The Poems of Philip Freneau, Poet of the American Revolution. Volume 1 (of 3)

ON RETIREMENT⁴⁶

(By Hezekiah Salem)

 
A hermit's house beside a stream,
With forests planted round,
Whatever it to you may seem
More real happiness I deem
Than if I were a monarch crown'd.
 
 
A cottage I could call my own,
Remote from domes of care;
A little garden walled with stone,
The wall with ivy overgrown,
A limpid fountain near,
 
 
Would more substantial joys afford,
More real bliss impart
Than all the wealth that misers hoard,
Than vanquish'd worlds, or worlds restored —
Mere cankers of the heart!
 
 
Vain, foolish man! how vast thy pride,
How little can your wants supply! —
'Tis surely wrong to grasp so wide —
You act as if you only had
To vanquish – not to die!
 

DISCOVERY⁴⁷

 
Six thousand years in these dull regions pass'd,
'Tis time, you'll say, we knew their bounds at last,
Knew to what skies our setting stars retire,
And where the wintry suns expend their fire;
What land to land protracts the varied scene,
And what extended oceans roll between;
What worlds exist beneath antarctic skies,
And from Pacific waves what verdant islands rise.
In vain did Nature shore from shore divide:
Art formed a passage and her waves defied:
When his bold plan the master pilot drew
Dissevered worlds stept forward at the view,
And lessening still the intervening space,
Disclosed new millions of the human race.
Proud even of toil, succeeding ages joined
New seas to vanquish, and new worlds to find;
Age following age still farther from the shore,
Found some new wonder that was hid before,
'Till launched at length, with avarice doubly bold,
Their hearts expanding as the world grew old,
Some to be rich, and some to be renowned,
The earth they rifled, and explored it round.
Ambitious Europe! polished in thy pride,
Thine was the art that toil to toil allied,
Thine was the gift, to trace each heavenly sphere,
And seize its beams, to serve ambition here:
Hence, fierce Pizarro stock'd a world with graves,
Hence Montezuma left a race of slaves. —
Which project suited best with heaven's decree,
To force new doctrines, or to leave them free? —
Religion only feigned to claim a share,
Their riches, not their souls, employed your care. —
Alas! how few of all that daring train
That seek new worlds embosomed in the main,
How few have sailed on virtue's nobler plan,
How few with motives worthy of a man! —
While through the deep-sea waves we saw them go
Where'er they found a man they made a foe;
Superior only by superior art,
Forgot the social virtues of the heart,
Forgetting still, where'er they madly ran,
That sacred friendship binds mankind to man,
Fond of exerting power untimely shewn,
The momentary triumph all their own!
Met on the wrecks and ravages of time,
They left no native master of his clime,
His trees, his towns, with hardened front they claimed,
Seized every region that a despot named
And forced the oath that bound him to obey
Some prince unknown, ten thousand miles away.
Slaves to their passions, man's imperious race,
Born for contention, find no resting place,
And the vain mind, bewildered and perplext,
Makes this world wretched to enjoy the next.
Tired of the scenes that Nature made their own,
They rove to conquer what remains unknown:
Avarice, undaunted, claims whate'er she sees,
Surmounts earth's circle, and foregoes all ease:
Religion, bolder, sends some sacred chief
To bend the nations to her own belief.
To their vain standard Europe's sons invite,
Who hold no other world can think aright.
Behold their varied tribes, with self applause,
First in religion, liberty, and laws,
And while they bow to cruelty and blood,
Condemn the Indian with his milder god. —
Ah, race to justice, truth, and honour blind,
Are thy convictions to convert mankind! —
Vain pride – convince them that your own are just,
Or leave them happy, as you found them first.
What charm is seen through Europe's realms of strife
That adds new blessings to the savage life? —
On them warm suns with equal splendor shine,
Their each domestic pleasure equals thine,
Their native groves as soft a bloom display,
As self-contented roll their lives away,
And the gay soul, in fancy's visions blest,
Leaves to the care of chance her heaven of rest.
What are the arts that rise on Europe's plan
But arts destructive to the bliss of man?
What are all wars, where'er the marks you trace,
But the sad records of our world's disgrace?
Reason degraded from her tottering throne,
And precepts, called divine, observed by none.
Blest in their distance from that bloody scene,
Why spread the sail to pass the gulphs between? —
If winds can waft to ocean's utmost verge,
And there new islands and new worlds emerge —
If wealth, or war, or science bid thee roam,
Ah, leave religion and thy laws at home,
Leave the free native to enjoy his store,
Nor teach destructive arts, unknown before —
Woes of their own those new found worlds invade,
There, too, fierce passions the weak soul degrade,
Invention there has winged the unerring dart,
There the swift arrow vibrates to the heart.
Revenge and death contending bosoms share,
And pining envy claims her subjects there.
Are these too few? – then see despotic power
Spends on a throne of logs her busy hour.
Hard by, and half ambitious to ascend,
Priests, interceding with the gods, attend —
Atoning victims at their shrines they lay,
Their crimson knives tremendous rites display,
Or the proud despot's gore remorseless shed.
Through life detested, or adored when dead.
Born to be wretched, search this globe around,
Dupes to a few the race of man is found!
Seek some new world in some new climate plac'd,
Some gay Ta-ia[A] on the watery waste,
Though Nature clothes in all her bright array,
Some proud tormentor steals her charms away:
Howe'er she smiles beneath those milder skies,
Though men decay the monarch never dies!
Howe'er the groves, howe'er the gardens bloom,
A monarch and a priest is still their doom!
 

[A] Commonly called Otaheite, an island in the Southern Pacific Ocean, noted for the natural civilization of its inhabitants. —Freneau's note.

THE PICTURES OF COLUMBUS, THE GENOESE⁴⁸

Picture I

Columbus making Maps[A]

[A] History informs us this was his original profession: and from the disproportionate vacancy observable in the drafts of that time between Europe and Asia to the west, it is most probable he first took the idea of another continent, lying in a parallel direction to, and existing between both. —Freneau's note.

 
As o'er his charts Columbus ran,
Such disproportion he survey'd,
He thought he saw in art's mean plan
Blunders that Nature never made;
The land in one poor corner placed,
And all beside, a swelling waste! —
"It can't be so," Columbus said;
 
 
"This world on paper idly drawn,⁴⁹
"O'er one small tract so often gone
"The pencil tires; in this void space
"Allow'd to find no resting place.
 
 
"But copying Nature's bold design,
"If true to her, no fault is mine;
"Perhaps in these moist regions dwell
"Forms wrought like man, and lov'd as well.
 
 
"Yet to the west what lengthen'd seas!
"Are no gay islands found in these,
"No sylvan worlds that Nature meant
"To balance Asia's vast extent?
 
 
"As late a mimic globe I made
"(Imploring Fancy to my aid)
"O'er these wild seas a shade I threw,
"And a new world my pencil drew.
 
 
"But westward plac'd, and far away
"In the deep seas this country lay
"Beyond all climes already known,
"In Neptune's bosom plac'd alone.
 
 
"Who knows but he that hung this ball
"In the clear void, and governs all,
"On those dread scenes, remote from view,
"Has trac'd his great idea too.
 
 
"What can these idle charts avail —
"O'er real seas I mean to sail;
"If fortune aids the grand design,
"Worlds yet unthought of shall be mine.
 
 
"But how shall I this country find!
"Gay, painted picture of the mind!
"Religion[B] holds my project vain,
"And owns no worlds beyond the main.
 

[B] The Inquisition made it criminal to assert the existence of the Antipodes. —Freneau's note.

 

 
"'Midst yonder hills long time has stay'd⁵⁰
"In sylvan cells a wondrous maid,
"Who things to come can truly tell,
"Dread mistress of the magic spell.
 
 
"Whate'er the depths of time can shew
"All pass before her in review,
"And all events her eyes survey,
"'Till time and nature both decay.
 
 
"I'll to her cave, enquiring there
"What mighty things the fates prepare;
"Whether my hopes and plans are vain,
"Or I must give new worlds to Spain."
 

Picture II.⁵¹

The Cell of an Inchantress

Inchantress

 
Who dares attempt this gloomy grove
Where never shepherd dream'd of love,
And birds of night are only found,
And poisonous weeds bestrew the ground:
Hence, stranger, take some other road,
Nor dare prophane my dark abode;
The winds are high, the moon is low —
Would you enter? – no, no, no: —
 

Columbus

 
Sorceress of mighty power![A]
Hither at the midnight hour
Over hill and dale I've come,
Leaving ease and sleep at home:
With daring aims my bosom glows;
Long a stranger to repose,
I have come to learn from you
Whether phantoms I pursue,
Or if, as reason would persuade,
New worlds are on the ocean laid —
Tell me, wonder-working maid,
Tell me, dire inchantress, tell,
Mistress of the magic spell!
 

[A] The fifteenth century was, like many of the preceding, an age of superstition, cruelty, and ignorance. When this circumstance, therefore, is brought into view, the mixture of truth and fiction will not appear altogether absurd or unnatural. At any rate, it has ever been tolerated in this species of poetry. —Freneau's note.

Inchantress

 
The staring owl her note has sung;
With gaping snakes my cave is hung;
Of maiden hair my bed is made,
Two winding sheets above it laid;
With bones of men my shelves are pil'd,
And toads are for my supper boil'd;
Three ghosts attend to fill my cup,
And four to serve my pottage up;
The crow is waiting to say grace: —
Wouldst thou in such a dismal place
The secrets of thy fortune trace?
 

Columbus

 
Though death and all his dreary crew
Were to be open'd on my view,
I would not from this threshold fly
'Till you had made a full reply.
Open wide this iron gate,
I must read the book of fate:
Tell me, if beyond the main
Islands are reserv'd for Spain;
Tell me, if beyond the sea
Worlds are to be found by me:
Bid your spirits disappear,
Phantoms of delusive fear,
These are visions I despise,
Shadows and uncertainties.
 

Inchantress

 
Must I, then, yield to your request!
Columbus, why disturb my rest! —
For this the ungrateful shall combine,
And hard misfortune shall be thine; —
For this the base reward remains
Of cold neglect and galling chains![B]
In a poor solitude forgot,
Reproach and want shall be the lot
Of him that gives new worlds to Spain,
And westward spreads her golden reign.
Before you came to vex my bower
I slept away the evening hour,
Or watch'd the rising of the moon,
With hissing vipers keeping tune,
Or galloping along the glade
Took pleasure in the lunar shade,
And gather'd herbs, or made a prize
Of horses' tails and adders' eyes:
Now open flies the iron gate,
Advance, and read the book of fate!
On thy design what woes attend!
The nations at the ocean's end,
No longer destin'd to be free,
Shall owe distress and death to thee!
The seats of innocence and love
Shall soon the scenes of horror prove:
But why disturb these Indian climes,
The pictures of more happy times!
Has avarice, with unfeeling breast,
Has cruelty thy soul possess'd?
May ruin on thy boldness wait! —
Advance, and read the book of fate.
When vulture, fed but once a week,
And ravens three together shriek,
And skeleton for vengeance cries,
Then shall the fatal curtain rise!
Two lamps in yonder vaulted room,
Suspended o'er a brazen tomb,
Shall lend their glimmerings, as you pass,
To find your fortune in that glass
Whose wondrous virtue is, to show
Whate'er the inquirer wants to know.
 

[B] In 1498 he was superseded in his command at Hispaniola and sent home in irons. Soon after finishing his fourth voyage, finding himself neglected by the Court of Spain after all his services, he retired to Valladolid, in Old Castile, where he died on the 20th of May. A. D. 1506. —Freneau's note.

Picture III

The Mirror

Columbus

 
Strange things I see, bright mirror, in thy breast: —
There Perseverance stands, and nobly scorns
The gabbling tongue of busy calumny;
Proud Erudition in a scholar's garb
Derides my plans and grins a jeering smile.
Hypocrisy, clad in a doctor's gown,
A western continent deems heresy:
The princes, kings, and nobles of the land
Smile at my projects, and report me mad:
One royal woman only stands my friend,
Bright Isabell, the lady of our hearts,
Whom avarice prompts to aid my purposes,
And love of toys – weak female vanity! —
She gains her point! – three slender barques I see
(Or else the witch's glass deceives mine eye)
Rigg'd trim, and furnish'd out with stores and men,
Fitted for tedious journeys o'er the main:
Columbus – ha! – their motions he directs;
Their captains come, and ask advice from him,
Holding him for the soul of resolution.
Now, now we launch from Palos! prosperous gales
Impel the canvas: now the far fam'd streight
Is pass'd, the pillars of the son of Jove,
Long held the limits of the paths of men:
Ah! what a waste of ocean here begins,
And lonely waves, so black and comfortless!
Light flies each bounding galley o'er the main;
Now Lancerota gathers on our view,
And Teneriffe her clouded summit rears:
Awhile we linger at these islands fair
That seem the utmost boundaries of the world,
Then westward aiming on the unfathom'd deep
Sorrowing, with heavy hearts we urge our way.
Now all is discontent – such oceans pass'd,
No land appearing yet, dejects the most;
Yet, fertile in expedients, I alone
The mask of mild content am forc'd to wear:
A thousand signs I see, or feign to see,
Of shores at hand, and bottoms underneath,
And not a bird that wanders o'er the main,
And not a cloud that traverses the sky
But brings me something to support their hopes:
All fails at last! – so frequently deceiv'd
They growl with anger – mad to look at death
They gnash their teeth, and will be led no more;
On me their vengeance turns: they look at me
As their conductor to the realms of ruin:
Plot after plot discover'd, not reveng'd,
They join against their chief in mutiny:
They urge to plunge him in the boiling deep
As one, the only one that would pursue
Imaginary worlds through boundless seas: —
The scene is chang'd – Fine islands greet mine eye,
Cover'd with trees, and beasts, and yellow men;
Eternal summer through the vallies smiles
And fragrant gales o'er golden meadows play! —
Inchantress, 'tis enough! – now veil your glass —
The curtain falls – and I must homeward pass.
 

Picture IV

Columbus addresses King Ferdinand

 
Prince and the pride of Spain! while meaner crowns,
Pleas'd with the shadow of monarchial sway,
Exact obedience from some paltry tract
Scarce worth the pain and toil of governing,
Be thine the generous care to send thy fame
Beyond the knowledge, or the guess of man.
This gulphy deep (that bounds our western reign
So long by civil feuds and wars disgrac'd)
Must be the passage to some other shore
Where nations dwell, children of early time,
Basking in the warm sunshine of the south,
Who some false deity, no doubt, adore,
Owning no virtue in the potent cross:
What honour, sire, to plant your standards there,[A]
And souls recover to our holy faith
That now in paths of dark perdition stray
Warp'd to his worship by the evil one!
Think not that Europe and the Asian waste,
Or Africa, where barren sands abound,
Are the sole gems in Neptune's bosom laid:
Think not the world a vast extended plain:
See yond' bright orbs, that through the ether move,
All globular; this earth a globe like them
Walks her own rounds, attended by the moon,
Bright comrade, but with borrowed lustre bright.
If all the surface of this mighty round
Be one wide ocean of unfathom'd depth
Bounding the little space already known,
Nature must have forgot her wonted wit
And made a monstrous havock of proportion.
If her proud depths were not restrain'd by lands,
And broke by continents of vast extent
Existing somewhere under western skies,
Far other waves would roll before the storms
Than ever yet have burst on Europe's shores,
Driving before them deluge and confusion.
But Nature will preserve what she has plann'd:
And the whole suffrage of antiquity,
Platonic dreams, and reason's plainer page
All point at something that we ought to see
Buried behind the waters of the west,
Clouded with shadows of uncertainty.
The time is come for some sublime event
Of mighty fame: – mankind are children yet,
And hardly dream what treasures they possess
In the dark bosom of the fertile main,
Unfathom'd, unattempted, unexplor'd.
These, mighty prince, I offer to reveal,
And by the magnet's aid, if you supply
Ships and some gallant hearts, will hope to bring
From distant climes, news worthy of a king.
 

[A] It is allowed by most historians, that Ferdinand was an implicit believer and one of the must superstitious bigots of his age. —Freneau's note.

 

Picture V

Ferdinand and his First Minister

Ferdinand

 
What would this madman have, this odd projector!
A wild address I have to-day attended,
Mingling its folly with our great affairs,
Dreaming of islands and new hemispheres
Plac'd on the ocean's verge, we know not where —
What shall I do with this petitioner?
 

Minister

 
Even send him, sire, to perish in his search:
He has so pester'd me these many years
With idle projects of discovery —
His name – I almost dread to hear it mention'd:
He is a Genoese of vulgar birth
And has been round all Europe with his plans
Presenting them to every potentate;
He lives, 'tis said, by vending maps and charts,⁵²
And being us'd to sketch imagin'd islands
On that blank space that represents the seas,
His head at last grows giddy with this folly,
And fancied isles are turned to real lands
With which he puzzles me perpetually:
What pains me too, is, that our royal lady
Lends him her ear, and reads his mad addresses,
Oppos'd to reason and philosophy.
 

Ferdinand

 
He acts the devil's part in Eden's garden;
Knowing the man was proof to his temptations
He whisper'd something in the ear of Eve,
And promis'd much, but meant not to perform.
 

Minister

 
I've treated all his schemes with such contempt
That any but a rank, mad-brain'd enthusiast,
Pushing his purpose to extremities,
Would have forsook your empire, royal sir,
Discourag'd, and forgotten long ago.
 

Ferdinand

 
Has he so long been busy at his projects? —
I scarcely heard of him till yesterday:
A plan pursued with so much obstinacy
Looks not like madness: – wretches of that stamp
Survey a thousand objects in an hour,
In love with each, and yet attach'd to none
Beyond the moment that it meets the eye —
But him I honour, tho' in beggar's garbs,
Who has a soul of so much constancy
As to bear up against the hard rebuffs,
Sneers of great men, and insolence of power,
And through the opposition of them all
Pursues his object: – Minister, this man
Must have our notice: – Let him be commissioned
Viceroy of all the lands he shall discover,
Admiral and general in the fleets of Spain;
Let three stout ships be instantly selected,
The best and strongest ribb'd of all we own,
With men to mann them, patient of fatigue:
But stay, attend! how stands our treasury? —
 

Minister

 
Empty – even to the bottom, royal sir!
We have not coin for bare necessities,
Much less, so pardon me, to spend on madmen.
 

Picture VI

Columbus addresses Queen Isabella

 
While Turkish queens, dejected, pine,
Compell'd sweet freedom to resign;
And taught one virtue, to obey,
Lament some eastern tyrant's sway,
 
 
Queen of our hearts, bright Isabell!
A happier lot to you has fell,
Who makes a nation's bliss your own,
And share the rich Castilian throne.
 
 
Exalted thus, beyond all fame,
Assist, fair lady, that proud aim
Which would your native reign extend
To the wide world's remotest end.
 
 
From science, fed by busy thought,
New wonders to my view are brought:
The vast abyss beyond our shore
I deem impassable no more.
 
 
Let those that love to dream or sleep
Pretend no limits to the deep:
I see beyond the rolling main
Abounding wealth reserv'd for Spain.
 
 
From Nature's earliest days conceal'd,
Men of their own these climates yield,
And scepter'd dames, no doubt, are there,
Queens like yourself, but not so fair.
 
 
But what should most provoke desire
Are the fine pearls that they admire,
And diamonds bright and coral green
More fit to grace a Spanish queen.
 
 
Their yellow shells, and virgin gold,
And silver, for our trinkets sold,
Shall well reward this toil and pain,
And bid our commerce shine again.
 
 
As men were forc'd from Eden's shade
By errors that a woman made,
Permit me at a woman's cost
To find the climates that we lost.
 
 
He that with you partakes command,
The nation's hope, great Ferdinand,
Attends, indeed, to my request,
But wants no empires in the west.
 
 
Then, queen, supply the swelling sail,
For eastward breathes the steady gale
That shall the meanest barque convey
To regions richer than Cathay.[A]
 

[A] The ancient name for China. —Freneau's note.

 
Arriv'd upon that flowery coast
Whole towns of golden temples boast,
While these bright objects strike our view
Their wealth shall be reserv'd for you.
 
 
Each swarthy king shall yield his crown,
And smiling lay their sceptres down,
When they, not tam'd by force of arms,
Shall hear the story of your charms.
 
 
Did I an empty dream pursue
Great honour still must wait on you,
Who sent the lads of Spain to keep
Such vigils on the untravell'd deep,
 
 
Who fix'd the bounds of land and sea,
Trac'd Nature's works through each degree,
Imagin'd some unheard of shore
But prov'd that there was nothing more.
 
 
Yet happier prospects, I maintain,
Shall open on your female reign,
While ages hence with rapture tell
How much they owe to Isabell!