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(From Ruins of Many Lands)
PASS we yon wilds where Ruin sternly lowers, | |
| And covering roofs of shrines and lofty towers, | |
| Ages have heaped the soil, till spreading trees | |
| Have rooted there, and murmur to the breeze. | |
| Southward we press, where, screened from noontide’s beam, | 5 |
| Flows through dense woods Copan’s pellucid stream; | |
| Here their rich blooms the cassia’s stems unfold, | |
| And parrots spread their wings of green and gold. | |
| This wooded landscape, picturesque and wild, | |
| Might charm the breast of Nature’s fervid child,— | 10 |
| A desert of all beauteous things,—bees, flowers, | |
| Fruits on the boughs, and odors in the bowers; | |
| The green leaves whispering, as by spirits stirred, | |
| The mellow note from some gay-plumaged bird; | |
| Paths rarely trod by man,—the sparry cave, | 15 |
| The trees that bend to sip the glassy wave,— | |
| All form a Paradise where Love might dwell, | |
| And glowing Fancy weave her brightest spell. | |
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| What shines through yonder glades? approach with awe, | |
| A scene like this the Old World never saw. | 20 |
| City of shrines! the sainted and the blest! | |
| Dark home of priests, the Mecca of the West! | |
| As starting through the forest’s tangled maze, | |
| Thy countless pillars meet the wondering gaze, | |
| Some crushed by trees, and some by lightning riven, | 25 |
| These prostrate laid, those looking still to heaven, | |
| Each carved with forms whose meaning none may know, | |
| Each looking on its altar spread below, | |
| We scarce feel pleasure, but a shrinking fear, | |
| As borne by demons to some darker sphere, | 30 |
| And these were works of foul and hellish pride, | |
| Where ghouls might dwell, and pale-eyed phantoms glide. | |
| Then, too, the lines of Death’s heads glistening white, | |
| Marking each ancient tomb’s long-mouldered site, | |
| Chill while we gaze, and tell how stern were those | 35 |
| Who bade their fathers in such graves repose. | |
| Yes, o’er Copan drear Mystery spreads its veil; | |
| What was its worship?—ask the sighing gale! | |
| Ask of those crumbling altars moss-o’ergrown, | |
| Those dim carved shapes,—those idol blocks of stone! | 40 |
| Naught do they answer; darkness still must reign | |
| Above the trackless wood and solemn plain. | |
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