 | The vision of Cortes, Cain, and other poems |  |
XX.
Bound on the flame—with look as calmAs conscious peace and quiet bliss,
The monarch's robe, the victor's palm,
Were, men and nations, toys to this.
And not a shrinking start, nor sign,
Of mutter'd anguish, hidden, deep,
Proclaims that he, of all his line,
Hath been the first, with pain, to weep.
As calmly as in peaceful bow'r,
As proudly as in robe of pow'r,
As haughtily as victor, now
Is Guatimozin's royal brow.
Beside him, on a kindred bed,
Of burning steel, with faggots fed,
His favourite turns, in agony
Upon his chief, his dying eye,
What it had heretofore, denied!
The monarch read his servant's thought,
And while his high-born features caught,
A part of that enthusiast flame
Devotion feels, but cannot name,
Rebuk'd him with a smile, exclaiming—
His mounting-spirit, nothing taming,
Of its renewed and holy powers—
“Do I repose on flowers.”
According to the Historian, I have here been guilty of a much greater violation of the fact than may well be passed over. Upon the final conquest of Mexico, and before Guatimozin had yet been made prisoner, he ordered all of his treasures, knowing them to be the principal object with the Spaniards, to be thrown into the lake. This it was necessary should be concealed. It was, that this fact should be made known, that the royal favorite, on a bed of coals, turned to his monarch an appealing eye, who sternly replied—“Am I reposing on a bed of flowers.” The favorite persevered and died. In the text, I have no such reason for perseverance, for Guatimozin, in the preceding pages has already told where the treasure has been thrown, and his torture can only be considered wanton, or meant to extort a further confession, as to any residue that might yet be found. The reader is at liberty to believe which he pleades.
| The vision of Cortes, Cain, and other poems | |