Whose sire thy Mother knew not? She at eve
Walked in the temple court, and saw from Heaven
A plume descend, as bright and beautiful
As if some spirit had embodied there
The rainbow hues, or dipt it in the light
Of setting suns. To her it floated down;
She placed it in her bosom, to bedeck
The altar of the God; she sought it there;
Amaz’d she found it not; amaz’d she felt
Another life infused. — From whence art thou,
O Son of Mystery? from whence art thou,
Whose sire thy Mother knew not?
Grief was hers,
Wonder and grief; for life was in her womb,
And her stern children with revengeful eyes
Beheld their mother’s shame. She saw their frowns,
She knew their plots of blood. Where shall she look
For succor, when her sons conspire her death;
Where hope for comfort, when her daughter whets
The impious knife of murder? — From her womb
The voice of comfort came, tile timely aid;
Already at her breast the blow was aim’d,
When forth Mexitli leapt, and in his hand
The angry spear, to punish and to save.
Glory to thee, the Great, the Terrible,
Mexitli, guardian God!
Arise and save,
Mexitli, save thy people! Dreadful one,
Arise, redeem thy city, and revenge!
An impious, an impenetrable foe,
Hath blacken’d thine own altars with the blood
Of thine own priests; hath dash’d thine Image down.
In vain did valour’s naked breast oppose
Their mighty arms; in vain the feeble sword
On their impenetrable mail was driven.
Not against thee, Avenger, shall those arms
Avail, nor that impenetrable mail
Resist the fiery arrows of thy wrath.
Arise, go forth in anger, and destroy!
XXII.
Aztlan, meantime, presents a hideous scene
Of slaughter. The hot sunbeam in her streets
Parch’d the blood pools; the slain were heaped in hills;
The victors, stretch’d in every little shade,
With unhelmed heads reclining on their shields,
Slept the deep sleep of weariness. Ere long,
To needful labour rising, from the gates
They drag the dead; and with united toil
They dig upon the plain the general grave,
The grave of thousands, deep and wide and long.
Ten such they delv’d; and o’er the multitudes,
Who levelled with the plain the deep-dug pits,
Ten monumental hills they heaped on high.
Next, horror heightening joy, they overthrew
The skull-built towers, the files of human heads,
And earth to earth consigned them. To the flames
They cast the idols, and upon the wind
Scattered their ashes; then the temples fell,
Whose black and putrid walls were scaled with blood,
And not one stone of those accursed piles
Was on another left.
Victorious thus
In Aztlan, it behooved the Cymry now
There to collect their strength, and there await,
Or thence with centred numbers urge, the war.
For this was Ririd missioned to the ships;
For this Lincoya from the hills invites
Erillyab and her tribe. There did not breathe
On this wide world a happier man that day
Than young Lincoya, when from their retreat
He bade his countrymen come repossess
The land of their forefathers; proud at heart
To think how great a part himself had borne
In their revenge, and that beloved one,
The gentle saviour of the Prince, whom well
He knew his own dear love, and for the deed
Still dearer lov’d the dearest. Round the youth,
Women and children, the infirm and old,
Gather to hear his tale; and as they stood
With eyes of steady wonder, outstretch’d necks,
And open lips of listening eagerness,
Fast play’d the tide of triumph in his veins,
Flushed his brown cheek, and kindled his dark eye.
And now, reposing from his toil awhile,
Lincoya, on a crag above the straits,
Sate underneath a tree, whose twinkling leaves
Sung to the gale at noon. Ayayaca
Sate by him in the shade: the old man had lov’d
The youth beside him from his boyhood up,
And still would call him boy. They sate and watch’d
The laden bisons winding down the way,
The multitude who now with joy forsook
Their desolated dwellings; and their talk
Was of the days of sorrow, when they groan’d
Beneath the intolerable yoke, till, sent
By the Great Spirit o’er the pathless deep,
Prince Madoc the Deliverer, came to save.
As thus they commun’d, came a woman up,
Seeking Lincoya; ’twas Aculhua’s slave,
The nurse of Coatel. Her wretched eye,
Her pale and livid countenance, foretold
Some tale of misery; and his life-blood ebb’d
In ominous fear. But, when he heard her words
Of death, he seiz’d the lance, and rais’d his arm
To strike the blow of comfort.
The old man
Caught his uplifted hand: — O’er-hasty boy,
Quoth he, regain her yet, if she was dear!
Seek thy beloved in the Land of Souls,
And beg her from the Gods. The Gods will hear,
And, in just recompense of love so true,
Restore their charge.
The miserable youth
Turned at his words a hesitating eye.
I knew a prisoner, — so the old man pursued,
Or hoping to beguile the youth’s despair
With tales that suited the despair of youth,
Or credulous himself of what he told, —
I knew a prisoner once who welcomed death
With merriment and songs, and joy of heart,
Because, he said, the friends whom he lov’d best
Were gone before him to the Land of Souls;
Nor would they, to resume their mortal state,
Even when the Keeper of the Land allow’d,
Forsake its pleasures; therefore he rejoiced
To die, and join them there. I question’d him,
How of these hidden things unknowable
So certainly he spake. The man replied,
One of our nation lost the maid he lov’d;
Nor would he bear his sorrow, — being one
Into whose heart feat never found a way, —
But to the Country of the Dead pursued
Her spirit. Many toils he underwent,
And many dangers gallantly surpass’d,
Till to the Country of the Dead he came.
Gently the Guardian of the Land receiv’d
The living suppliant, listen’d to his prayer,
And gave him back the Spirit of the Maid.
But from that happy country, from the songs
Of joyance, from the splendour-sparkling dance,
Unwillingly compell’d, the Maiden’s Soul
Loath’d to return; and he was warn’d to guard
The subtle captive well and warily,
Till, in her mortal tenement relodged,
Mortal delights might win her to remain
A sojourner on earth. Such lessoning
The Ruler of the Souls departed gave;
And, mindful of his charge,
the adventurer brought
His subtle captive home. There, underneath
The shelter of a hut, his friends had watch’d
The Maiden’s corpse, secur’d it from the sun,
And fanned away the insect swarms of heaven.
A busy hand marr’d all the enterprize:
Curious to see the Spirit, he unloos’d
The knotted bag which held her, and she fled.
Lincoya, thou art brave; where man has gone,
Thou wouldst not fear to follow!
Silently
Lincoya listened, and with unmov’d eyes:
At length he answer’d, Is the journey long?
The old man replied, A way of many moons.
I know a shorter path! exclaimed the youth;
And up he sprung, and from the precipice
Darted: a moment, — and Ayayaca heard
His body fall upon the rocks below.
XXIII.
Maid of the golden locks, far other lot
May gentle Heaven assign thy happier love,
Blue-eyed Senena! — She, though not as yet
Had she put off her boy-habiliments,
Had told Goervyl all the history
Of her sad flight, and easy pardon gain’d
From that sweet heart, for guile which meant no ill,
And secrecy, in shame too long maintain’d.
With her dear Lady now, at this still hour
Of evening is the seeming page gone forth,
Beside Caermadoc mere. They loitered on,
Along the windings of its grassy shore,
In such free interchange of inward thought
As the calm hour invited; or at times,
Willingly silent, listening to the bird
Whose one repeated melancholy note,
By oft repeating melancholy made,
Solicited the ear; or gladlier now
Hearkening that cheerful one, who knoweth all
The songs of all the winged choristers,
And in one sequence of melodious sounds
Pours all their music. But a wilder strain
At fits came o’er the water; rising now,
Now with a dying fall, in sink and swell
More exquisitely sweet than ever art
Of man evok’d from instrument of touch,
Or beat, or breath. It was the evening gale,
Which, passing o’er the harp of Caradoc,
Swept all its chords at once, and blended all
Their music into one continuous flow.
The solitary Bard, beside his harp,
Leant underneath a tree, whose spreading boughs,
With broken shade that shifted to the breeze,
Played on the waving waters. Overhead,
There was the leafy murmur; at his foot,
The lake’s perpetual ripple; and from far,
Borne on the modulating gale, was heard,
The roaring of the mountain cataract. —
A blind man would have love’d the lovely spot.
Here was Senena by her Lady led,
Trembling, but not reluctant. They drew nigh,
Their steps unheard upon the elastic moss,
Till playfully Goervyl, with quick touch,
Ran o’er the harp-strings. At the sudden sound
He rose. — Hath then thy hand, quoth she, O Bard,
Forgot its cunning, that the wind should be
Thine harper? — Come! one strain for Britain’s sake;
And let the theme be woman! — He replied,
But if the strain offend, O Lady fair,
Blame thou the theme, not me! Then to the harp
He sung, — Three things a wise man will not trust,
The Wind, the Sunshine of an April day,
And Woman’s plighted faith. I have beheld
The Weathercock upon the steeple point
Steady from morn till eve; and I have seen
The bees go forth upon an April morn,
Secure the sunshine will not end in showers;
But when was Woman true?
False Bard! thereat,
With smile of playful anger, she exclaimed;
False Bard, and slanderous song! Were such thy thoughts
Of woman, when thy youthful lays were heard
In Heilyn’s hall? — But at that name his heart
Leap’d, and his cheek with sudden flush was fir’d,
In Heilyn’s hall, quoth he, I learn’d the song.
There was a Maid, who dwelt among the hills
Of Arvon, and to one of humbler birth
Had pledged her troth, not rashly, nor beguil’d; —
They had been playmates in their infancy,
And she in all his thoughts had borne a part,
And all his joys. The Moon and all the Stars
Witness’d their mutual vows; and for her sake
The song was fram’d; for, in the face of day,
She broke them. — But her name? Goervyl asked.
Quoth he, The poet lov’d her still too well
To couple it with shame.
O fate unjust
Of womankind! she cried; our virtues bloom,
Like violets, in shade and solitude,
While evil eyes hunt all our failings out,
For evil tongues to bruit abroad in jest,
And song of obloquy! — I knew a Maid,
And she, too, dwelt in Arvon; and she, too,
Lov’d one of lowly birth, who ill repaid
Her spotless faith: for he to ill reports,
And tales of falsehood cunningly devis’d,
Lent a light ear, and to his rival left
The loathing Maid. The wedding-day arriv’d;
The harpers and the gleemen, far and near,
Came to the wedding-feast; the wedding guests
Were come, the altar dress’d, the bridemaids met;
The father, and the bridegroom, and the priest,
Wait for the-bride. But she the while did off
Her bridal robes, and clipped her golden locks,
And put on boy’s attire, through wood and wild
To seek her own true love; and over sea,
Forsaking all for him, she followed him,
Nor hoping nor deserving fate so fair;
And at his side she stood, and heard him wrong
Her faith with slanderous tales; and his dull eye,
As it had learned his heart’s forgetfulness,
Knows not the trembling one, who even now
Yearns to forgive him all!
He turn’d; he knew
The blue-eyed Maid, who fell upon his breast.
XXIV.
Hark! from the towers of Aztlan how the shouts
Of clamorous joy re-ring! the rocks and hills
Take up the joyful sound, and o’er the lake
Roll their slow echoes. — Thou art beautiful,
Queen of the Valley! thou art beautiful!
Thy walls, like silver, sparkle to the sun;
Melodious wave thy groves; thy garden sweets
Enrich the pleasant air; upon the lake
Lie the long shadows of thy towers; and high
In heaven thy temple-pyramids arise,
Upon whose summit now, far visible
Against the clear blue sky, the Cross of Christ
Proclaims unto the nations round the news
Of thy redemption. Thou art beautiful,
Aztlan! O City of the Cymbric Prince!
Long may’st thou flourish in thy beauty, long
Prosper beneath the righteous conqueror,
Who conquers to redeem! Long years of peace
And happiness await thy Lord and thee,
Queen of the Valley!
Hither joyfully
The Hoamen came to repossess the land
Of their forefathers. Joyfully the youth
Come shouting, with acclaim of grateful praise,
Their great Deliverer’s name; the old, in talk
Of other days, which mingled with their joy
Memory of many a hard calamity,
And thoughts of time and change, and human life
How changeful and how brief. Prince Madoc met
Erillyab at the gate. — Sister and Queen,
Said he, here let us hold united reign,
O’er our united people; by one faith,
One interest, bound, and closer to be link’d
By laws and language, and domestic ties,
Till both become one race, for evermore
Indissolubly knit.
O friend! she cried,
The last of all my family am I;
Yet sure, though last, the happiest, and by Heaven
Favoured abundantly above them all.
Dear friend, and brother dear! enough for me
Beneath the shadow of thy shield to dwell,
And see my people, by thy fostering care,
Made worthy of their fortune. Graciously
Hath the Beloved One ordained all,
Educing good from ill, himself being good.
Then to the royal palace of the Kings
Of Aztlan, Madoc led Erillyab,
There where her sires had held their ruder reign,
To pass the happy remnant of her years,
Honoured and lov’d by all.
Now had the Prince
Provided for defence, disposing all
As though a ready enemy approach’d.
But from Patamba yet no arkiy mov’d:
Four Heralds only, by the King despatch’d,
Drew nigh the town. The Hoamen, as they came,
Knew the green mantle of their privilege,
The symbols which they bore, an arrow-point
Depressed, a shield, a net, which, from the arm
Suspended, held their food. They through the gate
Pass with permitted entrance, and demand
To see the Ocean Prince. The conqueror
Received them, and the elder thus began:
Thus to the White King, King Yuhidthiton
His bidding sends; such greeting as from foe
Foe may receive, where individual hate
Is none, but honour and assur’d esteem,
And what were friendship, did the Gods permit,
The King of Aztlan sends. Oh, dream not thou
That Aztlan is subdued; nor in the pride
Of conquest tempt thy fortune! Unprepar’d
For battle, at an hour of festival,
Complete Poetical Works of Robert Southey Page 87