Happy July 4th!
Ballad of the Lord and Columbus
Christopher Columbus, weary old tar-
Fresh was the heavenly morning-
Came one day to the Judgment Bar,
Roused by the trumpet’s warning;
Rose up lightly, but with some surprise,
Looking around him and rubbing his eyes.
(For he’d done his share of toiling and of weeping
And the Lord had left him a long time sleeping.)
“Christopher Columbus,” the Lord’s voice spoke,
“You’ve had your slumber and it’s time you woke.
The years are mounting,
The centuries hum,
And every soul’s accounting
Is bound to come.”
And he signed to Peter, nodding at His knee,
“Fetch the Final Record that is filed in ‘C.’”
Columbus waited with a troubled look
While the Lord went thumbing through the Golden Book,
While the angels harped with suitable decorum
And the saints sat around in a haloed quorum
And the stars went whirling in an endless dance.
Said Christopher Columbus, “I’ll take my chance.
A man’s but human when he sails the seas,
But You know I stuck by my theories.
A queen had the credit and a king had the loot,
But I reached the Indies by the Western route.”
Jehovah frowned and His voice was thunder.
“The sons of Adam, they are doomed to blunder.
Pitiful their follies of the future and the past,
But even My patience has an end at last.
You steered a passage toward the setting sun-
Regard the work that your hand has done.”
(Christopher Columbus felt the heavens shake.)
“Must I forgive you for this mistake?
“I was ever vext by my peopled planet,
There’s always been trouble since Eve began it,
In Africa and Asia, in Albion and Spain,
Trouble and sorrow and wars and pain-
Never any quietude, never any peace
In Italy or Egypt or Palestine or Greece.
Half the world in turmoil, with woe bent double!
Yet you must go discovering a brand-new trouble.”
The winds from the spheres grew shrill and loud.
Now shivered the saints anointed.
Christopher Columbus knelt upon a cloud
And looked where the Master pointed.
“Sailor,” said the Lord, “four hundred years
This land has been a crying, a clamor in My ears,
While you lay sleeping till the Judgment Day.
Now rise up and answer for the U.S.A.”
From the golden pavement, from the gateway pearled,
Columbus looked on the spinning world.
He saw the mountains, and he saw the sea,
He saw America where India should be.
He saw the cities and the fields of grain,
And he heard the voice of the Lord complain:
“Behold the things that you brought to pass:
The great towns bellowing in tones of brass;
Billboards rising where the wild deer wandered,
The earth despoiled and the forest squandered;
Men looking down where My hills used to look up;
Swing bands squealing on a national hookup;
Strikes and riots
And bursting dams;
Hollywood diets
And subway jams;
A thousand new religions shouting out their wares;
Floods and dust bowls and two World Fairs;
Politics and panics and boys in breadlines,
And everywhere the sound of their shrieking headlines.
The heroes dead and the giants departed.
Now rise and answer for the thing you started!”
Christopher Columbus, sturdy old tar,
Stood up straight at the Judgment Bar,
He bowed to Michael with his shining sword,
He bowed to the Great White Throne.
Then Christopher Columbus spoke to the Lord
In a reasonable tone:
“I saw the mountains, I saw the plain,
I saw the place where my ships had lain,
And reaching northward till time took flight,
There was America, gleaming in the light.
I heard the tumult, I heard the clamor,
The hiss of the rivet, the noise of the hammer,
The speeches and the shouting and the sound of cheers
And Lord, it was strange to my sleep-filled ears.
But I saw such wonders and I heard such mirth
As I never knew when I walked on earth!
“A proud young race and their children and their sires,
Dwelling in their houses, working at their fires;
And some were weeping,
And some were old,
And some were sleeping,
Hungry and cold,
And some were wailing for the times askew,
But, Lord, it was better than the world I knew.
“Tanned and tall were their sons and their daughters.
They had won the valleys, they had tamed the waters.
I saw them soaring
Through the conquered air.
Their trains went roaring
Everywhere.
Strong their buildings and their bridges stood.
The land was fertile and the harvests good.
And a hundred million people
Lived in brotherhood.
The Jew and the Gentile had joined their labor.
And none there feared to address his neighbor.
And there was order
And the guns had died
Along their border,
A continent wide.
“And freedom still on their hilltops hovered.
Lord, I have seen what my ships discovered.
Let whirlwind shake it, let lightning strike it.
I have looked on this land, and, Lord, I like it.”
In the Golden City there was silence for a while.
Then the watching angels saw Jehovah smile.
And He chuckled, “There’s sense in a sailor lad.
It’s a noisy nation, but it’s not so bad.
You rose in heaven
And you had your say.
And you are forgiven
For the U.S.A.”
Oh, there was rejoicing on the utmost star
When Columbus came up from the Judgment Bar.
(Phyllis McGinley)