Say, Palfrey, brave good man, was this thy doom?Dwells here the secret of thy midsea tomb?But, Susan, why that tear? my lovely friend,Regret may last, but grief should have an end.An infant then, thy memory scarce can traceThe lines, tho sacred, of thy father's face;A generous spouse has well replaced the sire;New duties hence new sentiments require.
Now where the lakes, those midland oceans, lie,Columbus turn'd his heaven-illumined eye.Ontario's banks, unable to retainThe five great Caspians from the distant main,Burst with the ponderous mass, and forceful whirl'dHis Laurence forth, to balance thus the world.Above, bold Erie's wave sublimely stood,Look'd o'er the cliff, and heaved his headlong flood;Where dread Niagara bluffs high his brow,And frowns defiance to the world below.White clouds of mist expanding o'er him play,That tinge their skirts in all the beams of day;Pleased Iris wantons in perpetual pride,And bends her rainbows o'er the dashing tide.Far glimmering in the north, bleak Huron runs,Clear Michigan reflects a thousand suns,And bason'd high, on earth's broad bosom gay,The bright Superior silvers down the day.
Blue mounds beyond them far in ether fade,Deep groves between them cast a solemn shade,Slow moves their settling mist in lurid streams,And dusky radiance streaks the solar beams.Fixt on the view the great discoverer stood,And thus addrest the messenger of good:But why these seats, that seem reserved to graceThe social toils of some illustrious race,Why spread so wide and form'd so fair in vain?And why so distant rolls the bounteous main?These happy regions must forever rest,Of man unseen, by native beasts possest;And the best heritage my sons could boastIllude their search in far dim deserts lost,For see, no ship can point her pendants here,No stream conducts nor ocean wanders near;Frost, crags and cataracts their north invest,And the tired sun scarce finds their bounds awest.
To whom the Seraph: Here indeed retiresThe happiest land that feels my fostering fires;Here too shall numerous nations found their seat,And peace and freedom bless the kind retreat.Led by this arm thy sons shall hither come,And streams obedient yield the heroes room,Spread a broad passage to their well known main,Nor sluice their lakes, nor form their soils in vain.
Here my bold Missisippi bends his way,Scorns the dim bounds of yon bleak boreal day,And calls from western heavens, to feed his stream,The rains and floods that Asian seas might claim.Strong in his march, and charged with all the fatesOf regions pregnant with a hundred states.He holds in balance, ranged on either hand,Two distant oceans and their sundering land;Commands and drains the interior tracts that lieOutmeasuring Europe's total breadth of sky.
High in the north his parent fountains wed,And oozing urns adorn his infant head;In vain proud Frost his nursing lakes would close,And choke his channel with perennial snows;From all their slopes he curves his countless rills,Sweeps their long marshes, saps their settling hills;Then stretching, straighteningsouth, he gaily gleams,Swells thro the climes, and swallows all their streams;From zone to zone, o'er earth's broad surface curl'd,He cleaves his course, he furrows half the world,Now roaring wild thro bursting mountains driven,Now calm reflecting all the host of heaven;Where Cynthia pausing, her own face admires,And suns and stars repeat their dancing fires.Wide o'er his meadowy lawns he spreads and feedsHis realms of canes, his waving world of reeds;Where mammoth grazed the renovating groves,Slaked his huge thirst, and chill'd his fruitless loves;Where elks, rejoicing o'er the extinguished race,By myriads rise to fill the vacant space.Earth's widest gulph expands to meet his wave,Vast isles of ocean in his current lave;Glad Thetis greets him from his finish'd course,And bathes her Nereids in his freshening source.
To his broad bed their tributary storesWisconsin here, there lonely Peter pours;Croix, from the northeast wilds his channel fills,Ohio, gather'd from his myriad hills,Yazoo and Black, surcharged by Georgian springs,Rich Illinois his copious treasure brings;Arkansa, measuring back the sun's long course,Moine, Francis, Rouge augment the father's force.But chief of all his family of floodsMissouri marches thro his world of woods;He scorns to mingle with the filial train,Takes every course to reach alone the main;Orient awhile his bending swreep he tries,Now drains the southern, now the northern skies,Searches and sunders far the globe's vast frame,Reluctant joins the sire, and takes at last his name.
There lies the path thy future sons shall trace,Plant here their arts, and rear their vigorous race:A race predestined, in these choice abodes,To teach mankind to tame their fluvial floods,Retain from ocean, as their work requires,These great auxiliars, raised by solar fires,Force them to form ten thousand roads, and girthWith liquid belts each verdant mound of earth,To aid the colon's as the carrier's toil,To drive the coulter, and to fat the soil,Learn all mechanic arts, and oft regainTheir native hills in vapor and in rain.
So taught the Saint. The regions nearer drew,And raised resplendent to their Hero's viewRich nature's triple reign; for here elateShe stored the noblest treasures of her state,Adorn'd exuberant this her last domain,As yet unalter'd by her mimic man,Sow'd liveliest gems, and plants of proudest grace,And strung with strongest nerves her animated race.
Retiring far round Hudson's frozen bay,Earth's lessening circles shrink beyond the day;Snows ever rising with the toils of timeChoke the chill shrubs that brave the dismal clime;The beasts all whitening roam the lifeless plain,And caves unfrequent scoop the couch for man.
Where Spring's coy steps in cold Canadia stray,And joyless seasons hold unequal sway,He saw the pine its daring mantle rear,Break the rude blast, and mock the brumal year,Shag the green zone that bounds the boreal skies,And bid all southern vegetation rise.Wild o'er the vast impenetrable roundThe untrod bowers of shadowy nature frown'd;Millennial cedars wave their honors wide,The fir's tall boughs, the oak's umbrageous pride,The branching beech, the aspen's trembling shadeVeil the dim heaven, and brown the dusky glade.For in dense crowds these sturdy sons of earth,In frosty regions, claim a stronger birth;Where heavy beams the sheltering dome requires,And copious trunks to feed its wintry fires.
But warmer suns, that southern zones emblaze,A cool thin umbrage o'er their woodland raise;Floridia's shores their blooms around him spread.And Georgian hills erect their shady head;Whose flowery shrubs regale the passing airWith all the untasted fragrance of the year.Beneath tall trees, dispersed in loose array,The rice-grown lawns their humble garb display;The infant maize, unconscious of its worth,Points the green spire and bends the foliage forth;In various forms unbidden harvests rise,And blooming life repays the genial skies.
Where Mexic hills the breezy gulph defend,Spontaneous groves with richer burdens bend.Anana's stalk its shaggy honors yields,Acassia's flowers perfume a thousand fields,Their cluster'd dates the mast-like palms unfold,The spreading orange waves a load of gold,Connubial vines o'ertop the larch they climb,The long-lived olive mocks the moth of time,Pomona's pride, that old Grenada claims,Here smiles and reddens in diviner flames;Pimento, citron scent the sky serene,White woolly clusters fringe the cotton's green,The sturdy fig, the frail deciduous caneAnd foodful cocoa fan the sultry plain.
Here, in one view, the same glad branches bringThe fruits of autumn and the flowers of spring;No wintry blasts the unchanging year deform,Nor beasts unshelter'd fear the pinching storm;But vernal breezes o'er the blossoms rove,And breathe the ripen'd juices thro the grove.
Beneath the crystal wave's inconstant lightPearls burst their shells to greet the Hero's sight;From opening earth in living lustre shineThe various treasures of the blazing mine;Hills cleft before him all their stores unfold,The pale platina and the burning gold;Silver whole mounds, and gems of dazzling rayIllume the rocks and shed the beams of day.
.
Natives of America appear in vision. Their manners and characters. Columbus demands the cause of the dissimilarity of men in different countries, Hesper replies, That the human body is composed of a due proportion of the elements suited to the place of its first formation; that these elements, differently proportioned, produce all the changes of health, sickness, growth and decay; and may likewise produce any other changes which occasion the diversity of men; that these elemental proportions are varied, not more by climate than temperature and other local circumstances; that the mind is likewise in a state of change, and will take its physical character from the body and from external objects: examples. Inquiry concerning the first peopling of America. View of Mexico. Its destruction by Cortez. View of Cusco and Quito, cities of Peru. Tradition of Capac and Oella, founders of the Peruvian empire. Columbus inquires into their real history. Hesper gives an account of their origin, and relates the stratagems they used in establishing that empire.
High o'er his world as thus Columbus gazed,And Hesper still the changing scene emblazed,Round all the realms increasing lustre flew,And raised new wonders to the Patriarch's view.
He saw at once, as far as eye could rove,Like scattering herds, the swarthy people moveIn tribes innumerable; all the waste,Wide as their walks, a varying shadow cast.As airy shapes, beneath the moon's pale eye,People the clouds that sail the midnight sky,Dance thro the grove and flit along the glade,And cast their grisly phantoms on the shade;So move the hordes, in thickets half conceal'd,Or vagrant stalking thro the fenceless field,Here tribes untamed, who scorn to fix their home,O'er shadowy streams and trackless deserts roam;While others there in settled hamlets rest,And corn-clad vales a happier state attest.
The painted chiefs, in guise terrific drest,Rise fierce to war, and beat their savage breast;Dark round their steps collecting warriors pour,Some fell revenge begins the hideous roar;From hill to hill the startling war-song flies,And tribes on tribes in dread disorder rise,Track the mute foe and scour the howling wood,Loud as a storm, ungovern'd as a flood;Or deep in groves the silent ambush lay,Lead the false flight, decoy and seize their prey,Their captives torture, butcher and devour,Drink the warm blood and paint their cheeks with gore.
Awhile he paused, with dubious thoughts opprest,And thus to Hesper's ear his doubts addrest:Say, to what class of nature's sons belongThe countless tribes of this untutor'd throng?Where human frames and brutal souls combine,No force can tame them, and no arts refine.Can these be fashion'd on the social plan,Or boast a lineage with the race of man?When first we found them in yon hapless isle,They seem'd to know and seem'd to fear no guile;A timorous herd, like harmless roes, they ran,And call'd us Gods, from whom their tribes began.But when, their fears allay'd, in us they traceThe well-known image of a mortal race,When Spanish blood their wondering eyes beheld,A frantic rage their changing bosoms swell'd;They roused their bands from numerous hills afar,To feast their souls on ruin, waste and war.Nor plighted vows nor sure defeat controlThe same indignant savageness of soul.
Tell then, my Seer, from what dire sons of earthThe brutal people drew their ancient birth;If these forgotten shores and useless tidesHave form'd them different from the world besides,Born to subjection, when in happier timeA nobler race should reach their fruitful clime;Or, if a common source all nations claim,Their lineage, form and faculties the same,What sovereign secret cause, yet undisplay'd,This wondrous change in nature's work has made;Why various powers of soul and tints of faceIn different lands diversify the race;To whom the Guide: Unnumbered causes lie,In earth and sea, in climate, soil and sky,That fire the soul, or damp the genial flame,And work their wonders on the human frame.See beauty, form and color change with place;Here charms of health the lively visage grace;There pale diseases float in every wind,Deform the figure, and degrade the mind.
From earth's own elements thy race at firstRose into life, the children of the dust;These kindred elements, by various use,Nourish the growth and every change produce;In each ascending stage the man sustain,His breath, his food, his physic and his bane.In due proportions where these atoms lie,A certain form their equal aids supply;And while unchanged the efficient causes reign,Age following age the certain form maintain.But where crude atoms disproportion'd rise,And cast their sickening vapors round the skies,Unlike that harmony of human frame,That moulded first and reproduce the same,The tribes ill form'd, attempering to the clime,Still vary downward with the years of time;More perfect some, and some less perfect yieldTheir reproductions in this wondrous field;Till fixt at last their characters abide,And local likeness feeds their local pride.The soul too, varying with the change of clime,Feeble or fierce, or groveling or sublime,Forms with the body to a kindred plan,And lives the same, a nation or a man.
Yet think not clime alone the tint controls,On every shore, by altitude of poles;A different cast the glowing zone demands,In Paria's groves, from Tombut's burning sands,Unheeded agents, for the sense too fine,With every pulse, with every thought combine,Thro air and ocean, with their changes run,Breathe from the ground, or circle with the sun.Where these long continents their shores outspread,See the same form all different tribes pervade;Thro all alike the fertile forests bloom,And all, uncultured, shed a solemn gloom;Thro all great nature's boldest features rise,Sink into vales or tower amid the skies;Streams darkly winding stretch a broader sway,The groves and mountains bolder walks display;A dread sublimity informs the whole,And rears a dread sublimity of soul.
Yet time and art shall other changes find,And open still and vary still the mind.The countless clans that tread these dank abodes,Who glean spontaneous fruits and range the woods,Fixt here for ages, in their swarthy faceDisplay the wild complexion of the place.Yet when the hordes to happy nations rise,And earth By culture warms the genial skies,A fairer tint and more majestic graceShall flush their features and exalt the race;While milder arts, with social joys refined,Inspire new beauties in the growing mind.
Thy followers too, old Europe's noblest pride,When future gales shall wing them o'er the tide,A ruddier hue and deeper shade shall gain,And stalk, in statelier figures, on the plain.While nature's grandeur lifts the eye abroadO'er these last labors of the forming God,Wing'd on a wider glance the venturous soulBids greater powers and bolder thoughts unrol;The sage, the chief, the patriot unconfined,Shield the weak world and meliorate mankind.But think not thou, in all the range of man,That different pairs each different cast began;Or tribes distinct, by signal marks confest,Were born to serve or subjugate the rest.
The Hero heard, and thus resumed the strain:Who led these wanderers o'er the dreary main?Could their weak sires, unskill'd in human lore,Build the bold bark, to seek an unknown shore?A shore so distant from the world beside,So dark the tempests, and so wild the tide,That Greece and Tyre, and all who tempt the sea,Have shunn'd the task, and left the fame to me.
When first thy roving race, the Power replied,Learn'd by the stars the devious sail to guide,From stormy Hellespont explored the way,And sought the limits of the Midland sea;Before Alcides form'd his impious planTo check the sail, and bound the steps of man,This hand had led them to this rich abode,And braved the wrath of that strong demigod.
Driven from the Calpian strait, a hapless trainRoll'd on the waves that sweep the western main;Storms from the orient bhcken'd heaven with shade,Nor sun nor stars could yield their wonted aid.For many a darksome day o'erwhelm'd and tost,Their sails, their oars in swallowing surges lost,At length, the clouds withdrawn, they sad descryTheir course directing from their native sky.No hope remains; far onward o'er the zoneThe trade wind bears them with the circling sun;Till wreck'd and stranded here, the sylvan coastReceives to lonely seats the suffering host.The fruitful vales invite their steps to roam,Renounce their sorrows and forget their home;Revolving years their ceaseless wanderings led,And from their sons descending nations spread.
These in the torrid tracts began their sway,Whose cultured fields their growing arts display;The northern tribes a later stock may boast,A race descended from the Asian coast.High in the Arctic, where Anadir glides,A narrow strait the impinging worlds divides;There Tartar fugitives from famine sail,And migrant tribes these fruitful shorelands hail.
He spoke; when Behren's pass before them lay,And moving nations on the margin stray,Thick swarming, venturous; sail and oar they ply,Climb on the surge and o'er the billows fly.As when autumnal storms awake their force.The storks foreboding tempt their southern course;From all the fields collecting throngs arise,Mount on the wing and crowd along the skies:Thus, to his eye, from bleak Tartaria's shore,Thro isles and seas, the gathering people pour,Change their cold regions for a happier strand,Leap from the wave and tread the welcome land;In growing tribes extend their southern sway,And wander wide beneath a warmer day.
But why, the Chief replied, if ages pastLed the bold vagrants to so mild a waste;If human souls, for social compact given,Inform their nature with the stamp of heaven.Why the wild woods for ever must they rove,Nor arts nor social joys their passions move?Long is the lapse of ages, since thy handConducted here thy first adventurous band.On other shores, in every eastern clime,Since that unletter'd, distant tract of time,What arts have sprung, imperial powers to grace!What sceptres sway'd the many-master'd race!Guilt, grandeur, glory from their seats been hurl'd,And dire divulsions shook the changing world!
Ere Rome's first Eagle clave the frighted air,Ere Sparta form'd her deathlike sons of war,Ere Tyre and Ilion saw their towers arise,Or Memphian pyramids usurp'd the skies,These tribes have forester'd the fruitful zone,Their seats unsettled, and their name unknown.
Hesper to this replied: A scanty train,In that far age, approach'd the wide domain;The wide domain, with game and fruitage crown'd,Supplied their food uncultured from the ground.By nature form'd to rove, the humankind,Of freedom fond, will ramble unconfined,Till all the region fills, and rival rightRestrains their steps, and bids their force unite;When common safety builds a common cause,Conforms their interest and inspires their laws;By mutual checks their different manners blend,Their fields bloom joyous, and their walls ascend.Here to the vagrant tribes no bounds arose,They form'd no union, as they fear'd no foes;Wandering and wild, from sire to son they stray,A thousand ages, scorning every sway.And what a world their seatless nations led!A total hemisphere around them spread;See the lands lengthen, see the rivers roll,To each far main, to each extended pole!
But lo, at last the destined course is run,The realms are peopled and their arts begun.Where yon mid region elevated lies,A few famed cities glitter to the skies;There move, in eastern pomp, the toils of state,And temples heave, magnificently great.
The Hero turn'd to greet the novel sight;When three far splendors, yet confusedly bright,Rose like a constellation; till more near,Distinctly mark'd their different sites appear;Diverging still, beneath their roofs of gold,Three cities gay their mural towers unfold.So, led by visions of his guiding God,The seer of Patmos o'er the welkin trod,Saw the new heaven its flamy cope unbend,And walls and gates and spiry domes descend;His well known sacred city grows, and gainsHer new built towers, her renovated fanes;With golden skies and suns and rainbows crown'd,Jerusalem looks forth and lights the world around.
Bright on the north imperial Mexic rose;A mimic morn her sparkling vanes disclose,Her opening streets concentred hues display,Give back the sun, and shed internal day;The circling wall with guardian turrets frown'd,And look'd defiance to the realms around;A glimmering lake without the wall retires,Inverts the towers, and seems a grove of spires.
Proud o'er the midst, on columns lifted high,A giant structure claims a loftier sky;O'er the tall gates sublimer arches bend,Courts larger lengthen, bolder walks ascend,Starr'd with superior gems the porches shine,And speak the royal residence writhin.There, deck'd in state robes, on his golden throne,Mid suppliant kings, dread Montezuma shone;Mild in his eye a temper'd grandeur sate,High seem'd his soul, with conscious power elate;In aspect open, social and serene,Enclosed by favorites, and of friends unseen.
Round the rich throne, in various lustre dight,Gems undistinguished cast a changing light;Sapphire and emerald soften down the scene,Cold azure mingling with the vernal green,Pearl, amber, ruby warmer flames unfold,And diamonds brighten from the burning gold;Thro all the dome the living blazes blend,And shoot their rainbows where the arches bend.On every ceiling, painted light and gay,Symbolic forms their graphic art display;Recording, confident of endless fame,Each feat of arms, each patriarchal name;Like Memphian hieroglyphs, to stretch the spanOf memory frail in momentary man.
Pour'd thro the gates a hundred nations greet,Throng the rich mart and line each ample street,Ply different labors, walls and structures rear,Or till the fields, or train the ranks of war.Thro spreading states the skirts of empire bend,New temples rise and other plains extend;Thrice ten wide provinces, in culture gay,Bless the same king, and daily firm the sway.
A smile benignant kindling in his eyes,O happy realm! the glad Columbus cries,Far in the midland, safe from every foe,Thy arts shall flourish as thy virtues grow,To endless years thy rising fame extend,And sires of nations from thy sons descend.May no gold-thirsty race thy temples tread,Insult thy rites, nor heap thy plains with dead;No Bovadilla seize the tempting spoil,No dark Ovando, no religious Boyle,In mimic priesthood grave, or robed in state,Overwhelm thy glories in oblivious fate!
Vain are thy hopes, the sainted Power replied,These rich abodes from Spanish hordes to hide,Or teach hard guilt and cruelty to spareThe guardless prize of sacrilegious war.Think not the vulture, mid the field of slain,Where base and brave promiscuous strow the plain,Where the young hero in the pride of charmsPours brighter crimson o'er his spotless arms,Will pass the tempting prey, and glut his rageOn harder flesh, and carnage black with age;O'er all alike he darts his eager eye,Whets the blunt beak and hovers down the sky,From countless corses picks the dainty food,And screams and fattens in the purest blood.So the vile hosts, that hither trace thy way,On happiest tribes with fiercest fury prey.Thine the dread task, O Cortez, here to showWhat unknown crimes can heighten human woe,On these fair fields the blood of realms to pour,Tread sceptres down, and print thy steps in gore,With gold and carnage swell thy sateless mind,And live and die the blackest of mankind.
He gains the shore. Behold his fortress rise,His fleet high flaming suffocates the skies.The march begins; the nations in affrightQuake as he moves, and wage the fruitless fight;Thro the rich provinces he bends his way,Kings in his chain, and kingdoms for his prey;Full on the imperial town infuriate falls,And pours destruction o'er its batter'd walls.
In quest of peace great Montezuma stands,A sovereign supplicant with lifted hands,Brings all his treasure, yields the regal sway,Bids vassal millions their new lord obey;And plies the victor with incessant prayer,Thro ravaged realms the harmless race to spare.But treasures, tears and sceptres plead in vain,Nor threats can move him, nor a world restrain;While blind religion's prostituted nameAnd monkish fury guide the sacred flame.O'er crowded fanes their fires unhallow'd bend,Climb the wide roofs, the lofty towers ascend,Pour thro the lowering skies the smoky flood,And stain the fields, and quench the blaze in blood.
Columbus heard; and, with a heaving sigh,Dropt the full tear that started in his eye:O hapless day! his trembling voice replied,That saw my wandering pennon mount the tide.Had but the lamp of heaven to that bold sailNe'er mark'd the passage nor awoke the gale,Taught foreign prows these peopled shores to find,Nor led those tigers forth to fang mankind;Then had the tribes beneath these bounteous skiesSeen their walls widen and their harvests rise;Down the long tracts of time their glory shone,Broad as the day and lasting as the sun.The growing realms, behind thy shield that rest,Paternal monarch, still thy power had blest,Enjoy'd the pleasures that surround thy throne,Survey'd thy virtues and improved their own.
Forgive me, prince; this luckless arm hath ledThe storm unseen that hovers o'er thy head;Taught the dark sons of slaughter where to roam,To seize thy crown and seal the nation's doom.Arm, sleeping empire, meet the murderous band,Drive back the invaders, save the sinking land.--But vain the call! behold the streaming blood!Forgive me, Nature! and forgive me, God!
While sorrows thus his patriarch pride control,Hesper reproving sooths his tender soul:Father of this new world, thy tears give o'er,Let virtue grieve and heaven be blamed no more.Enough for man, with persevering mind,To act his part and strive to bless his kind;Enough for thee, o'er thy dark age to soar,And raise to light that long-secluded shore.For this my guardian care thy youth inspired,To virtue rear'd thee, and with glory fired,Bade in thy plan each distant world unite,And wing'd thy vessel for the venturous flight.
Nor think the labors vain; to good they tend;Tyrants like these shall ne'er defeat their end;Their end that opens far beyond the scopeOf man's past efforts and his present hope.Long has thy race, to narrow shores confined,Trod the same round that fetter'd fast the mind;Now, borne on bolder plumes, with happier flight,The world's broad bounds unfolding to the sight,The mind shall soar; the coming age expandTheir arts and lore to every barbarous land;And buried gold, drawn copious from the mine,Give wings to commerce and the world refine.
Now to yon southern cities turn thy view,And mark the rival seats of rich Peru.See Quito's airy plains, exalted high,With loftier temples rise along the sky;And elder Cusco's shining roofs unfold,Flame on the day, and shed their suns of gold.Another range, in these pacific climes,Spreads a broad theatre for unborn crimes;Another Cortez shall their treasures view,His rage rekindle and his guilt renew;His treason, fraud, and every fell design,O curst Pizarro, shall revive in thine.
Here reigns a prince, whose heritage proclaimsA long bright lineage of imperial names;Where the brave roll of Incas love to traceThe distant father of their realm and race,Immortal Capac. He, in youthful pride,With young Oella his illustrious bride,Announced their birth divine; a race begunFrom heaven, the children of their God the Sun;By him sent forth a polish'd state to frame,Crush the fiend Gods that human victims claim,With cheerful rites their pure devotions payTo the bright orb that gives the changing day.
On this great plan, as children of the skies,They plied their arts and saw their hamlets rise.First of their works, and sacred to their fame.Yon proud metropolis received its name,Cusco the seat of states, in peace design'dTo reach o'er earth, and civilize mankind.Succeeding sovereigns spread their limits far,Tamed every tribe, and sooth'd the rage of war;Till Quito bow'd; and all the heliac zoneFelt the same sceptre, and confirm'd the throne.
Near Cusco's walls, where still their hallow'd isleBathes in its lake and wears its verdant smile,Where these prime parents of the sceptred lineTheir advent made, and spoke their birth divine,Behold their temple stand; its glittering spiresLight the glad waves and aid their father's fires.Arch'd in the walls of gold, its portal gleamsWith various gems of intermingling beams;And flaming from the front, with borrow'd ray,A diamond circlet gives the rival day;In whose bright face forever looks abroadThe labor'd image of the radiant God.There dwells the royal priest, whose inner shrineConceals his lore; tis there his voice divineProclaims the laws; and there a cloister'd quireOf holy virgins keep the sacred fire.
Columbus heard; and curious to be taughtWhat pious fraud such wondrous changes wrought,Ask'd by what mystic charm, in that dark age,They quell'd in savage souls the barbarous rage,By leagues of peace combined a wide domain,And taught the virtues in their laws to reign.
Long is the tale; but tho their labors restBy years obscured, in flowery fiction drest,My voice, said Hesper, shall revive their name,And give their merits to immortal fame.Led by his father's wars, in early primeYoung Capac left his native northern clime;The clime where Quito since hath rear'd her fanes,And now no more her barbarous rites maintains.He saw these vales in richer blooms array'd,And tribes more numerous haunt the woodland shade,Saw rival clans their local Gods adore,Their altars staining with their children's gore,Yet mark'd their reverence for the Sun, whose beamProclaims his bounties and his power supreme;Who sails in happier skies, diffusing good,Demands no victim and receives no blood.
In peace return'd with his victorious sire,New charms of glory all his soul inspire;To conquer nations on a different plan,And build his greatness on the good of man.
By nature form'd for hardiest deeds of fame,Tall, bold and full-proportion'd rose his frame;Strong moved his limbs, a mild majestic graceBeam'd from his eyes and open'd in his face;O'er the dark world his mind superior shone,And seem'd the semblance of his parent Sun.But tho fame's airy visions lift his eyes,And future empires from his labors rise;Yet softer fires his daring views control,And mixt emotions fill his changing soul.Shall genius rare, that might the world improve,Bend to the milder voice of careless love,That bounds his glories, and forbids to partFrom bowers that woo'd his fluctuating heart?Or shall the toils imperial heroes claimFire his brave bosom with a patriot flame,Bid sceptres wait him on Peruvia's shore,And loved Oella meet his eyes no more?
Still unresolved he sought the lonely maid,Who plied her labors in the silvan shade;Her locks loose rolling mantle deep her breast,And wave luxuriant round her slender waist,Gay wreaths of flowers her pensive brows adorn,And her white raiment mocks the light of morn.Her busy hand sustains a bending bough,Where cotton clusters spread their robes of snow,From opening pods unbinds the fleecy store,And culls her labors for the evening bower.
For she, the first in all Hesperia, fedThe turning spindle with the twisting thread;The woof, the shuttle follow'd her command,Till various garments grew beneath her hand.And now, while all her thoughts with Capac roveThro former scenes of innocence and love,In distant fight his fancied dangers share,Or wait him glorious from the finish'd war;Blest with the ardent hope, her sprightly mindA vesture white had for the prince design'd;And here she seeks the wool to web the fleece,The sacred emblem of returning peace.
Sudden his near approach the maid alarms;He flew enraptured to her yielding arms,And lost, dissolving in a softer flame,His distant empire and the fire of fame.At length, retiring thro the homeward field,Their glowing souls to cooler converse yield;O'er various scenes of blissful life they ran,When thus the warrior to the maid began:
Long have we mark'd the inauspicious reignThat waits our sceptre in this rough domain;A soil ungrateful and a wayward race,Their game but scanty, and confined their space.Where late my steps the southern war pursued,The fertile plains grew boundless as I view'd;More numerous nations trod the grassy wild,And joyous nature more delightful smiled.No changing seasons there the flowers deform,No dread volcano and no mountain storm;Rains ne'er invade, nor livid lightnings play,Nor clouds obscure the radiant King of day.But while his orb, in ceaseless glory bright,Rolls the rich day and fires his stars by night,Unbounded fulness flows beneath his reign,Seas yield their treasures, fruits adorn the plain;His melting mountains spread their annual flood,Night sheds her dews, the day-breeze fans the God.Tis he inspires me with the vast designTo form those nations to a sway divine;Destroy the rites of every demon Power,Whose altars smoke with sacrilegious gore;To laws and labor teach the tribes to yield,And richer fruits to grace the cultured field.
But great, my charmer, is the task of fame,Their faith to fashion and their lives to tame;Full many a spacious wild these eyes must seeSpread dreary bounds between my love and me;And yon bright Godhead circle thrice the year,Each lonely evening number'd with a tear.Long robes of white my shoulders must embrace,To speak my lineage of ethereal race;That simple men may reverence and obeyThe radiant offspring of the Power of day.
When these my deeds the faith of nations gain,And happy millions bless thy Capac's reign,Then shall he feign a journey to the Sun,To bring the partner of his well-earn'd throne;So shall descending kings the line sustain,Till earth's whole regions join the vast domain.
Will then my fair, at my returning hour,Forsake these wilds and hail a happier bower?Will she consenting now resume her smiles,Send forth her warrior to his glorious toils;And, sweetly patient, wait the flight of days,That crown our labors with immortal praise?
Silent the damsel heard; her moistening eyeSpoke the full soul, nor could her voice reply;Till softer accents sooth'd her wounded ear,Composed her tumult and allay'd her fear:Think not, heroic maid, my steps would partWhile silent sorrows heave that tender heart.Oella's peace more dear shall prove to meThan all the realms that bound the raging sea;Nor thou, bright Sun, shalt bribe my soul to rest,And leave one struggle in her lovely breast.
Yet think in tribes so vast, my gentle fair,What millions merit our instructive care;How age to age leads on their joyless gloom,Habitual slaughter their poor piteous doom;No social ties their wayward passions prove,Nor peace nor pleasure treads the howling grove;Mid thousand heroes and a thousand fairNo fond Oella meets her Capac there.Yet, taught by thee domestic joys to prize,With softer charms the virgin race shall rise,Awake new virtues, every grace improve,And form their minds for happiness and love.
Ah think, as future years thro time descend,What wide creations on thy voice depend;And, like the Sun, whose all-delighting rayTo those mild regions gives his purest day,Diffuse thy bounties, let me instant fly;In three short moons the generous task I'll try;Then swift returning, I'll conduct my fairWhere realms submissive wait her fostering care.
And will my prince, my Capac, borne away,Thro those dark wilds in quest of empire stray,Where tigers fierce command the shuddering wood,And men like tigers thirst for human blood?Think'st thou no dangerous deed the course attends,Alone, unaided by thy sire and friends?Even chains and death may meet my hero there,Nor his last groan could reach Oella's ear.
But no! nor death nor chains shall Capac proveUnknown to her, while she has power to rove.Close by thy side, where'er thy wanderings stray,My equal steps shall measure all the way;With borrow'd soul each chance of fate I'll dare,Thy toils to lessen and thy dangers share.Quick shall my ready hand two garments weave,Whose sunny whiteness shall the tribes deceive;Thus clad, their homage shall secure our sway.And hail us children of the God of day.
The lovely counsel pleased. The smiling chiefApproved her courage and dispell'd her grief;Then to their homely bower in haste they move.Begin their labors and prepare to rove.Soon grow the robes beneath her forming care,And the fond parents wed the wondrous pair;But whelm'd in grief beheld the following dawn,Their joys all vanish'd and their children gone.Nine days they march'd; the tenth effulgent mornSaw their white forms that sacred isle adorn.The work begins; they preach to every bandThe well-form'd fiction, and their faith demand;With various miracles their powers display,To prove their lineage and confirm their sway.They form to different arts the hand of toil,To whirl the spindle and to spade the soil,The Sun's bright march with pious finger trace,And his pale sister with her changing face;Show how their bounties clothe the labor'd plain,The green maize shooting from its golden grain,How the white cotton tree's expanding lobesFile into threads, and swell to fleecy robes;While the tamed Llama aids the wondrous plan,And lends his garment to the loins of man.
The astonish'd tribes believe, with glad surprise,The Gods descended from the favoring skies,Adore their persons robed in shining white.Receive their laws and leave each horrid rite,Build with assisting hands the golden throne,And hail and bless the sceptre of the Sun.
.
Actions of the Inca Capac. A general invasion of his dominions threatened by the mountain savages. Rocha, the Inca's son, sent with a few companions to offer terms of peace. His embassy. His adventure with the worshippers of the volcano. With those of the storm, on the Andes. Falls in with the savage armies. Character and speech of Zamor, their chief. Capture of Rocha and his companions. Sacrifice of the latter. Death song of Azonto. War dance. March of the savage armies down the mountains to Peru. Incan army meets them. Battle joins. Peruvians terrified by an eclipse of the sun, and routed. They fly to Cusco. Grief of Oella, supposing the darkness to be occasioned by the death of Rocha. Sun appears. Peruvians from the city wall discover Roch an altar in the savage camp. They march in haste out of the city and engage the savages. Exploits of Capac. Death of Zamor. Recovery of Rocha, and submission of the enemy.
Now twenty years these children of the skiesBeheld their gradual growing empire rise.They ruled with rigid but with generous care,Diffused their arts and sooth'd the rage of war,Bade yon tall temple grace their favorite isle,The mines unfold, the cultured valleys smile,Those broad foundations bend their arches high,And rear imperial Cusco to the sky;Wealth, wisdom, force consolidate the reignFrom the rude Andes to the western main.
But frequent inroads from the savage bandsLead fire and slaughter o'er the labor'd lands;They sack the temples, the gay fields deface,And vow destruction to the Incan race.The king, undaunted in defensive war,Repels their hordes, and speeds their flight afar;Stung with defeat, they range a wider wood,And rouse fresh tribes for future fields of blood.
Where yon blue ridges hang their cliffs on high,And suns infulminate the stormful sky,The nations, temper'd to the turbid air,Breathe deadly strife, and sigh for battle's blare;Tis here they meditate, with one vast blow,To crush the race that rules the plains below.Capac with caution views the dark design,Learns from all points what hostile myriads join.And seeks in time by proffer'd leagues to gainA bloodless victory, and enlarge his reign.
His eldest hope, young Rocha, at his call,Resigns his charge within the temple wall;In whom began, with reverend forms of awe,The functions grave of priesthood and of law,
In early youth, ere yet the ripening sunHad three short lustres o'er his childhood run,The prince had learnt, beneath his father's hand,The well-framed code that sway'd the sacred land;With rites mysterious served the Power divine,Prepared the altar and adorn'd the shrine,Responsive hail'd, with still returning praise,Each circling season that the God displays,Sooth'd with funereal hymns the parting dead,At nuptial feasts the joyful chorus led;While evening incense and the morning songRose from his hand or trembled on his tongue.
Thus form'd for empire ere he gain'd the sway,To rule with reverence and with power obey,Reflect the glories of the parent Sun,And shine the Capac of his future throne,Employed his docile years; till now from farThe rumor'd leagues proclaim approaching war;Matured for active scenes he quits the shrine,To aid in council or in arms to shine.
Amid the chieftains that the court compose,In modest mien the stripling pontiff rose,With reverence bow'd, conspicuous o'er the rest,Approach'd the throne, and thus the sire addrest:Great king of nations, heaven-descended sage,Thy second heir has reach'd the destined ageTo take these priestly robes; to his pure handI yield them pure, and wait thy kind command.Should foes invade, permit this arm to shareThe toils, the triumphs, every chance of war;For this dread conflict all our force demands,In one wide field to whelm the brutal bands,Pour to the mountain gods their wonted food,And save thy realms from future leagues of blood.Yet oh, may sovereign mercy first ordainPropounded compact to the savage train!I'll go with terms of peace to spread thy sway,And teach the blessings of the God of day.
The sire return'd: My great desire you know,To shield from slaughter and preserve the foe,In bands of concord all their tribes to bind,And live the friend and guardian of mankind.Should strife begin, thy youthful arm shall shareThe toils of glory thro the walks of war;But o'er their hills to seek alone the foes,To gain their confidence or brave their blows,Bend their proud souls to reason's voice divine,Claims hardier limbs and riper years than thine.Yet one of heavenly race the task requires,Whose mystic rites control the solar fires;So the sooth'd Godhead proves to faithless eyesHis love to man, his empire of the skies.
Some veteran chief, in those rough labors tried,Shall aid thee on, and go thy faithful guide;O'er dreary heights thy sinking limbs sustain.Teach the dark wiles of each insidious train,Thro all extremes of life thy voice attend,In counsel lead thee, or in arms defend.And three firm youths, thy chosen friends, shall goTo learn the climes and meditate the foe;That wars of future years their skill may find,To serve the realm and save the savage kind.
Rise then, my son, first partner of my fame,With early toils to build thy sacred name;In high behest, for his own legate known,Proclaim the bounties of our sire the Sun.Tell how his fruits beneath our culture rise,His stars, how glorious, gem our cloudless skies;And how to us his hand hath kindly givenHis peaceful laws, the purest grace of heaven,With power to widen his terrestrial sway,And give our blessings where he gives the day.Yet, should the stubborn nations still prepareThe shaft of slaughter for the barbarous war,Tell them we know to tread the crimson plain,And God's own children never yield to man.
But ah, my child, with steps of caution go,The ways are hideous, and enraged the foe;Blood stains their altars, all their feasts are blood,Death their delight, and darkness reigns their God;Tigers and vultures, storms and earthquakes shareTheir rites of worship and their spoils of war.Shouldst thou, my Rocha, tempt too far their ire,Should those dear relics feed a murderous fire,Deep sighs would rend thy wretched mother's breast,The pale Sun sink in clouds of darkness drest,Thy sire and mournful nations rue the dayThat drew thy steps from these sad walls away.
Yet go; tis virtue calls; and realms unknown,Won by these works, may bless thy future throne;Millions of unborn souls in time may seeTheir doom reversed, and owe their peace to thee,Deluded sires, with murdering hands, no moreFeed fancied demons with their children's gore,But, sway'd by happier sceptres, here beholdThe rites of freedom and the shrines of gold.Be wise, be mindful of thy realm and throne;God speed thy labors and preserve my son!
Soon the glad prince, in robes of white array'd,Call'd his attendants and the sire obey'd.A diamond broad, in burning gold imprest,Display'd the sun's bright image on his breast;A pearl-dropt girdle bound his waist below,And the white lautu graced his lofty brow.They journey'd forth, o'ermarching far the moundThat flank'd the kingdom on its Andean bound;Ridge after ridge thro vagrant hordes they past,Where each new tribe seem'd wilder than the last;To all they preach and prove the solar sway,And climb fresh mountains on their tedious way.
At length, as thro disparting clouds they rise,And hills above them still obstruct the skies,While a dead calm o'er all the region stood?And not a leaf could fan its parent wood,Sudden a strange portentous noise began;The birds fled wild, the beasts for shelter ran;Slow, sullen, loud, with deep astounding blare,Swell the strong tones of subterranean war;Behind, before, beneath them groans the ground,Earth heaves and labors with the shuddering sound;Columns of smoke, that cap the rumbling height,Roll reddening far thro heaven, and choke the light;From tottering steeps descend their cliffs of snow,The mountains reel, the valleys rend below;The headlong streams forget their usual round,And shrink and vanish in the gaping ground.The sun descends; but night recals in vainHer silent shades, to recommence her reign;The bursting mount gapes high, a sudden glareCoruscates wide, till all the purpling airBreaks into flame, and wheels and roars and ravesAnd wraps the welkin in its folding waves;Light sailing cinders, thro its vortex driven,Stream high and brighten to the midst of heaven;And, following slow, full floods of boiling oreSwell, swoop aloft and thro the concave roar.Torrents of molten rocks, on every side,Lead o'er the shelves of ice their fiery tide;Hills slide before them, skies around them burn,Towns sink beneath and heaving plains upturn;O'er many a league the flaming deluge hurl'd,Sweeps total nations from the staggering world.
Meanwhile, at distance thro the livid light,A busy concourse met their wondering sight;The prince drew near; where lo! an altar stood,Rude in its form, and fill'd with burning wood;Wrapt in the flames a youth expiring lay,And the fond father thus was heard to pray:Receive, O dreadful Power, from feeble age,This last pure offering to thy sateless rage;Thrice has thy vengeance on this hated landClaim'd a dear infant from my yielding hand;Thrice have those lovely lips the victim prest,And all the mother torn that tender breast;When the dread duty stifled every sigh,And not a tear escaped her beauteous eye.Our fourth and last now meets the fatal doom;Groan not, my child, thy God remands thee home;Attend once more, thou dark infernal Name,From yon far streaming pyramid of flame;Snatch from his heaving flesh the blasted breath.Sacred to thee and all the fiends of death;Then in thy hall, with spoils of nations crown'd,Confine thy walks beneath the rending ground;No more on earth the embowel'd flames to pour,And scourge my people and my race no more.
Thus Rocha heard; and to the trembling crowdTurn'd the bright image of his beaming God.The afflicted chief, with fear and grief opprest,Beheld the sign, and thus the prince addrest:From what far land, O royal stranger, say,Ascend thy wandering steps this nightly way?From plains like ours, by holy demons fired?Have thy brave people in the flames expired?And hast thou now, to stay the whelming flood,No son to offer to the furious God?
From happier lands I came, the prince returns,Where no red flaming flood the concave burns,No furious God bestorms our soil and skies,Nor yield our hands the bloody sacrifice;But life and joy the Power delights to give,And bids his children but rejoice and live.Thou seest thro heaven the day-dispensing SunIn living radiance wheel his golden throne,O'er earth's gay surface send his genial beams,Force from yon cliffs of ice the vernal streams;While fruits and flowers adorn the cultured field,And seas and lakes their copious treasures yield;He reigns our only God. In him we traceThe friend, the father of our happy race.Late the lone tribes, on those unlabor'd shores,Ran wild and served imaginary Powers;Till he, in pity, taught their feuds to cease,Devised their laws, and fashion'd all for peace.My sacred parents first the reign began,Sent from his courts to guide the paths of man,To plant his fruits, to manifest his sway,And give their blessings where he gives the day.
The sachem proud replied: Thy garb and faceProclaim thy lineage of superior race;And our progenitors, no less than thine,Sprang from a God, and own a birth divine.From that sky-scorching mount, on floods of flame,In elder times my great forefathers came;There dwells the Sire, and from his dark abodeOft claims, as now, the tribute of a God.This victim due when willing mortals pay,His terrors lessen and his fires decay;While purer sleet regales the mountain air,And our glad hosts are fired for fiercer war.
Yet know, dread chief, the pious youth rejoin'd,Some one prime Power produced all human kind:Some Sire supreme, whose ever-ruling soulCreates, preserves, and regulates the whole.That Sire supreme must roll his radiant eyeRound the wide earth and thro the boundless sky;That all their habitants, their gods and men,May rise unveil'd beneath his careful ken.Could thy dark fiend, that hides his blind abode,And cauldrons in his cave that fiery flood,Yield the rich fruits that distant nations find?Or praise or punish or behold mankind?But when my God, resurging from the night,Shall gild his chambers with the morning light,By mystic rites he'll vindicate his throne,And own thy servant for his duteous son.
Meantime, the chief replied, thy cares releast,Rest here the night and share our scanty feast;Which, driven in hasty rout, our train supplied,When trembling earth foretold the boiling tide.They fared, they rested; till with lucid hornAll-cheering Phosphor led the lively morn;The prince arose, an altar rear'd in haste,And watch'd the splendors of the reddening east.
As o'er the mountain flamed the sun's broad eye,He call'd the host, his holy rites to try;Then took the loaves of maize, the bounties brake,Gave to the chief, and bade them all partake;The hallow'd relics on the pile he placed,With tufts of flowers the simple offering graced,Held to the sun the image from his breast,Whose glowing concave all the God exprest;O'er the dried leaves the rays concentred fly,And thus his voice ascends the listening sky:O thou, whose splendors kindle heaven with fire.Great Soul of nature, man's immortal Sire,If e'er my father found thy sovereign grace,Or thy blest will ordain'd the Incan race,Give these lorn tribes to learn thy awful name,Receive this offering, and the pile inflame;So shall thy laws o'er wider bounds be known,And earth's whole race be happy as thy own.
Thus pray'd the prince; the focal flames aspire,The mute beholders tremble and retire,Gaze on the miracle, full credence own,And vow obedience to the sacred Sun.
The legates now their farther course descried,A young cazique attending as a guide,O'er craggy cliffs pursued their eastern way,Trod loftier champaigns, meeting high the day,Saw timorous tribes, in these sublime abodes,Adore the blasts and turn the storms to gods;While every cloud that thunders thro the skiesClaims from their hands a human sacrifice.Awhile the youth, their better faith to gain,Strives with his usual art, but strives in vain;In vain he pleads the mildness of the sun;A gale refutes him ere his speech be done;Continual tempests from their orient blow,And load the mountains with eternal snow.The sun's own beam, the timid clans declare,Drives all their evils on the tortured air;He draws the vapors up their eastern sky,That sail and centre round his dazzling eye;Leads the loud storms along his midday course,And bids the Andes meet their sweeping force;Builds their bleak summits with an icy throne,To shine thro heaven, a semblance of his own;Hence the sharp sleet, these lifted lawns that wait,And all the scourges that attend their state.
Two toilsome days the virtuous Inca stroveTo social life their savage minds to move;When the third morning glow'd serenely bright,He led their elders to an eastern height;The world unlimited beneath them lay,And not a cloud obscured the rising day.Vast Amazonia, starr'd with twinkling streams,In azure drest, a heaven inverted seems;Dim Paraguay extends the aching sight,Xaraya glimmers like the moon of night,Land, water, sky in blending borders play,And smile and brighten to the lamp of day.When thus the prince: What majesty divine!What robes of gold! what flames about him shine!There walks the God! his starry sons on highDraw their dim veil and shrink behind the sky;Earth with surrounding nature's born anew,And men by millions greet the glorious view!Who can behold his all-delighting soulGive life and joy, and heaven and earth control,Bid death and darkness from his presence move,Who can behold, and not adore and love?Those plains, immensely circling, feel his beams,He greens the groves, he silvers gay the streams,Swells the wild fruitage, gives the beast his food,And mute creation hails the genial God.But richer boons his righteous laws impart,To aid the life and mould the social heart,His arts of peace thro happy realms to spread,And altars grace with sacrificial bread;Such our distinguish'd lot, who own his sway,Mild as his morning stars and liberal as the day.
His unknown laws, the mountain chief replied,May serve perchance your boasted race to guide;And yon low plains, that drink his partial ray,At his glad shrine their just devotions pay.But we nor fear his frown nor trust his smile;Vain as our prayers is every anxious toil;Our beasts are buried in his whirls of snow,Our cabins drifted to his slaves below.Even now his placid looks thy hopes beguile,He lures thy raptures with a morning smile;But soon (for so those saffron robes proclaim)His own black tempest shall obstruct his flame,Storm, thunder, fire, against the mountains driven,Rake deep their sulphur'd sides, disgorging here hisheaven.
He spoke; they waited, till the fervid rayHigh from the noontide shot the faithless day;When lo, far gathering under eastern skies,Solemn and slow, the dark red vapors rise;Full clouds, convolving on the turbid air,Move like an ocean to the watery war.The host, securely raised, no dangers harm,They sit unclouded and o'erlook the storm;While far beneath, the sky-borne waters ride,Veil the dark deep and sheet the mountain's side;The lightning's glancing fires, in fury curl'd,Bend their long forky foldings o'er the world;Torrents and broken crags and floods of rainFrom steep to steep roll down their force amain,In dreadful cataracts; the bolts confoundThe tumbling clouds, and rock the solid ground.
The blasts unburden'd take their upward course,And o'er the mountain top resume their force.Swift thro the long white ridges from the northThe rapid whirlwinds lead their terrors forth;High walks the storm, the circling surges rise,And wild gyrations wheel the hovering skies;Vast hills of snow, in sweeping columns driven,Deluge the air and choke the void of heaven;Floods burst their bounds, the rocks forget their place,And the firm Andes tremble to their base.
Long gazed the host; when thus the stubborn chief,With eyes on fire, and fill'd with sullen grief:Behold thy careless god, secure on high,Laughs at our woes and peaceful walks the sky,Drives all his evils on these seats sublime,And wafts his favors to a happier clime;Sire of the dastard race thy words disclose,There glads his children, here afflicts his foes.Hence! speed thy flight! pursue him where he leads;Lest vengeance seize thee for thy father's deeds,Thy immolated limbs assuage the fireOf those curst Powers, who now a gift require.
The youth in haste collects his scanty train,And, with the sun, flies o'er the western plain;The fading orb with plaintive voice he plies,To guide his steps and light him down the skies.So when the moon and all the host of evenHang pale and trembling on the verge of heaven,While storms ascending threat their nightly reign,They seek their absent sire, and sink below the main.
Now to the south he turns; where one vast plainCalls from a hundred hordes the warrior train;Of various dress and various form they show'd;Each wore the ensign of his local god.
From eastern hills a grisly troop descends,Whose war song wild the shuddering concave rends;Cloak'd in a tiger's hide their grim chief towers,And apes the brinded god his tribe adores.The tusky jaws grin o'er the sachem's brow,The bald eyes glare, the paws depend below,From his bored ears contorted serpents hung,And drops of gore seem'd rolling on his tongue.The northern glens pour forth the Vulture-race;Brown tufts of quills their shaded foreheads grace;The claws branch wide, the beak expands for blood,And all the armor imitates the god.The Condor, frowning from a southern plain,Borne on a standard, leads a numerous train:Clench'd in his talons hangs an infant dead,His long bill pointing where the sachems tread,His wings, tho lifeless, frighten still the wind,And his broad tail o'ershades the file behind.From other plains and other hills afar,The tribes throng dreadful to the promised war;Some twine their forelock with a crested snake,Some wear the emblems of a stream or lake;All from the Power they serve assume their mode,And foam and yell to taste the Incan blood.
The prince incautious with his men drew near,Known for an Inca by his dress and air;Till coop'd and caught amid the warrior trains,They bow in silence to the victor's chains.When now the gather'd thousands throng the plain,And echoing skies the rending shouts retain;Zamor, the chieftain of the Tiger-band,By choice appointed to the first command,Shrugg'd up his brinded spoils above the rest,And grimly frowning thus the crowd addrest:
Warriors, attend! tomorrow leads abroadOur sacred vengeance for our brothers' blood.On those scorch'd plains for ever must they lie,Their bones still naked to the burning sky?Left in the field for foreign hawks to tear,Nor our own vultures can the banquet share.But soon, ye mountain gods, yon dreary westShall sate your hunger with an ampler feast;When the proud Sun, that terror of the plain,Shall grieve in heaven for all his children slain,As o'er his realm our slaughtering armies roam,And give to your sad Powers a happier home.Meanwhile, ye tribes, these men of solar race,Food for the flames, your bloody rites shall grace;Each to a different god his panting breathResigns in fire; this night demands their death:All but the Inca; him reserved in stateThese conquering hands ere long shall immolateTo all the Powers at once that storm the skies,A grateful gift, before his mother's eyes.
The sachem ceased; the chiefs of every raceLead the bold captives to their destined place;The sun descends, the parting day expires,And earth and heaven display their sparkling fires.Soon the raised altars kindle round the gloom,And call the victims to their vengeful doom;Led to their pyres, in sullen pomp they tread,And sing by turns the triumphs of the dead.Amid the crowd beside his altar stoodThe youth devoted to the Tiger-god;A beauteous form he rose, of noble grace,The only hope of his illustrious race.His aged sire, for numerous years, had shoneThe first supporter of the Incan throne;Wise Capac loved the youth, and graced his handWith a fair virgin from a neighboring band;And him the legate prince, in equal prime,Had chose to share his mission round the clime.He mounts the pyre, the flames approach his breath.And thus he wakes the dauntless song of death:
Dark vault of heaven, that greet his daily throne.Where flee the glories of your absent Sun?Ye starry hosts, who kindle from his eye,Can you behold him in the western sky?Or if unseen beneath his watery bed,The wearied God reclines his radiant head,When next his morning steps your courts inflame,And seek on earth for young Azonto's name,Then point these ashes, mark the smoky pile,And say the hero suffer'd with a smile.So shall the Power in vengeance view the place,In crimson clothe his terror-beaming face,Pour swift destruction on these curst abodes,Whelm the grim tribes and all their savage gods.
But ah, forbear to tell my stooping sireHis darling hopes have fed a coward fire;Why should he know the tortures of the brave?Why fruitless sorrows bend him to the grave?Nor shalt thou e'er be told, my bridal fair,What silent pangs these panting vitals tear;But blooming still the patient hours employOn the blind hope of future scenes of joy.Now haste, ye fiends of death; the Sire of dayIn absent slumber gives your malice way;While fainter light these livid flames supply,And short-lived thousands learn of me to die,
He ceased not speaking; when the yell of warDrowns all their death songs in a hideous jar;The cries rebounding from the hillsides pour,And wolves and tigers catch the distant roar.Now more concordant all their voices join,And round the plain they form the festive line;When, to the music of the dismal din,Indignant Zamor bids the dance begin.Dim thro the shadowy fires each changing formMoves like a cloud before an evening storm,When o'er the moon's pale face and starry plainThe shifting shades lead on their broken train;The mingling tribes their mazy gambols tread,Till the last groan proclaims the victims dead,Then part the smoky flesh, enjoy the feast,And lose their labors in oblivious rest.
Soon as the western hills announced the morn,And falling fires were scarcely seen to burn,Grimm'd by the horrors of the dreadful night,The hosts woke fiercer for the promised fight;And dark and silent thro the frowning groveThe different tribes beneath their standards move.
Meantime the solar king collects from farHis martial bands, to meet the expected war,Camps on the confines of an eastern plainThat skirts the steep rough limit of his reign;He trains their ranks, their pliant force combines,To close in columns or extend in lines,To wheel, change front, in broken files dispart,And draw new strength from all the warrior's art.
But now the rising sun relumes the plain,And calls to arms the well-accustom'd train.High in the front imperial Capac strode,In fair effulgence like the beaming God;A golden girdle bound his snowy vest,A mimic sun hung sparkling on his breast;The lautu's horned wreath his temples twined,The bow, the quiver shade his waist behind;Raised high in air his golden sceptre burn'd,And hosts surrounding trembled as he turn'd.
O'er eastern hills he cast his watchful eye,Thro the broad breaks that lengthen down the sky;In whose blue clefts the sloping pathways bend,Where annual floods from melting snows descend.Now dry and deep, they lead from every heightThe savage files that headlong rush to fight;They throng and thicken thro the smoky air,And every breach pours down the dusky war.So when a hundred streams explore their way,Down the same slopes, convolving to the sea,They boil, they bend, they force their floods amain,Swell o'er obstructing crags, and sweep the plain.
Capac beholds and waits the coming shock,As for the billows waits the storm-beat rock;And while for fight his ardent troops prepare,Thus thro the ranks he breathes the soul of war:Ye tribes that flourish in the Sun's mild reign,Long have your flocks adorn'd the peaceful plain,As o'er the realm his smiles persuasive flow'd,And conquer'd all without the stain of blood;But lo, at last that wild infuriate bandWith savage war demands your happy land.Beneath the dark immeasurable host,Descending, swarming, how the crags are lost!Already now their ravening eyes beholdYour star-bright temples and your gates of gold;And to their gods in fancied goblets pourThe warm libation of your children's gore.Move then to vengeance, meet the sons of blood,Led by this arm and lighted by that God;The strife is fierce, your fanes and fields the prize,The warrior conquers or the infant dies.
Fill'd with his fire, the troops in squared arrayWait the wild hordes loose huddling to the fray;Their pointed arrows, rising on the bow,Look up the sky and chide the lagging foe.
Dread Zamor leads the homicidious train,Moves from the clefts and stretches o'er the plain.He gives the shriek; the deep convulsing soundThe hosts reecho, and the hills aroundRetain the rending tumult; all the airClangs in the conflict of the clashing war;But firm undaunted as a shelvy strandThat meets the surge, the bold Peruvians stand,With steady aim the sounding bowstring ply,And showers of arrows thicken thro the sky;When each grim host, in closer conflict join'd,Clench the dire ax and cast the bow behind;Thro broken ranks sweep wide their slaughtering course.Now struggle back, now sidelong swray the force.Here from grim chiefs is lopt the grisly head;All gride the dying, all deface the dead;There scattering o'er the field in thin array,Man tugs with man, and clubs with axes play;With broken shafts they follow and they fly,And yells and groans and shouts invade the sky;Round all the shatter'd groves the ground is strow'dWith sever'd limbs and corses bathed in blood.Long raged the strife; and where, on either side,A friend, a father or a brother died,No trace remain'd of what he was before,Mangled with horrid wounds and black with gore.
Now the Peruvians, in collected might,With one wide stroke had wing'd the savage flightyBut their bright Godhead, in his midday race,With glooms unusual veil'd his radiant face,Quench'd all his beams, tho cloudless, in affright,As loth to view from heaven the finish'd fight.A trembling twilight o'er the welkin moves,Browns the dim void, and darkens deep the groves;The waking stars, embolden'd at the sight,Peep out and gem the anticipated night;Day-birds, and beasts of light to covert fly,And owls and wolves begin their evening cry.The astonish'd Inca marks, with wild surprise,Dead chills on earth, no cloud in all the skies,His host o'ershaded in the field of blood,Gored by his foes, deserted by his God.Mute with amaze, they cease the war to wage,Gaze on their leaders and forget their rage;When pious Capac to the listening crowdRaised high his wand and pour'd his voice aloud:Ye chiefs and warriors of Peruvian race,Some sore offence obscures my father's face;What moves the Numen to desert the plain,Nor save his children, nor behold them slain?Fly! speed your course, regain the guardian town,Ere darkness shroud you in a deeper frown;The faithful walls your squadrons shall defend,While my sad steps the sacred dome ascend,To learn the cause, and ward the woes we fear:Haste, haste, my sons! I guard the flying rear.
The hero spoke; the trembling tribes obey,While deeper glooms obscure the source of day.Sudden the savage bands collect amain,Hang on the rear and sweep them o'er the plain;Their shouts, redoubling with the flying war.Drown the loud groans and torture all the air.The hawks of heaven, that o'er the field had stood,Scared by the tumult from the scent of blood,Cleave the far gloom; the beasts forget their prey,And scour the waste, and give the war its way.
Zamor elate with horrid joy beheldThe Sun depart, his children fly the field,And raised his rending voice: Thou darkening sky,Deepen thy damps, the fiend of death is nigh;Behold him rising from his shadowy throne,To veil this heaven and drive the conquer'd Sun;The glaring Godhead yields to sacred night,And his foil'd armies imitate his flight.Confirm, infernal Power, thy rightful reign,Give deadlier shades and heap the piles of slain;Soon the young captive prince shall roll in fire,And all his race accumulate the pyre.Ye mountain vultures, here your food explore,Tigers and condors, all ye gods of gore,In these rich fields, beneath your frowning sky,A plenteous feast shall every god supply.Rush forward, warriors, hide the plains with dead;Twas here our friends in former combat bled;Strow'd thro the waste their naked bones demandThis tardy vengeance from our conquering hand.