dark-red brand to consecrate!Long, dread, and doubtful was the fray
That gives the stars thy name to-day.
But all is over; round thee now
Fame shouts, spoil pours, and captives bow,
No stormier joy can Earth impart,
Than thrills in lightning through thy heart.
Gay Lover, with the soft guitar,
Hie to the olive-woods afar,
And to thy friend, the listening brook,
Alone reveal that raptured look;
The maid so long in secret loved—
A parent’s angry will removed—
This morning saw betrothèd thine,
That Sire the pledge, consenting, blest,
Life bright as motes in golden wine,
Is dancing in thy breast.
Statesman astute, the final hour
Arrives of long-contested Power;
Each crafty wile thine ends to aid,
Party and principle betray’d;
The subtle speech, the plan profound,
Pursued for years, success has crown’d;
To-night the Vote upon whose tongue,
The nicely-poised Division hung,
Was thine—beneath that placid brow
What feelings throb exulting now!
Thy rival falls;—on grandeur’s base
Go shake the nations in his place!
Fame, Love, Ambition! what are Ye,
With all your wasting passions’ war,
To the great Strife that, like a sea,
O’erswept His soul tumultuously,
Whose face gleams on me like a star—
A star that gleams through murky clouds—
As here begirt by struggling crowds
A spell-bound Loiterer I stand,
Before a print-shop in the Strand?
What are your eager hopes and fears
Whose minutes wither men like years—
Your schemes defeated or fulfill’d,
To the emotions dread that thrill’d
His frame on that October night,
When, watching by the lonely mast,
He saw on shore the moving light,
And felt, though darkness veil’d the sight,
The long-sought World was his at last?18
How Fancy’s boldest glances fail,
Contemplating each hurrying mood
Of thought that to that aspect pale
Sent up the heart’s o’erboiling flood
Through that vast vigil, while his eyes
Watch’d till the slow reluctant skies
Should kindle, and the vision dread,
Of all his livelong years be read!
In youth, his faith-led spirit doom’d
Still to be baffled and betray’d,
His manhood’s vigorous noon consumed
Ere Power bestow’d its niggard aid;
That morn of summer, dawning grey,19
When, from Huelva’s humble bay,
He full of hope, before the gale
Turn’d on the hopeless World his sail,
And steer’d for seas untrack’d, unknown,
And westward still sail’d on—sail’d on—
Sail’d on till Ocean seem’d to be
All shoreless as Eternity,
Till, from its long-loved Star estranged,
At last the constant Needle changed,20
And fierce amid his murmuring crew
Prone terror into treason grew;
While on his tortured spirit rose,
More dire than portents, toils, or foes,
The awaiting World’s loud jeers and scorn
Yell’d o’er his profitless Return;
No—none through that dark watch may trace
The feelings wild beneath whose swell,
As heaves the bark the billows’ race,
His Being rose and fell!
Yet over doubt, and pride, and pain,
O’er all that flash’d through breast and brain,
As with those grand, immortal eyes
He stood—his heart on fire to know
When morning next illumed the skies,
What wonders in its light should glow—
O’er all one thought must, in that hour,
Have sway’d supreme—Power, conscious Power—
The lofty sense that Truths conceived,
And born of his own starry mind,
And foster’d into might, achieved
A new Creation for mankind!
And when from off that ocean calm
The Tropic’s dusky curtain clear’d,
All those green shores and banks of balm
And rosy-tinted hills appear’d
Silent and bright as Eden, ere
Earth’s breezes shook one blossom there—
Against that hour’s proud tumult weigh’d,
Love, Fame, Ambition, how ye fade!
Thou Luther of the darken’d Deep!
Nor less intrepid, too, than He
Whose courage broke Earth’s bigot sleep
Whilst thine unbarr’d the Sea—
Like his, ’twas thy predestined fate
Against your grin benighted age,
With all its fiends of Fear and Hate,
War, single-handed war, to wage,
And live a conqueror, too, like him,
Till Time’s expiring lights grow dim!
O, Hero of my boyish heart!
Ere from thy pictured looks I part,
My mind’s maturer reverence now
In thoughts of thankfulness would bow
To the Omniscient Will that sent
Thee forth, its chosen instrument,
To teach us hope, when sin and care,
And the vile soilings that degrade
Our dust, would bid us most despair—
Hope, from each varied deed
October 11, 1492.—“As the evening darkened, Columbus took his station on the top of the castle or cabin, on the high poop of his vessel. However he might carry a cheerful and confident countenance during the day, it was to him a time of the most painful anxiety; and now, when he was wrapped from observation by the shades of night, he maintained an intense and unremitting watch, ranging his eye along the dusky horizon in search of the most vague indications of land. Suddenly, about ten o’clock,
“It was on Friday, the 3d of August 1492, early in the morning, that Columbus set sail on his first voyage of discovery. He departed from the bar of Saltes, a small island in front of the town of Huelva, steering in a south-westerly direction,” &c.—Irving. He was about fifty-seven years old the year of the Discovery.
“On the 13th September, in the evening, being about two hundred leagues from the island of Ferro, he, for the first time, noticed the variation of the needle, a phenomenon which had never before been remarked. Struck with the circumstance, he observed it attentively for three days, and found that the variation increased as he advanced. It soon attracted the attention of the pilots, and filled them with consternation. It seemed as if the very laws of nature were changing as they advanced, and that they were entering another world subject to unknown influences.”—
