A Prophecy. 351
Wait on the Queen of Arts in her own
bowers,
Perfumed with all the fragrance of the
earth
From blooming shrubbery and radiant
flowers;
And hope with rapture wed life's calm
and peaceful hours.
Oft as the spring wakes on the verdant
year,
And nature glows in fervid beauty
dress'd,
The loves and graces shall commingle
here,
To charm the queenly City of the West;
Her stately youth with noble warmth
impress'd
Her graceful daughters, smiling as in May-
Apollos these, and Hebes those
confessed;
Bloom in her warm and fertilizing ray,
While round their happy sires the cherub
infants play.
So sings the Muse as she with fancy's
eye,
Scans, from imagination's lofty height,
Thy radiant beaming day-where it doth
lie
In the deep future; glowing on the night
From whose dark womb, empires unveil to
light;
Mantled and diademed and sceptered there
Thou waitest but the advent of thy
flight,
When like a royal Queen, stately and
fair,
The City of the West ascends the regal
chair.
A PROPHECY.*
BY RETURN JONATHAN MEIGS.
Enough of tributary praise is paid
To virtue living or to merit, dead.
To happier themes the rural muse
invites,
To calmest pleasures and serene
delights.
To us, glad fancy brightest prospects
shows;
Rejoicing nature all around us glows;
Here late the savage, hid in ambush,
lay,
Or roamed the uncultured valleys for his
prey;
Here frowned the forest with terrific
shade;
No cultured fields exposed the opening glade;
How changed the scene! See nature
clothed in smiles
352 Ohio Arch. and Hist.
Society Publications.
With joy repays the laborer for his
toils;
Her hardy gifts rough industry extends,
The groves bow down, the lofty forest
bends;
On every side the cleaving axes sound-
The oak and tall beech thunder to the
ground;
And see the spires of Marietta rise,
And domes and temples swell into the
skies;
Here justice reign and foul dissension
cease,
Her walks be pleasant and her paths be
peace.
Here swift Muskingum rolls his rapid waves;
There fruitful valleys fair Ohio laves;
On its smooth surface gentle zephyrs
play,
The sunbeams tremble with a placid ray.
What future harvests on his bosom glide
And loads of commerce swell the
"downward tide,"
Where Mississippi joins in length'ning
sweep
And rolls majestic to the Atlantic deep.
Along our banks see distant villas
spread;
Here waves the corn and there extends
the mead;
Here sound the murmurs of the gurgling
rills;
There bleat the flocks upon a thousand
hills.
Fair opes the lawn-the fertile fields
extend
The kindly flowers from smiling heaven
descend;
The skies drop fatness on the blooming
vale;
From spicy shrubs ambrosial sweets
exhale;
Fresh fragrance rises from the
floweret's bloom,
And ripening vineyards breathe a
"glad perfume."
Gay swells the music of the warbling
grove
And all around is melody and love.
Here may religion fix her blessed abode,
Bright emanation of creative God;
Here charity extend her liberal hand
And mild benevolence o'erspread the
land;
In harmony the social virtues blend;
Joy without measure, rapture without
end!
*At a celebration, on July 4, 1789, at
Marietta the above lines con-
cluded the oration of the day. Meigs was
then a young lawyer. He
later occupied many places of honor,
among which was governor of
Ohio. He died in 1825 and his grave is
in Mound Cemetery, Marietta.
Doubtless this was the first poem
written in the Northwest Territory.