Montezuma Part 15

Our flesh will not float on the pinions That bear to Elysian our spirits; Our hearts are too warm for the angels, To hush with their transparent fingers; Our lips are too ready for kisses To be cooled to the calm of devotion; Our hands are too warm in another's To be folded in supplication; Too much of the earth is about us To be lost in the halo of Heaven-- So we need the cool heart of the mother That has pa.s.sed the hot chaos of pa.s.sion, To temper the pulse that is wayward.

"Yet I cannot have wandered so greatly, When love was the only impulsion, Such a distance away from the Master Whose name is the essence of loving; But he sees the bare heart in its throbbing, And the crystallized faith of my footsteps That were only too quick in their choosing.

Surely, Love, the benificent Master, Springing forth from the bosom of Mary, To smother the earth with caresses, Will drop a light hand on the shoulder That shadows a heart that has wandered By only its warm overflowing."

She loaded her mother with jewels, And left not the shadow of malice To stain the fair skirts of her mercy, But canceled her wrongs with caresses, And covered the past with forgiveness.

Thus she bore the whole soul of the Gospel To the hungry hearts of her people; And the heart is not hard to the sermon That carries a life for its background As perfectly pure as the precept.

The heathen is waiting the harvest-- Only hallowed hands for the sickle; When the life and the lip move together Millennium waits on the morning.

The trial that sometimes had shadowed Comes at last in its fullness upon her, And the pride of Cortez seeks another For the place that is only Malinche's.

And he offers to Don Xamarillo The tremulous hand of the maiden, As if it was his to bestow her As a chattel--a token of friends.h.i.+p-- On his friend and bosom companion.

The anger of love was upon her, And all of her beauty shone brightest, As she flashed on her recreant lover The flaming scourge of her protest:

"I came as a slave to your camp-ground; You lifted me out of my bondage, For you knew I was free in my birthright.

You wooed me, and won me as lover, And only as wife could have worn it; I have drawn on your love as a garment.

You first sought me out as a sponsor, But the language of Spain is a magnet That drew me all out of Malinche And made me a part of her Chieftain; And now you would sunder the tendrils And force back the vine from the branches Where they learn't all of life in reclining, And never can unlearn the lesson.

"O, Hernando, you know not Malinche!

If you think she can cherish another In the heart she too willingly gave you; Were you priest of the Aztec temple, And should raise in your hand the itztli, To open the breast of your victim; My heart would leap out at your calling, E're the word of your summons was spoken.

Ask me to antic.i.p.ate Heaven, And my life would be swift in its forfeit.

But to learn the love of another, And to wean me from your caresses, Is beyond the wisdom of granting.

The logic of love hath a limit, Only G.o.d can re-tension our heart-strings.

"Oh, Hernando! my prince and my primate, My husband on earth and in Heaven!

Let me cling to your feet as a hand-maid, And wash with my tears, as another Did moisten the feet of our Savior, But drive me not hence from your presence.

I can never love Xamarillo-- He can fetter the hand of Malinche, But her heart will go over the ocean And will smite at your breast when you proffer Your hand to some delicate Dona.

"Not alone is the voice of my pleading, But an angel in Heaven confronts you; The white wings of sweet Catalina, Shall flutter the breath of your wooing: You sent her too early to Heaven To quiet the shade of her anguish.

Two wives--one on earth, one in Heaven-- Throw their _love_ and _your_ pride in the balance; And another whose innocent glances Should burn all the dross from your nature, Your child is a witness against you; G.o.d has sent him a pledge of my wifehood, To nail the black lie of denying.

"Though no priest gave the mystical signet, Surely G.o.d heard the vows that were spoken When our hearts took their place at the wedding; And who shall say nay to a union, When Love gives our souls to each other?

G.o.d is Love, and no higher can speak it.

O, Hernando! be father and husband, Be angel and saint to Malinche!

She kneels, as she would at G.o.d's altar, To plead for the heart you have broken.

O, turn from your pride, and but touch it, And it will bloom over with blessing, And will hallow the hand that shall heal it!"

All in vain did she plead with the Chieftain; His pride was the bane of his footsteps.

The angel of Love would have held him, But the blood of old Spain was too purple, And smothered her tender endeavor.

The grip of his purpose still held him, And Malinche, now pa.s.sive with anguish, Was given to Don Xamarillo With all the sanction of marriage.

He was kind, indulgent and loving, And she was made wealthy by Cortez Giving back the estate of her mother And much of the wealth of the province, As if he would purchase appeas.e.m.e.nt.

The Chieftain made lavish atonement, As far as the world could atone her; But her heart was impossible healing.

Though her charities gave her some solace, And she strove with the earnest of pathos To lose in the anguish of others The shadow of self and of sorrow, Yet she wended her way, broken-hearted; And, as if like the spirit of Aztlan, With the mark of perpetual sadness, With the head bending over and brooding-- As groping her way to the sunset, Peering out for the light that was pa.s.sing For ever and aye with the shadows-- She fell asleep with her people, And an angel was born in Heaven.

And a guardian angel descended, And gathered thy ashes, dead Aztlan!

And spread her white wings o'er the casket, To wait for the sound of the trumpet That called thee to life and to freedom.

It rode on the wing of the North Wind, And shook the whole earth when it sounded.

And no plainer hozanna gave echo, Than arose from thy halls, Montezuma, When the shade of Malinche gave battle, And the armies of Spain were dismembered, As Mexitli arose from her ashes, And a star was replanted in Heaven!

And now, in the dusk of the evening, When lovers await at the cas.e.m.e.nt, The tokened response of their ladies, When Chapultepec garlands her tablets With the beautiful plumage of springtime, And a thousand sprays of the sunlight Give her walls all the charm of enchantment, Malinche is seen through the shadows, The unsummoned guest at each wedding; The unspoken tryst of all lovers; Wherever two hands are united, The hand of a third presses o'er them.

The troth of two hearts is cemented By the one that was cruelly broken.

No symbol of faith can be stronger, Than "The love that is true as Malinche's."

And she watches the fate of the nation With the jealous eye of a mother,-- A mother, whose voice more than others Taught their lips the first lisp of the Gospel, And tendered their steps toward Heaven.

A saint, at whose shrine they all gather When the shadow of war hovers o'er them, And the eagle swoops down from the mountain To cover the snake with his talons.

And they pledge anew to the banner That arose again with the nation, When the three hundred years of their bondage Forged their broken links into missiles To drive Spain into the ocean.

Thus she holds the warm palm of her people With a memory stronger than shadow,-- She lives; and the Spirit of Aztlan, "The beautiful sphinx of the ages,"

With its foot at the threshold of empire, And its hand on the pulse of the sunrise, And its crown of all possible setting, Has no brighter gem than Malinche.

Blest Mary! the mother of G.o.d, And tenderest daughter of Heaven!

Thou, too, hast pa.s.sed under the rod, And with thy great sorrow hast striven!

Shall a child of misfortune e'er wait On this side the Beautiful City, When thy hand is the turn of the gate, And thy voice hath the magic of pity?

No; the word shall be spoken ere thought, And the prayer be granted ere spoken, And the gate shall swing open unsought To the heart that is bleeding and broken.

The devils that tore Magdalene May gnash at the sorrow of others; Since a pitying Christ uttered "peace,"

Mankind become sisters and brothers.

Our faith hangs not on the morrow, But is instant and on the wing; With the common signet of sorrow, We pa.s.s to the court of the King.

THE HARP OF THE WEST.

Fair Clime of the sunset! more richly endowed Than Hispan' the knightly, or Gallia the proud-- Where the lakes of old Scotia are lost in the maze Of thy thousand that mirror their heavy fringed banks Of mountain and crag, and the stateliest ranks That ever stood sentinel-watch to the gaze Of a sky bending closer, and breathing more near Than the heart ever throbbed to the fall of a tear.

Though the soul be as barren as Gobi's bleak heath And the spirit of song in the cold throes of death, Can humanity throttle the play of the breeze O'er the harp that old Nature unwittingly strung, When the windows of Heaven wide open were flung, For a thousand years to thy masterful trees?

Can the ear fail to hear, or the eye fail to see Thy rich crown! thy sweet song! great Yo Semite?

Though the brow of Olympus be crowded with thrones, And the cliffs of Parna.s.sus resound with the tones Of the Muses that sang at the foot of their G.o.d, Not Apollo's great steeds, nor the flame of his car, Nor Mars, with the terrible glitter of war, Can dazzle the face of thy sun and thy sod, Bright Star of the West! Thou art Empire's own idol, The steed of the lightning, untamed to the bridle!

What is History's wreath but a record of death!

Time breathes on the tablet, it fades with his breath; But Nature has written in language so strong That Eternity's finger alone can displace, And write its own letters to fill up the s.p.a.ce.

Our castles are mountains--our history, long,-- So long that we simply write G.o.d on the page, And leave other Nations to guess at our age.

Our song is the present; G.o.d fills up the past, With his rock-written letters; a volume so vast No hand may transcribe what He leaves as his own.

From Sinai we came with his prophet of old, To the valley where glitters the altar of gold-- Shall we break, in our frenzy, the tables of stone?

No! the letters are fresh, and deep graven the hand.

Far too sacred our charge! As He writ, let them stand!

When these tablets of Nature shall yield to the brain, And some bard shall interpret the words they contain, What a song shall burst forth from the prison of thought!

As his hand shall pa.s.s over the magical strings, And each chord at his touch into unison springs, As the wing of his impulse is hastily caught, No harp more divine in the turn of the earth Shall throb to the measures of sorrow and mirth!