The Columbiad Author:Joel Barlow Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: In headlong cataracts indignant rave, Rush to his banks and swell the swallowing wave. Ucayla, first of all his mighty sons, From Cusco's walls a wearied journey... more » runs; §70 Pastaza mines proud Pambaraarca's base, And holds thro sundering hills his lawless race; Aloft, where Cotopaxi flames on high, The roaring Napo quits his misty sky, Down the long steeps in whitening torrents driven, Like Nile-descending from his fabled heaven; Mound after mound impetuous Tigris rends, Curved Ista folds whole countries in his bends, Vast Orinoco, summon'd forth to bring His far fetcht honors to the sateless king, 58o Drives on his own strong course to gain the shore, But sends Catuba here with half his store; Like a broad Bosphorus here Negro guides The gather'd mass of fifty furious tides; From his waste world, by nameless fountains fed, Wild Purus wears his long and lonely bed; O'er twelve degrees of earth Madera flows, And robs the south of half its treasured snows; Zingus, of equal length and heavier force, Rolls on, for months, the same continuous course 3go To reach his master's bank, that here constrains Topayo, charged with all Brazilla's rains; While inland seas and lakes unknown to fame Send their full tributes to the monarch stream; Who, swell'd with growing conquest, wheels abroad, Drains every land and gathers all his flood, Then far from clime to clime majestic goes, Enlarging, widening, deepening as he flows; Like heaven' broad milky way he shines alone, Spread o'er the globe its equatorial zone, 4oo Weighs the cleft continent and pushes wide Its balanced mountains from each crumbling side. Sire Ocean hears his proud Maragnon roar, Moves up bis bed and seeks in rain the shore, Then surging strong, with high and hoary tide, Whelms back the Stream and che...« less