POETICAL PROPHECY OF BISHOP BERKELEY.--To our illustrious countryman.
Bishop Berkeley, may be with justice applied what he himself says of his
favourite, Plato, that "he has joined with an imagination the most
splendid and magnificent, an intellect fully as deep and clear." A morsel
of poetry from such a writer ought to be preserved as a literary
curiosity, and as a proof of the great variety of his talents; but when
we consider that the following was written almost in a prophetic spirit,
more than a century ago, and consequently long before the events to which
he seems to allude could well have been anticipated, it has an additional
claim upon our notice.
"AMERICA, 1730.
There shall be sung another golden age,
The rise of empires and of arts,
The good and great inspiring epic rage,
The wisest heads and noblest hearts.
Not such as EUROPE breeds in her decay;
Such as she bred when fresh and young,
When heavenly flame did animate her clay,
By future poets shall be sung.
_Westward the course of empire bends its way_--
The four first acts already past,
A fifth shall close the drama and the day;
Time's noblest offspring is the last."