These in the torrid tracts began their sway, Whose cultured fields their growing arts display; The northern tribes a later stock may boast, A race descended from the Asian coast. High in the Arctic, where Anadir glides, A narrow strait the impinging worlds divides; There Tartar fugitives from famine sail, And migrant tribes these fruitful shorelands hail. He spoke; when Behren's pass before them lay, And moving nations on the margin stray, Thick swarming, venturous; sail and oar they ply, Climb on the surge and o'er the billows fly. As when autumnal storms awake their force. The storks foreboding tempt their southern course; From all the fields collecting throngs arise, Mount on the wing and crowd along the skies: Thus, to his eye, from bleak Tartaria's shore, Thro isles and seas, the gathering people pour, Change their cold regions for a happier strand, Leap from the wave and tread the welcome land; In growing tribes extend their southern sway, And wander wide beneath a warmer day. But why, the Chief replied, if ages past Led the bold vagrants to so mild a waste; If human souls, for social compact given, Inform their nature with the stamp of heaven. Why the wild woods for ever must they rove, Nor arts nor social joys their passions move? Long is the lapse of ages, since thy hand Conducted here thy first adventurous band. On other shores, in every eastern clime, Since that unletter'd, distant tract of time, What arts have sprung, imperial powers to grace! What sceptres sway'd the many-master'd race! Guilt, grandeur, glory from their seats been hurl'd, And dire divulsions shook the changing world! Ere Rome's first Eagle clave the frighted air, Ere Sparta form'd her deathlike sons of war, Ere Tyre and Ilion saw their towers arise, Or Memphian pyramids usurp'd the skies, These tribes have forester'd the fruitful zone, Their seats unsettled, and their name unknown. Hesper to this replied: A scanty train, In that far age, approach'd the wide domain; The wide domain, with game and fruitage crown'd, Supplied their food uncultured from the ground. By nature form'd to rove, the humankind, Of freedom fond, will ramble unconfined, Till all the region fills, and rival right Restrains their steps, and bids their force unite; When common safety builds a common cause, Conforms their interest and inspires their laws; By mutual checks their different manners blend, Their fields bloom joyous, and their walls ascend. Here to the vagrant tribes no bounds arose, They form'd no union, as they fear'd no foes; Wandering and wild, from sire to son they stray, A thousand ages, scorning every sway. And what a world their seatless nations led! A total hemisphere around them spread; See the lands lengthen, see the rivers roll, To each far main, to each extended pole!