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(Excerpt)
WITH the steadfast stars above us, | |
| And the molten stars below, | |
| We sailed through the Southern midnight, | |
| By the coast of Mexico. | |
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| Alone, on the desolate, dark-ringed, | 5 |
| Rolling and flashing sea, | |
| A grim old Venezuelan | |
| Kept the deck with me, | |
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| And talked to me of his country, | |
| And the long Spanish war, | 10 |
| And told how a young Republic | |
| Forged the sword of Bolivar. | |
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| Of no base mundane metal | |
| Was the wondrous weapon made, | |
| And in no earth-born fire | 15 |
| Was fashioned the sacred blade. | |
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| But that it might shine the symbol | |
| Of law and light in the land, | |
| Dropped down as a star from heaven, | |
| To flame in a hero’s hand, | 20 |
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| And be to the world a portent | |
| Of eternal might and right, | |
| They chose for the steel a splinter | |
| From a fallen aerolite. | |
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| Then a virgin forge they builded | 25 |
| By the city, and kindled it | |
| With flame from a shattered palm-tree, | |
| Which the lightning’s torch had lit,— | |
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| That no fire of earthly passion | |
| Might taint the holy sword, | 30 |
| And no ancient error tarnish | |
| The falchion of the Lord. | |
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| For Quito and New Granada | |
| And Venezuela they pour | |
| From three crucibles the dazzling | 35 |
| White meteoric ore. | |
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| In three ingots it is moulded, | |
| And welded into one, | |
| For an emblem of Colombia, | |
| Bright daughter of the sun! | 40 |
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| It is drawn on a virgin anvil, | |
| It is heated and hammered and rolled, | |
| It is shaped and tempered and burnished, | |
| And set in a hilt of gold; | |
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| For thus by the fire and the hammer | 45 |
| Of war a nation is built, | |
| And ever the sword of its power | |
| Is swayed by a golden hilt. | |
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| Then with pomp and oratory | |
| The mustachioed señores brought | 50 |
| To the house of the Liberator | |
| The weapon they had wrought; | |
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| And they said, in their stately phrases, | |
| “O mighty in peace and war! | |
| No mortal blade we bring you, | 55 |
| But a flaming meteor. | |
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| “The sword of the Spaniard is broken, | |
| And to you in its stead is given, | |
| To lead and redeem a nation, | |
| This ray of light from heaven.” | 60 |
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| The gaunt-faced Liberator | |
| From their hands the symbol took, | |
| And waved it aloft in the sunlight, | |
| With a high, heroic look; | |
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| And he called the saints to witness: | 65 |
| “May these lips turn into dust, | |
| And this right hand fail, if ever | |
| It prove recreant to its trust! | |
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| “Never the sigh of a bondman | |
| Shall cloud this gleaming steel, | 70 |
| But only the foe and the traitor | |
| Its vengeful edge shall feel. | |
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| “Never a tear of my country | |
| Its purity shall stain, | |
| Till into your hands, who gave it, | 75 |
| I render it again.” * * * * * | |
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