PREHISTORIC RENDEZVOUS OF THE AZTECS.
On either side the crest of the Madre,
Where mountains kiss their hands to either sea,
One slope to blush upon the opening day,
The other, to drop down its tapestry
And hold the hand for promise of return,
Three nations, as three stars, to being burn.
The Toltecs, purest of the primal race,
The Chichamecs, devoted to the chase,
And Aztecs, strongest in the arts of war—
All, seeming thrown beneath one fateful star.
No painter limnes upon his labored scroll,
Be it fantastic, feast, or forest shades,
As war upon its victims; from the soul
(Plastic as new damped clay) it never fades
Till Time has ironed out the furrowed past;
And Peace, by laying fevered brows to rest,
Over the present has its mantle cast;
Then Nature folds its wardling to its breast.
So on these nations had been writ, in brief,
The deep-burned liturgy of hardened strife,
And through the furnace of their pungent grief,
They learn to plant the rootlets of their life.
One thing is never lacking, at the time,
When in their nascent passions, nations rise:
The craft of Priests, in every age and clime,
To "point a moral," or portend the skies.
And so, from cast-off altars to the sun,
New pleadings to new conjured gods arose;
The selfish passions since the world begun,
All seek supernal outlet on their foes.
One thing, not far from truth, grew into form:
The thought of one great, universal heart,
That beat against the window pane of thought,
And formed of all existences a part.
How near the passions of mankind will verge,
Sometimes, upon the borderland of bliss!
And all the race is bettered if they urge
Continuous march; nor turn their steps amiss;
A little light would lead them on to God,
And lacking, it the race for ages plod.
O that the infant eye of every race
Might recognize at once the Master's face!
All brought their tribute to Tonatiuh's shrine,
Still burnishing the sun with rays divine.
True worship strengthens in the wake of years;
Its song grows rhythmal with repeated chant;
Its beauty lingers, though it disappears;
Rekindle, and it melts the adamant.
But worship on a purely human base,
Though it may work its legends into song
And deify the noblest of its race,
Can never be unquestionably strong.
The happenings of Nature clog its wheels;
The elements brush down its cobweb foils;
And from its mimicry the heart appeals,
And heavenly souls are not for human toils.
It is impossible to still the brain
By merely human fiat at it thrust;
Man journeys out, and he returns again—
The Father's voice alone can call him from the dust.
And yet, each effort of the human soul,
To force existence for its latent wings,
Is of an energy that leaps control,
Whose germ from our immortal nature springs.
The very latch-key of the eternal realm,
Though touched in ignorance, commands the door.
A more than human wisdom guides the helm,
As we approach the palm-extending shore.
The hungry arms that reach out after God,
Are as the infants for the parent's breast;
The soul is weary of its fruitless plod,
And Nature beckons it to perfect rest.
What though the stream be poisoned, if its flow
Seeks only the great ocean to be lost;
Not long upon its bosom is it tossed,
Ere it recovers its old healthful glow.
The old-time sparkle of the mountain spring,
Gleams in the dew-drop that returns to earth.
No poison lurks within the second birth,
It ever carries healing on its wing.
Thus, howsoe'er the soul may find its way,
Over the wilderness to Jordan's plain,
It shall not fail of its eternal gain,
The night so trackless shall break into day.
The saint, whom angels ushered through the gate,
With pæans of rejoicing, once did grope
And lose his way, and loose his hold on hope—
No soul that reaches it is told to wait.
God waits upon the effort to reply,
And seeing human hands stretch out for aid,
His stronger palm is soon upon them laid—
Our weakness is the signet he cannot deny.
THE TOLTECS JOURNEY SOUTH.
The Toltecs were the first to break the way
Toward the vertex of the Summer sun;
To catch the fervor of his ripest ray,
And talismise the pilgrimage begun.
And after many days their fasting eyes
Are feasted with Mexitli's[A] lovely plain—
So like a newly-fashioned paradise,
An almost Eden, sprung to life again.
Her placid lakes gave back her deep blue sky
In rivalry of Nature—Nature's charms
Do cast reflected multiples, and try
To fold us in with her unnumbered arms.
Not all we see, but all we feel, invites,
Together with our seeing, to secure
An unrestricted homage; all unite
In this uncovered world, so rich and pure
And lade with sunshine, ripened into form,
Concentered rays to leaves and blossoms grown,
The larch impendent with its verdant cone,
The oak's historic battlement of storm,
The cypress mourning and exultant palms,
The provident maguey, whose offered alms
Found ready acceptation at their hands,
The maize, which they had known in northern lands,
Were native to her rich and virgin soil
And gave the husbandman unstinted spoil.
And thus, with Nature and themselves at rest,
Fresh inspiration from the God of peace
Expands and energizes every breast,
And fettered manhood labors for release.
Invention is emancipation : Time
Doth loosen Nature's fetters; man invents
Not one of those discoveries sublime
That couples his poor name with consequence.
The world had moved a million years or so
Ere Galileo blundered into prison
For telling how we are compelled to go.
The fog of superstition had not risen;
And he whose brain peered up above the cloud,
To widen the horizon of his thought,
Must be content to leave the gnarlish crowd
Of puppets and of priestcraft who have fought
The van of progress, immemorial time,
In fear some newly loosened truth might break
Some preconcerted dogma, deeming crime
The impulsive movement of the soul to slake
The thirst that God implanted there, to burn
Its way into the hidden and unseen,
And find new thoroughfares for its return,
And on creation's outer verge new entities to glean.
So did these primal pioneers look out
Beyond the compass of their husbandry,
And challenge their surroundings; manly, stout,
And earnest did they seek the mystic tree
Of knowledge in this Eden of the West,
Not interdicted by Divine decree,
But always open to the manly quest
And the unflagging purpose to be free.
The zodiac gave up its lettered scroll
To their inquiries; and the measured year
Unsealed the clasp that held it from control,
And truths that had seemed very far, revealed themselves quite near.
Their rudely fashioned lodges soon gave way
To buildings of a more pretentious form;
The forests and the quarries and the clay
Were forced to human vassalage. The charm
That held the forest templary from spoil
Was not entirely broken; after years
And Christian conquest must consume the toil
And travail of the centuries. Our tears,
Are but a poor atonement for the brand
Our westward march has made on Nature's back.
We mourn our forest fastnesses too late;
With hand unbridled we have torn their face,
And given legal sanction to their fate—
But what companionship can take their place?
Nearest to Nature's very heart of hearts,
The verdant monarchs beckon us to God;
Their benison with life alone departs;
They testify of Eden from the sod.
O man! that thy perfection should be lost,
When so much perfectness is left on earth!
How much of bitterness! With what a cost
Didst thou forget the sacred touch that hallowed thee at birth!
The worship of Hurakin, "Heart of Heaven,"
Spoke of a healthier, higher growth of soul,
The consciousness of sins to be forgiven;
A god, whom weakness could at once control;
A prophecy, of Fatherhood to come;
A ray that pencils from the "great white throne;"
A voice to energies, that had been dumb
For many centuries—prophetic groan
Of man's insatiate thirst for betterment,
Not all in vain. The white-winged dove of peace
For many years was theirs; they came and went
Beyond their borders, without let or lease;
Found sunnier climes to South; and, as a charm
Was laid upon their footsteps, they advance
To hover closer to their ancient god.
They still were pliant to his fateful glance,
And scanned his burnished surface to inquire
His potency in human destiny.
They had forgot the legend of his fire,
Yet, from his searching, steadfast eye, not one of them were free.
So pass they out from the historic ken—
Theirs, no aggressive way-mark on the earth.
We linger on their passage, and the pen
Would gladly pour regret upon the dearth
Of the indentures they have left to mark
Their peaceful, noiseless tread upon the shore;
But it is vain; yet out of all this dark,
One lesson may we glean: That evermore
The souls that move with nature on her march
Are those who drop, as she drops down her leaves;
They fill the earth with fruitfulness, and arch
The highway of the nations with their sheaves;
They sleep to history, but wake to God;
Theirs is the pass-key through eternal gates;
They write no vengeful Sanscrit on the sod;
They linger at no earthly court, but the recording seraph waits
To write them blessed of the Lord, the jewels of the fates.
THE AZTECS—AZTLAN.
The silver current of the upper Grande,
And where the Gila penetrates the East,
The Zuni lines its rocky bed with sand,
New ground from granite that has been released
From mountain base. The vertebrate Madre
Breaks into several center-stays of spine,
Which form the watershed that feeds the sea,
On either side the sunny slopes recline.
Where Coronado laid in after years
The scepter of his Sovereign, and bespoke
The unbroke silence, as the cycle nears
The bending of the neck to Hispagniola's yoke.
Here was the fabled Aztlan; and the race,
Whose ancestry had circled half the globe,
Have now their latest destiny to face.
O! could they peer the darkness through, and probe
The deep recesses of impending time!
Look for one moment on what was to be!
How would they cling to this rude mountain clime,
And bar the door of their futurity!
The Aztecs were a proud and prowent race;
In the dispersal at the far Northeast,
Now many years, they held the leading place;
Yet, in their husbandry, they were the least.
Their hands were skilled to turbulence and strife;
The bow, the lance, and the rude hunter's knife—
Such were their ready implements; but peace
Found them all unacquainted; her surcease
Requires a range of weaponry diverse.
The hands that hew down others, lips that curse,
Both must be newly christened; and the arts
That unify the race with nature's ways
Must hard their hands and reimburse their hearts,
And time their lips with sunnier kinds of lays.
As if to fill the interim, there grew
From their own ranks, the fittest kind of guide,
A pastoral leader; who by instinct knew
The flowery paths that lead on either side
The verdant fields of husbandry and thrift;
The worthy Moctheuzoma[B] had this gift,
And led them to the conquest of the soil—
That easy conquering that seeks its spoil
Only where God intended it for man,
The fruits of his own labor. Thus began
An era of self-discipline, that led
The Aztecs on to greatness; and that shed
A tender halo over after years,
When memory will mingle with our tears.
He turned their eyes upon the talcite ledge,
And said: "Behold, this is Tonatuah's pledge
Of providence against the Summer's heat
And the cold frosts of Winter; quarry it,
And fashion it for framework to your homes.
For centuries it has withstood the storm,
"To wait upon your coming; let your feet
Be busy with its treasures." Then he turned
To where the clay, for years, had been inurned,
And said: "Make use of this; 'tis Thaloc's[C] gift.
The mighty thunderer hath torn it down,
And ground it into ashes, for your use;
Mold it in shapely fragments, and the sun,
The warm-faced Tonatuah, will pour out
His warmest rays to bake it back to stone.
And more, this pliant clay has aptitudes
For vessels of all kinds, and yours are rude;
So in a hundred ways you may improve."
Then, pointing to the forest, thus he spoke:
"There Tonatu' and Thaloc both did shake
Their well-filled branches to the earth for us,
That we might gather fruit, for any taste.
These noble trees have swelled the turf for years,
And now will bend the neck for our support.
We must be provident; for they do point
Their myriad fingers to the hands that gave,
Mute monitors, to beckon us of Heaven.
"The fish and fowl, and all the vast menage
That track our mountain slopes, are all our own.
But look out on the earth, whose grassy turf
Lifts up its thousand homages to Heaven;
"Whence must we gather fruit of our own toil.
The maize will grow if planted; the legume
Will ripen; and our hands will surely fill,
If we but ask the earth and gods to help
And second our endeavors. We must work.
The river, from the mountain, rushes on;
The mountain shakes its thousand plumes at her;
The stars do not keep quiet in the skies;
All nature is alert and on the watch;
And man must bear his burden at the mill."
Thus, did he lead them to their better selves,
And ravel out the intricates of life
In wisdom's stern and simple litany;
Gave trenchent lessons to the man and wife,
And scattered homes upon new harvest fields.
And he, who sets a household altar up,
And sanctifies it with the name of home,
Fresh sprinkled from the sacred nuptial cup,
Is Heaven's Ambassador in human form.
The hearthstone is the herald of advance;
The hanging of each homely crane, like one
Of God's unnumbered irridescent plants,
Sheds rainbow hues on all it shines upon,
And blessings bend each limb upon its tree.
Thrice happy is the nation thus begun,
For it has found the track of destiny.
The mines he opened, and laid bare the beds
Of precious minerals that underlie
The bases of our mountain chains.
"For all our wants, we have a full supply,"
Thus spake the seer. "We shall not beat in vain
Against the bars that keep our souls from flight.
Our birth is built around by providence;
Our wants are wickets to unmeasured wealth.
If we but find the turnstile to the field,
We have but half the hill of life to climb;
The other half fades out as we advance;
When we have toiled out half-way distance up,
Lo! we have found the summit, and descend.
"Thus do we work together with the gods;
If we but do our best, it is enough;
When we put out our arms, they reach to us,
Though they do span the universe, to meet
And draw us up, the shining heights of life.
So in our daily plodding; if we sow,
The gods will furnish harvest; if we build,
The gods have made the quarry and the clay;
Whatever purposes we have in life,
If they be only for our betterment,
The crude material is at our hands;
We only fashion it to suit our wants;
Nor is the measure stinted to our needs,
But all our vessels fill to overflow
"Look over the green fields! Great is our want,
But greater the supply; on every hand
The wild flowers lift their heads, and what are these
But kisses thrown from Heaven to win us back?
Our appetites are but our weaker parts,
And easy satisfied; not so our souls;
They have external longings to supply;
And all that beautifies and brightens earth
Are forecasts of a kingdom yet to come.
As on earth's surface may be found the flowers,
So, underneath the shining metals are
The surplus of a generous providence.
Our fathers, on the borders of the lakes,
Did fashion implements of husbandry
From inexhaustive mines; but here we have
In lesser quantities, much brighter ores,
Fit mostly for adornment and exchange.
"Man is not satisfied with 'hand to mouth.'
The beasts roam through the forests and are filled,
And therewith are content; not so with man.
Two worlds break on his vision; and the one
Must interlock the other in his life,
Or he goes blindly out into the night.
And it is well earth gives no perfect rest,
Or the hereafter would fall out of sight.
Man is the one ambitious animal
Who seeks for empire, as the brute seeks food;
The tame necessities are not enough,
But all the precious under flowers of earth
Must fill the measure of his discontent.
All men are not alike, and some must hold
The fullest measure of life's luxuries;
These pay their surplus for the others' toil;
With them the shining metals will be held
As medium for barter and for trade.
And as Earth decks her bosom with the flowers,
So will the human race adorn themselves
And blossom out with variance of gems."
Though, still encumbered with their ancient myths,
He pointed out the harmony of Heaven;
Gave why and wherefore to the dread eclipse.
Not his to tell them how the earth is driven
Upon its swinging orbit over space;
And yet he measured out the perfect year;
He looked stern Nature bravely in the face,
And seemed to question her without a fear.
Transcendent genius; thus to grapple Truth
Across the path still covered from his sight,
Yet is she merciful; her name is Ruth;
She never perches on so grand a height,
But she will answer to her children's call,
And spread her wings to fly to their embrace—
This link was never broken by our fall,
And writes Evangel on our troubled race.
With his own hand he led them to the field,
With his own hand he taught them how to build;
He showed them what true husbandry would yield,
How all their empty measures could be filled
By wakeful industry. "Well pointed toil
Is touchstone to earth's treasure-box," said he.
"Our fathers may enrich us with their spoil,
And we may thus evade the beaten path;
Yet, lying dormant on our fathers' beds,
Our waste brings want upon our children's heads.
Far better that each hand be labor-marked,
That all may know the purchase of their lives;
He loses half the journey who goes out
To the incertitudes of other worlds,
Who has not tasted what his hands have won
On this, his trial sphere."
Thus in well-chosen words, and earnest deeds,
He planted fruit that crowded out the weeds.
Ruled by divinest right of master-mind,
By wisdom and humility combined,
By heart, as well as head and hand, he wrought;
For there be many who can ne'er be taught
By any else than throbbing 'gainst their own,
Of some great royal heart; this is their throne;
And he who sways in scepterhood of love,
Gets his vicegerent from the throne above.
Through many years did Moctheuzoma reign;
And Aztlan prospered, and the race grew strong;
And when his body passed to earth again,
His spirit, with its wisdom, lingered long.
Thus, with a twilight halo pass the great
Across the threshold with a noiseless tread;
We linger but a moment at the gate
To pay our homage to the honored dead;
Then turn to find them still inurned with us.
Their silence is more eloquent than words,
Their passing out is but life's overplus,
Their tongues are tempered into two-edged swords.
They speak across the chasm of their graves,
In weightier words, in thoughts far more intense;
In life they mingled with its thousand waves—
It is God's way; death ripens eloquence.
Time trolls along with its unceasing march,
And Aztlan has outgrown her former bounds;
She holds the center of the ancient arch,
On the historic ladder's highest rounds.
She sways the queenly scepter of the past
Above the waymarks of a hundred realms;
Yet leaves but hints of the grand overcast,
Through which she burns her way, and overwhelms
Our thoughts with all the possibles of time.
We can but poorly comprehend, yet write her most sublime.