Declare what lovely squaw, in days of yore,
(Ere great Columbus sought thy native shore,)
First gave thee to the world; her works of fame
Have lived indeed, but lived without a name.
Some tawny Ceres, goddess of her days,

First learn'd with stones to crack the well-dried maize,

Through the rough sieve to shake the golden shower,

In boiling water stir the yellow flour:
The yellow flour, bestrew'd and stirr'd with haste,
Swells in the flood and thickens to a paste,
Then puffs and wallops, rises to the brim,
Drinks the dry knobs that on the surface swim;
The knobs at last the busy ladle breaks,
And the whole mass its true consistence takes.
Could but her sacred name, unknown so long,
Rise, like her labours, to the son of song,
To her, to them I'd consecrate my lays,
And blow her pudding with the breath of praise.
Not through the rich Peruvian realms alone
The fame of Sol's sweet daughter should be known,
But o'er the world's wide clime should live secure,
Far as his rays extend, as long as they endure.
Dear Hasty Pudding, what unpromised joy
Expands my heart, to meet thee in Savoy!
Doom'd o'er the world through devious paths to

roam,

Each clime my country, and each house my home, My soul is soothed, my cares have found an end: I greet my long-lost, unforgotten friend.

For thee through Paris, that corrupted town, How long in vain I wander'd up and down, Where shameless Bacchus, with his drenching hoard,

Cold from his cave usurps the morning board.
London is lost in smoke and steep'd in tea;
No Yankee there can lisp the name of thee;
The uncouth word, a libel on the town,
Would call a proclamation from the crown.
For climes oblique, that fear the sun's full rays,
Chill'd in their fogs, exclude the generous maize:
A grain whose rich, luxuriant growth requires
Short, gentle showers, and bright, ethereal fires.

But here, though distant from our native shore,
With mutual glee, we meet and laugh once more.
The same! I know thee by that yellow face,
That strong complexion of true Indian race,
Which time can never change, nor soil impair,
Nor Alpine snows, nor Turkey's morbid air;
For endless years, through every mild domain,
Where grows the maize, there thou art sure to
reign.

But man, more fickle, the bold license claims,
In different realms to give thee different names.
Thee the soft nations round the warm Levant
Polanta call; the French, of course, Polante.
E'en in thy native regions, how I blush
To hear the Pennsylvanians call thee Mush!
On Hudson's banks, while men of Belgic spawn
Insult and eat thee by the name Suppawn.
All spurious appellations, void of truth;
I've better known thee from my earliest youth:
Thy name is Hasty Pudding! thus our sires
Were wont to greet thee fuming from the fires;

And while they argued in thy just defence
With logic clear, they thus explained the sense:
"In haste the boiling caldron, o'er the blaze,
Receives and cooks the ready powder'd maize;
In haste 'tis served, and then in equal haste,
With cooling milk, we make the sweet repast.
No carving to be done, no knife to grate
The tender ear and wound the stony plate;
But the smooth spoon, just fitted to the lip,
And taught with art the yielding mass to dip,
By frequent journeys to the bowl well stored,
Performs the hasty honours of the board."
Such is thy name, significant and clear,
A name, a sound to every Yankee dear,
But most to me, whose heart and palate chaste
Preserve my pure, hereditary taste.

There are who strive to stamp with disrepute
The luscious food, because it feeds the brute;
In tropes of high-strain'd wit, while gaudy prigs
Compare thy nursling man to pamper'd pigs;
With sovereign scorn I treat the vulgar jest,
Nor fear to share thy bounties with the beast.
What though the generous cow gives me to
quaff

The milk nutritious; am I then a calf?
Or can the genius of the noisy swine,
Though nursed on pudding, thence lay claim to
mine?

Sure the sweet song I fashion to thy praise,
Runs more melodious than the notes they raise.
My song, resounding in its grateful glee,
No merit claims: I praise myself in thee.
My father loved thee through his length of days!
For thee his fields were shaded o'er with maize;
From thee what health, what vigour he possess'd,
Ten sturdy freemen from his loins attest;
Thy constellation ruled my natal morn,
And all my bones were made of Indian corn.
Delicious grain! whatever form it take,
To roast or boil, to smother or to bake,
In every dish 'tis welcome still to me,
But most, my Hasty Pudding, most in thee.

Let the green succotash with thee contend;
Let beans and corn their sweetest juices blend;
Let butter drench them in its yellow tide,
And a long slice of bacon grace their side;
Not all the plate, how famed soe'er it be,
Can please my palate like a bowl of thee.
Some talk of Hoe-Cake, fair Virginia's pride!
Rich Johnny-Cake this mouth hath often tried;
Both please me well, their virtues much the same,
Alike their fabric, as allied their fame,
Except in dear New England, where the last
Receives a dash of pumpkin in the paste,
To give it sweetness and improve the taste.
But place them all before me, smoking hot,
The big, round dumpling, rolling from the pot;
The pudding of the bag, whose quivering breast,
With suet lined, leads on the Yankee feast;
The Charlotte brown, within whose crusty sides
A belly soft the pulpy apple hides;

The yellow bread, whose face like amber glows,
And all of Indian that the bakepan knows,-
You tempt me not; my favourite greets my eyes,
To that loved bowl my spoon by instinct flies.

CANTO II.

To mix the food by vicious rules of art, To kill the stomach and to sink the heart, To make mankind to social virtue sour, Cram o'er each dish, and be what they devour; For this the kitchen muse first framed her book, Commanding sweat to stream from every cook; Children no more their antic gambols tried, And friends to physic wonder'd why they died. Not so the Yankee: his abundant feast, With simples furnish'd and with plainness dress'd, A numerous offspring gathers round the board, And cheers alike the servant and the lord; [taste, Whose well-bought hunger prompts the joyous And health attends them from the short repast.

While the full pail rewards the milkmaid's toil, The mother sees the morning caldron boil; To stir the pudding next demands their care; To spread the table and the bowls prepare: To feed the children as their portions cool, And comb their heads, and send them off to school. Yet may the simplest dish some rules impart, For nature scorns not all the aids of art. E'en Hasty Pudding, purest of all food, May still be bad, indifferent, or good, As sage experience the short process guides, Or want of skill, or want of care presides. Whoe'er would form it on the surest plan, To rear the child and long sustain the man; To shield the morals while it mends the size, And all the powers of every food supplies,— Attend the lesson that the muse shall bring; Suspend your spoons, and listen while I sing.

But since, O man! thy life and health demand Not food alone, but labour from thy hand, First, in the field, beneath the sun's strong rays, Ask of thy mother earth the needful maize; She loves the race that courts her yielding soil, And gives her bounties to the sons of toil.

When now the ox, obedient to thy call, Repays the loan that fill'd the winter stall, Pursue his traces o'er the furrow'd plain, And plant in measured hills the golden grain. But when the tender germ begins to shoot, And the green spire declares the sprouting root, Then guard your nursling from each greedy foe, The insidious worm, the all-devouring crow. A little ashes sprinkled round the spire, Soon steep'd in rain, will bid the worm retire; The feather'd robber, with his hungry maw Swift flies the field before your man of straw, A frightful image, such as schoolboys bring, When met to burn the pope or hang the king.

Thrice in the season, through each verdant row, Wield the strong ploughshare and the faithful hoe; The faithful hoe, a double task that takes,

To till the summer corn and roast the winter cakes. Slow springs the blade, while check'd by chilling rains,

Ere yet the sun the seat of Cancer gains;
But when his fiercest fires emblaze the land,
Then start the juices, then the roots expand;
Then, like a column of Corinthian mould,
The stalk struts upward and the leaves unfold;

The busy branches all the ridges fill,
Entwine their arms, and kiss from hill to hill.
Here cease to vex them; all your cares are done:
Leave the last labours to the parent sun;
Beneath his genial smiles, the well-dress'd field,
When autumn calls, a plenteous crop shall yield.
Now the strong foliage bears the standards high,
And shoots the tall top-gallants to the sky;
The suckling ears the silken fringes bend,
And, pregnant grown, their swelling coats distend;
The loaded stalk, while still the burden grows,
O'erhangs the space that runs between the rows;
High as a hop-field waves the silent grove,
A safe retreat for little thefts of love,
When the pledged roasting-ears invite the maid
To meet her swain beneath the new-form'd shade;
His generous hand unloads the cumbrous hill,
And the green spoils her ready basket fill;
Small compensation for the twofold bliss,
The promised wedding, and the present kiss.

Slight depredations these; but now the moon
Calls from his hollow trees the sly raccoon;
And while by night he bears his prize away,
The bolder squirrel labours through the day.
Both thieves alike, but provident of time,
A virtue rare, that almost hides their crime.
Then let them steal the little stores they can,
And fill their granaries from the toils of man;
We've one advantage where they take no part-
With all their wiles, they ne'er have found the art
To boil the Hasty Pudding; here we shine
Superior far to tenants of the pine;

This envied boon to man shall still belong,
Unshared by them in substance or in song.

At last the closing season browns the plain,
And ripe October gathers in the grain;
Deep-loaded carts the spacious cornhouse fill;
The sack distended marches to the mill;
The labouring mill beneath the burden groans,
And showers the future pudding from the stones;
Till the glad housewife greets the powder'd gold,
And the new crop exterminates the old.

CANTO III.

The days grow short; but though the falling sun
To the glad swain proclaims his day's work done, i
Night's pleasing shades his various tasks prolong,
And yield new subjects to my various song.
For now, the corn-house fill'd, the harvest home,
The invited neighbours to the husking come;
A frolic scene, where work, and mirth, and play,
Unite their charms to chase the hours away.

Where the huge heap lies center'd in the hall,
The lamp suspended from the cheerful wall,
Brown, corn-fed nymphs, and strong, hard-handed
Alternate ranged, extend in circling rows, [beaus,
Assume their seats, the solid mass attack;
The dry husks rustle, and the corncobs crack;
The song, the laugh, alternate notes resound,
And the sweet cider trips in silence round.

The laws of husking every wight can tell, And sure no laws he ever keeps so well: For each red ear a general kiss he gains, With each smut ear he smuts the luckless swains;

But when to some sweet maid a prize is cast,
Red as her lips and taper as her waist,
She walks the round and culls one favour'd beau,
Who leaps the luscious tribute to bestow.
Various the sport, as are the wits and brains
Of well-pleased lasses and contending swains;
Till the vast mound of corn is swept away,
And he that gets the last ear wins the day.

Meanwhile, the housewife urges all her care, The well-earn'd feast to hasten and prepare. The sifted meal already waits her hand,

The milk is strain'd, the bowls in order stand,
The fire flames high; and as a pool (that takes
The headlong stream that o'er the milldam breaks)
Foams, roars, and rages with incessant toils,
So the vex'd caldron rages, roars, and boils.

First with clean salt she seasons well the food,
Then strews the flour, and thickens all the flood.
Long o'er the simmering fire she lets it stand;
To stir it well demands a stronger hand;
The husband takes his turn: and round and round
The ladle flies; at last the toil is crown'd;
When to the board the thronging huskers pour,
And take their seats as at the corn before.

I leave them to their feast. There still belong More copious matters to my faithful song. For rules there are, though ne'er unfolded yet, Nice rules and wise, how pudding should be ate. Some with molasses line the luscious treat, And mix, like bards, the useful with the sweet. A wholesome dish, and well deserving praise; A great resource in those bleak wintry days, When the chill'd earth lies buried deep in snow, And raging Boreas dries the shivering cow.

Bless'd cow! thy praise shall still my notes employ,

Great source of health, the only source of joy;
Mother of Egypt's god—but sure, for me,
Were I to leave my God, I'd worship thee.
How oft thy teats these precious hands have press'd!
How oft thy bounties proved my only feast!
How oft I've fed thee with my favourite grain!
And roar'd, like thee, to find thy children slain!
Yes, swains who know her various worth to prize,
Ah! house her well from winter's angry skies.
Potatoes, pumpkins should her sadness cheer,
Corn from your crib, and mashes from your beer;
When spring returns, she'll well acquit the loan,
And nurse at once your infants and her own.

Milk then with pudding I would always choose;
To this in future I confine my muse,
Till she in haste some further hints unfold,
Well for the young, nor useless to the old.
First in your bowl the milk abundant take,
Then drop with care along the silver lake
Your flakes of pudding; these at first will hide
Their little bulk beneath the swelling tide;
But when their growing mass no more can sink,
When the soft island looms above the brink,
Then check your hand; you've got the portion due:
So taught our sires, and what they taught is true.
There is a choice in spoons. Though small appear
The nice distinction, yet to me 't is clear.
The deep-bowl'd Gallic spoon, contrived to scoop
In ample draughts the thin, diluted soup,

Performs not well in those substantial things,
Whose mass adhesive to the metal clings;
Where the strong labial muscles must embrace
The gentle curve, and sweep the hollow space.
With ease to enter and discharge the freight,
A bowl less concave, but still more dilate,
Becomes the pudding best. The shape, the size,
A secret rests, unknown to vulgar eyes.
Experienced feeders can alone impart

A rule so much above the lore of art.
These tuneful lips, that thousand spoons have tried,
With just precision could the point decide,
Though not in song; the muse but poorly shines
In cones, and cubes, and geometric lines;
Yet the true form, as near as she can tell,
Is that small section of a goose-egg shell,
Which in two equal portions shall divide
The distance from the centre to the side.

Fear not to slaver; 'tis no deadly sin:
Like the free Frenchman, from your joyous chin
Suspend the ready napkin; or, like me,
Poise with one hand your bowl upon your knee;
Just in the zenith your wise head project;
Your full spoon, rising in a line direct,
Bold as a bucket, heeds no drops that fall,-
The wide-mouth'd bowl will surely catch them all!

BURNING OF THE NEW ENGLAND VILLAGES.*

THROUGH Solid curls of smoke, the bursting fires Climb in tall pyramids above the spires, Concentring all the winds; whose forces, driven With equal rage from every point of heaven, Whirl into conflict, round the scantling pour The twisting flames, and through the rafters roar; Suck up the cinders, send them sailing far, To warn the nations of the raging war; Bend high the blazing vortex, swell'd and curl'd, Careering, brightening o'er the lustred world: Seas catch the splendour, kindling skies resound, And falling structures shake the smouldering ground.

Crowds of wild fugitives, with frantic tread,
Flit through the flames that pierce the midnight
shade,

Back on the burning domes revert their eyes,
Where some lost friend, some perish'd infant lies.
Their maim'd, their sick, their age-enfeebled sires
Have sunk sad victims to the sateless fires;
They greet with one last look their tottering walls,
See the blaze thicken, as the ruin falls,
Then o'er the country train their dumb despair,
And far behind them leave the dancing glare;
Their own crush'd roofs still lend a trembling light,
Point their long shadows and direct their flight.
Till, wandering wide, they seek some cottage door,
Ask the vile pittance due the vagrant poor;
Or, faint and faltering on the devious road,
They sink at last and yield their mortal load.

* This and the following extracts are from the "Columbiad."

TO FREEDOM.

SUN of the moral world! effulgent source
Of man's best wisdom and his steadiest force,
Soul-searching Freedom! here assume thy stand,
And radiate hence to every distant land;
Point out and prove how all the scenes of strife,
The shock of states, the impassion'd broils of life,
Spring from unequal sway; and how they fly
Before the splendour of thy peaceful eye;
Unfold at last the genuine social plan,
The mind's full scope, the dignity of man,
Bold nature bursting through her long disguise,
And nations daring to be just and wise.

Yes! righteous Freedom, heaven and earth and sea
Yield or withhold their various gifts for thee;
Protected Industry beneath thy reign
Leads all the virtues in her filial train;
Courageous Probity, with brow serene,
And Temperance calm presents her placid mien;
Contentment, Moderation, Labour, Art,
Mould the new man and humanize his heart;
To public plenty private ease dilates,
Domestic peace to harmony of states.
Protected Industry, careering far,

Detects the cause and cures the rage of war,
And sweeps, with forceful arm, to their last graves,
Kings from the earth and pirates from the waves.

MORGAN AND TELL.

MORGAN in front of his bold riflers towers,
His host of keen-eyed marksmen, skill'd to pour
Their slugs unerring from the twisted bore.
No sword, no bayonet they learn to wield,
They gall the flank, they skirt the battling field,
Cull out the distant foe in full horse speed,
Couch the long tube, and eye the silver bead,
Turn as he turns, dismiss the whizzing lead,
And lodge the death-ball in his heedless head.
So toil'd the huntsman TELL. His quivering dart,
Press'd by the bended bowstring, fears to part,
Dread the tremendous task, to graze but shun
The tender temples of his infant son;
As the loved youth (the tyrant's victim led)
Bears the poised apple tottering on his head.
The sullen father, with reverted eye,
Now marks the satrap, now the bright-hair'd boy;
His second shaft impatient lies, athirst
To mend the expected error of the first,
To pierce the monster, mid the insulted crowd,
And steep the pangs of nature in his blood.
Deep doubling toward his breast, well poised and
slow,

Curve the strain'd horns of his indignant bow;
His left arm straightens as the dexter bends,
And his nerved knuckle with the gripe distends;
Soft slides the reed back with the stiff drawn strand,
Till the steel point has reach'd his steady hand;
Then to his keen fix'd eye the shank he brings;
Twangs the loud cord, the feather'd arrow sings,

Picks off the pippin from the smiling boy,
And Uri's rocks resound with shouts of joy.
Soon by an equal dart the tyrant bleeds;
The cantons league, the work of fate proceeds;
Till Austria's titled hordes, with their own gore,
Fat the fair fields they lorded long before;
On Gothard's height while Freedom first unfurl'd
Her infant banner o'er the modern world.

THE ZONES OF AMERICA.

WHERE Spring's coy steps in cold Canadia stray,

And joyless seasons hold unequal sway,
He saw the pine its daring mantle rear,
Break the rude blast, and mock the brumal year,
Shag the green zone that bounds the boreal skies,
And bid all southern vegetation rise.
Wild o'er the vast, impenetrable round
The untrod bowers of shadowy nature frown'd;
Millennial cedars wave their honours wide,
The fir's tall boughs, the oak's umbrageous pride,
The branching beach, the aspen's trembling shade
Veil the dim heaven, and brown the dusky glade.
For in dense crowds these sturdy sons of earth,
In frosty regions, claim a stronger birth;
Where heavy beams the sheltering dome requires,
And copious trunks to feed its wintry fires.
But warmer suns, that southern zones emblaze,
A cool, thin umbrage o'er their woodland raise;
Floridia's shores their blooms around him spread,
And Georgian hills erect their shady head;
Whose flowery shrubs regale the passing air
With all the untasted fragrance of the year.
Beneath tall trees, dispersed in loose array,
The rice-grown lawns their humble garb display;
The infant maize, unconscious of its worth,
Points the green spire and bends the foliage

forth;

In various forms unbidden harvests rise,
Aud blooming life repays the genial skies.
Where Mexic hills the breezy gulf defend,
Spontaneous groves with richer burdens bend:
Anana's stalk its shaggy honours yields;
Acassia's flowers perfume a thousand fields;
Their cluster'd dates the mast-like palms unfold;
The spreading orange waves a load of gold;
Connubial vines o'ertop the larch they climb;
The long-lived olive mocks the moth of time;
Pomona's pride, that old Grenada claims,
Here smiles and reddens in diviner flames;
Pimento, citron scent the sky serene;
White, woolly clusters fringe the cotton's green;
The sturdy fig, the frail, deciduous cane,
And foodful cocoa fan the sultry plain.
Here, in one view, the same glad branches bring
The fruits of autumn and the flowers of spring;
No wintry blasts the unchanging year deform,
Nor beasts unshelter'd fear the pinching storm;
But vernal breezes o'er the blossoms rove,
And breathe the ripen'd juices through the grove.

RICHARD ALSOP was a native of Middletown, Connecticut, where he resided during the greater part of his life. He commenced writing for the gazettes at a very early age, but was first known to the public as the author of satires on public characters and events, entitled "The Echo," "The Political Greenhouse," etc., printed in periodicals at New York and Hartford, and afterward collected and published in an octavo volume, in 1807. In these works he was aided by TRUMBULL, HOPKINS, THEODORE DWIGHT, and others, though he was himself their principal author. "The Echo" was at first designed to exhibit the wretched style of the newspaper writers, and the earliest numbers contain extracts from contemporary journals, on a variety of subjects, "done into heroic verse and printed beside the originals." ALSOP and his associates were members of the Federal party, and the "Echo" contained many ludicrous travesties of political speeches and essays made by the opponents of the administration of Jonx ADAMS. The work had much wit and sprightliness, and was very popular in its time; but, with the greater part of the characters and circumstances to which it related, it is now nearly forgotten. In 1800, ALSOP published a "Monody on the Death of Washington," which was much admired; and in the following year a translation of the second canto of BERNI'S "Orlando Inamorato," under the title of "The Fairy

In

of the Lake," and another of the Poem of SILIUS ITALICUS on the Second Punic War. 1807, he translated from the Italian the "History of Chili," by the Abbe MOLINA, to which he added original notes, and others from the French and Spanish versions of the same history. At different periods he translated several less important works from the Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, and French languages, and wrote a number of poems and essays for the periodicals. His last publication was "The Adventures of John Jewett," printed in 1815. He died on the twentieth of August, in that year, at Flatbush, Long Island, in the fifty-sixth year of his age. He had, for a considerable period, been writing "The Charms of Fancy," a poem; and besides this, he left manuscript fragments of a poem on the Conquest of Scandinavia by ODIN; "Aristodemus," a tragedy, from the Italian of MONTI; the poem of QUINTUS CALABER on the Trojan war, from the Greek, and a prose translation of a posthumous work by FLORIAN. As a poet ALSOP was often elegant, but his verse was generally without energy. Probably no other American of his time was so well acquainted with the literature of England, France, and Italy, and few were more familiar with the natural sciences. He is said to have been deficient in strength and decision of character, but he was amiable and honourable, and had many friends and few enemies.

FROM "A MONODY ON THE DEATH OF WASHINGTON."

BEFORE the splendours of thy high renown,
How fade the glow-worm lustres of a crown!
How sink, diminish'd, in that radiance lost,
The glare of conquest and of power the boast!
Let Greece her ALEXANDER's deeds proclaim,
Or CESAR's triumphs gild the Roman name;
Stript of the dazzling glare around them cast,
Shrinks at their crimes humanity aghast;
With equal claim to honour's glorious meed,
See ATTILA his course of havoc lead;
O'er Asia's realm, in one vast ruin hurl'd,
See furious ZINGES' bloody flag unfurl'd.
On base far different from the conqueror's claim,
Rests the unsullied column of thy fame;
His on the graves of millions proudly based,
With blood cemented and with tears defaced;
Thine on a nation's welfare fixed sublime,
By freedom strengthen'd, and revered by time:
He, as the comet whose portentous light
Spreads baleful splendour o'er the glooms of night,
With dire amazement chills the startled breast,
While storms and earthquakesdread its course attest;

And nature trembles, lest in chaos hurl'd
Should sink the tottering fragment of the world;
Thine, like the sun, whose kind, propitious ray,
Opes the glad morn, and lights the fields of day,
Dispels the wintry storm, the chilling rain,
With rich abundance clothes the fertile plain,
Gives all creation to rejoice around,

And light and life extends, o'er nature's utmost bound.

Though shone thy life a model bright of praise,
Not less the example bright thy death portrays;
When, plunged in deepest wo around thy bed,
Each eye was fix'd, despairing sunk each head,
While nature struggled with extremest pain,
And scarce could life's last lingering powers retain;
In that dread moment, awfully serene,

No trace of suffering marked thy placid mien,
No groan, no murmuring plaint escaped thy tongue;
No longing shadows o'er thy brow were hung;
But, calm in Christian hope, undamp'd with fear,
Thou sawest the high reward of virtue near.
On that bright meed, in surest trust reposed,
As thy firm hand thine eyes expiring closed,
Pleased, to the will of Heaven resign'd thy breath,
And smiled, as nature's struggles closed in death.