'TIS evening now; the heats and cares of day In twilight dews are calmly wept away. The lover now, beneath the western star, Sighs through the medium of his sweet cigar, And fills the ears of some consenting she With puffs and vows, with smoke and constancy! The weary statesman for repose hath fled From halls of council to his negro's shed, Where blest he woos some black Aspasia's grace, And dreams of freedom in his slave's embrace! In fancy now, beneath the twilight gloom, Come, let me lead thee o'er this modern Rome! Where tribunes rule, where dusky Davi bow, And what was Goose-Creek once is Tiber now! This famed metropolis, where fancy sees Squares in morasses, obelisks in trees; Which travelling fools and gazetteers adorn With shrines unbuilt and heroes yet unborn, Though nought but wood and ********* they se Where streets should run and sages @3ought@1 to be! And look, how soft in yonder radiant wave, The dying sun prepares his golden grave! -- O great Potowmac! O you banks of shade! You mighty scenes, in Nature's morning made, While still, in rich magnificence of prime, She pour'd her wonders, lavishly sublime, Nor yet had learn'd to stoop, with humbler care, From grand to soft, from wonderful to fair! Say, where your towering hills, your boundless floods, Your rich savannas and majestic woods, Where bards should meditate and heroes rove, And woman charm, and man deserve her love? Oh! was a world so bright but born to grace Its own half-organized, half-minded race Of weak barbarians, swarming o'er its breast, Like vermin, gender'd on the lion's crest? Were none but brutes to call that soil their home, Where none but demi-gods should dare to roam? Or worse, thou mighty world! oh! doubly worse, Did Heaven design thy lordly land to nurse The motley dregs of every distant clime, Each blast of anarchy and taint of crime, Which Europe shakes from her perturbed sphere, In full malignity to rankle here? But hush! -- observe that little mount of pines, Where the breeze murmurs and the fire-fly shines, There let thy fancy raise, in bold relief, The sculptured image of that veteran chief, Who lost the rebel's in the hero's name, And stept o'er prostrate loyalty to fame; Beneath whose sword Columbia's patriot train Cast off their monarch, that their mob might reign! How shall we rank thee upon glory's page? Thou more than soldier and just less than sage! Too form'd for peace to act a conqueror's part, Too train'd in camps to learn a statesman's art, Nature design'd thee for a hero's mould, But, ere she cast thee, let the stuff grow cold! While warmer souls command, nay, make their fate, Thy fate made thee and forced thee to be great. Yet Fortune, who so oft, so blindly sheds Her brightest halo round the weakest heads, Found @3thee@1 undazzled, tranquil as before, Proud to be useful, scorning to be more; Less prompt at glory's than at duty's claim. Renown the meed, but self-applause the air All thou hast been reflects less fame on thee, Far less than all thou hast forborne to be! Now turn thine eye where faint the moonlight falls On yonder dome -- and in those princely halls, If thou canst hate, as, oh! that soul must hate, Which loves the virtuous and reveres the great, If thou canst loathe and execrate with me That Gallic garbage of philosophy, That nauseous slaver of these frantic times, With which false liberty dilutes her crimes! If thou hast got, within thy free-born breast, One pulse, that beats more proudly than the rest, With honest scorn for that inglorious soul, Which creeps and winds beneath a mob's control, Which courts the rabble's smile, the rabble's nod, And makes, like Egypt, every beast its god! There, in those walls -- but, burning tongue, forbear! Rank must be reverenced, e'en the rank that's there: So here I pause -- and now, my Hume! we part; But oh! full oft, in magic dreams of heart, Thus let us meet, and mingle converse dear By Thames at home, or by Potowmac here! O'er lake and marsh, through fevers and through fogs, Midst bears and yankees, democrats and frogs, Thy foot shall follow me, thy heart and eyes With me shall wonder, and with me despise! While I, as oft, in witching thought shall rove To thee, to friendship, and that land I love, Where, like the air that fans her fields of green, Her freedom spreads, unfever'd and serene; Where sovereign man can condescend to see The throne and laws more sovereign still than he! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE GIFT TO SING by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON MOTLEY: MUSIC by WALTER JOHN DE LA MARE GROWING GRAY by HENRY AUSTIN DOBSON PASSION AND LOVE by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR COMPLAINT OF THE ABSENCE OF HER LOVER BEING UPON THE SEA by HENRY HOWARD SENCE YOU WENT AWAY by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON VERSES WHY BURNT by WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR |