The legendary :: :: University of Virginia Library

Day broke—upon the seaward hills
Of Hispan's lovely isles,
Bright was the sward with leaping rills,
The blushing sea with smiles;
And wakening bird, and tree, and wave,
To morn a gentle greeting gave.
Uprose the Sun—his sudden glance
Shot o'er Domingo's bay,
And hushed, beneath his red advance,
The panting waters lay;
And, poured above the voiceless earth
A flood of splendor, veiled her mirth.
What rushing, as of seas, passed then
O'er the deep hush of morn?
On that dark, tumbling surge of men
What mighty wreck is borne?
Along the gleaming shore a cloud
Hath flung the darkness of the shroud.
Receding, as a weary wave,
Rolls back the weltering throng,
Yet, as the timid flees the brave,
As leaves the weak, the strong,
They left him. Hate and ire subdued,
He passed amid grief's solitude.

241

Chained captive! Ha! and is it thou,
Columbus!—conqueror—
Not o'er the warrior's death dewed brow,
Not in the blood of war,—
Victor! that Error's chain hath rent—
To do God's purpose, armed and sent.
Columbus, conqueror, whose thought
Inspired, and daring soul,
Up from deep night a world hath brought!
Chosen! is thy control,
Victor of elements! thus lost?
On man's low passions wrecked and tossed?
Even thus;—as melts the crested wave
Behind yon lessening bark,
Power shrinks into Time's ocean grave,
Fame in Oblivion's dark.
Yet passeth on that shallop now
Greatness, nor Time, nor Death may bow.
Stands he upon the narrow deck
Of yon lone caravel,
Whose tall shape, as with princely beck,
Bowed to the heaving swell,
And when the conqueror o'er her side
Crossed meekly, rose with living pride.
The foot, that trod a world alone,
Bound to an infant's pace!
The arm, a sceptre's rule hath known,
Weighed by a chain's embrace!
The brow, where Soul hath conquered Time,
Bent with foul charge of wrong and crime!

242

Night's lowering vapors melt and flee
Before the sun's advance—
A light as mighty and as free
Broke from the hero's glance;
It fell upon the awe struck train—
They knelt to loose the captive's chain.
What triumph in his meekness shone,
When his proud voice was heard—
`Good friends, my sovereign's deed alone
Might bind—alone his word
Shall loose. His thing this mortal clod—
The soul but boweth to its God.'
Landward, above the yielding trees
And whitening beach—the deep
Knoweth her steps—comes forth the breeze,
As from a morning sleep;
And, her broad sail distending well,
Rusheth to sea the caravel.
Stoopeth her pride beneath the weight
The quickening wind hath cast.
Waves, bright as hope, grew dark as fate,
As seaward strode the blast,
And writhed the deep beneath her keel,
Like serpent trod by giant's heel.
Day sank. Upon the glowing west
Rested one faint blue shade.
Like the huge swell of ocean's rest
When phantom storms are laid,
Then turned the hero. On his eye
Loomed up his sinking world more high.

243

And in that hour his soul, as erst,
Spoke, face to face, with Death,
Whose one revealing veil was burst,
And rolled back, as a breath;
And in the depth of future time,
He saw achieved his hope sublime.
He heard the echoings of his name
Pass to Earth's darkest bound—
He heard, on ages' wings, his fame
Borne with a ceaseless sound.
Thrones, pyramids to dust were hurled,
He saw his monument—A WORLD!