The poems of Madison Cawein

What doth the Archbishop, his chapter of
Toledo?—Yea! doze they above some Bull—
Some dull dry Bull Pope Sextus sent to rot?
Come, come! awake! O prelates militant!
Hear me! this is a truth I whisper now:
Spain's King is less than king as I am less
Than Paul the Apostle.—Look you! look around;
Observe and dare!—I write above my seal,
A grave Dominican, to postulate
Pacheco, Marquis de Villena, croaks
No nonsense in your excellencies' ears:
King Henry's heir is illegitimate!
Blanche of Navarre cast off, his Impotence
Gave us a wanton out of Portugal
For Queen; Joanna, who bore him this heir
The cuckold King parades, a bastard, now.
Look! all the Court laughs—secretly: but masks

486

Are but for slaves; the people's smile is free
From all concealment; and the word still wags
About this son,—who is his favorite's,
Bertrand la Cueva's, handsome exquisite,—
Whom, people say,—and what they say is true,—
The King himself, needing a lusty heir,
Made warm familiar with Joanna's bed.
What shall we do? endorse the infamy?
Absolve them?—Yea! absolve them—at the stake!
Or, if not that, then with the axe that hews
The neck of State asunder!—Is it well,
Prelates and ministers?

Be merciful?—
Lest the disease of this delicious fruit,
This Kingdom of Castile, corrode the core,
Why not pare off all rottenness and leave
The healthy pulp! The throne, the populace,
The Church, and God demand the overthrow,
Deponement or the abnegation of
This Henry, named the Fourth, the impotent!—
Alphonso lives. . . . (It is my guarded hope

487

That brothers of such kings have no long life.)—
Am I impatient? 'Tis the tonsure then;
Ambition ever was and aye will be
Cousined to fierce impatience. 'Tis the cowl,
The tonsure and the cowl, they must advance!
My native town, Valladolid, did sow
The priestly germ, ambition, first in me;
Rather 'twas planted there in me; and had,
Despite the richness of the soil, poor growth
And less encouragement; the nipping wind
Of Court disfavor was too much for it;
And so I bore it thence to Cordova,
And sunned its torpor in a woman's smile,
'Neath which it sprouted but—who trusts the sex?—
Grew to a tenderness too insecure
For love's black frosts. Required hardiness,
And found it there at Zaragossa; (where
Fat father Lopés, bluff Dominican,
My youth confuted with wise nonsense, and
Astonished Spain in disputation in
The public controversies of the monks).
Transplanted to the Court, oh, splendid speed!
Sure hath its growth been. Now a Cardinal's red
Is promised by the bud that tops its stem.

488

How have I, through the saintly medium
Of the confessional, impressed the ear
Of Isabella, daughter and dear child!
The incarnation of my dear ideal,
Pure crucifix of my religious love,
Sweet cross which my ambition guards and holds:
Ploughed up the early meadows of her soul
For fruitful increase! in her maiden heart
Insinuated subtleties of seed
Shall ripen to a queen crowned with a crown
From welded gold of Arragon and Castile!
How I this son of John, the Second named,
Prince Ferdinand of swarthy Arragon,—
(Grant absolution, holy mother mine!
Thus thy advancement and thy mastery
Would I obtain!)—have on her fancy limned
In morning colors of proud chivalry!
Till he a sceptered paladin of love
And beaming manhood stands! She dreams, she dreams
What—Heaven knows! 'Tis, haply, of a star
She saw when but a babe and in the arms
Of some old nurse. A star, that laughed above
A space of Moorish balcony that hung

489

Above a water full of upset stars;
Reflected glimmers of old palace fêtes:
A star she reached for, cried for, claimed her own,
But never got; that blew young promises,
Court promises, centupled, from the tips
Of golden fingers at her infant eyes.—
Well! when this girl is grown to be a queen,
What if one, Torquemada, clothe her star
In palpable approach and give it her!—

When she is Queen, three steadfast purposes
Have grown their causes to divine results.—
No young imagination did I train
With such endeavor and for no reward.—
How often have I told her of the things
She could perform when Queen, while silently
And pensively she sat and, leaning, heard,
Absorbed upon my face! her missal,—crushed
By one propped elbow, its bent, careless leaves
Rich with illuminated capitals
Of gold and purple,—open on her lap.
Long, long we sat thus, brothers, speaking of
Felicity; discoursing earnestly
Of Earth and Heaven; and of who adhere
To God's true Vicar and our Holy Church:
Beatitude and all the ceaseless bliss,

490

Celestial, of eternal Paradise,
As everlasting as the souls that have
Built a strong tower for the only Faith.
And I recall now how, in exhortation,
Filled with the fervor of my cause I cried:—
“Walk not on ways that lead but to despair,
The easy ways of Satan! Rather thorns
For naked feet that will not falter if
Retentive of the arm of our true Church,
Who comforts weariness with promises
Still urging onward; and refreshes hearts
With whisperings in the tuneless ear of Care.”—
And oft, big-eyed with innocence, she asked,
“Do some digress?”—And I, “Yea, many! yea!
And there's necessity! we should annul,
Pluck forth the canker that contaminates,
Corrodes the milk-white beauty of our Rose.—
God's persecution! they confront our Faith
With brows of stigmatizing error writ
In Hell's red handwriting. Shall such persist?
No!—Heaven demands an end to all this shame!”—
Her pledge she gave me then: “When Queen, for Spain

491

The Inquisition! Let the Saints record!
I promise thee, my father, thou shalt be
A mattock of deracination to
Extirpate heresy.”

Well, well; time goes:
The world moves onward, and I still am—oh,
Frere Torquemada, a Dominican! . . .

Blind Spain hastes blindly forward, eager for
Her Hellward plunge. Our need is absolute.
Conclusion to these monster heresies
Or their most imminent consequence!—The throne,
Which is derived directly from high God,
Meseems should champion God in any cause;
And if it will not, we will make it to.—
O Spain, Spain, Spain! awake! arise! and crush
These multiplying madnesses that mouth
Their paradoxes at the Cross and shriek
Their blasphemies e'en in the face of Christ!—
O miserable Religion, is thy pride
So fallen here! thy tenement of strength
So powerless! Then where's security,
When steadfast principle is insecure,
And God's own pillars rock and none resists?—

492

But I have tempered, at a certain heat,
A heart of womanhood; and so have wrought
The metal of a mind within the forge
Of holy discourse, that Toledo's steel
Springs not more true than my reforming blade,
Which shall carve worship to a perfect whole.—
Imperial Isabella! patroness!
Protectress of pure faith! sweet Catholic!
Our Church's dear concern! its bell, its book,
Tribunal, and its godly Act of Faith!
Hear how my soul cries out and speaks for thee!—

My lord and brothers, hear me and perpend:
This need is first: to make her sceptered Queen
Of wide Castile. To make (the second need),
Him, whom Ximenes, my friend Cordelier
Shall serve as minister, King Ferdinand,
Her wedded consort. And the third great need,
The last,—which yet is first,—to scour from Spain
These Moors, who make a brimstone-odious lair
Of that rich region of Granada, which,

493

Like some vile sore of scaly leprosy,
Scabs Spain's fair face.

Delay not. Let the Church
Divide attention then 'twixt heretics
And unclean Jews. So; wash her garments clean!—
King Henry falls. God and Saint Dominick
Aid our endeavor! and the Holy See
Build firm foundations!—Let the corner-stone
Of our most Holy Inquisition here
Be mortared with the blood of heretics
That its strong structure may endure!—And he,
This Torquemada, the Dominican,
Made Grand Inquisitor and Cardinal,
This monk who writes you now, whose spirit feels
That God inspires him with His own desires,
Shall blaze God's name in blood upon the world.

University of Virginia Library

TORQUEMADA