NEGLECTED Muse! of this our western clime,
How long in servile, imitative rhyme,
Wilt thou thy stifled energies impart,
And miss the path that leads to every heart?
How long repress the brave decisive flight,
Warm'd by thy native fires, led by thy native light?
Thrice happy he who first shall strike the lyre,
With homebred feeling, and with homebred fire;
He need not envy any favour'd bard,
Who Fame's bright meed, and Fortune's smiles reward;
Secure, that wheresoe'er this empire rolls,
Or east, or west, or tow'rd the firm fixed poles,
While Europe's ancient honours fade away,
And sink the glories of her better day;
When, like degenerate Greece, her former fame
Shall stand contrasted with her present shame ;
And all the splendours of her bright career
Shall die away, to be relighted here—
A race of myriads will the tale rehearse,
And love the author of the happy verse.
Come then, neglected Muse! and try with me
The untrack'd path-'tis death or victory;
Let Chance or Fate decide, or critics will,
No fame I lose-I am but nothing still.
O, Independence! man's bright mental sun,
With blood and tears by our brave country won,
Parent of all, high mettled man adorns,
The nerve of steel, the soul that meanness scorns,
The mounting wind that spurns the tyrant's sway,
The eagle eye that mocks the God of day,
Turns on the lordly upstart scorn for scorn,
And drops its lid to none of woman born!
With blood, and tears, and hardships thou wert bought,
Yet rich the blessings thy bright sway has wrought;
Hence comes it that a gallant spirit reigns
Unknown among old Europe's hapless swains,
Who slaves to some proud lord, himself a slave,
From sire to son, from cradle to the grave,
From race to race, more dull and servile grow,
Until at last they nothing feel or know.
Hence comes it, that our meanest farmer's boy
Aspires to taste the proud and manly joy
That springs from holding in his own dear right
The land he ploughs, the home he seeks at night;
And hence it comes, he leaves his friends and home,
Mid distant wilds and dangers drear to roam,
To seek a competence, or find a grave,
Rather than live a hireling or a slave.
As the bright waving harvest field he sees,
Like sunny ocean rippling in the breeze,
And hears the lowing herd, the lambkins' bleat,
Fall on his ear in mingled concert sweet,
His heart sits lightly on its rustic throne,
The fields, the herds, the flocks are all his own.
Dark was the early dawn, dun vapours chill Cover'd the earth, and hid the distant hill, A veil of mist obscur'd the struggling day, That seemed to grope its slow uncertain way; No insect chirp'd, or wakeful twitt'ring bird, Within the copse, or briery dingle stirr❜d. Anon, far in the East, light streaks of red O'er the gray mists a tint of morning shed, Brighter and still more bright their hues unfold, Till all the sky was fring'd with burnish'd gold; Up rose the gallant Sun! the mists away Vanish'd, like spectres, at the dawn of day; No silence now was in the waken'd groves, For every bird began to chant his loves, And all the liveried rabble insect crew, That crawl'd upon the jewell'd earth, or flew, Muster'd their merry notes and frisk'd away, In many colour'd vestments-who but they!
"Twas sweet the morning minstrelsy to hear, And BASIL felt it to his heart most dear, Although it was no bright unsullied joy, But deeply tinctur'd with a sad alloy; For, as with painful effort, faint and slow, He gain'd the height that look'd o'er all below, And stopt to rest, and turn'd to gaze behind, A thousand tender thoughts throng'd on his mind. Home look'd so happy in the Morning's smile, He quite forgot his suff'rings there erewhile;
And but for honest shame, that makes us fear
The pointed finger, and the taunting sneer,
That never fail to greet the wav'ring man
Who weakly swerves from any settled plan,
He had return'd, though certain there again
To meet his old associates, Want and Pain.
Ah! there is something in the name of home,
That sounds so sweetly as afar we roam!
And who has worried through this world so lone,
But in his wand'rings this sad truth has known,
Whate'er may happen, wheresoe'er we roam,
However homely, still there's nought like home.
In truth it was a landscape wildly gay
That 'neath his lofty vision smiling lay;
A sea of mingling hills, with forests crown'd,
E'en to their summits, waving all around,
Save where some rocky steep aloft was seen,
Frowning an id the wild romantic scene,
Around whose brow, where human step ne'er trode,
Our native Eagle makes his high abode;
Oft in the warring of the whistling gales,
Amid the scampering clouds, he bravely sails;
Without an effort winds the loftiest sky,
And looks into the Sun with steady eye:
Emblem and patron of this fearless land,
He mocks the might of any mortal hand,
And, proudly seated on his native rock,
Defies the World's accumulated shock.
Here, mid the piling mountains scatter'd round,
His winding way majestic Hudson found;
And as he swept the frowning ridge's base,
In the pure mirror of his morning face,
A lovelier landscape caught the gazer's view,
Softer than nature, yet to nature true.
Now might be seen, reposing in stern pride,
Against the mountain's steep and rugged side,
High PUTNAM's battlements, like tow'r of old,
Haunt of night-robbing baron, stout and bold,
Scourge of his neighbour, Nimrod of the chase,
Slave of his king, and tyrant of his race.
Beneath its frowning brow, and far below,
The weltering waves, unheard, were seen to flow
Round West Point's rude and adamantine base,
That call'd to mind old ARNOLD's deep disgrace,
ANDRE's hard fate, lamented, though deserv'd,
And men, who from their duty never swerv'd—
The HONEST THREE-the pride of yeomen bold,
Who sav'd the country which they might have sold;
Refus'd the proffer'd bribe, and, sternly true,
Did what the man that doubts them ne'er would do.
Yes! if the Scroll of never-dying Fame
Shall tell the truth, 'twill bear each lowly name;
And while the wretched man, who vainly tried
To wound their honour, and his Country's pride,
1 Alluding to the stigma attempted to be cast on the character of Paulding, Van Wart, and Williams, by Mr. Tallmadge, a member of Congress.
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