| |
| OLD cradle of an infant world, | |
| In which a nestling empire lay, | |
| Struggling awhile, ere she unfurled | |
| Her gallant wing and soared away; | |
| All hail! thou birthplace of the glowing west, | 5 |
| Thou seem’st the towering eagle’s ruined nest! | |
| |
| What solemn recollections throng, | |
| What touching visions rise, | |
| As, wandering these old stones among, | |
| I backward turn mine eyes, | 10 |
| And see the shadows of the dead flit round, | |
| Like spirits, when the last dread trump shall sound. | |
| |
| The wonders of an age combined | |
| In one short moment memory supplies; | |
| They throng upon my wakened mind, | 15 |
| As time’s dark curtains rise. | |
| The volume of a hundred buried years, | |
| Condensed in one bright sheet, appears. | |
| |
| I hear the angry ocean rave, | |
| I see the lonely little bark | 20 |
| Scudding along the crested wave, | |
| Freighted like old Noah’s ark, | |
| As o’er the drownéd earth ’t was hurled, | |
| With the forefathers of another world. | |
| |
| I see a train of exiles stand, | 25 |
| Amid the desert, desolate, | |
| The fathers of my native land, | |
| The daring pioneers of fate, | |
| Who braved the perils of the sea and earth, | |
| And gave a boundless empire birth. | 30 |
| |
| I see the sovereign Indian range | |
| His woodland empire, free as air; | |
| I see the gloomy forest change, | |
| The shadowy earth laid bare; | |
| And, where the red man chased the bounding deer, | 35 |
| The smiling labors of the white appear. | |
| |
| I see the haughty warrior gaze | |
| In wonder or in scorn, | |
| As the pale faces sweat to raise | |
| Their scanty fields of corn, | 40 |
| While he, the monarch of the boundless wood, | |
| By sport, or hair-brained rapine, wins his food. | |
| |
| A moment, and the pageant’s gone; | |
| The red men are no more; | |
| The pale-faced strangers stand alone | 45 |
| Upon the river’s shore; | |
| And the proud wood-king, who their arts disdained, | |
| Finds but a bloody grave where once he reigned. | |
| |
| The forest reels beneath the stroke | |
| Of sturdy woodman’s axe; | 50 |
| The earth receives the white man’s yoke, | |
| And pays her willing tax | |
| Of fruits, and flowers, and golden harvest fields, | |
| And all that nature to blithe labor yields. | |
| |
| Then growing hamlets rear their heads, | 55 |
| And gathering crowds expand, | |
| Far as my fancy’s vision spreads, | |
| O’er many a boundless land, | |
| Till what was once a world of savage strife | |
| Teems with the richest gifts of social life. | 60 |
| |
| Empire to empire swift succeeds, | |
| Each happy, great, and free; | |
| One empire still another breeds, | |
| A giant progeny. | |
| Destined their daring race to run, | 65 |
| Each to the regions of yon setting sun. | |
| |
| Then, as I turn my thoughts to trace | |
| The fount whence these rich waters sprung, | |
| I glance towards this lonely place, | |
| And find it, these rude stones among. | 70 |
| Here rest the sires of millions, sleeping round, | |
| The Argonauts, the golden fleece that found. | |
| |
| Their names have been forgotten long; | |
| The stone, but not a word, remains; | |
| They cannot live in deathless song, | 75 |
| Nor breathe in pious strains. | |
| Yet this sublime obscurity to me | |
| More touching is than poet’s rhapsody. | |
| |
| They live in millions that now breathe; | |
| They live in millions yet unborn, | 80 |
| And pious gratitude shall wreathe | |
| As bright a crown as ere was worn, | |
| And hang it on the green-leaved bough, | |
| That whispers to the nameless dead below. | |
| |
| No one that inspiration drinks; | 85 |
| No one that loves his native land; | |
| No one that reasons, feels, or thinks, | |
| Can mid these lonely ruins stand, | |
| Without a moistened eye, a grateful tear | |
| Of reverent gratitude to those that moulder here. | 90 |
| |
| The mighty shade now hovers round,— | |
| Of him whose strange, yet bright career | |
| Is written on this sacred ground | |
| In letters that no time shall sere; | |
| Who in the Old World smote the turbaned crew, | 95 |
| And founded Christian empires in the New. | |
| |
| And she! the glorious Indian maid, | |
| The tutelary of this land, | |
| The angel of the woodland shade, | |
| The miracle of God’s own hand, | 100 |
| Who joined man’s heart to woman’s softest grace, | |
| And thrice redeemed the scourges of her race. | |
| |
| Sister of charity and love, | |
| Whose life-blood was soft Pity’s tide, | |
| Dear goddess of the sylvan grove, | 105 |
| Flower of the forest, nature’s pride, | |
| He is no man who does not bend the knee, | |
| And she no woman who is not like thee! | |
| |
| Jamestown, and Plymouth’s hallowed rock | |
| To me shall ever sacred be,— | 110 |
| I care not who my themes may mock, | |
| Or sneer at them and me. | |
| I envy not the brute who here can stand | |
| Without a thrill for his own native land. | |
| |
| And if the recreant crawl her earth, | 115 |
| Or breathe Virginia’s air, | |
| Or in New England claim his birth, | |
| From the old pilgrims there, | |
| He is a bastard, if he dare to mock | |
| Old Jamestown’s shrine or Plymouth’s famous rock. | 120 |
| |
