Thus pray'd the prince; the focal flames aspire, The mute beholders tremble and retire, Gaze on the miracle, full credence own, And vow obedience to the sacred Sun.
The legates now their farther course descried, A young cazique attending as a guide, O'er craggy cliffs pursued their eastern way, Trod loftier champaigns, meeting high the day, Saw timorous tribes, in these sublime abodes, Adore the blasts and turn the storms to gods; While every cloud that thunders thro the skies Claims from their hands a human sacrifice. Awhile the youth, their better faith to gain, Strives with his usual art, but strives in vain; In vain he pleads the mildness of the sun; A gale refutes him ere his speech be done; Continual tempests from their orient blow, And load the mountains with eternal snow. The sun's own beam, the timid clans declare, Drives all their evils on the tortured air; He draws the vapors up their eastern sky, That sail and centre round his dazzling eye; Leads the loud storms along his midday course, And bids the Andes meet their sweeping force; Builds their bleak summits with an icy throne, To shine thro heaven, a semblance of his own; Hence the sharp sleet, these lifted lawns that wait, And all the scourges that attend their state.
Two toilsome days the virtuous Inca strove To social life their savage minds to move; When the third morning glow'd serenely bright, He led their elders to an eastern height; The world unlimited beneath them lay, And not a cloud obscured the rising day. Vast Amazonia, starr'd with twinkling streams, In azure drest, a heaven inverted seems; Dim Paraguay extends the aching sight, Xaraya glimmers like the moon of night, Land, water, sky in blending borders play, And smile and brighten to the lamp of day. When thus the prince: What majesty divine! What robes of gold! what flames about him shine! There walks the God! his starry sons on high Draw their dim veil and shrink behind the sky; Earth with surrounding nature's born anew, And men by millions greet the glorious view! Who can behold his all-delighting soul Give life and joy, and heaven and earth control, Bid death and darkness from his presence move, Who can behold, and not adore and love? Those plains, immensely circling, feel his beams, He greens the groves, he silvers gay the streams, Swells the wild fruitage, gives the beast his food, And mute creation hails the genial God. But richer boons his righteous laws impart, To aid the life and mould the social heart, His arts of peace thro happy realms to spread, And altars grace with sacrificial bread; Such our distinguish'd lot, who own his sway, Mild as his morning stars and liberal as the day.