Long gazed the Mariner; when thus the Guide: Here spreads the world thy daring sail descried, Hesperia call'd, from my anterior claim; But now Columbia, from thy patriarch name. So from Phenicia's peopled strand of yore Europa sail'd, and sought an unknown shore; There stampt her sacred name; and thence her race, Hale, venturous, bold, from Jove's divine embrace, Ranged o'er the world, predestined to bestride Earth's elder continents and each far tide. Ages unborn shall bless the happier day, That saw thy streamer shape the guideless way, Their bravest heroes trace the path you led, And sires of nations thro the regions spread. Behold yon isles, where first thy flag unfurl'd In bloodless triumph o'er the younger world; As, awed to silence, savage bands gave place, And hail'd with joy the sun-descended race. Retrace the banks yon rushing waters lave; There Orinoco checks great ocean's wave; Thine is the stream; it cleaves the well known coast, Where Paria's walks thy former footsteps boast. But these no more thy wide discoveries bound; Superior prospects lead their swelling round; Nature's remotest scenes before thee roll, And years and empires open on thy soul. To yon dim rounds first elevate thy view; See Quito's plains o'erlook their proud Peru; On whose huge base, like isles amid sky driven, A vast protuberance props the cope of heaven; Earth's loftiest turrets there contend for height, And all our Andes fill the bounded sight. From south to north what long blue swells arise, Built thro the clouds, and lost in ambient skies! Approaching slow they heave expanding bounds, The yielding concave bends sublimer rounds; Whose wearied stars, high curving to the west, Pause on the summits for a moment's rest; Recumbent there they renovate their force, And roll rejoicing on their downward course. Round each bluff base the sloping ravine bends; Hills forms on hills, and croupe o'er croupe extends; Ascending, whitening, how the crags are lost, O'erhung with headcliffs of eternal frost! Broad fields of ice give back the morning ray, Like walls of suns, or heaven's perennial day. There folding storms on eastern pinions ride, Veil the black void, and wrap the mountains side, Rude thunders rake the crags, the rains descend, And the long lightnings o'er the vallies bend; While blasts unburden'd sweep the cliffs of snow, The whirlwinds wheel above, the floods convolve below. There molten rocks explosive rend their tomb; Volcanos, laboring many a nation's doom, Wild o'er the regions pour their floods of fire; The shores heave backward, and the seas retire. There lava waits my late reluctant call, To roar aloft and shake some guilty wall; Thy pride, O Lima, swells the sulphurous wave, And fanes and priests and idols crowd thy grave.