Cleave the far gloom; the beasts forget their prey
And scour the waste and give the war its way.
Zamor elate with horrid joy beheld
The 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 through the waste their naked bones demand
This tardy vengeance from our conquering hand.
He said; and high before the tiger-train
With longer strides hangs forward o’er the slain,
Bends like a falling tree, to reach the foe
And o’er tall Capac aims a forceful blow.
The king beheld the ax, and with his wand
Struck the raised weapon from the sachem’s hand;
Then clencht the falling helve, and whirling round,
Fell’d a close file of heroes to the ground;
Nor stay’d, but follow’d where his people run,
Fearing to fight, forsaken by the Sun;
Till Cusco’s walls salute their longing sight,
And the wide gates receive their rapid flight.
The folds are barr’d, the foes in shade conceal’d,
Like howling wolves, rave round the frighted field.
The monarch now ascends the sacred dome;
The Sun’s fixt image there partakes the gloom;
Through all the shrines, where erst on new-moon29 days
Swell’d the full choirs of consecrated praise,
A tomb-like silence reigns; till female cries
Burst forth at last, and these sad accents rise:
Was it for this, my son to distant lands
Must trace the wilds and tempt those lawless bands?
And does the god obscure his golden throne
In mournful darkness for my slaughter’d son?
Oh, had his beam, ere that disastrous day
That call’d the youth from these fond arms away,
Received my spirit to its native sky,
That sad Oella might have seen him die!
Where slept thy shaft of vengeance, O my god!
When those fell tigers drank his sacred blood?
Did not the pious prince, with rites divine,
Feed the pure flame in this thy hallow’d shrine?
And early learn, beneath his father’s hand,
To shed thy blessings round the favor’d land?
Form’d by thy laws the royal seat to grace,
Son of thy son and glory of his race.
Where, my lost Rocha, rests thy lovely head?
Where the rent robes thy hapless mother made?
I see thee mid those hideous hills of snow,
Pursued and slaughter’d by the wildman foe;
Or doom’d a feast for some pretended god
Drench his black altar with celestial blood.
Snatch me, O Sun, to happier worlds of light—
No, shroud me, shroud me with thyself in night.
Thou hear’st me not, thou dread departed Power,
Thy face is dark and Rocha lives no more.
Thus heard the silent king; his equal heart
Caught all her grief and bore a father’s part.
The cause suggested by her tender moan,
The cause perchance that veil’d the midday sun,
And shouts that spoke the still approaching foe
Fixt him suspense, in all the strength of woe.
A doubtful moment held his changing choice;
Now would he sooth her, half assumes his voice;
But greater cares the rising wish control
And call forth all his energy of soul.
Why should he cease to ward the coming fate,
Or she be told the foes besiege the gate?
He turn’d in haste; and now their image-god
High on the spire with newborn lustre glow’d;
Swift through the portal flew the hero’s eye
And hail’d the growing splendor in the sky.
The troops courageous at return of light
Throng round the dome, impatient for the fight;
The king descending in the portal stood
And thus addrest the all-delighting god:
O sovereign soul of heaven, thy changing face
Makes or destroys the glory of thy race.
If from this mortal life my child be fled,
First of thy line that ever graced the dead;
If thy bright splendor ceased on high to burn
For that loved youth who never must return,
Forgive thine armies, when in fields of blood
They lose their strength and fear the frowning god.
As now thy glory with superior day
Glows through the field and leads the warrior’s way,
May our exalted souls, to vengeance driven,
Burn with new brightness in the cause of heaven.
For thy slain son the murderous horde shall bleed;
We mourn the hero, but avenge the deed.
He said; and from the battlement on high
A watchful warrior raised a sudden cry:
“An Inca white on yonder altar tied—
’Tis Rocha’s self—the flame ascends his side.”
In sweeping haste the bursting gates unbar
And flood the champaign with a tide of war;
A cloud of arrows leads the rapid train,
They shout, they swarm, they hide the dusty plain;
Bows, quivers, girdles strow the field behind,
And the raised axes cleave the passing wind.
The prince, confest to every warrior’s sight,
Inspires each soul and centres all the fight;
Each hopes to snatch him from the kindling pyre,
Each fears his breath already flits in fire.
Here Zamor ranged his ax-men deep and wide,
Wedged like a wall, and thus the king defied:
Haste! son of light, pour fast the winged war,
The prince, the dying prince demands your care;
Hear how his death song chides your dull delay,
Lift longer strides, bend forward to the fray,
Ere flames infolding suffocate his groan,
Child of your beaming god, a victim to our own.
This said, he raised his shaggy shoulders high
And bade the shafts glide thicker through the sky.
Like the broad billows of the lifted main
Rolls into sight the long Peruvian train;
A white sail bounding on the billows tost,
Is Capac towering o’er the furious host.
Now meet the dreadful chiefs, with eyes on fire;
Beneath their blows the parting ranks retire;
In whirlwind-sweep their meeting axes bound,
Wheel, crash in air and plow the trembling ground;
Their sinewy limbs in fierce contortions bend,
And mutual strokes with equal force descend,
Parried with equal art, now gyring prest
High at the head, now plunging for the breast.
The king starts backward from the struggling foe,
Collects new strength and with a circling blow
Rusht furious on; his flinty edge, whirl’d wide
Met Zamor’s
