Columbia Relieved

To a mouldering cavern, the mansion of woe, Columbia did often repair; She tore the fresh laurel that bloom'd on her brow, And threw it aside in despair. She wept for the fate of her sons that were slain, When the flames of fierce battle were spread, When discord and carnage, relaxing the reign, Rode smiling o'er mountains of dead.

As thus the bright Goddess revolv'd in her breast The wrongs which her country had borne, A form more than human the Genius addrest, "Ah cease, fair Columbia, to mourn. Now list up thine eyes, and thy records behold, Inscrib'd in the archives of fame, The Fourth of July, in rich letters of gold, Foretells the renown of thy name.

From the caverns of darkness thy day-spring shall dawn, Ye kings and ye tyrants, beware; Your names shall decay like the vapours of morn, Or vanish in phantoms of air: They temple, O Freedom, with grandeur shall rise, Unshaken by tyranny's blast; Its basis the earth, and its summit the skies, And firm as creation shall last."

Then rouse, fair Columbia, to glory aspire; All nature with transport shall gaze: E'en now the dark shadows of discord retire, And Europe is lost in thy blaze.