Canto First: One Day and Part of Night

Beneath aÎrial cliffs, and glittering snows,The rush-roof of an aged warrior rose,Chief of the mountain tribes: high overhead,The Andes, wild and desolate, were spread,Where cold Sierras shot their icy spires,And Chillan trailed its smoke and smouldering fires.A glen beneath, a lonely spot of rest,Hung, scarce discovered, like an eagle's nest.Summer was in its prime;--the parrot-flocksDarkened the passing sunshine on the rocks;The chrysomel and purple butterfly,Amid the clear blue light, are wandering by;The humming-bird, along the myrtle bowers,With twinkling wing, is spinning o'er the flowers,The woodpecker is heard with busy bill,The mock-bird sings--and all beside is still,And look! the cataract that bursts so high,As not to mar the deep tranquillity,The tumult of its dashing fall suspends,And, stealing drop by drop, in mist descends;Through whose illumined spray and sprinkling dews,Shine to the adverse sun the broken rainbow hues.Chequering, with partial shade, the beams of noon,And arching the gray rock with wild festoon,Here its gay net-work, and fantastic twine,The purple cogul threads from pine to pine,And oft, as the fresh airs of morning breathe,Dips its long tendrils in the stream beneath.There, through the trunks with moss and lichens white,The sunshine darts its interrupted light,And, 'mid the cedar's darksome boughs, illumes,With instant touch, the Lori's scarlet plumes.So smiles the scene;--but can its smiles impartAught to console yon mourning warrior's heart?He heeds not now, when beautifully bright,The humming-bird is circling in his sight;Nor ev'n, above his head, when air is still,Hears the green woodpecker's resounding bill;But gazing on the rocks and mountains wild,Rock after rock, in glittering masses piledTo the volcano's cone, that shoots so highGray smoke whose column stains the cloudless sky,He cries, Oh! if thy spirit yet be fledTo the pale kingdoms of the shadowy dead,--In yonder tract of purest light above,Dear long-lost object of a father's love,Dost thou abide; or like a shadow come,Circling the scenes of thy remembered home,And passing with the breeze, or, in the beamOf evening, light the desert mountain stream!Or at deep midnight are thine accents heard,In the sad notes of that melodious bird,Which, as we listen with mysterious dread,Brings tidings from our friends and fathers dead?Perhaps, beyond those summits, far away,Thine eyes yet view the living light of day;Sad, in the stranger's land, thou may'st sustainA weary life of servitude and pain,With wasted eye gaze on the orient beam,And think of these white rocks and torrent stream,Never to hear the summer cocoa wave,Or weep upon thy father's distant grave.Ye, who have waked, and listened with a tear,When cries confused, and clangours rolled more near;With murmured prayer, when Mercy stood aghast,As War's black trump pealed its terrific blast,And o'er the withered earth the armed giant passed!Ye, who his track with terror have pursued,When some delightful land, all blood-imbrued,He swept; where silent is the champaign wide,That echoed to the pipe of yester-tide,Save, when far off, the moonlight hills prolongThe last deep echoes of his parting gong;Nor aught is seen, in the deserted spotWhere trailed the smoke of many a peaceful cot,Save livid corses that unburied lie,And conflagrations, reeking to the sky;--Come listen, whilst the causes I relateThat bowed the warrior to the storms of fate,And left these smiling scenes forlorn and desolate.In other days, when, in his manly pride,Two children for a father's fondness vied,--Oft they essayed, in mimic strife, to wieldHis lance, or laughing peeped behind his shield;Oft in the sun, or the magnolia's shade,Lightsome of heart as gay of look they played,Brother and sister. She, along the dew,Blithe as the squirrel of the forest flew;Blue rushes wreathed her head; her dark-brown hairFell, gently lifted, on her bosom bare;Her necklace shone, of sparkling insects made,That flit, like specks of fire, from sun to shade.Light was her form; a clasp of silver bracedThe azure-dyed ichella round her waist;Her ancles rung with shells, as unconfinedShe danced, and sung wild carols to the wind.With snow-white teeth, and laughter in her eye,So beautiful in youth she bounded by.Yet kindness sat upon her aspect bland,--The tame alpaca stood and licked her hand;She brought him gathered moss, and loved to deckWith flowery twine his tall and stately neck,Whilst he with silent gratitude replies,And bends to her caress his large blue eyes.These children danced together in the shade,Or stretched their hands to see the rainbow fade;Or sat and mocked, with imitative glee,The paroquet, that laughed from tree to tree;Or through the forest's wildest solitude,From glen to glen, the marmozet pursued;And thought the light of parting day too short,That called them, lingering, from their daily sport.In that fair season of awakening life,When dawning youth and childhood are at strife;When on the verge of thought gay boyhood standsTiptoe, with glistening eye and outspread hands;With airy look, and form and footsteps light,And glossy locks, and features berry-bright,And eye like the young eaglet's, to the rayOf noon unblenching as he sails away;A brede of sea-shells on his bosom strung,A small stone-hatchet o'er his shoulder slung,With slender lance, and feathers blue and red,That, like the heron's crest, waved on his head,--Buoyant with hope, and airiness, and joy,Lautaro was a graceful Indian boy:Taught by his sire, ev'n now he drew the bow,Or tracked the jagguar on the morning snow;Startled the condor, on the craggy height;Then silent sat, and marked its upward flight,Lessening in ether to a speck of white.But when the impassioned chieftain spoke of war,Smote his broad breast, or pointed to a scar,--Spoke of the strangers of the distant main,And the proud banners of insulting Spain,--Of the barbed horse and iron horseman spoke,And his red gods, that, wrapped in rolling smoke,Roared from the guns;--the boy, with still-drawn breath,Hung on the wondrous tale, as mute as death;Then raised his animated eyes, and cried,Oh, let me perish by my father's side!Once, when the moon, o'er Chillan's cloudless height,Poured, far and wide, its softest, mildest light,A predatory band of mailed menBurst on the stillness of the sheltered glen:They shouted, Death! and shook their sabres high,That shone terrific to the moonlight sky;Where'er they rode, the valley and the hillEchoed the shrieks of death, till all again was still.The warrior, ere he sank in slumber deep,Had kissed his son, soft-breathing in his sleep,Where on a Llama's skin he lay, and said,Placing his hand, with tears, upon his head,AÎrial nymphs! that in the moonlight stray,O gentle spirits! here awhile delay;Bless, as ye pass unseen, my sleeping boy,Till blithe he wakes to daylight and to joy.If the GREAT SPIRIT will, in future days,O'er the fall'n foe his hatchet he shall raise,And, 'mid a grateful nation's high applause,Avenge his violated country's cause!Now, nearer points of spears, and many a coneOf moving helmets, in the moonlight shone,As, clanking through the pass, the band of bloodSprang, like hyÊnas, from the secret wood.They rush, they seize their unresisting prey,Ruthless they tear the shrieking boy away;But, not till gashed by many a sabre wound,The father sank, expiring, on the ground.He waked from the dark trance to life and pain,But never saw his darling child again.Seven snows had fallen, and seven green summers passed,Since here he heard that son's loved accents last.Still his beloved daughter soothed his cares,Whilst time began to strew with white his hairs.Oft as his painted feathers he unbound,Or gazed upon his hatchet on the ground,Musing with deep despair, nor strove to speak,Light she approached, and climbed to reach his cheek,Held with both hands his forehead, then her headDrew smiling back, and kissed the tear he shed.But late, to grief and hopeless love a prey,She left his side, and wandered far away.Now in this still and shelter'd glen, that smiledBeneath the crags of precipices wild,Wrapt in a stern yet sorrowful repose,The warrior half forgot his country's woes;Forgot how many, impotent to save,Shed their best blood upon a father's grave;How many, torn from wife and children, pineIn the dark caverns of the hopeless mine,Never to see again the blessed morn;--Slaves in the lovely land where they were born;How many at sad sunset, with a tear,The distant roar of sullen cannons hear,Whilst evening seems, as dies the sound, to throwA deadlier stillness on a nation's woe!So the dark warrior, day succeeding day,Wore in distempered thought the noons away;And still, when weary evening came, he sighed,My son, my son! or, with emotion, cried,When I descend to the cold grave alone,Who shall be there to mourn for me?--Not one!The crimson orb of day now westering flungHis beams, and o'er the vast Pacific hung;When from afar a shrilling sound was heard,And, hurrying o'er the dews, a scout appeared.The watchful warrior knew the piercing tones,The signal-call of war, from human bones,--What tidings? with impatient look, he cried.Tidings of war, the hurrying scout replied;Then the sharp pipe with shriller summons blew,And held the blood-red arrow high in view.