Commerce
Harp of the sea! bold minstrel of the deep!
Sound from your halls where proud armadas sleep;
Ring from the waves a strain of other days,
When first rude Commerce poured her feeble rays;
Tell what rich burdens India's princes bore
Of balmy spices to the Arab's shore;
What mines of wealth on Traffic's dauntless wings
Sailed down from Egypt to the Syrian kings;
By what mischance, those wonders of their hour,
The fleets of Carthage, and the Tyrian power,
Were lost, and vanished like the meteor ray
That flashes nightly through the milky-way:
Sing of the Grecian States, that warlike band
Which held the ocean in its dread command;
Of Caesar's glory, when his navies furled
Their sails before the granary of the world;
Of Afric's spoils by Vandals rent away,
And Eastern empires waning to decay.
Stand forth, old Venice — Genoa — Pisa — Rome!
With all your galleys on the crested foam;
Say, where are now your royal merchants seen?
Go ask the Red-Cross Knight at Palestine!
But fo! what crowds on Albion's shores arise,
Of noble fleets with costly merchandize;
What swift-winged ships rush in from every strand,
To swell the coffers of her teeming land,
While lofty flags proclaim on every breeze
The Island Queen, — the Mistress of the Seas!
Look to the West, — the Elysian borders view!
See where from Palos speeds yon wearied crew:
Haste, ere the vision to your eye grows dim, —
O'er rock and forest comes the Mayflower's hymn:
Fleet as the night-star fades in brightening day,
That exiled pilgrim-band has passed away;
But, where their anchors marked a dreary shore,
When first thanksgivings rose for perils o'er,
A nation's banner fills the murmuring air,
And freedom's ensign wantons gaily there.
O, glorious stripes! no stain your honor mars;
Wave! ever wave! our country's flag of stars!
Float till old Time shall shroud the sun in gloom,
And this proud empire seeks its laureled tomb.
Trace we the exile from his mother's arms,
Through traffic's din, its mazes and alarms;
And as remembrance paints his swift career,
From the rocked cradle to the noiseless bier;
A lesson learn, — that life's divinest gem
Is not wealth's boon or glory's diadem.
Look through the casement of yon village-school,
Where now the pedant with his oaken rule
Sits like Augustus on the imperial throne,
Between two poets yet to fame unknown:
While restless Horace pinions martyred flies,
Some younger Virgil fills the room with sighs;
Who, suffering now for one untimely laugh,
Ere long will write his master's epitaph;
Forgetting in his lines and comments bland
The painful ridges on his blistered hand.
And that small rogue, how slily he inweaves
The Pickwick papers with his Murray's leaves;
The race of nouns lies dim as sunken isles,
While Mr. Weller lights his face with smiles;
Or Mrs. Bardell weeps, — or lawyers plead, —
His task remains unconned, the wag will read.
Struggling with Colburn at the Rule of Three,
Yon pallid votary at the window see:
What though he linger, with a wistful eye,
Upon the dial as the sun mounts high;
Impatient boy! the man will soon complain,
Too swift the moments for his hours of gain;
Too fleetly pass the sands of life away,
And death may claim him as a miser, gray.
Panting with joy to leave his native vale,
He leaps unarmed where scarce a veteran's mail
Would shield from sin in all its cunning forms,
Or keep secure where vice in legions swarms;
Yet leaves he not his peaceful home unwarned,
Though many an earnest prayer perchance is scorned.
In fashion now, our hero strives to reign,
Sports the last hat, the latest Paris cane;
Hangs out long clusters of superfluous hair,
And apes Lord Byron with his throat all bare;
Makes one, perhaps, of that queer tribe of men,
Who play, in dress, part fool, part Saracen.
Behold him now, just launching into life,
Teeming with hope, with all her visions rife;
His youthful dreams stand forth in real forms,
The world before him, — he to brave its storms.
And think you now, as homeward oft he hies
From daily toil, no tears bedew his eyes?
Forgets he now the simple evening prayer,
Instilled in childhood by parental care?
Lingers not memory fondly round the place
His boyhood knew, lit by a sister's face?
Throbs not his heart with some keen darts of pain,
As he recalls his banished home in vain?
Ah! though long years some pangs away may steal,
There is a charm that he will always feel;
And, though Wealth's eye on Feeling coldly dwells,
And sneering points her to his hoarded cells,
That fairy Eden shall for ever smile,
And win him back with many a loving wile.
O, happiest he, whose riper years retain
The hopes of youth, unsullied by a stain!
His eve of life in calm content shall glide
Like the still streamlet to the ocean tide:
No gloomy cloud hangs o'er his tranquil day;
No meteor lures him from his home astray;
For him there glows with glittering beam on high
Love's changeless star that leads him to the sky;
Still to the past he sometimes turns to trace
The mild expression of a mother's face,
And dreams, perchance, as oft in earlier years,
The low, sweet music of her voice he hears.
The mails are in; lo, what cadaverous crowds
Are rushing now, like spectres from their shrouds;
In vain the dinner waits, the wife looks sad,
The children whine, the sweet-toned cook goes mad;
They stir not, move not from the busy walk,
But all is solemn as an Indian talk.
Say, would you tempt that earnest group to dine,
With smoking venison and the raciest wine?
Sooner will rabid men to fountains take,
Than those same worthies their intent forsake.
Go, ask them now to buy the last Gazette,
Or Daily Journal, while the council 's met;
And, if in peace you wend your devious way,
You 'll swim unharmed the gulf of Florida!
Trade hath its bubbles! Eastward where the sun
Throws off his night-cap when his nap is done,
Lo, how they rise! what shouts on every hand
Proclaim the glories of our timber land!
O, who will credit such fantastic tales
While banks suspend, and India-rubber fails;
While fancy-stocks hang trembling in the air,
And unwhipped rogues the guise of virtue wear?
Hark, to the cry! an embryo city dawns
On some dyspeptic in his morning yawns;
Up spring tall forests in his magic dream,
And high-crowned turrets in the distance gleam;
Short is his meal; straightway a plan is drawn;
Here lies a railroad, there a verdant lawn;
Here steamboats land, and where, since time began,
A stagnant moat, ne'er visited by man,
Has stood unsung, unhonored in the shade,
Behold the changes in a morning made!
The stock sells well, the brewer quits his beer, —
Who picks up dollars when doubloons are near?
The shares go briskly off, the business thrives,
The shopman heeds not now his tens and fives;
For who would stop to measure calico,
While floods of gold through timber uplands flow;
Who sings a tune to three-and-six per yard,
While his next neighbour plays a nobler card?
Not he, indeed! ambition points the aim, —
He must keep horses, and grow fat on game.
Mark now the fall! Before the season 's late,
Our wealthy lord must visit his estate;
And, as his jaunt will raise some small alarms
Among the tenants of the adjoining farms,
He takes the statutes of the State of Maine,
His new brown coat, his golden-headed cane,
Kisses his children, bids his wife adieu,
And ere he knows it, half his journey 's through.
With map unrolled, he leaves the village inn,
Looking like Fusbos when he conquers Finn;
Meets on his way some tiller of the ground,
Perhaps his own — who knows? — he 's hale and sound.
The great man stops, the yeoman rolls his quid,
Nor doffs his beaver, as the landlord did.
" Are you employed, Sir, on the John Smith Farm? "
Our shopman asks, his anger waxing warm.
" They say John Smith owns yonder swamp down there, "
Replies the ploughman, straightening out his hair;
" But, as to farming, it is very clear,
He 'll find more black snakes than potatoes here. "
O, short-lived bliss! the shopman looks around,
And finds his farm a tract of barren ground;
His forest trees to dwarfish shrubs decline,
His turrets vanish, nor can he divine
With what intent a railroad could be made
To such a spot, where neither lawn, nor glade,
Nor aught inviting to the expectant eye,
Relieves the dullness of a frowning sky.
The bubble 's burst! the dupe returns in haste,
Makes a small entry on his dusty waste,
Ere yet the rumbling of the mail has ceased,
" Profit and loss to cities lying east; "
And he who revelled on uncounted means,
Will sell his township for a mess of greens.
And is this all of life? I hear you ask;
Are there no flowers to deck our weary task?
Glows not the merchant's brow with more than these,
The hope of gain and wealth beyond the seas?
Cling not around his heart some happier ties,
Fraught with bright fancies, linked with warmer skies?
A slave to gold, must man in bondage toil,
And sweat for ever o'er the accursed soil?
There are, thank Heaven, beneath this fitful dome,
Some leaflets floating near affection's home;
Some cloudless skies that smile on scenes below,
Some changeless hues in life's wide spanning bow.
So let us live, that if misfortune's blast
Comes like a whirlwind to our hearths at last,
Sunbeams may break from one small spot of blue,
To guide us safe life's dreary desert through.
Time-honored city! be it ours to stand
In thy broad portals, armed with traffic's wand;
To keep undimmed and clear thy deathless name,
That beams unclouded on the rolls of fame;
And foster Honor, till the world shall say,
Trade hath no worthier home than yon bright bay.
But brief my lay; the fairy-land of song
Holds me a truant in its maze too long;
Yet chide me not, if, lingering on the shore,
I cast one pebble to the ripples more.
Our Yankee ships! in fleet career,
They linger not behind,
Where gallant sails from other lands
Court favoring tide and wind.
With banners on the breeze, they leap
As gaily o'er the foam,
As stately barks from prouder seas
That long have learned to roam.
The Indian wave with luring smiles
Swept round them bright to-day:
And havens to Atlantic isles
Are opening on their way;
Ere yet these evening shadows close,
Or this frail song is o'er,
Full many a straining mast will rise
To greet a foreign shore.
High up the lashing northern deep,
Where glimmering watch-lights beam,
Away in beauty where the stars
In tropic brightness gleam;
Where'er the sea-bird wets her beak;
Or blows the stormy gale;
On to the water's farthest verge
Our ships majestic sail.
They dip their keels in every stream
That swells beneath the sky;
And where old ocean's billows roll,
Their lofty penants fly;
They furl their sails in threatening clouds
That float across the main, —
To link with love earth's distant bays
In many a golden chain.
They deck our halls with sparkling gems
That shone on Orient strands,
And garlands round the hills they bind,
From far-off sunny lands;
But we will ask no gaudy wreath
From foreign clime or realm,
While safely glides our ship of state
With Genius at the helm.
Harp of the sea! bold minstrel of the deep!
Sound from your halls where proud armadas sleep;
Ring from the waves a strain of other days,
When first rude Commerce poured her feeble rays;
Tell what rich burdens India's princes bore
Of balmy spices to the Arab's shore;
What mines of wealth on Traffic's dauntless wings
Sailed down from Egypt to the Syrian kings;
By what mischance, those wonders of their hour,
The fleets of Carthage, and the Tyrian power,
Were lost, and vanished like the meteor ray
That flashes nightly through the milky-way:
Sing of the Grecian States, that warlike band
Which held the ocean in its dread command;
Of Caesar's glory, when his navies furled
Their sails before the granary of the world;
Of Afric's spoils by Vandals rent away,
And Eastern empires waning to decay.
Stand forth, old Venice — Genoa — Pisa — Rome!
With all your galleys on the crested foam;
Say, where are now your royal merchants seen?
Go ask the Red-Cross Knight at Palestine!
But fo! what crowds on Albion's shores arise,
Of noble fleets with costly merchandize;
What swift-winged ships rush in from every strand,
To swell the coffers of her teeming land,
While lofty flags proclaim on every breeze
The Island Queen, — the Mistress of the Seas!
Look to the West, — the Elysian borders view!
See where from Palos speeds yon wearied crew:
Haste, ere the vision to your eye grows dim, —
O'er rock and forest comes the Mayflower's hymn:
Fleet as the night-star fades in brightening day,
That exiled pilgrim-band has passed away;
But, where their anchors marked a dreary shore,
When first thanksgivings rose for perils o'er,
A nation's banner fills the murmuring air,
And freedom's ensign wantons gaily there.
O, glorious stripes! no stain your honor mars;
Wave! ever wave! our country's flag of stars!
Float till old Time shall shroud the sun in gloom,
And this proud empire seeks its laureled tomb.
Trace we the exile from his mother's arms,
Through traffic's din, its mazes and alarms;
And as remembrance paints his swift career,
From the rocked cradle to the noiseless bier;
A lesson learn, — that life's divinest gem
Is not wealth's boon or glory's diadem.
Look through the casement of yon village-school,
Where now the pedant with his oaken rule
Sits like Augustus on the imperial throne,
Between two poets yet to fame unknown:
While restless Horace pinions martyred flies,
Some younger Virgil fills the room with sighs;
Who, suffering now for one untimely laugh,
Ere long will write his master's epitaph;
Forgetting in his lines and comments bland
The painful ridges on his blistered hand.
And that small rogue, how slily he inweaves
The Pickwick papers with his Murray's leaves;
The race of nouns lies dim as sunken isles,
While Mr. Weller lights his face with smiles;
Or Mrs. Bardell weeps, — or lawyers plead, —
His task remains unconned, the wag will read.
Struggling with Colburn at the Rule of Three,
Yon pallid votary at the window see:
What though he linger, with a wistful eye,
Upon the dial as the sun mounts high;
Impatient boy! the man will soon complain,
Too swift the moments for his hours of gain;
Too fleetly pass the sands of life away,
And death may claim him as a miser, gray.
Panting with joy to leave his native vale,
He leaps unarmed where scarce a veteran's mail
Would shield from sin in all its cunning forms,
Or keep secure where vice in legions swarms;
Yet leaves he not his peaceful home unwarned,
Though many an earnest prayer perchance is scorned.
In fashion now, our hero strives to reign,
Sports the last hat, the latest Paris cane;
Hangs out long clusters of superfluous hair,
And apes Lord Byron with his throat all bare;
Makes one, perhaps, of that queer tribe of men,
Who play, in dress, part fool, part Saracen.
Behold him now, just launching into life,
Teeming with hope, with all her visions rife;
His youthful dreams stand forth in real forms,
The world before him, — he to brave its storms.
And think you now, as homeward oft he hies
From daily toil, no tears bedew his eyes?
Forgets he now the simple evening prayer,
Instilled in childhood by parental care?
Lingers not memory fondly round the place
His boyhood knew, lit by a sister's face?
Throbs not his heart with some keen darts of pain,
As he recalls his banished home in vain?
Ah! though long years some pangs away may steal,
There is a charm that he will always feel;
And, though Wealth's eye on Feeling coldly dwells,
And sneering points her to his hoarded cells,
That fairy Eden shall for ever smile,
And win him back with many a loving wile.
O, happiest he, whose riper years retain
The hopes of youth, unsullied by a stain!
His eve of life in calm content shall glide
Like the still streamlet to the ocean tide:
No gloomy cloud hangs o'er his tranquil day;
No meteor lures him from his home astray;
For him there glows with glittering beam on high
Love's changeless star that leads him to the sky;
Still to the past he sometimes turns to trace
The mild expression of a mother's face,
And dreams, perchance, as oft in earlier years,
The low, sweet music of her voice he hears.
The mails are in; lo, what cadaverous crowds
Are rushing now, like spectres from their shrouds;
In vain the dinner waits, the wife looks sad,
The children whine, the sweet-toned cook goes mad;
They stir not, move not from the busy walk,
But all is solemn as an Indian talk.
Say, would you tempt that earnest group to dine,
With smoking venison and the raciest wine?
Sooner will rabid men to fountains take,
Than those same worthies their intent forsake.
Go, ask them now to buy the last Gazette,
Or Daily Journal, while the council 's met;
And, if in peace you wend your devious way,
You 'll swim unharmed the gulf of Florida!
Trade hath its bubbles! Eastward where the sun
Throws off his night-cap when his nap is done,
Lo, how they rise! what shouts on every hand
Proclaim the glories of our timber land!
O, who will credit such fantastic tales
While banks suspend, and India-rubber fails;
While fancy-stocks hang trembling in the air,
And unwhipped rogues the guise of virtue wear?
Hark, to the cry! an embryo city dawns
On some dyspeptic in his morning yawns;
Up spring tall forests in his magic dream,
And high-crowned turrets in the distance gleam;
Short is his meal; straightway a plan is drawn;
Here lies a railroad, there a verdant lawn;
Here steamboats land, and where, since time began,
A stagnant moat, ne'er visited by man,
Has stood unsung, unhonored in the shade,
Behold the changes in a morning made!
The stock sells well, the brewer quits his beer, —
Who picks up dollars when doubloons are near?
The shares go briskly off, the business thrives,
The shopman heeds not now his tens and fives;
For who would stop to measure calico,
While floods of gold through timber uplands flow;
Who sings a tune to three-and-six per yard,
While his next neighbour plays a nobler card?
Not he, indeed! ambition points the aim, —
He must keep horses, and grow fat on game.
Mark now the fall! Before the season 's late,
Our wealthy lord must visit his estate;
And, as his jaunt will raise some small alarms
Among the tenants of the adjoining farms,
He takes the statutes of the State of Maine,
His new brown coat, his golden-headed cane,
Kisses his children, bids his wife adieu,
And ere he knows it, half his journey 's through.
With map unrolled, he leaves the village inn,
Looking like Fusbos when he conquers Finn;
Meets on his way some tiller of the ground,
Perhaps his own — who knows? — he 's hale and sound.
The great man stops, the yeoman rolls his quid,
Nor doffs his beaver, as the landlord did.
" Are you employed, Sir, on the John Smith Farm? "
Our shopman asks, his anger waxing warm.
" They say John Smith owns yonder swamp down there, "
Replies the ploughman, straightening out his hair;
" But, as to farming, it is very clear,
He 'll find more black snakes than potatoes here. "
O, short-lived bliss! the shopman looks around,
And finds his farm a tract of barren ground;
His forest trees to dwarfish shrubs decline,
His turrets vanish, nor can he divine
With what intent a railroad could be made
To such a spot, where neither lawn, nor glade,
Nor aught inviting to the expectant eye,
Relieves the dullness of a frowning sky.
The bubble 's burst! the dupe returns in haste,
Makes a small entry on his dusty waste,
Ere yet the rumbling of the mail has ceased,
" Profit and loss to cities lying east; "
And he who revelled on uncounted means,
Will sell his township for a mess of greens.
And is this all of life? I hear you ask;
Are there no flowers to deck our weary task?
Glows not the merchant's brow with more than these,
The hope of gain and wealth beyond the seas?
Cling not around his heart some happier ties,
Fraught with bright fancies, linked with warmer skies?
A slave to gold, must man in bondage toil,
And sweat for ever o'er the accursed soil?
There are, thank Heaven, beneath this fitful dome,
Some leaflets floating near affection's home;
Some cloudless skies that smile on scenes below,
Some changeless hues in life's wide spanning bow.
So let us live, that if misfortune's blast
Comes like a whirlwind to our hearths at last,
Sunbeams may break from one small spot of blue,
To guide us safe life's dreary desert through.
Time-honored city! be it ours to stand
In thy broad portals, armed with traffic's wand;
To keep undimmed and clear thy deathless name,
That beams unclouded on the rolls of fame;
And foster Honor, till the world shall say,
Trade hath no worthier home than yon bright bay.
But brief my lay; the fairy-land of song
Holds me a truant in its maze too long;
Yet chide me not, if, lingering on the shore,
I cast one pebble to the ripples more.
Our Yankee ships! in fleet career,
They linger not behind,
Where gallant sails from other lands
Court favoring tide and wind.
With banners on the breeze, they leap
As gaily o'er the foam,
As stately barks from prouder seas
That long have learned to roam.
The Indian wave with luring smiles
Swept round them bright to-day:
And havens to Atlantic isles
Are opening on their way;
Ere yet these evening shadows close,
Or this frail song is o'er,
Full many a straining mast will rise
To greet a foreign shore.
High up the lashing northern deep,
Where glimmering watch-lights beam,
Away in beauty where the stars
In tropic brightness gleam;
Where'er the sea-bird wets her beak;
Or blows the stormy gale;
On to the water's farthest verge
Our ships majestic sail.
They dip their keels in every stream
That swells beneath the sky;
And where old ocean's billows roll,
Their lofty penants fly;
They furl their sails in threatening clouds
That float across the main, —
To link with love earth's distant bays
In many a golden chain.
They deck our halls with sparkling gems
That shone on Orient strands,
And garlands round the hills they bind,
From far-off sunny lands;
But we will ask no gaudy wreath
From foreign clime or realm,
While safely glides our ship of state
With Genius at the helm.
Sound from your halls where proud armadas sleep;
Ring from the waves a strain of other days,
When first rude Commerce poured her feeble rays;
Tell what rich burdens India's princes bore
Of balmy spices to the Arab's shore;
What mines of wealth on Traffic's dauntless wings
Sailed down from Egypt to the Syrian kings;
By what mischance, those wonders of their hour,
The fleets of Carthage, and the Tyrian power,
Were lost, and vanished like the meteor ray
That flashes nightly through the milky-way:
Sing of the Grecian States, that warlike band
Which held the ocean in its dread command;
Of Caesar's glory, when his navies furled
Their sails before the granary of the world;
Of Afric's spoils by Vandals rent away,
And Eastern empires waning to decay.
Stand forth, old Venice — Genoa — Pisa — Rome!
With all your galleys on the crested foam;
Say, where are now your royal merchants seen?
Go ask the Red-Cross Knight at Palestine!
But fo! what crowds on Albion's shores arise,
Of noble fleets with costly merchandize;
What swift-winged ships rush in from every strand,
To swell the coffers of her teeming land,
While lofty flags proclaim on every breeze
The Island Queen, — the Mistress of the Seas!
Look to the West, — the Elysian borders view!
See where from Palos speeds yon wearied crew:
Haste, ere the vision to your eye grows dim, —
O'er rock and forest comes the Mayflower's hymn:
Fleet as the night-star fades in brightening day,
That exiled pilgrim-band has passed away;
But, where their anchors marked a dreary shore,
When first thanksgivings rose for perils o'er,
A nation's banner fills the murmuring air,
And freedom's ensign wantons gaily there.
O, glorious stripes! no stain your honor mars;
Wave! ever wave! our country's flag of stars!
Float till old Time shall shroud the sun in gloom,
And this proud empire seeks its laureled tomb.
Trace we the exile from his mother's arms,
Through traffic's din, its mazes and alarms;
And as remembrance paints his swift career,
From the rocked cradle to the noiseless bier;
A lesson learn, — that life's divinest gem
Is not wealth's boon or glory's diadem.
Look through the casement of yon village-school,
Where now the pedant with his oaken rule
Sits like Augustus on the imperial throne,
Between two poets yet to fame unknown:
While restless Horace pinions martyred flies,
Some younger Virgil fills the room with sighs;
Who, suffering now for one untimely laugh,
Ere long will write his master's epitaph;
Forgetting in his lines and comments bland
The painful ridges on his blistered hand.
And that small rogue, how slily he inweaves
The Pickwick papers with his Murray's leaves;
The race of nouns lies dim as sunken isles,
While Mr. Weller lights his face with smiles;
Or Mrs. Bardell weeps, — or lawyers plead, —
His task remains unconned, the wag will read.
Struggling with Colburn at the Rule of Three,
Yon pallid votary at the window see:
What though he linger, with a wistful eye,
Upon the dial as the sun mounts high;
Impatient boy! the man will soon complain,
Too swift the moments for his hours of gain;
Too fleetly pass the sands of life away,
And death may claim him as a miser, gray.
Panting with joy to leave his native vale,
He leaps unarmed where scarce a veteran's mail
Would shield from sin in all its cunning forms,
Or keep secure where vice in legions swarms;
Yet leaves he not his peaceful home unwarned,
Though many an earnest prayer perchance is scorned.
In fashion now, our hero strives to reign,
Sports the last hat, the latest Paris cane;
Hangs out long clusters of superfluous hair,
And apes Lord Byron with his throat all bare;
Makes one, perhaps, of that queer tribe of men,
Who play, in dress, part fool, part Saracen.
Behold him now, just launching into life,
Teeming with hope, with all her visions rife;
His youthful dreams stand forth in real forms,
The world before him, — he to brave its storms.
And think you now, as homeward oft he hies
From daily toil, no tears bedew his eyes?
Forgets he now the simple evening prayer,
Instilled in childhood by parental care?
Lingers not memory fondly round the place
His boyhood knew, lit by a sister's face?
Throbs not his heart with some keen darts of pain,
As he recalls his banished home in vain?
Ah! though long years some pangs away may steal,
There is a charm that he will always feel;
And, though Wealth's eye on Feeling coldly dwells,
And sneering points her to his hoarded cells,
That fairy Eden shall for ever smile,
And win him back with many a loving wile.
O, happiest he, whose riper years retain
The hopes of youth, unsullied by a stain!
His eve of life in calm content shall glide
Like the still streamlet to the ocean tide:
No gloomy cloud hangs o'er his tranquil day;
No meteor lures him from his home astray;
For him there glows with glittering beam on high
Love's changeless star that leads him to the sky;
Still to the past he sometimes turns to trace
The mild expression of a mother's face,
And dreams, perchance, as oft in earlier years,
The low, sweet music of her voice he hears.
The mails are in; lo, what cadaverous crowds
Are rushing now, like spectres from their shrouds;
In vain the dinner waits, the wife looks sad,
The children whine, the sweet-toned cook goes mad;
They stir not, move not from the busy walk,
But all is solemn as an Indian talk.
Say, would you tempt that earnest group to dine,
With smoking venison and the raciest wine?
Sooner will rabid men to fountains take,
Than those same worthies their intent forsake.
Go, ask them now to buy the last Gazette,
Or Daily Journal, while the council 's met;
And, if in peace you wend your devious way,
You 'll swim unharmed the gulf of Florida!
Trade hath its bubbles! Eastward where the sun
Throws off his night-cap when his nap is done,
Lo, how they rise! what shouts on every hand
Proclaim the glories of our timber land!
O, who will credit such fantastic tales
While banks suspend, and India-rubber fails;
While fancy-stocks hang trembling in the air,
And unwhipped rogues the guise of virtue wear?
Hark, to the cry! an embryo city dawns
On some dyspeptic in his morning yawns;
Up spring tall forests in his magic dream,
And high-crowned turrets in the distance gleam;
Short is his meal; straightway a plan is drawn;
Here lies a railroad, there a verdant lawn;
Here steamboats land, and where, since time began,
A stagnant moat, ne'er visited by man,
Has stood unsung, unhonored in the shade,
Behold the changes in a morning made!
The stock sells well, the brewer quits his beer, —
Who picks up dollars when doubloons are near?
The shares go briskly off, the business thrives,
The shopman heeds not now his tens and fives;
For who would stop to measure calico,
While floods of gold through timber uplands flow;
Who sings a tune to three-and-six per yard,
While his next neighbour plays a nobler card?
Not he, indeed! ambition points the aim, —
He must keep horses, and grow fat on game.
Mark now the fall! Before the season 's late,
Our wealthy lord must visit his estate;
And, as his jaunt will raise some small alarms
Among the tenants of the adjoining farms,
He takes the statutes of the State of Maine,
His new brown coat, his golden-headed cane,
Kisses his children, bids his wife adieu,
And ere he knows it, half his journey 's through.
With map unrolled, he leaves the village inn,
Looking like Fusbos when he conquers Finn;
Meets on his way some tiller of the ground,
Perhaps his own — who knows? — he 's hale and sound.
The great man stops, the yeoman rolls his quid,
Nor doffs his beaver, as the landlord did.
" Are you employed, Sir, on the John Smith Farm? "
Our shopman asks, his anger waxing warm.
" They say John Smith owns yonder swamp down there, "
Replies the ploughman, straightening out his hair;
" But, as to farming, it is very clear,
He 'll find more black snakes than potatoes here. "
O, short-lived bliss! the shopman looks around,
And finds his farm a tract of barren ground;
His forest trees to dwarfish shrubs decline,
His turrets vanish, nor can he divine
With what intent a railroad could be made
To such a spot, where neither lawn, nor glade,
Nor aught inviting to the expectant eye,
Relieves the dullness of a frowning sky.
The bubble 's burst! the dupe returns in haste,
Makes a small entry on his dusty waste,
Ere yet the rumbling of the mail has ceased,
" Profit and loss to cities lying east; "
And he who revelled on uncounted means,
Will sell his township for a mess of greens.
And is this all of life? I hear you ask;
Are there no flowers to deck our weary task?
Glows not the merchant's brow with more than these,
The hope of gain and wealth beyond the seas?
Cling not around his heart some happier ties,
Fraught with bright fancies, linked with warmer skies?
A slave to gold, must man in bondage toil,
And sweat for ever o'er the accursed soil?
There are, thank Heaven, beneath this fitful dome,
Some leaflets floating near affection's home;
Some cloudless skies that smile on scenes below,
Some changeless hues in life's wide spanning bow.
So let us live, that if misfortune's blast
Comes like a whirlwind to our hearths at last,
Sunbeams may break from one small spot of blue,
To guide us safe life's dreary desert through.
Time-honored city! be it ours to stand
In thy broad portals, armed with traffic's wand;
To keep undimmed and clear thy deathless name,
That beams unclouded on the rolls of fame;
And foster Honor, till the world shall say,
Trade hath no worthier home than yon bright bay.
But brief my lay; the fairy-land of song
Holds me a truant in its maze too long;
Yet chide me not, if, lingering on the shore,
I cast one pebble to the ripples more.
Our Yankee ships! in fleet career,
They linger not behind,
Where gallant sails from other lands
Court favoring tide and wind.
With banners on the breeze, they leap
As gaily o'er the foam,
As stately barks from prouder seas
That long have learned to roam.
The Indian wave with luring smiles
Swept round them bright to-day:
And havens to Atlantic isles
Are opening on their way;
Ere yet these evening shadows close,
Or this frail song is o'er,
Full many a straining mast will rise
To greet a foreign shore.
High up the lashing northern deep,
Where glimmering watch-lights beam,
Away in beauty where the stars
In tropic brightness gleam;
Where'er the sea-bird wets her beak;
Or blows the stormy gale;
On to the water's farthest verge
Our ships majestic sail.
They dip their keels in every stream
That swells beneath the sky;
And where old ocean's billows roll,
Their lofty penants fly;
They furl their sails in threatening clouds
That float across the main, —
To link with love earth's distant bays
In many a golden chain.
They deck our halls with sparkling gems
That shone on Orient strands,
And garlands round the hills they bind,
From far-off sunny lands;
But we will ask no gaudy wreath
From foreign clime or realm,
While safely glides our ship of state
With Genius at the helm.
Harp of the sea! bold minstrel of the deep!
Sound from your halls where proud armadas sleep;
Ring from the waves a strain of other days,
When first rude Commerce poured her feeble rays;
Tell what rich burdens India's princes bore
Of balmy spices to the Arab's shore;
What mines of wealth on Traffic's dauntless wings
Sailed down from Egypt to the Syrian kings;
By what mischance, those wonders of their hour,
The fleets of Carthage, and the Tyrian power,
Were lost, and vanished like the meteor ray
That flashes nightly through the milky-way:
Sing of the Grecian States, that warlike band
Which held the ocean in its dread command;
Of Caesar's glory, when his navies furled
Their sails before the granary of the world;
Of Afric's spoils by Vandals rent away,
And Eastern empires waning to decay.
Stand forth, old Venice — Genoa — Pisa — Rome!
With all your galleys on the crested foam;
Say, where are now your royal merchants seen?
Go ask the Red-Cross Knight at Palestine!
But fo! what crowds on Albion's shores arise,
Of noble fleets with costly merchandize;
What swift-winged ships rush in from every strand,
To swell the coffers of her teeming land,
While lofty flags proclaim on every breeze
The Island Queen, — the Mistress of the Seas!
Look to the West, — the Elysian borders view!
See where from Palos speeds yon wearied crew:
Haste, ere the vision to your eye grows dim, —
O'er rock and forest comes the Mayflower's hymn:
Fleet as the night-star fades in brightening day,
That exiled pilgrim-band has passed away;
But, where their anchors marked a dreary shore,
When first thanksgivings rose for perils o'er,
A nation's banner fills the murmuring air,
And freedom's ensign wantons gaily there.
O, glorious stripes! no stain your honor mars;
Wave! ever wave! our country's flag of stars!
Float till old Time shall shroud the sun in gloom,
And this proud empire seeks its laureled tomb.
Trace we the exile from his mother's arms,
Through traffic's din, its mazes and alarms;
And as remembrance paints his swift career,
From the rocked cradle to the noiseless bier;
A lesson learn, — that life's divinest gem
Is not wealth's boon or glory's diadem.
Look through the casement of yon village-school,
Where now the pedant with his oaken rule
Sits like Augustus on the imperial throne,
Between two poets yet to fame unknown:
While restless Horace pinions martyred flies,
Some younger Virgil fills the room with sighs;
Who, suffering now for one untimely laugh,
Ere long will write his master's epitaph;
Forgetting in his lines and comments bland
The painful ridges on his blistered hand.
And that small rogue, how slily he inweaves
The Pickwick papers with his Murray's leaves;
The race of nouns lies dim as sunken isles,
While Mr. Weller lights his face with smiles;
Or Mrs. Bardell weeps, — or lawyers plead, —
His task remains unconned, the wag will read.
Struggling with Colburn at the Rule of Three,
Yon pallid votary at the window see:
What though he linger, with a wistful eye,
Upon the dial as the sun mounts high;
Impatient boy! the man will soon complain,
Too swift the moments for his hours of gain;
Too fleetly pass the sands of life away,
And death may claim him as a miser, gray.
Panting with joy to leave his native vale,
He leaps unarmed where scarce a veteran's mail
Would shield from sin in all its cunning forms,
Or keep secure where vice in legions swarms;
Yet leaves he not his peaceful home unwarned,
Though many an earnest prayer perchance is scorned.
In fashion now, our hero strives to reign,
Sports the last hat, the latest Paris cane;
Hangs out long clusters of superfluous hair,
And apes Lord Byron with his throat all bare;
Makes one, perhaps, of that queer tribe of men,
Who play, in dress, part fool, part Saracen.
Behold him now, just launching into life,
Teeming with hope, with all her visions rife;
His youthful dreams stand forth in real forms,
The world before him, — he to brave its storms.
And think you now, as homeward oft he hies
From daily toil, no tears bedew his eyes?
Forgets he now the simple evening prayer,
Instilled in childhood by parental care?
Lingers not memory fondly round the place
His boyhood knew, lit by a sister's face?
Throbs not his heart with some keen darts of pain,
As he recalls his banished home in vain?
Ah! though long years some pangs away may steal,
There is a charm that he will always feel;
And, though Wealth's eye on Feeling coldly dwells,
And sneering points her to his hoarded cells,
That fairy Eden shall for ever smile,
And win him back with many a loving wile.
O, happiest he, whose riper years retain
The hopes of youth, unsullied by a stain!
His eve of life in calm content shall glide
Like the still streamlet to the ocean tide:
No gloomy cloud hangs o'er his tranquil day;
No meteor lures him from his home astray;
For him there glows with glittering beam on high
Love's changeless star that leads him to the sky;
Still to the past he sometimes turns to trace
The mild expression of a mother's face,
And dreams, perchance, as oft in earlier years,
The low, sweet music of her voice he hears.
The mails are in; lo, what cadaverous crowds
Are rushing now, like spectres from their shrouds;
In vain the dinner waits, the wife looks sad,
The children whine, the sweet-toned cook goes mad;
They stir not, move not from the busy walk,
But all is solemn as an Indian talk.
Say, would you tempt that earnest group to dine,
With smoking venison and the raciest wine?
Sooner will rabid men to fountains take,
Than those same worthies their intent forsake.
Go, ask them now to buy the last Gazette,
Or Daily Journal, while the council 's met;
And, if in peace you wend your devious way,
You 'll swim unharmed the gulf of Florida!
Trade hath its bubbles! Eastward where the sun
Throws off his night-cap when his nap is done,
Lo, how they rise! what shouts on every hand
Proclaim the glories of our timber land!
O, who will credit such fantastic tales
While banks suspend, and India-rubber fails;
While fancy-stocks hang trembling in the air,
And unwhipped rogues the guise of virtue wear?
Hark, to the cry! an embryo city dawns
On some dyspeptic in his morning yawns;
Up spring tall forests in his magic dream,
And high-crowned turrets in the distance gleam;
Short is his meal; straightway a plan is drawn;
Here lies a railroad, there a verdant lawn;
Here steamboats land, and where, since time began,
A stagnant moat, ne'er visited by man,
Has stood unsung, unhonored in the shade,
Behold the changes in a morning made!
The stock sells well, the brewer quits his beer, —
Who picks up dollars when doubloons are near?
The shares go briskly off, the business thrives,
The shopman heeds not now his tens and fives;
For who would stop to measure calico,
While floods of gold through timber uplands flow;
Who sings a tune to three-and-six per yard,
While his next neighbour plays a nobler card?
Not he, indeed! ambition points the aim, —
He must keep horses, and grow fat on game.
Mark now the fall! Before the season 's late,
Our wealthy lord must visit his estate;
And, as his jaunt will raise some small alarms
Among the tenants of the adjoining farms,
He takes the statutes of the State of Maine,
His new brown coat, his golden-headed cane,
Kisses his children, bids his wife adieu,
And ere he knows it, half his journey 's through.
With map unrolled, he leaves the village inn,
Looking like Fusbos when he conquers Finn;
Meets on his way some tiller of the ground,
Perhaps his own — who knows? — he 's hale and sound.
The great man stops, the yeoman rolls his quid,
Nor doffs his beaver, as the landlord did.
" Are you employed, Sir, on the John Smith Farm? "
Our shopman asks, his anger waxing warm.
" They say John Smith owns yonder swamp down there, "
Replies the ploughman, straightening out his hair;
" But, as to farming, it is very clear,
He 'll find more black snakes than potatoes here. "
O, short-lived bliss! the shopman looks around,
And finds his farm a tract of barren ground;
His forest trees to dwarfish shrubs decline,
His turrets vanish, nor can he divine
With what intent a railroad could be made
To such a spot, where neither lawn, nor glade,
Nor aught inviting to the expectant eye,
Relieves the dullness of a frowning sky.
The bubble 's burst! the dupe returns in haste,
Makes a small entry on his dusty waste,
Ere yet the rumbling of the mail has ceased,
" Profit and loss to cities lying east; "
And he who revelled on uncounted means,
Will sell his township for a mess of greens.
And is this all of life? I hear you ask;
Are there no flowers to deck our weary task?
Glows not the merchant's brow with more than these,
The hope of gain and wealth beyond the seas?
Cling not around his heart some happier ties,
Fraught with bright fancies, linked with warmer skies?
A slave to gold, must man in bondage toil,
And sweat for ever o'er the accursed soil?
There are, thank Heaven, beneath this fitful dome,
Some leaflets floating near affection's home;
Some cloudless skies that smile on scenes below,
Some changeless hues in life's wide spanning bow.
So let us live, that if misfortune's blast
Comes like a whirlwind to our hearths at last,
Sunbeams may break from one small spot of blue,
To guide us safe life's dreary desert through.
Time-honored city! be it ours to stand
In thy broad portals, armed with traffic's wand;
To keep undimmed and clear thy deathless name,
That beams unclouded on the rolls of fame;
And foster Honor, till the world shall say,
Trade hath no worthier home than yon bright bay.
But brief my lay; the fairy-land of song
Holds me a truant in its maze too long;
Yet chide me not, if, lingering on the shore,
I cast one pebble to the ripples more.
Our Yankee ships! in fleet career,
They linger not behind,
Where gallant sails from other lands
Court favoring tide and wind.
With banners on the breeze, they leap
As gaily o'er the foam,
As stately barks from prouder seas
That long have learned to roam.
The Indian wave with luring smiles
Swept round them bright to-day:
And havens to Atlantic isles
Are opening on their way;
Ere yet these evening shadows close,
Or this frail song is o'er,
Full many a straining mast will rise
To greet a foreign shore.
High up the lashing northern deep,
Where glimmering watch-lights beam,
Away in beauty where the stars
In tropic brightness gleam;
Where'er the sea-bird wets her beak;
Or blows the stormy gale;
On to the water's farthest verge
Our ships majestic sail.
They dip their keels in every stream
That swells beneath the sky;
And where old ocean's billows roll,
Their lofty penants fly;
They furl their sails in threatening clouds
That float across the main, —
To link with love earth's distant bays
In many a golden chain.
They deck our halls with sparkling gems
That shone on Orient strands,
And garlands round the hills they bind,
From far-off sunny lands;
But we will ask no gaudy wreath
From foreign clime or realm,
While safely glides our ship of state
With Genius at the helm.
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