Classic Poem

WRITTEN IN A BLANK LEAF OF LA PEROUSE'S " VOYAGES"

Loved Voyager! whose pages had a zest
More sweet than fiction to my wondering breast,
When, rapt in fancy, many a boyish day
I tracked his wanderings o'er the watery way,
Roamed round the Aleutian isles in waking dreams,
Or plucked the fleur-de-lys by Jesso's streams,
Or gladly leaped on that far Tartar strand
Where Europe's anchor ne'er had bit the sand,
Where scarce a roving wild tribe crossed the plain,
Or human voice broke nature's silent reign, —
But vast and grassy deserts feed the bear,
And sweeping deer-herds dread no hunter's snare.
Such young delight his real records brought,
His truth so touched romantic springs of thought,
That, all my after-life, his fate and fame
Entwined romance with La Perouse's name.

Fair were his ships, expert his gallant crews,
And glorious was the emprise of La Perouse —
Humanely glorious! Men will weep for him
When many a guilty martial fame is dim.
He ploughed the deep to bind no captive's chain —
Pursued no rapine — strewed no wreck with slain
And, save that in the deep themselves lie low,
His heroes plucked no wreath from human woe.
'Twas his the earth's remotest bounds to scan,
Conciliating with gifts barbaric man,
Enrich the world's contemporaneous mind,
And amplify the picture of mankind.
Far on the vast Pacific, 'midst those isles
O'er which the earliest morn of Asia smiles,
He sounded, and gave charts to many a shore
And gulf of ocean new to nautic lore;
Yet he that led discovery o'er the wave
Still finds himself an undiscovered grave.
He came not back! Conjecture's cheek grew pale,
Year after year; in no propitious gale
His lilied banner held its homeward way,
And Science saddened at her martyr's stay.

An age elapsed: no wreck told where or when
The chief went down with all his gallant men,
Or whether by the storm and wild sea flood
He perished, or by wilder men of blood.
The shuddering fancy only guess'd his doom,
And doubt to sorrow gave but deeper gloom.

An age elapsed: when men were dead or gray,
Whose hearts had mourned him in their youthful day
Fame traced on Mannicolo's shore at last
The boiling surge had mounted o'er his mast.
The islesmen told of some surviving men,
But Christian eyes beheld them ne'er again.
Sad bourne of all his toils — with all his band
To sleep, wrecked, shroudless, on a savage strand!
Yet what is all that fires a hero's scorn
Of death? — the hope to live in hearts unborn.
Life to the brave is not its fleeting breath,
But worth — foretasting fame that follows death.
That worth had La Perouse, that meed he won.
He sleeps — his life's long stormy watch is done.
In the great deep, whose boundaries and space
He measured, fate ordained his resting-place;
But bade his fame, like th' ocean rolling o'er
His relics, visit every earthly shore.
Fair Science on that ocean's azure robe
Still writes his name in picturing the globe,
And paints (what fairer wreath could glory twine?)
His watery course — a world-encircling line.