"Let me, myself, go down upon the coast,
And with our ready painters bring you back
A full account of what we look upon.
And if, perchance, these be the van of him
Whose coming we have watched these many years,
Then will we counsel further the emprise,
And in the watch and wake of all events,
Be not o'ertaken, but forestall the time."
"Your counsel has the sanction it desires;
I would not measure lances with the gods,"
The monarch answered: "In the dust I bend,
And plead the weakness of a human heart.
The South shall furnish victims for the block;
And Teuhtlile shall repair him to the coast;
The dread monition of the flaming stars
May be evaded with our ready zest.
Our gold and precious stones, with lavish hand,
Shall be poured out to coy them from our track;
For what are all the earth's indulgences,
Against the smiling favor of the gods?"
"Repair thou to the coast, my good Teuhtlile,
With plenteous retinue, and goodly stores;
With cotton fabrics of the latest cast;
With shields and cuirasses inlaid with gold;
The burnished mirror of the fervent sun;
The silver shining circlet of the moon;
"With robes of feather-cloth made rich with pearls;
And other trophies that your tact shall find.
Receive them kindly, as becomes their state;
And let thy wisdom gather in the full,
Their purpose and intent upon our land;
It may fall out they are as other men,
Unsanctioned at the chambers of the gods,
Yet must our moderation pave the way,
Till we have fully compassed their intent."
So said, so done; the embassy went forth
To meet the wily Spaniard on the coast;
They little dreamed of what a forest fox
They had to meet; they little knew the boast
That hung upon the challenge of their fate.
Their superstitions made them ready prey;
They opened wide their hospitable gate,
And gave the jewel of their life away.
It mattered little how they forced it back,
And tried to parley with their destiny;
The hungry lion was upon their track,
And they were lost forever and for aye.
Done in the name of Christ? Oh, spare the word!
Let not the Nazarene be buffeted;
Gold was the souvenir; the pitying Lord
Was, with this nation, just as deeply bled.
Their superstitions were the ready springs
The Spaniards played upon to break their hearts;
Deceit, as damnable as serpents' stings,
Barbed with its cruel spines their poisoned darts.
The embassy returned, and others went;
Still could they not force back this coming cloud—
The steady purpose and the black intent,
That wove with cunning fingers at their shroud.
Had Spain come as the Pilgrims at Cape Cod,
Or Penn upon the Delaware, to lead
The Aztec back to fatherhood and God,
And let their sturdy manhood for them plead,
How ready could their faces been upturned,
And hearts been melted into Christian mold!—
The brand of hell was on their bare backs burned,
And they were ground to ashes for their gold!
Did Christ e'er suffer such supreme disgrace?
Or on the cross; or in Gethsemane?
Did heavier drops of blood stand on his face
Than there were forced by this foul treachery?
Oh! how the patient Nazarene must bend
And break beneath fresh crosses every day—
Fresh Judases betraying him as friend,
And scorpions to sting him in the way!
Thank God! the time is coming when, as Judge,
The Man of Sorrows, ermined and supreme,
No longer as a packhorse or a drudge,
Shall hold the scales and watch the balance beam!
How heavy did he make the widow's mite;
How do the tears of men bend down the scale;
How ponderous is a pennyweight of right;
How do the little things of life prevail!
The Spanish Conquest, sometime, will be tried
Against the heart Malinche[R] threw away,
And Aztec's tears be placed against your pride.
O Hispagniola! you will rue the day—
A feather and a mountain to be weighed—
How shall the beam fly up at your disgrace,
How shall your curse, a hundred fold, be paid,
And what a glory light up Aztlan's face!
You came, like tender shepherds to the fold,
Yet, like a wolf, you tore the frighted flock;
You kissed but to decoy them from their gold;
Your seeming calm was but the earthquake's shock.
Your empty babble of the cross and Christ,
Was but the mask to cover your deceit;
Your hearts were canker, but your words enticed,
And never did a fouler scheme make conquest more complete.
Not Aztlan, with her bare and bleeding breast,
Alone, hath felt thy treachery too late;
Columbus, in his chains and sorely pressed,
Bends to thy penalty for being great.
A thousand white-robed saints with bony palms
Shake their accusing fingers in thy face;
Their bodies burned, their souls changed into psalms.
To chant in mournful cadence thy disgrace.
ARRIVAL OF THE SPANIARDS AT MEXICO.
November comes as Autumn's requiem,
To sigh and sough the harvest, and the field,
The winged ecstatics mourn, and then are dumb,
And life and growth in full submission yield.
Mexitli is not altogether clad
In nature's winding sheet of yellow leaves;
And yet her year is getting old and sad,
And youth and fruitage at his bedside grieves.
As on the lingering footsteps of the year—
A stranger and the Winter, hand in hand,
Both on the threshold as two ghosts appear.
One strikes the orbit with its wasting sand,
The other coils around the nation's throat;
The nation and the year together die;
Both on the waste of time are set afloat,
And sound alike death's mighty mystery.
In all the glitter at his vast command,
Went Montezuma to receive his guests;
If gold be great, then was it truly grand.
The royal plume upon his forehead rests;
His feet pressed soles of heavy beaten gold;
His cloak and anklets sprinkled o'er with pearls,
And only noble hands are left to hold
The blazing palanquin. Like titled Earls,
They guard the skirts of royalty from stain
Against the common people; all the same
As in our ripened age. 'Tis hard to gain
Much on the sodden march of royalty,
Where accident supplants all other claim.
The monarch in the easy prime of life,
But lightly bronzed. The glowing, mellow hue
That lit his cheek, seemed borrowed from the sun,
And shadowing a heart that beat as true
To God and country as he knew their names,—
As any monarch that e'er wore a crown.
His open-hearted welcome, like himself,
Was, as the hardy yeoman, bare and brown.
He felt that he was meeting destiny,
Yet, to its solving, he would bend the knee
With dignity and grace; not turn away,
But face it with a ready, cheerful glance,
And meeting night, surcharge it with the day;
And grasping, break, if possible, the lance
That he felt sure was leveled at his breast.
He did not know the Inquisition stood,
With rack and torture at his very gate;
That it had traveled half the world for blood
To whet its throat for St. Bartholomew
And came with ravening appetite for him.
Those wary messengers he little knew,
Or those brown eyes would suddenly grown dim,
And the warm heart would furnaced up its heat;
And he would grappled at its very throat;
And man to man, and blood to blood, would meet,
And not a plume above one corselet float
To bear the story back of it to Spain.
They were not schooled in all the arts of war,
Nor were they wise in all the world's deceit;
Yet would they fought beneath their fated star,
And challenged every stubborn step, though it had proven vain.
But in this fleecy covering, the wolf
So hid its teeth that it was at the door
Before they dreamed of treachery. The gulf
Lay many leagues behind their foes; its shore
And all the distance had been gained by stealth.
Tlascala had been humbled on the march,
And promised spoils from Montezuma's wealth;
But they had reached the keystone of the arch,
At superstition's beck. The Aztec's gods
Had chained their valor, or their greater odds
Would crushed the viper, as it should have been,
And left it to a purer age, to seek a common kin.
The Monarch gave them hostelry and cheer,
Food of the rarest and the sparkling pulque,
And quarters for their troopers, all quite near
To his own palace gates. The very bulk
Of his well-laden markets was thrown down
To their repletion, for their loaded board.
They fared as princes favored of the crown,
Of all the best the Kingdom could afford.
The fair Malinche was interpreter,
And Montezuma spoke to them through her.
He told them of the mighty Quetzalcoatl,
And how he recognized them as his kin;
He thought he had their history, the whole
Vast riddle of their ancient origin.
"I rule a mighty nation," quoth the King.
"All Anahuac is subject to my sway;
And yet, I recognize that you have come
From the strong palace of a mightier lord,
To whom I bend as subject; and with you
We now will sway the scepter of his will.
We long have watched his coming from the East,
And now that he has sent his messengers,
Our hearts are ready for his wise commands.
We would have urged your coming on before,
But that we heard of tales of cruelty,
Which, haply we may now believe as false,
We welcome you with all our open hearts,
"And hope you may enjoy our humble fare.
We are not wise, as you are, for our lives
Have not caught wisdom from the fountain head,
And hung upon the lips of Quetzalcoatl;
Yet are we cousins in the faded past,
And welcome you as brothers and as friends."
How caught the Spanish Chieftain at the words!
How did he gloat upon this artifice!
How useless hung their heavy-hilted swords
That they should win a nation at this price!
With what a care he turned the dusty past,
To cover up the semblance of disguise;
And fix their superstition still more fast,
That he might clutch and carry home the prize.
"There is grandeur in the tented field;
The bivouac and the smoldering camp-fires."
The human soul unconsciously must yield
To its supremest charm, where man aspires
To meet his fellow-man at one great bar;
And "valor speaks to valor" of its claim,
In all the panoply of stubborn war,
And drops the gauntlet in a nation's name.
It may be terrible, but it is grand
To see the banners flaunting in the breeze;
To hear the bugle blare and stern command;
And see opposing forces strive to seize
From Nature's stern arbitrament of force
The laurel that shall deck the victor's brow;
And turn the stream of nations from its course.
The cutting of new sod by such a plow
May tear up all the tender ties of life;
And hearts be turned to ashes in its path;
These are the ponderous incidents of strife,
And made legitimate when wrath meets wrath;
But when the assassin creeps into our hearts,
And draws around him all their sanctities,
And he becomes a parcel of our parts,
And all we have or claim are made as his,
What human brush can paint the upraised hand
That smites our confidence at such an hour?
What simile can human tongue command?
It is, indeed, beyond our mortal power.
We talk of devil, but the word is tame;
It cannot reach the climax we have sought;
It only frets us into hotter flame,
And beggars all the litany of thought.
I do not claim that Cortez was not brave;
Nor would I tear one laurel from his brow.
I only claim he stole the devil's glaive;
He held it then, and let him hold it now.
The issues of their lives are both with God,
The brown-eyed Monarch and the dark-eyed Knight.
The flowers of charity should strew the sod
Above them both; yet, Cosmos! was it right?
O world of human hearts and human lives!
Was Montezuma worthy of this fate?
O world of husbands! world of tender wives!
Behold your Aztlan! bleeding, desolate,
And say, if all their multiple of sins,
Though they be blacker than the blackest night,
Were worthy of the end that now begins
To grind them down to powder? Was it right
For Spain to steal the scepter from the hand
That held it out in welcome to their doors,
And poured their treasures out as free as sand,
And oped with lavish all their loaded stores;
To steal the key of superstition's gate,
And break the lock upon their hard-earned gold,
And, fattening at their table, steal their plate,
And feasting on their lambs to steal their fold;
To make a prison of the room he gave
In which to hold the Monarch as a slave?
O pitying God! thy thunderbolts were scarce.
Why crushed they not this hell-begotten farce?
And when the Aztecs, goaded to the quick
By the proud insolence of such a horde,
Could bear no longer parley, but were sick
Of such a visitor at such a board,
And rose en masse to crush the viper's fang,
They bring the Monarch out to face the crowd,
And plead for their immunity; the pang
That wrung his breast (for he, indeed, was proud)
Was like an arrow in his royal heart;
And yet he prayed for their forgiveness then,
And like a martyr bravely bore their part—
Search history; and find out greater men,
And they are less forgiving. There he stood,
His nation thronged before him, in its wrath;
Yet did he plead, before this multitude,
To spare the serpent, now across their path;
He could not name a promise not unbroke,
He could not offer one excuse for time,
He could not tell them why to hold their stroke,
He plead for hands scarred over with their crime.
Did ever charity reach loftier height?
Can Christian Spain outshine this sad, brown face?
How many souls in Christiandom, as white,
Would faced his countrymen, from such a place?
Great Montezuma! where shall we find room!
When Spain has such a multitude of saints
To save your enemies, you courted doom,
Yet would not kiss the cross with your complaints;
Therefore, anathema!—It will not do,
To pass a heretic at Heaven's gate;
You held no mumbled crusifix to view—
The Infallible has said it, you must wait.
Wait for a riper age to touch the chord
That quivers, all unconsciously, your praise;
When justice, only, draws the tardy sword,
And Earth's abhorrence covers those old days
With its repentant ashes, then my King
May rest his memory upon stubborn facts
Nor minstrels falter when they fain would sing
Their elegies implanted with his acts.
The Holy Inquisition, from old Spain,
And St. Bartholomew, from "Ma belle France,"
The hissing fagots of sweet Mary's reign—
These million martyrs, with their melting glance,
Look at his agony, across the sea,
Who, blind in superstition, groped his way
O'er harmless victims and much misery
To where the rays were slanting into day.
In Europe's face the star of Bethlehem,
With its benignant splendor, shed its light;
These but the groping nomads of old Shem,
Lost in the meshes, of a rayless night.
Those, neath the palm of Earth's philosophy;
These on the torchless desert, not a star
To guide them through life's potent mystery;
Those bringing all the wisdom from afar,
Though Montezuma's sins had cried to Heaven
In a far greater stress; yet what were they,
Paling his cruelties, and still forgiven,
To pour out greater vials the next day?
O Spain! you lent the sanction of your name,
To cover up the foulest deed of time;
Upon your skirt is fastened this great shame,
And nation never wore the brand of a more causeless crime.
DEATH OF MONTEZUMA.
One sad, sad task, awaits my faltering pen,
And I have done. One flower upon his grave,
Who in his dying could, alas! not save
His country from the vulturous maw of men.
They played upon the monarch with their arts,
Till he became a captive in their hands;
It was consistent with their Christian hearts
That their good host should follow their commands.
They said their Christian lord across the sea
Must have his treasure for their Christian use.
All this was bitter, yet, he did agree,
And bent a patient knee to their abuse.
They struck their temples, and the red, right hand
Of Aztlan rose upon them. They could bear
To see their monarch littled, and their land
Made tribute to a stranger; but, beware
Stern warriors of Castile! touch not their gods.
The hearts of Aztlan are but human hearts,
And at some shrine the whole creation nods;
Invade the sanctum, and the whole man starts.
Las Casas[S] would have won them with his love—
The potent key that opens every gate.
Let not deceit claim sanction from above;
It may assist upon the wheels of fate,
But what Spain offered through such legatees
Was worse than powder on the bated flame.
To gather fruit from such ill-freighted trees,
Was worse than stealing nightmare from a dream.
In Christ's good name they stole the monarch's gold;
They changed the name of Christ to treachery;
They gathered all the spoils their hands could hold,
And pointed to their Master on the tree.
Their Master? No! since Lucifer was hurled
Down from the shining chambers of the just
To vent his spleen upon a new-made world,
He never had a worthier task in trust,
Than that he gave to Spain's inglorious knights,
To rob this people of their vested rights.
The people gather at the palace gates,
And vengeance writes itself upon each face;
Their generosity no longer waits,
They spit upon, and spurn the outraged place.
It harbors those who wrote themselves as knaves
Upon the pliant tablets of their lives,
And now the incensed nation only craves
Deliverance for their children and their wives.
They know the belching cannon of the knights
Will make sad havoc in their stately host;
They know that Spain and Fate to-day unite;
They know, if fortune fails them, all is lost;
But they can bear no longer to be torn,
And swear by all the gods to pluck this thorn.
The Spaniards see their perfidy, too late;
And call great Montezuma to the gate.
"Why are my people here to-day in arms?
These stranger friends are still my welcome guests;
They soon will turn them backward to their homes.
Shall we raise hands against great Quetzalcoatl?
We fight against the gods? Lay down your arms!
Go to your homes, and all shall yet be well,
And peace shall reign in all Tenochtitlan[T]!"
They bent before him reverently at first.
It was a moment—then their anger burst:
"Base Aztec! woman! coward! sneaking slave!
The whites have made a puppet of your name!
Talk not of fighting 'gainst our honored gods;
We soil their sacred robes if we submit!"
A cloud of stones and arrows flew the air;
And Montezuma fell a victim of their rage and his despair.
His heart had broke when he beheld the throng,
For he was burning with his country's wrong;
And when the missiles smote his fevered crest,
His very soul was reaching out for rest.
They only helped to roll the burden off,
So long imprinted on his saddened face—
It was too much to hear his people scoff—
He fell; and they removed him from the place.
He never rose again, nor wished to rise;
He made no effort to outlive his land;
He felt his weakness, and he heard her cries;
He saw her sinking with his wasting sand.
He knew his enemies had stole the garb
Of gods to fasten on him their deceit;
That they had stung the nation with their barb,
And he would not survive its sore defeat.
He felt their scoffings were deserved of him,
For he should gathered wisdom with his years;
He saw his weakness when his sight was dim,
And poured his wasting moments out in tears.
They called the Priest to shrive him for his death—
The worthy Monk Olmedo[U] takes his palms;
It is in vain; his very latest breath
Repulses all their uninvited alms.
He dies an Aztec—honor to his name!
And spurns the symbols that have crushed him down.
What mockery when he is all aflame
With their abuses! Give him back his crown,
His country's honor, and its hard-earned gold.
But force no wormwood to his fevered lips;
His hand is pulseless, and will soon be cold;
His life was shadow; and his death—eclipse.
Great are the consolations of the cross—
The Father-Son of Calvary, and time.
Their glory compensates a kingdom's loss;
But piety must not be wed to crime.
Did all the roses blossom from the cross,
And all the thorns grow out upon the waste?
Then were the metal guarded from the dross,
And every crust be suited to our taste;
But bitter-sweet is all the book of life,
And thorns and roses crowd the tangled way;
And good and evil, always, are at strife—
Night always dogs the footsteps of the day.
Yet "figs cannot be gathered from the thorn,"
Nor "grapes from thistles," says the patient Lord—
One great, good life, like a new angel born,
Is the most potent sermon ever heard.
The hands that smote the Monarch in the face
Did honor to his ashes, cold and dead.
Their anger was rubbed out, and not a trace
Was left, as with their slow and measured tread
They bore his sacred ashes to the tomb
Within the walls of old Chapultepec,
Where stately trees, and flowers perennial bloom,
And, all the pulses of their lives in check,
Bow down to kiss the shrine of memory.
The sacred hush of death comes none too oft
To still the fevered brain and make us free—
It is a gentle hand, and moves so soft
That it compensates all our misery
By chaining all the lions of our life
And placing durance on the throbbing drum
That marshals us to earth's unpitying strife.
How should we reverence the hand that strikes our passions dumb!
Cortez and Montezuma; Aztlan, Spain—
The very mingling of these words is pain.
The one, bold, cold, unscrupulous and brave,
And making of each obstacle a slave;
Seeking his glory in the name of Christ,
To gain his ends unfaithful to each tryst.—
The fault is with the ethics of his race,
Which justify the means for any end,
And leave the moral aspect without place,
And to the foulest acts their ready sanction lend.
The thought of holding man to his account,
And throwing merit against circumstance,
Of cleansing souls at one great common fount,
Of holding out to man an equal chance—
These things were not considered in the least.
The glory of himself and Spain were first;
All the excesses pardoned by the Priest
Weaned the poor soul from any moral thirst.
A golden apple trembled on the limb,
And he must pluck it, at whatever cost.
What matter whose?—it should belong to him;
It was too tempting, and must not be lost:
The wall that lay before it must be scaled,
The owner of the field must be destroyed,
And if his prowess, in the effort failed,
Deceit and treachery must be employed.
The unbridled passions of the human soul
Linked with the crucifix in his emprise.
The lion, loosened and in full control—
The semblance of the Lamb to Aztlan's eyes:
A faithful offspring of the Papish loins,
The features of the Church in duplicate,
Though baser metals pass for golden coins,
Only earth's charity can make brave Cortez great.
But Montezuma conquers all our thought—
Tenochtitlan and old Chapultepec.
No greener shrine for memory can be sought;
The heart and conscience both alike bedeck
The unfading spectre of a soul sincere,
Who tugged at destiny against the dark—
The hand, unconscious, drops its laurels here.
His brown hands could not helm the fateful bark
Against the baleful breakers of old Spain;
Yet, who is proof against the foils of men.
His life is but a psalmody of pain.
What soul unmoved can touch it with the pen?
The link that bound the old world with the new,
With pure and patient hands, might been upturned,
And every missing chapter brought to view
By Clio gathered, and again inurned
In history's cloister; Egypt and Aztlan
Strike palms upon the bridges of the years;
But Spain denies the privilege to man,
And fills the vacuum with a nation's tears.
O Monarch of the fading, mighty past!
Great Montezuma! we are wed to thee.
Back of thy name the ocean is so vast
That we can only write—Eternity,
And leave the secret in thy broken breast.
We would that we could taken thy warm palm,
Held out in welcome from the mellow West,
And poured upon thy stricken life the balm
Of real enlightenment; and point thee back,
Over the ridges of the years, to God;
To where your people lost the beaten track,
And ever afterward were left to plod.
Those great sad eyes, once filled with light from Heaven,
Would shone like diamonds when they found the way,
And every fibre of thy nature striven
To turn thy nation's darkness into day.
Alas! 'tis vain! we beat the empty air.
Our tears are mingled with thy wasting breath;
We all are torn with thy warm heart's despair,
And mourn with Aztlan at thy fateful death.
CONCLUSION.