The plumy coronal that would have sprung
Light from her fillet in the purer air,
Waving in mockery of the rainbow tints,
Now drooping low, and steeped in clogging dews,
Oppressive hung. Groping in dubious search,
She found the household goods, the spindle, broom,
Gicalli quaintly sculptured, and the jar
That held the useless beverage for the dead.
By these, and by the jewel to her lip
Attached, the emerald symbol of the soul,
In its green life immortal, soon she knew
Her dwelling was a sepulchre.
She loosed
The mask, and from her feathery bier uprose,
Casting away the robe, which like long alb
Wrapped her; and with it many an aloe leaf,
Inscribed with Azteck characters and signs,
To guide the spirit where the serpent hissed,
Hills towered, and deserts spread, and keen winds
blew,
flower of death;" though their frail
Were yet unwithered. For the living warmth
Which in her dwelt, their freshness had preserved;
Else, if corruption had begun its work,
The emblems of quick change would have survived
Her beauty's semblance. What is beauty worth,
If the cropp'd flower retains its tender bloom
When foul decay has stolen the latest lines
Of loveliness in death? Yet even now
Papantzin knew that her exuberant locks-
Which, unconfined, had round her flowed to earth,
Like a stream rushing down some rocky steep,
Threaded ten thousand channels-had been shorn
Of half their waving length, and liked it not.
But through a crevice soon she marked a gleam
Of rays uncertain; and, with staggering steps,
But strong in reckless dreaminess, while still
Presided o'er the chaos of her thoughts
The revelation that upon her soul
Dwelt with its power, she gained the cavern's throat,
And pushed the quarried stone aside, and stood
In the free air, and in her own domain.
But now obscurely o'er her vision swam
The beauteous landscape, with its thousand tints
And changeful views; long alleys of bright trees
Bending beneath their fruits; espaliers gay
With tropic flowers and shrubs that filled the breeze
With odorous incense, basins vast, where birds
With shining plumage sported, smooth canals
Leading the glassy wave, or towering grove
Of forest veterans. On a rising bank,
Her seat accustomed, near a well hewn out
From ancient rocks into which waters gushed
From living springs, where she was wont to bathe,
She threw herself to muse. Dim on her sight
The imperial city and its causeways rose,
With the broad lake and all its floating isles
And glancing shallops, and the gilded pomp
Of princely barges, canopied with plumes
Spread fanlike, or with tufted pageantry
Waving magnificent. Unmarked around
The frequent huitzilin, with murmuring hum
Of ever-restless wing, and shrill sweet note,
Shot twinkling, with the ruby star that glowed
Over his tiny bosom, and all hues
That loveliest seem in heaven, with ceaseless change,
Flashing from his fine films. And all in vain
Untiring, from the rustling branches near,
Poured the Centzontli all his hundred strains
Of imitative melody. Not now
She heeded them. Yet pleasant was the shade
Of palms and cedars; and through twining boughs
And fluttering leaves, the subtle god of air, [crept,
The serpent armed with plumes, most welcome
And fanned her cheek with kindest ministry.
A dull and dismal sound came booming on;
A solemn, wild, and melancholy noise,
Shaking the tranquil air; and afterward
A clash and jangling, barbarously prolonged,
Torturing the unwilling ear, rang dissonant.
Again the unnatural thunder rolled along,
Again the crash and clamour followed it.
Shuddering she heard, who knew that every peal
From the dread gong, announced a victim's heart
Torn from his breast, and each triumphant clang,
A mangled corse down the great temple's stairs
Hurled headlong; and she knew, as lately taught,
How vengeance was ordained for cruelty;
How pride would end; and uncouth soldiers tread
Through bloody furrows o'er her pleasant groves
And gardens; and would make themselves a road
Over the dead, choking the silver lake,
And cast the battered idols down the steps
That climbed their execrable towers, and raze
Sheer from the ground Ahuitzol's mighty pile.
Good-night to all the world! there's none,
Beneath the "over-going" sun,
To whom I feel, or hate, or spite,
And so to all a fair good-night.
Would I could say good-night to pain,
Good-night to conscience and her train,
To cheerless poverty, and shame
That I am yet unknown to fame!
Would I could say good-night to dreams
That haunt me with delusive gleams,
That through the sable future's veil
Like meteors glimmer, but to fail.
Would I could say a long good-night
To halting between wrong and right,
And, like a giant with new force,
Awake prepared to run my course!
But time o'er good and ill sweeps on,
And when few years have come and gone,
The past will be to me as naught,
Whether remembered or forgot.
Yet let me hope one faithful friend
O'er my last couch in tears shall bend;
And, though no day for me was bright,
Shall bid me then a long good-night.
Oн Time and Death! with certain pace, Though still unequal, hurrying on, O'erturning in your awful race,
The cot, the palace, and the throne!
Not always in the storm of war,
Nor by the pestilence that sweeps
From the plague-smitten realms afar,
Beyond the old and solemn deeps:
In crowds the good and mighty go,
And to those vast dim chambers hie:
Where, mingled with the high and low,
Dead Cæsars and dead Shakspeares lie!
Dread ministers of God! sometimes
Ye smite at once to do his will,
In all earth's ocean-severed climes, Those whose renown ye cannot kill! D
When all the brightest stars that burn
At once are banished from their spheres,
Men sadly ask, when shall return
Such lustre to the coming years?
For where is he*-who lived so long-
Who raised the modern Titan's ghost,
And showed his fate in powerful song,
Whose soul for learning's sake was lost?
Where he who backward to the birth
Of Time itself, adventurous trod,
And in the mingled mass of earth
Found out the handiwork of God?†
Where he who in the mortal head,‡
Ordained to gaze on heaven, could trace
The soul's vast features, that shall tread
The stars, when earth is nothingness?
Where he who struck old Albyn's lyre,§
Till round the world its echoes roll,
And swept, with all a prophet's fire,
The diapason of the soul?
Where he who read the mystic lore,||
Buried, where buried Pharaohs sleep;
And dared presumptuous to explore
Secrets four thousand years could keep?
Where he-who, with a poet's eye¶
Of truth, on lowly nature gazed,
And made even sordid Poverty
Classic, when in His numbers glazed?
Where that old sage so hale and staid,**
The "greatest good" who sought to find,
Who in his garden mused, and made
All forms of rule for all mankind?
* Goethe and his Faust. + Cuvier. + Spurzheim. Scott. Champollion. T Crabbe. **Jeremy Bentham.
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