The miscellaneous works of David Humphreys Late Minister Plenipotentiary from the United States of America to the Court of Madrid |
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 | The miscellaneous works of David Humphreys |  |
38
Invite the curious to these western climes;
No virtuoso, with fantastic aim,
Here hunts the shadow of departed fame:
No piles of rubbish his attention call,
Nor mystic obelisk, or storied wall:
No ruin'd statues claim the long research:
No sliding columns and no crumbling arch;
Inscriptions, half effac'd, and falsely read,
Or cumbrous relics of th' unletter'd dead:
Yet here I rove untrodden scenes among,
Catch inspiration for my rising song;
See nature's grandeur awfully unfold,
And, wrapt in thought, her works sublime behold!
For here vast wilds, which human foot ne'er trod,
Are mark'd with footsteps of a present God:
His forming hand, on nature's broadest scale,
O'er mountains, mountains pil'd, and scoop'd the vale;
Made sea-like streams in deeper channels run,
And roll'd through brighter heav'ns his genial sun.
In vain of day, that rolling lucid eye
Look'd down in mildness from the smiling sky;
In vain, the germe of vegetation lay,
And pin'd in shades, secluded from the day;
In vain, this theatre for man so fair,
Spread all its charms for beasts or birds of air;
Or savage tribes, who, wand'ring through the wood,
From beasts and birds obtain'd precarious food:
Till great Columbus rose, and, led by heav'n,
Call'd worlds to view, beneath the skirts of ev'n.
| The miscellaneous works of David Humphreys | |