Mars, or Mexitli[E]: though the one be crownedWith all the glory that bedecks old Rome,The idols of the other, fiercely groundTo powdered pulp by Spain's invading host.How much of agony they both have costAsk of the millions lost to life and home!Ambition makes a Cæsar: it is wellIt gives some recompense for all its crime;For it has made the earth an endless hell,Crowding its woes upon the lap of time—And yet, religion spurs it to the test,And priests have been the primates of its throne,Chanting their auguries to fire its breast,Braying all history with their undertone.Nor is the "manger," with its cradled Christ,Free from the misinterpreting of Priest.The cross where God and man have kept their tryst,Been changed to leaven for inglorious feast—God! must future draw its cadence from the past,And plow its furrow through the same red mould?Must nations be in the same furnace cast,And man, the master, bought, and scourged, and sold?Then is creation but a lie accursed,And better that the doom upon it burst.No. Though experience may slowly turn,And man may learn asslowly, yet we learn.The risen Christ did break the grasp of death,And empire, dead in trespasses, will yet receive its breath.
Aztlan must pass through all the fated fieldOf mythologic peculence and lore,And to their sturdy priestcraft blindly yield,To cipher out the destinies in store.They must propitiate the gods with blood,Especially their war-god must be fed,And to supply their deities with foodTheir fated subjects must be freely bled.So superstition whets the fatal blade,Which culminates in human sacrifice.The maw of Huitzilopotchli[F]must be stayed,And altars with their thousand victims rise.Sad proof of imperfection in the race,Nay, more, the very demon in the breast;Their ignorance alone is plea for grace,When in their filthiness they stand confessed."Ye must be born again," the Savior said;And history, through time, has craved this birth.Man and his Maker must indeed be wed,If we would bring redemption to the earth.The empty riddle of the crucifix,The shallow rattle of the Christian creeds,Will leaven nothing if we fail to mixThe ripened grain of soul-inspiring deeds.The past accuses us with bony hands;We cannot shun its cold and cruel eyes;The glass is turning with our future sands—We face eternal destinies. God grant we be more wise!
THE EMPIRE OF MONTEZUMA.
The Star looked down at the Mountain;And the Mountain looked down at the Sea;And there was no malice in either one's breast,Each was called by the DeityTo fill its place in the region of spaceOf the fathomless Yet-to-be.The Star didn't fall on the Mountain,Nor the Mountain smite the sea;But each gave cheer in the other's ear,And they dwelt in harmony.Why didn't the Mountain say to the Star:"Begone, with your impudent stare!"Or the Sea to the Mountain: "How dare you intrude,You presumptuous imp of the air?"Why didn't they? they were not human;They couldn't talk, as we talk;They were not born of a woman;They never had learned to walk.They had learned the language of patience;They had learned to bear, and be dumb;They had learned to hold, through heat and cold,Their load, till the Master should come.O infinite language of silence!O eloquent, voiceless speech!Help us to bear the ills that are,And fetter us each to each,Till all our envy goes out with the Sea,And our malice goes out with the star,And we silently bear what is to be—Like the Mountain—gazing afarTo the infinite depths of an endless world,Where eternity spreads its zone,Where planets, countless as grains of sand,Gaze out on the "great white throne."The pale-faced prophet Quetzalcoatl[G]Had gone to the rising sun;In his wizard boat he was seen to float,To where the day was begun,Without a sail on the wings of the gale,For the land of Tlappalan[H]He waved back his followers from the sea,Saying he would certainly come again,In the golden future, yet to be,And the gods should dwell on the earth as men.They had made him a god, because he was good—Not always the case in the mystic love—They had carved his image in stone and wood,And his shrines were built on the pyramid's floor.They called him the god of the earth and air,And his legends were many, and often told;And the priests, with sacrifice and prayer,Reaped a heavy harvest of fruit and gold.And oft were their faces turned to the East,To claimhispromise, whowasto come;And they watched the surge of the gulf's green yeast,And yet the years had continued dumb.
Nezahualcoyotl sleeps with his fathers,[I]And his son now reigns in his stead;Hisgoodnesssucceeds to the living,But hiswisdomgoes out with the dead,For both in the Lord of TezcucoHad been richly and happily wed.Two nations, strike hands o'er the waters,Tezcuco and Aztlan are one,By the league that their fathers had plighted,Since they entered this land of the sun.So, the King of their neighbor, Tezcuco,Has come to the Aztec Court,To assist them in crowning the Monarch,A Prince of much goodly report.He is found on the steps of the temple;He has served, both as warrior and Priest;He has brought many victims to slaughter—The realm has been greatly increasedBy the sturdy sway of his conquering arm.And now, he is called to reign,The last of his race, to fill the place,Whose honor shall prove but a life-long pain.Montezuma[J]was young, but his sword was old,And the war-god was glutted with victims and gold.A pledge of his prowess: a promise to fate,That the nation would prosper, the King prove great.Some men are great in sorrow—there be tearsThat crystalize to diamonds at the last.They need the weight of carbonizing years;Yet, how they glitter after these have past!Life needs the tempering at such a forge,Or it would brittle at the lightest touch;But when the burden is but one vast gorge,The weary soul must cry, "It is too much."
Nezahualpilli[K]places the crown on his head,And the victims bleed, and the altars burn;The words of admonishment all are said,And the buoyant crowd to their homes return."The King is dead!" "Long live the King!""Hail!" and "farewell!" how closely treadThe steps of the living upon the dead!How are both touched with a single spring!Nezahualpilli soon passes away,And the rival King, he so lately crowned,Divides his Kingdom, and makes a prey,A figment, with empire's empty sound.And Montezuma outleaps the King;But is lord of an empire reaching the sea;And many nations their tribute bring,And some of the weak to the southward flee,To pass the reach of his powerful arm,And lift new prodigies to the sky,To meet Earth's sunshine, shadow, and storm,To finish the race, to falter and die.
He gathers his treasures from myriad mines.The cotton and aloe are wove into cloth.The banana and maize and wild forest vines,While they load to repletion, are proof against sloth.His palace is burnished with every hueOf the rainbow tints of his fabulous land,Where Nature entravails on every handTo bring new beauties of life to view.There are drapes of feather-cloth deftly made,There were plumes and plushes of richest craft,There were broidered robes where the colors played,Like the hands that made them, dainty and daft.His harem equaled his Ottoman peer,There was beauty of every hue and mold—The shy and the gay, the demure and bold—That his provinces furnished from far and near.As fine a collection of beauty and grace,Of the flashing eye and the beaming face,As is seen on the gates of the Euxine seaAt the present day, where the "powers that be,"With the Union Jack floating above the rest,Secures to that ill-omened bird its nest.Their Teocallas[L]rose on every hand,And half a hundred gods their worship claim;Their priestcraft is a strong and haughty band;Their Beckets and their Woolseys are the sameAs those that cling upon the neck of timeThrough all the feudal ages; we may chooseThe leeches of the Christian Church as best—They sucked the blood the State could not refuse,And so did these bedizzened, of the West.Theseled their victims to the altars black,Thosewasted theirs by torturing and pain,The fatal "itztli," gave the parting shockTo Aztec's victims; but a blacker stainRests on thy skirts, thou bloody-mantled Spain!Thou the avenger of a human wrong?As well might Lucifer enrobe as saint,An earthquake key the carol of a song,Or old Caligula[M]bring a complaint!"They slew their thousands!" yes; and what did'st thou?Thy thousands in the shadow of the cross;They took not on their perjured lips thy vow;Thy gold they did not mingle with their dross.Through all the dark of ages did they grope;Through all the light of empire did'st thou graze;They pinioned superstition to their hope;The monody of hell was mingled with thy praise.Go back! and scour the oxyd from the gemThy lips have turned to ebony, and paintHumiliation on thy doorsteps. Stem!Stem the black pool of Styx! and find a saintWhose blood shall gain forgiveness for thy past;But count no beads upon the path of time—Earth's execration is too justly cast—Thy very name, a synonym of crime!
They had their courts where justice was dispensedWith what would shame the Janus-faced machineWe call our jurisprudence. They commencedWhat Christian polity was left to glean,To her advantage in the after time.We write "anathema" above the gatesOf what we choose to call "barbaric clime;"And yet, the blinded goddess often waitsTo gather wisdom atherbare, black feetWhich, bruised and blistered, tread the narrow wayTo where the graces uninspired meetAnd superstition's night breaks into day.They held the bond of family and homeAs firmly as more favored nations hold;Their homes were castles, where no man could comeWithout the potent ses-a-me of gold.The wealthy pluralized the name of wife(As many Bible patriarchs once did),Their virtue was the average of life—There were excrescences not easy hid.Yet woman was more near her half of earthThan she had reached in most of Christendom.She held her value and could claim her worth;Not bartered with the readiness of someSelf-styled enlightened. Much is to be learnedIn corners of the earth that we call "dark,"Where jewels are for centuries inurnedThat torches of enlightenment may tarnish with a spark.We lay rude hands on temples not our own,Nor little heed the human souls enshrined;The sacred crevice of each hard-marked stoneBut coldly cover with the virdict, "blind."God help us, that we point a hand more pure,And raise the casement with a grander trust;The hands that lift it must indeed be clean,Or comes the humbling challenge, "Is it just?"One "great white throne" shall judge us, one and all;One great white Hand shall hold the scales of fate,Or clothed in light, or covered with a pall,We tread the way through one eternal gate.God grant the temples we so rudely spoil,May not accuse us when we stand alone!But hearts are human things, and they do coilThe infinite in blindness. Not a groanEscapes the index of the Father Son.A child in blindness still is but a child,And held with greater yearning to be won.Our cold, hard hands cannot be reconciledTo one warm Heart that throbs for all mankind,And covers, with a common love, the race;And leads, with greater tenderness, the blind,That they more closely feel His clasp, who cannot see His face.The arts of husbandry were well advanced:They sowed and reaped unstinted from the soil;The sun, with ripening fervor, on them glanced,And gave them back, a hundred fold, their toil.They had not lost their ancient faith in him,Though other gods their scattered homage claimHis breast was their Elysian; never dimThe ancient hope that hung upon his name.Their maize and maguey shone upon the plain,Their chocolate gave nourishment and zest,The corn gave recompense for sugar-cane,Their banquets were provided with the best;Fish from the ocean, fruits from every clime,So diverse, yet within such easy reach;The tropics and the temperates enchimeWith all their plumaged babblings of speech;And they interpreted the varied whimsThat Nature holds embryoed in her breast.They climbed the boughs and shook her heaviest limbs,Too burdened for the garner to be missed.This ancient mother never yet has failedHer children in their earnest search for food;She may be panoplied and heavy mailed,Yet does her larder furnish all when fully understood.Take all in all, and measure by the test—The stern, hard test of history—and we findThat Aztlan, very far from being best,Still was a prodigy. That she was blindIn her religious ethics, none deny;That she had faults, no champion gainsays;She lifted bloody hands against the sky;She filled the avenging measure of her days.But God is God, and man is always man;And earthly judgment is at best a snare.And never, since the human race began,Has turned to Heaven more piteous despairThan her sad eyes, burnt out with agony;Moaning above her nation, and her name,The bitter monody of "Not to be,"The deep humiliation, and the shameThat sent her crouching at the foot of Spain;(The fairest daughter of the wilderness)Without a hand to solace in her pain,Or ray of hope to lighten her distress.Could she been gently led, and tenderly,To higher life and holier resolve,Had charity bent forth her noble sway,The Christian graces that with Earth revolveWithout the wasting friction, paid their suitTo win her back to wakefulness from sin—How would she compensate the victor's hand,And kiss the rod that smote with its regard!But to be "drawn and quartered" like the brute,And made the sport of passion; to beginA life of vassalage, with such a slaveYclept as master, claiming from aboveThe license that Jehovah never gaveExcept the iron hand was woven o'er with love—It is too much! God's justice is not lame.Hypocrisy may steal and wear the cloak,And don the ermine, with its fair, false claim;With crucifix and litany may croak;But Time o'ertakes it and it falls to earthLike Judas on its immolating sword,And it must learn to curse its hour of birth.It is the pledge of destiny—the stern, unwritten word.
THE LANDING OF THE SPANIARDS.
The Courier[N], new laden from the coast,Has hastened to the council of the KingWith most portentious tidings: picture-printsThat tell of boats that float upon the wing;And pale-faced warriors, clad in shining scales.The monarch hears with trembling; he has longLooked for the coming of great Quetzalcoatl,And, though he felt his nation to be strong,Yet had he feared his reign would be the last.The oracles had read him overcast,With some impending destiny—the ruseWhich priests have always found to compass their abuse.
The chiefs of church and state are all convenedTo canvas, and compare their theories,And much of wisdom surely can be gleanedFrom these firm-visaged counsellors of his;And Montezuma[O]is the first to speak—His dark, sad eyes are beautifully bright;He was not philosophic like the Greek,And yet his words made glitter of the night:"We swing upon the hinges of our fate,Most reverend priests and worthy counsellors,And it is well we counsel and conformOur future to the fashion of events.The rising sun has sent inquiring raysFor many years, to greet our coming god,And lo! he now turns back from Tlapalan;"And what must we, but welcome his advance?Ye long have held me kindred of the gods;Yet I deny me what your partial eyesHave kenned upon my unassuming face.I am as other men, though more advanced;And if greatQuetzalcoatltakes back my crown,I bow in humble vassalage to him.For what am I, to question his advance?A moth, upon the torches' fervent ray;An anthill, at the foot of 'Catapetl.
And I have sometimes thought most worthy priests,That we have drawn the lightning from the cloudBy a mistaken worship of the gods.No one will question my religious zeal,For I brought many victims to the block;But human blood doth have a subtile voiceThat reaches ears our eyes have never seen;And though the itztli opens to the heart,Some heart may beat far out in open spaceThat whispers its avengement on the air.Our gods have brought us victory, 'tis true;And yet, greatNezahualcoyotldid spurnThe shedding of all human blood, to gods;And when great Quetzalcoatl was on the earth,Our gods were satisfied with other blood.The angels of the mighty past cry outAgainst the damning practice. Why not now,"For once and all, wash off our bloody hands?These human cries pierce farther than we know;These human souls may ride into the sun;We cannot claim his broad, uncumbered breast,To the exclusion of the rest of earth.The god of earth and air may come to judgeAt this dark moment for this very sin;Then let us look him boldly in the face,And if we have offended, make amends;If our mistaken zeal has overdone,Surely his heart will cover up our faults,And we may thus propitiate his wrath."Then rose the ancient High Priest, Tlalocan,[P]And in his sternest manner, thus he spake:"Great Montezuma! king, of earthly kings!The heart of Tlalocan is bruised and brokeTo hear the words his monarch has vouchsafedSuch sacrilege belongeth not to kings;Great Huitzilopotchli must, indeed, be strayed,Or, he will shake his thunders on the earth,And, strike the Aztecs from the face of him.War is the wastage of all human flesh,And whether man be stricken on the field,Or, with the sacred itztli, offered up,The measure must be met with human blood.
"Thy empire has been purchased at this price,And cannot otherwise perpetuate.The earth and heaven, both have set their markUpon the bosom of the placid lake;And by the coming of those fiery stars,That flashed their baleful faces in the sky,All omenous that anger brooded o'er,The gods have read the purpose of your soul;And thus forwarn you that you must retract.They cry for victims and must be appeased;They gave you conquest without stay or stint,When you did furnish, full to their desire;But there are few within the shambles now,And they must be replenished, or the doom,That has forshadowed on the Eastern sky,Will flash and fall upon your naked head.Great Quetzalcoatl will come and strike you down,And grind you into ashes in his wrath."Then spoke the sturdy Counselor Teuhtlile[Q]:"Tlalocan holds the nearest place to heaven,And in his zeal, doth sound the ready keyThat rhythms with your empire. We must suitOur action with his words, or we are lost.These pale-faced warriors must be met with alms;The gods must be appeased with fresh supplies.
"Let me, myself, go down upon the coast,And with our ready painters bring you backA full account of what we look upon.And if, perchance, these be the van of himWhose coming we have watched these many years,Then will we counsel further the emprise,And in the watch and wake of all events,Be not o'ertaken, but forestall the time.""Your counsel has the sanction it desires;I would not measure lances with the gods,"The monarch answered: "In the dust I bend,And plead the weakness of a human heart.The South shall furnish victims for the block;And Teuhtlile shall repair him to the coast;The dread monition of the flaming starsMay be evaded with our ready zest.Our gold and precious stones, with lavish hand,Shall be poured out to coy them from our track;For what are all the earth's indulgences,Against the smiling favor of the gods?""Repair thou to the coast, my good Teuhtlile,With plenteous retinue, and goodly stores;With cotton fabrics of the latest cast;With shields and cuirasses inlaid with gold;The burnished mirror of the fervent sun;The silver shining circlet of the moon;"With robes of feather-cloth made rich with pearls;And other trophies that your tact shall find.Receive them kindly, as becomes their state;And let thy wisdom gather in the full,Their purpose and intent upon our land;It may fall out they are as other men,Unsanctioned at the chambers of the gods,Yet must our moderation pave the way,Till we have fully compassed their intent."So said, so done; the embassy went forthTo meet the wily Spaniard on the coast;They little dreamed of what a forest foxThey had to meet; they little knew the boastThat hung upon the challenge of their fate.Their superstitions made them ready prey;They opened wide their hospitable gate,And gave the jewel of their life away.It mattered little how they forced it back,And tried to parley with their destiny;The hungry lion was upon their track,And they were lost forever and for aye.Done in the name of Christ? Oh, spare the word!Let not the Nazarene be buffeted;Gold was the souvenir; the pitying LordWas, with this nation, just as deeply bled.Their superstitions were the ready springsThe Spaniards played upon to break their hearts;Deceit, as damnable as serpents' stings,Barbed with its cruel spines their poisoned darts.The embassy returned, and others went;Still could they not force back this coming cloud—The steady purpose and the black intent,That wove with cunning fingers at their shroud.Had Spain come as the Pilgrims at Cape Cod,Or Penn upon the Delaware, to leadThe Aztec back to fatherhood and God,And let their sturdy manhood for them plead,How ready could their faces been upturned,And hearts been melted into Christian mold!—The brand of hell was on their bare backs burned,And they were ground to ashes for their gold!Did Christ e'er suffer such supreme disgrace?Or on the cross; or in Gethsemane?Did heavier drops of blood stand on his faceThan there were forced by this foul treachery?Oh! how the patient Nazarene must bendAnd break beneath fresh crosses every day—Fresh Judases betraying him as friend,And scorpions to sting him in the way!Thank God! the time is coming when, as Judge,The Man of Sorrows, ermined and supreme,No longer as a packhorse or a drudge,Shall hold the scales and watch the balance beam!How heavy did he make the widow's mite;How do the tears of men bend down the scale;How ponderous is a pennyweight of right;How do the little things of life prevail!The Spanish Conquest, sometime, will be triedAgainst the heart Malinche[R]threw away,And Aztec's tears be placed against your pride.O Hispagniola! you will rue the day—A feather and a mountain to be weighed—How shall the beam fly up at your disgrace,How shall your curse, a hundred fold, be paid,And what a glory light up Aztlan's face!You came, like tender shepherds to the fold,Yet, like a wolf, you tore the frighted flock;You kissed but to decoy them from their gold;Your seeming calm was but the earthquake's shock.Your empty babble of the cross and Christ,Was but the mask to cover your deceit;Your hearts were canker, but your words enticed,Andneverdid a fouler scheme make conquest more complete.Not Aztlan, with her bare and bleeding breast,Alone, hath felt thy treachery too late;Columbus, in his chains and sorely pressed,Bends to thy penalty for being great.A thousand white-robed saints with bony palmsShake their accusing fingers in thy face;Their bodies burned, their souls changed into psalms.To chant in mournful cadence thy disgrace.
ARRIVAL OF THE SPANIARDS AT MEXICO.
November comes as Autumn's requiem,To sigh and sough the harvest, and the field,The winged ecstatics mourn, and then are dumb,And life and growth in full submission yield.Mexitli is not altogether cladIn nature's winding sheet of yellow leaves;And yet her year is getting old and sad,And youth and fruitage at his bedside grieves.As on the lingering footsteps of the year—A stranger and the Winter, hand in hand,Both on the threshold as two ghosts appear.One strikes the orbit with its wasting sand,The other coils around the nation's throat;The nation and the year together die;Both on the waste of time are set afloat,And sound alike death's mighty mystery.In all the glitter at his vast command,Went Montezuma to receive his guests;If gold be great, then was it truly grand.The royal plume upon his forehead rests;His feet pressed soles of heavy beaten gold;His cloak and anklets sprinkled o'er with pearls,And only noble hands are left to holdThe blazing palanquin. Like titled Earls,They guard the skirts of royalty from stainAgainst the common people; all the sameAs in our ripened age. 'Tis hard to gainMuch on the sodden march of royalty,Where accident supplants all other claim.The monarch in the easy prime of life,But lightly bronzed. The glowing, mellow hueThat lit his cheek, seemed borrowed from the sun,And shadowing a heart that beat as trueTo God and country as he knew their names,—As any monarch that e'er wore a crown.His open-hearted welcome, like himself,Was, as the hardyyeoman, bare and brown.He felt that he was meeting destiny,Yet, to its solving, he would bend the kneeWith dignity and grace; not turn away,But face it with a ready, cheerful glance,And meeting night, surcharge it with the day;And grasping, break, if possible, the lanceThat he felt sure was leveled at his breast.He did not know the Inquisition stood,With rack and torture at his very gate;That it had traveled half the world for bloodTo whet its throat for St. BartholomewAnd came with ravening appetite for him.Those wary messengers he little knew,Or those brown eyes would suddenly grown dim,And the warm heart would furnaced up its heat;And he would grappled at its very throat;And man to man, and blood to blood, would meet,And not a plume above one corselet floatTo bear the story back of it to Spain.They were not schooled in all the arts of war,Nor were they wise in all the world's deceit;Yet would they fought beneath their fated star,And challenged every stubborn step, though it had proven vain.But in this fleecy covering, the wolfSo hid its teeth that it was at the doorBefore they dreamed of treachery. The gulfLay many leagues behind their foes; its shoreAnd all the distance had been gained by stealth.Tlascala had been humbled on the march,And promised spoils from Montezuma's wealth;But they had reached the keystone of the arch,At superstition's beck. The Aztec's godsHad chained their valor, or their greater oddsWould crushed the viper, as it should have been,And left it to a purer age, to seek a common kin.The Monarch gave them hostelry and cheer,Food of the rarest and the sparkling pulque,And quarters for their troopers, all quite nearTo his own palace gates. The very bulkOf his well-laden markets was thrown downTo their repletion, for their loaded board.They fared as princes favored of the crown,Of all the best the Kingdom could afford.The fair Malinche was interpreter,And Montezuma spoke to them through her.He told them of the mighty Quetzalcoatl,And how he recognized them as his kin;He thought he had their history, the wholeVast riddle of their ancient origin."I rule a mighty nation," quoth the King."All Anahuac is subject to my sway;And yet, I recognize that you have comeFrom the strong palace of a mightier lord,To whom I bend as subject; and with youWe now will sway the scepter of his will.We long have watched his coming from the East,And now that he has sent his messengers,Our hearts are ready for his wise commands.We would have urged your coming on before,But that we heard of tales of cruelty,Which, haply we may now believe as false,We welcome you with all our open hearts,"And hope you may enjoy our humble fare.We are not wise, as you are, for our livesHave not caught wisdom from the fountain head,And hung upon the lips of Quetzalcoatl;Yet are we cousins in the faded past,And welcome you as brothers and as friends."How caught the Spanish Chieftain at the words!How did he gloat upon this artifice!How useless hung their heavy-hilted swordsThat they should win a nation at this price!With what a care he turned the dusty past,To cover up the semblance of disguise;And fix their superstition still more fast,That he might clutch and carry home the prize."Thereisgrandeur in the tented field;The bivouac and the smoldering camp-fires."The human soul unconsciously must yieldTo its supremest charm, where man aspiresTo meet his fellow-man at one great bar;And "valor speaks to valor" of its claim,In all the panoply of stubborn war,And drops the gauntlet in a nation's name.It may be terrible, but it is grandTo see the banners flaunting in the breeze;To hear the bugle blare and stern command;And see opposing forces strive to seizeFrom Nature's stern arbitrament of forceThe laurel that shall deck the victor's brow;And turn the stream of nations from its course.The cutting of new sod by such a plowMay tear up all the tender ties of life;And hearts be turned to ashes in its path;These are the ponderous incidents of strife,And made legitimate when wrath meets wrath;But when the assassin creeps into our hearts,And draws around him all their sanctities,And he becomes a parcel of our parts,And all we have or claim are made as his,What human brush can paint the upraised handThat smites our confidence at such an hour?What simile can human tongue command?It is, indeed, beyond our mortal power.We talk of devil, but the word is tame;It cannot reach the climax we have sought;It only frets us into hotter flame,And beggars all the litany of thought.I do not claim that Cortez was not brave;Nor would I tear one laurel from his brow.I only claim he stole the devil's glaive;He held it then, and let him hold it now.The issues of their lives are both with God,The brown-eyed Monarch and the dark-eyed Knight.The flowers of charity should strew the sodAbove them both; yet, Cosmos! was it right?O world of human hearts and human lives!Was Montezuma worthy of this fate?O world of husbands! world of tender wives!Behold your Aztlan! bleeding, desolate,And say, if all their multiple of sins,Though they be blacker than the blackest night,Were worthy of the end that now beginsTo grind them down to powder? Was it rightFor Spain to steal the scepter from the handThat held it out in welcome to their doors,And poured their treasures out as free as sand,And oped with lavish all their loaded stores;To steal the key of superstition's gate,And break the lock upon their hard-earned gold,And, fattening at their table, steal their plate,And feasting on their lambs to steal their fold;To make a prison of the room he gaveIn which to hold the Monarch as a slave?O pitying God! thy thunderbolts were scarce.Why crushed they not this hell-begotten farce?And when the Aztecs, goaded to the quickBy the proud insolence of such a horde,Could bear no longer parley, but were sickOf such a visitor at such a board,And rose en masse to crush the viper's fang,They bring the Monarch out to face the crowd,And plead for their immunity; the pangThat wrung his breast (for he, indeed, was proud)Was like an arrow in his royal heart;And yet he prayed for their forgiveness then,And like a martyr bravely bore their part—Search history; and find out greater men,And they are less forgiving. There he stood,His nation thronged before him, in its wrath;Yet did he plead, before this multitude,To spare the serpent, now across their path;He could not name a promise not unbroke,He could not offer one excuse for time,He could not tell them why to hold their stroke,He plead for hands scarred over with their crime.Did ever charity reach loftier height?Can Christian Spain outshine this sad, brown face?How many souls in Christiandom, as white,Would faced his countrymen, from such a place?Great Montezuma! where shall we find room!When Spain has such a multitude of saintsTo save your enemies, you courted doom,Yet would not kiss the cross with your complaints;Therefore, anathema!—It will not do,To pass a heretic at Heaven's gate;You held no mumbledcrusifixto view—The Infallible has said it, you must wait.Wait for a riper age to touch the chordThat quivers, all unconsciously, your praise;When justice,only, draws the tardy sword,And Earth's abhorrence covers those old daysWith itsrepentantashes, then my KingMay rest his memory upon stubborn factsNor minstrels falter when they fain would singTheir elegies implanted withhisacts.The Holy Inquisition, from old Spain,And St. Bartholomew, from "Ma belle France,"The hissing fagots of sweet Mary's reign—These million martyrs, with their melting glance,Look athisagony, across the sea,Who, blind in superstition, groped his wayO'er harmless victims and much miseryTo where the rays were slanting into day.In Europe's face the star ofBethlehem,With its benignant splendor, shed its light;Thesebut the groping nomads of old Shem,Lost in the meshes, of a rayless night.Those, neath the palm of Earth's philosophy;Theseon the torchless desert, not a starTo guide them through life's potent mystery;Thosebringing all the wisdom from afar,Though Montezuma's sins had cried to HeavenIn a far greater stress; yet what were they,Paling his cruelties, and still forgiven,To pour out greater vials the next day?O Spain! you lent the sanction of your name,To cover up the foulest deed of time;Upon your skirt is fastened this great shame,And nation never wore the brand of a more causeless crime.