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 religious15 Boyle,
In mimic priesthood grave or robed in state,
O’erwhelm 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 spare
The 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 charms
Pours brighter crimson o’er his spotless arms,
Will pass the tempting prey and glut his rage
On 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 show
What 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 flaming16 suffocates the skies.
The march begins; the nations in affright
Quake as he moves and wage the fruitless fight;
Through 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,
Through 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 name
And monkish fury guide the sacred flame.
O’er crowded fanes their fires unhallow’d bend,
Climb the wide roofs, the lofty towers ascend,
Pour through 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 sail
Ne’er markt 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 skies
Seen 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 led
The 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 scope
Of 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 expand
Their 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 proclaims
A long bright lineage of imperial names;
Where the brave roll of Incas love to trace
The 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 begun
From heaven, the children of their god the Sun;
By him sent forth a polisht state to frame,
Crush the fiend gods that human victims claim,
With cheerful rites their pure devotions pay
To the bright orb17 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’d
To 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 zone
Felt the same sceptre and confirm’d the throne.
Near Cusco’s wall, where still their hallow’d isle
Bathes in its lake and wears its verdant smile,
Where these prime parents of the sceptred line
Their advent made and spoke their birth divine,
Behold their temple stand; its glittering spires
Light the glad waves and aid their father’s fires.
Archt in the walls of gold, its portal gleams
With 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
