skies, To taste that holiness which faith bestows, And fear promulgates thro its world of woes.

The bold Initiate takes his awful stand, A thin pale taper trembling in his hand; Thro h.e.l.ls of howling monsters lies the road, To season souls and teach the ways of G.o.d.

Down the crampt corridor, far sunk from day, On hands and bended knees he gropes his way, Swims roaring streams, thro dens of serpents crawls, Descends deep wells and clambers flaming walls; Now thwart his lane a lake of sulphur gleams, With fiery waves and suffocating steams; He dares not shun the ford; for full in view Fierce lions rush behind and force him thro.

Long ladders heaved on end, with banded eyes He mounts, and mounts, and seems to gain the skies; Then backward falling, tranced with deadly fright, Finds his own feet and stands restored to light.

Here all dread sights of torture round him rise; Lash'd on a wheel, a whirling felon flies; A wretch, with members chain'd and liver bare, Writhes and disturbs the vulture feasting there: One strains to roll his rock, recoiling still; One, stretch'd rec.u.mbent o'er a limpid rill, Burns with devouring thirst; his starting eyes, Swell'd veins and frothy lips and piercing cries Accuse the faithless eddies, as they shrink And keep him panting still, still bending o'er the brink.

At last Elysium to his ravisht eyes Spreads flowery fields and opens golden skies; Breathes Orphean music thro the dancing groves, Trains the gay troops of Beauties, Graces, Loves, Lures his delirious sense with sweet decoys, Fine fancied foretaste of eternal joys, Fastidious pomp or proud imperial state,-- Illusions all, that pa.s.s the Ivory Gate!

Various and vast the fraudful drama grows, Feign'd are the pleasures, as unfelt the woes; Where sainted hierophants, with well taught mimes, Play'd first the role for all succeeding times; Which, vamp'd and varied as the clime required, More trist or splendid, open or retired, Forms local creeds, with multifarious lore, Creates the G.o.d and bids the world adore.

Lo at the Lama's feet, as lord of all, Age following age in dumb devotion fall; The youthful G.o.d, mid suppliant kings enshrined, Dispensing fate and ruling half mankind, Sits with contorted limbs, a silent slave, An early victim of a secret grave; His priests by myriads famish every clime And sell salvation in the tones they chime.

See India's Triad frame their blood-penn'd codes, Old Ganges change his gardens for his G.o.ds, Ask his own waves from their celestial hands, And choke his channel with their sainted sands.

Mad with the mandates of their scriptured word, And prompt to s.n.a.t.c.h from h.e.l.l her dear dead lord, The wife, still blooming, decks her sacred urns, Mounts the gay pyre, and with his body burns.

Shrined in his golden fane the Delphian stands, Shakes distant thrones and taxes unknown lands.

Kings, consuls, khans from earth's whole regions come, Pour in their wealth, and then inquire their doom; Furious and wild the priestess rends her veil, Sucks, thro the sacred stool, the maddening gale, Starts reddens foams and screams and mutters loud, Like a fell fiend, her oracles of G.o.d.

The dark enigma, by the pontiff scroll'd In broken phrase, and close in parchment roll'd, From his proud pulpit to the suppliant hurl'd, Shall rive an empire and distract the world.

And where the mosque's dim arches bend on high, Mecca's dead prophet mounts the mimic sky; Pilgrims, imbanded strong for mutual aid, Thro dangerous deserts that their faith has made, Train their long caravans, and famish'd come To kiss the shrine and trembling touch the tomb, By fire and sword the same fell faith extend, And howl their homilies to earth's far end.

Phenician altars reek with human gore, G.o.ds hiss from caverns or in cages roar, Nile pours from heaven a tutelary flood, And gardens grow the vegetable G.o.d.

Two rival powers the magian faith inspire, Primeval Darkness and immortal Fire; Evil and good in these contending rise, And each by turns the sovereign of the skies.

Sun, stars and planets round the earth behold Their fanes of marble and their shrines of gold; The sea, the grove, the harvest and the vine Spring from their G.o.ds and claim a birth divine; While heroes, kings and sages of their times, Those G.o.ds on earth, are G.o.ds in happier climes; Minos in judgment sits, and Jove in power, And Odin's friends are feasted there with gore.

Man is an infant still; and slow and late Must form and fix his adolescent state, Mature his manhood, and at last behold His reason ripen and his force unfold.

From that bright eminence he then shall cast A look of wonder on his wanderings past, Congratulate himself, and o'er the earth Firm the full reign of peace predestined at his birth.

So Hesper taught; and farther had pursued A theme so grateful as a world renew'd; But dubious thoughts disturb'd the Hero's breast, Who thus with modest mien the Seer addrest: Say, friend of man, in this unbounded range, Where error vagrates and illusions change, What hopes to see his baleful blunders cease, And earth commence that promised age of peace?

Like a loose pendulum his mind is hung, From wrong to wrong by ponderous pa.s.sion swung, It vibrates wide, and with unceasing flight Sweeps all extremes and scorns the mean of right.