COMMERCE

To every clime, through every sea

The bold adventurer steers;

In bounding barque, through each degree

His country's produce bears.—

How far more blest to stay at home

Than thus on Neptune's wastes to roam,

Where fervors melt, or frosts congeal —

Ah ye! with toils and hardships worn,

Condemn'd to face the briny foam;

Ah! from such fatal projects turn

The wave-dividing keel.

The product of the furrow'd plain —

Transferr'd to foreign shores,

To pamper pride and please the vain

The reign of kings restores:

Hence, every vice the sail imports,

The glare of crowns, the pomp of courts,

And War, with all his crimson train!

Thus man design'd to till the ground,

A stranger to himself is found —

Is sent to toil on yonder wave,

Is made the dreary ocean's sport,

Since commerce first to avarice gave

To sail the ocean round.

How far more wise the grave Chinese,

Who ne'er remotely stray,

But bid the world surmount the seas

And hard-earn'd tribute pay.

Hence, treasure to their country flows

Freed from the danger, and the woes

Of distant seas and dreary shores.

There commerce breeds no foreign war;

At home they find their wants supplied,

And ask, why nations come so far

To seek superfluous stores?

Americans! why half neglect

The culture of your soil?

From distant traffic why expect

The harvest of your toil?

At home a surer harvest springs

From mutual interchange of things,

Domestic duties to fulfil.—

Vast lakes within your realm abound

Where commerce now expands her sail,

Where hostile navies are not found

To bend you to their will.