Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
England: Vols. I–IV. 1876–79.
A Voyage round the World
By James Montgomery (17711854)E
Unbeginning, endless sea!
Let me launch my soul on thee.
Need I, ask I, to explore
Thine expanse from shore to shore.
Thy whole realm ’s before me brought,
Like the universe, from nought.
Ever old, yet ever new;
Time nor tide thy power subdue.
Sounds of gladness, grandeur, fear,
Meet and mingle in mine ear.
Treasures hidden in thy field,
From the birth of nature sealed.
Nor thy liquid surface plough
With a billow-breaking prow.
In a voyage of the mind,
Sweeps along thee like the wind.
There a tempest, pour amain
Thunder, lightning, hail, and rain.
Round the undiscovered pole,
Thence set out, my venturous soul!
Rocks of ice eternal piled;
Yet the mother loves her child,
To the native’s heart are dear;
All love’s charities dwell here.
Let me hear the snow-storms roar,
Blinding, burying all before.
Man the heir of all things roves,
Feasts and fights, and laughs and loves.
O’er Canadian woods and lakes;
These my spirit soon forsakes.
Where our fathers once were free,
Brave New England! hail to thee!
Waters fields unbought with blood,
Stand for peace, as thou hast stood.
Like the Hesperides of old,
Trees of life with fruits of gold.
Bonds and scourges, tears and toil,
Man degrade and earth despoil.
Coasting down the Mexique bay;
Slavery there hath had her day.
Startle midnight with strange songs;
England ends her negroes’ wrongs.
Every accent split a yoke,
Every word a fetter broke.
Forest-mountains, river-lands,
And a nobler race demands.
Stretch their limbs, unclose their eyes,
Claim the earth, and seek the skies.
Where two oceans ope their gates,
What a glorious scene awaits!
Round ten thousand little isles,
Haunts of violence and wiles.
For the Cross is in the field,
And the light of life revealed.
Conquers adamantine hearts,
And immortal bliss imparts.
From the evening’s downward star,
Now I mount Aurora’s car:
From Kamschatka’s storm-cliffs run,
South and east, to meet the sun.
With bewildered eyes I scan,
They are but dead seas of man,
Forms that change not, stagnant mind,
And they leave the same behind.
Phœnix-nests and sky-blue seas,
But I tarry not with these.
Where no ample river rolls,
World of unawakened souls!
Man, assert thy liberty;
Let not brutes look down on thee.
With the Ganges stretched between;
Ah! what horrors here have been.
Britain, carrying sword and flame,
Won an empire,—lost her name.
Law and justice wield the sword,
And her G
Where the true-love nightingale
Woos the rose in every vale.
With the incense of her trees,
On I press through southern seas.
See, the angel Hope, instead,
Lights from heaven upon thine head;
Barbarous hordes from desert sands
Bless the sight with lifted hands.
Scowls defiance o’er the deep;
There a warrior’s relics sleep.
Europe, Asia, Afric tell:
On that theme all time shall dwell.
These three simple words comprise
All the future: “Here he lies.”
O, ’t were mercy to the slaves,
Were the maws of sharks their graves!
Which thy streams and mountains hold,
Or for which thy sons are sold,
In this felon-trade to share,
Or to brand its guilt forbear.
Sentinels of sea and land!
Cloud-capt Atlas towers at hand.
Fell the Carthaginian state,
And where exiled Marius sate,
Ha! the pirates seize their oars:
Haste we from the accurséd shores!
Other floods than Nile’s o’erwhelm;
Slaves turned despots hold the helm.
Lebanon and Carmel shorn,
Zion trampled down with scorn.
Thou art thine own monument;
But the sepulchre is rent,
At whose breath new heroes spring,
Sages teach, and poets sing.
In a gorgeous evening cloud;
Thy refulgent head is bowed.
On her Capitolian hill,
Bids thee, mourner, weep thy fill.
Roman blood must warm the veins;
Look well, tyrants, to your chains!
Spain, thy tower-crowned crest advance,
Grasp the shield and couch the lance.
Giant bigotry would fly,
At thy voice oppression die.
Shake thy locks,—thy cause is just;
Strike for freedom, strike and trust.
Thou art not the France of yore,
Thou art new-born France no more.
Then mad-drunk with liberty;
What now?—neither great nor free.
One quick glance on Denmark cast,
Sweden, Russia,—all are past.
Germany, beware the day
When thy schools again bear sway!
Fairest isle beneath the sky,
To my heart, as in mine eye.
Every shore beneath the sun,
And my voyage now is done.
Britain is my home, my rest;
Mine own land! I love thee best.