| |
A Peruvian Ode.
NOW ruin lifts her haggard head | |
| And madly staring horror screams! | |
| O’er yonder field bestrew’d with dead, | |
| See, how the lurid lightning gleams! | |
| |
| Lo! ’mid the terrors of the storm, | 5 |
| From yonder black brow’d cloud of night, | |
| The mighty Capac’s dreadful form | |
| Bursts forth upon my aching sight! | |
| |
| But ah! what phantoms, fleeting round | |
| Give double horrors to the gloom, | 10 |
| Each pointing to the ghastly wound | |
| That sent him, shroudless to the tomb! | |
| |
| On me they bend the scowling eye; | |
| For me their airy arms they wave! | |
| Oh! stay—nor yet from Zampor fly, | 15 |
| We ’ll be companions in the grave!— | |
| |
| Dear victims of a tyrant’s rage! | |
| They ’re gone!—each shadowy form is fled, | |
| Yet soon these hoary locks of age | |
| Shall low as theirs in dust be laid! | 20 |
| |
| Thou faithless steel, that harmless fell | |
| Upon the haughty Spaniard’s crest, | |
| Swift to my swelling heart, go tell | |
| How deep thou ’st pierced thy master’s breast. | |
| |
| But shall curst Spain’s destroying son, | 25 |
| With transport smile on Zampor’s fate? | |
| No ere the deed of death be done | |
| The tyrant’s blood shall glut my hate. | |
| |
| Yon forked flash with friendly glare | |
| Points where his crimson’d banners fly, | 30 |
| Look down, ye forms of fleeting air, | |
| I yet shall triumph ere I die! | |
| |
| He spoke—and like a meteor’s blaze | |
| Rush’d on th’ unguarded Spaniard’s lord; | |
| Around his head the lightning plays— | 35 |
| Reflected from his brandish’d sword: | |
| |
| “Great Capac nerve the arm of age, | |
| And guide it swift to Garcia’s breast, | |
| His pangs shall all my pangs assuage, | |
| His death shall give my country rest. | 40 |
| |
| Ye powers who thirst for human blood | |
| Receive this victim at your shrine!” | |
| Aghast the circling warriors stood | |
| Nor could prevent the chief’s design. | |
| |
| “’T is Garcia’s crimson stream that flows, | 45 |
| ’T is Zampor hurls him to his fate— | |
| The author of my country’s woes | |
| Now sinks the victim of my hate.” | |
| |
| From Garcia’s breast the steel he drew | |
| And sheathed it deep within his own— | 50 |
| “I come, ye gods of lost Peru,” | |
| He said—and died without a groan. | |
| |
