BOOK THE FIFTH.

Such are thy views, DISCOVERY! The great world

Rolls to thine eye revealed; to thee the Deep

Submits its awful empire; Industry

Awakes, and Commerce to the echoing marts

From east to west unwearied pours her wealth.

Man walks sublimer; and Humanity,

Matured by social intercourse, more high,

More animated, lifts her sovereign mien,

And waves her golden sceptre. Yet the heart

Asks trembling, is no evil found! Oh, turn,

Meek Charity, and drop a human tear

For the sad fate of Afric's injured sons,

And hide, for ever hide, the sight of chains,

Anguish, and bondage! Yes, the heart of man

Is sick, and Charity turns pale, to think

How soon, for pure religion's holy beam,

Dark crimes, that sullied the sweet day, pursued,

Like vultures, the Discoverer's ocean tract,

Screaming for blood, to fields of rich Peru,

Or ravaged Mexico, while Gold more Gold!

The caverned mountains echoed, Gold more Gold!

Then see the fell-eyed, prowling buccaneer,

Grim as a libbard! He his jealous look

Turns to the dagger at his belt, his hand

By instinct grasps a bloody scymitar,

And ghastly is his smile, as o'er the woods

He sees the smoke of burning villages

Ascend, and thinks ev'n now he counts his spoil.

See thousands destined to the lurid mine,

Never to see the sun again; all names

Of husband, sire, all tender charities

Of love, deep buried with them in that grave,

Where life is as a thing long passed; and hope

No more its sickly ray, to cheer the gloom,

Extends.

Thou, too, dread Ocean, toss thine arms,

Exulting, for the treasures and the gems

That thy dark oozy realm emblaze; and call

The pale procession of the dead, from caves

Where late their bodies weltered, to attend

Thy kingly sceptre, and proclaim thy might!

Lord of the Hurricane! bid all thy winds

Swell, and destruction ride upon the surge,

Where, after the red lightning flash that shows

The labouring ship, all is at once deep night

And long suspense, till the slow dawn of day

Gleams on the scattered corses of the dead,

That strew the sounding shore!

Then think of him,

Ye who rejoice with those you love, at eve,

When winds of winter shake the window-frame,

And more endear your fire, oh, think of him,

Who, saved alone from the destroying storm,

Is cast on some deserted rock; who sees

Sun after sun descend, and hopeless hears;

At morn the long surge of the troubled main,

That beats without his wretched cave; meantime

He fears to wake the echoes with his voice,

So dread the solitude!

Let Greenland's snows

Then shine, and mark the melancholy train

There left to perish, whilst the cold pale day

Declines along the further ice, that binds

The ship, and leaves in night the sinking scene.

Sad winter closes on the deep; the smoke

Of frost, that late amusive to the eye

Rose o'er the coast, is passed, and all is now

One torpid blank; the freezing particles

Blown blistering, and the white bear seeks her cave.

Ill-fated outcasts, when the morn again

Shall streak with feeble beam the frozen waste,

Your air-bleached and unburied carcases

Shall press the ground, and, as the stars fade off,

Your stony eyes glare‘ mid the desert snows!

These triumphs boast, fell Demon of the Deep!

Though never more the universal shriek

Of all that perish thou shalt hear, as when

The deep foundations of the guilty earth

Were shaken at the voice of God, and man

Ceased in his habitations; yet the sea

Thy might tempestuous still, and joyless rule,

Confesses. Ah! what bloodless shadows throng

Ev'n now, slow rising from their oozy beds,

From Mete,and those gates of burial

That guard the Erythræan; from the vast

Unfathomed caverns of the Western main

Or stormy Orcades; whilst the sad shell

Of poor Arion,to the hollow blast

Slow seems to pour its melancholy tones,

And faintly vibrate, as the dead pass by.

I see the chiefs, who fell in distant lands,

The prey of murderous savages, when yells,

And shouts, and conch, resounded through the woods.

Magellan and De Solis seem to lead

The mournful train. Shade of Perouse! oh, say

Where, in the tract of unknown seas, thy bones

Th’ insulting surge has swept?

But who is he,

Whose look, though pale and bloody, wears the trace

Of pure philanthropy? The pitying sigh

Forbid not; he was dear to Britons, dear

To every beating heart, far as the world

Extends; and my faint faltering touch ev'n now

Dies on the strings, when I pronounce thy name,

Oh, lost, lamented, generous, hapless Cook!

But cease the vain complaint; turn from the shores,

Wet with his blood, Remembrance: cast thine eyes

Upon the long seas, and the wider world,

Displayed from his research. Smile, glowing Health!

For now no more the wasted seaman sinks,

With haggard eye and feeble frame diseased;

No more with tortured longings for the sight

Of fields and hillocks green, madly he calls

On Nature, when before his swimming eye

The liquid long expanse of cheerless seas

Seems all one flowery plain. Then frantic dreams

Arise; his eye's distemper'd flash is seen

From the sunk socket, as a demon there

Sat mocking, till he plunges in the flood,

And the dark wave goes o'er him.

Nor wilt thou,

O Science! fail to deck the cold morai

Of him who wider o'er earth's hemisphere

Thy views extended. On, from deep to deep,

Thou shalt retrace the windings of his track;

From the high North to where the field-ice binds

The still Antarctic. Thence, from isle to isle,

Thou shalt pursue his progress; and explore

New-Holland's eastern shores,where now the sons

Of distant Britain, from her lap cast out,

Water the ground with tears of penitence,

Perhaps, hereafter, in their destined time,

Themselves to rise pre-eminent. Now speed,

By Asia's eastern bounds, still to the North,

Where the vast continents of either world

Approach: Beyond,‘ tis silent boundless ice,

Impenetrable barrier, where all thought

Is lost; where never yet the eagle flew,

Nor roamed so far the white bear through the waste.

But thou, dread POWER! whose voice from chaos called

The earth, who bad'st the Lord of light go forth,

Ev'n as a giant, and the sounding seas

Roll at thy fiat: may the dark deep clouds,

That thy pavilion shroud from mortal sight,

So pass away, as now the mystery,

Obscure through rolling ages, is disclosed;

How man, from one great Father sprung, his race

Spread to that severed continent! Ev'n so,

FATHER, in thy good time, shall all things stand

Revealed to knowledge.

As the mind revolves

The change of mighty empires, and the fate

Of HIM whom Thou hast made, back through the dusk

Of ages Contemplation turns her view:

We mark, as from its infancy, the world

Peopled again, from that mysterious shrine

That rested on the top of Ararat,

Highest of Asian mountains; spreading on,

The Cushites from their mountain caves descend;

Then before GOD the sons of Ammon stood

In their gigantic might, and first the seas

Vanquished: But still from clime to clime the groan

Of sacrifice, and Superstition's cry,

Was heard; but when the Dayspring rose of heaven,

Greece's hoar forests echoed, The great Pan

Is dead! From Egypt, and the rugged shores

Of Syrian Tyre, the gods of darkness fly;

Bel is cast down, and Nebo, horrid king,

Bows in imperial Babylon: But, ah!

Too soon, the Star of Bethlehem, whose ray

The host of heaven hailed jubilant, and sang,

Glory to God on high, and on earth peace,

With long eclipse is veiled.

Red Papacy

Usurped the meek dominion of the Lord

Of love and charity: vast as a fiend

She rose, Heaven's light was darkened with her frown,

And the earth murmured back her hymns of blood,

As the meek martyr at the burning stake

Stood, his last look uplifted to his GOD!

But she is now cast down, her empire reft.

They who in darkness walked, and in the shade

Of death, have seen a new and holy light,

As in th’ umbrageous forest, through whose boughs,

Mossy and damp, for many a league, the morn

With languid beam scarce pierces, here and there

Touching some solitary trunk, the rest

Dark waving in the noxious atmosphere:

Through the thick-matted leaves the serpent winds

His way, to find a spot of casual sun;

The gaunt hyæna through the thicket glides

At eve: then, too, the couched tiger's eye

Flames in the dusk, and oft the gnashing jaws

Of the fell crocodile are heard. At length,

By man's superior energy and toil,

The sunless brakes are cleared; the joyous morn

Shines through the opening leaves; rich culture smiles

Around; and howling to their distant wilds

The savage inmates of the wood retire.

Such is the scene of human life, till want

Bids man his strength put forth; then slowly spreads

The cultured stream of mild humanity,

And gentler virtues, and more noble aims

Employ the active mind, till beauty beams

Around, and Nature wears her richest robe,

Adorned with lovelier graces. Then the charms

Of woman, fairest of the works of Heaven,

Whom the cold savage, in his sullen pride,

Scorned as unworthy of his equal love,

With more attractive influence wins the heart

Of her protector. Then the names of sire,

Of home, of brother, and of children, grow

More sacred, more endearing; whilst the eye,

Lifted beyond this earthly scene, beholds

A Father who looks down from heaven on all!

O Britain, my loved country! dost thou rise

Most high among the nations! Do thy fleets

Ride o'er the surge of ocean, that subdued

Rolls in long sweep beneath them! Dost thou wear

Thy garb of gentler morals gracefully!

Is widest science thine, and the fair train

Of lovelier arts! While commerce throngs thy ports

With her ten thousand streamers, is the tract

Of the undeviating ploughshare white

That rips the reeking furrow, followed soon

By plenty, bidding all the scene rejoice,

Even like a cultured garden! Do the streams

That steal along thy peaceful vales, reflect

Temples, and Attic domes, and village towers!

Is beauty thine, fairest of earthly things,

Woman; and doth she gain that liberal love

And homage, which the meekness of her voice,

The rapture of her smile, commanding most

When she seems weakest, must demand from him,

Her master; whose stern strength at once submits

In manly, but endearing, confidence,

Unlike his selfish tyranny who sits

The sultan of his harem!

Oh, then, think

How great the blessing, and how high thy rank

Amid the civilised and social world!

But hast thou no deep failings, that may turn

Thy thoughts within thyself! Ask, for the sun

That shines in heaven hath seen it, hath thy power

Ne'er scattered sorrow over distant lands!

Ask of the East, have never thy proud sails

Borne plunder from dismembered provinces,

Leaving the groans of miserable men

Behind! And free thyself, and lifting high

The charter of thy freedom, bought with blood,

Hast thou not stood, in patient apathy,

A witness of the tortures and the chains

That Afric's injured sons have known! Stand up;

Yes, thou hast visited the caves, and cheered

The gloomy haunts of sorrow; thou hast shed

A beam of comfort and of righteousness

On isles remote; hast bid the bread-fruit shade

Th’ Hesperian regions, and has softened much

With bland amelioration, and with charms

Of social sweetness, the hard lot of man.

But weighed in truth's firm balance, ask, if all

Be even. Do not crimes of ranker growth

Batten amid thy cities, whose loud din,

From flashing and contending cars, ascends,

Till morn! Enchanting, as if aught so sweet

Ne'er faded, do thy daughters wear the weeds

Of calm domestic peace and wedded love;

Or turn, with beautiful disdain, to dash

Gay pleasure's poisoned chalice from their lips

Untasted! Hath not sullen atheism,

Weaving gay flowers of poesy, so sought

To hide the darkness of his withered brow

With faded and fantastic gallantry

Of roses, thus to win the thoughtless smile

Of youthful ignorance! Hast thou with awe

Looked up to Him whose power is in the clouds,

Who bids the storm rush, and it sweeps to earth

The nations that offend, and they are gone,

Like Tyre and Babylon! Well weigh thyself:

Then shalt thou rise undaunted in the might

Of thy Protector, and the gathered hate

Of hostile bands shall be but as the sand

Blown on the everlasting pyramid.

Hasten, O Love and Charity! your work,

Ev'n now whilst it is day; far as the world

Extends may your divinest influence

Be felt, and more than felt, to teach mankind

They all are brothers, and to drown the cries

Of superstition, anarchy, or blood!

Not yet the hour is come: on Ganges’ banks

Still superstition hails the flame of death,

Behold, gay dressed, as in her bridal tire,

The self-devoted beauteous victim slow

Ascend the pile where her dead husband lies:

She kisses his cold cheeks, inclines her breast

On his, and lights herself the fatal pile

That shall consume them both!

On Egypt's shore,

Where Science rose, now Sloth and Ignorance

Sleep like the huge Behemoth in the sun!

The turbaned Moor still stains with strangers’ blood

The inmost sands of Afric. But all these

The light shall visit, and that vaster tract

From Fuego to the furthest Labrador,

Where roam the outcast Esquimaux, shall hear

The voice of social fellowship; the chief

Whose hatchet flashed amid the forest gloom,

Who to his infants bore the bleeding scalp

Of his fall'n foe, shall weep unwonted tears!

Come, Faith; come, Hope; come, meek-eyed Charity!

Complete the lovely prospect: every land

Shall lift up one hosannah; every tongue

Proclaim thee FATHER, INFINITE, and WISE,

And GOOD. The shores of palmy Senegal

( Sad Afric's injured sons no more enslaved )

Shall answer HALLELUJAH, for the LORD

Of truth and mercy reigns;— reigns KING OF KINGS;—

HOSANNAH — KING OF KINGS — and LORD OF LORDS!

So may His kingdom come, when all the earth,

Uniting thus as in one hymn of praise,

Shall wait the end of all things. This great globe,

His awful plan accomplished, then shall sink

In flames, whilst through the clouds, that wrap the place

Where it had rolled, and the sun shone, the voice

Of the ARCHANGEL, and the TRUMP OF GOD,

Amid heaven's darkness rolling fast away,

Shall sound!

Then shall the sea give up its dead;—

But man's immortal mind, all trials past

That shook his feverish frame, amidst the scenes

Of peril and distemper, shall ascend

Exulting to its destined seat of rest,

And “justify His ways” from whom it sprung.