Loud the clatter, loud the tooting!
And the Mexican Te Deum
Rises up in noisy chorus,
As if many cats were mewing—
As if many cats were mewing,
But of that enlarged description
Which are “tiger-cats” entitled,
And, instead of mice, eat people!
When the nightwind carries with it
These loud noises to the seashore,
The poor Spaniards there encamping
Feel sensations far from pleasant.
Sadly ’neath the weeping willows
Are the Spaniards still remaining,
Gazing tow’rd the distant city
Which within the dark sea water
Mirrors back, in sheer derision,
All the flames of former pleasure—
There they stand, as in the pit
Of a vast gigantic playhouse,
Vitzliputzli’s temple’s radiant
Platform serving as the stage
Where they act a tragic myst’ry
To commemorate their triumph.
“Human sacrifice” the play is,
Old, full old, its plot, its fable;
But the piece is not so fearful
In the Christian treatment of it.
For into the blood is red wine,
And into the actual body
Is a thin and harmless wafer
Transubstantiated truly.
’Mongst these savages at present
Was the joke in downright earnest
Taken up; they fed on flesh,
And the blood was human blood.
This time ’twas indeed the pure blood
Of old Christians, which had never
Never mingled with the baser
Blood of Jews or of Moriscos.