University of Virginia Library

Eternal Popocatapetl!
Isolated and apart
In the untrod desert's heart;
Grandly, grimly, and alone
He stands a burning mono-stone.
Unceasing as the numian shrine,
Afar his red lips glow and shine,
And typify the flames of hell.
Who in the under-world unknown
For ever feed this awful flame,
And make this mount their altar-stone?
Who but the Montezumas gone,
Kings of the children of the sun?
Last of a thousand ruined shrines!
Look round you where the cactus twines
His yellow roots through thin green sods
That grow above the marble hewn
Thick with their chronicles unread,
And deeds of their great forgotten dead.
On columns o'er white deserts strewn—
On cities where the hearth appears
Rent by roots of a thousand years;
Yet this one altar, this alone
Of all the relics that are known
Of the faithful children of the sun
Burns to their strange forgotten gods.
And this one lone eternal flame,
Which robber's knife,
Nor red castile,
Nor civil strife,
Nor Hapsburg steel,
Nor time, nor tyranny can tame,
Shall burn when all but time are not—
When even their names shall be forgot.

O Italy of the Occident!
Land of flowers and summer climes—
Of holy priests and horrid crimes;
Land of the cactus and sweet cocoa,
Richer than all the Orient
In gold and glory—in want and woe—
In self-denial—in days misspent—
In truth and treason—in good and guilt—
In ivied ruins and altars low—
In battered walls and blood misspilt,
Glorious, gory Mexico!

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I look far down a dewy vale
Where cool palms lean along a brook
As crooked as a shepherd's crook.
Red parrots call from orange-trees,
Whose white lips kiss the idle breeze,
And murmur with the hum of bees—
The gray dove cooes his low love-tale.
With cross outstretched like pleading hands
That mutely plead the faith of Christ,
Amid the palms a low church stands.
I would that man might learn from these
The priceless victories of peace,
And deem strife but a deadly vice.

I see black clouds of troops afar
Sweep like a surge that sweeps the shore,
And checkering all the green hills o'er
Are battlements and signs of war.

I hear the hoarse-voiced cannon roar—
The red-mouthed orators of war—
Plead as they never plead before;
While outdone thunder stops his car
And leans in wonderment afar.
A Hapsburg king has crossed the main
And Gaul and Aztec strew the plain.
God will not look upon the scene,
But sorrowing spreads a sombre screen
Of smoke o'er those that battle there,
And leaves them to death and despair.

A fragment from the battle broke
Forsakes the sullen dun of smoke
And winds it painfully and slow
Amid the cool and peaceful palms
To where yon gray church open stands,
As if it bore a load of woe.
Currajo! 'tis a chief they bear!
And by his black and flowing hair
Methinks I have seen him before.
A black priest guides them through the door—
They lay him bleeding on the floor.

He moves, he lifts his feeble hand
And points with tried and trenchèd brand,
And bids them to the battle plain.
They turn—they pause—he bids again—
They turn a last time to their chief,
And gaze in silence and deep pain,
For silence speaks the deepest grief.
They clutch their blades—they turn—are gone,
And priest and chief are left alone.

‘And here it ends. Here all is not.
I am content. 'Tis what I sought.
There is nor price, nor ban, nor power,
Nor plea, nor place, nor woman's smile
That could my weary soul beguile,
Or keep it from repose an hour.
Yet even had I ties on earth,
I know not why I should deplore
To die e'en at this age and hour,
Since I have seen and suffered more
Than they who live a full threescore;
And sorrow is the sum of life,
And I began it at my birth.
And I have known, I know not why,
Through all my dubious days of strife,
That when we live our deeds we die—
That man may in one hour live
All that his life can bear or give.
This I have done, and do not grieve;
For I am older by a score
Then many born long, long before,
If sorrows be the sum of life.

‘Aye! I am old—old as the years
Could brand me with their blood and tears,
For with my fingers I can trace
Grief's trenches on my hollow face,
And through my thin frame I can feel
The pulses of my frozen heart
Beat with a dull uncertain start.
And mirrored in my sword to-day,
Before its edge of gleaming steel
Had lost its lustre in the fray,
I seen around my temples stray
Thin, straggling locks of steely gray.

‘O for the rest!—for the rest eternal!
O for the deep and the dreamless sleep!
Where never a hope lures to deceive!
Where never a heart beats but to grieve;
Nor thoughts of heaven or hells infernal
Shall even wake or dare to break
The rest of an everlasting sleep!
Time has not set his seal on you—
Not one dark hair has lost its hue;
Yet I, indeed, might be your son,
In years—but not in actions done.
But what is time? and what are years
In reckoning of age and life?
'Tis measured by the deeds of strife—
And passions—hate—and love—and tears.

‘She was the last—last of her kind—
Last of a race of gods and kings—
Last of the Montezumas' line
That dwelt up in the yellow sun;
But sorrowing for man's despair,
Slid by his trailing, yellow hair
To earth, to rule with love and bring
The blessedness of peace to man.
She was the last—last earthly one
Of the eternal children of the sun—
A sweet perfume still lingering
In essence pure, and living on
In blessedness about the spot
When rose, and bush, and bloom were not.

‘Beside Tezcuco's flowery shore
Where waves were washing evermore
The massive columns of the wall,
Stood Montezumas' mighty hall.
And here the Montezumas reigned
In perfect peace and love unfeigned,
Until from underneath the sea—
Where all sin is, or ought to be—
Came men of death and strange device,
Who taught a strange and mystic faith
Of crucifixion and of Christ—
More hated than the plague or death.
Nay do not swing your cross o'er me—
You crossed you once, but do not twice,
Nor dare repeat the name of Christ—
Nor start—not think to fly—nor frown,
While you the stole and surplice wear,
For I do clutch your sable gown,
And you shall hear my curse—or prayer,
And be my priest in my despair;
Since neither priest, or sign, or shrine,
Is left in all the land, of mine.

‘Enough! We know, alas! too well
How Christ has ruled—Tonatiu fell.
The black wolf in our ancient halls
Unfrightened sleeps the live-long day.
The stout roots burst our mossy walls,
And in the moonlight wild dogs play
Around the plaza overgrown
Where nude boars hold their carnivals.
The moss is on our altar-stone,
The mould on Montezumas' throne,
And symbols in the desert strown.

‘And when your persecutions ceased
From troop, and king, and cowlèd priest,
That we had felt for centuries—
(Ah, know you priest that cross of thine
Is but death's symbol; and the sign
Of blood and butchery and tears?)—
Returned again the faithful few,
Beside Tezcuco's sacred shore
To build their broken shrines anew,
They numbered scarce a broken score.
Here dwelt my father—here she dwelt:
Here kept one altar burning bright—
Last of the thousands that had shone
Along yon mountain's brow of stone—
Last of a thousand stars of night.
To Tonatiu Ytzaqual we knelt.
Nay, do not start, nor shape the sign
Of horror at this creed of mine,
Nor call again the name of Christ.
You cross you once, you cross you twice—
I warn you do not cross you thrice.
Nor will I brook a sign or look
Of anger at the faith she felt.
I am no creedist. Faith to me
Is but a name for mystery.
I only know this faith was hers,
I care to know no more to be
The truest of its worshippers.

‘But useless that I do prolong
The tale of tyranny and wrong,
Well known to you as 'tis to me.
The Saxon came across the sea
With gory blade and brand of flame.
I know not that he knew or cared
What was our race, or creed, or name;
I only know the Paynim dared
Assault and sack for sake of gain
Of sacred vessels wrought in gold
The temple where gods dwelt of old;
And that my father, brothers, dared
Defend their shrines, and all were slain.

‘Full well we knew that we must fall
When first the rude assault was made.
“It is not well we perish all,
Fly, fly you with the holy maid.
A boat chafes at the causeway side,
Your youthful arm is useless here,”
My noble father to me cried.
I fled; was it the flight of fear?
O how I chafed to join the fray!
But I had been taught to obey;
We gained the boat—sprang in—away
We dashed along the dimpled tide.
It must have been they thought we bore
The treasure in our sudden flight,
For in an instant from the shore
An hundred crafts were making chase,
And as their sharp prows drew apace
I caught my carbine to my face.
She, rising, dashed it quick aside;
And when their hands were stretched to clasp
The boat's prow in their eager grasp,
She turned to me, and sudden cried,
“Come, come,” and plunged into the tide.
I plunged into the dimpled wave,
I had no thought but 'twas my grave;
But faith had never follower
More true than I to follow her.
On through the purple wave she cleaves,
As darts a sunbeam through the leaves.
At last—what miracle was there?—
Again we breathed the welcome air,
And resting by the rising tide,
The secret outlet of the lake,
Safe hid by trackless fern and brake,
With yellow lilies at our side,
She told me how in ages gone
Her fathers built with sacred stone
This secret way beneath the tide,
That now was known to her alone.

‘When night came on and all was still,
And stole the white moon down the hill,
Soft, as if she too feared some ill,
Again I sought the sacred halls
And on the curving causeway stood.
I looked—naught but the blackened walls
And charred bones of my kindred blood
Was left beside the dimpled flood.

‘We fled, and swiftly fled—and far
Toward the frozen polar star
Where Sierra's white locks float and flow
In sheen of everlasting snow—
Where meek-eyed violets in blue
Were shining in the beaded dew,
And yellow blooms were bursting through
The very crust of dripping snow.

‘There is one thing I would forget,
One theme I would not dwell upon;
A skeleton for ever set
Beside my desolate hearthstone—
A wrong to her so deep and base—
A deed so terrible and damned
That even you would hide your face
In shame to bear the shape of man,
Should you but guess its black disgrace.

‘My arm was nerved—my soul was fire,
I vented full the darkest ire.
This steel has known no maiden stain
To-day on yonder battle plain,
A marvel if my northern slain
Outnumbered not those of to-day
That dead and dying yonder lay.

‘My vengeance was complete; but she,
Too sainted, beautiful, and pure,
To stay on earth and still endure
The dark stain and deep treachery,
Returned back to the yellow sun.

‘I had enough of death and blood,
I might, of life too, say the same,
Since life and death, and good and ill,
Had neither choice, or charm, or name,
But all alike to me were one.
I roamed o'er many a realm since then
In sullen loneliness of thought,
And inly smiled to talk to men
Who boasted they had ofttimes seen
The trunkless head of dread Joaquin.
But when I learned a stranger sought
To sit on Montezuma's throne
That had in justice been my own,
And make your cross the nation's creed,
As did the Castile kings of old,
My cold heart beat no longer cold.
To tell the rest is little need—
And little time left to reveal—
My eyes are dim—my senses reel—
Enough! Mine was no tempered steel
To-day upon the sulphurous field,
As many trenched heads yonder feel,
And many felt, that feel no more,
That fought beneath your cross and sign,
And falling, vainly called on Christ—
You black monk! dare you cross you thrice?
When I have warned you twice before,
And swing your cursed cross o'er and o'er,
But for which she had been my bride
And sat a princess at my side?
To you and your damned faith I owe
My heritage of crime and woe;
You shall not live to mock me more
If there be temper in this brand,
Or nerve left in this bloody hand—
I start, I leave this stony ground,
Despite of blood or mortal wound,
Or darkness that has dimmed the eye,
Or senses that do dance and reel—
I clutch a throat—I clench a steel—
I thrust—I fail—I fall—I die—’