Chief of the Chiefs, and Helhua the priest :
With these came Malinal. They met the Prince, And with a sullen stateliness returned
His salutation, then the Chief began ;
Lord of the Strangers, hear me ! by my voice
The People and the Pabas and the King
Of Aztlan speak. Our injured Gods have claimed
Their wonted worship, and made manifest
Their wrath; we dare not impiously provoke
The Dreadful! Worship ye in your own way;
But we must keep the path our fathers kept.
We parted, O Yuhidthiton! as friends
And brethren, said the Christian Prince; .. alas,
That this should be our meeting! When we pledged,
In the broad daylight and the eye of Heaven,
Our hands in peace, ye heard the will of God,
And felt and understood. This calm assent
Ye would belie, by midnight miracles
Scared, and such signs of darkness as beseem
The demons whom ye dread! or likelier
Duped by the craft of those accursed men,
Whose trade is blood. Ask thou of thine own heart,
Yuhidthiton,..
But Helhua broke his speech;
Our bidding is to tell thee, quoth the Priest,
That Aztlan hath restored, and will maintain,
Her ancient faith. If it offendeth thee,
Move thou thy dwelling place!
This day have I deposited in earth
My father's bones, and where his bones are laid,
There mine shall moulder.
Advanced;.. Prince Madoc, said the youth, I come,
True to thy faith and thee, and to the weal
Of Aztlan true, and bearing, for that truth,
Reproach and shame and scorn and obloquy.
In sorrow come I here, a banished man ;
Here take, in sorrow, my abiding place,
Cut off from all my kin, from all old ties
Divorced; all dear familiar countenances
No longer to be present to my sight;
The very mother-language which I learnt,
A lisping baby on my mother's knees,
No more with its sweet sounds to comfort me.
So be it!.. To his brother then he turned;
Yuhidthiton, said he, when thou shalt find,..
As find thou wilt,.. that those accursed men
Have played the juggler with thee, and deceived
Thine honest heart, . . when Aztlan groans in blood,..
Bid her remember then, that Malinal
Is in the dwellings of her enemy;
Where all his hope in banishment hath been
To intercede for her, and heal her wounds,
And mitigate her righteous punishment.
Sternly and sullenly his brother heard;
Yet hearkened he as one whose heart perforce
Supprest its instinct, and there might be seen
A sorrow in his silent stubbornness.
And now his ministers on either hand
A water-vessel fill, and heap dry sedge
And straw before his face, and fire the pile.
He, looking upward, spread his arms and cried,
Hear me, ye Gods of Aztlan, as we were,
And are, and will be yours! behold your foes!
He stoopt, and lifted up one ample urn,
Thus let their blood be shed!.. and far away
He whirled the scattering water. Then again
Raised the full vase,.. Thus let their lives be
And out he poured it on the flaming pile.
The steam-cloud, hissing from the extinguished heap, Spread like a mist, and, ere it melted off, Homeward the heralds of the war had turned.
The Festival of the Dead.
THE Hoamen in their Council-hall are met
To hold the Feast of Souls: seat above seat,
Ranged round the circling theatre they sit.
No light but from the central fire, whose smoke,
Slow passing through the over aperture,
Excludes the day, and fills the conic roof,
And hangs above them like a cloud. Around,
The ghastly bodies of their chiefs are hung,
Shrivelled and parched, by heat; the humbler dead
Lie on the floor,.. white bones, exposed to view,
On deer, or elk-skin laid, or softer fur,
Or web, the work of many a mournful hour;
The loathlier forms of fresh mortality
Swathed, and in decent tenderness concealed.
Beside each body pious gifts are laid,
Mantle and belt and feathery coronal,
The bow he used in war, his drinking shell,
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