As weening that therewith they should ascribe
The strength of some fierce tenant of the wood,
The water, or the serial solitude,
Jaguar or vulture, water-wolf or snake.
The beast that prowls abroad in search of blood,
Or reptile that within the treacherous brake
Waits for the prey, upcoil’d, its hunger to aslake.
XLII.
Now soften’d as their spirits were by love,
Abhorrent from such thoughts they turn’d away;
And with a happier feeling, from the dove,
They named the child Yeruti. On a day
When smiling at his mother’s breast in play,
They in his tones of murmuring pleasure heard
A sweet resemblance of the stock-dove’s lay,
Fondly they named him from that gentle bird,
And soon such happy use endear’d the fitting word.
XLIII.
Days pass, and moons have wex’d and waned, and still
This dovelet nestled in their leafy bower
Obtains increase of sense, and strength and will,
As in due order many a latent power
Expands, — humanity’s exalted dower:
And they while thus the days serenely fled
Beheld him flourish like a vigorous flower
Which lifting from a genial soil its head
By seasonable suns and kindly showers is fed.
XLIV.
Ere long the cares of helpless babyhood
To the next stage of infancy give place,
That age with sense of conscious growth endued,
When every gesture hath its proper grace:
Then come the unsteady step, the tottering pace;
And watchful hopes and emulous thoughts appear;
The imitative lips essay to trace
Their words, observant both with eye and ear,
In mutilated sounds which parents love to hear.
XLV.
Serenely thus the seasons pass away;
And, oh! how rapidly they seem to fly
With those for whom to-morrow like to-day
Glides on in peaceful uniformity!
Five years have since Yeruti’s birth gone by,
Five happy years; — and ere the Moon which then
Hung like a Sylphid’s light canoe on high
Should fill its circle, Monnema again
Laying her burthen down must bear a mother’s pain.
XLVI.
Alas, a keener pang before that day,
Must by the wretched Monnema be borne!
In quest of game Quiara went his way
To roam the wilds as he was wont, one morn;
She look’d in vain at eve for his return.
By moonlight thro’ the midnight solitude
She sought him; and she found his garment torn,
His bow and useless arrows in the wood,
Marks of a jaguar’s feet, a broken spear, and blood.
A TALE OF PARAGUAY. CANTO II.
I.
O THOU who listening to the Poet’s song
Dost yield thy willing spirit to his sway,
Look not that I should painfully prolong
The sad narration of that fatal day
With tragic details: all too true the lay!
Nor is my purpose e’er to entertain
The heart with useless grief; but as I may,
Blend in my calm and meditative strain
Consolatory thoughts, the balm for real pain.
II.
Youth or Maiden, whosoe’er thou art,
Safe in my guidance may thy spirit be!
I wound not wantonly the tender heart:
And if sometimes a tear of sympathy
Should rise, it will from bitterness be free —
Yea, with a healing virtue be endued,
As thou in this true tale shalt hear from me
Of evils overcome, and grief subdued,
And virtues springing up like flowers in solitude.
III.
The unhappy Monnema when thus bereft
Sunk not beneath the desolating blow.
Widow’d she was: but still her child was left;
For him must she sustain the weight of woe,
Which else would in that hour have laid her low.
Nor wish’d she now the work of death complete:
Then only doth the soul of woman know
Its proper strength, when love and duty meet;
Invincible the heart wherein they have their seat.
IV.
The seamen who upon some coral reef
Are cast amid the interminable main,
Still cling to life, and hoping for relief
Drag on their days of wretchedness and pain.
In turtle shells they hoard the scanty rain,
And eat its flesh, sundried for lack of fire,
Till the weak body can no more sustain
Its wants, but sinks beneath its sufferings dire
Most miserable man who sees the rest expire!
V.
He lingers there while months and years go by:
And holds his hope tho’ months and years have past.
And still at morning round the farthest sky,
And still at eve his eagle glance is cast.
If there he may behold the far-off mast
Arise, for which he hath not ceased to pray.
And if perchance a ship should come at last,
And bear him from that dismal bank away,
He blesses God that he hath lived to see that day.
VI.
So strong a hold hath life upon the soul,
Which sees no dawning of eternal light,
But subject to this mortal frame’s controul,
Forgetful of its origin and right,
Content in bondage dwells and utter night.
By worthier ties was this poor mother bound
To life; even while her grief was at the height,
Then in maternal love support she found
And in maternal cares a healing for her wound.
VII.
For now her hour is come: a girl is born,
Poor infant, all unconscious of its fate,
How passing strange, how utterly forlorn!
The genial season served to mitigate
In all it might their sorrowful estate,
Supplying to the mother at her door
From neighbouring trees which bent beneath their weight,
A full supply of fruitage now mature,
So in that time of need their sustenance was sure.
VIII.
Nor then alone, but alway did the Eye
Of Mercy look upon that lonely bower.
Days past, and weeks; and months and years went by,
And never evil thing the while had power
To enter there. The boy in sun and shower
Rejoicing in his strength to youthhed grew:
And Mooma, that beloved girl, a dower
Of gentleness from bounteous nature drew,
With all that should the heart of womankind imbue.
IX.
The tears which o’er her infancy were shed
Profuse, resented not of grief alone:
Maternal love their bitterness allay’d,
And with a strength and virtue all its own
Sustain’d the breaking heart. A look, a tone,
A gesture of that innocent babe, in eyes
With saddest recollections overflown,
Would sometimes make a tender smile arise,
Like sunshine breaking thro’ a shower in vernal skies.
X.
No looks but those of tenderness were found
To turn upon that helpless infant dear;
And as her sense unfolded, never sound
Of wrath or discord brake upon her ear.
Her soul its nati
ve purity sincere
Possess’d, by no example here defiled;
From envious passions free, exempt from fear,
Unknowing of all ill, amid the wild
Beloving and beloved she grew, a happy child.
XI.
Yea, where that solitary bower was placed,
Tho’ all unlike to Paradise the scene,
(A wide circumference of woodlands waste:)
Something of what in Eden might have been
Was shadowed there imperfectly, I ween,
In this fair creature: safe from all offence,
Expanding like a shelter’d plant serene,
Evils that fret and stain being far from thence,
Her heart in peace and joy retain’d its innocence.
XII.
At first the infant to Yeruti proved
A cause of wonder and disturbing joy.
A stronger tie than that of kindred moved
His inmost being, as the happy boy
Felt in his heart of hearts without alloy
The sense of kind: a fellow creature she,
In whom when now she ceased to be a toy
For tender sport, his soul rejoiced to see
Connatural powers expand, and growing sympathy.
XIII.
For her he cull’d the fairest flowers, and sought
Throughout the woods the earliest fruits for her.
The cayman’s eggs, the honeycomb he brought
To this beloved sister, — whatsoe’er,
To his poor thought, of delicate or rare
The wilds might yield, solicitous to find.
They who affirm all natural acts declare
Self-love to be the ruler of the mind,
Judge from their own mean hearts, and foully wrong mankind.
XIV.
Three souls in whom no selfishness had place
Were here: three happy souls, which undefiled.
Albeit in darkness, still retain’d a trace
Of their celestial origin. The wild
Was as a sanctuary where Nature smiled
Upon these simple children of her own,
And cherishing whate’er was meek and mild,
Call’d forth the gentle virtues, such alone,
The evils which evoke the stronger being unknown.
XV.
What tho’ at birth we bring with us the seed
Of sin, a mortal taint, — in heart and will
Too surely felt, too plainly shewn in deed, —
Our fatal heritage; yet are we still
The children of the All Merciful: and ill
They teach, who tell us that from hence must flow
God’s wrath, and then his justice to fulfil,
Death everlasting, never-ending woe:
O miserable lot of man if it were so!
XVI.
Falsely and impiously teach they who thus
Our heavenly Father’s holy will misread!
In bounty hath the Lord created us,
In love redeem’d. From this authentic creed
Let no bewildering sophistry impede
The heart’s entire assent, for God is good.
Hold firm this faith, and, in whatever need,
Doubt not but thou wilt find thy soul endued
With all-sufficing strength of heavenly fortitude!
XVII.
By nature peccable and frail are we,
Easily beguiled; to vice, to error prone;
But apt for virtue too. Humanity
Is not a field where tares and thorns alone
Are left to spring; good seed hath there been sown
With no unsparing hand. Sometimes the shoot
Is choked with weeds, or withers on a stone;
But in a kindly soil it strikes its root.
And flourisheth, and bringeth forth abundant fruit.
XVIII.
Love, duty, generous feeling, tenderness,
Spring in the uncontaminated mind;
And these were Mooma’s natural dower. Nor less
Had liberal Nature to the boy assign’d.
Happier herein than if among mankind
Their lot had fallen, — oh, certes happier here!
That all things tended still more close to bind
Their earliest ties, and they from year to year
Retain’d a childish heart, fond, simple, and sincere.
XIX.
They had no sad reflection to alloy
The calm contentment of the passing day,
No foresight to disturb the present joy.
Not so with Monnema; albeit the sway
Of time had reach’d her heart, and worn away,
At length, the grief so deeply seated there,
The future often, like a burthen, lay
Upon that heart, a cause of secret care
And melancholy thought: yet did she not despair.
XX.
Chance from the fellowship of human kind
Had cut them off, and chance might reunite.
On this poor possibility her mind
Reposed; she did not for herself invite
The unlikely thought, and cherish with delight
The dream of what such change might haply bring;
Gladness with hope long since had taken flight
From her; she felt that life was on the wing,
And happiness like youth has here no second spring.
XXI.
So were her feelings to her lot composed
That to herself all change had now been pain.
For Time upon her own desires had closed;
But in her children as she lived again,
For their dear sake she learnt to entertain
A wish for human intercourse renew’d;
And oftentimes, while they devour’d the strain,
Would she beguile their evening solitude
With stories strangely told and strangely understood.
XXII.
Little she knew, for little had she seen,
And little of traditionary lore
Had reach’d her ear; and yet to them I ween
Their mother’s knowledge seem’d a boundless store.
A world it opened to their thoughts; yea more, —
Another world beyond this mortal state.
Bereft of her they had indeed been poor,
Being left to animal sense, degenerate,
Mere creatures, they had sunk below the beasts’ estate.
XXIII.
The human race, from her they understood,
Was not within that lonely hut confined,
But distant far beyond their world of wood
Were tribes and powerful nations of their kind;
And of the old observances which bind
People and chiefs, the ties of man and wife,
The laws of kin religiously assign’d,
Rites, customs, scenes of riotry and strife,
And all the strange vicissitudes of savage life.
XXIV.
Wondering they listen to the wonderous tale,
But no repining thought such tales excite:
Only a wish, if wishes might avail,
Was haply felt, with juvenile delight,
To mingle in the social dance at night,
Where the broad moonshine, level as a flood,
O’erspread the plain, and in the silver light,
Well-pleased, the placid elders sate and view’d
The sport, and seem’d therein to feel their youth renew’d.
XXV.
But when the darker scenes their mother drew,
What crimes were wrought when drunken fury raged,
What miseries from their fatal discord grew
When horde with horde in deadly strife engaged:
The rancorous hate with which their wars they waged,
The more unnatural horrors which ensued,
When, with inveterate vengeanc
e unassuaged,
The victors round their slaughtered captives stood,
And babes were bro’t to dip their little hands in blood:
XXVI.
Horrent they heard; and with her hands the Maid
Prest her eyes close as if she strove to blot
The hateful image which her mind pourtray’d.
The Boy sate silently, intent in thought;
Then with a deep-drawn sigh, as if he sought
To heave the oppressive feeling from his breast,
Complacently compared their harmless lot
With such wild life, outrageous and unblest,
Securely thus to live, he said, was surely best.
XXVII.
On tales of blood they could not bear to dwell,
From such their hearts abhorrent shrunk in fear.
Better they liked that Monnema should tell
Of things unseen; what power had placed them here,
And whence the living spirit came, and where
It past, when parted from this mortal mold;
Of such mysterious themes with willing ear
They heard, devoutly listening while she told
Strangely-disfigured truths, and fables feign’d of old.
XXVIII.
By the Great Spirit man was made, she said,
His voice it was which peal’d along the sky,
And shook the heavens and fill’d the earth with dread.
Alone and inaccessible, on high
He had his dwelling-place eternally,
And Father was his name. This all knew well;
But none had seen his face: and if his eye
Regarded what upon the earth befell,
Or if he cared for man, she knew not: — who could tell?
XXIX.
But this, she said, was sure, that after death
There was reward and there was punishment:
And that the evil doers, when the breath
Of their injurious lives at length was spent,
Complete Poetical Works of Robert Southey Page 130