TO THOMAS HUME, ESQ., M.D.
FROM THE CITY OF WASHINGTON.
'Tis evening now; the heats and cares of day
In twilight dews are calmly wept away.
The lover now, beneath the western star,
Sighs through the medium of his sweet cigar,
And fills the ears of some consenting she
With puffs and vows, with smoke and constancy!
In fancy now, beneath the twilight gloom,
Come, let me lead thee o'er this modern Rome!
Where tribunes rule, where dusky Davi bow,
And what was Goose-Creek once is Tiber now! +
This famed metropolis, where fancy sees
Squares in morasses, obelisks in trees;
Which travelling fools and gazetteers adorn
With shrines unbuilt and heroes yet unborn.
And look, how soft in yonder radiant wave,
The dying sun prepares his golden grave!
O great Potomac ! O you banks of shade!
You mighty scenes, in nature's morning made,
While still, in rich magnificence of prime,
She pour'd her wonders, lavishly sublime,
Nor yet had learn'd to stoop, with humbler care,
From grand to soft, from wonderful to fair!
Say were your towering hills, your boundless floods,
Your rich savannas and majestic woods,
Where bards should meditate and heroes rove,
And woman charm and man deserve her love!
Oh! was a world so bright but born to grace
Its own half-organised, half-minded race
Of weak barbarians, swarming o'er its breast,
Like vermin, gender'd on the lion's crest?
Where none but brutes to call that soil their home,
Where none but demigods should dare to roam?
Or worse, thou mighty world! oh! doubly worse,
Did Heaven design the lordly land to nurse
The motley dregs of every distant clime,
* On the original location of the ground now allotted for the seat of the federal city, (says Mr Weld,) the identical spot on which the capitol now stands was called Rome.
† A little stream runs through the city, which, with intolerable affectation, they have styled the Tiber. It was originally called Goose-Creek.
The picture which Buffon and De Pauw have drawn of the American Indian, though very humiliating, is, as far as I can judge, much more correct than the flattering representations which Mr Jefferson has given us.
Each blast of anarchy and taint of crime,
Which Europe shakes from her perturbed sphere
In full malignity to rankle here?
But hush!-observe that little mount of pines,
Where the breeze murmurs and the fire-fly shines,
There let thy fancy raise, in bold relief,
The sculptured image of that veteran chief,*
Who lost the rebel's in the hero's name,
And stepp'd o'er prostrate loyalty to fame;
Beneath whose sword Columbia's patriot train
Cast off their monarch, that their mob might reign!
How shall we rank thee upon glory's page?
Thou more than soldier and just less than sage !
Too form'd for peace to act a conqueror's part,
Too train'd in camps to learn a statesman's art,
Nature design'd thee for a hero's mould,
But, ere she cast thee, let the stuff grow cold.
While warmer souls command, nay, make their fate,
Thy fate made thee and forced thee to be great,
Yet fortune, who so oft, so blindly sheds
Her brightest halo round the weakest heads,
Found thee undazzled, tranquil as before,
Proud to be useful, scorning to be more;
Less prompt at glory's than at duty's claim,
Renown the meed, but self-applause the aim;
All thou hast been reflects less fame on thee,
Far less than all thou hast forborne to be!
Now turn thine eye where faint the moonlight falls
On yonder dome-and in those princely halls,
If thou canst hate, as, oh! that soul must hate,
Which loves the virtuous and reveres the great,
If thou canst loath and execrate with me
That Gallic garbage of philosophy,
That nauseous slaver of these frantic times,
With which false liberty dilutes her crimes!
If thou hast got, within thy free-born breast,
One pulse that beats more proudly than the rest,
With honest scorn for that inglorious soul,
Which creeps and winds beneath a mob's control,
Which courts the rabble's smile, the rabble's nod,
And makes, like Egypt, every beast its god!
There, in those walls-but, burning tongue, forbear!
Rank must be reverenced, even the rank that's there;
*On a small hill, near the capitol, there is to be an equestrian statue of General Washington.
So here I pause-and now, my Hume! we part;
But oh! full oft, in magic dreams of heart,
Thus let us meet, and mingle converse dear
By Thames at home, or by Potomac here!
O'er lake and marsh, through fevers and through fogs,
Midst bears and Yankees, democrats and frogs,
Thy foot shall follow me, thy heart and eyes
With me shall wonder, and with me despise !
While I, as oft, in witching thought shall rove
To thee, to friendship, and that land I love,
Where, like the air that fans her fields of green,
Her freedom spreads, unfever'd and serene;
Where sovereign man can condescend to see
The throne and laws more sovereign still than he !
WRITTEN ON LEAVING PHILADELPHIA.
ALONE by the Schuylkill a wanderer roved,
And bright were its flowery banks to his eye;
But far, very far were the friends that he loved,
And he gazed on its flowery banks with a sigh !
O Nature! though blessed and bright are thy rays,
O'er the brow of creation enchantingly thrown,
Yet faint are they all to the lustre that plays
In a smile from the heart that is dearly our own!
Nor long did the soul of the stranger remain
Unblest by the smile he had languish'd to meet; Though scarce did he hope it would soothe him again, Till the threshold of home had been kiss'd by his feet!
But the lays of his boyhood had stolen to their ear,
And they loved what they knew of so humble a name,
And they told him, with flattery welcome and dear,
That they found in his heart something sweeter than fame
Nor did woman-O woman! whose form and whose soul
Are the spell and the light of each path we pursue;
Whether sunn'd in the tropics or chill'd at the pole,
If woman be there, there is happiness too!
Nor did she her enamouring magic deny,
That magic his heart had relinquish'd so long, Like eyes he had loved was her eloquent eye, Like them did it soften and weep at his song!
Oh! blest be the tear, and in memory oft
May its sparkle be shed o'er his wandering dream! Oh! blest be that eye, and may passion as soft,
As free from a pang, ever mellow its beam!
The stranger is gone-but he will not forget,
When at home he shall talk of the toil he has known,
To tell, with a sigh, what endearments he met,
As he stray'd by the wave of the Schuylkill alone!
WRITTEN AT THE COHOS, OR FALL OF THE MOHAWK RIVER.
FROM rise of morn till set of sun
I've seen the mighty Mohawk run,
And as I mark'd the woods of pine
Along his mirror darkly shine,
Like tall and gloomy forms that pass
Before the wizard's midnight glass;
And as I view'd the hurrying pace
With which he ran his turbid race,
Rushing, alike untired and wild
Through shades that frown'd and flowers that smil'd,
Flying by every green recess
That woo'd him to its calm caress,
Yet, sometimes turning with the wind,
As if to leave one look behind!
Oh! I have thought, and thinking sigh'd—
How like to thee, thou heartless tide!
May be the lot, the life of him,
Who roams along thy water's brim !
Through what alternate shades of woe,
And flowers of joy my path may go
How many an humble, still retreat
May rise to court my weary feet,
While still pursuing, still unblest,
I wander on, nor dare to rest!
But, urgent as the doom that calls
Thy water to its destined falls,
I see the world's bewildering force
Hurry my heart's devoted course
From lapse to lapse, till life be done,
And the lost current cease to run!
May heaven's forgiving rainbow shine
Upon the mist that circles me,
As soft, as now it hangs o'er thee!
SONG OF THE EVIL SPIRIT OF THE WOODS.
Now the vapour hot and damp,
Shed by day's expiring lamp,
Through the misty ether spreads
Every ill the white man dreads;
Fiery fever's thirsty thrill,
Fitful ague's shivering chill!
Hark! I hear the traveller's song,
As he winds the woods along!
Christian! 'tis the song of fear;
Wolves are round thee, night is near,
And the wild thou darest to roam-
Oh! 'twas once the Indian's home!*
Hither, sprites who love to harm,
Whereso'er you work your charm,
By the creeks, or by the brakes,
Where the pale witch feeds her snakes,
And the cayman + loves to creep,
Torpid, to his wintry sleep:
Where the bird of carrion flits,
And the shuddering murderer sits,
Lone beneath a roof of blood,
While upon his poison'd food,
From the corpse of him he slew
Drops the chill and gory dew!
Hither bend you, turn you hither,
Eyes that blast and wings that wither!
Cross the wandering Christian's way,
Lead him, ere the glimpse of day,
Many a mile of maddening error,
Through the maze of night and terror,
Till the morn behold him lying
O'er the damp earth, pale and dying!
Mock him, when his eager sight
Seeks the cordial cottage-light;
"The Five Confederated Nations (of Indians) were settled along the banks of the Susquehanna and the adjacent country until the year 1779, when General Sullivan, with an army of four thousand men, drove them from their country to Niagara, where, being obliged to live on salted provisions, to which they were unaccustomed, great numbers of them died. Two hundred of them, it is said, were buried in one grave, where they had encamped." -Morse's American Geography.
The alligator, who is supposed to lie in a torpid state all the winter, in the bank of some creek or pond, having previously swallowed a large number of pine-knots, which are his only sustenance during the time.
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