The Hero look'd; beneath his wondering eyes Gay streamers lengthen round the seas and skies; The countless nations open all their stores, Load every wave and crowd the lively shores; Bright sails in mingling mazes streak the air, And commerce triumphs o'er the rage of war. From Baltic streams, from Elba's opening side, From Rhine's long course and Texel's laboring tide, From Gaul, from Albion, tired of fruitless fight, From green Hibernia, clothed in recent light, Hispania's strand that two broad oceans lave, From Senegal and Gambia's golden wave, Tago the rich, and Douro's viny shores, The sweet Canaries and the soft Azores, Commingling barks their mutual banners hail, And drink by turns the same distending gale. Thro Calpe's strait that leads the Midland main, From Adria, Pontus, Nile's resurgent reign, The sails look forth and wave their bandrols high And ask their breezes from a broader sky. Where Asia's isles and utmost shorelands bend, Like rising suns the sheeted masts ascend; Coast after coast their flowing flags unrol, From Deimen's rocks to Zembla's ice-propt pole, Where Behren's pass collapsing worlds divides, Where California breaks the billowy tides, Peruvian streams their golden margins boast, Or Chili bluffs or Plata flats the coast. Where, clothed in splendor, his Atlantic way Spreads the blue borders of Hesperian day, From all his havens, with majestic sweep, The swiftest boldest daughters of the deep Swarm forth before him; till the cloudlike train From pole to pole o'ersheet the whitening main. So some primeval seraph, placed on high, From heaven's sublimest point o'erlooke'd the sky, When space unfolding heard the voice of God, And suns and stars and systems roll'd abroad, Caught their first splendors from his beamful eye, Began their years and vaulted round their sky; Their social spheres in bright confusion play, Exchange their beams and fill the newborn day. Nor seas alone the countless barks behold; Earth's inland realms their naval paths unfold. Her plains, long portless, now no more complain Of useless rills and fountains nursed in vain; Canals curve thro them many a liquid line, Prune their wild streams, their lakes and oceans join. Where Darien hills o'erlook the gulphy tide, Cleft in his view the enormous banks divide; Ascending sails their opening pass pursue, And waft the sparkling treasures of Peru. Moxoe resigns his stagnant world of fen, Allures, rewards the cheerful toils of men, Leads their long new-made rivers round his reign, Drives off the stench and waves his golden grain, Feeds a whole nation from his cultured shore, Where not a bird could skim the skies before.