The poems of Philip Freneau. Written chiefly during the late war.

STANZAS ON The EMIGRATION to AMERICA, and peopling the Western Country.

17••5.

TO western woods, and lonely plains, Pal••mon from the crowd departs, Where nature's wildest genius reigns, To tame the soil, and plant the arts— What wonders there shall freedom show, What mighty States successive grow!

From Europe's proud, despotic shores Hither the stranger takes his way, And in our new found world explores A happier soil, a milder sway, Where no proud despot holds him down, No slaves insult him with a crown.

What charming scenes attract the eye, On wild Ohio's savage stream▪ Here nature reigns, whose works outvie The boldest pattern art can frame; Here ages past have roll'd away, And forests bloom'd—but to decay.

From these fair plains, these rural sea••s, So long conceal'd, so lately known, The unsocial Indian far retreats, To make some other clime his own, Where other streams, less pleasing, flow, And darker forests round him grow.

Great Sire of floods! whose varied wave * 1.1 Through clime•• and countries takes its way, To whom creating nature gave Ten thousand stre••••s to swell thy sway! No longer shall they useless prove, Nor idly through the forests r••••e;

Nor longer shall thy princely flood From distant lakes be swell'd in vain, Nor longer through a darksome wood Advance, unnotic'd, to the main, Far other ends the fates decree— And commerce plans new freights for thee.

While virtue warms the generous breast, Here heaven-born freedom shall reside, Nor shall the voice of war molest, Nor Europe's all-aspiring pride— Here reason shall new laws devise, And order from confusion rise.

Forsaking kings and regal state, (A debt that reason deems amiss) The traveller owns, convinc'd though late, No realm so free, so blest as this—

The eas•• is half to slaves consign'd, And half to slavery more refin'd.

O come the time, and haste the day, When man shall man no longer crush, When reason shall enforce her sway, Nor these fair regions raise our blush, Where still the African complains, And mourns his yet unbroken chains.

Far brighter scenes, a future age, The muse predicts, these States shall hail, Whose genius shall the world engage, Whose deeds shall over death prevail, And happier systems bring to view Than all the eastern sages know.

Notes

• * 1.1

  [Missisippi.