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| EMBLEM of eternity, | |
| Unbeginning, endless sea! | |
| Let me launch my soul on thee. | |
| |
| Sail nor keel, nor helm nor oar, | |
| Need I, ask I, to explore | 5 |
| Thine expanse from shore to shore. | |
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| By a single glance of thought | |
| Thy whole realm ’s before me brought, | |
| Like the universe, from nought. | |
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| All thine aspects now I view, | 10 |
| Ever old, yet ever new; | |
| Time nor tide thy power subdue. | |
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| All thy voices now I hear; | |
| Sounds of gladness, grandeur, fear, | |
| Meet and mingle in mine ear. | 15 |
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| All thy wonders are revealed, | |
| Treasures hidden in thy field, | |
| From the birth of nature sealed. | |
| |
| But thy depths I search not now, | |
| Nor thy liquid surface plough | 20 |
| With a billow-breaking prow. | |
| |
| Eager fancy, unconfined, | |
| In a voyage of the mind, | |
| Sweeps along thee like the wind. | |
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| Here a breeze, I skim thy plain; | 25 |
| There a tempest, pour amain | |
| Thunder, lightning, hail, and rain. | |
| |
| Where the surges never roll | |
| Round the undiscovered pole, | |
| Thence set out, my venturous soul! | 30 |
| |
| See o’er Greenland, cold and wild, | |
| Rocks of ice eternal piled; | |
| Yet the mother loves her child, | |
| |
| And the wildernesses drear | |
| To the native’s heart are dear; | 35 |
| All love’s charities dwell here. | |
| |
| Next on lonely Labrador, | |
| Let me hear the snow-storms roar, | |
| Blinding, burying all before. | |
| |
| Yet even here, in glens and coves, | 40 |
| Man the heir of all things roves, | |
| Feasts and fights, and laughs and loves. | |
| |
| But a brighter vision breaks | |
| O’er Canadian woods and lakes; | |
| These my spirit soon forsakes. | 45 |
| |
| Land of exiled liberty, | |
| Where our fathers once were free, | |
| Brave New England! hail to thee! | |
| |
| Pennsylvania, while thy flood | |
| Waters fields unbought with blood, | 50 |
| Stand for peace, as thou hast stood. | |
| |
| The West Indies I behold, | |
| Like the Hesperides of old, | |
| Trees of life with fruits of gold. | |
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| No,—a curse is on their soil; | 55 |
| Bonds and scourges, tears and toil, | |
| Man degrade and earth despoil. | |
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| Horror-struck, I turn away, | |
| Coasting down the Mexique bay; | |
| Slavery there hath had her day. | 60 |
| |
| Hark! eight hundred thousand tongues | |
| Startle midnight with strange songs; | |
| England ends her negroes’ wrongs. | |
| |
| Loud the voice of freedom spoke, | |
| Every accent split a yoke, | 65 |
| Every word a fetter broke. | |
| |
| South America expands | |
| Forest-mountains, river-lands, | |
| And a nobler race demands. | |
| |
| And a nobler race arise, | 70 |
| Stretch their limbs, unclose their eyes, | |
| Claim the earth, and seek the skies. | |
| |
| Gliding through Magellan’s Straits, | |
| Where two oceans ope their gates, | |
| What a glorious scene awaits! | 75 |
| |
| The immense Pacific smiles, | |
| Round ten thousand little isles, | |
| Haunts of violence and wiles. | |
| |
| But the powers of darkness yield, | |
| For the Cross is in the field, | 80 |
| And the light of life revealed. | |
| |
| Rays from rock to rock it darts, | |
| Conquers adamantine hearts, | |
| And immortal bliss imparts. | |
| |
| North and west, receding far | 85 |
| From the evening’s downward star, | |
| Now I mount Aurora’s car: | |
| |
| Pale Siberia’s deserts shun, | |
| From Kamschatka’s storm-cliffs run, | |
| South and east, to meet the sun. | 90 |
| |
| Jealous China, dire Japan, | |
| With bewildered eyes I scan, | |
| They are but dead seas of man, | |
| |
| Ages in succession find | |
| Forms that change not, stagnant mind, | 95 |
| And they leave the same behind. | |
| |
| Lo! the Eastern Cyclades, | |
| Phœnix-nests and sky-blue seas, | |
| But I tarry not with these. | |
| |
| Pass we drear New Holland’s shoals, | 100 |
| Where no ample river rolls, | |
| World of unawakened souls! | |
| |
| Bring them forth;—’t is Heaven’s decree. | |
| Man, assert thy liberty; | |
| Let not brutes look down on thee. | 105 |
| |
| Either India next is seen, | |
| With the Ganges stretched between; | |
| Ah! what horrors here have been. | |
| |
| War, disguised as commerce, came; | |
| Britain, carrying sword and flame, | 110 |
| Won an empire,—lost her name. | |
| |
| But that name shall be restored, | |
| Law and justice wield the sword, | |
| And her GOD be here adored. | |
| |
| By the Gulf of Persia sail, | 115 |
| Where the true-love nightingale | |
| Woos the rose in every vale. | |
| |
| Though Arabia charge the breeze | |
| With the incense of her trees, | |
| On I press through southern seas. | 120 |
| |
| Cape of storms, thy spectre fled, | |
| See, the angel Hope, instead, | |
| Lights from heaven upon thine head; | |
| |
| And where Table-mountain stands, | |
| Barbarous hordes from desert sands | 125 |
| Bless the sight with lifted hands. | |
| |
| St. Helena’s dungeon-keep | |
| Scowls defiance o’er the deep; | |
| There a warrior’s relics sleep. | |
| |
| Who he was, and how he fell, | 130 |
| Europe, Asia, Afric tell: | |
| On that theme all time shall dwell. | |
| |
| But henceforth, till nature dies, | |
| These three simple words comprise | |
| All the future: “Here he lies.” | 135 |
| |
| Mammon’s plague-ships throng the waves: | |
| O, ’t were mercy to the slaves, | |
| Were the maws of sharks their graves! | |
| |
| Not for all the gems and gold, | |
| Which thy streams and mountains hold, | 140 |
| Or for which thy sons are sold, | |
| |
| Land of negroes! would I dare | |
| In this felon-trade to share, | |
| Or to brand its guilt forbear. | |
| |
| Hercules! thy pillars stand, | 145 |
| Sentinels of sea and land! | |
| Cloud-capt Atlas towers at hand. | |
| |
| Where, when Cato’s word was fate, | |
| Fell the Carthaginian state, | |
| And where exiled Marius sate, | 150 |
| |
| Mark the dens of caitiff Moors; | |
| Ha! the pirates seize their oars: | |
| Haste we from the accurséd shores! | |
| |
| Egypt’s hieroglyphic realm | |
| Other floods than Nile’s o’erwhelm; | 155 |
| Slaves turned despots hold the helm. | |
| |
| Judah’s cities are forlorn, | |
| Lebanon and Carmel shorn, | |
| Zion trampled down with scorn. | |
| |
| Greece, thine ancient lamp is spent; | 160 |
| Thou art thine own monument; | |
| But the sepulchre is rent, | |
| |
| And a wind is on the wing, | |
| At whose breath new heroes spring, | |
| Sages teach, and poets sing. | 165 |
| |
| Italy, thy beauties shroud | |
| In a gorgeous evening cloud; | |
| Thy refulgent head is bowed. | |
| |
| Rome, in ruins lovely still, | |
| On her Capitolian hill, | 170 |
| Bids thee, mourner, weep thy fill. | |
| |
| Yet where Roman genius reigns, | |
| Roman blood must warm the veins; | |
| Look well, tyrants, to your chains! | |
| |
| Splendid realm of old romance, | 175 |
| Spain, thy tower-crowned crest advance, | |
| Grasp the shield and couch the lance. | |
| |
| At the fire-flash of thine eye, | |
| Giant bigotry would fly, | |
| At thy voice oppression die. | 180 |
| |
| Lusitania, from the dust, | |
| Shake thy locks,—thy cause is just; | |
| Strike for freedom, strike and trust. | |
| |
| France, I hurry from thy shore; | |
| Thou art not the France of yore, | 185 |
| Thou art new-born France no more. | |
| |
| Great thou wast; and who like thee? | |
| Then mad-drunk with liberty; | |
| What now?—neither great nor free. | |
| |
| Sweep by Holland like the blast, | 190 |
| One quick glance on Denmark cast, | |
| Sweden, Russia,—all are past. | |
| |
| Elbe nor Weser tempt my stay; | |
| Germany, beware the day | |
| When thy schools again bear sway! | 195 |
| |
| Now to thee, to thee, I fly, | |
| Fairest isle beneath the sky, | |
| To my heart, as in mine eye. | |
| |
| I have seen them, one by one, | |
| Every shore beneath the sun, | 200 |
| And my voyage now is done. | |
| |
| While I bid them all be blest, | |
| Britain is my home, my rest; | |
| Mine own land! I love thee best. | |
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