On an invitation to the United States

I

My ardours for emprize nigh lost

Since Life has bared its bones to me,

I shrink to seek a modern coast

Whose riper times have yet to be;

Where the new regions claim them free

From that long drip of human tears

Which peoples old in tragedy

Have left upon the centuried years.

II

For, wonning in these ancient lands,

Enchased and lettered as a tomb,

And scored with prints of perished hands,

And chronicled with dates of doom,

Though my own Being bear no bloom

I trace the lives such scenes enshrine,

Give past exemplars present room,

And their experience count as mine.