DEPARTURE OF WABUN.
"Most governed is most wayward." Very true;Repeating history doth verifyThat law from malefaction always grew,And with its ceasing, rulership must die,Except the common sway of Deity,When love and service shall together blend,And man, from every earthly master free,Shall recognize his Father and his Friend.These ancient prairie dwellers, had no needOf stringent government; a few to leadIn seeding and in harvest; some to guideIn matters of religion, and of form;The rustic swain, and his compliant bride,To join in wedlock; and in time of storm,To smooth the little intricates of lifeWith counsel, sage, and thus avoiding strife,To guide their budding nation into bloom.All claiming unction from the prophet's shade,Still gave their worship to the god of day,And their oblations on the altar laid.Yet, the responsive accident of fireCould never be recalled—they little knewThe secret of its coming; and they shapedNo other pebbles like the one so trueTo Uri's pleadings; still they kept their faithAnd reared their shapely mounds to meet the sunWith his first glance, and from the morning's breathRetain their fervency, till day was done.From out their number, some were set apartFor game and chase. The buffalo and deerAnd wild fowl, all, paid tribute to their skill,And vale and forest echoed with their cheer.But one of these, young Wabun, shunned the group,And wandered by the forest streams alone.Some called him "dreamer"; others tried to winHis mooding back to mirth; but there was noneThat seemed to reach the center of his soul;He joined not in the worship of his race,And seemed to be so distant in his thought,That one might search the Pleiad's in his face.There shone a star upon the eastern rim—So suddenly it shot upon their view,So brilliant and so placid, never dimThrough storm and starlight, always lit anew.They marveled much, and some were sore dismayedTo seek the portents of this stranger star;But not so, Wabun; he, all unafraid,Hailed it as answer from the dim afar,And showed unwonted pleasure at its sight;His distance seemed to shorten, and his mindSeemed mellowed by a new-born love to man—A quickened tenderness to help his kind."I wander in the forest; by the stream";(They gave earnest audience as he spake)"And underneath the stars—and they all tellThe story of a great, forgotten God.I listen to the murmuring of the rain,And to the mighty thunder of the clouds;And see the forked lightning, in its gleam,Strike the great oak to shivers, in its path;I see the maize upon a thousand fields;I see the goodly carpet on the earth—And every grassy thread a miracle—I see the sun upon his track of light,The moon upon her pathway in the sky—And all do tell of this forgotten God.For God is of the living, not the dead:The tree, the sun, the moon, the stars, and all,All fill their places; but are not alive"As we, with thought, and purpose, and design;But each doth turn upon a steady crankHeld by a mighty and imperious hand.The bison, and the deer, and all the birds,Have life, and voice, and action, such as we;And yet they have no thought, except to live.They build no houses, lay no harvests up—We are their masters, with the right to kill."All things pay tribute to our prowent hands;All things we see are provident of us:The sun to ripen, and the moon to watch,The birds and flocks for us to gather flesh,The forests and the prairies for our use,The mines for metal, and the streams for fish—All, all, pay tribute to our wasting hands.Yet we are not a law unto ourselves:Though masters, yet not gods, for we all dieAnd fall back into dust; yet are we great,And greatest of earth's creatures; but for death,We might claim highest unction; but our powerIs limited; wherefore, if we are highest typeOf creature earth, then must it surely beThat God is man, but of a higher mold;Not subject unto death, but Lord of life.And, if all earthly forces must conserveOur being (highest born of all the earth),Then back of us the great Creator stands"Unseen, as is Eternity unseen,But felt, as is each ripple of her waves,Upon the shores of our unstable life.The greater is not seen. We do not seeThe very thought that holds us in control."Thus have I doled, and pondered on it well,Until, upon my vision dawned that star;And as upon some errand quickly sent(I know not how I went, I felt so light),I sped upon its rays, o'er vale, and hill,And o'er a vaster water than the lakes—A grand expanse of green and surging waves.And, on, still on, till just before my faceA mother, and an infant at her breast,And many seeming wise and stately menBending in homage and with offerings choice,Of sweetly-scented vintage; then I soughtTo find the wherefore of this sweet emprize;And I was told this was the Son of God—The One that was to come, the mighty One,Redeemer of the world; that man had sinnedAnd he was come to set at one the raceWith the All-Father; that we had been madeIn God's own image; that the sun and moonWere but his handiwork. To Him alone(Invisible, yet always looking on)"Should homage be ascribed. All this was shortYet was it printed on my pliant breast,And cannot be erased. I seek no nameAnd claim no higher homage for the gleamVouchsafed my vision of the mighty pastAnd prescience of the future; tis enoughTo know my steps directed, and to feelThat in my darkness I have found out God.No more the unknown God, but evermoreThe ripened type of the diviner man;And as we reap the tokens of his love,Remember him as Father Man of men—The Infinite Perfection of our race."Much more he said which made a deep impressUpon the hardy hunters, and the lessWere those who gave no sanction to his word;The greater portion followed him in thought,And soon in deed. The votaries of the sunMade most malignant onslaught, and they soughtTo drive the thoughtful Wabun from his "dream."The strife was vain. They in their fervent hopeTurn to the East, into the wilderness—The grand Druidic of the Eastern slope,And, hid to all but God, they penetrateThe deeprecessesof their broad estate.The gentle Wabun held for many yearsHis hand upon the pulses of their thought;Sometimes upon their love, sometimes their fears,His fervent purity, its impress wrought.He led them to the thousand untold charmsThat sparkle on the rugged Eastern slope.He bared to them the great Creator's arms,And, in God's grandest alphabet, he read their highest hope.Niagara was but a giant scroll,Whereon God writ a token of his strength;The muttering voice of its unceasing rollWas but a cadence of the mighty lengthThat measures the eternities of life.Its grandeur but one glitter of the goldThat played upon his vesture; that the strifeOf waters was the stream so cold,Down which humanity as rudely rushed;Without a thought for their eternal good,With all the semblance of the Father crushed,They pass down in the surge of death's unceasing flood.The broad Atlantic lashing at the shore,Was human passion—with the balance gone;Endeafening the graces with its roar,And blindly lashing the Eternal throne.Into these miniatures, God thrust himself,That every wave might glitter with his name,That every rock might hold upon its shelfSome semblance that their reverence might claim.The kindlier tokens of paternal care,On Nature's face, were beaming everywhere.And yet, how few of us, can truly blendThe creature with Creator, in our sight;And from the Father, grasp the hand of friend,Whose stars of providence outshine the night!Our eyes are fettered with an earthly bound,Our narrow horizon will not enlarge;Our gaze, star fixed, will drop back to the ground,And will not with the infinite surcharge.Only God's hand can push the barriers back,And give our vision unimpeded range;And with each respite, on the weary track,Fix the unchangeable, where all is change.
RETURN AND STRIFE.
No wonder, that when Wabun passed away,Their torpid natures should have lost the charmThat held so perfect, with its gentle sway,Yet slacked so quickly, with the palsied arm.Infirmities are easy to impart,And through the generations, they come down;But God must place his hand upon each heart,And press each brow where he would drop a crown.Long brotherhood of forest, storm and flood,Had schooled them for the turbulence of life.The wraith of Nature made them men of blood;The war of elements, the ocean's strife,The thunder of Niagara now heard,The lashing of Atlantic on the beach,The slogan of the forest—in a wordThe carnival, at rife, within their reach,All served to spur their natures into storm.How many catch the key-note of their songFrom the surrounding elements, and warmTheir frozen energies, and make them strongIn earth's unceasing alchemy! Much moreThe untutored savage; he has lost the key,And must from Nature's chalice find the door,Through which to penetrate life's mystery.And many generations passed away,Since these stern foresters had dwelt apartFrom their ancestral brethren; till the dayWhen in their higher prowess, from the heartOf the great forest fastnesses, they springAs panthers, on their unsuspecting prey.They have grown strong in weaponry, yet clingTo Deity, in their untutored way.The "happy hunting ground" to them is Heaven;And the "Great Spirit" still to them is God;Yet, from their hearts, all tender passions driven,They smite their brethren with a heavy rod.A long and ceaseless struggle, many years,Alternately, invasion and defense,Till they are driven southward; and the fears,That Kohen's prophecy would be fullfilledAnd back of this, the agony intenseOf impotence in prayer so deeply chilledThe hearts of these poor children of the sun,That they gave easy conquest to their foes;And thus the struggle stubbornly begun,So unresisting now, was finished without blows.When man is shorn of strength, and there is leftOnlyOmnipotence, we kiss the rod—The very rod that smites us. In the cleftWe would attempt to hide from Deity,Yet in his anger is an answered prayer—The consciousness of presence; though we flee,The wrath of love, is proof of constant care.But when we beat against the empty air,And every echo sends us backdespair,And even superstition, fails to foilOur souls with the deceptive glow of spoil,Then are we bittered, and our path made black;We grope in mists, Cimmerian, on the wrackOf constant and interminable doubt,A natural prey, and easy put to rout.To South, and West, they turn their fateful wayBeyond the Mississippi; and their daySeemed lighted with a new influx of hope.The sun embraced them with a warmer smile;The mellow fragrance of the Southern slopeAdded entrancement each succeeding mile.Not all at once the exodus took place,For they were many, and had scattered wide;Yet to the southward all had set their faceTo seek in other fields a place to hideFrom cruel persecutions. When our kinLends its consanguined arder to the dart,How more intent, with vengeful purposes,How heavier is the load upon the heart!They scatter into fragmentary clans,And in the earnest of their added woe,Give birth to new religious phantasies.The unclogged streams of superstition flow,When down the mountains, and across the moors,The heavy, swollen torrents sweep along,Throwing their scattered wrecks upon the shores,And breaking barriers, however strong.Baal was great, when Baalbec reared her crestAnd column after column gave her graceAnd all the East upon her beauty smiled;But when the "owls and bats" usurped her place,The god had fallen. In the temple dust,Where man, with his immortal, had so stroveTo make the marble animate (in vain,Like other myriad phantoms of the brain)Time fashions into ghostly hands, that sternly point above.And so, God reaps involuntary praise,From every fashioning of man's design;His ways, indeed, cannot be called our ways;Yet his hozannas, from each crumbling shrine,Teach us the servitude of all the past;That human hands but fashion Heavenly aids;That every sculptured mythmark only fadesInto eternal sunshine, at the last.Some crossed the mountain ramparts of the West;Some lingered still upon the Eastern slope;The empire yet was open to their zest,And all were buoyant with a new-born hope.But war, like pestilence, doth warp our lives,And like contagion, it infects the air.Peace comes in measure, but it never thrivesDirectly after conflict, till grows fairThe flesh so lately scarred. Intestine warMade ravage of their ranks; they ill could spareTheir bravest, yet the first to fall infratricidaljar.The lines, by conflict, soon were closely drawn,And from the night of struggle nations dawn,Whose chiefs assume the King's prerogative.Clans fall, and clansmen perish; nations liveThat pass chaotic conflict, and ensphereTheir crude material, as a new-born world,To individual phalanxes, and rearTheir rude escutcheon. As in ether whirled,The new born planet tracks its trial course;So must this human query find its way,And failure is its fashion; but still worseAre those who fail to grapple with the day,But look supinely on while vested rightsAre trampled under foot, and raise no handIn deprecating gesture; from the heightsOf grim impartial history will standUnfading letters, written to the shameOf those whose scourges fail to make a name.
PREHISTORIC RENDEZVOUS OF THE AZTECS.
On either side the crest of the Madre,Where mountains kiss their hands to either sea,One slope to blush upon the opening day,The other, to drop down its tapestryAnd hold the hand for promise of return,Three nations, as three stars, to being burn.The Toltecs, purest of the primal race,The Chichamecs, devoted to the chase,And Aztecs, strongest in the arts of war—All, seeming thrown beneath one fateful star.No painter limnes upon his labored scroll,Be it fantastic, feast, or forest shades,As war upon its victims; from the soul(Plastic as new damped clay) it never fadesTill Time has ironed out the furrowed past;And Peace, by laying fevered brows to rest,Over the present has its mantle cast;Then Nature folds its wardling to its breast.So on these nations had been writ, in brief,The deep-burned liturgy of hardened strife,And through the furnace of their pungent grief,They learn to plant the rootlets of their life.One thing is never lacking, at the time,When in their nascent passions, nations rise:The craft of Priests, in every age and clime,To "point a moral," or portend the skies.And so, from cast-off altars to the sun,New pleadings to new conjured gods arose;The selfish passions since the world begun,All seek supernal outlet on their foes.One thing, not far from truth, grew into form:The thought of one great, universal heart,That beat against the window pane of thought,And formed of all existences a part.How near the passions of mankind will verge,Sometimes, upon the borderland of bliss!And all the race is bettered if they urgeContinuous march; nor turn their steps amiss;A little light would lead them on to God,And lacking, it the race for ages plod.O that the infant eye of every raceMight recognize at once the Master's face!All brought theirtributeto Tonatiuh's shrine,Still burnishing the sun with rays divine.True worship strengthens in the wake of years;Its song grows rhythmal with repeated chant;Its beauty lingers, though it disappears;Rekindle, and it melts the adamant.But worship on a purely human base,Though it may work its legends into songAnd deify the noblest of its race,Can never be unquestionably strong.The happenings of Nature clog its wheels;The elements brush down its cobweb foils;And from its mimicry the heart appeals,And heavenly souls are not for human toils.It is impossible to still the brainBy merely human fiat at it thrust;Man journeys out, and he returns again—The Father's voice alone can call him from the dust.And yet, each effort of the human soul,To force existence for its latent wings,Is of an energy that leaps control,Whose germ from our immortal nature springs.The very latch-key of the eternal realm,Though touched in ignorance, commands the door.A more than human wisdom guides the helm,As we approach the palm-extending shore.The hungry arms that reach out after God,Are as the infants for the parent's breast;The soul is weary of its fruitless plod,And Nature beckons it to perfect rest.What though the stream be poisoned, if its flowSeeks only the great ocean to be lost;Not long upon its bosom is it tossed,Ere it recovers its old healthful glow.The old-time sparkle of the mountain spring,Gleams in the dew-drop that returns to earth.No poison lurks within the second birth,It ever carries healing on its wing.Thus, howsoe'er the soul may find its way,Over the wilderness to Jordan's plain,It shall not fail of its eternal gain,The night so trackless shall break into day.The saint, whom angels ushered through the gate,With pæans of rejoicing, once did gropeAnd lose his way, and loose his hold on hope—No soul that reaches it is told to wait.God waits upon the effort to reply,And seeing human hands stretch out for aid,His stronger palm is soon upon them laid—Our weakness is the signet he cannot deny.
THE TOLTECS JOURNEY SOUTH.
The Toltecs were the first to break the wayToward the vertex of the Summer sun;To catch the fervor of his ripest ray,And talismise the pilgrimage begun.And after many days their fasting eyesAre feasted with Mexitli's[A]lovely plain—So like a newly-fashioned paradise,An almost Eden, sprung to life again.Her placid lakes gave back her deep blue skyIn rivalry of Nature—Nature's charmsDo cast reflected multiples, and tryTo fold us in with her unnumbered arms.Not all we see, but all we feel, invites,Together with our seeing, to secureAn unrestricted homage; all uniteIn this uncovered world, so rich and pureAnd lade with sunshine, ripened into form,Concentered rays to leaves and blossoms grown,The larch impendent with its verdant cone,The oak's historic battlement of storm,The cypress mourning and exultant palms,The provident maguey, whose offered almsFound ready acceptation at their hands,The maize, which they had known in northern lands,Were native to her rich and virgin soilAnd gave the husbandman unstinted spoil.
And thus, with Nature and themselves at rest,Fresh inspiration from the God of peaceExpands and energizes every breast,And fettered manhood labors for release.Invention isemancipation: TimeDoth loosen Nature's fetters; man inventsNot one of those discoveries sublimeThat couples his poor name with consequence.The world had moved a million years or soEre Galileo blundered into prisonFor telling how we are compelled to go.The fog of superstition had not risen;And he whose brain peered up above the cloud,To widen the horizon of his thought,Must be content to leave the gnarlish crowdOf puppets and of priestcraft who have foughtThe van of progress, immemorial time,In fear some newly loosened truth might breakSome preconcerted dogma, deeming crimeThe impulsive movement of the soul to slakeThe thirst that God implanted there, to burnIts way into the hidden and unseen,And find new thoroughfares for its return,And on creation's outer verge new entities to glean.So did these primal pioneers look outBeyond the compass of their husbandry,And challenge their surroundings; manly, stout,And earnest did they seek the mystic treeOf knowledge in this Eden of the West,Not interdicted by Divine decree,But always open to the manly questAnd the unflagging purpose to be free.The zodiac gave up its lettered scrollTo their inquiries; and the measured yearUnsealed the clasp that held it from control,And truths that had seemed very far, revealed themselves quite near.Their rudely fashioned lodges soon gave wayTo buildings of a more pretentious form;The forests and the quarries and the clayWere forced to human vassalage. The charmThat held the forest templary from spoilWas not entirely broken; after yearsAnd Christian conquest must consume the toilAnd travail of the centuries. Our tears,Are but a poor atonement for the brandOur westward march has made on Nature's back.We mourn our forest fastnesses too late;With hand unbridled we have torn their face,And given legal sanction to their fate—But what companionship can take their place?Nearest to Nature's very heart of hearts,The verdant monarchs beckon us to God;Their benison with life alone departs;They testify of Eden from the sod.O man! that thy perfection should be lost,When so muchperfectnessis left on earth!How much of bitterness! With what a costDidst thou forget the sacred touch that hallowed thee at birth!The worship of Hurakin, "Heart of Heaven,"Spoke of a healthier, higher growth of soul,The consciousness of sins to be forgiven;A god, whom weakness could at once control;A prophecy, of Fatherhood to come;A ray that pencils from the "great white throne;"A voice to energies, that had been dumbFor many centuries—prophetic groanOf man's insatiate thirst for betterment,Not all in vain. The white-winged dove of peaceFor many years was theirs; they came and wentBeyond their borders, without let or lease;Found sunnier climes to South; and, as a charmWas laid upon their footsteps, they advanceTo hover closer to their ancient god.They still were pliant to his fateful glance,And scanned his burnished surface to inquireHis potency in human destiny.They had forgot the legend of his fire,Yet, from his searching, steadfast eye, not one of them were free.So pass they out from the historic ken—Theirs, no aggressive way-mark on the earth.We linger on their passage, and the penWould gladly pour regret upon the dearthOf the indentures they have left to markTheir peaceful, noiseless tread upon the shore;But it is vain; yet out of all this dark,One lesson may we glean: That evermoreThe souls that move with nature on her marchAre those who drop, as she drops down her leaves;They fill the earth with fruitfulness, and archThe highway of the nations with their sheaves;They sleep to history, but wake to God;Theirs is the pass-key through eternal gates;They write no vengeful Sanscrit on the sod;They linger at no earthly court, but the recording seraph waitsTo write them blessed of the Lord, the jewels of the fates.
THE AZTECS—AZTLAN.
The silver current of the upper Grande,And where the Gila penetrates the East,The Zuni lines its rocky bed with sand,New ground from granite that has been releasedFrom mountain base. The vertebrate MadreBreaks into several center-stays of spine,Which form the watershed that feeds the sea,On either side the sunny slopes recline.Where Coronado laid in after yearsThe scepter of his Sovereign, and bespokeThe unbroke silence, as the cycle nearsThe bending of the neck to Hispagniola's yoke.Here was the fabled Aztlan; and the race,Whose ancestry had circled half the globe,Have now their latest destiny to face.O! could they peer the darkness through, and probeThe deep recesses of impending time!Look for one moment on what was to be!How would they cling to this rude mountain clime,And bar the door of their futurity!The Aztecs were a proud and prowent race;In the dispersal at the far Northeast,Now many years, they held the leading place;Yet, in their husbandry, they were the least.Their hands were skilled to turbulence and strife;The bow, the lance, and the rude hunter's knife—Such were their ready implements; but peaceFound them all unacquainted; her surceaseRequires a range of weaponry diverse.The hands that hew down others, lips that curse,Both must be newly christened; and the artsThat unify the race with nature's waysMust hard their hands and reimburse their hearts,And time their lips with sunnier kinds of lays.As if to fill the interim, there grewFrom their own ranks, the fittest kind of guide,A pastoral leader; who by instinct knewThe flowery paths that lead on either sideThe verdant fields of husbandry and thrift;The worthy Moctheuzoma[B]had this gift,And led them to the conquest of the soil—That easy conquering that seeks its spoilOnly where God intended it for man,The fruits of his own labor. Thus beganAn era of self-discipline, that ledThe Aztecs on to greatness; and that shedA tender halo over after years,When memory will mingle with our tears.
He turned their eyes upon the talcite ledge,And said: "Behold, this is Tonatuah's pledgeOf providence against the Summer's heatAnd the cold frosts of Winter; quarry it,And fashion it for framework to your homes.For centuries it has withstood the storm,"To wait upon your coming; let your feetBe busy with its treasures." Then he turnedTo where the clay, for years, had been inurned,And said: "Make use of this; 'tis Thaloc's[C]gift.The mighty thunderer hath torn it down,And ground it into ashes, for your use;Mold it in shapely fragments, and the sun,The warm-faced Tonatuah, will pour outHis warmest rays to bake it back to stone.And more, this pliant clay has aptitudesFor vessels of all kinds, and yours are rude;So in a hundred ways you may improve."Then, pointing to the forest, thus he spoke:"There Tonatu' and Thaloc both did shakeTheir well-filled branches to the earth for us,That we might gather fruit, for any taste.These noble trees have swelled the turf for years,And now will bend the neck for our support.We must be provident; for they do pointTheir myriad fingers to the hands that gave,Mute monitors, to beckon us of Heaven.
"The fish and fowl, and all the vast menageThat track our mountain slopes, are all our own.But look out on the earth, whose grassy turfLifts up its thousand homages to Heaven;"Whence must we gather fruit of our own toil.The maize will grow if planted; the legumeWill ripen; and our hands will surely fill,If we but ask the earth and gods to helpAnd second our endeavors. We must work.The river, from the mountain, rushes on;The mountain shakes its thousand plumes at her;The stars do not keep quiet in the skies;All nature is alert and on the watch;And man must bear his burden at the mill."Thus, did he lead them to their better selves,And ravel out the intricates of lifeIn wisdom's stern and simple litany;Gave trenchent lessons to the man and wife,And scattered homes upon new harvest fields.And he, who sets a household altar up,And sanctifies it with the name of home,Fresh sprinkled from the sacred nuptial cup,Is Heaven's Ambassador in human form.The hearthstone is the herald of advance;The hanging of each homely crane, like oneOf God's unnumbered irridescent plants,Sheds rainbow hues on all it shines upon,And blessings bend each limb upon its tree.Thrice happy is the nation thus begun,For it has found the track of destiny.The mines he opened, and laid bare the bedsOf precious minerals that underlieThe bases of our mountain chains."For all our wants, we have a full supply,"Thus spake the seer. "We shall not beat in vainAgainst the bars that keep our souls from flight.Our birth is built around by providence;Our wants are wickets to unmeasured wealth.If we but find the turnstile to the field,We have but half the hill of life to climb;The other half fades out as we advance;When we have toiled out half-way distance up,Lo! we have found the summit, and descend."Thus do we work together with the gods;If we but do our best, it is enough;When we put out our arms, they reach to us,Though they do span the universe, to meetAnd draw us up, the shining heights of life.So in our daily plodding; if we sow,The gods will furnish harvest; if we build,The gods have made the quarry and the clay;Whatever purposes we have in life,If they be only for our betterment,The crude material is at our hands;We only fashion it to suit our wants;Nor is the measure stinted to our needs,But all our vessels fill to overflow"Look over the green fields! Great is our want,But greater the supply; on every handThe wild flowers lift their heads, and what are theseBut kisses thrown from Heaven to win us back?Our appetites are but our weaker parts,And easy satisfied; not so our souls;They have external longings to supply;And all that beautifies and brightens earthAre forecasts of a kingdom yet to come.As on earth's surface may be found the flowers,So, underneath the shining metals areThe surplus of a generous providence.Our fathers, on the borders of the lakes,Did fashion implements of husbandryFrom inexhaustive mines; but here we haveIn lesser quantities, much brighter ores,Fit mostly for adornment and exchange."Man is not satisfied with 'hand to mouth.'The beasts roam through the forests and are filled,And therewith are content; not so with man.Two worlds break on his vision; and the oneMust interlock the other in his life,Or he goes blindly out into the night.And it is well earth gives no perfect rest,Or the hereafter would fall out of sight.Man is the one ambitious animalWho seeks for empire, as the brute seeks food;The tame necessities are not enough,But all the precious under flowers of earthMust fill the measure of his discontent.All men are not alike, and some must holdThe fullest measure of life's luxuries;These pay their surplus for the others' toil;With them the shining metals will be heldAs medium for barter and for trade.And as Earth decks her bosom with the flowers,So will the human race adorn themselvesAnd blossom out with variance of gems."Though, still encumbered with their ancient myths,He pointed out the harmony of Heaven;Gave why and wherefore to the dread eclipse.Not his to tell them how the earth is drivenUpon its swinging orbit over space;And yet he measured out the perfect year;He looked stern Nature bravely in the face,And seemed to question her without a fear.Transcendent genius; thus to grapple TruthAcross the path still covered from his sight,Yet is she merciful; her name is Ruth;She never perches on so grand a height,But she will answer to her children's call,And spread her wings to fly to their embrace—This link was never broken by our fall,And writes Evangel on our troubled race.With his own hand he led them to the field,With his own hand he taught them how to build;He showed them what true husbandry would yield,How all their empty measures could be filledBy wakeful industry. "Well pointed toilIs touchstone to earth's treasure-box," said he."Our fathers may enrich us with their spoil,And we may thus evade the beaten path;Yet, lying dormant on our fathers' beds,Our waste brings want upon our children's heads.Far better that each hand be labor-marked,That all may know the purchase of their lives;He loses half the journey who goes outTo the incertitudes of other worlds,Who has not tasted what his hands have wonOn this, his trial sphere."Thus in well-chosen words, and earnest deeds,He planted fruit that crowded out the weeds.Ruled by divinest right of master-mind,By wisdom and humility combined,By heart, as well as head and hand, he wrought;For there be many who can ne'er be taughtBy any else than throbbing 'gainst their own,Of some great royal heart; this is their throne;And he who sways in scepterhood of love,Gets his vicegerent from the throne above.Through many years did Moctheuzoma reign;And Aztlan prospered, and the race grew strong;And when his body passed to earth again,His spirit, with its wisdom, lingered long.Thus, with a twilight halo pass the greatAcross the threshold with a noiseless tread;We linger but a moment at the gateTo pay our homage to the honored dead;Then turn to find them still inurned with us.Their silence is more eloquent than words,Their passing out is but life's overplus,Their tongues are tempered into two-edged swords.They speak across the chasm of their graves,In weightier words, in thoughts far more intense;In life they mingled with its thousand waves—It is God's way; death ripens eloquence.Time trolls along with its unceasing march,And Aztlan has outgrown her former bounds;She holds the center of the ancient arch,On the historic ladder's highest rounds.She sways the queenly scepter of the pastAbove the waymarks of a hundred realms;Yet leaves but hints of the grand overcast,Through which she burns her way, and overwhelmsOur thoughts with all the possibles of time.We can but poorly comprehend, yet write her most sublime.
THE AZTEC'S JOURNEY AND SETTLEMENT SOUTH.
Another turn of fortune's fickle wheel.They journey to the South, and cast their lotUpon Mexitli's lovely plain; the heelOf other nations has forestalled the spot,And they must win their way through turbulenceTo reach the border of the placid lake,Where conquest waits their hardly purchased chance;And all of Anahuac shall feel the shakeOf their unconquered tread. Not many yearsEre nation follows nation to their thrall;And many are the hot, convulsive tears,Through which we read of any people's fall.Our homes and hearthstones are so near the same,Or column-capped, or made of homely clay—Marble and gold can make no higher claimThan thatch or brushwood, so they bear the nameOf household, hallowed for centuries or held but for a day.As if to track a thousand similesOf thorn and rose, of laughter and of tears,War strikes its hand upon all sacristies;(Religion must be bent to its decrees)Holding our destinies—our hopes and fearsAre all within its baleful balance thrown.It beats upon the organ of our lives, and history repeats the wild, discordant moan.So nations, whose lost anchorage must payThe penalty of their forgetfulness,Seek out phantasmal deities to preyUpon their vitals in their sore distress.