 | The vision of Cortes, Cain, and other poems |  |
XXIII.
'Tis the mid hour of night—the lampIs burning on a table near,
Silence is o'er the Spanish camp,
A silence of mysterious fear.
And Cortes sleeps upon a bed—
Rough for a monarch, not for him,
Who oft-times found a peasant's shed,
Most meet for each athletic limb!
Or, on the roughest peak has lain
His giant bulk, and may again,
In far more quietude than now,
When victory twines around his brow,
The wreath of triumph and of blood,
So sternly sought thro' wild and flood.
No! by the dark and furrowy frown,
The lip compress'd, and mutter'd groan—
The writhing of that sinewy frame—
The sudden burst of well known name
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The waking thought in garb of pride—
The tossing of the giant limb—
The aspect madden'd, startling, grim—
The close observer may behold,
What, seldom yet, the tongue hath told,
A story, from the lips apart,
The demon gnawing at the heart!
| The vision of Cortes, Cain, and other poems | |