He saw the restless Tartar, proud to roam, Move with his herds and pitch a transient home; Tibet's long tracts and China's fixt domain, Dull as their despots, yield their cultured grain; Cambodia, Siam, Asia's myriad isles And old Indostan, with their wealthy spoils Attract adventures masters, and o'ershade Their sunbright ocean with the wings of trade. Arabian robbers, Syrian Kurds combined, Create their deserts and infest mankind; The Turk's dim Crescent, like a day-struck star, As Russia's Eagle shades their haunts of war, Shrinks from insulted Europe, who divide The shatter'd empire to the Pontic tide. He mark'd impervious Afric, where alone She lies encircled with the verdant zone That lines her endless coast, and still sustains Her northern pirates and her eastern swains, Mourns her interior tribes purloined away, And chain'd and sold beyond Atlantic day. Brazilla's wilds, Mackensie's savage lands With bickering strife inflame their furious bands; Atlantic isles and Europe's cultured shores Heap their vast wealth, exchange their growing stores, All arts inculcate, new discoveries plan, Tease and torment but school the race of man. While his own federal states, extending far, Calm their brave sons now breathing from the war, Unfold their harbors, spread their genial soil, And welcome freemen to the cheerful toil.
A sight so solemn, as it varied sound, Fill'd his fond heart with reveries profound; He felt the infinitude of thoughts that pass And guide and govern that enormous mass. The cares that agitate, the creeds that blind, The woes that waste the many-master'd kind, The distance great that still remains to trace, Ere sober sense can harmonize the race, Held him suspense, imprest with reverence meek, And choked his utterance as he wish'd to speak: When Hesper thus: The paths they here pursue, Wide as they seem unfolding to thy view, Show but a point in that long circling course Which cures their weakness and confirms their force, Lends that experience which alone can close The scenes of strife, and give the world repose. Yet here thou seest the same progressive plan That draws for mutual succour man to man, From twain to tribe, from tribe to realm dilates, In federal union groups a hundred states, Thro all their turns with gradual scale ascends, Their powers; their passions and their interest blends; While growing arts their social virtues spread, Enlarge their compacts and unlock their trade; Till each remotest clan, by commerce join'd, Links in the chain that binds all humankind, Their bloody banners sink in darkness furl'd, And one white flag of peace triumphant walks the world.