Takes every course to reach alone the main;
Orient awhile his bending sweep he tries,
Now drains the southern, now the northern skies
Searches and sunders far the globe's vast frame,
Reluctant joins the sire and takes at last his name.
Now where the lakes, those midland oceans, lie,
Columbus turn'd his heaven-illumined eye.
Ontario's banks unable to retain
The five great caspians from the distant main,
Burst with the ponderous mass, and forceful whirl'd
His Lawrence forth, to balance thus the world.
Above, bold Erie's wave sublimely stood,
Look'd o'er the cliff and heaved his headlong flood;
Where dread Niagara bluffs high his brow
And frowns defiance to the world below.
White clouds of mist expanding o'er him play,
And tinge their skirts in all the beams of day;
Pleased Iris wantons in perpetual pride
And bends her rainbows o'er the dashing tide.
AMERICAN SCENERY RARELY DESCRIBED BY THE MUSE.
Sons of the city! ye whom crouds and noise Bereave of peace and nature's rural joys,
And ye, who love through woods and wilds to range,
Who see new charms in each successive change;
Come, roam with me Columbia's forests through,
Where scenes sublime shall meet your wandering view;
Deep shades magnificent, immensely spread;
Lakes sky-encircled; vast as ocean's bed;
Lone hermit streams that wind through savage
Enormous cataracts swol❜n with thund'ring floods;
The settler's farm with blazing fires o'erspread;
The hunter's cabin, and the Indian's shed;
The log-built hamlet, deep in wilds embrac'd;
The awful silence of the unpeopled waste :
These are the scenes the Muse shall now explore,
Scenes new to song and paths untrod before,
To Europe's shores renowned in deathless song,
Must all the honors of the bard belong?
And rural poetry's enchanting strain
Be only heard beyond th' Atlantic main?
Shall nature's charms that bloom so lovely here,
Unhailed arrive, unheeded disappear;
While bare bleak heaths and brooks of half a mile
Can rouse the thousand bards of Britain's Isle.
There, scarce a stream creeps down its narrow bed,
There, scarce a hillock lifts its little head,
Or humble hamlet peeps their glades among
But lives and murmurs in immortal song.
Our western world, with all its matchless floods,
Our vast transparent lakes and boundless woods,
Stamp'd with the traits of majesty sublime,
Unhonored weep the silent lapse of time,
Spread their wild grandeur to th' unconscious sky,
In sweetest seasons pass unheeded by;
While scarce one Muse returns the songs they gave, Or seeks to snatch their glories from the grave.
Hail, charming river! pure transparent flood! Unstain'd by noxious swamps or choaking mud; Thundering through broken rocks in whirling foam; Or pleas'd o'er beds of glittering sand to roam; Green be thy banks, sweet forest-wandering stream! Still may thy waves with finny treasures teem ; The silvery shad and salmon crowd thy shores, Thy tall woods echoing to the sounding oars, On thy swol'n bosom floating piles appear, Fill'd with the harvests of our rich trontier : Thy pine-brown'd cliffs, thy deep romantic vales, Where wolves now wander, and the panther wails, Where, at long intervals, the hut forlorn Peeps from the verdure of embowering corn, In future times, (nor distant far the day) Shall glow with crowded towns and villas gay;
Unnumber'd keels thy deepen'd course divide;
And airy arches pompously bestride;
The domes of science and religion rise,
And millions swarm where now a forest lies.
MEANS OF EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES. To nurse the arts and fashion freedom's lore Young schools of science rise along the shore; Great without pomp, their modest walls expand, Harvard and Yale and Princeton grace the land, Penn's student halls, his youths with gladness greet, On James's bank Virginian Muses meet, Manhattan's mart collegiate domes command, Bosom'd in groves, see growing Dartmouth stand; Bright o'er its realm reflecting solar fires, On yon tall hill Rhode-Island's seat aspires.
Thousands of humbler name around them rise, Where homebred freemen seize the solid prize; Fixt in small spheres, with safer beams to shine, They reach the useful and refuse the fine, Found, on its proper base, the social plan, The broad plain truths, the common sense of man, His obvious wants, his mutual aids discern, His rights familiarize, his duties learn, Feel moral fitness all its force dilate, Embrace the village and comprise the state. Each rustic here who turns the furrow'd soil, The maid, the youth that ply mechanic toil, In equal rights, in useful arts inured,
Know their just claims and see their claims secured;
They watch their delegates, each law revise,
Its faults designate, and its merits prize,
Obey, but scrutinize; and let the test
Of sage experience prove and fix the best.
THE SCHOOLMASTER.
Huworld has known
Of all professions that this
From clowns and cobblers upwards to the throne;
From the grave architect of Greece and Rome,
Down to the framer of a farthing broom,
The worst for care and undeserv'd abuse,
The first in real dignity and use,
(If skill'd to teach and diligent to rule)
Is the learn'd master of a little school.
Not he who guides the legs, or skills the clown
To square his fists, and knock his fellow down;
Not he who shows the still more barbarous art
To parry thrusts and pierce the unguarded heart;
But that good man, who, faithful to his charge,
Still toils the opening reason to enlarge;
And leads the growing mind, through every stage,
From humble A, B, C, to God's own page ;
From black, rough pothooks, horrid to the sight,
To fairest lines that float o'er purest white;
From numeration, through an opening way,
Till dark annuities seem clear as day;
Pours o'er the mind a flood of mental light,
Expands its wings, and gives it powers for flight,
Till earth's remotest bounds, and heaven's bright train
He trace, weigh, measure, picture and explain.
On distant heaths, beneath autumnal skies,
Pensive, I saw the circling shades descend;
Weary and faint, I heard the storm arise,
While the sun vanish'd like a faithless friend.
No kind companion led my steps aright;
No friendly planet lent its glimmʼring ray ;
E'en the lone cot refus'd its wonted light,
Where toil in peaceful slumber clos'd the day.
Then the dull bell had given a pleasing sound
The village cur 'twere transport then to hear;
In dreadful silence all was hush'd around,
While the rude storm aloge distress'd mine car.
As led by Orwell's winding barks I stray'd,
Where tow'ring Walsey breath'd his native air,
A sudden lustre chas'd the flitting shade,
The sounding winds were hush'd and all was fair.
Instant a graceful form appear'd confest;
White were his locks, with awful scarlet crown'd,
And livelier far than Tyrian seem'd his vest,
That with the glowing purple ting'd the ground.
"Stranger," he said, " amid this pealing rain,
"Benighted, lonesome, whither wouldst thou stray?
"Does wealth or pow'r thy weary steps constrain?
"Reveal thy wish, and let me point the way.
"For know, 1 trod the trophy'd paths of pow'r;
Felt every joy that fair ambition brings,
And left the lonely roof of yonder bow'r
"To stand beneath the canopies of kings.
"I bade low hinds the tow'ring ardor share,
"Nor meanly rose to bless myself alone;
"I snatch'd the shepherd from his fleecy care,
"And bade his wholesome dictate guard the throne.
"Low at my feet the suppliant peer I saw ;
"I saw proud empires my decision wait;
"My will was duty, and my word was law,
"My smile was transport, and my frown was fate."
Ah me! said I, nor pow'r I seek, nor gain;
Nor urg'd by hope of fame these toils endure;
A simple youth, that feels a lover's pain,
And from his friend's condolence hopes a cure.
He, the dear youth, to whose abodes I roam,
Nor can mine honors nor my fields extend;
Yet for his sake I leave my distant home,
Which oaks embosom, and which hills defend.
Beneath that home I scorn the wint❜ry wind;
The Spring, to shade me, robes her fairest tree
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