The Hero spoke; when thus the Saint rejoin'd, Approved his joy, and feasted still his mind: Well may thy voice, with patriarch pride elate, Burst forth triumphant at a scene so great; Here springs indeed the day, since time began, The brightest, broadest, happiest morn of man. In these prime settlements thy raptures trace The germ, the genius of a sapient race, Predestined here to methodise and mould New codes of empire to reform the old. A work so vast a second world required, By oceans bourn'd, from elder states retired; Where, uncontaminated, unconfined, Free contemplation might expand the mind, To form, fix, prove the well-adjusted plan, And base and build the commonwealth of man. This arm, that leads the stellar host of even, That stretch'd o'er yon rude ridge the western heaven, That heal'd the wounded earth, when from her side The moon burst forth, and left the South Sea tide, That calm'd these elements, and taught them where To mould their mass and rib the crusted sphere, Line the closed continent with wrecks of life, And recommence their generating strife, That rear'd the mountain, spread the subject plain, Led the long stream and roll'd the billowy main, Stole from retiring tides the growing strand, Heaved the green banks, the shadowy inlets plann'd, Strow'd the wild fruitage, gave the beast his place, And form'd the region for thy filial race,-- This arm prepared their future seats of state, Design'd their limits and prescribed their date. When first the staggering globe its breach repair'd, And this bold hemisphere its shoulders rear'd, Back to those heights, whose hovering vapor shrouds My rock-raised world in Alleganian clouds, The Atlantic waste its coral kingdom spread, And scaly nations here their gambols led; Till by degrees, thro following tracts of time, From laboring ocean rose the sedgy clime, As from unloaded waves the rising sand Swell'd into light and gently drew to land. For, moved by trade winds o'er the flaming zone, The waves roll westward with the constant sun, Meet my firm isthmus, scoop that gulphy bed, Wheel to the north, and here their current spread. Those ravaged banks, that move beneath their force, Borne on the tide and lost along their course, Create the shore, consolidate the soil. And hither lead the enlighten'd steps of toil.