Home of the brave and free-for such thou art,
Thou proudly-swelling Ocean! how thy waves
Delighted ATHENS once, whose lion-heart
Despised the self-will'd tyrant's glittering slaves!
Baffled in all his hopes, Power vainly raves.
Now like a giant rising after sleep
Refresh'd, COLOMBIA wakes to life, and braves
Her late tyrannic mistress; o'er the deep
The sons of commerce now fresh harvests hope to reap.
O'ershadow'd by monopoly's dark wings,
COLOMBIA languish'd long, but, now no more—
And many a vessel, richly-freighted, brings
Her wealth triumphantly to CHILI's shore;
Returning homewards with the wondrous store
That nature poureth prodigally forth
From her horn bursting with its fulness o'er;
Thus though proud kings unite from South and North,
Freedom unshaken smiles, and vindicates her worth.
Thou vasty deep! what treasures lie conceal'd
Within thy caverns, coral-paved, below
The plummet's reach, that ne'er shall be reveal'd
Till the dread angel his last tromp shall blow,
Then all will Nature's secret wonders know;
But they, beheld, must disappear, and melt
Away with fervent heat, nor ebb, nor flow
Of mighty waters shall be seen or felt :
No vestige will remain of lands where man hath dwelt.
And shall this ocean that compared might be (If aught the perishable world can have Liken'd unto it,) with eternity,
Be lost at once as is a single wave
That breaks upon the beach ?-this greedy grave
Of shatter'd navies, shall it ever cease
Το gorge its victims while fierce tempests rave?
Whate'er the great Creator wills, with ease
He can perform-build worlds, destroy them, if he please.
Heaven, Earth, and Ocean perish; but the soul
Survives, through ages after ages blest.
Burning for knowledge, where new planets roll
"Twill wing its flight! Here oft by care deprest
The mind for wisdom loses all its zest;
But loosed from earth, all-seeing it will pass
Through boundless space, or contemplate at rest
Things which it darkly views as through a glass;
While "cabin'd, cribb'd, confined" within its fleshly
What other worlds interfluent among,
Oceans may swell and roar, 'tis vain to think.
Such themes befit not a poor mortal's song.
Imagination leads us to the brink
Of a vast precipice; we well might shrink
In gazing on the great obscure beneath.
There all is fathomless—the closest link
Of thought is broken by conjecture's breath,
When mind attempts to soar above the depths of death!
Do we revert so fondly to the walks
Of childhood, but that there the soul discerns
The dear memorial footsteps unimpaired
Of her own native vigour-but for this,
That it is given her thence in age to hear
Reverberations; and a choral song,
Commingling with the incense that ascends
Undaunted tow'rds the imperishable heavens
From her own lonely altar?
WORDSWORTH's Excursion, book viii.
BEAUTIFUL day thou art! but doubly fair
To me as from this spot I now behold
Things of familiar loveliness ; the air
Whispers of childhood, changeful lights unfold
Scenes of which many a pleasant tale is told.
Distinctly, hamlets, mansions known of old,
Glow in the sunshine; cornfields, meadows green,
And wood-surrounded domes of grandeur swell between.*
* And "flowery gardens curtain'd round
With world-excluding groves."
The deep of azure by a cloud unstained
Above; the wild bee's solitary hum ;
The butterflies, whose joyaunce is unfeign'd,
Coloured, as if from gayer worlds they come,-
Creatures not grateful less for life, though dumb:
The swift that skims the ground with rapid wing,
The thousand thousand flowers we cannot sum,
The streams that from moss-covered founts outspring,—
All in the Sun rejoice, their earth-o'ergazing king.
Here the pavilion stands, where children bright
At morn assembled for the dance or game,
Lively as fays, as delicate Ariel light;
Though they are grown to womanhood, there came
To Fancy's eye apparently the same
young successors full of joy :
And as the sun subdued his fiercer flame,
The dance commenced, that charmed me when a boy, And simple sports that gave delight without alloy.
The presence of the past is bodied forth,
Or in plantation deep, or covert glade;
Though my coevals planted toward the north,
Grown with our growth, flourishing as we fade,
Throw out a wider amplitude of shade,
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