And while they bow to cruelty and blood, Condemn the Indian with his milder god.-- Ah, race to justice, truth, and honour blind, Are thy convictions to convert mankind!-- Vain pride--convince them that your own are just, Or leave them happy, as you found them first. What charm is seen through Europe's realms of strife That adds new blessings to the savage life?-- On them warm suns with equal splendor shine, Their each domestic pleasure equals thine, Their native groves as soft a bloom display, As self-contented roll their lives away, And the gay soul, in fancy's visions blest, Leaves to the care of chance her heaven of rest. What are the arts that rise on Europe's plan But arts destructive to the bliss of man? What are all wars, where'er the marks you trace, But the sad records of our world's disgrace? Reason degraded from her tottering throne, And precepts, called divine, observed by none. Blest in their distance from that bloody scene, Why spread the sail to pass the gulphs between?-- If winds can waft to ocean's utmost verge, And there new islands and new worlds emerge-- If wealth, or war, or science bid thee roam, Ah, leave religion and thy laws at home, Leave the free native to enjoy his store, Nor teach destructive arts, unknown before-- Woes of their own those new found worlds invade, There, too, fierce passions the weak soul degrade, Invention there has winged the unerring dart, There the swift arrow vibrates to the heart. Revenge and death contending bosoms share, And pining envy claims her subjects there. Are these too few?--then see despotic power Spends on a throne of logs her busy hour. Hard by, and half ambitious to ascend, Priests, interceding with the gods, attend-- Atoning victims at their shrines they lay, Their crimson knives tremendous rites display, Or the proud despot's gore remorseless shed. Through life detested, or adored when dead. Born to be wretched, search this globe around, Dupes to a few the race of man is found! Seek some new world in some new climate plac'd, Some gay Ta-ia[A] on the watery waste, Though Nature clothes in all her bright array, Some proud tormentor steals her charms away: Howe'er she smiles beneath those milder skies, Though men decay the monarch never dies! Howe'er the groves, howe'er the gardens bloom, A monarch and a priest is still their doom! [A] Commonly called Otaheite, an island in the Southern Pacific Ocean, noted for the natural civilization of its inhabitants.--_Freneau's note._ [47] The edition of 1786 has the date 1772 for this poem. Very little change was made in the text for the later editions. THE PICTURES OF COLUMBUS, THE GENOESE[48] PICTURE I. Columbus making Maps[A]