But come, Eugenio, since we know the past-- What hinders to pervade with searching eye The mystic scenes of dark futurity? 335 Say, shall we ask what empires yet must rise, What kingdoms, powers and states, where now are seen Mere dreary wastes and awful solitude, Where Melancholy sits, with eye forlorn, And time anticipates, when we shall spread 340 Dominion from the north, and south, and west, Far from the Atlantic to Pacific shores, And people half the convex of the main!-- A glorious theme!--but how shall mortals dare To pierce the dark events of future years 345 And scenes unravel, only known to fate? This might we do, if warmed by that bright coal Snatch'd from the altar of cherubic fire Which touched Isaiah's lips--or if the spirit Of Jeremy and Amos, prophets old, 350 Might swell the heaving breast--I see, I see Freedom's established reign; cities, and men, Numerous as sands upon the ocean shore, And empires rising where the sun descends!-- The Ohio soon shall glide by many a town 355 Of note; and where the Mississippi stream, By forests shaded, now runs weeping on, Nations shall grow, and states not less in fame Than Greece and Rome of old!--we too shall boast Our Scipios, Solons, Catos, sages, chiefs 360 That in the lap of time yet dormant lie, Waiting the joyous hour of life and light.-- O snatch me hence, ye muses, to those days When, through the veil of dark antiquity, A race shall hear of us as things remote, 365 That blossomed in the morn of days.--Indeed, How could I weep that we exist so soon, Just in the dawning of these mighty times, Whose scenes are painting for eternity! Dissentions that shall swell the trump of fame, 370 And ruin hovering o'er all monarchy! _Eugenio_