Sweet sylvan scenes of innocence and ease, How calm and joyous pass the seasons here! No splendid towns or spiry turrets rise, No lordly palaces--no tyrant kings Enact hard laws to crush fair freedom here; No gloomy jails to shut up wretched men; All, all are free!--here God and nature reign; Their works unsullied by the hands of men.-- Ha! what is this--a murder'd wretch I see,[58] His blood yet warm--O hapless islander, Who could have thus so basely mangled thee, Who never offer'd insult to our shore-- Was it for those poor trinkets in your ears Which by the custom of your tribe you wore,-- Now seiz'd away--and which would not have weigh'd One poor piastre! Is this the fruit of my discovery! If the first scene is murder, what shall follow But havock, slaughter, chains and devastation In every dress and form of cruelty! O injur'd Nature, whelm me in the deep, And let not Europe hope for my return, Or guess at worlds upon whose threshold now So black a deed has just been perpetrated!-- We must away--enjoy your woods in peace, Poor, wretched, injur'd, harmless islanders;-- On Hayti's[C] isle you say vast stores are found Of this destructive gold--which without murder Perhaps, we may possess!--away, away! And southward, pilots, seek another isle, Fertile they say, and of immense extent: There we may fortune find without a crime. [C] This island is now called Hispaniola, but is of late recovering its ancient name.--_Freneau's note._ PICTURE XV. Columbus in a Tempest, on his return to Spain