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 share
The toils of glory through 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 eyes
His 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,
Through all extremes of life thy voice attend,
In counsel lead thee or in arms defend.
And three firm youths, thy chosen friends, shall go
To 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 given
His 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 prepare
The 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 share
Their 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 day
That 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 see
Their doom reversed and owe their peace to thee;
Deluded sires, with murdering hands no more
Feed fancied demons with their children’s gore,
But, sway’d by happier sceptres, here behold
The 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 lautu23 graced his lofty brow.
They journey’d forth, o’ermarching far the mound
That flankt the kingdom on its Andean bound;
Ridge after ridge through 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 through 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 through 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 recalls in vain
Her silent shades, to recommence her reign;
The bursting mount gapes high, a sudden glare
Coruscates wide, till all the purpling air
Breaks into flame; it wheels and roars and raves
And wraps the welkin in its folding waves.
Light sailing cinders, through its vortex driven,
Stream high and brighten to the midst of heaven;
And, following slow, full floods of boiling ore
Swell, swoop aloft and through 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 through 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 child expiring lay
And the fond father thus was heard to pray:
Receive, O dreadful power, from feeble age
This last pure offering24 to thy sateless rage;
Thrice has thy vengeance on this hated land
Claim’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 crowd
Turn’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
