 | The vision of Cortes, Cain, and other poems |  |
IV.
Now does their war-drum sound aloud,Upon their highest tower,
Since he, their god of war,
The fearful picture given by Robertson, cannot be surpassed in fiction. “On a signal given, the priest in the principal temple struck the great drum consecrated to the God of war. No sooner did the Mexicans hear its doleful sound, calculated to inspire them with contempt! of death and enthusiastic ardor, than they rushed upon the enemy with frantic rage, &c.” and again, after their victory, they the Spaniards) found that forty of their fellow-soldiers had fallen into the hands of the enemy, he proceeds:—“The approach of the night, though it delivered the dejected Spaniards from the attacks of the enemy, ushered in, what was hardly less grievous, the noise of their barbarous triumph, and of the horrid festivals with which they celebrated their victory. Every quarter of the city was illuminated, the great temple shone with such peculiar splendor, that the Spaniards could plainly see the people in motion, and the priests busy in hastening the preparations for the death of the prisoners. Through the gloom, they fancied that they discerned their companions by the whiteness of their sins, as they were stript naked, and compelled to dance before the image of the God to whom they were offered. They heard the shrieks of those who were sacrificed, and thought that they could distinguish each unhappy victim by the well-known sound of his voice.”
The invader to their power.
Oh freedom, at thy altar shrine,
Where'er thy blessed stars may shine,
Of tyrants' instruments to thee!
Once more, the elated savage dreams
Of life, land, love and freedom;
And with the rush of mountain streams
Bids their young monarch lead 'em.
Exulting, came their numbers on,
To hail the triumph, more than won,
Since he, the Spanish chief, had bled,
And they, the Invincible, had fled!
He too, their nation's direst foe,
Whose very presence augur'd woe—
Within their pow'r—O! what must be
The living throb within the veins
Of men, who long inured to chains,
Now strike at last for liberty.
The aspect of despair is cast,
The slave is free—is free at last,
And like the unprisoned eagle, gaining
The lost ascent of clouds, where, straining
Each nervous pinion in the flight,
He bears him to the monarch light,
Freedom's own emblem, made for all,
Undim'd by cloud, unbent by thrall—
The native light, so oft adored
In earlier hours, at last restored.
| The vision of Cortes, Cain, and other poems | |