Strong characters upon the eternal rock,
Furrowing the brow that holdeth speech with thee.
Musing beneath yon awful cliffs, the soul,
That brief shell-gatherer on the shore of time,
Feels as a brother to the drop that hangs
One moment trembling on thy crest, and sinks
Into the bosom of the boundless wave.
—And see, outspreading her broad, silver scroll,
Forth comes the moon, that meek ambassador,
Bearing Heaven's message to the mighty surge.
Yet he, who listeneth to its hoarse reply,
Echoing in anger through the channel'd depths,
Will deem its language all too arrogant,
And Earth's best dialect too poor to claim
Benignant notice from the star-pav'd skies,
And man too pitiful, to lift himself
In the frail armor of his moth-crush'd pride,
Amid o'ershadowing Nature's majesty.
THE CONQUERORS OF SPAIN.
"There are still found in South America, some of the first conquerors of the New-World, who at the commencement of the sixteenth century, in searching for the rich mines that had been described to them, took a long and circuitous route among the mountains of Peru, and perished by the cold, which at once petrified and preserved them."
Bomare.
Why choose ye out such dizzy height
Amid yon drear domain,
Your ice-bound cell forever white,
Ye haughty men of Spain?
