And none durst wrestle with that Angel, iron-sinewed bridegroom of Space;
So he flew by, strong upon the wing, nor dropped one failing feather,
Wherewith some hoary scribe might register your honour and renown.
Beyond the broad Atlantic, in the regions of the setting sun,
Ask of the plume-crowned Incas, that ruled in old Peru,—
Ask of grand Caziques, and priests of the pyramids in Mexico,—
Ask of a thousand painted tribes, high nobility of Nature,
Who, once, could roam their own Elysian plains, free, generous, and happy,
Who, now, degraded and in exile, having sold their fatherland for nought,
Sink and are extinguished in the western seas, even as the sun they follow,—