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COLUMBUS 
 
 POEM, 
 
 JOHN EDWARD HOWELL. 
 
 JOHN EDWARD HOWELL. 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 
 THE HOWELL PUBLISHING COMPANY, 
 35 & 37 Vesey Street. 
 
 1S93. 
 
 
 
 
 
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COLUMBUS. 
 
 — What Enigma, this, 
 E'en Isabella's jewels haste to solve? 
 Spain had an empty coffer, but, for these, 
 Whose flash of scorn, well, nigh, replenished it 
 Nor, had Columbus sailed, or, not, from Spain 
 But, for the epoch, by her jewels, made. 
 Ten thousand crowns, besides, three caravels — 
 Is not Columbus, mad, and Isabel? 
 Half thought so, Ferdinand, with Arragon, 
 As, he, who pushing France ward, on an ass. 
 To Isabella's plea, retraced his steps, 
 To snatch a precious jewel, for Spaiu's brow, 
 She may not lose, to any accident, 
 lis blaze, as constant as the polar star's. 
 Four centuriep, ago, Queen Isabel 
 Had pledged her jewels to a mariner's 
 Conceit, of nearer India : thence the crown 
 Of Leon and Castile, flashed with more gems, 
 Than, tears, Columbus shed t' ingratitude. 
 
CX)LUMBUS. 12 
 
 Who, neither, found Cipango, nor Cathay, 
 Yet, stood upon the threshold of a world, 
 Flung, wide, the door, when, in a sailor slii^t, 
 And scratched his name upon a window 2)ane. 
 Vext, all the manhood of the ages, since, 
 That, he who died, in irons, to his zeal 
 For man, failed, of a name^iake in a sphere. 
 Yet, he, whose chains, were with his corse, in- 
 terred, 
 Has slept till resurrection and, anon, 
 Two worlds shall crown the patient Genoese, 
 Who died, unmindful, he had cleft a sphere. 
 Dreamt, he, but, skirted Asia, in the Isles, 
 His caravels had touched at : had he seen 
 The Continent, he sought not, he, yet, found, 
 What mighty thumps, his joy, for th' waning, 
 
 throbs. 
 Of his despairing heart, that burst, to chains? 
 Yet, th' hemisphere is his, whatever name. 
 It bears, or, may — Columbia, eternized, 
 By the sailor's footi^rints, on San Salvador. 
 The smile, of Isabel, pursues each ray 
 Of Western sunshine, while, th' ingratitude 
 Of Ferdinand, toward a brave mariner, 
 Assures, to her, the plaudits of all time, 
 
COLUMBUS. 13 
 
 Whose gems bad won, if, Siiain had not, a 
 World. 
 
 As the Venetian Polos, sire and son. 
 
 Two centuries, before him, of the East 
 
 Astounded Europe, in whose startling tales 
 
 Of the Great Khan, Cipaugo and Cathay, 
 
 Columbus had snufft riches — from their hoard 
 
 Of jewels, dazzling Venice, half the flash 
 
 Of his expectant eye — who, had he dared 
 
 To debate Ptolemy, had, never sailed. 
 
 Who sailed, the Earth, a plane, inspired to seek 
 
 Adventure, in the East, of Polo found; 
 
 His route, a gift to commerce, but the gold 
 
 Castile, The Church, Columbus, had not spurned. 
 
 Dismist from Court, to Court he had appealed, 
 
 Discoiaraged, not disheartened, still pursued 
 
 His dream of nearer Asia: age, itself, 
 
 Was leering at him ; poverty began 
 
 To sew his tatters into seemly robes 
 
 To stand in, before kings: if, irony 
 
 Had stirred his genius into comedy. 
 
 Then, vi^hat a farce, his failures, ere the hour 
 
 A woman set the common nay aside, 
 
 A tragedy, in its catastrophe. 
 
COLUMBUS. 14 
 
 Tho' in its plot the rescue of a World: 
 The ink-horn, Isabella's, while, the pen, 
 Was his, dipt in it — on whose cockle shells 
 Th* Atlantic Ocean raised her veil and smiled. 
 
 A sailor, with a lantern, in his head; 
 
 A genius, half, discovered — in the role 
 
 Of fancy, crowned with vision; in the realm 
 
 Of reason, autocratic; as, a man, 
 
 The ornament of manhood, when the worth 
 
 Of manhood was debated: fortitude, 
 
 Pronounced, as was his clemency, confest; 
 
 If, sanguine, to a fault, the fault, itself, 
 
 Surprised new lands; not visionary, then, 
 
 He had not sailed from Palos for Cathay; 
 
 Persistency of purpose, ardor, zeal. 
 
 Patience with shrewdness, hope, dexterity; 
 
 With self-respect, au appetite, for fame. 
 
 That, but, on joints of fair achievement feeds, 
 
 Were qualities, his own, by eminence. 
 
 Columbus, tho' a bigot, to an Age, 
 
 Of bigotry, prevails in history, 
 
 Scathless, against detraction, infinite; 
 
 Sharing a name, immortal, Isabel. 
 
 — Yet, of thy womb he sprang, O Italy; 
 
COLUMBUS. 15 
 
 So, of her laurels, Spain must proffer thee; 
 Thine, an exacting mother's privilege 
 To swell with the lad's honors, whom, the sea, 
 Kemarking brave, when age had sobered him. 
 Insured his voyage to San Salvador, 
 Commerce, for ports in Asia, underwrit. 
 But, for the Church, on what, yet, earlier day, 
 Some other sailor might have plowed the seas 
 Hoping new lands ? — for the inveterate foe 
 Of man, in God's name, had denounced a curse 
 On him, had proven the earth, spherical. 
 And, but, the servile liege, of yonder sun. 
 Wiuds, dead, ahead, with th' devil, in th' hull, 
 Man pushed discovery, with piety. 
 Such as inspired Columbus to have vowed 
 To rescue, yet, the Sepulchre of Christ, 
 His cruises, gainful: the Crusader"s dream 
 Still, lingered, in the faithful Mariner, 
 The Cross, his pennant; in a Hemisphere, 
 Unveiled, to Europe, closed the last crusade. 
 
 Had not Columbus — that, some sailor had 
 Stemmed western seas, in quest of Asia's shores, 
 Midway, arrested by a Continent, 
 Or, Isles, contiguous, had not withered one 
 
COLUMBUS. 16 
 
 Of all Columbus' laurels. He had done 
 
 What, no man hod done: He had raised a point 
 
 Half Europe jeered at — which, to scanty means, 
 
 Of mutiny, confronted, he resolved. 
 
 For rare adventure, the incentive found 
 
 In sudden riches, pray, what mariner 
 
 That, since, has made discovery thro' his, 
 
 But owes his conquest to tlie Genoese? 
 
 In fetters to the envy of his Age, 
 
 The Muse of history may well rleuy 
 
 To envy, further privilege, to wrest 
 
 From his ambition, its confest reward. 
 
 Too much for one, 'twere not enough for two, 
 
 To halve between them, without loss to both, 
 
 Of prime renown, that seldom favors twins. 
 
 As solitary as that genius proved 
 
 Equipt to have achieved it; since 'twas he 
 
 Who argued Asia in the channel slept 
 
 He meant to traverse — tho' geography 
 
 Leapt from the curious log, Columbus kept. 
 
 Spain had reduced the Moslem, yet, the ring 
 Of good Toledo steel enchants the air: 
 The Cavalier, to peace, breathed restively — 
 Whereat, Adventure seized him, merciless, 
 
COLUMBUS. 17 
 
 And cast him, armed, adrift for shores, unknown. 
 
 Chivalry pining, went to sea, to die 
 
 Or win for Spain, new lands. 'Twas fabled, too. 
 
 How western rivers rolled o'er beds of gold; 
 
 Therein, an argument fi>r hacking steel 
 
 Behind the mask of Christ — the pagan soul's 
 
 Salvation, for his hoard: with which exchange 
 
 Cupidity smiled, pleased, while, bigotry 
 
 As factor, in the deal, snatched hull the gold. 
 
 The brave Venetian was a pendulum 
 With arc from Spain to England, who on each 
 Reflected lustre, thro' discoveries, 
 Ensuing his, who made it feasible 
 To scour the Atlantic; thus a Continent 
 From Labrador to the Tropics, hove in sight 
 To Ferdinand and the Henries: Cabot's keels 
 Plowed ample furrows to high latitudes, 
 By Equatorial regions, flapping sails 
 Within Brazilian waters: yet, wherein 
 A glory, his, with not a birth-mark on. 
 Had traced its dawn to First Discovery ? 
 
 Amerigo, the Florentine, was fired 
 
 By the bold Mariner, whose eye and voice. 
 
COLUMBUS. 18 
 
 With each familiar, so enchanted him 
 
 He navigates his wake, and marvelous, 
 
 A Hemisphere, as its discoverer, 
 
 Bears his, who sailed to view what he had found 
 
 Whose 7iaine it bears not, each unfortunate 
 
 In his geography. Who, later, stood 
 
 Godfather for a sphere, by a false name, 
 
 Vespucci's, heard it christened; yet, to him 
 
 Who hath achieved, due honor must arrive, 
 
 And not to him, who hath not —history 
 
 Is constantly revis6i^, to more light 
 
 On, faded archives. In both light and heat, 
 
 The race is more delighted than in whence 
 
 Each may have sprung, or springs — tho' wherein 
 
 men 
 Are factors, equity shall never cease 
 Eepaiiing wrongs, and mending epitaphs, 
 Thus, to the dead awarding that denied 
 Their challenge, living. 
 
 The cavalier De Leon, farther North, 
 Would seek the Fountain of perpetual youth. 
 To bathe therein, renewed — and Florida 
 Is witness to Lis dream; the Fountain, not 
 In the Bahamas, nor the Continent, 
 
COLUMBUS. 19 
 
 He, as an Island, gave to Ferdinand. 
 
 Still, had the Norseman glimpst thro' polar frost 
 The icy locks of a huge Continent, 
 Whose feet disport, in waters tropical, 
 Columbus saw not: had the Norseman swam 
 Past Barnegat, past Hatteras and snuft 
 The blown Bermudas, he had spread a tale 
 Thro' Iceland, that had vext the sea with gulls 
 Winging the Norsemen, hither; e'en to them, 
 In balmy winds, in ever-blooming flowers, 
 In fruit, that craves not culture, but a hand 
 To pluck its bounty, might have proved, a charm 
 To bathe, in sunshine, their frost-bitten live-. 
 
 Here is that Land, tlie ancient dreampt had been; 
 
 Who cocooned it, in fable, which, belike 
 
 In Atalantis had gone down the M'ave, 
 
 Unresurrected — yet, behold! it risen. 
 
 The virgin world of romance and of song: 
 
 Tho' old as Thebes, still, old, when Thebes was 
 
 young ; 
 The most mysterious, unmysterious half, 
 Of man's important, unimjiortant sphere. 
 O, for a dredge had scoured th' Atlantic's bed. 
 
COLUMBUS. 20 
 
 With the Pacific's for a single hint, 
 Of what, she has been, if a hint be there, 
 Ere, 3'et, Columbus : life disguised by paint. 
 Wampum and feathers; life in architraves, 
 Buried, profoundly, in a tropic soil, 
 Fragrant, of Empires, gone — ia proof, indeed, 
 That but insists on, more. Here, if unearthed, 
 Man's early fortunes, Egypt had divulged 
 Her own enigma, and her mystery 
 Had found a solvent, in a hemisphere, 
 The Elder, with such incidents of youth, 
 As i)alm it off, as Nature's, newly born. 
 
 Yet Nature may have sunk a Continent; 
 
 Its warts and mountain peaks remarked in Isles 
 
 Of the Atlantic — whence, perhaps a proof 
 
 Of man's antiquity, e'en, more remote, 
 
 Than, revrlations from the cave, or drift; 
 
 Or, proof, a Western Continent was known. 
 
 However vaguely, to the Orient. 
 
 What, Plato learned, thro' Egypt we have heard, 
 
 Of Plato, garnished : the Canary Isles, 
 
 With th' Azores, in either, witnesses 
 
 To Land, whereof they were— whereof, to-day, 
 
 They bloom, survivors — if, the dream be true, 
 
 Of an Atlantis, lost. 
 
COLUMBUS. 21 
 
 Four hundred years, in either heiQisphere, 
 Alone, in history, wherein, remarked, 
 For man's material vantage, or, wherein. 
 For vision, due heroic .surgery; 
 Wiierein, for nascent freedom — fit, it seems. 
 Both worlds i^artake a common holiday, 
 And on the spil, by Europe's Mariner, 
 Devised to sequent Agf s, give his fume, 
 A mortal whiff, that hath immortal wing. 
 
 In Hendrick Hudson's shadow, hugging close 
 
 New Amsterdam, whose slice of commerce feels 
 
 Manhattan shrink to its necessities; 
 
 She, a kaleidoscope of either World, 
 
 And whence the New is, ever, advertised — 
 
 Peaceful as sportive dolphins, Europe's fleets 
 
 Here, come to anchor, salvo the renown 
 
 Uf the dead Admiral, who flagged for her 
 
 Lands, she conceded to descendent swarms. 
 
 Theirs, manhood to develop, to new skies, 
 
 Plastic, to factors, in both sun and soil : 
 
 Who, bearing Europe with (hem, still, were bred 
 
 To premises, that urged expeiiment, 
 
 With an unLeard-of accent and surprised 
 
 Europe, wherein, Opinion, if supreme, 
 
COLUMBUS. 22 
 
 Is capable of power, intelligent. 
 Four centuries have so remodelled man, 
 Two Hemispheres are one. save wherein yet, 
 Twain, to tradition. It must demonstrate 
 Life's clear advance, in that, fraternal guns 
 Met, to do honor to the Genoese. 
 Laud most the comity concerned therein, 
 And deal to power, a blow with iron fist, 
 Whose, no just cause, had strained the bonds of 
 peace. 
 
 In the Infanta, gleams the Crown of Spain, 
 With such a flawless jewel — royalty, 
 In her, may placate Isabella's shade, 
 Whose World she enteis, as a Nation's guest, 
 Within her welcome — Spain's. 
 
 Tis a clear honor to have sprung of loins 
 That have done man much service, in a life 
 Of thought or action — and there still survives 
 An honor., d line of the great Admiral, 
 Which, Spain ennobled when Columbus had. 
 Whose, living to wear home, his garlands — dead. 
 
 Of th' Arts of peace, of e'en the Art of war, 
 
COLUMBUS. 23 
 
 A cosmorama, what, so masterful, 
 
 As such a canvas, to impress the Age 
 
 Thro' deadlier guns, to swell the means of peace, 
 
 Thro' gains in peace, to augment the meuns of 
 
 war ? 
 So, what time fitter than when Nations join 
 To laud a Sailor on the Hemisphere 
 To Europe, he unveiled ? Competitiv , 
 The Arts of industry, at one, are found 
 As civilizers, foremost. Commerce hath 
 The Age afloat and seta the Age, ashore, 
 "Whenever she makes port : so marvelous 
 That part she plays, in progress — life had been 
 A hushman's, to all latitudes, denied 
 The riches in her hull and from her log 
 A World's peacemaker's message, polyglot. 
 
 Nor, had Aladdin's lamp, if to this day 
 Exposed to friction, such a Vision raised 
 To outright wonder, as sits regally 
 On the Lake's shore — to half a century 
 Indebted only— wherein, Art with Art 
 Contending, well anticipates to score 
 An Annus Memordbilis, for aye. 
 
COLUMBUS. 24 
 
 While, Lusitania, by bold seaujanship, 
 Doubled the jewelled heel of Africa, 
 SiJain stared at the Pacific, swum the strait, 
 Found half the globe, a waste of billowj' seas, 
 ^Vhose archipelagoes are, even, yet. 
 Withholding data, from geography. 
 To match discovery, by land and sea. 
 Dismissing Aristotle, half -infirm, 
 Arguing the heavens, aright -debating man, 
 Eeason, to units, brought him, at a blow. 
 She, without precedent, for half, she did, 
 Saw, in much driftwood, promise of new land 
 Her canvas strained for : it was seamanship 
 That, often, cast the lead ; oft of the skies, 
 Entreating sea room; it was confidence 
 In man, as man, untried, put, to the test. 
 To disadvantage, man's, with the test, sus- 
 tained. 
 A vaster hemisphere, of reason, found 
 In th' waste, outlying, than Spain scourged for 
 
 gold; 
 While, on that hemisphere, ere Spain had done 
 Her search for i iches, she enthroned herself, 
 In th' name of Freedom, tho' of later loins, 
 Than, theirs, of Marathon — yet, like, their own, 
 
COLUMBUS. 25 
 
 With, for the Isles, of Greece, .1 hemisphere. 
 With, for an Attica, a Continent. 
 
 Yet, sprung more freedom, of the Pilgrim's 
 
 pluck, 
 Than from his dogmas ; for, his faith, in God . 
 Developed faith, in man, with tomahawks, 
 Arrows and scalping knives, the incidents 
 Of his experience. To his firelock, faith 
 Lent execution : in the Puritan, 
 The dying throb of the Age of Faith, survived. 
 For tomb and holy grail, the knight had fought 
 With, ever, on his crest, as, in his heart, 
 Reminders of his oath, to- womanhood, 
 In her, his heart confest :- the Puritan, 
 God— only, God, his, not a license, man's 
 But, were a penance, to the Cavalier : 
 Yet, his was knighthood, tho' unhorsed, afoot, 
 That had encountered polar frost, for Heaven. 
 Enthusiasm, from a woman's arms. 
 Ventured to Jewry, in the pious knight : 
 Exchanged for zeal, inspired by th' liberty, 
 To think, aloud, tho' in a wilderness, 
 The knighthood of the Pilgrim, served the State, 
 Half, by the very error , due, to faith. 
 

 
 
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COLUMBUS. 26 
 
 A commonwealth, to Britain, mounts a throne 
 With Cromwell's warning ringing in both ears : 
 But, to the acreage, the Pilgrim found, 
 A Commonwealth, into a State, resolves ; 
 Both oceans, heaving vantage and defense. 
 Arguing, the popular will, perpetual. 
 
 — Of a virgin world, 
 Europe ran on, as, if, an Eastern tale : 
 Then, having sliced it up, she cast the bits 
 Among her courtiers : yet, the liberty 
 Of thought, outsailed the eager colonist, 
 Safe, here, to bid him welcome, as, he set 
 His foot, uncertain, where, he set it down. 
 — "Who, in the dreary daybreak, offered fight 
 To th' Briton, by Leonidas were led. 
 Spartan, to broader freedom, where, they fell. 
 Than, at Thermopylae. Courage is the same 
 In every age, but, never, to the blast 
 Of every bugle, equal : valor clings 
 To the dam's breast, a babe, forever, fed. 
 With th' roilk, that flushes heroes. Any blade 
 Outranks Toledo's, if, it slash its way 
 Clean, to a throne and force it to do right : 
 Such valor is an epoch; such was, theirs. 
 From Lexington to York town, facing odds, 
 For common justice. 
 
COLUMBUS. 27 
 
 'Tis ours, who have it — theirs, who capture it; 
 So, runs the doubtful haw, time, still sustains; 
 Meum and tuum, with few sanctions, yet, 
 But, smell of burnt gunpowder. Liberty 
 Hath, then, the Western Hemisphere, her own, 
 First, in the right, as, of discovery, 
 Next, in her mustering arms, had held it, fast. 
 Yet, if her title lack an element 
 Of strength, sh3 finds it, in the weal of men, 
 Which, once, despaired of — lo! her title fails. 
 Her guns were spiked, her gallant gunners slain, 
 Her paps, torn, by more arrows, than, yon sun 
 Had quenched, twanged at him — while the out- 
 raged seas 
 Had swampt her Continents. 
 
 — What shall save 
 Her cities from pollution and her soil 
 From felony and murder and assure 
 Liberty, to Americans? — her soil 
 To husband, well, for free-born citizens? 
 Better, her land, a howling wilderness, 
 Than, rocking, to tbe fortunes of a mob. 
 Majorities may have the ring of gold, 
 Or, the false ring of guineas, counterfeit : 
 Minorities, thias, govern, not, in right. 
 
COLUMBUS. 28 
 
 Of the minority, in reason's own, 
 
 Wbei'eby, tbey govern, who prove competent : 
 
 It, the same right, that, all majorities 
 
 Wield, to intelligence, or, lose, to none 
 
 — Where'er opinion sways a State or Eealm, 
 
 In party-spirit, its palladium ; 
 
 Of power, that had encroached, on th' popular 
 
 will 
 The prompt corrective : it, to flagging zeal, 
 That would assert rights, yet, imrecognized. 
 Re-stimulation — while, the common mind. 
 To clarify and raise, a forum, whence, 
 Incessant disputation. 
 — Freedom, in capitals, on every page, 
 Of ad captandum volumes proves, how near 
 Eelated, freedom is to printer'., ink, 
 In half, the world's esteem — while, platitudes, 
 That, like the music-monger's popular airs, 
 Preserve a cruel sameness, stir the wax. 
 In drowsy listeners' ears. 
 
 What, these shores expect 
 Is sweat, to till them, not the irony 
 0£ labor, the East starves to : not, an eye 
 In search of unearned guineas, but, an arm 
 To cleave the oak, or furrow the fat soil 
 
COLUMBUS. 29 
 
 For willing harvests— an American, 
 
 Ere, he has lost his sea-legs, would, in each. 
 
 Ere, he has sworn allegiance, hither, come ; 
 
 Land, left behind him, thence, a memoi-y. 
 
 'Tis treason to America, wherein. 
 
 Allegiance is half-hearted— while, the gold, 
 
 Had, from America, were, justly, hers, 
 
 To build her fortunes, broadening, to more sons. 
 
 Him, here, to find a pocketbook and stem 
 
 The ocean ferry, homeward, Bhoiild receive 
 
 As many lashes, as half-eagles his. 
 
 He would steal ofE with. 'Tis not Griqua-land, 
 
 Whence, with, of gems, a handful, to take flight ; 
 
 A land, a home, 'tis not a halting-place. 
 
 Adventure flags, her own, from the Andes' peaks 
 
 And th' Rocky Mountains : populous, enough. 
 
 To formulate a destiny, she hath 
 
 Ignored her antecedents, as a world, 
 
 Wherein, the outlaw sought a heritage, 
 
 Which, desijite justice and the rights of man, 
 
 His, to give false direction : henceforth, man's 
 
 To culture manhood, that vocation, theirs. 
 
 Who venture, hither. 
 
COLUMBUS. m 
 
 Under what specious guise, did Conscieccelate, 
 Revive the Phallus and the orgies crown, 
 With plural marriage, till the virgin soil 
 Of Utah, swarms, with saints-in-bastardy V 
 Freedom, unwary, miast have closed her eyes, 
 On half a Continent, while, to the chin, 
 Immersed, in gain, by the Atlantic's roar, 
 Deaf, to the wail, of butchered chastity. 
 And, yet, the Mormon lingers, less, to purge 
 His still, transparent life, of lechery, 
 Than, to the law, to veil it — and behind 
 Impervious arras, to spread wider bunks. 
 Thus, fitly, maskers, behind leaves of brass 
 Etched, with much drivel, still entice their dujies 
 To slavery, not African, but worse. 
 Thro' a credulity, that, at a gulp, 
 A coach-and-six had bolted and cried — more i 
 — Here, if no stage. 
 To Europe re-enact, as Europe was ; 
 A drama, Europe, as she is, had failed. 
 That plague of empire, foimd in vicinage 
 Perplexes Europe, who each problem solves 
 Thro' ever-swelling fleets and armaments : 
 Analogy, at fault, in feudal power 
 And power, one step from a Democracy. 
 
COLUMBUS. 31 
 
 Men, in the past, were freedmen and wherein 
 Born, freemen, yet, to reason and to pluck. 
 Prone to enact the Roman — tyrants t weep 
 Man's heart-strings for a viol — give his eye, 
 The gladiator, he commits the State 
 To wanton cohorts. Liberty responds 
 To moral purpose, free to will and do : 
 Is less, conspicuous option to enjoy 
 One's sweat, as one elects ; freedom as yet, 
 Seen, as a larva, to the imago, 
 A lexicon revised some ages hence 
 Had served her fitly— of his thoughts meanwhile 
 Eesolving into justice; man, confest, 
 An acqiiisition of his intellect. 
 Life, here, is tentative, with but the link 
 Of common human natiire, to unite 
 Man's fortunes with the past : his, liberty 
 With men and means to do whate'er she would, 
 If, when done, wisely — to light save her own, 
 None, safer that the dog star's : liberty 
 In man, a knight to his own chivalry. 
 Is reason against wampum — politics, 
 With precedent against it, but the Crown 
 Meant for a feudal prince, man snatched and 
 wears. 
 
COLUMBUS. 32 
 
 Less, in the tact of suffrage, thauin tb' light 
 That casts the ballot, freedom — argument 
 For more light, never done : in liberty, 
 A higher scholarship, than had sufficed 
 To relish Homer, to drive smartly home, 
 Her golden tent pins ; to instil in toil 
 A craving, next to bread, for aliment 
 Had twisted moral purpose round her thews 
 And in each nook and corner of the brain 
 Had occupation. 
 
 Not, greater Europe, but America 
 
 In sympathy with mountain, lake and plain. 
 
 Her regal betterments — their privilege 
 
 To build who will, with square and trowel, hers. 
 
 The pohcy of joint America 
 
 Eesents dictation: since, in politics, 
 
 The policy of Europe is her own, 
 
 So, on the Western Hemisphere, i^roceeds 
 
 An argument for power, American. 
 
 No mirror for America, not wrought 
 
 Of her own silver; hers no threshing floor 
 
 But th' prairies she has harvested ; her strength. 
 
 In sons and many, who confess the plow. 
 
 Yet argue freedom; on opinion stood, 
 
COLUMBUS. 33 
 
 Unprojjt of bayonets, who propt thereby, 
 
 Had fallen on her sword, a suicide. 
 
 Democracy, with welts, like Attica's, 
 
 Is the first milestone, past a virtuous State, 
 
 Whatever, Art, or Culture warrant there. 
 
 E'en, if her soil be yet the gamesters' stake, 
 
 Whence, rules of play but from the gamesters, 
 
 sat? 
 Their arms had queried. If, a derelict, 
 Who, in mid-ocean, have the craft, in tow. 
 What admiralty, but the better steel 
 Had wrested from them ? 
 
 — In courageous sons. 
 In gold and silver, subject to her draft, 
 With Nature's seal on half, unbroken yet. 
 In plow, in loom, in forge, a trinity 
 Of factors, that to famine, fire and sword, 
 While, heedful, breathe of apprehension, free; 
 In single marriage, with unshaken vows. 
 In maidens, taught the distaff and the stars. 
 In lads, taught how to clamber into men, 
 In fathers, who remember they have sons, 
 In mothers, who had silenced they are wives. 
 In fields of corn that ripen into brains, 
 
COLUMBUS. 34 
 
 In demagogues as rare as if from God, 
 
 In patriots as thick as summer flies, 
 
 In conscience, with no cast in either eye, 
 
 In justice blind as ever to who pleads — 
 
 A Future, for America, or none. 
 
 In th' English language, the North Continent 
 
 Hath unity beyond both steam and steel, 
 
 And tU' electric flash on treason's trail : 
 
 Freedom, therein, not polyglot, but theirs 
 
 The English tongue, as if vernacular, 
 
 Unargued, whence met there. What argument 
 
 Therein, for conscience, in a license, wide 
 
 As freedom to no law, but each man's will? 
 
 What plea for rights not native to the soil ? 
 
 While Europe eyes her scales, discretion here, 
 
 Pursues opinion — or to lend it wing — 
 
 Or, thwart its vantage, when inimical 
 
 To popular freedom — man, that uppermost, 
 
 In man, the many : in America 
 
 Of either Ocean severed from the Past, 
 
 Man, to his intuitions, breathes restored. 
 
 A nation, if of soldiers under arms. 
 Stagnates to peace and burns for war to let, 
 For freshening throbs in life that had survived. 
 
COLUMBUS. 35 
 
 Her own blood freely : in a nation, free, 
 
 A soldiery of citizens, in peace, 
 
 Impli s not blood to opportunity, 
 
 A country's power, e'en how invincible, 
 
 Hers, one estate, Kings, Lords, and Commons, 
 
 — man. 
 — Courage long bottled may have turned to air 
 Occasion come to prove it — to the stress 
 Of an emergence, courage raw, defies 
 Oft, odds and weatheretl files. 
 
 In men's traditions of a Church and State 
 Propt of each other — in Power secular, 
 With violent presumption against man, 
 Investitiare Divine — in the still flow 
 Of that insidious stream, a mythic Past, 
 Per23etual menace to America. 
 Yet, in the Common School, the common mind 
 Hails light enough to urge it to seek more. 
 While the Press winds it in a comet's tail. 
 And Science airs to keep her secrets best. 
 Thro' emulation, from the sculling match 
 To Senatorial combat-, leadership 
 Enchanting many, narrows t ) the few 
 Who fill with honor, place. If, ever true, 
 
COLUMBUS. 36 
 
 Ambition seeks the honors of the State, 
 
 The State rewards Ambition : to this day 
 
 The gladiator of the dexterous steel 
 
 Is hero, to all p)eoples, if he fall 
 
 To shafts of envy — in his cutting off, 
 
 In sight of power, his apotheosis, 
 
 A nation, prostrate — while, th' incumbent, dead 
 
 May leave a corpse, so shrunken to the pomp. 
 
 That waits his burial, as to argue home. 
 
 He is, the throne, who fills it. 
 
 A race of men, tho' not autocthones, 
 Yet, veritable products of The West, 
 Her soil, her skies, her climate, liberty 
 Photographed in the humblest countenance 
 Defines that type of life, American. 
 Freedom of thought forbids intolerance. 
 Yet, Conscience, if a clever mask for shame 
 Treason, or immorality — what, then? 
 Imperium, in imperio — possible. 
 To a false conscience, were not to one true , 
 Loyalty to the State found broad enrugh 
 For every creed at peace, and not, at war 
 With human nature : altho' pertinent, 
 Why yet retain the supernatural. 
 
COLUMBUS. 37 
 
 A word, for something, men know nothing of, 
 Who beg the question, if a fact, at all ? 
 The State forecloses what had thwarted her, 
 In re-disfcributing to men, the powers, 
 Confided to her— by her seal, thereon. 
 Inviolable. — 
 
 The future, of all Power, is equity, 
 
 Or, re-construction ; not a plea is left 
 
 For Power, an heirloom, as, a guarantee. 
 
 Against dismissal : in dynastic blood, 
 
 But, a presumption, in his favor, sat. 
 
 To sway a Kingdom. What an impetus 
 
 To wholesome manhood, were the fall of caste ; 
 
 Whence, Asia's blight, whence Europe's sallow 
 
 fields, 
 Which, well disguised, would cross th' Atlantic 
 
 strait ? 
 Men are, here, fitly, if to ascertain 
 The soundness of that bond, of Nature, sealed, 
 She forfeits, to man's failure to achieve 
 High aims, she fosters, in him— in th' event 
 The earth shall prove his masters' — his reward 
 Still, but, the dole, begrudged a villien's sweat. 
 Freedom appears, but breaches in the walls 
 
COLUMBUS. 38 
 
 Of men's traditions ; man's, all conquests, hence. 
 In wider breaches — all her riders cast, 
 Who mounts the fleetest steed, e'er j-et bestrode. 
 But, most siire-footed — he, with thrice the dash 
 Of Knight, historic : with his mettle, thrice. 
 Time, thrice as precious, purpose, thrice as high ! 
 
 — Who will, come in — but, let him, at the door, 
 
 Cast off his sandals, careful, not, to bring 
 
 The old world hither— his, t' accept the new, 
 
 As, he shall find it : to her pupilage, 
 
 Submiss, a neophyte of liberty : 
 
 Here, both his school of morals and of light ; 
 
 Here, an American or, here, amiss : 
 
 Here, the one flag, his heart must throb with 
 
 raised ; 
 His life, in peace, found, gainful, to it, furled. 
 
 The Social State is man, with pared nails, 
 Unknotted hair and beard — with face and hands. 
 Pare, to both lye and water, and himself. 
 Wrapt, or, in homespun, or, in broadcloth, sat, 
 T' enjoy the fact of life, with other men, 
 Found, like him, willing, both, to eat of salt. 
 And break their bread, together. There had been 
 No mystery, in life, man had not solved, 
 
COLUMBUS. 30 
 
 Its data, laid before him — 'tis, to loss, 
 
 Of facts, philosoj)liy, is, at a stand. 
 
 All rights of man and rights of property. 
 
 If, not, inviolate, no social state. 
 
 Give men the rights, e'en rodents have, to house 
 
 And hold it, sacred, their own industry. 
 
 The world's woof is barbaric, with stray threads 
 
 Of culture, in the warp, whose tints unite 
 
 To dominate the glare and hint the eye. 
 
 Of th' harmony of virtue. 
 
 — What, a blown rose, to breathe of. Ages, hence, 
 Freedom, may, haply, be ? Haste, vainly, makes 
 An argument for freedom, that involves 
 No preparation— Freedom, slow to learn. 
 How, to, oft, ford the Seine and wash her feet, 
 Quit, of blood, always. — Who, of all men, knows, 
 How, near, he sleeps to freedom, or, how far. 
 From chains, that wait his ankles? What, so fit. 
 As, her slashed flag, to summit, yet, staunch heaps 
 Of putrefaction? — The concluding act 
 Voicing the drama, dips, th' catastrophe, 
 In colors, fast, as Tyre's. — Humanity 
 Seemed, with the earth, a plane, a horizon 
 
COLUMBUS. 40 
 
 Wide, as a nomad's t^-nt— to the earth, sphered, 
 
 Humanity, resolved into a globe, 
 
 That swings, the, only, known, celestial sphere. 
 
 Finis. 
 
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