e my hope. It was not much--
Nay, had it been your all, was it not well
To wreck your fortune on a hope sublime?
And, Merchants! The brave chance; a small outlay,
And income inconceivable! You chose.
My stately Spain was wiser. So much gold,
A little fleet,--some sailors--leaders known--
If not investment, speculation safe,
The honor of the enterprise, and chance--
Always the siren chance--Spain risked and won,
And Genoa lost a world.
Sir Advocate!
I understand your meaning; it were hard
Fame drafts upon the Future should be paid
Ere present recognition! 'Twere unjust
That hope unhazarded in act, were crowned
With the same coronal that crowns success.
The starving mariner upon your shore--
The riddle of the West unsolved--stood not
In the same light to set his worthiness,
As when an unimagined Future streamed
All over him in glory. Yet he stood
In that light lonely, as in the old dark,
Lonely, but looking to that light for life.
Spring-pinioned Hope impetuously flew,
And saw, through the deep Future shedding balm,
His fame a tree in flower.
If that were all?
If in his vision of America
He saw but Christopher made famous? Look!
Not for himself; but for that martyr, Thought,
Which struggles fainting in a foolish world,
To ope a gate to wisdom, his heart swelled
When his fixed eye beheld his soul's belief
Fulfilled in Western twilight. Thou my land!
Shalt thunder to the ages evermore
That dreams and hopes are holy. Thou shalt still
The croaking voice of souls that shake at dawn,
Loving the dimness of their own decay,--
The lone desire, entreaty and despair,
The wasting weariness that breeds disgust,
All woes but Doubt that, wasp-like, stings Hope back,
There are ye justified. And never Time
Goldening this page can slip its moral too:
And never Thought, loving this sweet success,
But still shall love its own wild dreams the more.
And still shall brighter gild all skiey peaks
Of noble daring, with this perfect day.
Regard your leisure with my monument,
My Genoese, for centuries to be
Will yet retain Its reason as to day.
There, where my hope was builded, stands my Fame,
The youngest children of the youngest race.
The wide worlds heritors, arch-heirs of Time,
Pronounce my name with reverence, and call
Your sometime outcast, Father. Be it so.
Andrea's palace claims repairs perhaps,