Even to the perfecting thyself--thy kind—
Till meet for that sublime beatitude,

By the firm promise of a voice from heaven
Pledged to the pure in heart!

WITH all that's ours, together let us rise,

Seek brighter plains, and more indulgent skies;

Where fair Ohio rolls his amber tide,

And Nature blossoms in her virgin pride;

Where all that Beauty's hand can form to please
Shall crown the toils of war with rural ease.
The shady coverts and the sunny hills,
The gentle lapse of ever-murmuring rills,
The soft repose amid the noontide bowers,
The evening walk among the blushing flowers,
The fragrant groves, that yield a sweet perfume,
And vernal glories in perpetual bloom,
Await you there; and Heaven shall bless the toil.
Your own the produce, and your own the soil.

There, free from envy, cankering care, and strife,
Flow the calm pleasures of domestic life;
There mutual friendship soothes each placid breast:
Blest in themselves, and in each other blest.
From house to house the social glee extends,
For friends in war, in peace are doubly friends.

There cities rise, and spiry towns increase, With gilded domes and every art of peace. There Cultivation shall extend his power,

Rear the green blade, and nurse the tender flower; Make the fair villa in full splendours smile,

And robe with verdure all the genial soil.

There shall rich Commerce court the favouring gales,
And wondering wilds admire the passing sails,
Where the bold ships the stormy Huron brave,
Where wild Ontario rolls the whitening wave,
Where fair Ohio his pure current pours,
And Mississippi laves the extended shores.
And thou Supreme! whose hand sustains this ball,
Before whose nod the nations rise and fall,
Propitious smile, and shed diviner charms
On this blest land, the queen of arts and arms;
Make the great empire rise on wisdom's plan,
The seat of bliss, and last retreat of man.

Joel Barlow.

THE HASTY PUDDING.

(1793.)

CANTO I.

E Alps audacious, through the heavens that rise,

YE

Το cramp the day and hide me from the skies; Ye Gallic flags, that, o'er their heights unfurled, Bear death to kings and freedom to the world, I sing not you. A softer theme I choose, A virgin theme, unconscious of the muse,

But fruitful, rich, well suited to inspire
The purest frenzy of poetic fire.

Despise it not, ye bards to terror steeled,
Who hurl your thunders round the epic field;
Nor ye who strain your midnight throats to sing.
Joys that the vineyard and the stillhouse bring;
Or on some distant fair your notes employ,
And speak of raptures that you ne'er enjoy.
I sing the sweets I know, the charms I feel,
My morning incense, and my evening meal,-
The sweets of Hasty Pudding. Come, dear bowl,
Glide o'er my palate, and inspire my soul.
l'he milk beside thee, smoking from the kine,
Its substance mingled, married in with thine,
Shall cool and temper thy superior heat,
And save the pains of blowing while I eat.

Oh, could the smooth, the emblematic song
Flow like thy genial juices o'er my tongue,
Could those mild morsels in my numbers chime,
And, as they roll in substance, roll in rhyme,
No more thy awkward, unpoetic name
Should shun the muse or prejudice thy fame;
But, rising grateful to the accustomed ear,
All bards should catch it, and all realms revere !
Assist me first with pious toil to trace
Through wrecks of Time thy lineage and thy race;
Dec are what lovely squaw, in days of yore
(Ere great Columbus sought thy native shore),
First gave thee to the world; her works of fame
Have lived indeed, but lived without a name.
Some tawny Ceres, goddess of her days,

First learned with stones to crack the well-dried maize,

Through the rough sieve to shake the golden shower,
In boiling water stir the yellow flour:

The yellow flour, bestrewed and stirred with haste,
Swells in the flood and thickens to a paste,

Then puffs and wallops, rises to the brim,
Drinks the dry knobs that on the surface swim;
The knobs at last the busy ladle breaks,

And the whole mass its true consistence takes.
Could but her sacred name, unknown so long,
Rise, like her labours, to the son of song,
To her, to them, I'd consecrate my lays,
And blow her pudding with the breath of praise.
Not through the rich Peruvian realms aione
The fame of Sol's sweet daughter should be known,
But o'er the world's wide clime should live secure,
Far as his rays extend, as long as they endure.

Dear Hasty Pudding, what unpromised joy Expands my heart, to meet thee in Savoy! Doomed o'er the world through devious paths to roam, Each clime my country, and each house my home, My soul is soothed, my cares have found an end I greet my long-lost, unforgotten friend.

For thee through Paris, that corrupted town, How long in vain I wandered up and down, Where shameless Bacchus, with his drenching hoard, Cold from his cave usurps the morning board London is lost in smoke and steeped in tea; No Yankee there can lisp the name of thee; The uncouth word, libel on the town, Would call a proclamation from the crown. For climes oblique, that fear the sun's full rays, Chilled in their fogs, exclude the generous maize :

A grain whose rich, luxuriant growth requires
Short, gentle showers, and bright ethereal fires.

But here, though distant from our native shore,
With mutual glee, we meet and laugh once more.
The same! I know thee by that yellow face,
That strong complexion of true Indian race,
Which time can never change, nor soil impair,
Nor Alpine snows, nor Turkey's morbid air;
For endless years, through every mild domain,
Where grows the maize, there thou art sure to reign.
But man, more fickle, the bold license claims,
In different realms to give thee different names.
Thee the soft nations round the warm Levant
Polanta call; the French, of course, Polante.
E'en in thy native regions, how I blush
To hear the Pennsylvanians call thee Mush!
On Hudson's banks, while men of Belgic spawn
Insult and eat thee by the name Suppawn.
All spurious appellations, void of truth;
I've better known thee from my earliest youth:
Thy name is HASTY PUDDING! thus our sires
Were wont to greet thee fuming from the fires;
And while they argued in thy just defence
With logic clear, they thus explained the sense:
"In haste the boiling cauldron, o'er the blaze,
Receives and cooks the ready-powdered maize;
In haste 'tis served, and then in equal haste,
With cooling milk, we make the sweet repast.
No carving to be done, no knife to grate
The tender ear and wound the stony plate;
But the smooth spoon, just fitted to the lip,
And taught with art the yielding mass to dip,