Part 2 — AZTLAN.

Sinking down to thy rest, In the deep crimson West, Great God! thou hast taught us repose; With thy promised return, Without doubting, we learn, To wait for thy further disclose. In thy tenement high, Blazing over the sky, Are thy sentinels, pledge of the night; And we know by their shine, That thy care is divine, And we rest without fear, till the light Springs again from the East With its glory increased By the wakening pulse of the day; And we never will doubt, That thy naked arm, stout, Will drive all the shadows away. Yet we cannot forebear, To lift up our prayer, For we know we are wanton and weak; And if once thou shouldst fail, Or thy face shouldst grow pale, Where else in the world should we seek? For a father so kind, To a people so blind, In our weakness, thy strength we may trace. Then fail not to return, Leave us never to mourn, The wealth of thy daily embrace. O continue, we pray, To bring back the glad day; Give us always, to look on thy face! The trembling lisp of every human soul, Of names more potent, then their own can be, Breathes the same lesson through, from pole to pole To prove the certitude of Deity. Not every eye turned upward can behold The face that faith alone shapes into form; Not every hand can touch the gates of gold That outward swing in welcome from the storm. Yet is the "Abba Father" pendant from each tongue, And every soul a furnace for its fires; And sacred is each song in earnest sung, When creature to Creator thus aspires. We blindly grope in this, our broad of day, The two eternities to thus unite; The silk of infancy is turned to gray Ere we have learned to tread the path aright. We force our providences out of reach, Throw back the hand our Father doth extend, And shut our ears that he may vainly teach, And all the wealth of heaven may expend To warm us to reliance,—shall we dare To sneer at those who grope? We grapple air When it is all refulgent with our God, And we may touch his garment's hem in prayer.

Groping in undiscovered realms their way, The Prophet and his people give the day To finding safest lodgement, till they press Well down the grand old river, to the mouth Of the great Western confluent—the south Seems to add Summer to the wilderness. They cross the river, and then settle down To love and labor on its grassy banks; And fortune seems to have forgot its frown. Years of repletion fill their shattered ranks, And youth and vigor take the place of age; The story of their journey is retold By only few in number; and the sage, Who turned their faces on their god of gold, Was bent with the plethoric weight of years, And summoned them to worship 'mid the tears Of many, who misgave his failing strength; He saw their apprehensions and at length Called them together for a final word: "Sons of the Summer God! it is but wise That we look out beyond the brace of years, And question of the future. All the way The shining surface of our god has led Our toilsome footsteps; we must not forget His daily nurture, nor the cloth of gold With which he covers us—wakeful with the day, How has he touched our eyelids with his hands, And warmed us with his hovering! The night Has never failed his promise of the morn. How has his parenthood outwatched the stars; How has the Winter melted at his glance; How has his armor battled with the snows! With what a tenderness he decks the fields, And wooes the grasses from the dormant earth, And clothes the forest with its robes of green, As covert for the bison and the deer, That we may find replenishment of food! His providence has never failed our steps, Our homage cannot cancel his regard. "Our father! in this failing cup of years, Help us to be re-sanctified to thee— Thou hast not measured to our helplessness, But with unstinted hand filled up our lives With blessings. Fill thou alike our hearts, That we may have no room to cherish doubt, But answer thy embraces, as the fields Leap up to kiss thy first recumbent rays! Let all our dross become thy burnished gold, Shine through each crevice of our stubbornness, Till in transparent purity, we reach The very essence of thy godliness! "Brethren of the Sun! This altar is my last: You see the fire Leap as an answer to my late request, And it shall bear my spirit to the sun, And cursed the hand that stays its homeward flight!" Fresh nerved he reached the altar with a bound, And sank without a murmur in the flame; His followers an instant gather round, But he had passed out almost as he came. They did not dare to drag him from the pile, His life and effort had together ceased, He passed into the future with a smile— A smile, that he had been so quick released. Yet, there was one (clear-sighted from the rest), Who said she saw the essence of his form, In brighter effigy, more richly dressed, Fly out into the sunset; and the charm Of her enchanted parable found faith In many of the multitude; his death, So like his life, had challenged all their thought And they were ready to quiesce his fate, and sought Some shadowed miracle to wrap his shade. They gathered up the ashes, and forbade Unsanctioned hands to touch them; and they reared A rugged mound above the garnered dust, And left him (one whom they loved less than feared). To that sole arbiter, whose name is Just, Our common parent, Time, whose busy hands Rear many a sacred fane above our faults, Flings over our excressences his sands, And leaves no human stain to blot the sacred marble of our vaults. How grand is the economy of time and death! We whet the knife for deep incision on the name Of some misguided leader, but he fails his breath, And all our better angels give him back to fame; Death carries off the husk, we keep the ripened wheat, And Time refines the kernel into choicest flour; The atmosphere of anger is at last made sweet; Our charity immortal glows; our passion, but an hour. God keep us always so! It is the chosen link That binds us to the race, and bids the Christ come in; That holds our hands to near the eternal brink; It saves us from ourselves, and breaks the tooth of sin. The whitened garments at the eternal gate, Must cover those, who have not stained another, Or there will come that awful sentence: "Wait! "Blood crieth from the ground! where is thy brother?" If thus upon the living God doth set the seal Of condemnation for the false witnessing How will he smite the lips of those who steal His covering from the dead, and fill the sacred spring Of memory, with the debris of their lives; Mixing, what God has kindly torn apart, And making null, the severence he strives, Between the naked soul, and sin encumbered heart! The gem was melted, and his life went out In unobtrusive secrecy, and all That he brought with him, passed the silent way Into eternity, beyond recall. He chose no sponsor to renew his place But gave them back to Nature, as he found; Yet was his impress fastened on the race, And every morn they gathered at the mound, For many after years, till they had grown A nation strong in numbers, and had thrown The seeds of generation far and wide, And found the latent valleys without guide. The lakes are made a tribute to their spoil, And all the riches of the virgin soil Were tested by those hardy argonauts of old; And though they sought no fleece of shining gold, They penetrated all the wilderness That lay unclaimed before them to possess. God drops no nobler anchorage on earth, Than those who mold a nation, and a name; Whose travail in the wilderness gives birth To some great epoch, without thought of fame. The pioneers of empire, for all time, Are gold-dust, from the placers of our homes— The surface croppings from a nation's prime, The mellow acre of the richest loams. They overgrow the boundaries of life, And push the horizon far out in space. With lethargy they wage a ceaseless strife, And with the whirling earth, they keep their pace. All honor to the soul who sets his stake Where human kind have never trenched before; Where only God his thunders o'er it shake, And solitude shall murmur, "nevermore." Such men are sovereigns, though they grasp no crown, And raise no jewelled scepter in the hand; Yet are they Princes, in their bronze and brown, And demonstrate their fitness to command. The Norsemen, on the North Atlantic wave; Columbus, passing out in unknown seas; De Soto, gaining but an unknown grave; The hardy Pilgrims, on their bended knees; The Argonauts, upon the Western slope— These are the souls no human praise can reach. Each, in their turn, gave empire back to hope, And all are greater than the gift of speech. No pen can lustre their unfading claim; No cenotaph do honor to their dust— These are crown jewels on the brow of Fame; Their conquest is supreme, their laurels ever just. Yet, in the van of empire, still is left The noiseless print of ancestry more grand; Indentures chiseled in the highest cleft, By giants of a long forgotten land,— The nameless graves of centuries untold; The ashes of the prehistoric age; The self-forgetting litany of gold— How vast their monuments, how broad their page! In what a grand democracy of death They lift their silent fingers to our years, Melt our memorials with a single breath In mute companionship of life and tears! We are but pygmies to the almighty past, The names we honor but the surface-mould; Beneath must lie an empire far more vast, Whose fundaments alone deserve the name of "old." Not many years, till they had found the bed Of copper ore upon Superior's rim; And hither many of the hardy ones were led By Orchas, quick in architrave, and fleet of limb; And many the fantastic implements he shaped For husbandry; no want of theirs escaped His eager scrutiny—the axe and blade, The rough-made pick, and the encumbered spade, The vessels for the housewife, and the spear, And other weaponry for bison and for deer. All these were fashioned in an uncouth way, And yet they filled the purpose of the day. They had not reached the iron age of thought, And what they made, necessity had taught; But riper years must ope the "Sampson Mine," And wake the rugged giant, in the shine Of a meridian sunlight; they little thought Of what a Hercules remained unsought, So near Missouri's border; yet, not strange Is their indicted ignorance—their range Was circumscribed; and iron was left to rest, Till man had long been cradled on the breast Of patient Mother Earth—not all at once Did she give up her treasures; and the dunce Must grow into philosopher with years. Experience with its battlehood of tears, Is Nature's great interpreter; we learn But slowly, till the lessons fervid burn Their impress into action; then awakes The slow-taught pupil into higher life— Invention is the furnace-spark of strife; Necessity, the hand that wields the sledge Upon the patient anvil of our needs, And Providence makes good its wakeful pledge With plenteous harvest; from the dormant seeds That lie unconed beneath our very feet We stumble on to marvels, and awake To find some giant force, in what we meet; And in the insects of our path, leviathans, we greet. Time's wheels, though shaken, never fail to track The rut of empire, without turning back; They, ceaseless whirl, with lubricate of blood, Drawn from a thousand channels on the way, Unrusting, through the oxydizing flood, To measure centuries, or mark a day. And thus, the primal pioneers move on To unaccustomed progress, on the banks Of the confluent streams that scar the face Of the great Western basin; and their ranks Are filled with happy husbandry; the land Gives back its tillage, with a lavish hand. The forests and the streams were over-full With fish, and flesh to feed them, and they pass One conquest, to another, in the lull Of untamed nature. Garnered as a mass To fill their open hands, the native corn Soon covered the rich valleys, and the plant, So dalliant to the race, was early born, Tobacco. They were not adamant Against the weaknesses so close allied To human nature; and there was excess, And envy, emulence, and pride, And all the ills that left their first impress; And yet God gave them peace. No brother's hand Was raised against a brother, and the years Spread fruit and plenty over a fair land Destined to futurehood of bitter, bitter tears.

"Most governed is most wayward." Very true; Repeating history doth verify That law from malefaction always grew, And with its ceasing, rulership must die, Except the common sway of Deity, When love and service shall together blend, And man, from every earthly master free, Shall recognize his Father and his Friend. These ancient prairie dwellers, had no need Of stringent government; a few to lead In seeding and in harvest; some to guide In matters of religion, and of form; The rustic swain, and his compliant bride, To join in wedlock; and in time of storm, To smooth the little intricates of life With counsel, sage, and thus avoiding strife, To guide their budding nation into bloom. All claiming unction from the prophet's shade, Still gave their worship to the god of day, And their oblations on the altar laid. Yet, the responsive accident of fire Could never be recalled—they little knew The secret of its coming; and they shaped No other pebbles like the one so true To Uri's pleadings; still they kept their faith And reared their shapely mounds to meet the sun With his first glance, and from the morning's breath Retain their fervency, till day was done. From out their number, some were set apart For game and chase. The buffalo and deer And wild fowl, all, paid tribute to their skill, And vale and forest echoed with their cheer. But one of these, young Wabun, shunned the group, And wandered by the forest streams alone. Some called him "dreamer"; others tried to win His mooding back to mirth; but there was none That seemed to reach the center of his soul; He joined not in the worship of his race, And seemed to be so distant in his thought, That one might search the Pleiad's in his face. There shone a star upon the eastern rim— So suddenly it shot upon their view, So brilliant and so placid, never dim Through storm and starlight, always lit anew. They marveled much, and some were sore dismayed To seek the portents of this stranger star; But not so, Wabun; he, all unafraid, Hailed it as answer from the dim afar, And showed unwonted pleasure at its sight; His distance seemed to shorten, and his mind Seemed mellowed by a new-born love to man— A quickened tenderness to help his kind. "I wander in the forest; by the stream"; (They gave earnest audience as he spake) "And underneath the stars—and they all tell The story of a great, forgotten God. I listen to the murmuring of the rain, And to the mighty thunder of the clouds; And see the forked lightning, in its gleam, Strike the great oak to shivers, in its path; I see the maize upon a thousand fields; I see the goodly carpet on the earth— And every grassy thread a miracle— I see the sun upon his track of light, The moon upon her pathway in the sky— And all do tell of this forgotten God. For God is of the living, not the dead: The tree, the sun, the moon, the stars, and all, All fill their places; but are not alive "As we, with thought, and purpose, and design; But each doth turn upon a steady crank Held by a mighty and imperious hand. The bison, and the deer, and all the birds, Have life, and voice, and action, such as we; And yet they have no thought, except to live. They build no houses, lay no harvests up— We are their masters, with the right to kill. "All things pay tribute to our prowent hands; All things we see are provident of us: The sun to ripen, and the moon to watch, The birds and flocks for us to gather flesh, The forests and the prairies for our use, The mines for metal, and the streams for fish— All, all, pay tribute to our wasting hands. Yet we are not a law unto ourselves: Though masters, yet not gods, for we all die And fall back into dust; yet are we great, And greatest of earth's creatures; but for death, We might claim highest unction; but our power Is limited; wherefore, if we are highest type Of creature earth, then must it surely be That God is man, but of a higher mold; Not subject unto death, but Lord of life. And, if all earthly forces must conserve Our being (highest born of all the earth), Then back of us the great Creator stands "Unseen, as is Eternity unseen, But felt, as is each ripple of her waves, Upon the shores of our unstable life. The greater is not seen. We do not see The very thought that holds us in control. "Thus have I doled, and pondered on it well, Until, upon my vision dawned that star; And as upon some errand quickly sent (I know not how I went, I felt so light), I sped upon its rays, o'er vale, and hill, And o'er a vaster water than the lakes— A grand expanse of green and surging waves. And, on, still on, till just before my face A mother, and an infant at her breast, And many seeming wise and stately men Bending in homage and with offerings choice, Of sweetly-scented vintage; then I sought To find the wherefore of this sweet emprize; And I was told this was the Son of God— The One that was to come, the mighty One, Redeemer of the world; that man had sinned And he was come to set at one the race With the All-Father; that we had been made In God's own image; that the sun and moon Were but his handiwork. To Him alone (Invisible, yet always looking on) "Should homage be ascribed. All this was short Yet was it printed on my pliant breast, And cannot be erased. I seek no name And claim no higher homage for the gleam Vouchsafed my vision of the mighty past And prescience of the future; tis enough To know my steps directed, and to feel That in my darkness I have found out God. No more the unknown God, but evermore The ripened type of the diviner man; And as we reap the tokens of his love, Remember him as Father Man of men— The Infinite Perfection of our race." Much more he said which made a deep impress Upon the hardy hunters, and the less Were those who gave no sanction to his word; The greater portion followed him in thought, And soon in deed. The votaries of the sun Made most malignant onslaught, and they sought To drive the thoughtful Wabun from his "dream." The strife was vain. They in their fervent hope Turn to the East, into the wilderness— The grand Druidic of the Eastern slope, And, hid to all but God, they penetrate The deep recesses of their broad estate. The gentle Wabun held for many years His hand upon the pulses of their thought; Sometimes upon their love, sometimes their fears, His fervent purity, its impress wrought. He led them to the thousand untold charms That sparkle on the rugged Eastern slope. He bared to them the great Creator's arms, And, in God's grandest alphabet, he read their highest hope. Niagara was but a giant scroll, Whereon God writ a token of his strength; The muttering voice of its unceasing roll Was but a cadence of the mighty length That measures the eternities of life. Its grandeur but one glitter of the gold That played upon his vesture; that the strife Of waters was the stream so cold, Down which humanity as rudely rushed; Without a thought for their eternal good, With all the semblance of the Father crushed, They pass down in the surge of death's unceasing flood. The broad Atlantic lashing at the shore, Was human passion—with the balance gone; Endeafening the graces with its roar, And blindly lashing the Eternal throne. Into these miniatures, God thrust himself, That every wave might glitter with his name, That every rock might hold upon its shelf Some semblance that their reverence might claim. The kindlier tokens of paternal care, On Nature's face, were beaming everywhere. And yet, how few of us, can truly blend The creature with Creator, in our sight; And from the Father, grasp the hand of friend, Whose stars of providence outshine the night! Our eyes are fettered with an earthly bound, Our narrow horizon will not enlarge; Our gaze, star fixed, will drop back to the ground, And will not with the infinite surcharge. Only God's hand can push the barriers back, And give our vision unimpeded range; And with each respite, on the weary track, Fix the unchangeable, where all is change.

No wonder, that when Wabun passed away, Their torpid natures should have lost the charm That held so perfect, with its gentle sway, Yet slacked so quickly, with the palsied arm. Infirmities are easy to impart, And through the generations, they come down; But God must place his hand upon each heart, And press each brow where he would drop a crown. Long brotherhood of forest, storm and flood, Had schooled them for the turbulence of life. The wraith of Nature made them men of blood; The war of elements, the ocean's strife, The thunder of Niagara now heard, The lashing of Atlantic on the beach, The slogan of the forest—in a word The carnival, at rife, within their reach, All served to spur their natures into storm. How many catch the key-note of their song From the surrounding elements, and warm Their frozen energies, and make them strong In earth's unceasing alchemy! Much more The untutored savage; he has lost the key, And must from Nature's chalice find the door, Through which to penetrate life's mystery. And many generations passed away, Since these stern foresters had dwelt apart From their ancestral brethren; till the day When in their higher prowess, from the heart Of the great forest fastnesses, they spring As panthers, on their unsuspecting prey. They have grown strong in weaponry, yet cling To Deity, in their untutored way. The "happy hunting ground" to them is Heaven; And the "Great Spirit" still to them is God; Yet, from their hearts, all tender passions driven, They smite their brethren with a heavy rod. A long and ceaseless struggle, many years, Alternately, invasion and defense, Till they are driven southward; and the fears, That Kohen's prophecy would be fullfilled And back of this, the agony intense Of impotence in prayer so deeply chilled The hearts of these poor children of the sun, That they gave easy conquest to their foes; And thus the struggle stubbornly begun, So unresisting now, was finished without blows. When man is shorn of strength, and there is left Only Omnipotence , we kiss the rod— The very rod that smites us. In the cleft We would attempt to hide from Deity, Yet in his anger is an answered prayer— The consciousness of presence; though we flee, The wrath of love, is proof of constant care. But when we beat against the empty air, And every echo sends us back despair , And even superstition, fails to foil Our souls with the deceptive glow of spoil, Then are we bittered, and our path made black; We grope in mists, Cimmerian, on the wrack Of constant and interminable doubt, A natural prey, and easy put to rout. To South, and West, they turn their fateful way Beyond the Mississippi; and their day Seemed lighted with a new influx of hope. The sun embraced them with a warmer smile; The mellow fragrance of the Southern slope Added entrancement each succeeding mile. Not all at once the exodus took place, For they were many, and had scattered wide; Yet to the southward all had set their face To seek in other fields a place to hide From cruel persecutions. When our kin Lends its consanguined arder to the dart, How more intent, with vengeful purposes, How heavier is the load upon the heart! They scatter into fragmentary clans, And in the earnest of their added woe, Give birth to new religious phantasies. The unclogged streams of superstition flow, When down the mountains, and across the moors, The heavy, swollen torrents sweep along, Throwing their scattered wrecks upon the shores, And breaking barriers, however strong. Baal was great, when Baalbec reared her crest And column after column gave her grace And all the East upon her beauty smiled; But when the "owls and bats" usurped her place, The god had fallen. In the temple dust, Where man, with his immortal, had so strove To make the marble animate (in vain, Like other myriad phantoms of the brain) Time fashions into ghostly hands, that sternly point above. And so, God reaps involuntary praise, From every fashioning of man's design; His ways, indeed, cannot be called our ways; Yet his hozannas, from each crumbling shrine, Teach us the servitude of all the past; That human hands but fashion Heavenly aids; That every sculptured mythmark only fades Into eternal sunshine, at the last. Some crossed the mountain ramparts of the West; Some lingered still upon the Eastern slope; The empire yet was open to their zest, And all were buoyant with a new-born hope. But war, like pestilence, doth warp our lives, And like contagion, it infects the air. Peace comes in measure, but it never thrives Directly after conflict, till grows fair The flesh so lately scarred. Intestine war Made ravage of their ranks; they ill could spare Their bravest, yet the first to fall in fratricidal jar. The lines, by conflict, soon were closely drawn, And from the night of struggle nations dawn, Whose chiefs assume the King's prerogative. Clans fall, and clansmen perish; nations live That pass chaotic conflict, and ensphere Their crude material, as a new-born world, To individual phalanxes, and rear Their rude escutcheon. As in ether whirled, The new born planet tracks its trial course; So must this human query find its way, And failure is its fashion; but still worse Are those who fail to grapple with the day, But look supinely on while vested rights Are trampled under foot, and raise no hand In deprecating gesture; from the heights Of grim impartial history will stand Unfading letters, written to the shame Of those whose scourges fail to make a name.

On either side the crest of the Madre, Where mountains kiss their hands to either sea, One slope to blush upon the opening day, The other, to drop down its tapestry And hold the hand for promise of return, Three nations, as three stars, to being burn. The Toltecs, purest of the primal race, The Chichamecs, devoted to the chase, And Aztecs, strongest in the arts of war— All, seeming thrown beneath one fateful star. No painter limnes upon his labored scroll, Be it fantastic, feast, or forest shades, As war upon its victims; from the soul (Plastic as new damped clay) it never fades Till Time has ironed out the furrowed past; And Peace, by laying fevered brows to rest, Over the present has its mantle cast; Then Nature folds its wardling to its breast. So on these nations had been writ, in brief, The deep-burned liturgy of hardened strife, And through the furnace of their pungent grief, They learn to plant the rootlets of their life. One thing is never lacking, at the time, When in their nascent passions, nations rise: The craft of Priests, in every age and clime, To "point a moral," or portend the skies. And so, from cast-off altars to the sun, New pleadings to new conjured gods arose; The selfish passions since the world begun, All seek supernal outlet on their foes. One thing, not far from truth, grew into form: The thought of one great, universal heart, That beat against the window pane of thought, And formed of all existences a part. How near the passions of mankind will verge, Sometimes, upon the borderland of bliss! And all the race is bettered if they urge Continuous march; nor turn their steps amiss; A little light would lead them on to God, And lacking, it the race for ages plod. O that the infant eye of every race Might recognize at once the Master's face! All brought their tribute to Tonatiuh's shrine, Still burnishing the sun with rays divine. True worship strengthens in the wake of years; Its song grows rhythmal with repeated chant; Its beauty lingers, though it disappears; Rekindle, and it melts the adamant. But worship on a purely human base, Though it may work its legends into song And deify the noblest of its race, Can never be unquestionably strong. The happenings of Nature clog its wheels; The elements brush down its cobweb foils; And from its mimicry the heart appeals, And heavenly souls are not for human toils. It is impossible to still the brain By merely human fiat at it thrust; Man journeys out, and he returns again— The Father's voice alone can call him from the dust. And yet, each effort of the human soul, To force existence for its latent wings, Is of an energy that leaps control, Whose germ from our immortal nature springs. The very latch-key of the eternal realm, Though touched in ignorance, commands the door. A more than human wisdom guides the helm, As we approach the palm-extending shore. The hungry arms that reach out after God, Are as the infants for the parent's breast; The soul is weary of its fruitless plod, And Nature beckons it to perfect rest. What though the stream be poisoned, if its flow Seeks only the great ocean to be lost; Not long upon its bosom is it tossed, Ere it recovers its old healthful glow. The old-time sparkle of the mountain spring, Gleams in the dew-drop that returns to earth. No poison lurks within the second birth, It ever carries healing on its wing. Thus, howsoe'er the soul may find its way, Over the wilderness to Jordan's plain, It shall not fail of its eternal gain, The night so trackless shall break into day. The saint, whom angels ushered through the gate, With pæans of rejoicing, once did grope And lose his way, and loose his hold on hope— No soul that reaches it is told to wait. God waits upon the effort to reply, And seeing human hands stretch out for aid, His stronger palm is soon upon them laid— Our weakness is the signet he cannot deny.

The Toltecs were the first to break the way Toward the vertex of the Summer sun; To catch the fervor of his ripest ray, And talismise the pilgrimage begun. And after many days their fasting eyes Are feasted with Mexitli's[A] lovely plain— So like a newly-fashioned paradise, An almost Eden, sprung to life again. Her placid lakes gave back her deep blue sky In rivalry of Nature—Nature's charms Do cast reflected multiples, and try To fold us in with her unnumbered arms. Not all we see, but all we feel, invites, Together with our seeing, to secure An unrestricted homage; all unite In this uncovered world, so rich and pure And lade with sunshine, ripened into form, Concentered rays to leaves and blossoms grown, The larch impendent with its verdant cone, The oak's historic battlement of storm, The cypress mourning and exultant palms, The provident maguey, whose offered alms Found ready acceptation at their hands, The maize, which they had known in northern lands, Were native to her rich and virgin soil And gave the husbandman unstinted spoil.

And thus, with Nature and themselves at rest, Fresh inspiration from the God of peace Expands and energizes every breast, And fettered manhood labors for release. Invention is emancipation : Time Doth loosen Nature's fetters; man invents Not one of those discoveries sublime That couples his poor name with consequence. The world had moved a million years or so Ere Galileo blundered into prison For telling how we are compelled to go. The fog of superstition had not risen; And he whose brain peered up above the cloud, To widen the horizon of his thought, Must be content to leave the gnarlish crowd Of puppets and of priestcraft who have fought The van of progress, immemorial time, In fear some newly loosened truth might break Some preconcerted dogma, deeming crime The impulsive movement of the soul to slake The thirst that God implanted there, to burn Its way into the hidden and unseen, And find new thoroughfares for its return, And on creation's outer verge new entities to glean. So did these primal pioneers look out Beyond the compass of their husbandry, And challenge their surroundings; manly, stout, And earnest did they seek the mystic tree Of knowledge in this Eden of the West, Not interdicted by Divine decree, But always open to the manly quest And the unflagging purpose to be free. The zodiac gave up its lettered scroll To their inquiries; and the measured year Unsealed the clasp that held it from control, And truths that had seemed very far, revealed themselves quite near. Their rudely fashioned lodges soon gave way To buildings of a more pretentious form; The forests and the quarries and the clay Were forced to human vassalage. The charm That held the forest templary from spoil Was not entirely broken; after years And Christian conquest must consume the toil And travail of the centuries. Our tears, Are but a poor atonement for the brand Our westward march has made on Nature's back. We mourn our forest fastnesses too late; With hand unbridled we have torn their face, And given legal sanction to their fate— But what companionship can take their place? Nearest to Nature's very heart of hearts, The verdant monarchs beckon us to God; Their benison with life alone departs; They testify of Eden from the sod. O man! that thy perfection should be lost, When so much perfectness is left on earth! How much of bitterness! With what a cost Didst thou forget the sacred touch that hallowed thee at birth! The worship of Hurakin, "Heart of Heaven," Spoke of a healthier, higher growth of soul, The consciousness of sins to be forgiven; A god, whom weakness could at once control; A prophecy, of Fatherhood to come; A ray that pencils from the "great white throne;" A voice to energies, that had been dumb For many centuries—prophetic groan Of man's insatiate thirst for betterment, Not all in vain. The white-winged dove of peace For many years was theirs; they came and went Beyond their borders, without let or lease; Found sunnier climes to South; and, as a charm Was laid upon their footsteps, they advance To hover closer to their ancient god. They still were pliant to his fateful glance, And scanned his burnished surface to inquire His potency in human destiny. They had forgot the legend of his fire, Yet, from his searching, steadfast eye, not one of them were free. So pass they out from the historic ken— Theirs, no aggressive way-mark on the earth. We linger on their passage, and the pen Would gladly pour regret upon the dearth Of the indentures they have left to mark Their peaceful, noiseless tread upon the shore; But it is vain; yet out of all this dark, One lesson may we glean: That evermore The souls that move with nature on her march Are those who drop, as she drops down her leaves; They fill the earth with fruitfulness, and arch The highway of the nations with their sheaves; They sleep to history, but wake to God; Theirs is the pass-key through eternal gates; They write no vengeful Sanscrit on the sod; They linger at no earthly court, but the recording seraph waits To write them blessed of the Lord, the jewels of the fates.

The silver current of the upper Grande, And where the Gila penetrates the East, The Zuni lines its rocky bed with sand, New ground from granite that has been released From mountain base. The vertebrate Madre Breaks into several center-stays of spine, Which form the watershed that feeds the sea, On either side the sunny slopes recline. Where Coronado laid in after years The scepter of his Sovereign, and bespoke The unbroke silence, as the cycle nears The bending of the neck to Hispagniola's yoke. Here was the fabled Aztlan; and the race, Whose ancestry had circled half the globe, Have now their latest destiny to face. O! could they peer the darkness through, and probe The deep recesses of impending time! Look for one moment on what was to be! How would they cling to this rude mountain clime, And bar the door of their futurity! The Aztecs were a proud and prowent race; In the dispersal at the far Northeast, Now many years, they held the leading place; Yet, in their husbandry, they were the least. Their hands were skilled to turbulence and strife; The bow, the lance, and the rude hunter's knife— Such were their ready implements; but peace Found them all unacquainted; her surcease Requires a range of weaponry diverse. The hands that hew down others, lips that curse, Both must be newly christened; and the arts That unify the race with nature's ways Must hard their hands and reimburse their hearts, And time their lips with sunnier kinds of lays. As if to fill the interim, there grew From their own ranks, the fittest kind of guide, A pastoral leader; who by instinct knew The flowery paths that lead on either side The verdant fields of husbandry and thrift; The worthy Moctheuzoma[B] had this gift, And led them to the conquest of the soil— That easy conquering that seeks its spoil Only where God intended it for man, The fruits of his own labor. Thus began An era of self-discipline, that led The Aztecs on to greatness; and that shed A tender halo over after years, When memory will mingle with our tears.

He turned their eyes upon the talcite ledge, And said: "Behold, this is Tonatuah's pledge Of providence against the Summer's heat And the cold frosts of Winter; quarry it, And fashion it for framework to your homes. For centuries it has withstood the storm, "To wait upon your coming; let your feet Be busy with its treasures." Then he turned To where the clay, for years, had been inurned, And said: "Make use of this; 'tis Thaloc's[C] gift. The mighty thunderer hath torn it down, And ground it into ashes, for your use; Mold it in shapely fragments, and the sun, The warm-faced Tonatuah, will pour out His warmest rays to bake it back to stone. And more, this pliant clay has aptitudes For vessels of all kinds, and yours are rude; So in a hundred ways you may improve." Then, pointing to the forest, thus he spoke: "There Tonatu' and Thaloc both did shake Their well-filled branches to the earth for us, That we might gather fruit, for any taste. These noble trees have swelled the turf for years, And now will bend the neck for our support. We must be provident; for they do point Their myriad fingers to the hands that gave, Mute monitors, to beckon us of Heaven.

"The fish and fowl, and all the vast menage That track our mountain slopes, are all our own. But look out on the earth, whose grassy turf Lifts up its thousand homages to Heaven; "Whence must we gather fruit of our own toil. The maize will grow if planted; the legume Will ripen; and our hands will surely fill, If we but ask the earth and gods to help And second our endeavors. We must work. The river, from the mountain, rushes on; The mountain shakes its thousand plumes at her; The stars do not keep quiet in the skies; All nature is alert and on the watch; And man must bear his burden at the mill." Thus, did he lead them to their better selves, And ravel out the intricates of life In wisdom's stern and simple litany; Gave trenchent lessons to the man and wife, And scattered homes upon new harvest fields. And he, who sets a household altar up, And sanctifies it with the name of home, Fresh sprinkled from the sacred nuptial cup, Is Heaven's Ambassador in human form. The hearthstone is the herald of advance; The hanging of each homely crane, like one Of God's unnumbered irridescent plants, Sheds rainbow hues on all it shines upon, And blessings bend each limb upon its tree. Thrice happy is the nation thus begun, For it has found the track of destiny. The mines he opened, and laid bare the beds Of precious minerals that underlie The bases of our mountain chains. "For all our wants, we have a full supply," Thus spake the seer. "We shall not beat in vain Against the bars that keep our souls from flight. Our birth is built around by providence; Our wants are wickets to unmeasured wealth. If we but find the turnstile to the field, We have but half the hill of life to climb; The other half fades out as we advance; When we have toiled out half-way distance up, Lo! we have found the summit, and descend. "Thus do we work together with the gods; If we but do our best, it is enough; When we put out our arms, they reach to us, Though they do span the universe, to meet And draw us up, the shining heights of life. So in our daily plodding; if we sow, The gods will furnish harvest; if we build, The gods have made the quarry and the clay; Whatever purposes we have in life, If they be only for our betterment, The crude material is at our hands; We only fashion it to suit our wants; Nor is the measure stinted to our needs, But all our vessels fill to overflow "Look over the green fields! Great is our want, But greater the supply; on every hand The wild flowers lift their heads, and what are these But kisses thrown from Heaven to win us back? Our appetites are but our weaker parts, And easy satisfied; not so our souls; They have external longings to supply; And all that beautifies and brightens earth Are forecasts of a kingdom yet to come. As on earth's surface may be found the flowers, So, underneath the shining metals are The surplus of a generous providence. Our fathers, on the borders of the lakes, Did fashion implements of husbandry From inexhaustive mines; but here we have In lesser quantities, much brighter ores, Fit mostly for adornment and exchange. "Man is not satisfied with 'hand to mouth.' The beasts roam through the forests and are filled, And therewith are content; not so with man. Two worlds break on his vision; and the one Must interlock the other in his life, Or he goes blindly out into the night. And it is well earth gives no perfect rest, Or the hereafter would fall out of sight. Man is the one ambitious animal Who seeks for empire, as the brute seeks food; The tame necessities are not enough, But all the precious under flowers of earth Must fill the measure of his discontent. All men are not alike, and some must hold The fullest measure of life's luxuries; These pay their surplus for the others' toil; With them the shining metals will be held As medium for barter and for trade. And as Earth decks her bosom with the flowers, So will the human race adorn themselves And blossom out with variance of gems." Though, still encumbered with their ancient myths, He pointed out the harmony of Heaven; Gave why and wherefore to the dread eclipse. Not his to tell them how the earth is driven Upon its swinging orbit over space; And yet he measured out the perfect year; He looked stern Nature bravely in the face, And seemed to question her without a fear. Transcendent genius; thus to grapple Truth Across the path still covered from his sight, Yet is she merciful; her name is Ruth; She never perches on so grand a height, But she will answer to her children's call, And spread her wings to fly to their embrace— This link was never broken by our fall, And writes Evangel on our troubled race. With his own hand he led them to the field, With his own hand he taught them how to build; He showed them what true husbandry would yield, How all their empty measures could be filled By wakeful industry. "Well pointed toil Is touchstone to earth's treasure-box," said he. "Our fathers may enrich us with their spoil, And we may thus evade the beaten path; Yet, lying dormant on our fathers' beds, Our waste brings want upon our children's heads. Far better that each hand be labor-marked, That all may know the purchase of their lives; He loses half the journey who goes out To the incertitudes of other worlds, Who has not tasted what his hands have won On this, his trial sphere." Thus in well-chosen words, and earnest deeds, He planted fruit that crowded out the weeds. Ruled by divinest right of master-mind, By wisdom and humility combined, By heart, as well as head and hand, he wrought; For there be many who can ne'er be taught By any else than throbbing 'gainst their own, Of some great royal heart; this is their throne; And he who sways in scepterhood of love, Gets his vicegerent from the throne above. Through many years did Moctheuzoma reign; And Aztlan prospered, and the race grew strong; And when his body passed to earth again, His spirit, with its wisdom, lingered long. Thus, with a twilight halo pass the great Across the threshold with a noiseless tread; We linger but a moment at the gate To pay our homage to the honored dead; Then turn to find them still inurned with us. Their silence is more eloquent than words, Their passing out is but life's overplus, Their tongues are tempered into two-edged swords. They speak across the chasm of their graves, In weightier words, in thoughts far more intense; In life they mingled with its thousand waves— It is God's way; death ripens eloquence. Time trolls along with its unceasing march, And Aztlan has outgrown her former bounds; She holds the center of the ancient arch, On the historic ladder's highest rounds. She sways the queenly scepter of the past Above the waymarks of a hundred realms; Yet leaves but hints of the grand overcast, Through which she burns her way, and overwhelms Our thoughts with all the possibles of time. We can but poorly comprehend, yet write her most sublime.