Montezuma Part 9

Aztlan must pa.s.s through all the fated field Of mythologic peculence and lore, And to their st.u.r.dy priestcraft blindly yield, To cipher out the destinies in store.

They must propitiate the G.o.ds with blood, Especially their war-G.o.d must be fed, And to supply their deities with food Their fated subjects must be freely bled.

So superst.i.tion whets the fatal blade, Which culminates in human sacrifice.

The maw of Huitzilopotchli[F] must be stayed, And altars with their thousand victims rise.

Sad proof of imperfection in the race, Nay, more, the very demon in the breast; Their ignorance alone is plea for grace, When in their filthiness they stand confessed.

"Ye must be born again," the Savior said; And history, through time, has craved this birth.

Man and his Maker must indeed be wed, If we would bring redemption to the earth.

The empty riddle of the crucifix, The shallow rattle of the Christian creeds, Will leaven nothing if we fail to mix The ripened grain of soul-inspiring deeds.

The past accuses us with bony hands; We cannot shun its cold and cruel eyes; The gla.s.s is turning with our future sands-- We face eternal destinies. G.o.d grant we be more wise!

THE EMPIRE OF MONTEZUMA.

The Star looked down at the Mountain; And the Mountain looked down at the Sea; And there was no malice in either one's breast, Each was called by the Deity To fill its place in the region of s.p.a.ce Of the fathomless Yet-to-be.

The Star didn't fall on the Mountain, Nor the Mountain smite the sea; But each gave cheer in the other's ear, And they dwelt in harmony.

Why didn't the Mountain say to the Star: "Begone, with your impudent stare!"

Or the Sea to the Mountain: "How dare you intrude, You presumptuous imp of the air?"

Why didn't they? they were not human; They couldn't talk, as we talk; They were not born of a woman; They never had learned to walk.

They had learned the language of patience; They had learned to bear, and be dumb; They had learned to hold, through heat and cold, Their load, till the Master should come.

O infinite language of silence!

O eloquent, voiceless speech!

Help us to bear the ills that are, And fetter us each to each, Till all our envy goes out with the Sea, And our malice goes out with the star, And we silently bear what is to be-- Like the Mountain--gazing afar To the infinite depths of an endless world, Where eternity spreads its zone, Where planets, countless as grains of sand, Gaze out on the "great white throne."

The pale-faced prophet Quetzalcoatl[G]

Had gone to the rising sun; In his wizard boat he was seen to float, To where the day was begun, Without a sail on the wings of the gale, For the land of Tlappalan[H]

He waved back his followers from the sea, Saying he would certainly come again, In the golden future, yet to be, And the G.o.ds should dwell on the earth as men.

They had made him a G.o.d, because he was good-- Not always the case in the mystic love-- They had carved his image in stone and wood, And his shrines were built on the pyramid's floor.

They called him the G.o.d of the earth and air, And his legends were many, and often told; And the priests, with sacrifice and prayer, Reaped a heavy harvest of fruit and gold.

And oft were their faces turned to the East, To claim _his_ promise, who _was_ to come; And they watched the surge of the gulf's green yeast, And yet the years had continued dumb.

Nezahualcoyotl sleeps with his fathers,[I]

And his son now reigns in his stead; His _goodness_ succeeds to the living, But his _wisdom_ goes out with the dead, For both in the Lord of Tezcuco Had been richly and happily wed.

Two nations, strike hands o'er the waters, Tezcuco and Aztlan are one, By the league that their fathers had plighted, Since they entered this land of the sun.

So, the King of their neighbor, Tezcuco, Has come to the Aztec Court, To a.s.sist them in crowning the Monarch, A Prince of much goodly report.

He is found on the steps of the temple; He has served, both as warrior and Priest; He has brought many victims to slaughter-- The realm has been greatly increased By the st.u.r.dy sway of his conquering arm.

And now, he is called to reign, The last of his race, to fill the place, Whose honor shall prove but a life-long pain.

Montezuma[J] was young, but his sword was old, And the war-G.o.d was glutted with victims and gold.

A pledge of his prowess: a promise to fate, That the nation would prosper, the King prove great.

Some men are great in sorrow--there be tears That crystalize to diamonds at the last.

They need the weight of carbonizing years; Yet, how they glitter after these have past!

Life needs the tempering at such a forge, Or it would brittle at the lightest touch; But when the burden is but one vast gorge, The weary soul must cry, "It is too much."

Nezahualpilli[K] places the crown on his head, And the victims bleed, and the altars burn; The words of admonishment all are said, And the buoyant crowd to their homes return.

"The King is dead!" "Long live the King!"

"Hail!" and "farewell!" how closely tread The steps of the living upon the dead!

How are both touched with a single spring!

Nezahualpilli soon pa.s.ses away, And the rival King, he so lately crowned, Divides his Kingdom, and makes a prey, A figment, with empire's empty sound.

And Montezuma outleaps the King; But is lord of an empire reaching the sea; And many nations their tribute bring, And some of the weak to the southward flee, To pa.s.s the reach of his powerful arm, And lift new prodigies to the sky, To meet Earth's sunshine, shadow, and storm, To finish the race, to falter and die.

He gathers his treasures from myriad mines.

The cotton and aloe are wove into cloth.

The banana and maize and wild forest vines, While they load to repletion, are proof against sloth.

His palace is burnished with every hue Of the rainbow tints of his fabulous land, Where Nature entravails on every hand To bring new beauties of life to view.

There are drapes of feather-cloth deftly made, There were plumes and plushes of richest craft, There were broidered robes where the colors played, Like the hands that made them, dainty and daft.

His harem equaled his Ottoman peer, There was beauty of every hue and mold-- The shy and the gay, the demure and bold-- That his provinces furnished from far and near.

As fine a collection of beauty and grace, Of the flashing eye and the beaming face, As is seen on the gates of the Euxine sea At the present day, where the "powers that be,"

With the Union Jack floating above the rest, Secures to that ill-omened bird its nest.

Their Teocallas[L] rose on every hand, And half a hundred G.o.ds their worship claim; Their priestcraft is a strong and haughty band; Their Beckets and their Woolseys are the same As those that cling upon the neck of time Through all the feudal ages; we may choose The leeches of the Christian Church as best-- They sucked the blood the State could not refuse, And so did these bedizzened, of the West.

_These_ led their victims to the altars black, _Those_ wasted theirs by torturing and pain, The fatal "itztli," gave the parting shock To Aztec's victims; but a blacker stain Rests on thy skirts, thou b.l.o.o.d.y-mantled Spain!

Thou the avenger of a human wrong?

As well might Lucifer enrobe as saint, An earthquake key the carol of a song, Or old Caligula[M] bring a complaint!

"They slew their thousands!" yes; and what did'st thou?

Thy thousands in the shadow of the cross; They took not on their perjured lips thy vow; Thy gold they did not mingle with their dross.

Through all the dark of ages did they grope; Through all the light of empire did'st thou graze; They pinioned superst.i.tion to their hope; The monody of h.e.l.l was mingled with thy praise.

Go back! and scour the oxyd from the gem Thy lips have turned to ebony, and paint Humiliation on thy doorsteps. Stem!

Stem the black pool of Styx! and find a saint Whose blood shall gain forgiveness for thy past; But count no beads upon the path of time-- Earth's execration is too justly cast-- Thy very name, a synonym of crime!

They had their courts where justice was dispensed With what would shame the Ja.n.u.s-faced machine We call our jurisprudence. They commenced What Christian polity was left to glean, To her advantage in the after time.

We write "anathema" above the gates Of what we choose to call "barbaric clime;"

And yet, the blinded G.o.ddess often waits To gather wisdom at _her_ bare, black feet Which, bruised and blistered, tread the narrow way To where the graces uninspired meet And superst.i.tion's night breaks into day.

They held the bond of family and home As firmly as more favored nations hold; Their homes were castles, where no man could come Without the potent ses-a-me of gold.

The wealthy pluralized the name of wife (As many Bible patriarchs once did), Their virtue was the average of life-- There were excrescences not easy hid.

Yet woman was more near her half of earth Than she had reached in most of Christendom.

She held her value and could claim her worth; Not bartered with the readiness of some Self-styled enlightened. Much is to be learned In corners of the earth that we call "dark,"

Where jewels are for centuries inurned That torches of enlightenment may tarnish with a spark.

We lay rude hands on temples not our own, Nor little heed the human souls enshrined; The sacred crevice of each hard-marked stone But coldly cover with the virdict, "blind."

G.o.d help us, that we point a hand more pure, And raise the cas.e.m.e.nt with a grander trust; The hands that lift it must indeed be clean, Or comes the humbling challenge, "Is it just?"

One "great white throne" shall judge us, one and all; One great white Hand shall hold the scales of fate, Or clothed in light, or covered with a pall, We tread the way through one eternal gate.

G.o.d grant the temples we so rudely spoil, May not accuse us when we stand alone!

But hearts are human things, and they do coil The infinite in blindness. Not a groan Escapes the index of the Father Son.

A child in blindness still is but a child, And held with greater yearning to be won.

Our cold, hard hands cannot be reconciled To one warm Heart that throbs for all mankind, And covers, with a common love, the race; And leads, with greater tenderness, the blind, That they more closely feel His clasp, who cannot see His face.

The arts of husbandry were well advanced: They sowed and reaped unstinted from the soil; The sun, with ripening fervor, on them glanced, And gave them back, a hundred fold, their toil.

They had not lost their ancient faith in him, Though other G.o.ds their scattered homage claim His breast was their Elysian; never dim The ancient hope that hung upon his name.

Their maize and maguey shone upon the plain, Their chocolate gave nourishment and zest, The corn gave recompense for sugar-cane, Their banquets were provided with the best; Fish from the ocean, fruits from every clime, So diverse, yet within such easy reach; The tropics and the temperates enchime With all their plumaged babblings of speech; And they interpreted the varied whims That Nature holds embryoed in her breast.

They climbed the boughs and shook her heaviest limbs, Too burdened for the garner to be missed.

This ancient mother never yet has failed Her children in their earnest search for food; She may be panoplied and heavy mailed, Yet does her larder furnish all when fully understood.

Take all in all, and measure by the test-- The stern, hard test of history--and we find That Aztlan, very far from being best, Still was a prodigy. That she was blind In her religious ethics, none deny; That she had faults, no champion gainsays; She lifted b.l.o.o.d.y hands against the sky; She filled the avenging measure of her days.

But G.o.d is G.o.d, and man is always man; And earthly judgment is at best a snare.

And never, since the human race began, Has turned to Heaven more piteous despair Than her sad eyes, burnt out with agony; Moaning above her nation, and her name, The bitter monody of "Not to be,"

The deep humiliation, and the shame That sent her crouching at the foot of Spain; (The fairest daughter of the wilderness) Without a hand to solace in her pain, Or ray of hope to lighten her distress.

Could she been gently led, and tenderly, To higher life and holier resolve, Had charity bent forth her n.o.ble sway, The Christian graces that with Earth revolve Without the wasting friction, paid their suit To win her back to wakefulness from sin-- How would she compensate the victor's hand, And kiss the rod that smote with its regard!