University of Virginia Library

Mexitlis' power was at its topmost pride;
The name was terrible from sea to sea;
From mountains, where the tameless Ottomite
Maintained his savage freedom, to the shores
Of wild Higueras. Through the nations passed,
As stalks the angel of the pestilence,
The great king's messengers. They marked the young,
The brave and beautiful, and bore them on
For their foul sacrifices. Terror went
Before the tyrant's heralds. Grief and wrath
Remained behind their steps; but they were dumb.

He was as God. Yet in his capital
Sat Moteuezoma, second of that name,
Trembling with fear of dangers long foretold
In ancient prophecies, and now announced
By signs in heaven and portents upon earth;
By the reluctant voices of pale priests;
By the grave looks of solemn counsellors;
But chief, by sickening heaviness of heart
That told of evil, dimly understood,
But evil which must come. With face obscured,
And robed in night the giant phantom rose,
Of his great empire's ruin, and his own.
Happier, though guiltier, he, before whose glance
Of reckless triumph, moved the spectral Hand,
That traced the unearthly characters of fate.

'Twas then, one eve, when o'er the imperial lake
And all its cities, glittering in their pomp,
The lord of glory threw his parting smiles,
In Tlatelolco's palace, in her bower,
Papantzin lay reclined; sister of him
At whose name monarchs trembled. Yielding there
To musings various, o'er her senses crept
Or sleep, or kindred death.

It seemed she stood
In an illimitable plain, that stretched
Its desert continuity around,
Upon the o'erwearied sight; in contrast strange
With that rich vale, where only she had dwelt,
Whose everlasting mountains, girdling it,
As in a chalice held a kingdom's wealth;
Their summits freezing, where the eagle tired,
But found no resting-place. Papantzin looked
On endless barrenness, and walked perplexed
Through the dull haze, along the boundless heath,
Like some lone ghost in Mictlan's cheerless gloom
Debarred from light and glory.

Wandering thus
She came where a great sullen river poured
Its turbid waters with a rushing sound
Of painful moans; as if the inky waves
Were hastening still on their complaining course
To escape the horrid solitudes. Beyond
What seemed a highway ran, with branching paths
Innumerous. This to gain, she sought to plunge
Straight in the troubled stream. For well she knew
To shun with agile limbs the current's force,
Nor feared the noise of waters. She had played
From infancy in her fair native lake,
Amid the gay plumed creatures floating round,
Wheeling or diving, with their changeful hues,
As fearless and as innocent as they.

A vision stayed her purpose. By her side
Stood a bright youth; and startling, as she gazed
On his effulgence, every sense was bound
In pleasing awe and in fond reverence.
For not Tezcatlipoca, as he shone
Upon her priest-led fancy, when from heaven
By filmy thread sustained he came to earth,
In his resplendent mail reflecting all
Its images, with dazzling portraiture,
Was, in his radiance and immortal youth
A peer to this new god.—His stature was
Like that of men; but matched with his, the port
Of kings all dreaded was the crouching mien
Of suppliants at their feet. Serene the light
That floated round him, as the lineaments
It cased with its mild glory. Gravely sweet
The impression of his features, which to scan
Their lofty loveliness forbade: His eyes
She felt, but saw not: only, on his brow—
From over which, encircled by what seemed
A ring of liquid diamond, in pure light
Revolving ever, backward flowed his locks
In buoyant, waving clusters—on his brow
She marked a Cross described; and lowly bent
She knew not wherefore, to the sacred sign.
From either shoulder mantled o'er his front
Wings dropping feathery silver; and his robe
Snow-white in the still air was motionless,
As that of chiselled god, or the pale shroud
Of some fear-conjured ghost.

Her hand he took
And led her passive o'er the naked banks
Of that black stream, still murmuring angrily.
But, as he spoke, she heard its moans no more;
His voice seemed sweeter than the hymnings raised
By brave and gentle souls in Paradise,
To celebrate the outgoing of the sun,
On his majestic progress over heaven.
“Stay, princess,” thus he spoke, “thou mayest not yet
O'erpass these waters. Though thou knowest it not,
Nor Him, God loves thee.” So he led her on,
Unfainting, amid hideous sights and sounds;
For now, o'er scattered sculls and grisly bones
They walked; while underneath, before, behind,
Rise dolorous wails and groans protracted long,
Sobs of deep anguish, screams of agony,
And melancholy sighs, and the fierce yell
Of hopeless and intolerable pain.

Shuddering, as, in the gloomy whirlwind's pause,
Through the malign, distempered atmosphere,
The second circle's purple blackness, passed
The pitying Florentine, who saw the shades
Of poor Francesca and her paramour,—
The princess o'er the ghastly relics stepped,
Listening the frightful clamour; till a gleam,
Whose sickly and phosphoric lustre seemed
Kindled from these decaying bones, lit up
The sable river. Then a pageant came
Over its obscure tides, of stately barks,
Gigantic, with their prows of quaint device,
Tall masts, and ghostly canvass, huge and high,
Hung in the unnatural light and lifeless air.
Grim bearded men, with stern and angry looks
Strange robes, and uncouth armour, stood behind
Their galleries and bulwarks. One ship bore
A broad sheet pendant, where inwrought with gold
She marked the symbol that adorned the brow
Of her mysterious guide. Down the dark stream
Swept on the spectral fleet, in the false light
Flickering and fading. Louder then uprose
The roar of voices from the accursed strand,
Until in tones, solemn and sweet, again
Her angel-leader spoke.

“Princess, God wills
That thou shouldst live, to testify on earth
What changes are to come; and in the world
Where change comes never, live, when earth and all
Its changes shall have passed like earth away.

“The cries that pierced thy soul and chilled thy veins
Are those of thy tormented ancestors.
Nor shall their torment cease; for God is just.
Foredoomed,—since first from Atzlan led to rove,
Following in quest of change, their kindred tribes,—
Where'er they rested, with foul sacrifice
They stained the shuddering earth. Their monuments
By blood cemented, after ages passed
With idle wonder or fantastic guess,
The traveller shall behold. For broken, then,
Like their own ugly idols, buried, burnt,
Their fragments spurned for every servile use,
Trampled and scattered to the reckless winds,
The records of their origin shall be.
Still in their cruelty and untamed pride,
They lived and died condemned; whether they dwelt
Outcasts, upon a soil that was not theirs,
All steril as it was, and won by stealth
Food from the slimy margent of the lake,
And digged the earth for roots and unclean worms;
Or served in bondage to another race,
Who loved them not. Driven forth, they wandered then
In miserable want, until they came
Where from the thriftless rock the nopal grew,
On which the hungry eagle perched and screamed,
And founded Tenochtitlan; rearing first
With impious care, a cabin for their god
Huitzilopochtli, and with murderous rites
Devoting to his guardianship themselves
And all their issue. Quick the nopal climbed,
Its harsh and bristly growth towering o'er all
The vale of Anahuac. Far for his prey,
And farther still the ravenous eagle flew;
And still with dripping beak but thirst unslaked
With savage cries wheeled home. Nine kings have reigned,
Their records blotted and besmeared with blood
So thick that none may read them. Down the stairs
And o'er the courts and winding corridors
Of their abominable piles, upreared
In the face of heaven, and naked to the sun,
More blood has flowed than would have filled the lakes
O'er which, enthroned midst carnage, they have sat,
Heaping their treasures for the stranger's spoil.
Prodigious cruelty and waste of life,
Unnatural riot and blaspheming pride,—
All that God hates,—and all that tumbles down
Great kingdoms and luxurious commonwealths
After long centuries waxing all corrupt,—
In their brief annals aggregated, forced,
And monstrous, are compressed. And now the cup
Of wrath is full; and now the hour has come.
Nor yet unwarned shall judgment overtake
The tribes of Aztlan, and in chief their lords
Mexitlis' blind adorers. As to one
Who feels his inward malady remain,
Howe'er health's seeming mocks his destiny,
In gay or serious mood the thought of death
Still comes obtrusive; so old prophecy
From age to age preserved, has told thy race
How strangers, from beyond the rising sun,
Should come with thunder armed, to overturn
Their idols, to possess their lands, and hold
Them and their children in long servitude.

“Thou shalt bear record that the hour is nigh.
The white and bearded men whose grim array
Swept o'er thy sight, are those who are to come,
And with strong arms and wisdom stronger far,
Strange beasts obedient to their masters' touch,
And engines hurling death, with Fate to aid,
Shall wrest the sceptre from the Azteques' line,
And lay their temples flat. Horrible war,
Rapine and murder and destruction wild
Shall hurry like the whirlwind o'er the land.
Yet with the avengers come the word of peace;
With the destroyers comes the bread of life;
And, as the wind-god in thine idle creed,
Opens a passage with his boisterous breath
Through which the genial waters over earth
Shed their reviving showers; so, when the storm
Of war has pass'd, rich dews of heavenly grace
Shall fall on flinty hearts. And thou, the flower,
Which, when huge cedars and most ancient pines
Coeval with the mountains are uptorn,
The hurricane shall leave unharmed, thou, then,
Shalt be the first to lift thy drooping head
Renewed, and cleansed from every former stain.

“The fables of thy people teach, that when
The deluge drowned mankind, and one sole pair
In fragile bark preserved, escaped and climbed
The steeps of Colhuacan, daughters and sons
Were born to them, who knew not how to frame
Their simplest thoughts in speech; till from the grove
A dove poured forth, in regulated sounds,
Each varied form of language. Then they spake,
Though neither by another understood.
But thou shalt then hear of that Holiest Dove,
Which is the Spirit of the Eternal God.
When all was void and dark, he moved above
Infinity; and from beneath his wings
Earth and the waters and the islands rose;
The air was quickened, and the world had life.
Then all the lamps of heaven began to shine,
And man was made to gaze upon their fires.

“Among thy fathers' visionary tales,
Thou'st heard, how once near ancient Tula dwelt
A woman, holy and devout, who kept
The temple pure, and to its platform saw
A globe of emerald plumes descend from heaven.
Placing it in her bosom to adorn
Her idol's sanctuary (so the tale
Runs), she conceived, and bore Mexitli. He,
When other children had assailed her life,
Sprang into being, all equipped for war;
His green plumes dancing in their circlet bright,
Like sheaf of sun-lit spray cresting the bed
Of angry torrents. Round, as Tonatiuh
Flames in mid-heaven, his golden buckler shone;
Like nimble lightning flashed his dreadful lance;
And unrelenting vengeance in his eyes
Blazed with its swarthy lustre. He, they tell,
Led on their ancestors; and him the god
Of wrath and terror, with the quivering hearts
And mangled limbs of myriads, and the stench
Of blood-washed shrines and altars they appease.
But then shall be revealed to thee the name
And vision of a virgin undefiled,
Embalmed in holy beauty, in whose eyes,
Downcast and chaste, such sacred influence lived,
That none might gaze in their pure spheres and feel
One earth-born longing. Over her the Dove
Hung, and th' Almighty power came down. She bore
In lowliness, and as a helpless babe,
Heir to man's sorrows and calamities,
His great Deliverer, Conqueror of Death;
And thou shalt learn, how when in years he grew
Perfect, and fairer than the sons of men,
And in that purifying rite partook
Which thou shalt share, as from his sacred locks
The glittering waters dropped, high over head
The azure vault was opened, and that Dove
Swiftly, serenely floating downwards, stretched
His silvery pinions o'er the anointed Lord,
Sprinkling celestial dews. And thou shalt hear
How, when the Sacrifice for man had gone
In glory home, as his chief messengers
Were met in council, on a mighty wind
The Dove was borne among them; on each brow
A forked tongue of fire unquenchable lit;
And, as the lambent points shot up and waved,
Strange speech came to them; thence to every land,
In every tongue, they, with untiring steps,
Bore the glad tidings of a world redeemed.”

Much more, which now it suits not to rehearse,
The princess heard. The historic prophet told
Past, Present, Future,—things that since have been,
And things that are to come. And, as he ceased,
O'er the black river, and the desert plain,
As o'er the close of counterfeited scenes,
Shown by the buskined muse, a veil came down,
Impervious; and his figure faded swift
In the dense gloom. But then, in starlike light,
That awful symbol which adorned his brow
In size dilating showed: and up, still up,
In its clear splendour still the same, though still
Lessening, it mounted; and Papantzin woke.

She woke in darkness and in solitude.
Slow passed her lethargy away, and long
To her half dreaming eye that brilliant sign
Distinct appeared. Then damp and close she felt
The air around, and knew the poignant smell
Of spicy herbs collected and confined.
As those awakening from a troubled trance
Are wont, she would have learned by touch if yet
The spirit to the body was allied.
Strange hindrances prevented. O'er her face
A mask thick-plated lay: and round her swathed
Was many a costly and encumbering robe,
Such as she wore on some high festival,
O'erspread with precious gems, rayless and cold,
That now pressed hard and sharp against her touch.
The cumbrous collar round her slender neck,
Of gold thick studded with each valued stone
Earth and the sea-depths yield for human pride—
The bracelets and the many-twisted rings
That girt her taper limbs, coil upon coil—
What were they in this dungeon's solitude?
The plumy coronal that would have sprung
Light from her fillet in the purer air,
Waving in mockery of the rainbow tints,
Now drooping low, and steeped in clogging dews,
Oppressive hung. Groping in dubious search,
She found the household goods, the spindle, broom,
Gicalli quaintly sculptured, and the jar
That held the useless beverage for the dead.
By these, and by the jewel to her lip
Attached, the emerald symbol of the soul,
In its green life immortal, soon she knew
Her dwelling was a sepulchre.

She loosed
The mask, and from her feathery bier uprose,
Casting away the robe, which like long alb
Wrapped her; and with it many an aloe leaf,
Inscribed with Azteck characters and signs,
To guide the spirit where the Serpent hissed,
Hills towered, and deserts spread, and keen winds blew,
And many a “Flower of Death;” though their frail leaves
Were yet unwithered. For the living warmth
Which in her dwelt, their freshness had preserved;
Else, if corruption had begun its work,
The emblems of quick change would have survived
Her beauty's semblance. What is beauty worth,
If the cropt flower retains its tender bloom
When foul decay has stolen the latest lines
Of loveliness in death? Yet even now
Papantzin knew that her exuberant locks—
Which, unconfined, had round her flowed to earth,
Like a stream rushing down some rocky steep,
Threading ten thousand channels—had been shorn
Of half their waving length,—and liked it not.

But through a crevice soon she marked a gleam
Of rays uncertain; and, with staggering steps,
But strong in reckless dreaminess, while still
Presided o'er the chaos of her thoughts
The revelation that upon her soul
Dwelt with its power, she gained the cavern's throat
And pushed the quarried stone aside, and stood
In the free air, and in her own domain.

But now obscurely o'er her vision swam
The beauteous landscape, with its thousand tints
And changeful views; long alleys of bright trees
Bending beneath their fruits; espaliers gay
With tropic flowers and shrubs that filled the breeze
With odorous incense, basins vast, where birds
With shining plumage sported, smooth canals
Leading the glassy wave, or towering grove
Of forest veterans. On a rising bank,
Her seat accustomed, near a well hewn out
From ancient rocks into which waters gushed
From living springs, where she was wont to bathe,
She threw herself to muse. Dim on her sight
The imperial city and its causeways rose,
With the broad lake and all its floating isles
And glancing shallops, and the gilded pomp
Of princely barges, canopied with plumes
Spread fanlike, or with tufted pageantry
Waving magnificent. Unmarked around
The frequent huitzilin, with murmuring hum
Of ever-restless wing, and shrill sweet note,
Shot twinkling, with the ruby star that glowed
Over his tiny bosom, and all hues
That loveliest seem in heaven, with ceaseless change,
Flashing from his fine films. And all in vain
Untiring, from the rustling branches near,
Poured the Centzontli all his hundred strains
Of imitative melody. Not now
She heeded them. Yet pleasant was the shade
Of palms and cedars; and through twining boughs
And fluttering leaves, the subtle god of air,
The serpent armed with plumes, most welcome crept,
And fanned her cheek with kindest ministry.

A dull and dismal sound came booming on;
A solemn, wild, and melancholy noise,
Shaking the tranquil air; and afterward
A clash and jangling, barbarously prolonged,
Torturing the unwilling ear, rang dissonant.
Again the unnatural thunder rolled along,
Again the crash and clamour followed it.
Shuddering she heard, who knew that every peal
From the dread gong, announced a victim's heart
Torn from his breast, and each triumphant clang,
A mangled corse, down the great temple's stairs
Hurled headlong; and she knew, as lately taught,
How vengeance was ordained for cruelty;
How pride would end; and uncouth soldiers tread
Through bloody furrows o'er her pleasant groves
And gardens; and would make themselves a road
Over the dead, choking the silver lake,
And cast the battered idols down the steps
That climbed their execrable towers, and raze
Sheer from the ground Ahuitzol's mighty pile.

There had been wail for her in Mexico,
And with due rites and royal obsequies,
Not without blood at devilish altars shed,
She had been numbered with her ancestry.
Here when beheld, revisiting the light,
Great marvel rose, and greater terror grew,
Until the kings came trembling, to receive
The fore-shown tidings. To his house of wo
Silent and mournful, Moteuczoma went.

Few years had passed, when by the rabble hands
Of his own subjects, in ignoble bonds
He fell; and on a hasty gibbet reared
By the road-side, with scorn and obloquy
The brave and gracious Guatemotzin hung;
While to Honduras, thirsting for revenge,
And gloomier after all his victories,
Stern Cortes stalked. Such was the will of God.

And then with holier rites and sacred pomp,
Again committed to the peaceful grave,
Papantzin slept in consecrated earth.