Behold! I have stood on the mountains, and this was writ in the sky:—
"She is weighed in the Scales and found wanting, the balance God holds on high!"
The balance He once weighed Babylon, the Mother of Harlots, in:
One scale holds thy pride and thy power and empire, begotten of sin;
Heavy with woe and torture, the crimes of a thousand years,
Mortared and welded together with fire and blood and tears;
In the other, for justice and mercy, a blade with never a stain,
Is laid the Sword of Liberty, and the balance dips, O Spain!
III.
Summon thy vessels together! great is thy need for these!—
Cristobal Colon, Vizcaya, Oquendo, and Maria Terese—
Let them be strong and many, for a vision I had by night,
That the ancient wrongs thou hast done the world came howling to the fight;
From the New-World shores they gathered, Inca and Aztec slain,
To the Cuban shot but yesterday, and our own dead seamen, Spain!
IV.
Summon thy ships together, gather a mighty fleet!
For a strong young Nation is arming, that never hath known defeat.
Summon thy ships together, there on thy blood-stained sands!
For a shadowy army gathers with manacled feet and hands,
A shadowy host of sorrows and shames, too black to tell,
That reach, with their horrible wounds, for thee to drag thee down to Hell;
A myriad phantoms and spectres, thou warrest against in vain—
Thou art weighed in the Scales and found wanting, the balance of God, O Spain!
Her Vivien Eyes
Her Vivien eyes,—beware! beware!—
Though they be stars, a deadly snare
They set beneath her night of hair.
Regard them not! lest, drawing near—
As sages once in old Chaldee—
Thou shouldst become a worshiper,
And they thy evil destiny.
Her Vivien eyes,—away! away!—
Though they be springs, remorseless they
Gleam underneath her brow's bright day.
Turn, turn aside, whate'er the cost!
Lest in their deeps thou lures behold,
Through which thy captive soul were lost,
As was young Hylas once of old.
Her Vivien eyes,—take heed! take heed!—
Though they be bibles, none may read
Therein of God or Holy Creed.
Look, look away! lest thou be cursed,—
As Merlin was, romances tell,—
And in their sorcerous spells immersed,
Hoping for Heaven thou chance on Hell.