The Columbiad: Book Ix Poem Rhyme Scheme

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The Argument	A
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Vision suspended Night scene as contemplated from the mount of vision Columbus inquires the reason of the slow progress of science and its frequent interruptions Hesper answers that all things in the physical as well as the moral and intellectual world are progressive in like manner He traces their progress from the birth of the universe to the present state of the earth and its inhabitants asserts the future advancement of society till perpetual peace shall be established Columbus proposes his doubts alleges in support of them the successive rise and downfal of ancient nations and infers future and periodical convulsions Hesper in answer exhibits the great distinction between the ancient and modern state of the arts and of society Crusades Commerce Hanseatic League Copernicus Kepler Newton Galileo Herschel Descartes Bacon Printing Press Magnetic Needle Geographical discoveries Federal system in America A similar system to be extended over the whole earth Columbus desires a view of this	B
	-
	-
But now had Hesper from the Hero's sight	C
Veil'd the vast world with sudden shades of night	C
Earth sea and heaven where'er he turns his eye	D
Arch out immense like one surrounding sky	D
Lamp'd with reverberant fires The starry train	E
Paint their fresh forms beneath the placid main	E
Fair Cynthia here her face reflected laves	B
Bright Venus gilds again her natal waves	B
The Bear redoubling foams with fiery joles	B
And two dire dragons twine two arctic poles	B
Lights o'er the land from cities lost in shade	F
New constellations new galaxies spread	G
And each high pharos double flames provides	B
One from its fires one fainter from the tides	B
	-
Centred sublime in this bivaulted sphere	H
On all sides void unbounded calm and clear	H
Soft o'er the Pair a lambent lustre plays	B
Their seat still cheering with concentred rays	B
To converse grave the soothing shades invite	C
And on his Guide Columbus fixt his sight	C
Kind messenger of heaven he thus began	I
Why this progressive laboring search of man	I
If men by slow degrees have power to reach	J
These opening truths that long dim ages teach	J
If school'd in woes and tortured on to thought	K
Passion absorbing what experience taught	K
Still thro the devious painful paths they wind	L
And to sound wisdom lead at last the mind	L
Why did not bounteous nature at their birth	M
Give all their science to these sons of earth	M
Pour on their reasoning powers pellucid day	N
Their arts their interests clear as light display	N
That error madness and sectarian strife	O
Might find no place to havock human life	O
	-
To whom the guardian Power To thee is given	P
To hold high converse and inquire of heaven	P
To mark untraversed ages and to trace	B
Whate'er improves and what impedes thy race	B
Know then progressive are the paths we go	Q
In worlds above thee as in thine below	Q
Nature herself whose grasp of time and place	B
Deals out duration and impalms all space	B
Moves in progressive march but where to tend	R
What course to compass how the march must end	R
Her sons decide not yet her works we greet	S
Imperfect in their parts but in their whole complete	S
	-
When erst her hand the crust of Chaos thirl'd	S
And forced from his black breast the bursting world	S
High swell'd the huge existence crude and crass	B
A formless dark impermeated mass	B
No light nor heat nor cold nor moist nor dry	D
But all concocting in their causes lie	D
Millions of periods such as these her spheres	B
Learn since to measure and to call their years	B
She broods the mass then into motion brings	B
And seeks and sorts the principles of things	B
Pours in the attractive and repulsive force	B
Whirls forth her globes in cosmogyral course	B
By myriads and by millions scaled sublime	T
To scoop their skies and curve the rounds of time	T
	-
She groups their systems lots to each his place	B
Strow'd thro immensity and drown'd in space	B
All yet unseen till light at last begun	P
And every system found a centred sun	P
Call'd to his neighbor and exchanged from far	U
His infant gleams with every social star	U
Rays thwarting rays and skies o'erarching skies	B
Robed their dim planets with commingling dyes	B
Hung o'er each heaven their living lamps serene	V
And tinged with blue the frore expanse between	V
Then joyous Nature hail'd the golden morn	W
Drank the young beam beheld her empire born	W
	-
Lo the majestic movement there they trace	B
Their blank infinitudes of time and space	B
Vault with careering curves her central goal	X
Pour forth her day and stud her evening stole	X
Heedless of count their numbers still unknown	Y
Unmeasured still their progress round her throne	Y
For none of all her firstborn sons endow'd	S
With heavenly sapience and pretensions proud	S
No seraph bright whose keen considering eye	D
And sunbeam speed ascend from sky to sky	D
Has yet explored or counted all their spheres	B
Or fixt or found their past record of years	B
Nor can a ray from her remotest sun	P
Shot forth when first their splendid morn begun	P
Borne straight continuous thro the void of space	B
Doubling each thousand years its rapid pace	B
And hither posting yet have reach'd this earth	M
To bring the tidings of its master's birth	M
	-
And mark thy native orb tho later born	W
Tho still unstored with light her silver horn	W
As seen from sister planets who repay	N
Far more than she their borrow'd streams of day	N
Yet what an age her shell rock ribs attest	S
Her sparry spines her coal encumber'd breast	S
Millions of generations toil'd and died	S
To crust with coral and to salt her tide	S
And millions more ere yet her soil began	I
Ere yet she form'd or could have nursed her man	I
	-
Then rose the proud phenomenon the birth	M
Most richly wrought the favorite child of earth	M
But frail at first his frame with nerves ill strung	Z
Unform'd his footsteps long untoned his tongue	Z
Unhappy unassociate unrefined	S
Unfledged the pinions of his lofty mind	S
He wander'd wild to every beast a prey	N
More prest with wrants and feebler far than they	N
For countless ages forced from place to place	B
Just reproduced but scarce preserved his race	B
At last a soil more fixt and streams more sweet	S
Inform the wretched migrant where to seat	S
Euphrates' flowery banks begin to smile	A2
Fruits fringe the Ganges gardens grace the Nile	A2
Nile ribb'd with dikes a length of coast creates	B
And giant Thebes begins her hundred gates	B
Mammoth of human works her grandeur known	Y
These thousand lustres by its wrecks alone	Y
Wrecks that humiliate still all modern states	B
Press the poized earth with their enormous weights	B
Refuse to quit their place dissolve their frame	B2
And trust like Ilion to the bards their fame	B2
Memphis amass'd her piles that still o'erclimb	B2
The clouds of heaven and task the tooth of time	B2
Belus and Brama tame their vagrant throngs	B
And Homer with his monumental songs	B
Builds far more durable his splendid throne	Y
Than all the Pharaohs with their hills of stone	Y
	-
High roll'd the round of years that hung sublime	B2
These wondrous beacons in the night of time	B2
Studs of renown that to thine eyes attest	S
The waste of ages that beyond them rest	S
Ages how fill'd with toils how gloom'd with woes	B
Trod with all steps that man's long march compose	B
Dim drear disastrous ere his foot could gain	E
A height so brilliant o'er the bestial train	E
	-
In those blank periods where no man can trace	B
The gleams of thought that first illumed his race	B
His errors twined with science took their birth	M
And forged their fetters for this child of earth	M
And when as oft he dared expand his view	C2
And work with nature on the line she drew	C2
Some monster gender'd in his fears unmann'd	S
His opening soul and marr'd the works he plann'd	S
Fear the first passion of his helpless state	S
Redoubles all the woes that round him wait	S
Blocks nature's path and sends him wandering wide	S
Without a guardian and without a guide	S
	-
Beat by the storm refr	C2

Joel Barlow

The Columbiad: Book Ix Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

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