The Portland daily press., 1892-10-21
HOW CHRISTOPHER DID IT
Columbian Exercises Of the Maine
Historical Society.
PRESIDENT BAXTER SPEAKS OF
AMERICAS CHRISTENING.

AMERICAS CHRISTENING.
A Poem by Mrs. Elizabeth Cavazza, and
Addresses by President Whitman, Hon.
George f. Talbot, Rev. DR.. Burrage.
Hon. james Williamson and Prof.
Henry L. Chapman.
A bright new American flag hung over
the entrance of the Baxter building last
evening, as sign of welcome to those
who gathered at the invitation of the
Maine Historical Society to consider
Christopher Columbus and his great dis
covery. Baxter hall was completely
filled with large and interested audi
ence, who had been allured by the in
teresting programme promised.
President Baxter presided, and had ar
ranged above the platform large copies
of three famous old maps to illustrate
the historical paper which he had pre-
pared.
First on the programme was poem
by Mrs. Elizabeth Cavazza, which was
read by Mr.. H. w. Bryant:
Columbus.
O, in what mirage of the strait of Dreams
That lies between the land of Thought awake;
And Sleeps Obvious isle, against wha :
cloud
OF knowledge tentative and disallowed
Lit by instructive CLEANS
Did the first vision of new world break
Upon Columbus sight
And bid him go to claim continent by right?
The voice of ancient India from her East
Appeared to call him, echoing in the West,
And proffer wealth of ivory, spices, gold,
And the great jewelhoards of cities old.
Even as the thought increased,
Flame-like, the heart within the hero's breast
Grew as gods, its wings
Unfurled like sails to bear him forth to seek
strange things.
What though he never guessed a new world
lay
Beyond the shadowy Sea, but. rather, sought
A city golden-walled Gas legends teID
Wnefe fountains OF roSe-dlidT Iedpeu anu
fell.
The opulent Cathay
Whose pinnacles with precious stones were
wrought
And where the great Mogul
Lorded realm antique, fantastic, wonderful?
".
The uncharted spaces ofIthe barren'waste
OF the Dark Ocean spread beyond the line
OF the white foam wreaths of the meeting
seas,
Where the great pillarsIoncelby Hercules
To right and left were placed
That to the nations they might be sign:
Here the land finisheth,
And all beyond is gloom and mystery and death.
".
The four winds rage together on that deep,
The sea-fogs hang there, heavy fold on fold,
Monsters unspeakable inhabit there,
Sinister birds, the kralzen in his lair;
Or sirens lull asleep
The unwary steersman. leaving uncontrolled
The plunging caravel,
To lure the sailors down with magic songs to
hell.
All powers of darkness and the abyss com
bine
To make the wanderer fall prey to death;
And whose hopes the immortal isle to find,
Atlantis, let him bear this well in mind:
Ulysses the divine
Had sight thereof (the Tuscan poet saith)
His ship whired ON the wave
Thrice, and then sank Numerous fathoms to its
grave.
VII.
Such were the warnings that old yoyagers
Muttered against the adventurous Genoese.
The sapient doctors of religion found
Impious his thesis that the world was
round,
And cited chapter verse
OF scripture, proving the Antipodes
Unpeopled, and the sky
Pendent DER level earth a hollow canopy.
VIII.
What utterances shrewd and mystical
OF perfect faith and science incomplete
What arguments commingled and confused
The suppliant Christopher Columbus used
And had denial of all.
Despondent and alone, with weary feet,
spectre full of pain,
The threadbare stranger wandered in the streets
of Spain.
Within La Rabida's unearthly cells;
There he could mediate upon the skies
And drink their influence that glorifes a
Man with the faith which views
The invisible things, and future good fore
tells
The holy eidolon
Of Gods designs which, in the very thought,
are done.
X.
Whatijoy, before the heavens behed the dawn,
To see the caravel outspread her Wings
Sharp as sea-bird's, to the favoring wind
And leave the shores of the old world be
hind
(From a letter of Marion Harland's.