Page:Poems (Bryant, 1821).djvu/30



Look now abroad—another race has fill’d

These populous borders—wide the wood recedes,

And towns shoot up, and fertile realms are till’d;

The land is full of harvests and green meads;

Streams numberless, that many a fountain feeds,

Shine, disembower’d, and give to sun and breeze

Their virgin waters; the full region leads

New colonies forth, that toward the western seas

Spread, like a rapid flame among the autumnal trees.

Here the free spirit of mankind at length

Throws its last fetters off; and who shall place

A limit to the giant’s unchained strength,

Or curb his swiftness in the forward race.

Far, like the comet’s way through infinite space,

Stretches the long untravell’d path of light

Into the depths of ages: we may trace,

Afar, the brightening glory of its flight,

Till the receding rays are lost to human sight.