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 | The poems of Madison Cawein |  |
V
You were a maiden like a dream
Who led me where volcanic dust
Rained in a scoriac mountain stream,
Where, from Andean snows, was thrust
One crater belching stones and steam.
Who led me where volcanic dust
Rained in a scoriac mountain stream,
Where, from Andean snows, was thrust
One crater belching stones and steam.
You were an Inca princess when
I was a cavalier of Spain,
Who frowned among Pizarro's men,
And saw the New World rent with pain.—
No grace of God could save me then.
I was a cavalier of Spain,
Who frowned among Pizarro's men,
And saw the New World rent with pain.—
No grace of God could save me then.
And it was you who led me far
To gaze on caves of Inca gold:
But when we came, lo! warrior
On warrior, an army rolled
Around us panoplied for war.
To gaze on caves of Inca gold:
397
On warrior, an army rolled
Around us panoplied for war.
Fierce faces chiseled out of stone
Are not more stern.—Down, underneath,
I heard the sullen earthquake groan;
Above me, red eruptions seeth.
And clenched my teeth and stood alone.
Are not more stern.—Down, underneath,
I heard the sullen earthquake groan;
Above me, red eruptions seeth.
And clenched my teeth and stood alone.
And then you pled and was denied.—
They laid me where the lava crawled,
Red-rivered, down the mountain side.
I felt the slow, slow hell-heat scald:
And as it closed, you leapt and died.
They laid me where the lava crawled,
Red-rivered, down the mountain side.
I felt the slow, slow hell-heat scald:
And as it closed, you leapt and died.
| The poems of Madison Cawein | |