Canto III

Now stern Pizarro seeks the distant plains,Where beauteous Cusco lifts her golden fanes:The meek Peruvians gaz'd in pale dismay,Nor barr'd the dark oppressor's sanguine way:And soon on Cusco, where the dawning lightOf glory shone, foretelling day more bright,Where the young arts had shed unfolding flowers,A scene of spreading desolation lowers;While buried deep in everlasting shade,Those lustres sicken, and those blossoms fade.And yet, devoted land, not gold alone,Or wild ambition wak'd thy parting groan;For, lo! a fiercer fiend, with joy elate,Feasts on thy suff'rings, and impels thy fate.Fanatic fury rears her sullen shrine,Where vultures prey, where venom'd adders twine;Her savage arm with purple torrents stainsThy rocking temples, and thy falling fanes;Her blazing torches flash the mounting fire,She grasps the sabre, and she lights the pyre;Her voice is thunder, rending the still air,Her glance the livid light'ning's fatal glare;Her lips unhallow'd breathe their impious strain,And pure religion's sacred voice profane;Whose precepts, pity's mildest deeds approve,Whose law is mercy, and whose soul is love.Fanatic fury wakes the rising storm--She wears the stern Valverda's hideous form;His bosom never felt another's woes,No shriek of anguish breaks its dark repose.The temple nods--an aged form appears--He beats his breast--he rends his silver hairs--Valverda drags him from the blest abodeWhere his meek spirit humbly sought its God:See, to his aid his child, soft Zilia, springs,And steeps in tears the robe to which she clings,Till bursting from Peruvia's frighted throng,Two warlike youths impetuous rush'd along;One, grasp'd his twanging bow with furious air,While in his troubled eye sat fierce despair.But all in vain his erring weapon flies,Pierc'd by a thousand wounds, on earth he lies.His drooping head the heart-struck Zilia rais'd,And on the youth in speechless anguish gaz'd;While he, who fondly shar'd his danger, flew,And from his breast a reeking sabre drew."Deep in my faithful bosom let me hide"The fatal steel, that would our souls divide,"He quick exclaims--the dying warrior cries,"Ah, yet forbear!--by all the sacred ties,"That bind our hearts, forbear"--In vain he spoke,Friendship with frantic zeal impels the stroke:"Thyself for ever lost, thou hop'st in vain,"The youth replied, my spirit to detain;"From thee, my soul, in childhood's earliest year,"Caught the light pleasure, and the starting tear;"Thy friendship then my young affections blest,"The first pure passion of my infant breast;"That passion, which o'er life delight has shed,"By reason cherish'd, and by virtue fed:"And still in death I feel its strong controul;"Its sacred impulse wings my fleeting soul,"That only lingers here till thou depart,"Whose image lives upon my fainting heart."--In vain the gen'rous youth, with panting breath,Pour'd these lost murmurs in the ear of death;He reads the fatal truth in Zilia's eye,And gives to friendship his expiring sigh.--But now with rage Valverda's glances roll,And mark the vengeance rankling in his soul:He bends his wrinkled brow--his lips impartThe brooding purpose of his venom'd heart;He bids the hoary priest in mutter'd strains,Abjure his faith, forsake his falling fanes,While yet the ling'ring pangs of torture wait,While yet Valverda's power suspends his fate."Vain man, the victim cried, to hoary years"Know death is mild, and virtue feels no fears:"Cruel of spirit, come! let tortures prove"The Power I serv'd in life, in death I love."--He ceas'd--with rugged cords his limbs they bound,And drag the aged suff'rer on the ground;They grasp his feeble form, his tresses tear,His robe they rend, his shrivell'd bosom bare.Ah, see his uncomplaining soul sustainThe sting of insult, and the dart of pain;His stedfast spirit feels one pang alone;A child's despair awakes one suff'ring groan--The mourner kneels to catch his parting breath,To sooth the agony of ling'ring death;No moan she breath'd, no tear had power to flow,Still on her lip expir'd th' unutter'd woe:Yet ah, her livid cheek, her stedfast look,The desolated soul's deep anguish spoke--Mild victim! close not yet thy languid eyes;Pure spirit! claim not yet thy kindred skies;A pitying angel comes to stay thy flight,Las Casas bids thee view returning light:Ah, let that sacred drop to virtue dear,Efface thy wrongs--receive his precious tear;See his flush'd cheek with indignation glow,While from his lips the tones of pity flow."Oh suff'ring Lord! he cried, whose streaming blood"Was pour'd for man--Earth drank the sacred flood--"Whose mercy in the mortal pang forgave"The murd'rous band, thy love alone could save;"Forgive--thy goodness bursts each narrow bound,"Which feeble thought, and human hope surround;"Forgive the guilty wretch, whose impious hand"From thy pure altar flings the flaming brand,"In human blood that hallow'd altar steeps,"Libation dire! while groaning nature weeps--"The limits of thy mercy dares to scan,"The object of thy love, his victim,--Man;"While yet I linger, lo, the suff'rer dies--"I see his frame convuls'd--I hear his sighs--"Whoe'er controuls the purpose of my heart"First in this breast shall plunge his guilty dart:"With anxious step he flew, with eager handsHe broke the fetters, burst the cruel bands.As the fall'n angel heard with awful fearThe cherub's grave rebuke, in grace severe,And fled, while horror plum'd his impious crest,The form of virtue, as she stood confest;So fierce Valverda sullen mov'd along,Abash'd, and follow'd by the guilty throng.At length the hoary victim, freed from chains,Las Casas gently leads to safer plains;Soft Zilia's yielding soul the joy opprest,She bath'd with floods of tears her father's breast.Las Casas now explores a secret caveWhose shaggy sides the languid billows lave;"There rest secure, he cried, the Christian God"Will hover near, will guard the lone abode."Oft to the gloomy cell his steps repair,While night's chill breezes wave his silver'd hair;Oft in the tones of love, the words of peace,He bids the bitter tears of anguish cease;Bids drooping hope uplift her languid eyes,And points a dearer bliss beyond the skies.Yet ah, in vain his pious cares would saveThe hoary suff'rer from the op'ning grave;For deep the pangs of torture pierc'd his frame,And sunk his wasted life's expiring flame;To his cold lip Las Casa's hand he prest,He faintly clasp'd his Zilia to his breast;Then cried, "the God, whom now my vows adore,"My heart thro' life obey'd, unknowing more;"His mild forgiveness then my soul shall prove,"His mercy share--Las Casa's God, is Love!"He spoke no more--his Zilia's frantic moanWas heard responsive to his dying groan."Victim of impious zeal, Las Casas cries,"Accept departed shade, a Christian's sighs;"And thou, soft mourner, tender, drooping form,"What power shall guard thee from the fearful storm?"Weep not for me, she cried, for Zilia's breast"Soon in the shelt'ring earth shall find its rest."Hope not the victim of despair to save,"I ask but death--I only seek a grave--"Witness thou mangled form that earth retains,"Witness a murder'd lover's cold remains."I liv'd my father's pangs to sooth, to share;"I bore to live, tho' life was all despair--"In vain my lover, urg'd by fond desire"To shield from torture, and from death my sire,"Flew to the fane where stern Valverda rag'd,"And fearless, with unequal force engag'd;"I saw him bleeding, dying press the ground,"I drew the poison from each fatal wound;"I bath'd those wounds with tears--he pour'd a sigh--"A drop hung trembling in his closing eye--"Ah, still his mournful sign I shiv'ring hear,"In every pulse I feel his parting tear--"I faint--an icy coldness chills each vein,"No more these feeble limbs their load sustain:"Spirit of pity! catch my fleeting breath,"A moment stay--and close my eyes in death--"Las Casas, thee, thy God in mercy gave"To sooth my pangs--to find the wretch a grave."--She ceas'd--her spirit fled to purer spheres--Las Casas bathes the pallid corse with tears--Fly, minister of good! nor ling'ring shedThose fruitless sorrows o'er the unconscious dead;Ah fly--'tis innocence, 'tis virtue bleeds,And heav'n will listen, when an angel pleads;I view the sanguine flood, the wasting flame,I hear a suff'ring world Las Casas claim!

--On his crestSat horror plum'd.Par. Lost, iv. 988.