COLUMBUS. ( A Print after a Picture by Parmeggiano. ) BY B. Simmons. I. Rise, Victor , from the festive board Flush'd with triumphal wine, And lifting high thy beaming sword, Fired by the flattering Harper's chord, Who hymns thee half divine. Vow at the glutted shrine of Fate That dark-red brand to consecrate! Long, dread, and doubtful was the fray That gives the stars thy name to-day. But all is over; round thee now Fame shouts, spoil pours, and captives bow, No stormier joy can Earth impart, Than thrills in lightning through thy heart. II. Gay Lover , with the soft guitar, Hie to the olive-woods afar, And to thy friend, the listening brook, Alone reveal that raptured look; The maid so long in secret loved-- A parent's angry will removed-- This morning saw betrothEd thine, That Sire the pledge, consenting, blest, Life bright as motes in golden wine, Is dancing in thy breast. III. Statesman astute, the final hour Arrives of long-contested Power; Each crafty wile thine ends to aid, Party and principle betray'd; The subtle speech, the plan profound, Pursued for years, success has crown'd; To-night the Vote upon whose tongue, The nicely-poised Division hung, Was thine--beneath that placid brow What feelings throb exulting now! Thy rival falls;--on grandeur's base Go shake the nations in his place! IV. Fame, Love, Ambition ! what are Ye, With all your wasting passions' war, To the great Strife that, like a sea, O'erswept His soul tumultuously, Whose face gleams on me like a star-- A star that gleams through murky clouds-- As here begirt by struggling crowds A spell-bound Loiterer I stand, Before a print-shop in the Strand? What are your eager hopes and fears Whose minutes wither men like years-- Your schemes defeated or fulfill'd, To the emotions dread that thrill'd His frame on that October night, When, watching by the lonely mast, He saw on shore the moving light , And felt, though darkness veil'd the sight, The long-sought World was his at last? A V. How Fancy's boldest glances fail, Contemplating each hurrying mood Of thought that to that aspect pale Sent up the heart's o'erboiling flood Through that vast vigil, while his eyes Watch'd till the slow reluctant skies Should kindle, and the vision dread, Of all his livelong years be read! In youth, his faith-led spirit doom'd Still to be baffled and betray'd, His manhood's vigorous noon consumed Ere Power bestow'd its niggard aid; That morn of summer, dawning grey, B When, from Huelva's humble bay, He full of hope, before the gale Turn'd on the hopeless World his sail, And steer'd for seas untrack'd, unknown, And westward still sail'd on--sail'd on-- Sail'd on till Ocean seem'd to be All shoreless as Eternity, Till, from its long-loved Star estranged, At last the constant Needle changed, C And fierce amid his murmuring crew Prone terror into treason grew; While on his tortured spirit rose, More dire than portents, toils, or foes, The awaiting World's loud jeers and scorn Yell'd o'er his profitless Return; No--none through that dark watch may trace The feelings wild beneath whose swell, As heaves the bark the billows' race, His Being rose and fell! Yet over doubt, and pride, and pain, O'er all that flash'd through breast and brain, As with those grand, immortal eyes He stood--his heart on fire to know When morning next illumed the skies, What wonders in its light should glow-- O'er all one thought must, in that hour, Have sway'd supreme--Power, conscious Power-- The lofty sense that Truths conceived, And born of his own starry mind, And foster'd into might, achieved A new Creation for mankind! And when from off that ocean calm The Tropic's dusky curtain clear'd, All those green shores and banks of balm And rosy-tinted hills appear'd Silent and bright as Eden, ere Earth's breezes shook one blossom there-- Against that hour's proud tumult weigh'd, Love, Fame, Ambition , how ye fade! VI. Thou Luther of the darken'd Deep! Nor less intrepid, too, than He Whose courage broke Earth's bigot sleep Whilst thine unbarr'd the Sea -- Like his, 'twas thy predestined fate Against your grin benighted age, With all its fiends of Fear and Hate, War, single-handed war, to wage, And live a conqueror, too, like him, Till Time's expiring lights grow dim! O, Hero of my boyish heart! Ere from thy pictured looks I part, My mind's maturer reverence now

A October 11, 1492.—“As the evening darkened, Columbus took his station on the top of the castle or cabin, on the high poop of his vessel. However he might carry a cheerful and confident countenance during the day, it was to him a time of the most painful anxiety; and now, when he was wrapped from observation by the shades of night, he maintained an intense and unremitting watch, ranging his eye along the dusky horizon in search of the most vague indications of land. Suddenly, about ten o’clock, he thought he beheld a light glimmering at a distance. Fearing that his eager hopes might deceive him, he called to Pedro Gutierrez, gentleman of the king’s bedchamber, and enquired whether he saw a light in that direction; the latter replied in the affirmative. Columbus, yet doubtful whether it might not be some delusion of the fancy, called Rodrigo Sanchez of Segovia, and made the same enquiry. By the time the latter had ascended the roundhouse, the light had disappeared. They saw it once or twice afterwards in sudden and passing gleams, as if it were a torch in the bark of a fisherman rising and sinking with the waves, or in the hand of some person on shore, borne up and down as he walked from house to house. So transient and uncertain were these gleams, that few attached any importance to them; Columbus, however, considered them as certain signs of land, and, moreover, that the land was inhabited.”—Irving’s Columbus, vol. i.