Indian

When I led thy sire,Whom late thou saw'st upon his shield expire,Son of our Ulmen, didst thou mark no trace,In these sad looks, of a remembered face?Dost thou remember Izdabel? Look here!It is thy father's hatchet and his spear.Friend of my infant days, how I rejoice,Lautaro cried, once more to hear that voice!Life like a dream, since last we met, has fled--Oh, my beloved sister, thou art dead!

I come to guide thee through untrodden ways,To the lone valley, where thy father's daysWere passed; where every cave and every tree,From morn to morn, reminded him of thee!Lautaro cried: Here, faithful Indian, stay;I have a last sad duty yet to pay.A little while we part:--thou here remain.He spake, and passed like lightning o'er the plain.Ah, cease, Castilian maid, thy vain alarms!See where he comes--his father in his arms!Now lead, he cried. The Indian, sad and still,Paced on from wood to vale, from vale to hill;Her infant tired, and hushed a while to rest,Smiled, in a dream, upon its mother's breast;The pensive mother gray Anselmo led;Behind, Lautaro bore his father dead.Beneath the branching palms they slept at night;The small birds waked them ere the morning light.Before their path, in distant view, appearedThe mountain-smoke, that its dark column rearedO'er Andes' summits, in the pale blue sky,Lifting their icy pinnacles so high.Four days they onward held their eastern way;On the fifth rising morn, before them layChillan's lone glen, amid whose windings green,The Warrior's loved and last abode was seen.No smoke went up, a stillness reigned around,Save where the waters fell with soothing sound,Save where the Thenca sang so loud and clear,And the bright humming-bird was spinning near.Yet here all human tumults seemed to cease,And sunshine rested on the spot of peace;The myrtles bloomed as fragrant and as greenAs if Lautaro scarce had left the scene;And in his ear the falling waters' spraySeemed swelling with the sounds of yesterday.Where yonder rock the aged cedars shade,There shall my father's bones in peace be laid.Beneath the cedar's shade they dug the ground;The small and sad communion gathered round.Beside the grave stood aged Izdabel,And broke the spear, and cried: Farewell, farewell!Lautaro hid his face, and sighed Adieu!As the stone hatchet in the grave he threw.The little child that to its mother clung,Stretched out its arm, then on her garment hung,With sidelong looks, half-shrinking, half-amazed,And dropped its flowers, unconscious, as it gazed.And now Anselmo, his pale brow inclined,The honoured relics, dust to dust, consignedWith Christian rites, and sung, on bending knee,"Eternam pacem dona, Domine."Then rising up he closed the holy book;And lifting in the beam his lighted look,(The cross, with meekness, folded on his breast),Here, too, he cried, my bones in peace shall rest!Few years remain to me, and never moreShall I behold, O Spain! thy distant shore!Here lay my bones, that the same tree may waveO'er the poor Christian's and the Indian's grave.Oh, may it (when the sons of future daysShall hear our tale and on the hillock gaze),Oh, may it teach, that charity should bind,Where'er they roam, the brothers of mankind!The time shall come, when wildest tribes shall hearThy voice, O Christ! and drop the slaughtering spear.Yet we condemn not him who bravely stood,To seal his country's freedom with his blood;And if, in after-times, a ruthless bandOf fell invaders sweep my native land,May she, by Chili's stern example led,Hurl back his thunder on the assailant's head;Sustained by Freedom, strike the avenging blow,And learn one virtue from her ancient foe!