The Columbiad quotes

In this they were not disappointed. Columbus languished a short time, and gladly resigned a life which had been worn out in the most signal services, perhaps, that have been rendered by any one man to an ungrateful world.

Posterity is sometimes more just to the memory of great men than cotemporaries were to their persons.

But even this consolation, if it is one, has been wanting to the discoverer of our hemisphere. The continent, instead of bearing his name, has been called after one of his followers, a man of no particular merit.

… fall of Troy or the labors of Hercules, his work (taking the place which those of Homer have unfortunately occupied) as a splendid model for all succeeding ages, would have given a very different turn to the pursuits of heroes and the policy of nations.

Ambition might then have become a useful passion, instead of a destructive disease.

In the poem here presented to the public the objects, as in other works of the kind, are two: the fictitious object of the action and the real object of the poem.

impressions which have become so wrought into their most sacred institutions, that it is there thought impious to detect them and dangerous to root them out, though acknowledged to be false.

Woe be to the republican principle and to all the institutions it supports, when once the pernicious doctrine of the holiness of error shall creep into the creed of our schools and distort the intellect of our citizens.

The Columbiad, in its present form, is such as I shall probably leave it to its fate.

Europe settling from their sight, and the Atlantic ocean spreading far beneath their feet—Continent of America draws into view, and is described by its mountains, rivers, lakes, soil and some of the natural productions.

I sing the Mariner who first unfurl’d An eastern banner o’er the western world,

And taught mankind where future empires lay In these fair confines of descending day;

Slaves, kings, adventurers, envious of his name, Enjoy’d his labours and purloin’d his fame,

And gave the Viceroy, from his high seat hurl’d, Chains for a crown, a prison for a world.

Long overwhelm’d in woes, and sickening there, He met the slow still march of black despair, Sought the last refuge from his hopeless doom, And wisht from thankless men a peaceful tomb:

Tall rose his stature, youth’s endearing grace Adorn’d his limbs and brighten’d in his face; Loose o’er his locks the star of evening hung, And sounds melodious moved his cheerful tongue:

Rise, trembling chief, to scenes of rapture rise, This voice awaits thee from the western skies;

Indulge no longer that desponding strain, Nor count thy toils, nor deem thy virtues vain. Thou seest in me the guardian Power who keeps The new found world that skirts Atlantic deeps;

Thus o’er thy subject wave shalt thou behold Far happier realms their future charms unfold, In nobler pomp another Pisgah rise, Beneath whose foot thy new found Canaan lies; There, rapt in vision, hail my favorite clime, And taste the blessings of remotest time.

So Hesper spoke; Columbus raised his head; His chains dropt off; the cave, the castle fled.

Forth walkt the Pair;

While sorrows thus his patriarch pride control, Hesper reproving sooths his tender soul: Father of this new world, thy tears give o’er, Let virtue grieve and heaven be blamed no more.

Enough for man, with persevering mind, To act his part and strive to bless his kind.

Enough for thee o’er thy dark age to soar And raise to light that long-secluded shore.

Now haste, ye fiends of death; the sire of day In absent slumber gives your malice way; While fainter light these livid flames supply, And short-lived thousands learn of me to die.

He ceased not speaking; when the yell of war Drowns all their death songs in a hideous jar;

The cries rebounding from the hillsides pour, And wolves and tigers catch the distant roar. Now more concordant all their voices join, And round the plain they form the festive line; When, to the music of the dismal din, Indignant Zamor bids the dance begin.

And to their gods in fancied goblets pour The warm libation of your children’s gore. Move then to vengeance, meet the sons of blood, Led by this arm and lighted by that god; The strife is fierce, your fanes and fields the prize;

The warrior conquers or the infant dies.

Fill’d with his fire, the troops in squared array Wait the wild hordes loose huddling to the fray; Their pointed arrows, rising on the bow, Look up the sky and chide the lagging foe.

The Hero spoke; when thus the Saint rejoin’d, Approved his joy and feasted still his mind: Well may thy voice, with patriarch pride elate, Burst forth triumphant at a scene so great.

Here springs indeed the day, since time began, The brightest, broadest, happiest morn of man.

In these prime settlements thy raptures trace The germ, the genius of a sapient race, Predestined here to methodize and mold New codes of empire to reform the old.

Lure with false fame, false morals and false lore, To barter fields of corn for fields of gore, To take by bands what single thieves would spare,

And methodise his murders into war.

Now the prest garrison fresh danger warms; They rush impetuous to each post of arms, Man the long trench, each embrasure sustain And pour their langrage on the allied train; Whose swift approaches, crowding on the line, Each wing envelop and each front confine.

To you at last the foe reluctant yields. But though the Muse, too prodigal of praise, Dares with the dead your living worth to raise,

Think not, my friends, the patriot’s task is done, Or Freedom safe, because the battle’s won.

Unnumber’d foes, far different arms that wield, Wait the weak moment when she quits her shield, To plunge in her bold breast the insidious dart Or pour keen poison round her thoughtless heart.

Her wallowing womb of subterranean war Waits but the fissure that my wave shall find, To force the foldings of the rocky rind, Crash your curst continent, and whirl on high The vast avulsion vaulting through the sky, Fling far the bursting fragments, scattering wide

Rocks, mountains, nations o’er the swallowing tide.

Plunging and surging with alternate sweep, They storm the day-vault and lay bare the deep, Toss, tumble, plow their place, then slow subside, And swell each ocean as their bulk they hide; Two oceans dasht in one!

Where strong self-interest join’d with duty lies, Where doing right demands no sacrifice, Where profit, pleasure, life-expanding fame League their allurements to support the claim, ’Tis safest there the impleaded cause to trust;

Men well instructed will be always just.

From slavery then your rising realms to save, Regard the master, notice not the slave; Consult alone for freemen, and bestow Your best, your only cares to keep them so. Tyrants are never free;

From slavery then your rising realms to save, Regard the master, notice not the slave; Consult alone for freemen, and bestow Your best, your only cares to keep them so.

Tyrants are never free; and, small and great, All masters must be tyrants soon or late;

So nature works;

… oft the lordling knave Turns out at once a tyrant and a slave, Struts, cringes, bullies, begs, as courtiers must, Makes one a god, another treads in dust, Fears all alike, and filches whom he can, But knows no equal, finds no friend in man.

Ah, would you not be slaves, with lords and kings, Then be not masters; there the danger springs.

The whole crude system that torments this earth, Of rank, privation, privilege of birth, False honor, fraud, corruption, civil jars, The rage of conquest and the curse of wars, Pandora’s total shower, all ills combined That erst o’erwhelm’d and still distress mankind, Boxt up secure …

… birth, False honor, fraud, corruption, civil jars, The rage of conquest and the curse of wars, Pandora’s total shower, all ills combined That erst o’erwhelm’d and still distress mankind, Boxt up secure in your deliberate hand, Wait your behest, to fix or fly this land.

Equality of Right is nature’s plan; And following nature is the march of man.

Whene’er he deviates in the least degree, When, free himself, he would be more than free, The baseless column, rear’d to bear his bust, Falls as he mounts and whelms him in the dust.

Their state secured, they deem it wise and brave That every freeman should command a slave, And flusht with franchise of his camp and town, Rove through the world and hunt the nations down; Master and man the same vile spirit gains,

Rome chains the world, and wears herself the chains.

Mark modern Europe with her feudal codes, Serfs, villains, vassals, nobles, kings and gods, All slaves of different grades, corrupt and curst With high and low, for senseless rank athirst, Wage endless wars;

While heroes, kings and sages of their times, Those gods on earth, are gods in happier climes; Minos in judgment sits, and Jove in power, And Odin’s friends are feasted there with gore.

Man is an infant still; and slow and late

Must form and fix his adolescent state, Mature his manhood and at last behold His reason ripen and his force unfold.

If such the round we run, what hope, my friend, To see our madness and our miseries end?— Here paused the Patriarch: mild the Saint return’d, And as he spoke, fresh glories round him burn’d: My son, I blame not but applaud thy grief;

Inquiries deep should lead to slow belief.

So small the portion of the range of man His written stories reach or views can span, That wild confusion seems to clog his march, And the dull progress made eludes thy search.