| |
| STAND! as God saw thee of old time | |
| We see and know thee now; | |
| The brand of unforgotten crime | |
| Still black upon thy brow, | |
| That mark, Eternal Justice traced, | 5 |
| Thou coverest in vain; | |
| Its blighting stigma uneffaced; | |
| Where is thy brother, Cain? | |
| |
| Aye, hypocrite, and if thou wilt, | |
| White hands, in protest, spread! | 10 |
| The blood by coarser murderers spilt | |
| Was at thy bidding shed. | |
| Thy speech inflamed each ignorant soul | |
| With thine own maddening wine; | |
| And when their fury burst control, | 15 |
| Their brutal acts were thine. | |
| |
| For thee the crowded Plaza seethed | |
| Round Seville’s high-built pyre; | |
| And shrinking forms of women wreathed | |
| With boiling snakes of fire. | 20 |
| Thy servants fanned their ardent breath | |
| Into a fiercer flame; | |
| And watched, well-pleased, the dallying death, | |
| That lingered ere it came. | |
| |
| But thou hast darker secrets yet, | 25 |
| And deeds more dear to hell. | |
| The sightless, sounding oubliette | |
| Hath kept thy counsel well, | |
| The silent hours that crush the heart, | |
| The soul-destroying gloom; | 30 |
| Thine, devil, was the fiendish art | |
| Devised that living tomb. | |
| |
| Woe, woe on the unhappy state | |
| That learns thy bloody creed, | |
| And makes her mansion desolate | 35 |
| Thy cruel lust to feed. | |
| Before one dread, impartial Bar | |
| Her sons, shall find ere long, | |
| How terrible the helpless are, | |
| The feeble ones how strong! | 40 |
| |
| Lo! where the dotard Empress, Spain, | |
| With loosened necklace stands, | |
| While those fair jewels, grain by grain, | |
| Slip from her nerveless hands! | |
| Unmoved she sees her pearls depart | 45 |
| And smiles with alien eyes; | |
| For heavy on her palsied heart | |
| The curse of Israel lies. | |
| |
| Foul shark, whose malice never sleeps, | |
| On noblest victims fed; | 50 |
| What swimmer bold shall cleave the deeps | |
| Thy rivings left so red; | |
| And when thy bulk sways up to breathe | |
| On that encrimsoned tide, | |
| With one unerring home-thrust sheathe | 55 |
| His dagger in thy side? | |
| |
