The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and PoliticsVarious
General
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
"Spread with the sun, and bound the walks of day;
One central system, one all-ruling soul,
Live through the parts, and regulate the whole."
There is evidently no room for the serpent Secession in Barlow's
paradise. This grand federation of the terrestrial ball is governed by a
general council of elderly married men, "long rows of reverend sires
sublime," presided over by a "sire elect shining in peerless grandeur."
The delegates hold their sessions in Mesopotamia, within a "sacred
mansion" of high architectural pretensions.
"On rocks of adamant the walls ascend,
Tall columns heave, and sky-like arches bend;
Bright o'er the golden roof the glittering spires
Far in the concave meet the solar fires;
Four blazing fronts, with gates unfolding high,
Look with immortal splendor round the sky."
In the spacious court of the capitol of the world stands the statue of
the Genius of Earth, holding Truth's mighty mirror in his hand. On the
pedestal are carved the noblest arts of man. Beneath the footstool of
the Genius,
"all destructive things,
The mask of priesthood and the mace of kings,
Lie trampled in the dust; for here, at last,
Fraud, folly, error, all their emblems cast.
Each envoy here unloads his weary hand
Of some old idol from his native land.
One flings a pagod on the mingled heap;
One lays a crescent, one a cross to sleep;
Swords, sceptres, mitres, crowns and globes and stars,
Codes of false fame and stimulants to wars,
Sink in the settling mass. Since guile began,
These are the agents of the woes of man."
It will be observed that Barlow improved slightly upon the old loyalist
cry, "_Une loi, un roi, une foi._" One government, one reverend sire
elect, and no religion, was his theory of the future of mankind.
Few men in these degenerate days have the endurance to read the
"Columbiad" through; but "Hasty Pudding," which Barlow celebrated in
verse as good sound republican diet, may be read with some pleasure. It
belongs to the same class of poems as Philips's "Cider," Dyer's
"Fleece," and Grainger's "Sugar-Cane," and is quite as good as most of
them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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