Like an army with its banners, onward marched the mighty sun,To his home in triumph hastening, when the hard-fought field was won;While the thronging clouds hung proudly o'er the victor's bright array,Gold and red and purple pennons, welcoming the host of day.Gazing on the glowing pageant, slowly fading from the air,Closed my mind its heavy eyelids, nodding o'er the world of care;And the soaring thoughts came fluttering downward to their tranquil nest,Folded up their wearied pinions, sinking one by one to rest.Till a deep, o'ermastering slumber seemed to wrap my very soul,And a gracious dream from Heaven, treading lightly, to me stole:Downward from its plumes ethereal, on my thirsting bosom flowedDews which to the land of spirits all their mystic virtue owed.And when touched that potent essence, Time divided as a cloud,From the Past, the Present, Future rolled aside oblivion's shroud;And Life's hills and vales far-stretching full before my vision lay,Seeming but an isle of shadow in Eternity's broad day.On the Past I bent my glances, saw the gentle, guileless childFace to face with God conversing, and the awful Presence smiled—Smiled a glory on the forehead of the simple-hearted one,And the radiance, back reflected, cast a splendor round the throne.Saw the boy, by Heaven instructed through earth's mute, symbolic forms,Drinking wisdom with his senses, which the higher nature warms;Saw that purer knowledge mingled with the worldling's base alloy,And the passions' foul impression stamped upon his face of joy.O, I cried to God in anguish, is this boasted wisdom vain,For which I, by night and sunshine, tax my overwearied brain;Till, alas! grown too familiar with the thoughts that knock at Heaven,I would further pierce the mystery than to mortal eye is given?Is the learning of our childhood, is the pure and easy loreSpeaking in a heart unsullied, better than the vaunted storeHeaped, like ice, to chill and harden every faculty save mind,By the hand of haughty Science, sometimes wandering, sometimes blind?But no answer reached my senses; for my feeble voice was lost,When the Future came in darkness, like a rushing arméd host;Shouting cries of fear and danger, shouting words of hope and cheer,Racking me with threat and promise, ever coming, never here.Then my spirit stretched its vision, prying in the doubtful gloom,Half a glimpse to me was given o'er Time's boundary-stone—the tomb.With a shriek, like that which rises from a sinking, night-wrecked bark,Burst my soul the bounds of slumber, and the world and I were dark!While the dull and leaden Present on my palsied spirit pressed,Till the soaring thoughts rose upward, bounding from their earthly rest;Shaking down the golden dew-drops from their pinions proud and strong,And the cares of life fell from me, fading in the realm of Song.
Like an army with its banners, onward marched the mighty sun,To his home in triumph hastening, when the hard-fought field was won;While the thronging clouds hung proudly o'er the victor's bright array,Gold and red and purple pennons, welcoming the host of day.
Gazing on the glowing pageant, slowly fading from the air,Closed my mind its heavy eyelids, nodding o'er the world of care;And the soaring thoughts came fluttering downward to their tranquil nest,Folded up their wearied pinions, sinking one by one to rest.
Till a deep, o'ermastering slumber seemed to wrap my very soul,And a gracious dream from Heaven, treading lightly, to me stole:Downward from its plumes ethereal, on my thirsting bosom flowedDews which to the land of spirits all their mystic virtue owed.
And when touched that potent essence, Time divided as a cloud,From the Past, the Present, Future rolled aside oblivion's shroud;And Life's hills and vales far-stretching full before my vision lay,Seeming but an isle of shadow in Eternity's broad day.
On the Past I bent my glances, saw the gentle, guileless childFace to face with God conversing, and the awful Presence smiled—Smiled a glory on the forehead of the simple-hearted one,And the radiance, back reflected, cast a splendor round the throne.
Saw the boy, by Heaven instructed through earth's mute, symbolic forms,Drinking wisdom with his senses, which the higher nature warms;Saw that purer knowledge mingled with the worldling's base alloy,And the passions' foul impression stamped upon his face of joy.
O, I cried to God in anguish, is this boasted wisdom vain,For which I, by night and sunshine, tax my overwearied brain;Till, alas! grown too familiar with the thoughts that knock at Heaven,I would further pierce the mystery than to mortal eye is given?
Is the learning of our childhood, is the pure and easy loreSpeaking in a heart unsullied, better than the vaunted storeHeaped, like ice, to chill and harden every faculty save mind,By the hand of haughty Science, sometimes wandering, sometimes blind?
But no answer reached my senses; for my feeble voice was lost,When the Future came in darkness, like a rushing arméd host;Shouting cries of fear and danger, shouting words of hope and cheer,Racking me with threat and promise, ever coming, never here.
Then my spirit stretched its vision, prying in the doubtful gloom,Half a glimpse to me was given o'er Time's boundary-stone—the tomb.With a shriek, like that which rises from a sinking, night-wrecked bark,Burst my soul the bounds of slumber, and the world and I were dark!
While the dull and leaden Present on my palsied spirit pressed,Till the soaring thoughts rose upward, bounding from their earthly rest;Shaking down the golden dew-drops from their pinions proud and strong,And the cares of life fell from me, fading in the realm of Song.
Whenever the several nations of the earth which have achieved their deliverance from misrule and tyranny shall point, as they each may, to the fair women who have taken active part in the cause of liberty, and by their smiles and services have contributed in no measured degree to the great objects of national defence and deliverance, it will be with a becoming and just pride only that the Colombians shall point to their virgin martyr, commonly known among them as La Pola, the Maid of Bogota. With the history of their struggle for freedom her story will always be intimately associated; her tragical fate, due solely to the cause of her country, being linked with all the touching interest of the most romantic adventure. Her spirit seemed to be woven of the finest materials. She was gentle, exquisitively sensitive, and capable of the most true and tender attachments. Her mind was one of rarest endowments, touched to the finest issues of eloquence, and gifted with all the powers of the improvisatrice, while her courage and patriotism seem to have been cast in those heroic moulds of antiquity from which came the Cornelias and Deborahs of famous memory. Well had it been for her country had the glorious model which she bestowed upon her people been held in becoming homage by the race with which her destiny was cast—a race masculine only in exterior, and wanting wholly in that necessary strength of soul which, rising to the due appreciation of the blessings of national freedom, is equally prepared to make, for its attainment, every necessary sacrifice of self; and yet our heroine was but a child in years—a lovely, tender, feeble creature, scarcely fifteen years of age. But the soul grows rapidly to maturity in some countries, and in the case of women, it is always great in its youth, if greatness is ever destined to be its possession.
Doña Apolenaria Zalabariata—better known by the name of La Pola—was a young girl, the daughter of a good family of Bogota, who was distinguished at an early period, as well for her great gifts of beauty as of intellect. She was but a child when Bolivar first commenced his struggles with the Spanish authorities, with the ostensible object of freeing his country from their oppressive tyrannies. It is not within our province to discuss the merits of his pretensions as a deliverer, or of his courage and military skill as a hero. The judgment of the world and of time has fairly set at rest those specious and hypocritical claims, which, for a season, presumed to place him on the pedestal with our Washington. We now know that he was not only a very selfish, but a very ordinary man—not ordinary, perhaps, in the sense of intellect, for that would be impossible in the case of one who was so long able to maintain his eminent position, and to succeed in his capricious progresses, in spite of inferior means, and a singular deficiency of the heroic faculty. But his ambition was the vulgar ambition, and, if possible, something still inferior. It contemplated his personal wants alone; it lacked all the elevation of purpose which is the great essential of patriotism, and was wholly wanting in that magnanimity of soul which delights in the sacrifice of self, whenever such sacrifice promises the safety of the single great purpose which it professes to desire. But we are not now to consider Bolivar, the deliverer, as one whose place in the pantheon has already been determined by the unerring judgment of posterity. We are to behold him only with those eyes in which he was seen by the devoted followers to whom he brought, or appeared to bring, the deliverance for which they yearned. It is with the eyes of the passionate young girl, La Pola, the beautiful and gifted child, whose dream of country perpetually craved the republican condition of ancient Rome, in the days of its simplicity and virtue; it is with her fancy and admiration that we are to crown theidealBolivar, till we acknowledge him, as he appears to her, the Washington of the Colombians, eager only to emulate the patriotism, and to achieve like success with his great model of the northern confederacy. Her feelings and opinions, with regard to the Liberator, were those of her family. Her father was a resident of Bogota, a man of large possessions and considerable intellectual acquirements. He gradually passed from a secret admiration of Bolivar to a warm sympathy with his progress, and an active support—so far as he dared, living in a city under immediate and despotic Spanish rule—of all his objects. He followed with eager eyes the fortunes of the chief, as they fluctuated between defeat and victory in other provinces, waiting anxiously the moment when the success and policy of the struggle should bring deliverance, in turn, to the gates of Bogota. Without taking up arms himself, he contributed secretly from his own resources to supplying the coffers of Bolivar with treasure, even when his operations were remote—and his daughter was the agent through whose unsuspected ministry the money was conveyed to the several emissaries who were commissioned to receive it. The duty was equally delicate and dangerous, requiring great prudence and circumspection; and the skill, address and courage with which the child succeeded in the execution of her trusts, would furnish a frequent lesson for older heads and the sterner and the bolder sex.
La Pola was but fourteen years old when she obtained her first glimpse of the great man in whose cause she had already been employed, and of whose deeds and distinctions she had heard so much. Bythe language of the Spanish tyranny, which swayed with iron authority over her native city, she heard him denounced and execrated as a rebel and marauder, for whom an ignominious death was already decreed by the despotic viceroy. This language, from such lips, was of itself calculated to raise its object favorably in her enthusiastic sight. By the patriots, whom she had been accustomed to love and venerate, she heard the same name breathed always in whispers of hope and affection, and fondly commended, with tearful blessings, to the watchful care of Heaven. She was now to behold with her own eyes this individual thus equally distinguished by hate and homage in her hearing. Bolivar apprised his friends in Bogota that he should visit them in secret. That province, ruled with a fearfully strong hand by Zamano, the viceroy, had not yet ventured to declare itself for the republic. It was necessary to operate with caution; and it was no small peril which Bolivar necessarily incurred in penetrating to its capital, and laying his snares, and fomenting insurrection beneath the very hearth-stones of the tyrant. It was to La Pola's hands that the messenger of the Liberator confided the missives that communicated this important intelligence to her father. She little knew the contents of the billet which she carried him in safety, nor did he confide them to the child. He himself did not dream the precocious extent of that enthusiasm which she felt almost equally in the common cause, and in the person of its great advocate and champion. Her father simply praised her care and diligence, rewarded her with his fondest caresses, and then proceeded with all quiet despatch to make his preparations for the secret reception of the deliverer. It was at midnight, and while a thunder-storm was raging, that he entered the city, making his way, agreeably to previous arrangement, and under select guidance, into the inner apartments of the house of Zalabariata. A meeting of the conspirators—for such they were—of head men among the patriots of Bogota, had been contemplated for his reception. Several of them were accordingly in attendance when he came. These were persons whose sentiments were well known to be friendly to the cause of liberty, who had suffered by the hands, or were pursued by the suspicions of Zamano, and who, it was naturally supposed, would be eagerly alive to every opportunity of shaking off the rule of the oppressor. But patriotism, as a philosophic sentiment, to be indulged after a good dinner, and discussed phlegmatically, if not classically, over sherry and cigars, is a very different sort of thing from patriotism as a principle of action, to be prosecuted as a duty, at every peril, instantly and always, to the death, if need be. Our patriots at Bogota were but too frequently of the contemplative, the philosophical order. Patriotism with them was rather a subject for eloquence than use. They could recall those Utopian histories of Greece and Rome which furnish us with ideals rather than facts, and sigh for names like those of Cato, and Brutus, and Aristides. But more than this did not seem to enter their imaginations as at all necessary to assert the character which it pleased them to profess, or maintain the reputation which they had prospectively acquired for the very commendable virtue which constituted their ordinary theme. Bolivar found them cold. Accustomed to overthrow and usurpation, they were now slow to venture property and life upon the predictions and promises of one who, however perfect in their estimation as a patriot, had yet suffered from most capricious fortunes. His past history, indeed, except for its patriotism, offered but very doubtful guarantees in favor of the enterprise to which they were invoked. Bolivar was artful and ingenious. He had considerable powers of eloquence—was specious and persuasive; had an oily and bewitching tongue, like Balial; and if not altogether capable of making the worse appear the better cause, could at least so shape the aspects of evil fortune, that, to the unsuspicious nature, they would seem to be the very results aimed at by the most deliberate arrangement and resolve. But Bolivar, on this occasion, was something more than ingenious and persuasive, he was warmly earnest, and passionately eloquent. In truth, he was excited much beyond his wont. He was stung to indignation by a sense of disappointment. He had calculated largely on this meeting, and it promised now to be a failure. He had anticipated the eager enthusiasm of a host of brave and noble spirits ready to fling out the banner of freedom to the winds, and cast the scabbard from the sword forever. Instead of this, he found but a little knot of cold, irresolute men, thinking only of the perils of life which they should incur, and the forfeiture and loss of property which might accrue from any hazardous experiments. Bolivar spoke to them in language less artificial and much more impassioned than was his wont. He was a man of impulse rather than of thought or principle, and, once aroused, the intense fire of a southern sun seemed to burn fiercely in all his words and actions. His speech was heard by other ears than those to which it was addressed. The shrewd mind of La Pola readily conjectured that the meeting at her father's house, at midnight, and under peculiar circumstances, contemplated some extraordinary object. She was aware that a tall, mysterious stranger had passed through the court, under the immediate conduct of her father himself. Her instinct divined in this stranger the person of the deliverer, and her heart would not suffer her to lose the words, or if possible to obtain, to forego the sight of the great object of its patriotic worship. Beside, she had a right to know and to see. She was of the party, and had done them service. She was yet to do them more. Concealed in an adjoining apartment—a sort of oratory, connected by a gallery with the chamber in which the conspirators were assembled—she was able to hear the earnest arguments and passionate remonstrances of the Liberator. They confirmed all her previous admiration of his genius and character. She felt with indignation the humiliating position which the men of Bogota held in his eyes. She heard their pleas and scruples, and listened with a bitter scorn to the thousand suggestions of prudence, the thousand calculationsof doubt and caution with which timidity seeks to avoid precipitating a crisis. She could listen and endure no longer. The spirit of the improvisatrice was upon her. Was it also that of fate and a higher Providence? She seized the guitar, of which she was the perfect mistress, and sung even as her soul counseled and the exigency of the event demanded. Our translation of her lyrical overflow is necessarily a cold and feeble one.
It was a dream of freedom—A mocking dream, though bright—That showed the men of BogotaAll arming for the fight;All eager for the hour that wakesThe thunders of redeeming war,And rushing forth with glittering steel,To join the bands of Bolivar.My soul, I said, it cannot beThat Bogota shall be deniedHer Arismendi, too—her chiefTo pluck her honor up, and pride;The wild Llanero boasts his bravesThat, stung with patriot wrath and shame,Rushed redly to the realm of graves,And rose, through blood and death, to fame.How glads mine ear with other sounds,Of freemen worthy these, that tell!Ribas, who felt Caraccas' wounds,And for her hope and triumph fell;And that young hero, well beloved,Giraldat, still a name for song;Piar, Marino, dying soon,But, for the future, living long.Oh! could we stir with other names,The cold, deaf hearts that hear us now,How would it bring a thousand shames,In fire, to each Bogotian's brow!How clap in pride Grenada's hands;How glows Venezuela's heart;And how, through Cartagena's lands,A thousand chiefs and hero's start.Paez, Sodeno, lo! they rush,Each with his wild and Cossack rout;A moment feels the fearful hush,A moment hears the fearful shout!They heed no lack of arts and arms,But all their country's perils feel,And sworn for freedom, bravely break,The glitering legions of Castile.I see the gallant Roxas graspThe towering banner of her sway;And Monagas, with fearful clasp,Plucks down the chief that stops the way;The reckless Urdaneta rides,Where rives the earth the iron hail;Nor long the Spanish foeman bides,The stroke of old Zaraza's flail.Oh, generous heroes! how ye rise!How glow your states with equal fires!'Tis there Valencia's banner flies,And there Cumana's soul aspires;There, on each hand, from east to west,From Oronook to Panama,Each province bares its noble breast,Each hero—save in Bogota!
It was a dream of freedom—A mocking dream, though bright—That showed the men of BogotaAll arming for the fight;All eager for the hour that wakesThe thunders of redeeming war,And rushing forth with glittering steel,To join the bands of Bolivar.
My soul, I said, it cannot beThat Bogota shall be deniedHer Arismendi, too—her chiefTo pluck her honor up, and pride;The wild Llanero boasts his bravesThat, stung with patriot wrath and shame,Rushed redly to the realm of graves,And rose, through blood and death, to fame.
How glads mine ear with other sounds,Of freemen worthy these, that tell!Ribas, who felt Caraccas' wounds,And for her hope and triumph fell;And that young hero, well beloved,Giraldat, still a name for song;Piar, Marino, dying soon,But, for the future, living long.
Oh! could we stir with other names,The cold, deaf hearts that hear us now,How would it bring a thousand shames,In fire, to each Bogotian's brow!How clap in pride Grenada's hands;How glows Venezuela's heart;And how, through Cartagena's lands,A thousand chiefs and hero's start.
Paez, Sodeno, lo! they rush,Each with his wild and Cossack rout;A moment feels the fearful hush,A moment hears the fearful shout!They heed no lack of arts and arms,But all their country's perils feel,And sworn for freedom, bravely break,The glitering legions of Castile.
I see the gallant Roxas graspThe towering banner of her sway;And Monagas, with fearful clasp,Plucks down the chief that stops the way;The reckless Urdaneta rides,Where rives the earth the iron hail;Nor long the Spanish foeman bides,The stroke of old Zaraza's flail.
Oh, generous heroes! how ye rise!How glow your states with equal fires!'Tis there Valencia's banner flies,And there Cumana's soul aspires;There, on each hand, from east to west,From Oronook to Panama,Each province bares its noble breast,Each hero—save in Bogota!
At the first sudden gush of the music from within, the father of the damsel started to his feet, and with confusion in his countenance, was about to leave the apartment. But Bolivar arrested his footsteps, and in a whisper, commanded him to be silent and remain. The conspirators, startled, if not alarmed, were compelled to listen. Bolivar did so with a pleased attention. He was passionately fond of music, and this was of a sort at once to appeal to his objects and his tastes. His eye kindled as the song proceeded. His heart rose with an exulting sentiment. The moment, indeed, embodied one of his greatest triumphs—the tribute of a pure, unsophisticated soul, inspired by Heaven with the happiest and highest endowments, and by earth with the noblest sentiments of pride and country. When the music ceased, Zalabariata was about to apologize, and to explain, but Bolivar again gently and affectionately arrested his utterance.
"Fear nothing," said he. "Indeed, why should you fear? I am in the greater danger here, if there be danger for any; and I would as soon place my life in the keeping of that noble damsel, as in the arms of my mother. Let her remain, my friend; let her hear and see all; and above all, do not attempt to apologize for her. She is my ally. Would that she could make thesemenof Bogota feel with herself—feel as she makes even me to feel."
The eloquence of the Liberator received a new impulse from that of the improvisatrice. He renewed his arguments and entreaties in a different spirit. He denounced, in yet bolder language than before, that wretched pusillanimity which quite as much, he asserted, as the tyranny of the Spaniard, was the cause under which the liberties of the country groaned and suffered.
"And now, I ask," he continued, passionately, "men of Bogota, if ye really purpose to deny yourselves all share in the glory and peril of the effort which is for your own emancipation? Are your brethren of the other provinces to maintain the conflict in your behalf, while, with folded hands, you submit, doing nothing for yourselves? Will you not lift the banner also? Will you not draw sword in your own honor, and the defence of your fire-sides and families. Talk not to me of secret contributions. It is your manhood, not your money, that is needful for success. And can you withhold yourselves while you profess to hunger after that liberty for which other men are free to peril all—manhood, money, life, hope, every thing but honor and the sense of freedom. But why speak of peril in this. Peril is every where. It is the inevitable child of life, natural to all conditions—to repose as well as action, to the obscurity which never goes abroad, as well as to that adventure which forever seeks the field. You incur no more peril in openly braving your tyrant, all together as one man, than you do thus tamely sitting beneath his footstool, and trembling forever lest his capricious will may slay as it enslaves. Be you but true to yourselves—openly true—and the danger disappears as the night-mists that speed from before the rising sun. There is little that deserves the name of peril in the issue which lies before us.We are more than a match, united, and filled with the proper spirit, for all the forces that Spain can send against us. It is in our coldness that she warms—in our want of unity that she finds strength. But even were we not superior to her in numbers—even were the chances all wholly and decidedly against us—I still cannot see how it is that you hesitate to draw the sword in so sacred a strife—a strife which consecrates the effort, and claims Heaven's sanction for success. Are your souls so subdued by servitude; are you so accustomed to bonds and tortures, that these no longer irk and vex your daily consciousness? Are you so wedded to inaction that you cease to feel? Is it the frequency of the punishment that has made you callous to the ignominy and the pain? Certainly your viceroy gives you frequent occasion to grow reconciled to any degree of hurt and degradation. Daily you behold, and I hear, of the exactions of this tyrant—of the cruelties and the murders to which he accustoms you in Bogota. Hundreds of your friends and kinsmen, even now, lie rotting in the common prisons, denied equally your sympathies and every show of justice, perishing, daily, under the most cruel privations. Hundreds have perished by this and other modes of torture, and the gallows and garote seem never to be unoccupied. Was it not the bleaching skeleton of the venerable Hermano, whom I well knew for his wisdom and patriotism, which I beheld, even as I entered, hanging in chains over the gateway of your city? Was he not the victim of his wealth and love of country? Who among you is secure? He dared but to deliver himself as a man, and as he was suffered to stand alone, he was destroyed. Had you, when he spoke, but prepared yourselves to act, flung out the banner of resistance to the winds, and bared the sword for the last noble struggle, Hermano had not perished, nor were the glorious work only now to be begun. But which of you, involved in the same peril with Hermano, will find the friend, in the moment of his need, to take the first step for his rescue? Each of you, in turn, having wealth to tempt the spoiler, will be sure to need such friendship. It seems you do not look for it among one another—where, then, do you propose to find it? Will you seek for it among the Cartagenians—among the other provinces—to Bolivarwithout? Vain expectation, if you are unwilling to peril any thing for yourselveswithin! In a tyranny so suspicious and so reckless as is yours, you must momentarily tremble lest ye suffer at the hands of your despot. True manhood rather prefers any peril which puts an end to this state of anxiety and fear. Thus to tremble with apprehension ever, is ever to be dying. It is a life of death only which ye live—and any death or peril that comes quickly at the summons, is to be preferred before it. If, then, ye have hearts to feel, or hopes to warm ye—a pride to suffer consciousness of shame, or an ambition that longs for better things—affections for which to covet life, or the courage with which to assert and to defend your affections, ye cannot, ye will not hesitate to determine, with souls of freemen, upon what is needful to be done. Ye have but one choice as men; and the question which is left for ye to resolve, is that which determines, not your possessions, not even your lives, but simply your rank and stature in the world of humanity and man."
The Liberator paused, not so much through his own or the exhaustion of the subject, as that his hearers should in turn be heard. But with this latter object his forbearance was profitless. There were those among them, indeed, who had their answers to his exhortations, but these were not of a character to promise boldly for their patriotism or courage. Their professions, indeed, were ample, but were confined to unmeaning generalities. "Now is the time, now!" was the response of Bolivar to all that was said. But they faltered and hung back at every utterance of his spasmodically uttered "now! now!" He scanned their faces eagerly, with a hope that gradually yielded to despondency. Their features were blank and inexpressive, as their answers had been meaningless or evasive. Several of them were of that class of quiet citizens, unaccustomed to any enterprises but those of trade, who are always slow to peril wealth by a direct issue with their despotism. They felt the truth of Bolivar's assertions. They knew that their treasures were only so many baits and lures to the cupidity and exactions of the royal emissaries, but they still relied on their habitual caution and docility to keep terms with the tyranny at which they yet trembled. When, in the warmth of his enthusiasm, Bolivar depicted the bloody struggles which must precede their deliverance, they began indeed to wonder among themselves how they ever came to fall into that mischievous philosophy of patriotism which had involved them with such a restless rebel as Bolivar! Others of the company were ancient hidalgos, who had been men of spirit in their day, but who had survived the season of enterprise, which is that period only when the heart swells and overflows with full tides of warm and impetuous blood.
"Your error," said he, in a whisper to Señor Don Joachim de Zalabariata, "was in not bringing young men into your counsels."
"We shall have them hereafter," was the reply, also in a whisper.
"We shall see," muttered the Liberator, who continued, though in silence, to scan the assembly with inquisitive eyes, and an excitement of soul, which increased duly with his efforts to subdue it. He had found some allies in the circle. Some few generous spirits, who, responding to his desires, were anxious to be up and doing. But it was only too apparent that the main body of the company had been rather disquieted than warmed. In this condition of hopeless and speechless indecision, the emotions of the Liberator became scarcely controllable. His whole frame trembled with the anxiety and indignation of his spirit. He paced the room hurriedly, passing from group to group, appealing to individuals now, where hitherto he had spoken collectively, and suggesting detailed arguments in behalf of hopes and objects, which it does not need that we should incorporate with our narrative. But when he found howfeeble was the influence which he exercised, and how cold was the echo to his appeal, he became impatient, and no longer strove to modify the expression of that scorn and indignation which he had for some time felt. The explosion followed in no measured language.
"Men of Bogota, you are not worthy to be free. Your chains are merited. You deserve your insecurities, and may embrace, even as ye please, the fates which lie before you. Acquiesce in the tyranny which offends no longer, but be sure that acquiescence never yet has disarmed the despot when his rapacity needs a victim. Your lives and possessions—which ye dare not peril in the cause of freedom—lie equally at his mercy. He will not pause, as you do, to use them at his pleasure. To save them from him there was but one way—to employ them against him. There is no security against power but in power; and to check the insolence of foreign strength you must oppose to it your own. This ye have not soul to do, and I leave you to the destiny you have chosen. This day, this night, it was yours to resolve. I have periled all to move you to the proper resolution. You have denied me, and I leave you. To-morrow—unless indeed I am betrayed to-night"—looking with a sarcastic smile around him as he spoke—"I shall unfurl the banner of the republic even within your own province, in behalf of Bogota, and seek, even against your own desires, to bestow upon you those blessings of liberty which ye have not the soul to conquer for yourselves."
Hardly had these words been spoken, when the guitar again sounded from within. Every ear was instantly hushed as the strain ascended—a strain, more ambitious than the preceding, of melancholy and indignant apostrophe. The improvisatrice was no longer able to control the passionate inspiration which took its tone from the stern eloquence of the Liberator. She caught from him the burning sentiment of scorn which it was no longer his policy to repress, and gave it additional effect in the polished sarcasm of her song. Our translation will poorly suffice to convey a proper notion of the strain.
Then be it so, if serviles ye will be,When manhood's soul had broken every chain,'T were scarce a blessing now to make ye free,For such condition tutored long in vain,Yet may we weep the fortunes of our land,Though woman's tears were never known to takeOne link away from that oppressive band,Ye have not soul, not soul enough to break!Oh! there were hearts of might in other days,Brave chiefs, whose memory still is dear to fame;Alas for ours!—the gallant deeds we praiseBut show more deeply red our cheeks of shame:As from the midnight gloom the weary eye,With sense that cannot the bright dawn forget,Looks sadly hopeless, from the vacant sky,To that where late the glorious day-star set!Yet all's not midnight dark, if in your landThere be some gallant hearts to brave the strife;One single generous blow from Freedom's handMay speak again our sunniest hopes to life;If but one blessed drop in living veinsBe worthy those who teach us from the dead,Vengeance and weapons both are in your chains,Hurled fearlessly upon your despot's head!Yet, if no memory of the living pastCan wake ye now to brave the indignant strife,'T were nothing wise, at least, that we should lastWhen death itself might wear a look of life!Ay, when the oppressive arm is lifted high,And scourge and torture still conduct to graves,To strike, though hopeless still—to strike and die!They live not, worthy freedom, who are slaves!
Then be it so, if serviles ye will be,When manhood's soul had broken every chain,'T were scarce a blessing now to make ye free,For such condition tutored long in vain,Yet may we weep the fortunes of our land,Though woman's tears were never known to takeOne link away from that oppressive band,Ye have not soul, not soul enough to break!
Oh! there were hearts of might in other days,Brave chiefs, whose memory still is dear to fame;Alas for ours!—the gallant deeds we praiseBut show more deeply red our cheeks of shame:As from the midnight gloom the weary eye,With sense that cannot the bright dawn forget,Looks sadly hopeless, from the vacant sky,To that where late the glorious day-star set!
Yet all's not midnight dark, if in your landThere be some gallant hearts to brave the strife;One single generous blow from Freedom's handMay speak again our sunniest hopes to life;If but one blessed drop in living veinsBe worthy those who teach us from the dead,Vengeance and weapons both are in your chains,Hurled fearlessly upon your despot's head!
Yet, if no memory of the living pastCan wake ye now to brave the indignant strife,'T were nothing wise, at least, that we should lastWhen death itself might wear a look of life!Ay, when the oppressive arm is lifted high,And scourge and torture still conduct to graves,To strike, though hopeless still—to strike and die!They live not, worthy freedom, who are slaves!
As the song proceeded, Bolivar stood forward as one wrapt in ecstasy. The exultation brightened in his eye, and his manner was that of a soul in the realization of its highest triumph. Not so the Bogotans by whom he was surrounded. They felt the terrible sarcasm which the damsel's song conveyed—a sarcasm immortalized to all the future, in the undying depths of a song to be remembered. They felt the humiliation of such a record, and hung their heads in shame. At the close of the ballad, Bolivar exclaimed to Joachim de Zalabariata, the father:
"Bring the child before us. She is worthy to be a prime minister. A prime minister? No! the hero of the forlorn hope! a spirit to raise a fallen standard from the dust, and to tear down and trample that of the enemy. Bring her forth, Joachim. Had youmenof Bogota but a tithe of a heart so precious! Nay, could her heart be divided amongst them—it might serve a thousand—there were no viceroy of Spain within your city now!"
And when the father brought her forth from the little cabinet, that girl, flashing with inspiration—pale and red by turns—slightly made, but graceful—very lovely to look upon—wrapt in loose white garments, with her long hair, dark and flowing, unconfined, and so long that it was easy for her to walk upon it[4]—the admiration of the Liberator was insuppressible.
"Bless you forever," he cried, "my fair Priestess of Freedom! You, at least, have a free soul, and one that is certainly inspired by the great divinity of earth. You shall be mine ally, though I find none other in all Bogota sufficiently courageous. In you, my child, in you and yours, there is still a redeeming spirit which shall save your city utterly from shame!"
While he spoke, the emotions of the maiden were of a sort readily to show how easily she should be quickened with the inspiration of lyric song. The color came and went upon her soft white cheeks. The tears rose, big and bright, upon her eyelashes—heavy drops, incapable of suppression, that swelled one after the other, trembled and fell, while the light blazed, even more brightly from the shower, in the dark and dilating orbs which harbored such capacious fountains. She had no words at first, but, trembling like a leaf, sunk upon a cushion at the feet of her father, as Bolivar, with a kiss upon her forehead, released her from his clasp. Her courage came back to her a moment after. She was a thing of impulse, whose movements were as prompt and unexpectedas the inspiration by which she sung. Bolivar had scarcely turned from her, as if to relieve her tremor, when she recovered all her strength and courage. Suddenly rising from the cushion, she seized the hand of her father, and with an action equally passionate and dignified, she led him to the Liberator, to whom, speaking for the first time in that presence, she thus addressed herself:
"Heis yours—he has always been ready with his life and money. Believe me, for I know it. Nay, more! doubt not that there are hundreds in Bogota—though they be not here—who, like him, will be ready whenever they hear the summons of your trumpet. Nor will the women of Bogota be wanting. There will be many of them who will take the weapons of those who use them not, and do as brave deeds for their country as did the dames of Magdalena when they slew four hundred Spaniards".[5]
"Ah! I remember! A most glorious achievement, and worthy to be writ in characters of gold. It was at Mompox where they rose upon the garrison of Morillo. Girl, you are worthy to have been the chief of those women of Magdalena. You will be chief yet of the women of Bogota. I take your assurance with regard to them; but for the men, it were better that thou peril nothing even in thy speech."
The last sarcasm of the Liberator might have been spared. That which his eloquence had failed to effect was suddenly accomplished by this child of beauty. Her inspiration and presence were electrical. The old forgot their caution and their years. The young, who needed but a leader, had suddenly found a genius. There was now no lack of the necessary enthusiasm. There were no more scruples. Hesitation yielded to resolve. The required pledges were given—given more abundantly than required; and raising the slight form of the damsel to his own height, Bolivar again pressed his lips upon her forehead, gazing at her with a respectful delight, while he bestowed upon her the name of the Guardian Angel of Bogota. With a heart bounding and beating with the most enthusiastic emotions—too full for further utterance, La Pola disappeared from that imposing presence, which her coming had filled with a new life and impulse.
It was nearly dawn when the Liberator left the city. That night the bleaching skeleton of the venerable patriot Hermano was taken down from the gibbet where it had hung so long, by hands that left the revolutionary banner waving proudly in its place. This was an event to startle the viceroy. It was followed by other events. In a few days more and the sounds of insurrection were heard throughout the province—the city still moving secretly—sending forth supplies and intelligence by stealth, but unable to raise the standard of rebellion, while Zamano, the viceroy, doubtful of its loyalty, remained in possession of its strong places with an overawing force. Bolivar himself, under these circumstances, was unwilling that the patriots should throw aside the mask. Throughout the province, however, the rising was general. They responded eagerly to the call of the Liberator, and it was easy to foresee that their cause must ultimately prevail. The people in conflict proved themselves equal to their rulers. The Spaniards had been neither moderate when strong, nor were they prudent now when the conflict found them weak. Still, the successes were various. The Spaniards had a foothold from which it was not easy to expel them, and were in possession of resources, in arms and material, derived from the mother country, with which the republicans found it no easy matter to contend. But they did contend, and this, with the right upon their side, was the great guaranty for success. What the Colombians wanted in the materials of warfare, was more than supplied by their energy and patriotism; and however slow in attaining their desired object, it was yet evident to all, except their enemies, that the issue was certainly in their own hands.
For two years that the war had been carried on, the casual observer could, perhaps, see but little change in the respective relations of the combatants. The Spaniards still continued to maintain their foothold wherever the risings of the patriots had been premature or partial. But the resources of the former were hourly undergoing diminution, and the great lessening of the productions of the country, incident to its insurrectionary condition, had subtracted largely from the temptations to the further prosecution of the war. The hopes of the patriots naturally rose with the depression of their enemies, and their increasing numbers and improving skill in the use of their weapons, not a little contributed to their endurance and activity. But for this history we must look to other volumes. The question for us is confined to an individual. How, in all this time, had La Pola redeemed her pledge to the Liberator—how had she whom he had described as the "guardian genius of Bogota," adhered to the enthusiastic faith which she had voluntarily pledged to him in behalf of herself and people?
Now, it may be supposed that a woman's promise, to participate in the business of an insurrection, is not a thing upon which much stress is to be laid. We are apt to assume for the sex a too humble capacity for high performances, and a too small sympathy with the interests and affairs of public life. In both respects we are mistaken. A proper education for the sex would result in showing their ability to share with man in all his toils, and to sympathize with him in all the legitimate concerns of manhood. But what, demands the caviler, can be expected of a child of fifteen; and should her promises be heldagainst her for rigid fulfillment and performance? It might be enough to answer that we are writing a sober history. There is the record. The fact is as we give it. But a girl of fifteen, in the warm latitudes of South America, is quite as mature as the northern maiden of twenty-five; with an ardor in her nature that seems to wing the operations of the mind, making that intuitive with her, which, in the person of a colder climate is the result only of long calculation and deliberate thought. She is sometimes a mother at twelve, and, as in the case of La Pola, a heroine at fifteen. We freely admit that Bolivar, though greatly interested in the improvisatrice, was chiefly grateful to her for the timely rebuke which she administered, through her peculiar faculty of lyric song, to the unpatriotic inactivity of her countrymen. As a matter of course, he might still expect that the same muse would take fire under similar provocation hereafter. But he certainly never calculated on other and more decided services at her hands. He misunderstood the being whom he had somewhat contributed to inspire. He did not appreciate her ambition, or comprehend her resources. From the moment of his meeting with her she became a woman. She was already a politician as she was a poet. Intrigue is natural to the genius of the sex, and the faculty is enlivened by the possession of a warm imagination. La Pola put all her faculties in requisition. Her soul was now addressed to the achievement of some plan of co-operation with the republican chief, and she succeeded where wiser persons must have failed in compassing the desirable facilities. Living in Bogota—the stronghold of the enemy—she exercised a policy and address which disarmed suspicion. Her father and his family were to be saved and shielded, while they remained under the power of the viceroy, Zamano, a military despot who had already acquired a reputation for cruelty scarcely inferior to that of the worst of the Roman emperors in the latter days of the empire. The wealth of her father, partly known, made him a desirable victim. Her beauty, her spirit, the charm of her song and conversation, were exercised, as well to secure favor for him, as to procure the needed intelligence and assistance for the Liberator. She managed the twofold object with admirable success—disarming suspicion, and under cover of the confidence which she inspired, succeeding in effecting constant communication with the patriots, by which she put into their possession all the plans of the Spaniards. Her rare talents and beauty were the chief sources of her success. She subdued her passionate and intense nature—her wild impulse and eager heart—employing them only to impart to her fancy a more impressive and spiritual existence. She clothed her genius in the brightest and gayest colors, sporting above the precipice of feeling, and making of it a background and a relief to heighten the charm of her seemingly willful fancy. Song came at her summons, and disarmed the serious questioner. In the eyes of her country's enemies she was only the improvisatrice—a rarely gifted creature, living in the clouds, and totally regardless of the things of earth. She could thus beguile from the young officers of the Spanish army, without provoking the slightest apprehension of any sinister object, the secret plan and purpose—the new supply—the contemplated enterprise—in short, a thousand things which, as an inspired idiot, might be yielded to her with indifference, which, in the case of one solicitous to know, would be guarded with the most jealous vigilance. She was the princess of the tertulia—that mode of evening entertainment so common, yet so precious, among the Spaniards. At these parties she ministered with a grace and influence which made the house of her father a place of general resort. The Spanish gallants thronged about her person, watchful of her every motion, and yielding always to the exquisite compass, and delightful spirituality of her song. At worst, they suspected her of no greater offence than of being totally heartless with all her charms, and of aiming at no treachery more dangerous than that of making conquests, only to deride them. It was the popular qualification of all her beauties and accomplishments that she was a coquette, at once so cold, and so insatiate. Perhaps, the woman politician never so thoroughly conceals her game as when she masks it with the art which men are most apt to describe as the prevailing passion of her sex.
By these arts, La Pola fulfilled most amply her pledges to the Liberator. She was, indeed, his most admirable ally in Bogota. She soon became thoroughly conversant with all the facts in the condition of the Spanish army—the strength of the several armaments, their disposition and destination—the operations in prospect, and the opinions and merits of the officers—all of whom she knew, and from whom she obtained no small knowledge of the worth and value of their absent comrades. These particulars, all regularly transmitted to Bolivar, were quite as much the secret of his success, as his own genius and the valor of his troops. The constant disappointment and defeat of the royalist arms, in the operations which were conducted in the Province of Bogota, attested the closeness and correctness of her knowledge, and its vast importance to the cause of the patriots.
Unfortunately, however, one of her communications was intercepted, and the cowardly bearer, intimidated by the terrors of impending death, was persuaded to betray his employer. He revealed all that he knew of her practices, and one of his statements, namely, that she usually drew from her shoe the paper which she gave him, served to fix conclusively upon her the proofs of her offence. She was arrested in the midst of an admiring throng, presiding with her usual grace at the tertulia, to which her wit and music furnished the eminent attractions. Forced to submit, her shoes were taken from her feet in the presence of the crowd, and in one of them, between the sole and the lining, was a memorandum designed for Bolivar, containing the details, in anticipation, of one of the intended movements of the viceroy. She was not confounded, nor did she sink beneath this discovery. Her soul seemed to rise rather into an unusual degree of serenity and strength. She encouraged her friends with smiles and the sweetest seeming indifference, though she well knew that her doom was certainly at hand. She had her consolations even under this conviction. Her father was in safety in the camp of Bolivar. With her counsel and assistance he would save much of his property from the wreck of confiscation. The plot had ripened in her hands almost to maturity, and before very long Bogota itself would speak for liberty in a formidablepronunciamento. And this was mostly her work! What more was done, by her agency and influence, may be readily conjectured from what has been already written. Enough, that she herself felt that in leaving life she left it when there was little more left for her to do.
La Pola was hurried from the tertulia before a military court—martial law then prevailing in the capital—with a rapidity corresponding with the supposed enormity of her offences. It was her chief pang that she was not hurried there alone. We have not hitherto mentioned that she had a lover, one Juan de Sylva Gomero, to whom she was affianced—a worthy and noble youth, who entertained for her the most passionate attachment. It is a somewhat curious fact, that she kept him wholly from any knowledge of her political alliances; and never was man more indignant than he when she was arrested, or more confounded when the proofs of her guilt were drawn from her person. His offence consisted in his resistance to the authorities who seized her. There was not the slightest reason to suppose that he knew or participated at all in her intimacy with the patriots and Bolivar. He was tried along with her, and both condemned—for at this time condemnation and trial were words of synonimous import—to be shot. A respite of twelve hours from execution was granted them for the purposes of confession. Zamano, the viceroy, anxious for other victims, spared no means to procure a full revelation of all the secrets of our heroine. The priest who waited upon her was the one who attended on the viceroy himself. He held out lures of pardon in both lives, here and hereafter, upon the one condition only of a full declaration of her secrets and accomplices. Well might the leading people of Bogota tremble all the while. But she was firm in her refusal. Neither promises of present mercy, nor threats of the future, could extort from her a single fact in relation to her proceedings. Her lover, naturally desirous of life, particularly in the possession of so much to make it precious, joined in the entreaties of the priest; but she answered him with a mournful severity that smote him like a sharp weapon,
"Gomero! did I love you for this? Beware, lest I hate you ere I die! Is life so dear to you that you would dishonor both of us to live? Is there no consolation in the thought that we shall die together?"
"But we shall be spared—we shall be saved," was the reply of the lover.
"Believe it not—it is false! Zamano spares none. Our lives are forfeit, and all that we could say would be unavailing to avert your fate or mine. Let us not lesson the value of this sacrifice on the altars of our country, by any unworthy fears. If you have ever loved me, be firm. I am a woman, but I am strong. Be not less ready for the death-shot than is she whom you have chosen for your wife."
Other arts were employed by the despot for the attainment of his desires. Some of the native citizens of Bogota, who had been content to become the creatures of the viceroy, were employed to work upon her fears and affections, by alarming her with regard to persons of the city whom she greatly esteemed and valued, and whom Zamano suspected. But their endeavors were met wholly with scorn. When they entreated her, among other things, "to give peace to our country," the phrase seemed to awaken all her indignation.
"Peace! peace to our country!" she exclaimed. "What peace! the peace of death, and shame, and the grave, forever!" And her soul again found relief only in its wild lyrical overflows.