POEMS OF PLACES

ON THE PROSPECT OF PLANTING ARTS AND LEARNING IN AMERICA

THE Muse, disgusted at an age and clime
Barren of every glorious theme,

In distant lands now waits a better time,
Producing subjects worthy fame:

In happy climes, where from the genial sun
And virgin earth such scenes ensue,
The force of Art by Nature seems outdone,
And fancied beauties by the true:

In happy climes, the seat of Innocence,

Where Nature guides and Virtue rules,
Where men shall not impose, for truth and sense,
The pedantry of courts and schools:

There shall be sung another golden age,
The rise of empire and of arts,
The good and great inspiring epic rage,
The wisest heads and noblest hearts.

Not such as Europe breeds in her decay:
Such as she bred when fresh and young,
When heavenly flame did animate her clay,
By future poets shall be sung.

Westward the course of empire takes its way;
The first four acts already past,

A fifth shall close the drama with the day;

Time's noblest offspring is the last.

George Berkeley [1685-1753]

BERMUDAS

WHERE the remote Bermudas ride
In the ocean's bosom unespied,
From a small boat that rowed along
The listening winds received this song:

"What should we do but sing His praise That led us through the watery maze Unto an isle so long unknown,

And yet far kinder than our own?

Where He the huge sea-monsters wracks,
That lift the deep upon their backs,
He lands us on a grassy stage,

Safe from the storms' and prelates' rage:
He gave us this eternal Spring
Which here enamels everything,
And sends the fowls to us in care
On daily visits through the air:
He hangs in shades the orange bright
Like golden lamps in a green night,
And does in the pomegranates close
Jewels more rich than Ormus shows:
He makes the figs our mouths to meet
And throws the melons at our feet;
But apples plants of such a price,
No tree could ever bear them twice.
With cedars chosen by His hand
From Lebanon He stores the land;
And makes the hollow seas that roar
Proclaim the ambergris on shore.
He cast (of which we rather boast)
The Gospel's pearl upon our coast;
And in these rocks for us did frame
A temple where to sound His name.
O, let our voice His praise exalt
Till it arrive at Heaven's vault,
Which thence (perhaps) rebounding may
Echo beyond the Mexique bay!"

Indian Names

Thus sung they in the English boat
A holy and a cheerful note:

And all the way, to guide their chime,
With falling oars they kept the time.

2473

Andrew Marvell [1621-1678]

INDIAN NAMES

YE say, they all have passed away,
That noble race and brave;

That their light canoes have vanished
From off the crested wave;

That, 'mid the forests where they roamed,
There rings no hunter's shout;

But their name is on your waters,—
Ye may not wash it out.

'Tis where Ontario's billow

Like Ocean's surge is curled;
Where strong Niagara's thunders wake

The echo of the world;

Where red Missouri bringeth

Rich tribute from the West,

And Rappahannock sweetly sleeps

On green Virginia's breast.

That clustered o'er the vale,

Have fled away, like withered leaves
Before the Autumn gale;

But their memory liveth on your hills,
Their baptism on your shore,
Your everlasting rivers speak
Their dialect of yore.

Old Massachusetts wears it
Within her lordly crown,
And broad Ohio bears it

Amid his young renown;

Connecticut hath wreathed it
Where her quiet foliage waves,
And bold Kentucky breathes it hoarse
Through all her ancient caves.

Wachuset hides its lingering voice
Within its rocky heart.
And Alleghany graves its tone
Throughout his lofty chart;
Monadnock, on his forehead hoar,
Doth seal the sacred trust;

Your mountains build their monument,

Though ye destroy their dust.

Lydia Huntly Sigourney [1791-1865]

MANNAHATTA

I was asking for something specific and perfect for my city, Whereupon lo! upsprang the aboriginal name.

Now I see what there is in a name, a word, liquid, sane, unruly, musical, self-sufficient,

I see that the word of my city is that word from of old, Because I see that word nested in nests of water-bays,

superb,

Rich, hemmed thick all around with sail-ships and steamships, an island sixteen miles long, solid-founded, Numberless crowded streets, high growths of iron, slender,

strong, light, splendidly uprising toward clear skies, Tides swift and ample, well-loved by me, toward sundown, The flowing sea-currents, the little islands, larger adjoining islands, the heights, the villas,

The countless masts, the white shore-steamers, the lighters,

the ferry-boats, the black sea-steamers well-modelled, The down-town streets, the jobbers' houses of business, the

houses of business of the ship-merchants and moneybrokers, the river-streets,

Immigrants arriving, fifteen or twenty thousand in a week, The carts hauling goods, the manly race of drivers of horses, the brown-faced sailors,

The Song of the Colorado

2475

The summer air, the bright sun shining, and the sailing

clouds aloft,

The winter snows, the sleigh-bells, the broken ice in the river,

passing along up or down with the flood-tide or ebb-tide, The mechanics of the city, the masters, well-formed, beautiful-faced, looking you straight in the eyes,

Trottoirs thronged, vehicles, Broadway, the women, the shops and shows,

A million people-manners free and superb-open voiceshospitality-the most courageous and friendly young

men,

City of hurried and sparkling waters! city of spires and masts!

City nested in bays! my city!

Walt Whitman [1819-1892]

THE SONG OF THE COLORADO

FROM the heart of the mighty mountains strong-souled for my fate I came,

My far-drawn track to a nameless sea through a land with

out a name;

And the earth rose up to hold me, to bid me linger and stay; And the brawn and bone of my mother's race were set to bar my way.

Yet I stayed not, I could not linger; my soul was tense to the call

The wet winds sing when the long waves leap and beat on the far sea wall.

I stayed not, I could not linger; patient, resistless, alone,
I hewed the trail of my destiny deep in the hindering stone.

How narrow that first dim pathway-yet deepening hour by hour!

Years, ages, eons, spent and forgot, while I gathered me might and power

Till

To answer the call that led me, to carve my road to the sea, my flood swept out with that greater tide as tireless and tameless and free.