Yet meet for youth. Vain passions to excite,
No strains of morbid sentiment I sing,
Nor tell of idle loves with ill-spent breath;
A reverent offering to the Grave I bring,
And twine a garland for the brow of Death.
KESWICK, 1814.

PROEM.

THAT was a memorable day for Spain,
When on Pamplona's towers, so basely won,
The Frenchmen stood, and saw upon the plain
Their long expected succours hastening on:
Exultingly they mark'd the brave array,
And deem'd their leader should his purpose gain,
Though Wellington and England barr'd the

way.

Anon the bayonets glitter'd in the sun,
And frequent cannon flash'd, whose lurid light
Redden'd through sulphurous smoke; fast vol-
leying round

Roll'd the war thunders, and with long rebound Backward from many a rock and cloud capt height

In answering peals Pyrene sent the sound. Impatient for relief, toward the fight The hungry garrison their eye-balls strain: Vain wasthe Frenchman's skill, his valour vain; And even then, when eager hope almost Had moved their irreligious lips to prayer, Averting from the fatal scene their sight, They breathed the execrations of despair. For Wellesley's star hath risen ascendant there; Once more he drove the host of France to flight, And triumph'd once again for God and for the right.

That was a day, whose influence far and wide
The struggling nations felt; it was a joy
Wherewith all Europe rung from side to side.
Yet hath Pamplona seen, in former time,
A moment big with mightier consequence,
Affecting many an age and distant clime.
That day it was which saw in her defence,
Contending with the French before her wall,
A noble soldier of Guipuzcoa fall,

Sore hurt, but not to death. For when long care
Restored his shatter'd leg, and set him free,
He would not brook a slight deformity,
As one who, being gay and debonnair,
In courts conspicuous as in camps must be;
So he, forsooth, a shapely boot must wear;
And the vain man, with peril of his life,
Laid the recover'd limb again beneath the knife.

Long time upon the bed of pain he lay,
Whaling with books the weary hours away;
And from that circumstance and this vain man
A train of long events their course began,
Whose term it is not given us yet to see.
Who hath not heard Loyola's sainted name,
Before whom Kings and Nations bow'd the
knee?

Thy annals, Ethiopia, might proclaim
What deeds arose from that prolific day;
And of dark plots might shuddering Europe tell.

But Science, too, her trophies would display;
Faith give the martyrs of Japan their fame;
And Charity on works of love would dwell
In California's dolorous regions drear;
And where, amid a pathless world of wood,
Gathering a thousand rivers on his way,
Huge Orellana rolls his affluent flood;
And where the happier sons of Paraguay,

By gentleness and pious art subdued,

Bow'd their meek heads beneath the Jesuits'

sway,

And lived and died in filial servitude.

I love thus uncontroll'd, as in a dream,
To muse upon the course of human things;
Exploring sometimes the remotest springs,
Far as tradition lends one guiding gleam;
Or following, upon Thought's audacious wings,
Into Futurity, the endless stream.

But now, in quest of no ambitious height,
I go where Truth and Nature lead my way,
And ceasing here from desultory flight,
In measured strains I tell a Tale of Paraguay.

CANTO I. 1.

JENNER! forever shall thy honour'd name Among the children of mankind be bless'd; Who by thy skill hast taught us how to tame One dire disease,-the lamentable pest Which Africa sent forth to scourge the West, As if in vengeance for her sable brood So many an age remorselessly oppress'd. For that most fearful malady subdued Receive a poet's praise, a father's gratitude.

2.

Fair promise be this triumph of an age When Man, with vain desires no longer blind, And wise, though late, his only war shall wage, Against the miseries which afflict mankind, Striving with virtuous heart and strenuous mind Till evil from the earth shall pass away. Lo, this his glorious destiny assign'd! For that bless'd consummation let us pray, And trust in fervent faith, and labour as we may. 3.

The hideous malady which lost its power When Jenner's art the dire contagion stay'd, Among Columbia's sons, in fatal hour, Across the wide Atlantic wave convey'd, Its fiercest form of pestilence display'd: Where'er its deadly course the plague began, Vainly the wretched sufferer look'd for aid; Parent from child, and child from parent ran, For tyrannous fear dissolved all natural bonds of

No time for customary mourning now;

With hand close clinch'd to pluck the rooted hair,

To beat the bosom, on the swelling brow
Inflict redoubled blows, and blindly tear
The cheeks, indenting bloody furrows there,
The deep traced signs indelible of woe;
Then to some crag, or bank abrupt, repair,
And giving grief its scope, infuriate throw
The impatient body thence upon the earth below.
8.

Devices these by poor, weak nature taught,
Which thus a change of suffering would obtain;
And flying from intolerable thought,
And piercing recollections, would full fain
Distract itself by sense of fleshly pain
From anguish that the soul must else endure.
Easier all outward torments to sustain,
Than those heart wounds which only time can

cure,

And he in whom alone the hopes of man are sure.

9.

10.

11.

Unwept, unshrouded, and unsepulchred, The hammock, where they hang, for winding sheet

And grave suffices the deserted dead: There from the armadillo's searching feet Safer than if within the tomb's retreat. The carrion birds obscene in vain essay To find that quarry: round and round they beat The air, but fear to enter for their prey, And from the silent door the jaguar turns away. 12.

But nature for her universal law

Hath other, surer instruments in store,
Whom from the haunts of men no wonted awe
Withholds as with a spell. In swarms they pour
From wood and swamp; and when their work

They felt that life was dear, and hope was strong.

What marvel? 'Twas with them the morning hour,

When bliss appears to be the natural dower
Of all the creatures of this joyous earth;
And sorrow, fleeting, like a vernal shower,
Scarce interrupts the current of our mirth;
Such is the happy heart we bring with us at birth.
17.

Though of his nature and his boundless love
Erring, yet tutor'd by instinctive sense,
They rightly deem'd the Power who rules above
Had saved them from the wasting pestilence.
That favouring power would still be their
defence:

Thus were they by their late deliverance taught
To place a child like trust in Providence,
And in their state forlorn they found this thought
Of natural faith with hope and consolation fraught.

18.

And now they built themselves a leafy bower, Amid a glade, slow Mondai's stream beside, Screen'd from the southern blast of piercing power;

Not like their native dwelling, long and wide, By skilful toil of numbers edified,

The common home of all, their human nest, Where threescore hammocks, pendant side by side,

Were ranged, and on the ground the fires were dress'd;

Alas, that populous hive hath now no living guest!

19.

A few firm stakes they planted in the ground, Circling a narrow space, yet large enow; These, strongly interknit, they closed around With basket work of many a pliant bough. The roof was like the sides; the door was low, And rude the hut, and trimm'd with little care, For little heart had they to dress it now; Yet was the humble structure fresh and fair, And soon its inmates found that love might sojourn there.

20.

Quiara could recall to mind the course Of twenty summers; perfectly he knew Whate'er his fathers taught of skill or force. Right to the mark his whizzing lance he threw, And from his bow the unerring arrow flew With fatal aim: and when the laden bee Buzz'd by him in its flight, he could pursue Its path with certain ken, and follow free Until he traced the hive in hidden bank or tree.

21.

Of answering years was Monnema, nor less Expert in all her sex's household ways. The Indian weed she skilfully could dress; And in what depth to drop the yellow maize She knew, and when around its stem to raise The lighten'd soil; and well could she prepare Its ripen'd seed for food, her proper praise; Or in the embers turn with frequent care Its succulent head yet green, sometimes for daintier fare.

Feasts and carousals, vanity and strife, Could have no place with them in solitude To break the tenor of their even life. Quiara day by day his game pursued, Searching the air, the water, and the wood, With hawk like eye, and arrow sure as fate; And Monnema prepar'd the hunter's food: Cast with him here in this forlorn estate, In all things for the man was she a fitting mate. 27.

The Moon had gather'd oft her monthly store Of light, and oft in darkness left the sky, Since Monnema a growing burden bore Of life and hope. The appointed weeks go by. And now her hour is come, and none is nigh To help but human help she needed none. A few short throes endured with scarce a cry, Upon the bank she laid her new born son, Then slid into the stream, and bathed, and all was done.

:

28.

Might old observances have there been kept, Then should the husband to that pensile bed, Like one exhausted with the birth, have crept, And laying down in feeble guise his head, For many a day been nursed and dieted With tender care, to childing mothers due. Certes a custom strange, and yet far spread Through many a savage tribe, howe'er it grew, And once in the old world known as widely as the new.

29.

This could not then be done; he might not lay
The bow and those unerring shafts aside;
Nor through the appointed weeks forego the
prey,

Still to be sought amid those regions wide,
None being there who should the while provide
That lonely household with their needful food;
So, still Quiara through the forest plied
His daily task, and in the thickest wood
Still laid his snares for birds, and still the chase
pursued.

30.

But seldom may such thoughts of mingled joy, A father's agitated breast dilate, As when he first beheld that infant boy. Who hath not proved it, ill can estimate The feeling of that stirring hour, the weight Of that new sense, the thoughtful, pensive bliss. In all the changes of our changeful state, Even from the cradle to the grave I wis, The heart doth undergo no change so great as this.

31.

A deeper and unwonted feeling fill'd
These parents, gazing on their new born son.
Already in their busy hopes they build
On this frail sand. Now let the seasons run,
And let the natural work of time be done
With them,-for unto them a child is born;
And when the hand of Death may reach the
one,

The other will not now be left to mourn,
A solitary wretch, all utterly forlorn.

32.

Thus Monnema and thus Quiara thought, Though each the melancholy thought repress'd; They could not choose but feel, yet utter'd not The human feeling, which in hours of rest Often would rise, and fill the boding breast With a dread foretaste of that mournful day, When, at the inexorable Power's behest, The unwilling spirit, called perforce away, Must leave, forever leave, its dear connatural clay.

33.

Far other tie this solitary pair
Indissolubly bound; true helpmates they,
In joy or grief, in weal or woe to share,
In sickness or in health, through life's long day;
And reassuming in their hearts her sway
Benignant Nature made the burden light.
It was the Woman's pleasure to obey,
The Man's to ease her toil in all he might;
So each in serving each obtain'd the best delight.
38.

And as connubial, so parental love
Obey'd unerring Nature's order here,
For now no force of impious custom strove
Against her law;-such as was wont to sear
The unhappy heart with usages severe,
Till harden'd mothers in the grave could lay
Their living babes with no compunctious tear;
So monstrous men become, when from the way

How might the poor survivor hope to bear
That heaviest loss which one day must befall,
Nor sink beneath the weight of his despair?
Scarce could the heart even for a moment dare
That miserable time to contemplate,
When the dread Messenger should find them
there,

From whom is no escape,-and reckless Fate, Whom it had bound so close, forever separate.

astray.

39.

Deliver'd from this yoke, in them henceforth
The springs of natural love may freely flow:
New joys, new virtues with that happy birth
Are born, and with the growing infant grow.
Source of our purest happiness below
Is that benignant law which hath entwined
Dearest delight with strongest duty, so

That in the healthy heart and righteous mind Ever they co-exist, inseparably combined.

40.

Oh! bliss for them when in that infant face
They now the unfolding faculties descry,
And fondly gazing, trace—or think they trace—
The first faint speculation in that eye,
Which hitherto hath roll'd in vacancy!
Oh! bliss in that soft countenance to seek
Some mark of recognition, and espy

The quiet smile which in the innocent cheek Of kindness and of kind its consciousness doth speak!

41.

For him, if born among their native tribe, Some haughty name his parents had thought good,

As weening that where with they should ascribe
The strength of some fierce tenant of the wood,
The water, or the aerial solitude,
Jaguar or vulture, water-wolf or snake,
The beast that prowls abroad in search of blood,
Or reptile that within the treacherous brake
Waits for the prey, upcoil'd, its hunger to aslake.

42.

Now soften'd as their spirits were by love, Abhorrent from such thoughts they turn'd

away;

And with a happier feeling, from the dove, They named the child Yeruti. On a day, When, smiling at his mother's breast in play, They in his tones of murmuring pleasure heard A sweet resemblance of the stock-dove's lay, Fondly they named him from that gentle bird; And soon such happy use endear'd the fitting word. 43.

Days past, and moons have wax'd and waned, and still

This dovelet, nestled in their leafy bower, Obtains increase of sense, and strength, and will,

As in due order many a latent power
Expands,-humanity's exalted dower;
And they, while thus the days serenely fled,
Beheld him flourish like a vigorous flower,
Which, lifting from a genial soil its head,
By seasonable suns and kindly showers is fed.
44.

Erelong the cares of helpless babyhood
To the next stage of infancy give place,
That age with sense of conscious growth en-
dued,

When every gesture hath its proper grace:
Then come the unsteady step, the tottering pace;
And watchful hopes and emulous thoughts
appear;

The imitative lips essay to trace

Their words, observant both with eye and ear, In mutilated sounds which parents love to hear. 45.

Serenely thus the seasons pass away;
And, oh! how rapidly they seem to fly
With those for whom to-morrow, like to-day,
Glides on in peaceful uniformity!

Five years have since Yeruti's birth gone by,

Five happy years; and ere the Moon which

then

Hung like a Sylphid's light canoe on high, Should fill its circle, Monnema, again, Laying her burden down, must bear a mother's pain.

46.

Alas, a keener pang, before that day,
Must by the wretched Monnema be borne!
In quest of game Quiara went his way

To roam the wilds, as he was wont, one morn;
She look'd in vain at eve for his return.
By moonlight, through the midnight solitude,
She sought him; and she found his garment torn,
His bow and useless arrows in the wood,
Marks of a jaguar's feet, a broken spear, and
blood.

CANTO II.

1.

O THOU who, listening to the Poet's song, Dost yield thy willing spirit to his sway, Look not that I should painfully prolong The sad narration of that fatal day With tragic details; all too true the lay! Nor is my purpose e'er to entertain The heart with useless grief; but, as I may, Blend in my calm and meditative strain Consolatory thoughts, the balm for real pain.

2.

O Youth or Maiden, whosoe'er thou art, Safe in my guidance may thy spirit be; I wound not wantonly the tender heart; And if sometimes a tear of sympathy Should rise, it will from bitterness be freeYea, with a healing virtue be endued, As thou, in this true tale, shalt hear from me Of evils overcome, and grief subdued, And virtues springing up like flowers in solitude.

3.

The unhappy Monnema, when thus bereft, Sunk not beneath the desolating blow. Widow'd she was; but still her child was left, For him must she sustain the weight of woe, Which else would in that hour have laid her low. Nor wish'd she now the work of death complete; Then only doth the soul of woman know Its proper strength, when love and duty meet; Invincible the heart wherein they have their seat 4.

The seamen who, upon some coral reef, Are cast amid the interminable main, Still cling to life, and, hoping for relief, Drag on their days of wretchedness and pain. In turtle shells they hoard the scanty rain, And eat its flesh, sun dried for lack of fire, Till the weak body can no more sustain Its wants, but sinks beneath its sufferings dire; Most miserable man who sees the rest expire'

5.

He lingers there while months and years go by, And holds his hope though months and years have past;