Lays and Legends or Ballads of the New World :: :: University of Virginia Library

The waies through which my weary steps I guyde
In this delightful land of faery,
Are so exceeding spacious and wyde,
And sprinckled with such sweet variety
Of all that pleasant is to care or eye,
That I nigh ravisht with rare thoughts delight,
My tedious travell do forget thereby,
And when I gin to feel decay of might,
It strength to me supplies, and chears my dulled spright.
Spencer's Faerie Queene, Book VI.—Sir Caledore.

TO WASHINGTON IRVING, ONE OF THE MOST DISTINGUISHED WRITERS OF THAT NEW WORLD IN WHICH THE SCENE OF THESE POEMS IS PLACED, THIS LITTLE VOLUME Is Inscribed, BY AN ENGLISH ADMIRER OF THE SIMPLE PATHOS AND DELICATE BEAUTY WHICH SO PECULIARLY DISTINGUISH HIS WORKS.

I. PART I. BALLADS OF THE NEW WORLD.

No. I. COLUMBUS.

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[The great Christopher Columbus, who gave a new world to Spain, was the son of a Genoese wool-comber. He early evinced an uncontrollable passion for a maritime life; and, while yet a stripling, fought against the fleets of Venice. Visiting Portugal, he maintained himself by selling charts. Slowly he elaborated his great discovery, till it flashed upon him with the certainty of a secret disclosed from Heaven. After years of torturing suspense in the courts of princes, during which he must have suffered more sadness of the inmost soul than even his great countrymen, Dante and Tasso, or even our own Spenser, Columbus obtained the patronage he needed; furnished with scanty and tardily afforded aid, from the pious and warm-hearted Queen of Spain; tacitly encouraged by the cold and calculating Ferdinand, and zealously assisted by a speculative shipowner, he set forth one day in August from Palos, a small fishing town in Andalusia; and, with a desponding and superstitious crew, launched boldly into an unknown ocean, to discover an unknown world. Who is ignorant of the greatest triumph of genius? Within a month he landed on the shore of St. Salvador.]

'Twas a sunny eve in August, when three caravels set forth,
Not for the orange-teeming south, not for the icy north;

No furs to bring from a colder clime, no freight of the golden ore,
No glittering sand from the naked chiefs of Afric's distant shore;

Not bound to the land of the Genoese, who rear the marble piles—
Not bound to the land of the myrtle-grove, where the heaven ever smiles.

If one could tell where the soul shall go when the body's in the grave,
Then he might say what unknown land they seek across the wave.

No exiled serfs were the mariners who ploughed the western foam,
That sought some hut, some resting-place, they still might call a home.

On the blood-red track the sun had left upon the burning sea,
Like staunch slot-hounds on a bleeding boar, flew fast those vessels three;

To the setting sun they sailed away, but no bold hearts manned the bark,
For their hopes had sunk with the sinking sun, ere the coming night grew dark:

Like men in a dream, they furled the sail, or spread it to the wind,
And the ghastly forms of a fevered sleep rose up in each coward mind:

They feared no heat of the tropic sun, nor the cold north's freezing air,
But worse than death it seemed to them, to sail—they knew not where.

The mass had been sung in Palos town when the sun was still o'er head,
When it shed its cheering golden light from the heavens flaming red;

And the boldest hearts had louder throbbed when they heard the parting prayer;
Amidst those kneeling mariners, but one looked joyful there.

When, from the heights of Rabida, to the shores of the deep-voiced sea,
Came the solemn sound of the vesper-bell, so sad—so mournfully;

Like the mournful voice of their fatherland, bidding a last farewell,
Came on the breeze of the evening, the sigh of the convent bell;

When down to the edge of the brown sea-beach followed the weeping crowd,
On one ear alone unheeded fell that mournful sobbing loud.

None knew what dangers they might meet in the regions of Zapan,
What pathless seas might intervene ere they saw the crowned khan;

What fiery waves, what crags of ice, might sweep their ships away,
Ere they traversed the leagues that sever Spain from the clime of the rich Cathay.

Could human power these ills avert? Oh none but a hand divine;
They kneel to the saint, whose triple fires on the mast in the tempest shine.

They raise a hymn to the saint whose flame is a type of the Trinity,
When the thunder bursts and rives the cloud, and shakes the earth and sea.

Down their bronzed cheeks the salt tears roll; but one cheek is still unstained—
One eye shone bright as the heaven's arch when the summer's storm has waned.

When the helmsman's voice grew tremulous, one voice was loud and clear,
One voice spoke hope and comfort, and bad the faint heart cheer.

And when from the shore receding came the wailing through the air,
Columbus' cheek was still unblenched as he joined in the parting prayer.

With such a band no deed was done of glory or of fame;
Who with a crew of cravens could win a deathless name?

High on the prow the hero knelt, and pointed to the west,
Where mid a halo of golden light the sun had sunk to rest;

Like the glow on the face of a dying saint, it melted in the sky,
Like a crowned and mighty conqueror preparing him to die.

Like some bold diver seeking pearls in the far Indian sea,
Down went the sun in the fiery west, with just such frantic glee.

And the waves of night closed o'er his head, as slowly to her throne
Came holy night, without a star, untended and alone.

The parting smile of the grey old sun was “sweet as sweet might be,”
As the last faint smile of a martyr as beautiful to see;

And He turned to the crew with a holy awe, as the pale light lit his face,
“On, on to the promised land,” he cried, “to the sun's bright resting-place!

“'Twas but last night, as I fell asleep by the bark drawn on the strand,
That an angel showed me in a dream the glories of that land—

“It was no land of scorched rocks; but from its balmy bowers
Rose up to a sky unstained by cloud, the scent of a thousand flowers;

“Where the flashing birds were fair as flowers, and the flowers as fair as gems,
And the forests' floors were paved with fruit, dropped from a myriad stems.

“I saw its groves and its silver streams, and it seemed to my dazzled eyes
Like the glimpse a suffering soul might catch of the blessed Paradise,

“And in that single moment's glance I felt myself repaid
For toil and woe, and promises forgot as soon as made.”

Far at the stern sunk distant Spain, and the waves grew black with night;
In vain they gazed, for a gathering cloud hid the land from the aching sight;

With that purple line that fades away, not home alone they left,
But wife and child, and all that's dear, the ocean had bereft.

Before them lay a world of waves, a kingdom never seen;
A desert track, where, since the Flood, no venturous keel had been.

Just as the Deluge left it, when the bow shone in the sky—
Unstirred by wind, unheaved by storm—those silent waters lie.

Swift through the air, like Allah's bolt, at an erring spirit cast
A flaming star, like a fallen lamp, from the vault of heaven past.

Unmoved Columbus sitteth there, while the night wind keener blew,
His eye on the needle ever bent, as the ship o'er the still sea flew.

The monster fish with vacant eyes, white as the Venice glass,
Looks up from out his ocean lair, to see those vessels pass.

With a blaze of joy, the stars leapt forth, and with a lambent glare,
A cross of flame to guide the bark, lit up the midnight air.

“Great God be thanked!” Columbus cries, as its brightness lit his brow;
“Ye faithless men, take comfort—what further want ye now?”

Faster the white-winged Pinta skimmed, like a sea-mew o'er the wave,
Like a spendthrift son it joyed to fly from the land that the salt floods lave.

The bright sun shone on the sleeping sea, and the holy daylight came,
And sunk in the glory that it rose, on clouds and waves of flame.

And so it rose, and so it sank, for a weary month of days,
For those weary men, each coming morn, less brightly shone its rays.

Still as in mock of the rising hope, the distant land seemed sea,
And the piled-up clouds seemed a distant land, framed for eternity.

And every day, at close of eve, the “ave Marias” sung,
High over head, from the watchman's nest, the listening sailor clung.

By day, the sun, to molten gold turned the ocean's boundless plain,
By night, the moon, on their gleaming track, showered down her silver rain.

'Tis a month since they passed old Teneriffe, where none would dare to dwell,
That flames in the broad, unbroken sky, an aperture of hell.

Yes! a month has fled since Ferro, last land that came in sight,
Last link that binds the earth to sea, fled from them with the night.

Oh! it seemed to them a thousand years, that journey o'er the sea,
As long as to foolish, ardent youth, seem the years of infancy.

Full of dark gnawing doubts and fears was that pale and trembling crew,
And still, like a hideous fevered dream, greater their terror grew.

Lost in the flood of deep despair, those weak and coward men,
Had heeded not if the mighty God from the sky had spoken then.

They heard no thunderings of his voice, when his lightnings shone abroad,
By the wind's deep whisper of his name, they never had been awed.

They muttered tales of a frozen sea, where burrows the ocean snake,
Of ghastly things and changing forms that followed in their wake.

Where, 'mid the trunks of the coral wood the Kraken's the only swimmer,
And his fiery eye, the sand-paved deeps lights with a ghastly glimmer.

In vain Columbus bids them pray, for prayer lulls fears to rest,
In vain he points to the clouds that bar their view of the distant west,

Points with the glance of a conqueror, who waits but for the day,
To tear from the sea-god's hidden world, the veil of time away.

Then angry threats they mutter, as they group around the mast,
And gaze on the thousand leagues of sea their caravels have passed.

And all their hopes of a golden land beyond that boundless sea,
Seem idle thoughts of a summer's eve, a madman's fantasy.

And the moonlight threw, on the narrow deck, the shadow of the mast,
And told by the bar on the silver'd plank, that the middle watch had past.

In vain Columbus talks of hope, and points to the swelling sail,
While the caravel, as it knew not toil, flies in the freshened gale.

Still from the prow Columbus gazed at the cross in the pale, clear sky,
And smiles as he points to the gathering weed that slowly drifteth by.

And many a dolphin swimmeth past, king of the western sea,
Whose robe is rich with the sparkling dyes, a rich-clad prince is he.

And the flying fish, that like a bird soars from his coral bough,
Who dives as deep as he can fly, beneath the white reef's brow.

And with the morn the wind sinks down, and birds on the rigging rest,
They seem belated wanderers from some land in the distant west.

For these resting-birds are no white-winged mews, no flitterers o'er the main,
But such as follow the husbandman, that sows the golden grain.

And again those birds, with untiring wing, on their pathless journey fly,
Still seems the far horizon, all land, and sea, and sky.

Still with the dawn the hope grows less of the long-expected land,
For the ocean seems to gird the earth with its broad and crystal band.

Columbus on the angered crew from the high prow gazeth down,
As louder grew the muttered curse, and darker grew the frown.

One blew the match of a caliver, and scornful gnashed his teeth,
And one half drew a dagger from out its hidden sheath.

“What hope of life,” those cowards cried, “from human help so far,
When the needle once, as the dial true, points no longer to its star?

“The demon's spell that draws us on, so far across the tide,
Hath, in an hour of dearest need, thus tampered with our guide.

“If God above should spare us now, this changeless wind will swell,
And bar us from our homeward course, like a torrid blast from hell.”

With hollow cheek and fixed eye Columbus gazes on,
Till the coal-black darkness melts away, at the sight of the dawning sun.

With the early night his lanthorn gleams from the prow o'er the heaving sea,
The first on the watch at the break of dawn, and the last to rest is he.

Loud grew the threats, still louder; their thoughts were thoughts of guilt;
And many a hand, with a curse, was laid on the ready dagger-hilt.

And round the fire dark faces grouped, all lurid with the gleam,
As on the face of a shepherd falls the red morning's beam.

“What does a madman think of fear, of home, of child, of wife?
What does a madman, seeking gold, care for Castilian's life?

“Look at the frantic dreamer, as he gazes from the prow—
Still as the statue of a saint, with his high and thoughtful brow.

“Why should a noble Spaniard die at the beck of a Genoese?
Why rush to death, while still there's hope, a madman's eye to please?

“If he still will on, like the crew of old let's throw the sleeper o'er,
To seek, like a second Jonah, the groves of his golden shore.

“Ere three days, Columbus, list you, their weary course have run,
We hie us home!” Columbus cried, “God's holy will be done!”

And his face was passionless as one who hears the chiming hour;
They could not choose but wonder. 'Twas God who gave that power.

Then hushed grew those fierce voices, and sunk to a pious awe,
When on his knees, in silent prayer, that mariner they saw.

And with the whispered word of fear, they saw, as it floated past,
With the sea-weed hung, with the sea-shell bossed, a swiftly drifting mast.

But three days more of carking fear, three days to tempt the main,
Then to the land of rich Seville they speed them home again.

The first day dawns, and the birds of land more frequent hurry by;
Sad evening comes, and its cloudy pall blots daylight from the sky;

Another day, and thicker drifts the floating sea of weed,
And the bark ploughs on its hopeless course through shoals of the uptorn weed.

The fatal morn!—in the bright clear vault the sun is up on high,
But still no glimpse of purple coast, and all around is sky.

Then bright hope fell in Columbus' mind, like a star that falls at eve;
But the voice of an unseen Comforter forbad his heart to grieve.

The sun set bright in his realm of cloud, as the sailors sank to rest,
And darkness broods with outstretched wings on the silent ocean's breast.

Sweet blew the breeze of evening—sweet as a breeze of May;
And it fanned Columbus' burning cheek at the closing of the day.

As o'er the meadows of Seville breathes the floweret-kissing gale,
So, soft and mild, that gentle breeze braced on the idle sail.

And he thought of the ocean breezes upon the bay's broad sand,
Where first, as a child, he saw the barks of his own mountain land.

It seemed to his fever-heated mind the breath of an angel soft,
As through the shrouds, with a pleasant tune, it rustled up aloft.

Ah! who can tell the anguish fierce, the wrench that rends the heart,
When the one long-nourished hope of life must from the bosom part.

But still, like a genius of the sea, he sits on the thronéd prow,
Though the cold dew fell on his burning cheek and on his fevered brow.

Has some deadly moonbeam struck him? Why stares he through the night?
What means that gleam on the good ship's lee—that speck of fiery light?

“Great God be thanked! 'tis a beacon's flame, to light us to the land;
'Tis the torch of a midnight wanderer on the long-expected strand.”

Long seems the night,—with leaden steps slow steal the hours away,
It seems a life, a thousand lives, ere the dawning of the day.

And he calls the sleepers to his side, and bids them hail the morn,
As o'er the land of promise it slowly 'gins to dawn.

What thoughts were his! with what boundless joy his mighty heart is full!
He felt like a conquering Cæsar might when he mounted the Capitol.

The day has dawned on the promised land—no land of idle dreams—
On a land of boundless forests, of mountains, and of streams.

'Tis but the porch to a thousand realms, washed by the peaceful sea;
A thousand isles in the distant west may there all hidden be.

Like men awakened from a dream by the shake of a hasty hand,
With wild amaze, and cries of joy, gazed then the rebel band.

For their last long thought had been of home, by weary day and night—
Now strangely in their dazzled eyes shone the unexpected sight.

And still the madman gazeth there, on the high and stately prow;
As when they sank to welcome sleep, so still he gazeth now.

Then shame stole o'er their softened hearts, and they bended low the knee,
And cried, “All hail, Columbus! St. George has blessed thee!”

“Long live the king of the boundless seas! long may the great one reign,
Who has added a vast and unknown land to the monarchy of Spain.

“Hail! to the mighty genius—the heaven-gifted man—
Who has planted the cross on the Indian shore, in the region of the Khan!

“Who has torn from the sea the secret, long hid from the light of day—
Hail! to the land of the western sky, that catches the last red ray.

“Hail! to the man who, with dauntless breast, sought through the bellowing deep
The spot where, since the world was young, the sun has sunk to sleep.”

There first since the birth of aged Time the wandering savage hears
A hymn to the Virgin sung by men whose cheeks are bathed in tears.

High o'er the trees with the golden fruit, those matted forests o'er,
Waves high the blazon of Castille upon the new-found shore;

And, stamped on the folds of the Spanish flag, for each mariner to see,
Waves high the sign of the holy cross, the cross of Calvary.

At the bearer's feet, with tears of joy, as at some good saint's shrine,
The seamen fall, for his calm pale face glows with a light divine.

And thus, in the old world's dotage, a fairer land was born,
As, when the western sky grows pale, flames up the eastern dawn.

No. II. COLUMBUS IN CHAINS.

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[Bowed to the earth by the petty intrigues of a foreign court; disgusted with the cold gratitude of the sovereign who had benefited by the noble enterprise, which he had not aided; reviled by the envious; cursed by the disappointed; hated by the proud, whom his great soul disdained to court; as a climax to his sufferings he was thrown into prison by the illegal sentence of the governor, of the very island of which he himself had been ruler. His release was soon obtained. The good and the noble demanded it with a common voice. Poor and neglected he returned to Spain, to wait, as in his early days, an unheeded suitor at the doors of the great; and he died, after two years of misery and ineffectual prosecution of his claims, quite broken-hearted,— an example while the world lasts—of the extreme bounds of national ingratitude.]

Like a prisoned genius of the air, bound to this nether world;
Like an eastern king with sceptre broke, and from his proud throne hurled;

On his dungeon floor, wrapped in his cloak, the chained Columbus lies;
Though the sunbeam gilds the prison wall, he raiseth not his eyes.

Oh! how unlike that gallant chief who leapt on the Indian strand,
When his eyes glared bright with a wild amaze at a new and wondrous land.

Is this what Spain in her bounty gives? is her best reward—a chain?
Are fetters meet for him who gave a new world to her reign?

No golden badge, with the bright stone decked, which the great of the earth might win;
But the felon's iron fetter the soul that eateth in—

That feeds on the cramped and festering flesh, that crushes the limbs to earth,
Like the banded snake of the torrid zone, the tropic's monster birth—

Who, the Carib asleep in the forest's depth, in scaly link twines round,
Like a pinioned soul in hell below, the sleeping wretch is bound.

“Will God permit the fiends of Ind shall thus avenge their loss
On the man who first on those Pagan shores planted the holy cross?

“Was it not enough that for bitter years, they mocked my frenzied brain,
And I watered the bread that alms had bought, with the heaven dropping rain?

“God knows, I never ventured life for honour or estate;
Let him who boasts of charity, weep o'er my wretched fate.

“For years I knelt at the noble's foot, bent low to kiss his hand;
And bore unmoved the menial's mock, the scoff of the vassals' band.

“Till, from the cold dull sleep of years, like a spirit of the blest,
I rose on the wings of the angels, and sought the golden west.

“When, 'neath a radiant veil of light, I found the land I sought,
Rich as a ship of the Indian seas, my soul with peace was fraught.

“Then when I sought my highest flight, and soared to the distant west,
The shaft of a churl flew soaring up, and pierced the eagle's breast.

“But, oh! this carking fetter, to him who once had fame,
Is nought to the sneer that brands the brow, to the curse that blasts the name.

“Great God be thanked, no sin of mine hath earned the cruel scoff;
I lie at peace, though at hour of prime my head were stricken off.

“No leaden shame weighs at my heart, my brow no red shame scars,
When the jeering face that mocks my grief, looks through the prison bars.

“Though on the block, ere break of day, this heart its throb should cease,
Still broods on the mind that's lulled to rest, the halcyon of peace.

“God knows, I loved no dross of gold; no other hope was mine
From my early youth, but on that shore to plant the cross divine.

“If this life were spared, I would but seek the land of the Son of God—
The thorny soil, that with bleeding feet, the blessed Jesu trod.

“If every knee were bowed to me, if the crown of Spain were mine,
I would but drive the Infidel from holy Palestine.

“And prayer and chant should purify the tomb that the Turk defiled—
The sacred spot where in fiendish rage blasphemes the desert child.”

Then God sent sleep, with its breath of balm, through the dungeon spread its beam,
And gentle thoughts of happier days blend with the coming dream.

And a pageant greets the prisoner, as he closed his weary eye,
A troop of dream-like visions came swiftly dreaming by.

Again he stands on Genoa's rocks, and gazes o'er the sea,
And mused, as sank the setting sun, where the land of the dead may be.

He sees, though Genoa all seems changed, and everything grows dark,
A child among his playmates floating a paper bark.

And he sees the well known caravel, with its broad and flowing sheet,
With the cry of “St George for Genoa,” bear down on the Pisan fleet.

Again he trod the cloister by Pavia's ancient tower;
Again he bent o'er the well-worn chart, in the lone midnight hour.

He sees at the gate of a convent, a wanderer ask for bread;
As the stranger takes the proffered alms, his pallid cheek grows red.

Again a change—a well-known form o'er a map of sea and isle,
Bends at the hour of twilight, seen but by God the while.

And the holy prior and Pinzon sit in the convent's cell,
And hear the noble Genoese of his great project tell.

A change—and now from Palos, without one parting cheer,
For the distant west, he saileth forth, without a thought of fear.

Again, with the eye of eager hope, he gazeth through the night,
Till, with the day, the new found land dawns on his dazzled sight.

He sees again a noble form come riding through the street,
Where the riches of the Old World with the New World's treasures meet.

A rich and splendid cavalcade, the young, the fair, the old,
Are looking with awe and wonder on the Indians and their gold.

And, beyond, fresh regions meet his gaze, and o'er them wide and vast
The shadows of still greater lands, is like a dial's cast.

Then when fresh glories beckon on, and an angel guides the helm,
Come the storms of a king's displeasure, and his bright hopes overwhelm.

And he leaves the land of the thousand flowers, and the rivers flowing wide,
And these fair and sea-girt islands that stud the broad green tide.

Again, as of yore, a stranger, he bends at a monarch's throne,
Unheeded by the basest there, unpitied, and alone.

Through a city's gate comes riding a broken-hearted man,
His stripling son behind his mule, that slowly paces, ran.

How far unlike that wretched pair, to the pompous cavalcade
That once through Barcelona came in Indian gold arrayed.

Now with a mighty project glowed his dullèd eye again;
He saw a land more fair than earth—he woke, and felt the chain.

And those glittering visions vanish now from the care-oppressed brain,
And ebbing reason to the mind comes slowly back with pain.

“When men the captive tortures, and his limbs in anguish steep,
Then God on the wretch takes pity, and sends his blessed sleep.

“Hark! to the mocking trumpets, 'tis the signal of release;
'Tis the signal for the slave, whose axe to the pinioned men gives peace.”

Loud came the roar of distant shout from the island shore along;
What means that tread of hurried feet, that cry of the coming throng?

“In our sovereign's name, unbar the door, strike off the manacle;
Does this galling iron fit the man who loved our Spain so well?”

And the prison rags are hurried off, and clad in cloth of gold,
'Mid the shouts of the veering multitude, he leaves the felon's hold.

And they wept when they saw that grey old man step from their own loved shore,
For they felt that a spirit had left their land—gone, to return no more.

The Indians wept as his ship's white sail grows a speck against the sky,
For they held him a being come to earth, sent by the gods on high.

What velvet robes, of those cankering chains, can take away the smart?
What gift of golden ducats can heal a bruised heart?

'Tis the wind that tears the thistle's beard, but the breath of the summer hour
Can stamp decay on the chalice lip of the richly dyed flower.

No. III. THE BATTLE OF TOBASCO.

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[The Battle of Tobasco was the first conflict of Cortes with the natives of the newly discovered continent. Having by this victory secured a foot-hold, and having, in perhaps unconscious imitation of Cæsar, burned the few vessels which afforded him the only hope of escape, he commenced his victorious march into the interior in search of the great Mexican empire, of which he heard so much. The Aztec armies were gorgeous in their rich feather surcoats; their eagle banners, their golden helmets and breastplates, and their coronets of plumes.

“Brighter than beam the rainbow hues of light,
Or than the evening glories which the sun
Slants o'er the moving many-coloured sea.”

—Southey.

'Tis the tropic spring, but the dark woods ring
With no jocund wild bird's notes;
'Tis the savage hum of the Indian drum,
On the troubled air that floats
On Tobasco's plain, thick as northern rain,
Or the sands on yon ocean's beach,
With a burning gleam, the spear heads beam
As far as the eye can reach.

With many a gem flames their diadem,
Like some waving sea of flowers:
On their banners stream the hot sun's beam,
A golden splendour showers.
From the pathless height, where their Fire-gods might
From the mountain breathe the flame;
From where the sky wears ever a dye,
Those bright helmed chieftains came.

And the fierce notes swell from the Indian shell,
The war-cry loud and wild;
To the god they prize with the diamond eyes,
They would offer the sun's fair child.
“They hastened here from yon bright sphere,
On their blanched and woven sail:
Through the fleecy clouds the moon that shrouds
When the evening sky grew pale.”

“Where the strangers dwell, is a barren hell,
No Paradise divine;
And their Sun-god gave, when they crossed the wave,
No love for his Indian shrine;
On this holy coast they value most,
The gold of the sun's own hue:
And I've seen them pore the metal o'er
As no other god they knew.”

“Their simple mail has no golden scale,
No red stone sheds its light—
On their forms divine no feathers shine,
With a thousand colours bright.
From their limbs, as ours, the red blood showers,
When our stone knife cleaves the skin;
Their quivering hearts from the hot flesh part,
When the priest's hand gropes within.”

Thus did they prate, as with step elate,
Came swiftly on their van;
With bare swords grasped, and our corslets clasped
To meet the foe we ran.
In a piercing shower the arrows pour
On the shouting bands of Spain,
But Castille's proud boast will hold his post,
Though the missiles fall like rain.

Through our battered mail the axes fail,
To hew their bleeding way,
In vain they rush with a surging crush,
On those whom they deem their prey.
For the cannon's breath is the voice of death,
And it roars like their war god's shout;
All the wide plain o'er they backward pour,
As they fly in a scattered rout.

And the war-horse bounds like the fierce stag-hounds,
On the Indians' breaking rank,
With a cry of fear that thrills the ear,
From that piercing charge they shrank.
For the steeds to them as the waves o'erwhelm
Those monsters of the sea:
For no javelin will pierce the skin
Of the forms of Eternity.

“Push on the pikes while the good sword strikes,
For the Indian king is down;
The cross waves high in the burning sky,
With the flag of the Spanish crown.
We'll end the fray of this plumed array,
With one charge of serried spears;
‘Santiago’ on, for the day is won,
Hark! how the vanguard cheers.”

With a savage bound like the fierce bloodhound,
Bent to avenge the dead;
While the holy sign of a faith divine,
Waves o'er each warrior's head.
As far above, o'er the cowering dove
Stoops the falcon on his prey—
Through the wood of spears came the thunder cheers,
From Spain's bright armed array.

And the standard old that flames with gold,
Rough with the precious gem,
That was borne of yore, their chief before,
Is seized upon by them.
A Spanish shaft the blood has quafft
Of Tobasco's dearest lord:
As he wounded lies, his heart's blood dyes
The point of Vasco's sword.

“And on, still on, with a pinion strong,
Like some sorcerer's magic bird;
Their banner flies and seems to rise,
As if cheered by the shouts it heard.
Wield the war axe well, though the Indian shell
With the roar of the storm may vie—
Cleave the plumed head, with their own blood red
Their feathered robes we'll dye.

Think of Baza's fight in the murk black night,
When the Moor bent low the knee;
And forswore each spell of their prophet of hell
For the Lord of Calvary.
One charge, one shout, from the host rang out,
On the plain they stand alone;
Let the forests ring while the mass we sing,
Ere the setting sun has flown.”

No. IV. THE TEARS OF CORTES.

[_]

[An old Spanish chronicler says, that Cortes was filled with grief when he looked down from the high mountains of Tacuba upon the great city of Mexico, which he was about to storm. Its rich valley, hemmed in by rocks of porphyry; its wide lakes, and below him rich groves of the cocoa and the sugar-cane, plantations of the aloe and the maize, productions of the tropics; and by his side the oak, the pine, and the cypress of Europe. The incident seems to have made a deep impression upon the minds of the rude soldiers of Cortes, not incapable of deep feeling, for some frag ments of a Spanish song, written at that time, are still preserved, and suggested the following ballad:—]

From Tacuba gazed Cortes, on the city beneath that lay
With palace and temple gleaming bright in the sun's fierce scorching ray,
With its thousand roofs that stretched afar, with grove and terrace wide,
Hemmed in by the granite mountains that rise on every side.

And the pyramids, with their fiery light, that blaze by night and day,
Tinting the hot and burning sky with a still more lurid ray,
And the broad still lakes calm gleaming, like a silver buckler bright,
Gazing up at the clouds like some spirit's eye, longing to see the night.

And each passing hue of the richest cloud, in those lakes is treasured up,
As an Indian king heaps the varied gem in the red and golden cup,
They seemed like the burning crater's mouth where mountain fiends of old
Fuse the melted ore to a thousand shapes, and sport with the changing gold.

And at his feet the dark pines grew; like the surging of the sea,
Through their massive boughs the mountain breeze breathes sad and mournfully;
The sun sinks low, the swift pirogue no longer seeks the gale
With their countless oars, their gilded sides, and their broad, white, matted sail.

Like some ocean bird that rests at eve on the ocean's throbbing breast,
And folds its great dark wings from flight, that city sunk to rest;
And now, one diamond-lighted star peers through the clouded sky,
The lower sank the burning sun the brighter it shone on high.

And the dark chief kissed his infant child, and smiled as fathers smile,
And the mother weaves the feather robe, the princely robe, the while.
One pious prayer to the Aztec god, one cup to the gods they drink;
And then, on their gilt and plumed couch in holy sleep they sink.

Before a shrine all black with gore, a dusky form knelt down,
Before the idol flaked with blood bent diadem and crown.
Before the god of the bleeding hearts the Indian king was kneeling,
And thoughts of the foe he deemed divine, o'er his troubled mind was stealing.

And he gazed on the volcan mountains, their peaks hid with the snow
That seemed to burn in the rosy light of the sun's last parting glow,
And he wept as he thought of the varied joys of that wide and beauteous land,
And the broad fair realms a dying chief gave to his feeble hand.

O'er the golden maize and the aloe's bloom flutters the king of flowers,
Where the fire-fly and the flame-dyed flowers light up the trees and bowers,—
Realms, that a god he never knew is tearing from his sway—
As now behind the mountain chain sunk down the ebbing day.

Fair, happy city of the Sun, lulled like a child to rest,
Little thou thought of the coming plague that should blast the golden west.
No dark-winged dream, with scowling eye, hovered before thy sleep,
Thou laid'st thee down with smiles of joy, but rose, alas! to weep.

As heedless as a sleeping babe, when the murderer o'er him bent,
No thought of wrong, no thought of crime—no dream of ill-intent;

Yet sweeter than breath that wafted from a slumbering infant mouth,
Came up the scent of the terrace flowers, fanned by the gentle south.

From Tacuba gazed Cortes, not with a savage frown,
Not with the smile of a conqueror was Cortes looking down;
'Twas not with the forest serpent's eye, nor its fixed and cruel glare,
When he spies the helpless humming-bird, was that hero gazing there.

Not with the glance of the fierce-eyed hawk, when he strikes his quarry down,—
With no dark-lined sneer of cruel scorn, looked Cortes on the town;
Not as when woodman drives through the boar the keen and griding spear—
He gazed with no look of stern delight,—he saw it with a tear.

His cheek flamed not as the reddened cloud, ere the lightnings hurry down;
With the eye of a saint with pity filled, he beheld the stately town;
In slow round drops the tears stole down his seared and bronzed cheek,
He bowed his head in solemn thought, for he dared not to speak.

No woman's grief that heart could feign, no tears had Cortes known
Since as a child, a sorrowing child, he wept o'er a grave alone,
And he grasps the hoary cypress stem—the tree of the dark green leaf,
And he thinks of the first-shed tear-drops that gave his heart relief.

And he turns his head from the wondering eyes of that encircling band,
And he veiled the sorrow that marks his face with his mailed hand;
But he gazed again, for o'er the plain came on the hot winds blast—
A maddened roar, which louder swells, ere the first wild shout has past.

It seemed but now that the city slept, like a city of the dead;
Silent and still the temple lay, beneath the clouds all red:
'Twas fearful, but a moment since, when the blood-dyed sun went down,
And shed its last faint mellow light on the distant volcano's crown.

And the silent lake with that parting hue, is bright and golden still;
The last faint ray of sunset rests on the pine-clad hill;
But the city is all stirring and rousing for the strife,
From each hut and palace terrace the Aztecs wake to life.

Hark! that sound again; 'tis the serpent-drum, it summons the priests around;
Its thundering moans from yon pyramid o'er the city's roof resound;
Look! from each terrace now burst forth bright, dazzling jets of light,
And their mingled blaze with a dreadful glare, lights the newly-fallen night.

“That ghastly fire is the priestly sign, if Cortes they tell aright,
Of the gathering feast, when captives die with many a horrid rite;

Now the moon is up and clear, and dark against the reddened sky
Stands out the giant pyramid, as yon fire-fraught mountain high.

“I see the gathering multitude in the wide courts below,
Their upturned countless faces are lighted by that glow,
And see, great God—now Jesu' help, O hear the deep-sighed prayer
That captive band that slowly mounts the lofty terrace there;

“Hear us, ye saints that favour Spain, sweet Mother of our Lord,
Now, thou, Great God of vengeance, draw thy avenging sword;
Hear us, O Christ, thou Son of God! in this our hour of need;
Kneel down, and pray St. Jago, so mercy be thy meed.

“And behind them crowd the white-robed priests, who, with mock and savage song,
Goad up to the roar of the thunder-drum, the pale and trembling throng;
Those phantoms white seem like the fiends that torture the souls in hell,
Where in the region of fire and ice, the maddened sinners dwell.

“High above all, like a demon's voice, peals Guatamozin's horn,
To their eager ears its voice seemed then like a cruel laugh of scorn;
Look, Sandoval, look, Cortes! our poor companions there—
All Spaniards, no Tlascalans mount up the blood-stained stair.

“Ah! must we here all powerless gaze from this farremoved height;
Would that our arms might strike one blow against the Indian might;
No pain to die 'mid the shock of spears; no pang in parting breath;
But thus to die like a butchered wolf—this, this indeed is death.

“O for one charge, one bursting charge, against this plumed array,
In their dark serried phalanx we'd let the light of day;
See, there they come, in pomp arrayed, look at the fettered band
Gazing on sky and mountain, the doomed wretches stand.

“Better for them if mother's hand had slain them at the birth,
Than thus to die, without mass or prayer, for the cruel Pagan's mirth.
Great God! behold they strip them bare for the bloody sacrifice;
They will offer their hearts to the Aztec god before our very eyes.

“Look! there's Guzman there, whom Pedro saw with a stone-axe cloven down;
Behind in prayer kneels Perez, who won the chieftain's crown;
And his eye is turned on Juan, whose keen Toledo's sway,
For the second rank of spearmen dug out a bleeding way.

“And yonder too's Alfonzo, who saved great Cortez' life,
When he fell from the blow the Aztec gave with the crystal-bladed knife;

Then with a yell they threw o'er his neck the limb-entangling chain,
And dragged him stunned from his dying horse o'er the mingled heaps of slain.

“There's Sancho there, whom some deemed dead, who saved the banner cross,
One hundred wretched Pagan lives could not redeem his loss.
Now round the flaming altar-fires, before their idol's fane,
The wounded dance; when they strive to rest, they goad them on again.

“Would I were there, by Jesus' help, or yon pyramids were here,
To teach the proudest Pagan host the power of a Christian spear;
Could human blood—could a dozen lives have saved that band from death,
No one that stood on that mountain top but had yielded up his breath.”

They have fallen now; and, bending o'er their bleeding bodies bare,
The monsters their hearts, the war-god's prey, from their throbbing corses tear.
The last is dead; and beneath the edge of the flint's sharp-cutting knife,
Has yielded up to the God who gave, his last faint gasp of life.

“O God! who keepeth vengeance, send thy good angel down,
To plant on yon fane the holy cross—to tear from the king his crown.”
The rites are o'er, but the priests chant loud as the bloody torrents flow,
With a yelling laugh, and a cruel scoff, they hurl each corse below.

Of this horrid feast no dark king's blood can wash away the stain,
'Till our dying day, like a branded scar, its memory shall remain;
Deep was the vow that Cortes breathed, as again he gazeth down—
Not with the tear that pity sheds, but a dark and angry frown.

The tears he shed were not sorrow's tears, no grief that bows the head,
'Twas the bitter thought that wrung his heart of vengeance for the dead;
The tears shook Cortes fiercely off from his fierce and glaring eye,
And thrice he shook his falchion at the stars in the pale clear sky.

“Now, soldiers, on!” he shouted; “remember what ye saw,
When you gave the flesh of their dusky prince to the loathsome vulture's maw.
Banners advance! wave high the cross against this doomed town,
Dark from the clouds the God of Hosts in anger looketh down.”

No. V. THE SORROWFUL NIGHT.

[_]

[The night on which the Spaniards retreated from Mexico, having in vain, after the death of Montezuma, endeavoured to preserve their footing in that great golden city of the west, is still called by the degenerated descendants of the first conquerors, the “Noche Triste,” or “the Sorrowful Night.” It was an awful shipwreck of Cortes' hopes, and one which the wonderful resources of his mind, his constancy, and his indomitable genius, could alone have retrieved. The day of vengeance came at last. What availed crystal blade against steel hauberk, or lasso against Spanish spear.

It was a day of terrible retribution—of “garments rolled in blood”—of confused sound of the battle, and the empire of Mexico fell like a Colossus—never to rise again.]

By the blazing light, of the watchfires bright, the weary veterans slept,
And the umber'd gleam, of their ruddy beam, lit the men who the night-watch kept.

Round the blaze they drew, that weary crew, for they'd fought the live-long day,
And strove against sling of the Indian king, and the might of his dark array.

For the fire and sword of the Spanish lord, had given much cause for grief,
From many a land the flaming brand had summoned the distant chief.

'Bove the pyramid whose peak is hid, gloomed dark the midnight sky,
No silver light of the stars once bright, shone through the clouds on high.

Never again on that idol fane shall blaze the idol's fire,
But the cross instead shall raise its head, as high as fair Seville's spire.

On that fatal morn, ere came the dawn, Montezuma a slave had died,
And save that chief, that died of grief, no friend had Spain beside.

And day by day he pined away, but the demon left him not,
No heart had borne the cruel scorn, of the chiefs at his changed lot.

Unshrived by monk to the grave he sunk, no son knelt his couch beside,
Striving to read the Christian creed, the broken-hearted died.

And now on his throne, in pride alone, fierce Guatamozin mounts,
Till he drives from the land the wounded band, the weary hours he counts.

Nor happy Spain shall they see again, for the wide Atlantic's coast,
And the wild storm wave, the rocks that lave, is less fierce than the Aztec host.

“Let none of mine like the infant whine,” cries Cortes to his men,
“We risked our life, when one to five, and we'll venture it again.

“Let each as he may forget the fray, and the carking pangs of sorrow,
Nerve each iron heart for a warrior's part, we'll cast the die to-morrow.

“Let despair's black cloud, no gallant shroud, and thoughts of the true friends slain,
Let no fear of ours, in the darkest hours, be ever known in Spain.

“Each soldier round must the gold be bound, let each to his armour look,
Botel for retreat, says the hour is meet, who reads the stars like a book.

“Let each trooper shine, with the chains entwine, each gem shall lend its ray,
Their varied light, as they glimmer bright, will guide us on our way.

“Let each heart be stout, for the Indian rout cannot hear the felted heel,
Let no muttered prayer pierce the silent air, no war-cry of Castille.

“Take, every man, St. James for Spain, as the watch-word of the night,
We must onward far, ere the morning star tells of the coming light;

“Till on the height, where the distant might of the city lies below,
We rest at last, when the danger's past, ere comes the morning's glow.”

In the still calm night, ere shone the light, through the sleeping city's waste,
The serried host, with no trumpet's boast, o'er the narrow causeway haste.

So calm and clear, of the banner'd spear, the wind lifts not a fold,
They seem like a train of the ghosts of the slain, as they leave the leagured hold.

Behind still nigh, 'gainst the pale blue sky, through the dark thin veil of gloom,
Rises the wall of the palace hall, where so many found a tomb.

And swift as they march o'er the causeway's arch, bold Cortes leads the brave,
He bends his ear, each sound to hear, he'll save if man can save.

All still around as in sleep profound the silent city lay,
And still more fleet, through the last long street they march, as comes the day.

'Tis like nature's hush, ere the lightning's rush in a lurid summer's hour,
Ere the thunder loud, bursts through the cloud, with all the earthquake's power.

Though night may hide, on the terrace wide, there gazes many an eye,
That trumpet's clang, through the air that rang, was a signal from on high.

At one blast of the shell, with its mournful swell, blazes the vault of night,
Like the volcan's flame, the brightness came, from a thousand springs of light.

And now with a crash, like the waves that dash on some wild Pacific shore,
The city seems to awake from dreams, and to shout with a monster's roar.

From the war-god's fane comes that echo again, of the far-heard serpent drum,
From the city borne, the sound of the horn o'er the darkened waters come.

And the dark crowds pour, with a sullen roar, as if night had given them birth,
Their robes of white, to the Spaniards' sight, seem to shroud no forms of earth.

A thousand canoes o'er the waters flew, though the darkness hid their array,
But still the rear, with no thoughts of fear, kept the millions all at bay.

Though the arrows that flew, still thicker grew, and fiercer plied the axe,
And the war storm sped, with a thunder tread, when they charged us at our backs.

“Still we hewed a lane, paved with the slain, the saints fight us beside,
On a charger white, in the heavens height, we saw St. Jago ride.”

No cry of fear reached the soldier's ear, from Cortes' Indian maid,
In no woman's weed, on a barbed steed, in a trooper's mail arrayed.

Now the bridge is past, 'tis crossed at last, and they tarry awhile in fear,
And there's hope for life, in this lull of strife, for the last canal is near.

The weak beams fail—great God! that wail was the shout of dire despair!
In a crowded mass they strove to pass, but a chasm gapeth there.

Swift the horse fled past, with no look back cast, on their comrades left to die,
And the savage shout still ringeth out, above that fearful cry.

And still around, from the trampled ground, the Aztecs seem to rise,
Through the horrid din they drag within the foe to the sacrifice.

And the waters are dark with the painted bark, and the wretch with the cloven crown,
But the ingot chest presses on his breast, and the red gold drags him down.

Rich robes, whose dyes with the rainbow vies, were stained with the waves' deep red,
And the waters are strewn with the breastplates hewn, and the spoils of the host that fled.

And gems that a king might long to win sink on the drowned dead,
And the waters' gloom, like a gorgeous tomb, grows dark above his head.

Like a vulture flew the swift canoe to bear away the dying;
Through the fire-lit air comes the shriek and prayer to the cowards that were flying.

And the barbed reed stings the Spanish steed, and pierces brain and marrow;
Through plated mail, through bright steel scale, drives fast the Indian arrow.

From their temple's hall, to their gods they call, to aid them in the fray;
On the mangled slain, on the missiles' rain, beams forth the golden day;

And its rays shone then on drowning men, and many a dying face,
On gashed form, with limbs still warm, that strewed the ghastly place;

And the breeze of day, as sweet as May, in the spring-time of the year,
Fanned the pale cheek of the soldier weak, who hails it with a cheer.

On that morning gale came the mourners' wail, and the sound of splashing oars;
On the calm cool air came shriek and prayer, though still the battle roars.

Still pealed the yell as the war-club fell, 'mid the cries of the day of doom;
The women groan as they mourn alone in horror's deepest gloom.

Then through the din rode Cortes in, though his horse's housings o'er,
And his armour gleams through the dark red streams that onward fiercer pour.

'Twas armour stout that could then keep out the sharp stone of the sling,
That could ward the dart that to the heart flew on the restless wing.

As high as your breast swam the floating chest, and the robes that shone with gold,
And gems and ore that rude hands tore from the Indian monarch's hold;

And feathers bright as the ruby's light pillowed the slain man's head,
And royal robes o'er-bedabbled with gore were wrapped round the dead.

Still the causeway o'er the cannons pour their flames that onward flew;
It breaks the rank and it rends the plank of the warriors' black canoe.

In the morning light, far as scans the sight, o'er the darkly crowded dyke,
The iron rain still sweeps the plain, still charge they with the pike.

The “sun's own child,” in frenzy wild, leaps the wave at a single bound,
Further than deer, though winged by fear, e'er leapt from sharp-fanged hound.

Though the human wave a war-shout gave, as they rushed on the broken mass,
Like a man who breasts the foam-wave's crests, bold Cortes holds the pass.

Then slowly back on the bloody track, o'er the cause-way's wide stones red,
To palace and hall of their capital they fly to mourn their dead.

From the village height, ere the sun set bright, Cortes beholds his band;
With no trumpet's note, no banners float, they reach the friendly land.

All travel-worn, with proud crest torn, with no gallant army's pride,
With no dancing plume to hide their gloom,—blood dripped from their wounded side.

The salt ooze drained from their armour, stained with the blood of friend and foe;
With bowed head they mourn the dead,—weary they march, and slow.

But many a face that once had place, Cortes beholds not there:
“Where do they ride I fought beside? Where are the absent? Where?”

In his robe's thick fold, that warrior bold, whose heart they deemed of stone,
Hid his bended head as he heard their tread: he mourneth there alone.

Through his blood-stained hand, on the hot dry sand, the warm tears silent fall,
For the dead in vain, o'er the wide-spread plain, sounds the trumpet's shrill recal.

With the mournful plaint of that echo faint, that up to heaven goes,
On the sighing gale came back the wail, blent with the shout of foes.

No. VI. THE MURDER OF PIZARRO.

[_]

[This stern adventurer possessed all the courage of Cortes, without any of his milder virtues. His bravery passed into ferocity; he was avaricious, coarse-minded, and cruel. Less decisive than his greater predecessor, and having a more peaceful people to subdue, he would have perhaps failed amongst the warlike nations of Mexico. Pizarro was assassinated in a chamber of his own palace at Lima, a city of his own erection, when in the plenitude of his power, by a band of Chili men, needy adventurers, friends of his former companion in arms, but then rival, Almagro, whose rebellion he had suppressed, but whom he had disdained to punish more severely. Uneducated, cruel, and despotic, he died regretted by none; a sword used by God and thrown aside. In the moment of death, he showed that intense and gloomy superstition which distinguishes the Spaniards, blended with much of the ancient hero. Exclaiming, “Jesu!” he traced a cross upon the floor with the blood that welled fast from his own life-streams, and was stooping to kiss it, when a blow, more deadly than its fellows, severed soul from body.]

In great Lama's streets stood the Chili men, careworn, with heads hung down,
As the viceroy in his pride of state, came riding through the town;
More fit for war's fierce tourney was that scarred and bronzed face,
Than for those mummings of a king, and courtiers' forced grimace.

He heeds no shout that hails him, no loud applauding cry,
Careless of that approving crowd, he spurs him proudly by;

With a careless scorn he greets their bows, for his palace gate is nigh.
One frown he gave to that starving crew, then turned away his eye.

And rich was Pizarro's velvet cloak, and rich his chain of gold,
That falls upon his doublet and its dark sable fold;
A cruel taunt is graven above his cold stern brow,
“For the men of Chili,” is that badge, that with the bright stones glow.

To the cheerful sound of the Indian horn, through the palace gates thrown wide,
Sweep in the viceroy's retinue in their rich and lustrous pride;
But he who tore from the Inca's head the wreath he called a crown,
Cares not for the turning blind worm, that his arm'd heel tramples down.

The Indian slave that passes by thinks of the age of old,
When the Incas ruled the sun's fair land, in the glorious days of old;
But far unlike those rich clad men, was that famine pinched band,
No pearls, no gems, could rebels glean from the hasty conquered land.

Poor wave-worn planks of a gallant ship, the bravest bark of Spain,
That the sea of death hath swallowed up and yielded not again;
“No barbed spear, no Indian blade, his princely heart clove through—
They strangled him in a dungeon, as you might a cursed Jew.”

Without priestly shrive, that's not denied e'en to a thievish Moor,
They slew him ere the sunset, as you'd stab a captive boor;
And they heaved a groan, that starving crew, when they thought of their murdered chief,
But hate soon followed sorrow, and chased the rising grief.

And they drew their swords and waved them, in the hot burning sky,
And fiercer grew their muttered words, and louder grew their cry:
“Shame, that a wretched swineherd's son should lord it o'er Peru—
Shame, that a bravo has the fame Almagro never knew.”

“The one eyed chief, Pizarro's lord, was the bravest of us all,
He better loved to stem the war, than rob the Indian's hall;
'Twas his broad gold piece, his well filled pouch, that gave Peru to Spain,
'Twas he that planted Jesu's Cross upon the Sun-god's fane.

“Shame! that our backs should bear the blow from a tyrant's mailed hand,
Shame! that a murderer's mailed foot should spurn a starving band;
Though now he's decked with the yellow pearls, brought from the island coast,
We are of as pure and proud a blood as such as he can boast.

“Alas! that Lama's children should die when food is near,
Or pine away when the revel's shout rings loudly in our ear;
Woe's me for the young Almagro, so fit to grace a throne,
Too young to sink to a peasant's grave, unpitied and alone.”

Then up and spoke fierce Reda, and he spoke with a savage frown,
“In God and the blessed Virgin's name, let's cleave the villain down;
Wait for no white flag waving, for mass or holy tide,
But slay him now in the bloom of sin, in the hour of his fullest pride.

“Who'll wail here like a maiden, if his heart be firm and bold?
Who'll starve in the sight of plenty—poor when the flood runs gold?
I swear by hell's red prison, who will not follow me,
I'll stab him as a craven in this hour of jeopardy.”

Reda was one, who half a life had shared Almagro's pains,
To save his son he would have shed the life-blood from his veins;
“Better a blow from headsman's axe, than life to ebb away,
Better a blow from spear or sword than dying day by day.

“We can but die, my comrades, 'tis best to wreak our hate,
For come what may, be fortune worst, we can but meet our fate;”

Then with the cry of the famished wolf, with a madman's yelling shout,
With flashing blade and blazing torch grim Reda rushes out.

“Now, up, ye men of Chili, 'tis the coward sitteth still,
Throw open now the barred door and follow me who will;
Long live the son of the murdered man, the gallant and the brave,
And a shroud for the grey old swineherd, let him reign within the grave.

“A merry laugh shall fill the air, and the sound of joy shall ring,
When the viceroy, on the gibbet tree, like a strangled thief shall swing;
And he who jeered at starving men shall feed the vulture foul,
He shall give the bird what he grudged to man, and God receive his soul.”

Loud rang the shout through Lama, none cared the cry to hear,
For love had none for the iron chief, no love, but much of fear;
They hurry on through the broad paved square—alas! 'twere now too late,
One brave man, 'gainst a thousand foes, might have kept that palace gate.

Now, flying to Pizarro, comes a varlet faint for breath,
“Arm! arm! my lord, for the Chili men are banded for thy death.”
“How pale his cheek!” cried the dauntless one, as he drained his cup of wine,
“'Tis some fool's dull tale—who dreams of fear, thou little page of mine!”

“I've heard of late, but heeded not, the rebels plotting tricks,
I deemed them but a villain's hopes told o'er a crucifix.”
In rushed a second serving man, still whiter was his cheek,
Chained was his tongue with very fear—“Speak, drunken varlet, speak!”

Dumb stood he there, his gaze was wild, and fixed was his face,
“Arm, good my lord, arm, nobles all, the traitors come apace;”
And he gazes at the chamber portal, and draws his ready sword,
And points with his finger to the page to arm their aged lord.

Near came the cries, and nearer. “Search every corner out!”
Through the wide bare rooms, in eager haste, rush in the furious rout;
And the jest that the idle laugher told, sinks to a whisper faint;
The talk of wine and lady's love, to prayer to Lima's saint.

Aghast look Pizarro's feasting friends, and in terror and in dismay
They left the half-drained wine-cup, and hurried them away.
“Bar the door, good Garcia, bar out the rogues' array,
Like two chafed lions in our den, we'll keep the knaves at bay.”

Too late—one heart blood drinking thrust, one helmet cleaving blow,
And they tumble the bleeding body to the marble hall below.

They rush up stairs with pike and sword, shouting such words of scorn
As had greeted their ears from the viceroy's mouth, ay! but that very morn.

But their shout of joy is turned to rage, for three men keep the door,
They stood like the eager hunters that would spear the foaming boar.
Then Pizarro rushed to aid the guard, in their face his helm he hurled:
“What, ho!” he cried, “ye stabbers, scum of the newfound world.”

Then by his side old Sanchez fell, but no time was that to weep;
No time for thoughts of anguish, no place for sorrow deep.
But still was left fair Pedro, the youngest of the three;
A thrust from the blade of a partisan has brought him to his knee.

And the blood that welled from Sanchez' wound fell on the dying child;
Then fierce glared old Pizarro, and his fiery eye glared wild,
And his sword cleaved helm and corselet, and his sword cleaved mail and targe—
In vain on his breast the arrows splint, in vain the rebels charge.

And bravely fought Pizarro, though his limbs were stiff with age,
As well as when in the pride of years he fought by the fair Adage.
And he struggled on, that grey haired man, though the blows fell thick as rain,
As well as he did when he bore the cross on Cuzco's golden plain.

“Down with the savage,” Reda cries, “shall a grey-beard drive us off?
Oh! that, indeed, for the Chili men, were a sharp and biting scoff.”
Then, with a howl of baffled rage, he grasps Alverrez round,
And hurls him at Pizarro, and brings him to the ground.

Like a stone from the sling of a peasant boy, half-stunned, Alverrez flies,
In vain, Pizarro strikes him down; in vain, the rebel dies.
“He dies too late,” cries Reda, and drives through his heart the sword,
Ere Pizarro sank a dozen blades drank the life-blood of their lord.

“Jesu,” he groans, and makes a cross on the blood bedabbled floor;
He bends to kiss the holy sign—one groan, and all is o'er.
“Shout, for the tyrant's fallen—Pizarro, the lord, is dead,
And now the viceroy's jewelled badge shall deck Almagro's head.”

They sheath their swords, but ere they part, one glance they give again
At the body of him who's fallen, at the mighty one they've slain.
And now the robbers pillage the casket and the shrine,
And bear away the Inca's gold from many a treasure mine.

And now the drum and the trumpets blow, to the sound of jest and song,
In a rich and gorgous cavalcade Almagro rides along.

By the dim torch light the weeping wife, the faithful Indian slave,
Lowers the stiff and mangled body into an humble grave.

And none shed tears of sorrow, none bent the reverent head—
None prayed, “May God assoile him”—none mourned for the dead.

The only one from whose aching eyes the frequent tear-drops rain,
Was an Indian slave, who only knew, to curse, the name of Spain.

No. VII. THE DEATH OF OLD CARBAJAL.

[_]

[Francisco de Carbajal, a brave but cruel old warrior, 84 years of age, was executed at the same time with Gonzalo Pizarro, with whom he had conspired to change Peru from a viceroyalty to a monarchy independent of Spain. In the decline of their fortunes this stern, iron-hearted man, said nothing, but hummed the words of a Spanish song:—

“The wind blows the hairs off my head, mother.”

When they told him of his doom, he said, calmly, “Basta matar”—“They can but kill me.” In prison he bantered those who came to mock at the Samson in bonds. To a cavalier, who offered him assistance, he replied, “What service can you do me? Nothing is of use, if you can't set me free. If I spared your life, as you say, I did it because I thought it not worth taking.” To the priests who came to absolve his soul, blackened and encrusted with sin, he said, “I have nothing on my conscience but a debt of half a real to a shopkeeper of Seville.” He was drawn to the scaffold in a basket drawn by mules. As they forced his pinioned body in, he exclaimed, “Cradles for the young and cradles for the old!” When the priest implored him to repeat the “Ave Maria and Pater noster,” he merely repeated the words, “Ave Maria, Pater noster.” “He died,” says Prescott, “with a scoff on his lips.” Of such metal were the conquerors of Peru.]

Gasca the brave! the warrior priest! has brought back on this happy day
The golden region of Peru to the old Castilian sway.

With unshivered blade, unsplintered lance, they fled before our host,
In spite of Carbajal's demon aid, and the proud Gonzalo's boast;

In spite of the son of the iron chief, the churl with the gilded helm,
The brave old chief that, strong in age, conquered this broad fair realm.

Not greater was proud Cortes, who seven kings slew, I ween,
Than he who tore Peru's great chief from his jewelled palanquin.

The bold stern monarch swineherd, no coward heart had he;
Little he thought that the son he left a traitor knave would be.

And the world's great king, who rais'd that chief from the dust of his native land,
Will brand his name as he teareth now the sceptre from his hand.

The proud Pizarro that yesterday was held of noble birth,
Shall wake on the dismal morrow again to till the earth.

For great is the might of the holy king who wears the Spanish crown;
On his broad and fair dominions the sun goes never down.

In his treasure cells, from this glorious world Columbus gave to Spain,
The silver and gold, like a mighty sea, comes pouring in amain.

O puissant is the emperor, whose great and trusty lance
Hurled from the high war-saddle the monarch knight of France.

Such wretched fate seize those who plot against the imperial line;
Such fate as Carbajal shall know ere the sun has ceased to shine.

For Carbajal, the grey-beard knight, whom the Indian knoweth well,
Is served by an evil spirit—a demon sent from hell.

Pizarro is that traitor bold, who longed a king to be,
And thought that Peru was far from Spain, and girdled by the sea.

He longed to mount the Indian throne; with the fringe his head he decked;
Of Spanish lance and arquebus the madman little recked.

And near him ever Carbajal rode, when he led the vanguard on,
With the dinted helm and the battered arms, a coal-black steed upon.

And the scarred old Flemish veterans, who feared no mortal birth,
Say that the steed that no bolt could pierce was no creature of this earth.

'Twas Carbajal, on Chupa's plains, chased the rebel knaves; as fast
They fled, as flies the thistle-beard before the Pampa's blast.

With no corselet on, with his beaver up, he moved amid the strife—
What steel can wound, what fire can sear, the man with a charmed life?

On that bloody day he stood unmoved, firm as the agate rock,
When Almagro's knights dashed on our spears with the earthquake's jarring shock.

When he charged their ranks thirteen good men from their saddles down he threw;
Ah! well the men of Chili that dreadful hour may rue.

And he chased the murderer viceroy o'er mountains veined with gold,
Such havoc he made as a grim wolf does in the wattled fold.

Not with the bloodhound's fiery eye, but jesting with his men,
As when in Potosi's mines he tore the silver from its den.

He slays them as they rest by night, in their camp on the scorched ground;
With armed men he peopled the trees, dark Pulto's mountain round:

And the demons of golden Andes laughed, as they might, to see
How like proud man, who rules the earth, to a devil in hell may be.

Silent and sad Pizarro rode, and hid his face the while—
“No tales tell the dead,” said Carbajal, with a grim and cruel smile.

And Quito saw Carbajal, for he loved not peace nor rest;
When Puelles buried his poniard deep in the wounded viceroy's breast.

When, 'mid the mingling shouts of war, the thousand groans and cheers,
The sword swept fast, the axe hewed on, amid the wood of spears.

They tore the dead man's long grey hair, and wore it for a plume,
To show that the cruel viceroy had gone to a bloody tomb.

But Carbajal was far away, far over the steep sierra,
With untiring foot, athirst for blood, he followed the chief Alberra.

Just as the giant condor the helpless lambs pursue,
So over steep and chasm the fierce Carbajal flew:

And he was there, at Cuzco, when the copper arms were beaming;
When high in the sky, o'er spear and axe, the rainbow banner's gleaming.

Like a wall of fire, round the towers, blazed their red watch-fires bright;
Far on the plain, in an endless wave, thick as stars on a summer night.

When they girt the town at burning noon, like some broad crystal stream,
On the copper mail and sharp glass blade, shone red the hot sunbeam.

And from the sky, by night and day, the flaming arrows fly,
When waves of fire went surging up to the smoke beclouded sky.

And through the dark, sad face of night, the wreathing smoke clouds flew,
Like vapour of costly sacrifice to the Sun-god of Peru.

And he was there when with cavalcade slow moving o'er the plain,
The Inca came to the Indian town, but ne'er returned again.

When on they came, to the sound of drum, and savage minstrelsy,
And rolled like the broad deep gathering floods of some dark turbid sea.

And he had seen the Aztec king lie chained at Cortes' feet;
And he had seen the plumed ranks with the mailed Spaniards meet.

Alas! that the scoff, and jeering mock, should stain so brave a name—
Should brand the arms of the cavalier—should sully all his fame.

But, in evil day, he made a prince of one of lowly birth;
And tore down Spain's proud blazoned flag, and trod it to the earth.

And sought to raise Pizarro's brood to the fallen Inca's throne,
As if, in this new and glorious world, a rebel could reign alone.

And they thought of the perjured oath they'd sworn, the penalty they knew;
'Twas conscience half unarmed the hearts of the rebels of Peru.

“We'll strike them down,” Pizarro cried, “I swear by my knightly word,
Just as the monster vulture does the painted humming bird.”

(The humming bird, that fairy thing, the creature of an hour,
That seems in the air to float along like a bright and living flower.)

O! who can count the fallen on wide Narina's plain?
O! who can count the rebel knights that lie amid the slain?
As thick as on the thrashing floor in autumn lies the grain.

What leader's that whose right arm cleaves the rolling waves of fight?
'Tis Carbajal, the first who dared to charge us on the right.

Unlit by star, he followed on, till a forest shelter gave,
For, on his track Corteno came, the bravest of the brave.

Though clouds had hid Pizarro's star, and quenched its sparkling ray,
Carbajal mock'd the parting light, and curs'd the fall of day.

As he spurred through the stream that rippling flowed through a wild and rocky glen;
His jaded steed fell 'neath his load—we sprang upon him then.

As the peasant on a wily fox who long has 'scaped his art,
We bound that bleeding warrior with the unyielding heart.

When his sword-blade broke, he still fought on with the fragment of the hilt,
But his hands weighed down by the heavy load of sin and hidden guilt.

Still in his dungeon paces he, his eye still glares with rage;
He seems like a new caught ocelot, as he shakes his firm-barred cage.

Now still awhile in gloomy thought, then tries the prison's bars,
Then, with a grim and horrid smile, points to his white-seamed scars.

He's proud of those tracks of purple wounds, received in the fight,
As a trooper of his golden spurs, or the jewelled star of knight.

And he talks of the fight at Pavia, when Ravenna's plain was red,
And Francis yielded up his sword, amid the piles of dead.

When France' bold sons, with thrust and blow, amid the battle gloom,
Hewed out, 'mid heaps of dying, a deep and bloody tomb.

And he told us of Cordova, and the brave chief Navarrow,
And such scenes of bygone glory as none again shall know.

He told us of the Pagan's deeds, when the might of the Spanish crown
Passed o'er the smoking frontier, to storm the Moorish town

Of that great and puissant emperor, who loved the fair Castille,
And said its knights had the longest spears, and the surest biting steel.

How he longed that Gasca had been there, when they sacked the seven-hilled Rome,
And scared the red-capped cardinals, beneath the giant dome.

And he laughed as shrill as a fiend might laugh, when he thought of the bloody day,
When he slew the rich fat herd of monks, as a wolf the sheep would slay.

Then Pizarro his king he bade adieu, but shed no woman's tear,
What cared for death an iron heart, that never knew a fear.

But fierce was the curse he muttered, loud was the curse and deep,
At the trembling fool that held the axe, who could not choose but weep.

Grim did the grey-beard warrior look, and ghastly was his frown,
As he kneeled there, to bide the blow, and cursed the shaven crown.

And he pushed aside the holy priest, that held a cross on high,
And he flung ten-ducats to the crowd, who hail him with a cry.

They gave him still all-fettered, his well-known battle-brand,
He broke it in three shivers, with a blow of his pinioned hand.

And he cried, “There's no Peruvian, noble enough or brave,
To use thee as thou shouldst be used, when I am in the grave.”

One look of hate at the setting sun, one curse of hatred deep,
And he bent him down, as he shouted forth, “Death is eternal sleep.”

With fixed eye, with no holy sign, he met the deadly blow,
With a dull faint sound, the knight's grey head, rolls on the sand below.

No. VIII. THE PROCESSION OF THE DEAD.

[_]

[“When an Inca died,” says Prescott, “or, as the Peruvians expressed it, ‘was called home to the mansions of his father, the sun,’ his body was embalmed, and placed with those of his ancestors in the great temple of the sun at Cuzco: there, clad in their royal robes, they sat in chairs of gold, the queens on one side and the kings on the other; their heads bent downwards, and their hands crossed on their bosoms. Several of these royal mummies, hidden by the Peruvians at the conquest, were found by a Spanish corregidor: they were perfect as life, without so much as a hair or an eyebrow wanting. As they were carried through the streets of Lima, decently covered with a mantle, the Indians threw themselves on their knees in sign of reverence, with many tears and groans, and were still more touched when they beheld some of the Spaniards doffing their hats in token of respect to departed royalty.”]

What chiefs are those in Lima's streets, on Spanish shoulders borne,
Such jewelled robes and costly plumes by the Incas once were worn,
There's no low chant of death
To show that a crowned conqueror has yielded up his breath.

Such scarlet fringe was the diadem that decked the royal head,
But, save in the midnight dream, came never back the dead.
There's trampling of feet,
But no measured beat of muffled drum, no chanting in the street.

Long since, the rainbow banner faded before the storm,
Not with the sun of other days grows now the cold earth warm;
The god so good, so mild,
Looks down with a frown of anger on his once favoured child.

And many a chief long passed away, whose splendour once was bright,
Is feasting now with the spirit kings in the realms of purer light;
There's gone to a better clime
Many a bright-plumed emperor who ruled of olden time.

Know you great Cuzco's temple, where, with unceasing ray,
Blazed forth in a flood of ceaseless light, the orb of the god of day,
And the gem-encrusted wall
Shone with a light as rich, as fair, as the Inca's palace hall.

Where in the East,—Jesus, Great God 'mid the herald clouds appears—
Then shone with a matchless radiancy the sun's bright, golden tears;
Alas! that the shining ore
Should have lured the cruel Spaniards to this unhappy shore.

And the rainbow's arch that spanned the wall, bright with the coloured stone,
With a rich and varied brilliancy, of a thousand colours shone,
On the golden cornice bright,
They glared, though clouds might veil the day, those triple showers of light.

And light blazed back on lustrous light, while with a softer gleam
The moon, embossed in silver, shone with her pallid beam;
And when arose the dawn,
The priests hailed with a gladsome shout the coming of the morn.

And as the morning incense curled up into the air,
I've seen the holy Incas seated like monarchs there;
The priest through the temple crept,
As if his low, deep-chanted hymn could rouse the kings who slept.

Like some great silent senate, sat the bright crowned dead;
Dark was their cheek, as it was in life, and bowed was their head;
Still calm, as if alone,
Sat Peru's once mighty monarchs, each on his golden throne.

And the wind that rustled the mantle's fold, like the voice of one unseen,
On the silence of a mournful thought that stealeth in between,
Like music from without,
From Cuzco's gardens came the gushing fountain's laughing shout.

You might have deemed that life was there ruled over by the mind,
When the long green plume on each corpse-king's head was shaken by the wind;

Yes, those are the by-gone Incas, they bear them to their rest,
Beneath the earth, in a small dark cave of the city of the West;
Such is the common doom,
Though for awhile the corpse embalmed be saved from the tomb.

Yon is the great Yupanqui, the bright sun's greatest child,
Who bore the Rainbow banner far into Chili's wild;
O'er the Ande's peaks he swept,
Like a panther on his jungle prey upon the foe he leapt.

Snowy with age is the monarch's hair, to my eye it seemeth now
As if the weight of some heavy care still brooded on his brow,
And seated by his side
Is an Inca, whose dark raven hair tells still of youth and pride.

And there is his sire Huyana, who conquered Quito's king,
Who made the name of great Peru o'er the distant mountains ring,
Ere proud and cruel Spain
With the lust of gold and the thirst for blood ravaged the fertile plain.

How sunken now their glory, when son and father meet,
Gazed at by the passing stranger, and borne through Lima's street
To the measured tread of multitudes,
To their resting-place, the lonely grave, pass on the royal dead.

Not at the head of armies, as once in the days of old,
In a gorgeous litter, flaming with costly gems and gold,
Upon the flying foes,
Like the sun in its fairest splendour, the monarch's litter goes.

With sighs and bitter weeping, and reverential sign,
The Indians greet, for the last sad time, those hallowed forms divine;
And as the bearers nearer drew
Themselves, like prostrate worshippers, before the dead they threw.

Their hard hearts touched with pity, the Spaniards bow the head,
As on their way to their resting-place, pass by the royal dead;
The setting sun above,
Smiled on the sad procession with the last fond smile of love.

No. IX. THE DESCENT OF THE VOLCANO.

[_]

[One of the most chivalrous acts of heroism perhaps ever performed by man, was the descent of Francisco Montano, a noble cavalier in the army of Cortes, into the crater of the great volcano, Topocatepall, which towers above the chain of snowcovered mountains that separate Mexico from Puebla. Lowered in a basket 400 feet down the ghastly depths of the flaming abyss, he gathered sulphur sufficient to manufacture a supply of powder for the use of Cortes' army. What could resist men who made even the most fearful of nature's prodigies thus supply their wants?]

The Spanish host from Cholula came at the midnight hour,
From where o'er the plain of the five broad lakes the snowy volcans tower;
And in the court of the temple, stretched on the paved ground,
Lay groups of friendly Tlascalans the blazing watch-fires round;
And the jests flew fast, and the biting scoff, and the burst of the Indian song,
And many a tale the Spaniards told, to speed the night along.

They talked of the fight at Cholula, when, like the trembling hare,
The cacique fell, by an unknown hand, caught in the hunter's snare;
When through the clouds of sulphurous smoke, that friend and foe had hid,
Cortes sprang up the blazing stairs of the giant pyramid;

And when with a shout of holy joy they reared the blessed rood,
On the spot where the blood-stained idol in scorn of God had stood.

And they praised the chief whose daring had hurled the blazing brand,
And burnt the fleet to ashes, as they leapt upon the strand;
And they mocked the senseless humming-bird that to its flower-built nest
Bade the blood-bestained vulture as a great and favoured guest.
But the wildest tale they heard that night was one Montano told,
Just at the dawn of morning, when the night damp's falling cold.

“'Twas on the eve of Cholula that Cortes bade me seek
For sulphur in the crater of the volcan's snowy peak,
Where the Indians think, in a deep abyss, lies an entrance to hell;
For they say in the copper mountains the howling spirits dwell;
And with Pedro, and with Guzman, long ere the dawn of day,
Through the dark pine forest toiling, we slowly made our way;

“Through woods that hung with Indian fruits, past tracts of golden maize,
Till moss and short thick yellow grass alone met anxious gaze;
And soon we left beneath our feet of man all pleasant trace;
Nothing but stunted bushes grew in that dreary place;

And all around is mountain, like some great frozen sea
Upheaved in stormy billows,—boundless they seemed to be.

“But the icy wind, whose snowy blast poured down the sleet and hail,
Pierced chill through cotton doublet, and through the metal mail.
Long since the sunny land of flowers, and the hot clime, we lost,—
Now slowly dawned before us the land of eternal frost;
And still on helm the sleet and snow the mountain spirit hurled.
While the forest, with its spreading shade, seemed to hide us from the world;

“And before us rose the mountain top, where gleams the last sun's ray,—
Strange awful spot from whence to see the dawning of the day.
From such a peak gazed Jesus, with Satan by his side,
O'er city, isle and continent, and all the great world's pride.
On such a mount in glory stood He who from heaven came,
When there shone a light in the sky above, and angels breathed His name.

“On such a mount the prophet stood when he looked to south and north,
And gazing on the crowded tents he poured his blessing forth.
And above us lie the mountains, the kings of the granite chain,
Who, with the fiery volcans, are guardians of the plain,

And the cold and trembling Indians who clung to Guzman's side,
Said that the snowy mountain was the granite monster's bride;

“Great porphyry pillars of the world, that join the earth and sky,
In rival pride of greatness,—some Titan reared them high.
And now we brace us to the task, and mount the flaming tower,
So bare the track, no yellow bee hums o'er the aloe's flower.
And the splintered crags of porphyry are seared and thunder-rent,
O'er chasms deep as a mountain, the foaming torrents went.

“On the blasted peak the snow-wreath lies, untouched by the fierce sun's ray,
Unmelted, save where o'er the ice the lava burns a way.
Sweet is the night-dew's fragrance on the wide-spread Aztec plain,
To the scorching showers of ashes, and the lava's fiery rain.
Beneath our feet the lightning for itself a passage wore,
And the trembling throb of the earthquake gave out a sullen roar;

“And the thunder, like the mountain's voice, howled with an echo deep,
As if to rouse the demons from their centuries of sleep.

Then the Indians swore by their cursed gods, and by the volcan's fire,
That though we turned and slew them, they would not mount up higher.
‘None but a madman,’ muttered they, ‘would thus defile the shrine,
Where the fire-god, clothed in his pomp, shows like a king divine.’

“So we left the shivering wretches there, and through the lava sand,
Crept up, by dint of eager foot, and ever grasping hand.
And the lava lay a molten sea, congealed by frozen air.
In a thousand forms of wonder; its course was stayed there;
And now before our aching sight lay a wide and icy tract,
Bright seemed the lustre of its glare beside the lava black.

“And above us gaped the chasm, whose depth no eye could trace,
And above us shone the ceaseless fire, whose blaze lit each paled face;
And the Indians deemed us sorcerers, whose toil and livelong strife
Would tear from the hostile demon, eternity of life.
And rarer still and colder grew the chill mountain air,
Scarce can the overburdened breast the weight of the doublet bear.

“Before us, like a great dark lake, the volcan's crater lay,
Its lava waves were seething with a dull and ruddy ray;

In a ceaseless stream, in a burning flood, in a never-ending glow,
The spark-lit smoke is rising, and the lava torrents flow;
And high on that untrod mountain's top, on that high and scathed cone,
Wrapped in a black and lurid cloud a spirit sits alone.

“Blind with the glare, and almost scorched by the crater's torrid breath,
We offered a prayer to the God of peace, bethinking us of death;
But even there, in that desert wild, and on that lofty peak,
God with an eye of pity looked down upon the weak;
He heard,—for the wind, with a scornful blast, drove the lava river back,
And left to the smoking crater's mouth a bare and withered track.

“Then quick again, ere that flood should come, we lowered the basket down.
Few would have ventured footstep there,—no! not to win a crown.
Hung over hot boiling tide of fire, and fusing wave of gold,
I sought the sulphur drops that clung to the side of the demon hold;
Like serpents that strive to reach a bird, the veins of metal twined
On the calcined sides of that furnace, cracked with the chilling wind.

“Fierce breathed the flame, near rolled its tide,—I crossed my pallid brow
As I felt of the ebbing tide of fire the hot returning glow.
I swooned when I reached the crater's brink, safe from that burning wave,
And saw fond faces gaze on me as risen from the grave;

“And my silent heart the great God praised, though I had not strength to speak,
As again I felt the mountain breeze upon my heated cheek.
And I kissed the cross-hilt of my sword, upon the mountain side,
As back my load to the cheering camp I bore with a victor's pride.”

II. PART II. LAYS AND LEGENDS.

MISCELLANEOUS BALLADS, TRANSLATIONS, AND OCCASIONAL POEMS.

111

HASTINGS.

[_]

[Suggested by the monkish chronicle of William of Malmesbury, who was personally intimate with the Conqueror and his cruel son, and who mentions many picturesque incidents connected with the battle, that handed over England from one usurper of her throne to another, that are omitted by better historians.]

An angry man was the Bastard,
As he dashed his wine-cup down,
And darker grew his furrowed brow,
And blacker grew his frown.

He swore on the holy relics,
“By the glory of the Lord,”
Till he'd hurled the nithering from his throne,
He'd never sheathe his sword.

And he tore in twain his royal robe,
And laid his mantle down,
And donned his dinted hauberk,
And doffed his father's crown.

While the Norman barks are manning,
He paces on the sand,
At the white rock walls of Britain
He shakes his mailed hand.

On the eve of good St. Michael,
His ship with the crimson sail,
Like a falcon on its quarry,
Flies fast before the gale.

112

Their glittering vanes like golden stars,
Shine bright upon the deep,
Like some dream's gorgeous pageant
Across a poet's sleep.

Still as the slain in battle,
The realm of England lay;
The doomed upon the morrow,
Are banqueting to-day.

Blythest of all is Harold,
His gem-bossed robe gleams bright;
Though a shroud shall wrap that monarch
Before the morrow's light.

There's bloody stains on every brow,
There's blood on every hand,
And viewless forms of terror
Move silent 'mid the band.

A weary man was Harold,
Weary of foeman's slaughter,
Of press, and throng, and battle,
Down by dark Humber's water.

A panting vassal enters,
“The Norman's come,” he cries;
“Begone,” said the jeering nobles,
“The Saxon villain lies.”

“There's camped a host at Hastings
Of shaven priests in arms;”
“They're pilgrims,” said a vavasour,
“Poor chanters of the psalms.”

“By Heaven!” cried noble Harold,
“No woman's priests are these;
Arm for the shock of battle,
This is no time for ease.”

113

From the one camp rang the shout and song
Into the midnight air;
From the other, to the silent stars
Arose the pious prayer.

The hymn to Christ's sweet mother
Was heard by God on high;
The curse of the drunken jesters
Drew vengeance from the sky.

The night, the still calm night, went by,
Red morning dawned again;
With an eagle's glance the Bastard
Swept the broad level plain.

To the chanted hymn of Roland
The Norman host came on;
From his cloudy home of darkness
Came forth the golden sun.

Like eagles on untiring wing
The gonfanels flew past;
The war shouts 'mid that forest
Moved like a tempest blast.

With his gold bound brow, the Bastard
Shone fair with banded mail;
Like the ruddy flame from Heaven
That gleams on shattered sail.

Gay hearted were the spearmen
To leave the trenched camp;
High shone the sacred banner
Above their measured tramp.

114

In the teeth of the bearded Saxon
Drove fast the arrow sleet;
Ne'er upon gilded gambazon
Did such a tempest beat.

The slingers plied the leathern thong,
And the Norman shafts they flew;
And 'mid the Kentish chosen van
A bloody lane, they hew.

'Mid Martel's band, the Saxon axe
Cleaves through bright painted shield;
And shouts, and yells, and shrieks, and groans,
Go up from gory field.

Like a peasant churl fights Harold,
And Gurth is by his side;
Like two strong, lusty swimmers,
They stem the battle tide.

Ah, God! a shaft has pierced the brain
Of him who wears the crown;
Like a monarch to his slumber
He lapseth slowly down.

As if in grief for Harold,
The sun sinks to his rest;
Like a gore-bestained conqueror
Far in the crimson west.

Throned on a heap of English dead,
Where reddest was the sod,
Where Harold fell, the Bastard kneels,
And thanks his gracious God.

115

THE ARRAIGNMENT OF THE DEAD.

[_]

[At the funeral of William the Conqueror, in the Abbey of St. Stephen's, at Caen, a burgher advanced from amongst the crowd, and appealing, by right of an ancient law, to Rollo, the great leader of the Norsemen, and using the set form of invocation, “Ha! Ro, à l'aide, mon prince,” claimed the ground in which the tyrant's grave was sunk, as that on which his own father's house had stood, and of which he had been unjustly deprived by the fierce bastard prince. Henry dared not neglect his demand, and for so many hundred marks the brave citizen parted with his birth-right.]

'Twas by the holy altar,
Where the yellow tapers stood,
And the light was deep and solemn
As the dim light of a wood;
'Twas when all silent stood the crowd,
That one clear voice rang deep and loud,—
“Ha! Ro, à l'aide,
Ha! Ro à l'aide, mon prince.”

From the throng of pallid gazers
Stepped one who boldly said,
“I claim this narrow resting-place,
Prepared for the dead;
No prince of royal name
Should glory in his shame.
Ha! Ro, à l'aide,
Ha! Ro, à l'aide, mon prince.”

He was a simple burgher,
But he showed no sign of fear,
As he stood beside the crowned dead—
Beside a monarch's bier.
The crypt returned the sound
Back from its deeps profound.
“Ha! Ro, à l'aide,
Ha! Ro, à l'aide, mon prince.”

116

“There stood my father's cottage,
Where that jewelled altar stands;
This stately abbey's reared
Upon my father's land;
Yon tyrant's brow is stained with sin,
His name shall be cursed by his own proud kin.
Ha! Ro, à l'aide,
Ha! Ro, à l'aide, mon prince.”

“'Twas a blood-stained hand that raised
This costly shrine to God;
Already the grim oppressor
Is smitten with his rod.”
Still on the bier, as he spoke, the light
Of the rainbow pane fell fair and bright.
“Ha! Ro, à l'aide,
Ha! Ro, à l'aide, mon prince.”

And it seemed to tinge with the flush of shame
The pale cheek of the dead;
To a whisper died the solemn chant,
The monks hung down their head;
And the mourning warriors, gathered round,
Shuddered to hear that boding sound,—
“Ha! Ro, à l'aide,
Ha! Ro, à l'aide, mon prince.

“When small and great shall trembling stand
Before God's fearful face,
Before his bright-faced angel
I'll claim this holy place;
When the blast of the dreadful trump has blown,
And he stands before his Judge alone.
“Ha! Ro, à l'aide,
Ha! Ro, à l'aide, mon prince.”

Then one stood forth, with a pale clear brow,
And his father's haughty frown,
And paid the price that the burgher claimed
Of him that wore the crown,—

117

Of him whose iron-mailed hand
Won for himself the Saxon's land.
'Twas in the days when truth and right
Full seldom conquered power and might.
“Ha! Ro, à l'aide,
Ha! Ro, à l'aide, mon prince.”

THE REBEL EARL.

[_]

[The civil wars of the time of Henry III. are, perhaps, the most barbarous that we find recorded in our history. Father fighting against son, and son against father. Among the group of rebellious nobles, Simon de Montford, Earl of Leicester, stands conspicuous in savage majesty. “Simon, je vous défie,” was the cry of the young prince, not, it must be confessed, at the sanguinary battle of Evesham, but at an earlier conflict, when his aged father was placed in the van of his enemies.]

Down on dark rebel host
The aged monarch's gazing;
Red as the boding comet
The dragon banner 's blazing.

122

Shrill through the sunny sky
Rang out the prince's cry,
Loud o'er war's revelry,
“Simon, je vous défie!”

By the bright flowing Severn
There was hewing of the mail;
There was driving of the hammer
Through iron ring and scale.
Still ran the fierce war cry,
Loud 'mid the din on high,
Shrill o'er the tempest glee,
“Simon, je vous défie!”

Through blazoned coat and aketon
The winged arrow sped,
Through barred helm and target
With the foeman's heart-blood red.
Shrill through the sunny sky
Rang out the prince's cry,
Loud o'er war's revelry,
“Simon, je vous défie!”

The white cross of the rebel earl
Grew crimson with the dye;
Fast o'er his mangled body
The cowering rebels fly.
Still rang the fierce war-cry,
Loud 'mid the din on high,
Shrill o'er the tempest glee,
“Simon, je vous défie!”

One knight a hundred cowards
Is driving with his brand,
Till, weary of the slaughter,
He stays his blooded hand.
No longer through the sky
Rang out the fierce war-cry,
Above war's revelry,
“Simon, je vous défie!”

123

The old king clasps the victor,
As bridegroom might a bride;
Red stained with blood of rebel
The Severn flows beside.
No longer through the sky
Rang out the fierce war-cry,
Above war's revelry,
“Simon, je vous défie!”

Robes that great queens have woven
On the red field are strewn;
Their wearers' helms are cloven,
Their blazoned garb is hewn.
No longer through the sky
Rang out the fierce war-cry,
Above war's revelry,
“Simon, je vous défie.”

Leicester's proud earl has fallen
Upon the bloody field;
His heart's best blood is welling
Upon his battered shield.
No longer through the sky
Rang out the fierce war-cry,
Above war's revelry,
“Simon, je vous défie!”

Better is honest burgher
Than traitor knight or earl,—
Better the lowest varlet
Than such a rebel churl.
No longer through the sky
Rang out the fierce war-cry,
Above war's revelry,
“Simon, je vous défie!”

England may mourn the slaughter
Of Evesham's bloody fight;
There's food for hawk or falcon,
For raven and for kite.

124

No longer through the sky
Rang out the fierce war-cry,
Above war's revelry,
“Simon, je vous défie!”

The wild birds' cruel talons
Tear the knight's silken vest;
Shreds of the bloody raiment
Will “theek” their rock-built nest.
No longer through the sky
Rang out the fierce war-cry,
Above war's revelry,
“Simon, je vous défie!”

KING EDMUND.

[_]

[This Saxon king was stabbed by a robber, whom he attempted to turn out of his palace hall, at a banquet, where the daring villain had bearded his monarch.]

The torch's flame and the broad hearth's blaze,
Gleam bright on cup and bowl;
The pride of a crowned conqueror,
Filled the Saxon monarch's soul.

And the crimson banner shed a glare,
Not upon spear and sword;
But on the noisy revellers,
Seated around the board.

“Waes hael to the great King Edward,
Hail to that flag of thine;
Which struck a fear to the burghers five,
To the men of the Mercian Tyne.

“Waes hael to the king whose fetters,
Bind round the Danish thane;
Instead of the golden bracelet,
Let them wear the iron chain.

125

“Waes hael to the blood red banner,
That waved on the old gray wall;
Hail to the sword that made the Dane,
Before the rood cross fall.”

The seven chiefs of England,
Do homage to their lord;
The seven chiefs of England,
Are sitting round his board.

“Give God the praise who smote the foe,”
Thus an abbot chode his pride:
“'Twas no mass of thine that shook their ranks,”
The angry monarch cried.

“Go, scourge him from our presence—
'Tis these, and such as these,
Who beard their king, and 'fore his throne,
Refuse to bend their knees.”

“Proud king, thy heart is evil,
The God thou hast defied;
The God who smites the tyrant,
Rebuke thee for thy pride.

“A holy hymn was the battle cry,
Struck terror to the Dane;
St. Cuthbert's Cross was thy standard,
On Mercia's battle plain.

“'Twas the breath of prayer that winged the shaft,
That smote the rebel crew;
An angel form led on the van,
When the battle trumpet blew.

“God's servant thou hast scorned,
His vengeance thou shalt see;
On the brow that bears the Saviour's cross,
Is the brand of infamy.”

126

Loud through the palace portal,
Come the deep groans within;
It rose above the song and shout,
And all the stormy din.

“'Tis but the monk,” the monarch said,
“With biting cords he's bound;
Stripes are the fat monk's penance,
With stripes we lash the hound.”

Whose was that laugh which rings so fierce,
Like a fiend that mocking laughs;
With eyes like a wild beast glaring,
A cup the stranger quaffs.

But while he drains the flagon,
He gazes on the king;
And his restless eyes are like a snake's,
Before it makes its spring.

A thousand angry passions
In that dark face have reign;
His hair is black and matted,
Like a wild creature's mane.

With a bound the Saxon monarch,
Leapt fierce upon his prey;
“Shall a man whose hands are bloody,
Be seen in the light of day?”

With gnashing teeth they grapple,
They struggle with the sword;
Ere those savage men are parted,
Slain is the Saxon lord.

One look of rage the robber cast,
Upon the fallen chief;
Then sheathed his knife and went to death,
Without one thought of grief.

127

DECIUS.

[_]

[In the great battle between the Romans and the Latins, b.c. 339, the omens being unfavourable to his country, the consul, Decius, determined to devote himself to death, to save the armies of the seven-hilled city. “Putting on his white robe,” says Livy, “he covered his head, and, placing his foot on the blade of a javelin, repeated a prayer to the nine gods.” Then, mounting a charger, this lion-heart hewed himself a grave in the squadrons of the foes that strove to overpower the infant Hercules.]

Beneath Great Vesta's mountain
There's sound of battle clang,
Far o'er the distant ocean
The brazen clangour rang.

The flame of the lava torrent
Shines upon helm and blade;
On broad spear head, and banner,
And men for death arrayed.

Through the black tempest vapour,
In the troubled sky above,
The flame, as it strove in passion,
Glared like the eye of Jove.

In vain, the Roman squadrons
Cleave the proud Samnite's shield;
In vain, their serried phalanx
Drives o'er the trampled field.

In vain, the Roman pilum
The rebel Latin smites;
To save the sacred capitol,
In vain the consul fights.

Still o'er the warring nations
The volcan casts a glow;
Red as the waves of Phlegethon,
In the dark realms below.

128

Its fiery tongues shoot flaming,
Red as Jove's arrowy leven,
Seeming to strive to reach the sun,
And blot it from the heaven.

Mars smiles not on his banner,
Amid the weapon's jar;
On unbroke ranks the grim god's wolf
Shines like a silver star.

“Would he that smote the Volsci
Could break their bristling rank;
Would their black steeds were plunging
In Pontus' marshes dank.

“There's vengeance in the heaven,
'Twas shuddered at in hell,
When, in the pride of conquest,
Titus, the hero, fell.”

“Peace, cowards!” cried the consul;
“I swear by the gods above,
No victim ever offered,
So pleased the mighty Jove.

“Think of the Seven hill'd City—
On, with thy betters, on;
We'll drive them in the ocean
Before the setting sun.”

“Up! up! ye warriors—kneeling,
Poor beggars! for a life”—
Cry the sneering Latin spearmen,
As nearer swells the strife.”

“We bend but to the Thunderer—
We heed no jeers from thee;
We bend to the God of the Trident,
Who ruleth yonder sea.”

129

In vain, against the Latin,
They hurry firm and fast;
As vain as on yon mountain
Beats ever the sea blast.

“To the gods, the hell-born Manes,
I vow this hoary head—
Come, Pontifex!” he shouted—
“Prepare me for the dead.”

The white robe, bound with purple,
He wrapped him around,
Then veiled his old and scarred brow,
And leapt upon the ground.

With bare feet, on a pilum,
He stood awhile in prayer,
And looked on the foe with a glance of fire,
And a wild and fixed stare.

“O ye nine gods of Hades!
That rule in hell below,
Prosper the Roman armies,
And blast this vaunting foe.

“Hear me, thou burning mountain!
Dark prison of the slave!
Grant that red throngs of foemen
May 'tend me to the grave.

“Hear me, great Sun! whose parting ray
Warms my pale, aged cheek:
Great Jove! great Jove! thou crowned one!
Speak to thy servant—speak!”

With a roar, the burning mountain
Poured up a jet of fire,
The consul bowed his hoary head,
And hailed great Heaven's sire.

130

“Go tell my brother consul
How an aged warrior died—
That he went, like a youthful bridegroom,
To meet a happy bride—

“Crowned with the wreaths of glory
I won in the days of yore,
Clad with a priest's white vestments,
Soon to be red with gore.”

Then girding tight his blanched robes,
One look at the coming night,
He dashed on his sable charger
Into the thickest fight.

Like the waves upon a diver,
The dark ranks closed him in;
They see his white robes waving
Amid the battle din.

Like a sea-bird's snowy pinion,
Fluttering against a cloud,
When the rain-winds cover the darkened earth
With vapours like a shroud.

While still the sun was setting
Up in the crimson skies,
The shouts of joy and triumph
From Roman warriors rise.

131

CURTIUS.

[_]

[Livy, that delightful reciter of old wives' fables, tells us that, a.u.c. 391, a wide chasm suddenly opened in the forum of Rome, which the augurs pronounced would never close until Rome had thrown in that which she valued most. M. Curtius, a brave young patrician, on hearing the oracle, clothed himself in complete steel, exclaimed that arms and valour were the dearest treasure of the Romans, and, praying to the gods, leaped into the abyss, which closed over his head.]

There's silence in the forum,—
No more the human tide,
Low murmuring like the ocean,
Pours through its portals wide.

There's fear on pallid faces,
The hum of men is mute,—
Hushed is the mummer's jesting,
Hushed is the Oscan flute.

No maidens throng the market,
No traders hurry there;
Nought breaks the mournful silence,
But some poor trembler's prayer.

But still, as when new founded
By Romulus divine;
High o'er the seven-hilled city
The rock-built temples shine.

When the blood of a murdered brother,
The twin son of the god,
Fell on the fresh raised rampart,
And crimsoned all the sod.

132

With dusky wave the Tyber
Flows through the silent plain,
Silent as when in senate-house
The aged men lay slain.

Jove veils his face in anger,
So boding augurs say;
On a chasm in the forum
Looks down the god of day.

Jove's lightnings light the city:
'Twas his globe-shaking hunder
That furrowed up that chasm,
And tore the earth asunder.

The seven hills in that abyss
Were but a heap of sand;
In vain the sacred offerings
Thrown by the pontiff's hand.

“The Roman's dearest treasure,”
The holy augur cries,
“Alone will fill that yawning gulf,
Black as the tempest skies.”

Gay through the spacious forum
A bride, new wedded, came,
Blushing 'mid glad array of friends,
That shout her bridegroom's name.

And by her side rode Curtius,
Of Rome's fair sons the pride;
Down through the trembling multitude
The youthful warriors ride.

He hears the whispered words of Jove—
“A heart for every fate
Is Rome's best pride and treasure,
The bulwark of her state.”

133

“In vain the Gauls were routed
By Allia's hoary mount,—
In vain with gore we stained
The river's bubbling fount,—

“If Mars in day of anger,
In wrath's hot fiery hour,
Hath smote the sacred forum,
And shattered Tyber's tower.”

He clasped his bride, a moment gazed
On capitol and hill,
Beside the sun-lighted Tyber
A moment standeth still.

One prayer to Rome's dark manes,
One glance at her who wept,
Then with a bound the goaded steed
Into the chasm leapt.

With a bursting shout to heaven
Of joy unstained by tear,
With a gaze of awe and wonder,
Of terror and of fear,

They see the jaws of the dark abyss,
The home of the noble dead,
Silent and slowly closing
Above that victim's head.

'Twas men like these who founded Rome,
Who kings from their proud thrones hurled;
'Twas such as these that Cæsar led
To conquer half the world.

134

THE HYMN OF THE SALIAN PRIESTS.

I.

Great son of Jove, no pæans please thy ear,
No song of hunters 'mid the forest drear;
No chant of shepherd, when they slay the lamb,
No hymn of maidens when they lead the ram,
Bound round with flower-wreaths, to the mystic shrine
Of mighty Pan, or the wood-nymphs divine;
No praise delighteth thee, no whispered prayer,
Breathed by a kneeler to the midnight air.
If costly offering, in palace or in den,
Alike displease thee, god, what lov'st thou, then?
O, when despair's wild shriek goes up from burning town,
Then, with a smile, from heaven thou lookest down.

II.

Thy temple is some blasted battle plain,
Strewn with the mossy skulls of ancient slain;
Thy priests, the howling wolf, the mountain-fox,
That roam at daybreak from the caverned rocks;
Thy song of praise, the savage eagle's scream,
Soaring above the lightning's lurid gleam.
Thy votaries, the raven and that hooded bird,
Whose croak, by night, amid the dead is heard;
Who thatches, with the hair of those that rest,
The bloody chamber of his lonely nest.
O, when despair's wild shriek goes up from burning town,
Then, with a smile, from heaven thou lookest down.

III.

The din of arms delights thee, and the sound is sweet,
When warring millions on the broad plain meet,
When Roman falchion cleaves the gilded mail,
When the fierce spear drives through the pliant scale,

135

When the harsh clarion roars its demon note,
And pours wild panic from its brazen throat;
When the wolf standard summons from afar,
The armed Latin, hurrying to the war;
When the red beacon glares with baleful light,
And glaring, like a comet, through the troubled night;
Then, when the savage Tuscan shouteth loud,
Thy brazen chariot thunders through the cloud.
O, when despair's wild shriek goes up from burning town,
Then, with a smile, from heaven thou lookest down.

IV.

No blood of gentle lamb is shed for thee,
Mailed son of Jove, thou lovest more to see
The living turf, around thy shrine bedewed
With gore, dripped from the beak of vulture; when the rude
Scythian herdsman, the libation pours
The while, with battered targe, and savage roars,
He thee invokes, by sword thy right hand wields,
By reddened lances, and by flaming shields,
To thee, whose glaring eye rejects the sacrifice,
Mocks at the incense wreathing to the skies;
Whose victims are the warriors slain, whose altar is the grave,
Thy best libation blood that stains the wave.
O, when despair's wild shriek goes up from burning town,
Then, with a smile, from heaven thou lookest down.

V.

All worship thee,—from Italy's rich plains,
To where the dusky King of Egypt reigns.
The thousand islands of the Grecian sea,
The quiver-bearing Gauls shout praise to thee.
The Syrian, kneeling to the sun's bright ray,
Hails thee more potent than the god of day.

136

To honour thee, the life's-blood crimson rain,
Man poureth forth, and will pour forth again.
Many a peasant, many a king his life
Hath yielded to the sword, thy sacrificial knife.
O, when despair's wild shriek goes up from burning town,
Then, with a smile from heaven, thou lookest down.

THE PILGRIM'S DEPARTURE.

[_]

[The long robe, the bourdon, or staff, to which the bottle was fastened, the scrip, and the cockled hat of the pilgrim, were consecrated by the village priest on the eve of his departure. The novice, having confessed his sins, threw himself before the altar. Prayers were then said over him; he was invested in his robes, and conducted in procession to the limits of his native village; the cross and holy water borne before him. What a beautiful scene the pilgrim's parting would make for the pencil!]

The sun in flaming splendour,
Sank down behind the hill;
Its rays grew faint on mountain-top,
On river and on rill,
When down before a holy shrine
Knelt one who's bound for Palestine.

The altar's neath the storied pane,
That dyes the sun-light red,
Like a saint's bright crown of glory,
It glowed upon his head;
And many a peasant gathered there,
Joined in the solemn parting prayer.

The priest stood at the altar
In chasuble arrayed;
The sun burnt red and fiery,
Amid the forest's glade;
Mother and sire together stood,
With youth and maiden, beside the rood.

137

O'er hat and staff and sandalled shoon
The priest repeats the charm;
That whether in Ind or Araby,
Shall keep the soul from harm;
'Twas a touching sight the priest to see
Sign o'er the robe the crosses three.

“God guide the staff that guides thy feet
O'er boiling desert sand;
God guard the shoon that clothe thy feet,
In many a savage land;
This cockle hat, remember thee,
Proclaims one bound for Galilee.

“God keep thee from the desert asp,
Christ's mother shield thee well
From spear, and shaft, and crescent sword,
From Moor and Infidel.
Wherever, pilgrim, thou shalt be,
Christ's holy benison on thee.”

Still lower sank the blood-red sun;
The moon shone faint on high,
Though scarce the flame-crowned monarch
Had left the summer sky,
That sin-soiled pilgrim of the West,
Crossed his hands on his guilty breast.

No sound broke on the stillness
As from the ground he leapt;
No sound, save one deep heart-sob,
The cry of one that wept;
He filled his bottle at the rill,
Then hied him o'er the Eastern hill.

One look at fading village,
And the old tower on high,
As still its cross stood dark and clear
Against the western sky.
His father's home the darkness shrouds,
As o'er the moon steal dusky clouds.

138

Last look the pilgrim's taken
Of that dear father land;
His bone shall parch and whiten
Upon the desert sand;
His last faint gaze was turned on ye,
Ye deep, dark waves of Galilee.

THE MILLER'S SONG.

Hey! for the stone that crushes,
Ho! for the whirling sail,
When the old mill shakes in every plank
Like a vessel in the gale.

Hey! for the blast that driveth
The ponderous mill-wheel round,
When of the snow-storm showering,
We hear the mellow sound.

Hey! for the winds of winter,
When it never bloweth ill;
In the idle breeze of summer,
The miller sitteth still.

When autumn winds come piping,
From the dark rain-fraught cloud,
At the corn's bright golden billows
The miller laugheth loud.

When the winds blow fast and fiercer,
In valley and on hill,
When the weary reaper's toiling,
Then faster drives the mill.

In the dull, gray night—the long, long night,
When the frost is on the earth,
A weary man's the miller,
As he sitteth by his hearth.

139

Hey! for the roaring hurricane,
That tears the forest tree,
For the savage din of tempest
Is the miller's melody.

All bright in wild December,
The whole chill night along,
O'er the buzz within, and the roar without,
Is heard the miller's song.

When the bare, bleak moor is lying
All white beneath the moon,
The north wind roars a thunder bass
To the burly miller's tune.

When the mill-sails wild are tossing,
Like a spirit's arms on high,
Like the arms of one beseeching
Help from the calm, blue sky.

Help from the savage fury
Of the wind that flies above,—
The wind that the blanched millers—
The gray old millers love.

Hey! for the stout nor-wester,
That rattles the cottage pane,
The wind is the miller's vassal,
For it grinds his yellow grain.

It may sweep o'er distant mountains,
It may roar across the hill,
It may speed along the barren moor,
But first it drives the mill.

Summer's a weary season,
Dull is the sunny earth;
'Mid the cold, gray rain of winter
Is the time for the miller's mirth.

140

No lover's voice seems sweeter
To her that waits to hear,
Than the trumpet shout of the tempest
Unto the miller's ear.

The miller is no coward,
Though he's pale as a frightened maid,
His cheeks are red as the first spring-rose,
In its robe of snow arrayed.

And all night long when the rushing wind
Is roaring loud without,
From the bars of the old mill window
At the stars he looked out.

THE WOODMAN'S SONG.

In the bright May time, in the young spring's prime,
The axe he layeth by;
When the birds sing gay the livelong day,
To hail the summer nigh;
But the woods ring out to his merry shout
When the leaf is off the tree,
When the tempest clouds the forests shroud,
A merry man is he.

And he loves to sing when the forests ring
To the axe's echoing sound,—
When, as thunder loud, the oak has bowed
And crashed to the ground.
Like an armed knight, in the press of fight,
He hews with his axe away,
Through the wood's dark rank, on the marsh reed dank,
Flows in the flood of day.

141

No forest tree, whatever it be,
Spareth this sturdy wight;
The oak's rough stem his blows o'erwhelm,
And the beech with its red leaf bright;
For a hoary bole, this rugged soul
Cares not though it be of oak;
What the lightning's spear could never sear,
Is felled with his mighty stroke.

And the silver trunk of the birch has sunk
Beneath his crushing blow;
Thro' the beech' smooth side and the cedar's pride,
His broad keen blade will go.
Were each wood and glade in its pride arrayed,
With bud, and flower, and leaf,
To his blunted soul some pang had stole,
Some gentle thought of grief.

But the winter's hour is his time of power,
When the wild winds whistle loud;
If the woodman spare, that tree they'll tear,
And dash it to the ground;
And they sigh and moan, with a thunder groan,
As mourning for their fate,
As a spirit had past on the winged blast,
But mercy were too late.

When o'er your head, 'mid the pine boughs red,
You hear the night winds surge,
As the wood sprites there, for their forest care,
Were muttering a dirge.
He's a crowned king in the mild sweet spring,
For he marks his victims then;
Of his broad axe blade he a sceptre made,
Forged in a forest den.

O the woodmen good, in the lonely wood,
Heap up the crackling fire;
With a cruel smile they watch the while
The blazing of the fire.

142

And they hear the howl, and the savage growl
Of the wolf that waits without;
But what care they then, those merry men,
As they push the stoup about.

WRITTEN IN AN OLD TOWER IN NORTH WALES.

The sun's last gleam's on Snowdon's head,
The sky is kindling in the glow,
The light upon the mountain shed,
Is mirrored in the lakes below.

On yonder seaward-looking tower,
Falls evening's red and mellow light,
Again, as in days of splendour,
Its chamber walls grow bright.

As with some rich old tapestry
That decks a chieftain's halls,
With the gleam of ancient revelry,
The fitful splendour falls.

And the scent of the wallflower fills the air,
As when, from the spicy east,
The palmer brought the perfume rare,
For the giver of the feast.

Through the shattered breach the first pale star
Looks down upon the earth,
On the old gray rock that the night-winds mar,
On the place of the wild storm's birth.

Dreams of the past are dwelling here,
In this home of the wandering blast,
Sad thoughts of the great and mighty,
Who from the earth have past.

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THE WAR SONG OF THE WELSH BORDERERS.

Awake! for the dragon standard
Is waving on each tower,
Awake! ye men of the mountain land,
For now is the vengeance hour.
Awake! ye men of the torrent's land,
For red are the clouds that lour.

'Tis not to chase the bloody wolf,
Upon great Snowdon's height,
It is to chase the bloody men,
And battle for the right.
Arm! arm! ye men of the lake and stream,
Against proud England's might.

We'll drive them to their postern door,
Like a shepherd a thievish hound,
We'll leap old Chester's river wall,
All armed, at a bound;
Not an English boor, in all wide Wales,
Shall anywhere be found.

Think of the Welsh king's glory,
Ye men that guard the fold,
Think of the leaguered cities,
In the glorious days of old.
Awake! ye men of the horny hand,
And the lion heart and bold.

144

THE GATHERING SONG OF THE KINGS OF HARLECH.

[_]

[Adapted to the tune of a Highland pibroch.]

Come, at the hirlas blast,
Come, as the torrent fast;
Swift on the foemen stoop,
With the dun eagle's swoop,
Come, chiefs of the amber wreath, and the gold 'bossed shield.

From your home in the rock,
Come with the thunder's shock;
Down from each crag and hill,
Fast from each mountain rill.
Come, chiefs with the amber wreath, and the gold 'bossed shield.

Pour as the torrents pour,
Roar as the torrents roar;
Spur on your chargers fast,
Swift as the tempest blast.
Come, chiefs of the amber wreath, and the gold 'bossed shield.

Ere the red beacon's light,
Scare the dull clouded night
Round grey old Chester's wall,
We shall be gathered all.
Come, chiefs of the amber wreath, and the gold 'bossed shield.

Let the silk banners crowd,
Dark as the thunder cloud;
Let the bright spear-heads beam,
Like the blue lightning's gleam.
Come, chiefs with the amber wreath, and the gold 'bossed shield.

145

THE DEMON OAK.

A WELSH LEGEND.

[_]

“In the reign of Henry IV.,” says Bingley, in his book on North Wales, “Nannau, now the estate of the Vaughan family, situated on an eminence near Dolgelly, belonged to Howel Sele, who, though the first cousin of Owen Glendower, sided with the Lancastrian party. Upon one occasion, whilst these cousins were hunting together, Howel bent his bow, and pretending to take aim at a doe, suddenly turned round and shot at Owen, but the armour which he wore prevented any injury from the arrow. Owen immediately seized his kinsman (“a little more than kin, and less than kind,”) who was never heard of afterwards alive; but after forty years had elapsed, a skeleton, supposed to be his, was found in the hollow of a large oak, where he had probably been hidden by Owen.

This oak was named “Darwen Ceubren yr Ellyll, the hollow oak of the demons,” and was, to the day of its destruction in 1813, the terror of the superstitious.”]

Through Nannau's wood, to shout and song,
The hounds and chargers swept along,
When leaves were sere and brown;
And foremost of the cavalcade,
That poured through thicket and through glade,
Rode one that wore a crown.

A jewel in his bonnet shone,
His baldrick glow'd with many a stone,
Of dark and veering light.
His bright hair on the oak leaves cast
A lustre, as the gallant past,—
He was a goodly knight.

But louder, on that fatal morn,
Than bay of hound, or blast of horn,
'Bove neigh of fiery horse;
O'er the deep sighing of the breeze,
Through rustling woods and rocking trees,
Foamed on the torrent's course.

146

Leaving the red clouds where they slept,
The lightnings from their dark homes leapt,
Far flash their blinding blaze:
From mountain, den, and antre vast,
Flew forth the fiercely shrieking blast,
Unseen to mortal gaze.

Then, swifter than the storm wind's flight,
Through forest dark, with sudden night,
The huntsmen fled away.
The sound of distant bay is heard,
Faint as the warbling of a bird,
At breaking of the day.

Glendower and Howel, left alone,
Crouched down behind a mossy stone,
Some wreck of Druid times;
Where men poured out the human gore,
In cups of rock, in days of yore,
So say the Runic rhymes.

Bright as a marsh-sprite shone the knight,
By glimpse of that tempestuous light;
A sun-like ruby on his breast,
Gleamed, flickering with its prison'd fire,
The heir-loom of a royal sire,
It bound his snowy vest.

Behind the lichen'd ruins old,
The ramparts of an ancient hold,
They crouch them from the storm.
Again, like phantoms of the blast,
The frightened deer and hound fled past,
The hare cowed in her form.

Then cursed Howel's cruel shaft,
His royal brother's blood had quaffed,
Alas! for Cambria's weal!
But the false arrow glanced aside,
For, 'neath the robe of royal pride,
Lay plate of Milan steel.

147

A century had passed away,
When, on the eve of winter day,
A skeleton was found,
(Hid in the hollow of an oak,
Half riven by the thunder-stroke,)
With rusty fetter bound.

Keen blew the blast through forest tree,
'Mid winter winds fierce revelry,
Loud as the distant wave;
It tore the seared and blasted bole,
Then, like a charger to the goal,
Swept o'er the haunted grave.

Past Demon's haunt, where, long ago,
Glendower seized the traitor foe,
And chained him to the oak.
When years went by, a swineherd found,
The bleach'd bones to the old stem bound,
Well may the raven croak.

And now, when peasants pass at night,
When ways grow dim, and grey the light,
They pray, and hurry past;
And cross their brow, if, through the heaven,
Comes driving fast the lurid leven,
Or louder groans the blast.

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THE WYE.

[_]

[It was on the banks of this beautiful river that Caractacus defeated the Romans. Old half crumbled towers and druidical stones are still to be seen, here and there, upon its banks.]

A river flowing, circling woods between,
Past many an ancient tower, long since the scene
Of battle 'tween the stern dwellers of the land,
And they, the eagle-bannered, who, with flaming brand,
Swept o'er the world like some dread hurricane,
Levelling the stately palace and the massive fane.
This old druid's stone, so grey and mossed with age,
The lifelong labour of some early sage,
In its rock cup has held libations of their blood;
Grim children of the Roman robber brood,
Nursed by the wolf, fed in a forest den,
With yet warm morsels of the flesh of men—
Men who great shrines to demon spirits raised,
And clanged their shields to the dread gods they praised.

Yet these rude crags that hem the river in,
Our mountain ramparts, heard of yore the din,
When blenched the legions from the British spear;
What time the cowering eagle, at the savage cheer,
Fled to his rocky nest, his ancient home,
Back to great Tyber's city, crowned Rome.
Sweet stream! whose ripple's whimpering tone
More cheers my ear than dying Roman's groan,
The Briton, leaning on his bronze axe shaft,
The while, all weary with the war, he quaff'd
Rich goblet of sweet mead or hydromel;
Such are the scenes thy voice, as by a spell,
Calls up, and fills the woods that, gathered high,
Seem like a silent multitude that gaze into the sky.

149

THE EAGLE TOWER OF CAERNARVON CASTLE.

Like some old crazed monarch, crowned with weeds,
And blossoms gathered from the wild field flowers,
Art thou; above thy ramparts and thy riven towers.
On the lone turret, where the stock dove breeds,
A lone flower sheds its perfume in the air,
Whether the sky above is bright and fair,
Or fiery billow clouds herald the storm that lowers:
Sweet type of love that to the wreck will cling,
And what it loveth once will love for ever,
Nor joy, nor grief, nor weal, nor woe, can sever,—
As faithful in the winter as in spring,—
Constant unto the death, faithful for now and aye,
Like beauty bending o'er the couch of one prepared to die.

MARCH.

The desert winds of Araby
With hotter glow the brown sands parch;
But not the storm of the Hellespont
Drives fiercer than the winds of March.

How still the silence of its death,—
How hushed the earth when it has past;
Fiercest of all the giant winds—
Is thy unresting blast.

150

ON AN OLD COIN OF VESPASIAN'S,

DUG UP NEAR THE RUINS OF A PALACE.

Was it some warrior Roman,
With cunning art and fine,
Who stamped this coin's surface
With letter and with sign?
Yes! he that grasped the pilum,
Dug metal from the mine.

Yes! he that in some camp's deep trench,
Dropped thee from mailed hand,
'Gainst Greek or swarthy Egyptian,
Had drawn the battle brand.
Yes! he that grasped the pilum,
Hath clutched thee in his hand.

He might have plundered Herod's hall,
Or the maddened Jew have slain,
When from the burning temple
Showered down the fiery rain.
Yes! he that grasped the pilum,
Trod many a bloody plain.

His gory hand, too daring,
Might have torn the veil away
That hid Jehovah's brightness
From the sullying light of day.
Ah! he that grasped the pilum,
Was no sluggard in the fray.

151

FEBRUARY.

The time when skies are free from cloud,
Though still the robin whistles loud
In the bare garden croft,
The catkin, on the hazel tree,
Mistakes for summer flower the bee,
And round it hovers oft.

Winter's last sigh, from frozen north,
Withers the flower that ventures forth;
And there is wanting still
The unseen warmth, the mellow note
Of the wild bird with dappled coat,
Though faster flows the rill.

When, from his winter home, the snake
Creeps stealthy through the withered brake,
And thoughtless of the past,
The young leaves open over head,
Though still their fathers, sere and dead,
Are hurried by the blast.

When linked together, hand in hand,
The buds break forth, a merry band
In every meadow hedge;
The lark sings up amid the cloud;
The happy streamlet ripples loud
Past the long flowering sedge.

And water-lilies, in a throng,
Creep up to hear the thrush's song,
Or notes from blackbird's bill;
And with a gushing voice of pleasure,
Its little store of silver treasure
Pours forth each little rill.

152

THE PIMPERNEL.

Little scarlet Pimpernel!
None but thou canst tell so well
What the weather change may be;
None can tell so well as thee
What the roving sun can see;
None so wisely half as thee;
When the welkin vapours shroud,
Telleth thee, the passing cloud,
When in east the pallid dawn
Heralds coming of the morn;—
Then with joy thou spreadest out
All thy little flowers about,
Where, in holt or upon wold,
Smiles thy little eye of gold.
When with clouds the heavens frown,
Then thy head thou bendest down.
Little weather-prophet, say,
Fair or foul, the coming day?
For thy eye, on sun above,
Dwells like lover on his love;
Like a courtier on his lord;
Or Parsee on his god adored;
Like kneeling Carib on the sun,
Thou gazest till his course is run—
Ever, ever gazing on,
Never musing but of one.
Come what seasons there may be,
Still unchanged thy flower we see,
Like a pennon in the wind,
Fickle as a maiden's mind,
Ever veereth round thy head,
Till in western waves of red,

153

Thy great monarch sinketh down,
Then, too, sinks thy tiny crown.
In thy humble flower we see
Type of fixed mobility.
Winds may blow as they blow now,
Still for winds what carest thou?
Though with fury raging free,
They should shake the giant tree,
Whatsoever be their power,
They will spare thy little flower;
E'en the bud that gems the sod,
Overshadowed is by God.
Little Persian; songs of praise
Do thy flowerets ever raise;
To thy God thou offerest up
Drops of dew in ruby cup;
And when sinks the king of light,
Thy violet eyes with tears grow bright,
Till the stars, whose softer beam,
Like the sun's fair children seem,
Shine upon the meadow-ground,
Where thy blossoms most abound;
Or, where trailing through the grass,
All thy snake-like sprays do pass.
Little scarlet Pimpernel!
None can tell us half so well
What the weather change may be—
None so wisely half as thee!

FLOWERS.

Ye short-lived flowers!
That strew your leaves upon the young spring's paths
In May's sweet hours.

Ye fragile flowers!
That tesselate with many a varied gem
Earth's greenest bowers.

154

Ye deep-dyed flowers!
Fed by the silver dew, and canopied by cloud,
Nurtured by showers.

Ye vari-coloured flowers!
That hang your fearful heads like timid beauty
When tempest lowers.

Ye sweet-juiced flowers!
That with such varied loveliness
Kind Nature dowers.

Ye transitory flowers!
Your life is far more happy, but as brief,
As short as ours.

THE NORSEMAN'S WAR-SONG.

Up, Bersekers! up, with the trample and roar
Of the waves that burst in on an iron-bound shore,
With the pride and the might of the surf o'er a reef,
To the sword-dance, with clamour, let's follow the chief.

Together, together, now push from the land;
Who will tarry at home by the smouldering brand?
As the blast of the tempest, the reed of the lake,
The war-axe and lance in our stout grasp shall shake.

Sharp in point and in edge as the walrus's tooth,
Neither sword-blade nor spear-point feel sorrow or ruth.
Pierce lance, and drink deep of the heart-blood within;
Come, cleave, thou good war-axe, the bone and the skin.

155

To-day we'll have vengeance, whatever betide;
We are coming, soon coming, in pomp and in pride.
What careth the storm for the withering tree!
God pity ye, cravens! no mercy have we.

The women and children pile logs on the hearth;
The banquet we'll share, with loud jest and fierce mirth;
Already the smoke-wreaths mount up to the sky,—
Already hot flames are up blazing on high.

O long we have tarried for revel and spoil;
The hounds have long bayed round the wide empty toil.
We ate our last morsel in sorrow alone,
Till nothing was left but the white rattling bone.

Up, warriors! up! ere the sun set to-day
Ye shall feast on the herds that we win in the fray;
The hot flames are mounting the heavens again—
On together, ye sons of the warrior men!

[The Bersekers, mentioned in the first verse of this song, were a class of men known among the northern nations, who, making a vow at the altar of some sea god, stripped themselves to their tunic, and then, swallowing a cup of some intoxicating beverage, rushed almost naked into the army of the enemy. The deeds of these frantic men, as related in the Sagas, are quite herculean. They formed, in reality, a rude order of knighthood.]

MAY.

Of sunlight and green shade, and songs of birds, a happy blending,
Of perfumes, and sweet sounds, and eyes' delight,
Mild showers, and blooming boughs, a pleasure neverending,
A gentle coming on of calm, cool night,—
These, these are blessings scattered in our way,
In happy May.

156

In happy May—when winter, girt with hideous winds
Seeks his ice caverns; his spies work summer grief
The canker blasts the bud; the ivy creeping binds
The oak in galling chains; the chill rain spots the leaf,
They plot by night, they plot the live-long day
In mournful May.

OLD LETTERS.

Old, brown, and mouldy pages,
Whose every leaf
Is stamped with mystic characters
Of joy and grief.

On such poor fragile monuments,
Past hope, past fear,
Past love, past scorn, past hate,
Are graven here.

Fragile creations of still frailer man,
That men outlast,
'Though from eternity, from whence he came,
The scribe be past.

O, there are tongues within these dry brown leaves,
That speak as Autumns do;
They cry of death and sorrow,
To me—to you.

To look on thee, is the dark coffin lid
Of some old tomb to raise,
And on the mouldering dead within
Silent to gaze.

157

Their mute but mighty voice,
Tells of days past,
Of leaves swept from an aneient tree,
And withered in the blast.

Dear record of long-vanished days,
Whose silent spell
Invokes so potently the aged deed,
Farewell—farewell!

A WARNINGE WORDE.

TO MY LOVINGE FRIENDE, LAUNCELOT BURBAGE, 1610.

Take heed of what I tell thee now,
Trust not in star and broider'd vest;
Beware, dark eye and arched brow,
Beware of gently-pouting breast,
For thy good hand, and thy good brain
Are worth the four—and four again.

There's neither fiend, nor sprite, nor elf,
Can speed thee in the ways of life,
Nought but the strivings of thyself;
Nor friend can aid, nor child, nor wife,
Then give, my friend, thy utmost heed
To what may serve thee at thy need.

For friends are but a sharpened reed,
Against the desert lion's might,
As well go hew with blunted spade,
At golden targe of wizard knight.
And never breathe a word of love,
I pray thee by the gods above.

158

For love's a thing that cannot fail,
To leave thee at thy utmost need;
In leaky pinnace face a gale,
Go, rather brave the ice winds' host.
When age needs care and gentler smiles,
Pray where are then Love's pretty wiles?

To build your love on woman's face,
Thou'dst better build on Goodwin's Sand—
The tide of Time sweeps o'er the place,
And now 'tis water, now 'tis land.
Than thus to peril heart of thine,
Thou'dst better drown thyself in wine.

And never dare to question me,
Or ask why drivelling man was born;
The world's a place, I whisper thee,
Where hearts with toiling are outworn.
And ere we've ventured half way through it,
We seldom fail full well to rue it.

We're angels winged for furthest flight,
Then chained in a murky vault;
We half obtain to wisdom's sight,
When Death to best of us cries “halt.”
We just begin to look around,
When we are all clapp'd under ground.

Just like a child, his puppet toys,
The sexton lays us one by one;
Noble and churl with crowned boys,
(Say royal Philip's god-like son.)
And in the box, a coffin call'd,
Together by grim Death we're haul'd.

Like a poor rushlight we're snuff'd out,
Ere half our scanty taper's done;
This man that put five kings to rout,
And this man's sire and that man's son.
A few quick cycles and no more,
The world is as it was before.

159

Then tell me what the wise call Fame?—
This bully stabs another sot;
That stamps a penny with his name,
The difference is in Nature's lot.
The world's a masquerade—how strange,
We wear a crown an hour—then change.

This knave struts round with helm and sword,
Or wears to-day a purple vest;
That fool is called to-night a lord,
And pins a star upon his breast.
To-morrow's eve in death they meet,
A white shroud wraps their head and feet.

The pall of this old blockhead king,
Is richer for his coffin worm;
Ere well the death-bell they do ring,
Death stamps with livid brand his form.
Then what is Pride? the strutting stalk,
The aping of a stage ape's walk.

We're all but puppets at the best,
One wears a cap and one a crown;
The kaiser in his graveclothes drest,
Lays sceptre, ball, and signet down.
Do coffins of a curious wood,
Bar out the earth-worm's hungry brood?

166

THE END.