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The vineyard along the coast costs dearly.

Sicilian proverbs
Added by Lucian Velea
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Coast 2 Coast

I met a girl named hip hop in seventy eight
Hollis Queens New York gave us our first date
man she broke me off proper yo the girl was fast
and everybody kept telling me it would not last
cause ain't no women in the world supposed to be that sweet
and ya just can't trust a hot chick from the street
I could tell she had been through lots of struggle and strife
but yet in still she'd been with me over half of my life
born key Jeff Taylor took me into his home
and intrduced me to some tables and a microphone
hip hop talked to me told me take your time
at the age of eleven I bust my first rhyme
block partys in the day house partys at night
just about one year before Rapper's Delight
everybody in the crew called to make a request
cause rap's on the radio and hip-hop was blessed
didn't go to many clubs I wasn't old enough
And if it try to sneak it out my folks is scolding up
but I still do anything to get on stage
and once I got a club gig I lied about my age
just a couple blocks away was the Hollis crew
Run and them used to rock at one ninety two
up the street was a crew called Solo Sounds
where Davey D and Mex used to throw it down
man I wouldn't trade rap for anything in the world
hip hop meant more to me than diamonds and pearls
and I still reminicse to this very day
and I remember those words hip hop would say
(Do you have love for the east coast?)
yes I do
(the hip hop on the east coast?)
yeah that's true
from the 'yes yes y'all' to 'and you don't stop'
east coast played a role in making a hip hop
(Do you have love for the east coast?)
yeah that's right
(the hip hop on the east coast?)
yeah that's tight
from the 'yes yes y'all' to 'and you don't stop'
east coast played a role in making a hip hop
now I gotta get busy time to make that move
high school over with gotta sho' improve
got college on the coast and I'm makin' plans
so hip hip went and told me go west young man
it was a different kind of style but I liked the sound
everybody in the house gauranteed to get down
I did the casa skateland word on wheels
and the crazy crazy world of the record deal
K-day was the station that played my song
I got love from the people it's a shame they gone

[...] Read more

song performed by Young MC
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Back To The Coast

West coast, try outs
You've got to make it before you die out
New York is the hard way
Time to pack it up and get to L.A.
If you want to be a star get back to the coast
Back to the coast
You're gonna make it real far so get back to the coast
Back to the coast
My way is the sky way
Ain't got no time for the highway
I've got to get to the coast, fast as I can
Get to L.A. we'll be the number one band
If you want to be a star get back to the coast
Back to the coast
You're gonna make it real far so get back to the coast
Back to the coast (come on)
You've got to get on back (get back)
If you want to be a star get back to the coast
Back to the coast
You're gonna make it real far so get back to the coast
Back to the coast
I say back back back back back, back to the coast
Oooo, yeah get back back back back back, back to the coast
Whoa yeah
If you want to be a star get back to the coast
Back to the coast
You're gonna make it real far so get back to the coast
Back to the coast (oh, get on back), back to the coast

song performed by Quiet Riot
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The Last Farewell

(words & music by roger whittaker - r.a. webster)
Theres a ship lies rigged and ready in the harbor
Tomorrow for old england she sails
Far away from your land of endless sunshine
To my land full of rainy skies and gales
And I shall be aboard that ship tomorrow
Though my heart is full of tears at this farewell
For you are beautiful, I have loved you dearly
More dearly than the spoken word can tell
For you are beautiful, I have loved you dearly
More dearly than the spoken word can tell
Ive heard theres a wicked war a-blazing
And the taste of war I know so very well
Even now I see the foreign flag a-raising
Their guns on fire as we sail into hell
I have no fear of death, it brings no sorrow
But how bitter will be this last farewell
For you are beautiful, I have loved you dearly
More dearly than the spoken word can tell
For you are beautiful, I have loved you dearly
More dearly than the spoken word can tell
Though death and darkness gather all about me
My ship be torn apart upon the seas
I shall smell again the fragrance of these islands
And the heaving waves that brought me once to thee
And should I return home safe again to england
I shall watch the english mist roll through the dale
For you are beautiful, I have loved you dearly
More dearly than the spoken word can tell
For you are beautiful, I have loved you dearly
More dearly than the spoken word can tell

song performed by Elvis Presley
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The Coast Remains

Mythical treasured inheritance...
Nourish vibrant individuals.
Dwell in beauty bred remain
sustain voyagers noble just free
crossing quest far foreign sea.
The Coast Remain abide in me.

Your spectral images flow
like coast hearts of gold
from thee to gratified me.
Reflecting moods of seasons...
boiling to storm torn surf.
Calming as mountain lakes.
Still serene tranquility.

I've walked through
your kaleidoscope of mountainous
images, among adrenaline peaks,
to your subtropical rain forests.
Passing solitary mist moss gilded
light filled transcendent rapture trees.

Over sparkling creeks I oft stepped,
my surge spirit moving on to shores.
Out over vast ghostly loneliness
of home wave running Tasman Sea.

Your youth now fled
in torrents like flash floods
across far distant seas.
Lost to adventure appeal gaze
of quest distant horizons.

Images of beauty held close.
Are soul spirit nurture digested
as appeasing native cuttings
saplings urgently growth viewed
as economy down turn swings.

Sending employment eager hosts
rushing forth like bone-soaking
coastal torrential cloudbursts.
Our fair youth to ideas fertilize
other spirit alien parched shores
to enrich other cultures peoples.

In shrine still eternal coastal beauty
are imbued child ambassadors remember,
coast birth seeded venture children
afar apart from rib mystical revered thee.

[...] Read more

poem by Terence George Craddock
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Loose Talk Costs Lives

(b gibb)
Loose talk costs lives
People like to play
Were basically the same
We never lie
Loose talk costs lives
Dont look at me as if you dont remember me at all
There was laughter, there was pain
But I wont make the same mistakes I made
You are too beautiful to me
I hide my tears inside the rain
Am I the soul you cast your spell upon
I had control and now its gone
Or are you someone who controls my heart and mind
And I will never say a word
And I will never say goodbye
Loose talk costs lives
People like to play
Were basically the same
We never lie
Loose talk costs lives
I can see that someone hung a sign around your heart
And it reads do not return
And there is so much trouble I could cause
Someone as beautiful as you
You can feel my candle burn
And I still recall some starry night
We had it all, we held on tight
I promised I would come to you and catch you if you fall
And they will never know about us
For just one moment you were mine
Loose talk costs lives
People like to play
Were basically the same
We never lie
Loose talk costs lives
For just one moment, just one moment, you were mine
Loose talk costs lives
(our moment held in time)
People like to play
Were basically the same
We never lie
Loose talk costs lives
Loose talk costs lives
People like to play
Were basically the same
We never lie
Loose talk costs lives

song performed by Bee Gees
Added by Lucian Velea
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An Invitation Back to the Vineyard

Forever was the vesper's smile
Like in a nightmare's mist
An eerie breathing hiss
A servile guise striding along
The strife to escalate living
Throttling the abeyance of breath
With the red hands of gaiety
But the vineyard had no eyes
To witness this profound debauchery
So the trample cat-walked leisurely

Amidst the garden's cloak, I
Reckon with these ancient eyes
The dark that loiters in ubiquity
Under the nubile and florid light
Of the moon's chaste flourishing
Brewing the concoction of
A rose-wine dance of fire
And the whiffs of haughty ivy
Lost in the ghastly mangrove
My vision in an agog pirouette

And in this dour soliloquy stood
A sentry warding off the caterwauls
Endeavoring to disentangle from
The yards' saccharine and agonizing grope
A fiendish comrade that never abandons
Until I moseyed farther from the yard
Where the roots are buried at my feet,
The vines of eloquent wisps are spangling
Like lynches under the moonbeam
In a knot of vehement condensing,
The redolence is preposterously resilient
In a loop of melancholic bitter-sweetness;
Tongue in cheek: steadfast yet flimsy

Cobwebs drifted with an insidious sheen
Tranquilizing the lamp with shrills of fear
But this sentry fire I had held like my skin
That drove the shadows of the vineyard
Back into the cradle, the valley of dying stars
Spits scorches to the cognizance and fraternity
Of the shackles that tethered me here
In this feigned state of inebriation
And splintered me from the vineyard
Where my bones bloomed in desiccation,
Closer and closer, the vineyard closes in

Safe and sound from the horrors
Of the vineyard's myths and lore

[...] Read more

poem by Norman Santos
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Solomon

As thro' the Psalms from theme to theme I chang'd,
Methinks like Eve in Paradice I rang'd;
And ev'ry grace of song I seem'd to see,
As the gay pride of ev'ry season, she.
She gently treading all the walks around,
Admir'd the springing beauties of the ground,
The lilly glist'ring with the morning dew,
The rose in red, the violet in blew,
The pink in pale, the bells in purple rows,
And tulips colour'd in a thousand shows:
Then here and there perhaps she pull'd a flow'r
To strew with moss, and paint her leafy bow'r;
And here and there, like her I went along,
Chose a bright strain, and bid it deck my song.

But now the sacred Singer leaves mine eye,
Crown'd as he was, I think he mounts on high;
Ere this Devotion bore his heav'nly psalms,
And now himself bears up his harp and palms.
Go, saint triumphant, leave the changing sight,
So fitted out, you suit the realms of light;
But let thy glorious robe at parting go,
Those realms have robes of more effulgent show;
It flies, it falls, the flutt'ring silk I see,
Thy son has caught it and he sings like thee,
With such election of a theme divine,
And such sweet grace, as conquers all but thine.

Hence, ev'ry writer o'er the fabled streams,
Where frolick fancies sport with idle dreams,
Or round the sight enchanted clouds dispose,
Whence wanton cupids shoot with gilded bows;
A nobler writer, strains more brightly wrought,
Themes more exulted, fill my wond'ring thought:
The parted skies are track'd with flames above,
As love descends to meet ascending love;
The seasons flourish where the spouses meet,
And earth in gardens spreads beneath their feet.
This fresh-bloom prospect in the bosom throngs,
When Solomon begins his song of songs,
Bids the rap'd soul to Lebanon repair,
And lays the scenes of all his action there,
Where as he wrote, and from the bow'r survey'd
The scenting groves, or answ'ring knots he made,
His sacred art the sights of nature brings,
Beyond their use, to figure heav'nly things.

Great son of God! whose gospel pleas'd to throw
Round thy rich glory, veils of earthly show,
Who made the vineyard oft thy church design,

[...] Read more

poem by Thomas Parnell
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Coast To Coast

Last stop for a resolution
End of the line, is it confusion?
So go. Go see whats there for you
Nothing new, nothing new for you to use
I've got no new act to amuse you
I've got no desire to use you, you know
But anything that I could do, would never be good enough for you
If you can't help it then just leave it alone
Leave it alone, yeah, just forget it
It's really easy
I believe I'll forget it too
Still you're keepin' me around
Til I finally drag us both down
Streaming feathers out your hat
Yes I believe that's where it's at
You belong tagging along
And I belong in your zoo
So I wait for confirmation
That you're never gonna use your starting gun
Unless its me it sounds like being here just wasn't that much fun
Anything that I could do
Would never be good enough for you
If you can't help it then just leave it alone
Leave me alone, yeah, just forget it
It's really easy
I'll just forget it too
Coast to coast, coast to coast
I'll do what I can so you can be what you do
Coast to coast, coast to coast
I'll do everything I can so you can be what you do
Coast to coast, coast to coast
Circuit rider comes every fifth sunday
Oh my lord, I fell asleep one day
Anything that I could do
Is there anything that I could do
That someone doesn't do for you
That someone didn't do for you
That I haven't already done for you

song performed by Elliott Smith
Added by Lucian Velea
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Pearl

Pearl of delight that a prince doth please
To grace in gold enclosed so clear,
I vow that from over orient seas
Never proved I any in price her peer.
So round, so radiant ranged by these,
So fine, so smooth did her sides appear
That ever in judging gems that please
Her only alone I deemed as dear.
Alas! I lost her in garden near:
Through grass to the ground from me it shot;
I pine now oppressed by love-wound drear
For that pearl, mine own, without a spot.

2
Since in that spot it sped from me,
I have looked and longed for that precious thing
That me once was wont from woe to free,
To uplift my lot and healing bring,
But my heart doth hurt now cruelly,
My breast with burning torment sting.
Yet in secret hour came soft to me
The sweetest song I e'er heard sing;
Yea, many a thought in mind did spring
To think that her radiance in clay should rot.
O mould! Thou marrest a lovely thing,
My pearl, mine own, without a spot.

3
In that spot must needs be spices spread
Where away such wealth to waste hath run;
Blossoms pale and blue and red
There shimmer shining in the sun;
No flower nor fruit their hue may shed
Where it down into darkling earth was done,
For all grass must grow from grains that are dead,
No wheat would else to barn be won.
From good all good is ever begun,
And fail so fair a seed could not,
So that sprang and sprouted spices none
From that precious pearl without a spot.

4
That spot whereof I speak I found
When I entered in that garden green,
As August's season high came round
When corn is cut with sickles keen.
There, where that pearl rolled down, a mound
With herbs was shadowed fair and sheen,
With gillyflower, ginger, and gromwell crowned,
And peonies powdered all between.

[...] Read more

poem by Anonymous Olde English
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Dilemma

I love and I need you
Nelly, I love you, I do
Need you
No matter what I do
All I think about is you
Even when Im with my boo
Boy, you know Im crazy over you
No matter what I do
All I think about is you
Even when Im with my boo
You know Im crazy over you
Uh-uh-uh-uh
I met this chick and she just moved right up the block
From me
And she got the hots for me, the finest thing I need
To see
But oh, no, no, she got a man and a son, oh-oh, but
Thats okay
cause I wait for my cue and just listen, play my
Position
Like a shortstop, pick up erything mami hittin
And in no time I better make this friend mine and
Thats for sure
cause i-i never been the type to break up a happy
Home
But theres something bout baby girl, I just cant
Leave her lone
So tell me, ma, whats it gonna be
She said, you dont know what you mean to me, come
On
No matter what I do
All I think about is you
Even when Im with my boo
Boy, you know Im crazy over you
No matter what I do
All I think about is you
Even when Im with my boo
You know Im crazy over you
Uh-uh-uh-uh
I see a lot in your look and I never say a word
I know how n****s start actin trippin , and hate up
All the girls
And theres no way nelly go for it
Aint f***in with no dame, as you could see
But i-i like your steeze, your style, your whole
Demeanor
The way you come through and holler, and swoop me in
His two-seater
Now thats gangsta and I got special ways to thank ya,
Dont you forget it

[...] Read more

song performed by Nelly
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The Coast

A family of musicians took shelter for the night
In the little harbor church of st. cecilia
Two guitars, bata, bass drum and tambourine
Rose of jericho and bougainvillea
This is a lonely life
Sorrows everywhere you turn
And thats worth something
When you think about it
Thats worth some money
Thats worth something
When you think about it
That is worth some money
A trip to the market
A trip into the pearl gray morning sunlight
That settles over washington
A trip to the market
A trip around the world
Where the evening meal
Is negotiable, if there is one.
This is a lonely-lone, lonely life
Sorrows everywhere you turn
And thats worth something
When you think about it
Thats worth some money
Thats worth something
When you think about it
That is worth some money
To prove that I love you
Because I believe in you
Summer skies, stars are falling
All along the injured coast
If I have money
If I have children
Summer skies, stars are falling
All along the injured coast
Oo-wah oo-wah doo-wop a doo-wah
Summer skies and stars are falling
All along the injured coast
Oo-wah oo-wah doo-wop a doo-wah
Summer skies and the stars are falling
All along the injured coast
We are standing in the sunlight
The early morning sunlight
In the harbor church of st. cecilia
To praise a souls returning to the earth
To the rose of jericho and the bougainvillea
To prove that I love you
Because I believe in you
Summer skies, stars are falling
All along the injured coast

[...] Read more

song performed by Paul Simon
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Canto the Second

I
Oh ye! who teach the ingenuous youth of nations,
Holland, France, England, Germany, or Spain,
I pray ye flog them upon all occasions,
It mends their morals, never mind the pain:
The best of mothers and of educations
In Juan's case were but employ'd in vain,
Since, in a way that's rather of the oddest, he
Became divested of his native modesty.

II
Had he but been placed at a public school,
In the third form, or even in the fourth,
His daily task had kept his fancy cool,
At least, had he been nurtured in the north;
Spain may prove an exception to the rule,
But then exceptions always prove its worth -—
A lad of sixteen causing a divorce
Puzzled his tutors very much, of course.

III
I can't say that it puzzles me at all,
If all things be consider'd: first, there was
His lady-mother, mathematical,
A—never mind; his tutor, an old ass;
A pretty woman (that's quite natural,
Or else the thing had hardly come to pass);
A husband rather old, not much in unity
With his young wife—a time, and opportunity.

IV
Well—well, the world must turn upon its axis,
And all mankind turn with it, heads or tails,
And live and die, make love and pay our taxes,
And as the veering wind shifts, shift our sails;
The king commands us, and the doctor quacks us,
The priest instructs, and so our life exhales,
A little breath, love, wine, ambition, fame,
Fighting, devotion, dust,—perhaps a name.

V
I said that Juan had been sent to Cadiz -—
A pretty town, I recollect it well -—
'T is there the mart of the colonial trade is
(Or was, before Peru learn'd to rebel),
And such sweet girls—I mean, such graceful ladies,
Their very walk would make your bosom swell;
I can't describe it, though so much it strike,
Nor liken it—I never saw the like:

[...] Read more

poem by Byron from Don Juan (1824)
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The Lorry

Inside my lorry
I am driving through the night
Inside my lorry
The world does look all right
Five to five I got to drive
And if you ask me where I go
I tell you coast to coast is what I do
Coast to coast, you know
Motors noise
My only choice
I wanna hear it all night long
Orchestra for my voice
For my only song
Hey, gotta drive, see yall night
Coast to coast, thats my life
Coast to coast, all right
Motors noise
My only choice
I wanna hear it all night long
Orchestra for my voice
For my only song

song performed by Yello
Added by Lucian Velea
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The Lorry

Inside my lorry
I am driving through the night
Inside my lorry
The world does look all right
Five to five I got to drive
And if you ask me where I go
I tell you coast to coast is what I do
Coast to coast, you know
Motors noise
My only choice
I wanna hear it all night long
Orchestra for my voice
For my only song
Hey, gotta drive, see yall night
Coast to coast, thats my life
Coast to coast, all right
Motors noise
My only choice
I wanna hear it all night long
Orchestra for my voice
For my only song

song performed by Yello
Added by Lucian Velea
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Love

1 Canst thou love me, lady?
2 I've not learn'd to woo:
3 Thou art on the shady
4 Side of sixty too.
5 Still I love thee dearly!
6 Thou hast lands and pelf:
7 But I love thee merely
8 Merely for thyself.

9 Wilt thou love me, fairest?
10 Though thou art not fair;
11 And I think thou wearest
12 Someone-else's hair.
13 Thou could'st love, though, dearly:
14 And, as I am told,
15 Thou art very nearly
16 Worth thy weight, in gold.

17 Dost thou love me, sweet love?
18 Tell me that thou dost!
19 Women fairly beat one,
20 But I think thou must.
21 Thou art loved so dearly:
22 I am plain, but then
23 Thou (to speak sincerely)
24 Art as plain again.

25 Love me, bashful fairy!
26 I've an empty purse:
27 And I've 'moods,' which vary;
28 Mostly for the worse.
29 Still, I love thee dearly:
30 Though I make (I feel)
31 Love a little queerly,
32 I'm as true as steel.

33 Love me, swear to love me
34 (As, you know, they do)
35 By yon heaven above me
36 And its changeless blue.
37 Love me, lady, dearly,
38 If you'll be so good;
39 Though I don't see clearly
40 On what ground you should.

41 Love me -- ah or love me
42 Not, but be my bride!
43 Do not simply shove me
44 (So to speak) aside!
45 P'raps it would be dearly

[...] Read more

poem by Charles Stuart Calverley
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Dearly Beloved (write To Me)

Write me a poem, dearly beloved,
Write of your love, your fidelity, your proclivity
For doing what is right for me, not what is right;
Speak to me of what you feel
Not sugared words served on pity tarts
Write me a poem, dearly beloved,
If you cannot, then contend to break my heart.

Write me a prose, dearly beloved,
Then narrate it on an elevated stand
To the heavens and the sea and whatever lies betwixt
The shadows of both so that all can hear;
Speak only truth for I cannot stomach lies of such art
Write me a prose, dearly beloved,
If you cannot, then contend to break my heart.

Write me a sonnet, dearly beloved
And sing it by the edge of the fast flowing stream
Sing to me as if you sang to all the forest
And called forth its life from the concealing leaves of jade
And of this assembly of the innocent, I shall be an active part
So write me a sonnet, dearly beloved,
If you cannot, then contend to break my heart.

poem by Samah Khan
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Georgic 2

Thus far the tilth of fields and stars of heaven;
Now will I sing thee, Bacchus, and, with thee,
The forest's young plantations and the fruit
Of slow-maturing olive. Hither haste,
O Father of the wine-press; all things here
Teem with the bounties of thy hand; for thee
With viny autumn laden blooms the field,
And foams the vintage high with brimming vats;
Hither, O Father of the wine-press, come,
And stripped of buskin stain thy bared limbs
In the new must with me.
First, nature's law
For generating trees is manifold;
For some of their own force spontaneous spring,
No hand of man compelling, and possess
The plains and river-windings far and wide,
As pliant osier and the bending broom,
Poplar, and willows in wan companies
With green leaf glimmering gray; and some there be
From chance-dropped seed that rear them, as the tall
Chestnuts, and, mightiest of the branching wood,
Jove's Aesculus, and oaks, oracular
Deemed by the Greeks of old. With some sprouts forth
A forest of dense suckers from the root,
As elms and cherries; so, too, a pigmy plant,
Beneath its mother's mighty shade upshoots
The bay-tree of Parnassus. Such the modes
Nature imparted first; hence all the race
Of forest-trees and shrubs and sacred groves
Springs into verdure.
Other means there are,
Which use by method for itself acquired.
One, sliving suckers from the tender frame
Of the tree-mother, plants them in the trench;
One buries the bare stumps within his field,
Truncheons cleft four-wise, or sharp-pointed stakes;
Some forest-trees the layer's bent arch await,
And slips yet quick within the parent-soil;
No root need others, nor doth the pruner's hand
Shrink to restore the topmost shoot to earth
That gave it being. Nay, marvellous to tell,
Lopped of its limbs, the olive, a mere stock,
Still thrusts its root out from the sapless wood,
And oft the branches of one kind we see
Change to another's with no loss to rue,
Pear-tree transformed the ingrafted apple yield,
And stony cornels on the plum-tree blush.
Come then, and learn what tilth to each belongs
According to their kinds, ye husbandmen,
And tame with culture the wild fruits, lest earth

[...] Read more

poem by Publius Vergilius Maro
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The Georgics

GEORGIC I

What makes the cornfield smile; beneath what star
Maecenas, it is meet to turn the sod
Or marry elm with vine; how tend the steer;
What pains for cattle-keeping, or what proof
Of patient trial serves for thrifty bees;-
Such are my themes.
O universal lights
Most glorious! ye that lead the gliding year
Along the sky, Liber and Ceres mild,
If by your bounty holpen earth once changed
Chaonian acorn for the plump wheat-ear,
And mingled with the grape, your new-found gift,
The draughts of Achelous; and ye Fauns
To rustics ever kind, come foot it, Fauns
And Dryad-maids together; your gifts I sing.
And thou, for whose delight the war-horse first
Sprang from earth's womb at thy great trident's stroke,
Neptune; and haunter of the groves, for whom
Three hundred snow-white heifers browse the brakes,
The fertile brakes of Ceos; and clothed in power,
Thy native forest and Lycean lawns,
Pan, shepherd-god, forsaking, as the love
Of thine own Maenalus constrains thee, hear
And help, O lord of Tegea! And thou, too,
Minerva, from whose hand the olive sprung;
And boy-discoverer of the curved plough;
And, bearing a young cypress root-uptorn,
Silvanus, and Gods all and Goddesses,
Who make the fields your care, both ye who nurse
The tender unsown increase, and from heaven
Shed on man's sowing the riches of your rain:
And thou, even thou, of whom we know not yet
What mansion of the skies shall hold thee soon,
Whether to watch o'er cities be thy will,
Great Caesar, and to take the earth in charge,
That so the mighty world may welcome thee
Lord of her increase, master of her times,
Binding thy mother's myrtle round thy brow,
Or as the boundless ocean's God thou come,
Sole dread of seamen, till far Thule bow
Before thee, and Tethys win thee to her son
With all her waves for dower; or as a star
Lend thy fresh beams our lagging months to cheer,
Where 'twixt the Maid and those pursuing Claws
A space is opening; see! red Scorpio's self
His arms draws in, yea, and hath left thee more
Than thy full meed of heaven: be what thou wilt-
For neither Tartarus hopes to call thee king,

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poem by Virgil
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The Columbiad: Book I

The Argument

Natives of America appear in vision. Their manners and characters. Columbus demands the cause of the dissimilarity of men in different countries, Hesper replies, That the human body is composed of a due proportion of the elements suited to the place of its first formation; that these elements, differently proportioned, produce all the changes of health, sickness, growth and decay; and may likewise produce any other changes which occasion the diversity of men; that these elemental proportions are varied, not more by climate than temperature and other local circumstances; that the mind is likewise in a state of change, and will take its physical character from the body and from external objects: examples. Inquiry concerning the first peopling of America. View of Mexico. Its destruction by Cortez. View of Cusco and Quito, cities of Peru. Tradition of Capac and Oella, founders of the Peruvian empire. Columbus inquires into their real history. Hesper gives an account of their origin, and relates the stratagems they used in establishing that empire.

I sing the Mariner who first unfurl'd
An eastern banner o'er the western world,
And taught mankind where future empires lay
In these fair confines of descending day;
Who sway'd a moment, with vicarious power,
Iberia's sceptre on the new found shore,
Then saw the paths his virtuous steps had trod
Pursued by avarice and defiled with blood,
The tribes he foster'd with paternal toil
Snatch'd from his hand, and slaughter'd for their spoil.

Slaves, kings, adventurers, envious of his name,
Enjoy'd his labours and purloin'd his fame,
And gave the Viceroy, from his high seat hurl'd.
Chains for a crown, a prison for a world
Long overwhelm'd in woes, and sickening there,
He met the slow still march of black despair,
Sought the last refuge from his hopeless doom,
And wish'd from thankless men a peaceful tomb:
Till vision'd ages, opening on his eyes,
Cheer'd his sad soul, and bade new nations rise;
He saw the Atlantic heaven with light o'ercast,
And Freedom crown his glorious work at last.

Almighty Freedom! give my venturous song
The force, the charm that to thy voice belong;
Tis thine to shape my course, to light my way,
To nerve my country with the patriot lay,
To teach all men where all their interest lies,
How rulers may be just and nations wise:
Strong in thy strength I bend no suppliant knee,
Invoke no miracle, no Muse but thee.

Night held on old Castile her silent reign,
Her half orb'd moon declining to the main;
O'er Valladolid's regal turrets hazed
The drizzly fogs from dull Pisuerga raised;
Whose hovering sheets, along the welkin driven,
Thinn'd the pale stars, and shut the eye from heaven.
Cold-hearted Ferdinand his pillow prest,
Nor dream'd of those his mandates robb'd of rest,
Of him who gemm'd his crown, who stretch'd his reign
To realms that weigh'd the tenfold poise of Spain;
Who now beneath his tower indungeon'd lies,
Sweats the chill sod and breathes inclement skies.

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poem by Joel Barlow
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Vision Of Columbus - Book 1

Long had the Sage, the first who dared to brave
The unknown dangers of the western wave,
Who taught mankind where future empires lay
In these fair confines of descending day,
With cares o'erwhelm'd, in life's distressing gloom,
Wish'd from a thankless world a peaceful tomb;
While kings and nations, envious of his name,
Enjoy'd his toils and triumph'd o'er his fame,
And gave the chief, from promised empire hurl'd,
Chains for a crown, a prison for a world.
Now night and silence held their lonely reign,
The half-orb'd moon declining to the main;
Descending clouds, o'er varying ether driven,
Obscured the stars and shut the eye from heaven;
Cold mists through opening grates the cell invade,
And deathlike terrors haunt the midnight shade;
When from a visionary, short repose,
That raised new cares and temper'd keener woes,
Columbus woke, and to the walls address'd
The deep-felt sorrows of his manly breast.

Here lies the purchase, here the wretched spoil,
Of painful years and persevering toil:
For these dread walks, this hideous haunt of pain,
I traced new regions o'er the pathless main,
Dared all the dangers of the dreary wave,
Hung o'er its clefts and topp'd the surging grave,
Saw billowy seas, in swelling mountains roll,
And bursting thunders rock the reddening pole,
Death rear his front in every dreadful form,
Gape from beneath and blacken in the storm;
Till, tost far onward to the skirts of day,
Where milder suns dispens'd a smiling ray,
Through brighter skies my happier sails descry'd
The golden banks that bound the western tide,
And gave the admiring world that bounteous shore
Their wealth to nations and to kings their power

Oh land of transport! dear, delusive coast,
To these fond, aged eyes forever lost!
No more thy gladdening vales I travel o'er,
For me thy mountains rear the head no more,
For me thy rocks no sparkling gems unfold,
Or streams luxuriant wear their paths in gold;
From realms of promised peace forever borne,
I hail dread anguish, and in secret mourn

But dangers past, fair climes explored in vain,
And foes triumphant shew but half my pain
Dissembling friends, each earlier joy who gave,

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poem by Joel Barlow
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