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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=538653" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Missionary - Canto Seventh</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">The watchman on the tower his bugle blew,<br>And swelling to the morn the streamers flew;<br>The rampart-guns a dread alarum gave,<br>Smoke rolled, and thunder echoed o'er the wave;<br>When, starting from his couch, Valdivia cried,<br>What tidings? Of the tribes! a scout replied;<br>Ev'n now, prepared thy bulwarks to assail,<br>Their gathering numbers darken all the vale!<br>Valdivia called to the attendant youth,<br>Philip, he cried, belike thy words have truth; <br>The formidable host, by holy James,<br>Might well appal our priests and city dames!<br>Dost thou not fear? Nay--dost thou not reply?<br>Now by the rood, and all the saints on high,<br>I hold it sin that thou shouldst lift thy hand<br>Against thy brothers in thy native land!<br>But, as thou saidst, those mighty enemies<br>Me and my feeble legions would despise.<br>Yes, by our holy lady, thou shalt ride,<br>Spectator of their prowess, by my side! <br>Come life, come death, our battle shall display<br>Its ensigns to the earliest beam of day!<br>With louder summons ring the rampart-bell,<br>And haste the shriving father from his cell;<br>A soldier's heart rejoices in alarms:<br>And let the trump at midnight sound to arms!<br>And now, obedient to the chief's commands,<br>The gray-haired priest before the soldier stands.<br>Father, Valdivia cried, fierce are our foes,--<br>The last event of war GOD only knows;-- <br>Let mass be sung; father, this very night<br>I would attend the high and holy rite.<br>Yet deem not that I doubt of victory,<br>Or place defeat or death before mine eye;<br>It blenches not! But, whatsoe'er befall,<br>Good father, I would part in peace with all.<br>So, tell Lautaro--his ingenuous mind<br>Perhaps may grieve, if late I seemed unkind:--<br>Hear my heart speak, though far from virtue's way<br>Ambition's lure hath led my steps astray, <br>No wanton exercise of barbarous power<br>Harrows my shrinking conscience at this hour.<br>If hasty passions oft my spirit fire,<br>They flash a moment and the next expire;<br>Lautaro knows it. There is somewhat more:<br>I would not, here--here, on this distant shore<br>(Should they, the Indian multitudes, prevail,<br>And this good sword and these firm sinews fail)<br>Amid my deadly enemies be found,<br>'Unhouseled, ananealed,' upon the ground, <br>A dying man;--thy look, thy reverend age,<br>Might save my poor remains from barb'rous rage;<br>And thou may'st pay the last sad obsequies,<br>O'er the heaped earth where a brave soldier lies:--<br>So GOD be with thee!<br>By the torches' light,<br>The slow procession moves; the solemn rite<br>Is chanted: through the aisles and arches dim,<br>At intervals, is heard the imploring hymn.<br>Now all is still, that only you might hear-- <br>(The tall and slender tapers burning clear,<br>Whose light Anselmo's palid brow illumes,<br>Now glances on the mailed soldier's plumes)<br>Hear, sounding far, only the iron tread,<br>That echoed through the cloisters of the dead.<br>Dark clouds are wandering o'er the heaven's wide way;<br>Now from the camp, at times, a horse's neigh<br>Breaks on the ear; and on the rampart height<br>The sentinel proclaims the middle watch of night.<br>By the dim taper's solitary ray, <br>Tired, in his tent, the sovereign soldier lay.<br>Meantime, as shadowy dreams arise, he roams<br>'Mid bright pavilions and imperial domes,<br>Where terraces, and battlements, and towers,<br>Glisten in air o'er rich romantic bowers.<br>Sudden the visionary pomp is past;<br>The vacant court sounds to the moaning blast;<br>A dismal vault appears, where, with swoll'n eyes,<br>As starting from their orbs, a dead man lies.<br>It is Almagro's corse!--roll on, ye drums, <br>Lo! where the great, the proud Pizarro comes!<br>Her gold, her richest gems, let Fortune strew<br>Before the mighty conqueror of Peru!<br>Ah, turn, and see a dagger in his hand--<br>With ghastly look--see the assassin stand!<br>Pizarro falls;--he welters in his gore!<br>Lord of the western world, art thou no more!<br>Valdivia, hark!--it was another groan!<br>Another shadow comes, it is thy own!<br>Ah, bind not thus his arms!--give, give him breath! <br>Wipe from his bleeding brow those damps of death!<br>Valdivia, starting, woke. He is alone:<br>The taper in his tent yet dimly shone.<br>Lautaro, haste! he cried; Lautaro, save<br>Thy dying master! Ah! is this the brave,<br>The haughty victor? Hush, the dream is past!<br>The early trumpets ring the second blast!<br>Arm, arm! Ev'n now, the impatient charger neighs!<br>Again, from tent to tent the trumpet brays!<br>By torch-light, then, Valdivia gave command, <br>Haste, let Del Oro take a chosen band,<br>With watchful caution, on his fleetest steed,<br>A troop observant on the heights to lead.<br>Now beautiful, beneath the heaven's gray arch,<br>Appeared the main battalion's moving march;<br>The banner of the cross was borne before,<br>And next, with aspect sad, and tresses hoar,<br>The holy man went thoughtfully and pressed<br>A crucifix, in silence, to his breast.<br>Valdivia, all in burnished steel arrayed, <br>Upon whose crest the morn's effulgence played,<br>Majestic reined his steed, and seemed alone,<br>Worthy the southern world's imperial throne.<br>His features through the barred casque that glow,<br>His pole-axe pendent from the saddle-bow;<br>His dazzling armour, and the glitter bright<br>Of his drawn sabre, in the orient light,<br>Speak him not, now, for knightly tournament<br>Arrayed, but on emprise of prowess bent,<br>And deeds of deadly strife. In blooming pride, <br>The attendant youth rode, pensive, by his side.<br>Their pennoned lances, waving in the wind,<br>Two hundred clanking horsemen tramped behind,<br>In iron harness clad. The bugles blew,<br>And high in air the sanguine ensigns flew.<br>The arbalasters next, with cross-bows slung,<br>Marched, whilst the plumed Moors their cymbals swung.<br>Auxiliar-Indians here, a various train.<br>With spears and bows, darkened the distant plain;<br>Drums rolled, and fifes re-echoed shrill and clear, <br>At intervals, as near and yet more near,<br>While flags and intermingled halberds shine,<br>The long battalion drew its passing line.<br>Last rolled the heavy guns, a sable tier,<br>By Indians drawn, with matchmen in the rear;<br>And many a straggling mule and sumpter-train<br>Closed the embattled order on the plain,<br>Till nought beneath the azure sky appears<br>But the projecting points of scarce-discovered spears,<br>Slow up the hill, with floating vapours hoar, <br>Or by the blue lake's long retiring shore,<br>Now seen distinct, through the disparting haze,<br>The glittering file its bannered length displays;<br>Now winding from the woods, again appears<br>The moving line of matchlocks and of spears.<br>Part seen, part lost; the long illustrious march<br>Circling the swamp, now draws its various arch;<br>And seems, as on it moves, meandering slow,<br>A radiant segment of a living bow.<br>Five days the Spaniards, trooping in array, <br>O'er plains and headlands, held their eastern way.<br>On the sixth early dawn, with shuddering awe<br>And horror, in the last defile they saw<br>Ten pendent heads, from which the gore still run,<br>All gashed, and grim, and blackening in the sun.<br>These were the gallant troop that passed before,<br>The Indians' vast encampment to explore,<br>Led by Del Oro, now with many a wound<br>Pierced, and a headless trunk upon the ground.<br>The horses startled, as they tramped in blood; <br>The troops a moment half-recoiling stood.<br>But boots not now to pause, or to retire;<br>Valdivia's eye flashed with indignant fire:<br>Follow! he cried, brave comrades, to the hill!<br>And instant shouts the pealing valley fill.<br>And now, up to the hill's ascending crest,<br>With animated look and beating breast,<br>He urged his steed; when, wide beneath his eye,<br>He saw, in long expanse, Arauco's valley lie.<br>Far as the labouring sight could stretch its glance, <br>One undulating mass of club and lance,<br>One animated surface seemed to fill<br>The many-stirring scene from hill to hill:<br>To the deep mass he pointed with his sword,<br>Banner, advance! give out 'Castile!' the word.<br>Instant the files advance, the trumpets bray,<br>And now the host in terrible array,<br>Ranged on the heights that overlook the plain,<br>Has halted!<br>But the task were long and vain <br>To tell what nations, from the seas that roar<br>Round Patagonia's melancholy shore;<br>From forests, brown with everlasting shades;<br>From rocks of sunshine, white with prone cascades;<br>From snowy summits, where the Llama roams,<br>Oft bending o'er the cataract as it foams;<br>From streams whose bridges tremble from the steep;<br>From lakes, in summer's sweetest light asleep;<br>Indians, of sullen brow and giant limb,<br>With clubs terrific, and with aspects grim, <br>Flocked fearless.<br>When they saw the Spanish line<br>Arrayed, and front to front, descending shine,<br>Burst, instant burst, the universal cry,<br>(Ten thousand spears uplifted to the sky)--<br>Tyrants, we come to conquer or to die!<br>Grim Mariantu led the Indian force<br>A-left; and, rushing to the foremost horse,<br>Hurled with unerring aim the involving thong,<br>Then fearless sprang amidst the mailed throng. <br>Valdivia saw the horse, entangled, reel,<br>And shouting, as he rode, Castile! Castile!<br>Led on the charge: like a descending flood,<br>It swept, till every spur was black with blood.<br>His force a-right, where Harratomac led,<br>A thousand spears went hissing overhead,<br>And feathered arrows, of each varying hue,<br>In glancing arch, beneath the sunbeams flew.<br>Dire was the strife, when ardent Teucapel<br>Advancing in the front of carnage fell. <br>At once, Ongolmo, Elicura, rushed,<br>And swaying their huge clubs together, crushed<br>Horseman and horse; then bathed their hands in gore,<br>And limb from limb the panting carcase tore.<br>Caupolican, where the main battle bleeds,<br>Hosts and succeeding hosts undaunted leads,<br>Till, torn and shattered by the ceaseless fire,<br>Thousands, with gnashing teeth, and clenched spears, expire.<br>Pierced by a hundred wounds, Ongolmo lies,<br>And grasps his club terrific as he dies. <br>With breathless expectation, on the height,<br>Lautaro watched the long and dubious fight:<br>Pale and resigned the meek man stood, and pressed<br>More close the holy image to his breast.<br>Now nearer to the fight Lautaro drew,<br>When on the ground a warrior met his view,<br>Upon whose features memory seemed to trace<br>A faint resemblance of his father's face;<br>O'er him a horseman, with collected might,<br>Raised his uplifted sword, in act to smite, <br>When the youth springing on, without a word,<br>Snatched from a soldier's wearied grasp his sword,<br>And smote the horseman through the crest: a yell<br>Of triumph burst, as to the ground he fell.<br>Lautaro shouted, On! brave brothers, on!<br>Scatter them like the snow!--the day is won!<br>Lo, I! Lautaro,--Attacapac's son!<br>The Indians turn: again the battle bleeds,<br>Cleft are the helms and crushed the struggling steeds.<br>The bugle sounds, and faint with toil and heat, <br>Some straggling horsemen to the hills retreat.<br>Stand, brave companions! bold Valdivia cried,<br>And shook his sword, in recent carnage dyed;<br>Oh! droop not--droop not yet--all is not o'er--<br>Brave, faithful friends, one glorious sally more.<br>Where is Lautaro! leaps his willing sword<br>Now to avenge his long-indulgent lord!<br>He waited not for answer, but again<br>Spurred to the centre of the horrid plain.<br>Clubs, arrows, spears, the spot of death inclose, <br>And fainter now the Spanish shouts arose.<br>'Mid ghastly heaps of many a bleeding corse,<br>Lies the caparisoned and dying horse.<br>While still the rushing multitudes assail,<br>Vain is the fiery tube, the twisted mail!<br>The Spanish horsemen faint; long yells resound,<br>As the dragged ensign trails the gory ground:<br>Shout, for the chief is seized!--a thousand cries<br>Burst forth--Valdivia! for the sacrifice!<br>And lo, in silent dignity resigned, <br>The meek Anselmo, led in bonds, behind!<br>His hand upon his breast, young Zarinel<br>Amidst a group of mangled Indians fell;<br>The spear that to his heart a passage found<br>Left poor Olola's hair within the wound.<br>Now all is hushed, save where, at times, alone,<br>Deep midnight listens to a distant moan;<br>Save where the condors clamour, overhead,<br>And strike with sounding beaks the helmets of the dead.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=William+Lisle+Bowles">William Lisle Bowles</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=538653" data-title="The Missionary - Canto Seventh de William Lisle Bowles" data-description="The watchman on the tower his bugle blew,
And swelling to the morn the streamers flew;
The rampart-guns a dread alarum gave,
Smoke rolled, and thunder echoed o'er the wave;
When, starting from his couch, Valdivia cried,
What tidings? Of the tribes..."></div>
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