High in renown th' intrepid hero stands, From Europe's shores advent'ring first to try New seas, new oceans, unexplor'd by man. Fam'd Cabot too may claim our noblest song, Who from th' Atlantic surge decry'd these shores, As on he coasted from the Mexic bay To Acady and piny Labradore. Nor less than him the muse would celebrate Bold Hudson stemming to the pole, thro' seas Vex'd with continual storms, thro' the cold straits, Where Europe and America oppose Their shores contiguous, and the northern sea Confin'd, indignant, swells and roars between. With these be number'd in the list of fame Illustrious Raleigh, hapless in his fate: Forgive me, Raleigh, if an infant muse Borrows thy name to grace her humble strain; By many nobler are thy virtues sung; Envy no more shall throw them in the shade; They pour new lustre on Britannia's isle. Thou too, advent'rous on th' Atlantic main, Burst thro' its storms and fair Virginia hail'd, The simple natives saw thy canvas flow, And gaz'd aloof upon the shady shore: For in her woods America contain'd, From times remote, a savage race of men. How shall we know their origin, how tell, From whence or where the Indian tribes arose? ACASTO And long has this defy'd the sages skill T'investigate: Tradition seems to hide The mighty secret from each mortal eye, How first these various nations South and North Possest these shores, or from what countries came; Whether they sprang from some premoeval head In their own lands, like Adam in the East; Yet this the sacred oracles deny, And reason too reclaims against the thought. For when the gen'ral deluge drown'd the world, Where could their tribes have found security? Where find their fate but in the ghastly deep? Unless, as others dream, some chosen few High on the Andes 'scap'd the gen'ral death, High on the Andes, wrapt in endless snow, Where winter in his wildest fury reigns. But here Philosophers oppose the scheme, The earth, say they, nor hills nor mountains knew E'er yet the universal flood prevail'd: But when the mighty waters rose aloft, Rous'd by the winds, they shook their solid case And in convulsions tore the drowned world! 'Till by the winds assuag'd they quickly fell And all their ragged bed exposed to view. Perhaps far wand'ring towards the northern pole, The straits of Zembla and the Frozen Zone, And where the eastern Greenland almost joins America's north point, the hardy tribes Of banish'd Jews, Siberians, Tartars wild Came over icy mountains, or on floats First reach'd these coasts hid from the world beside. And yet another argument more strange Reserv'd for men of deeper thought and late Presents Itself to view: In Peleg's days, So says the Hebrew seer's inspired pen, This mighty mass of earth, this solid globe Was cleft in twain--cleft east and west apart While strait between the deep Atlantic roll'd.