They to the mountain fastnesses retir'd,
And long with obstinate and harrassing war
Provok'd us, hoping not for victory,
Yet mad for vengeance: till Tepollomi i
Fell by my father's hand; and with their king, The strength and flower of all their youth cut off, All in one desolating day, they took
The yoke upon their necks. What wouldest thou That to these Hoamen I should now concede ? Lord of the Ocean, speak!
Quoth I. I come not from my native is!e
To wage the war of conquest, and cast ont
Your people from the land which time and toil
Have rightly made their own. The World is wide':
There is enough for all. So they be freed
From that accurs'd tribute, and ye shed
The life of man no more in sacrifice,..
In the most holy name of God I say,
Let there be peace between us!
Their liberty, the King replied: henceforth,
Free as they are, if they provoke the war,
Reluctantly will Aztlan raise her arm.
Be thou the peace-preserver. To what else”.
Thou say'st, instructed by calamity,
I lend a humble ear; but to destroy
The worship of my fathers, or abate
Or change one point, lies not within the reach
And scope of kingly power. Speak thou hereon
With those whom we hold holy, with the sons
Of the Temple, they who commune with the Gods;
Awe them, for they awe me. So we resolv'd
That when the bones of King Tepollomi
Had had their funeral honours, they and I
Should by the green lake-side, before the King,
And in the presence of the people, hold.
Then to the mountain huts,
The bearer of good tidings, I return'd,
Leading the honourable train who bore
The relics of the King; not parch'd and black,
As I had seen the unnatural corpse stand up,
In ghastly mockery of the attitude
And act of life; his bones had now been blanch'd
With decent reverence. Soon the mountaineers
Saw the white deer-skin shroud; the rumour spread;
They gather'd round, and follow'd in our train.
Before Erillyab's hut the bearers laid
Their burthen down. She, calm of countenance,
And with dry eye, albeit her hand, the while,
Shook like an agueish limb, unroll'd the shroud.
The multitude stood gazing silently,
The young and old alike, all aw'd and hush’d.
Under the holy feeling,.. and the hush,
Was aweful; that huge multitude so still,
That we could hear, distinct the mountain stream.
Roll down its rocky channel far away..
And this was all; sale ceremony this,
The sight of death and silence,.. till at length,
In the ready grave his bones were laid to rest.
'Twas in her hut and home, yea, underneath.
The marriage bed, the bed of widowhood,
Her husband's grave was dug; on softest fur
The bones were laid, with fur were cover'd o'er,
Then heapt with bark and boughs, and, last of all,
Earth was to earth trod down.
And now the day, Appointed for our talk of peace was come.
On the green margin of the lake we met,
Elders, and Prics's, and Chiefs; the multitude
Around he circle of the council stood.
Then, in the midst, Coanocotzi rose,
And thus the King began: Pabas, and Chiefs
Of Aztlan, hither ye are come to learn
The law of peace. The Lord of Ocean saith,
The Tribes whom he hath gather'd underneath
The wings of his protection, shall be free;
And, in the name of his great God, he saith,
That ye shall never shed in sacrifice
The blood of man. Are ye content? that so
We may together here, in happy hour,
Bury the sword!
And answer'd for his brethren:.. He hath won
The Hoamen's freedom, that their blood no more
Shall on our altars flow; for this the Lord
Of Ocean fought, and Aztlan yielded it
In battle: but if we forego the rites
Of our forefathers, if we wrong the Gods,
Who give us timely sun and timely showers,
Their wrath will be upon us; they will shut
Their ears to prayer, and turn away the eyes
Which watch for our well-doing, and with-hold
The hands that scatter our prosperity.
Cynetha then arose; between his son
And me supported, rose the blind old man.
Ye wrong us, men of Aztlan, if ye deem
We bid ye wrong the Gods; accurst were he
Who would obey such bidding, .. more accurst
The wretch who should enjoin impiety!
It is the will of God which we make known,
Your God and ours. Know ye not Him, who laid
The deep foundations of the earth, and built
The arch of heaven, and kindled yonder sun,
And breath'd into the woods and waves and sky
The power of life?
We know Him, they replied, The great For-Ever One, the God of Gods, Ipalnemoani, He by whom we live!!
And we too, quoth Ayayaca, we know
And worship the Great Spirit, who in clouds
And storms, in mountain caves, and by the fall
Of waters, in the woodland solitude,
And in the night and silence of the sky,
Doth make his being felt. We also know,
And fear, and worship the Beloved One.
Our God, replied Cynetha, is the same,
The Universal Father He to the first
Made his will known; but when men multiplied,
The Evil Spirits darken'd them, and sin
And misery came into the world, and men
Forsook the way of truth, and gave to stocks
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