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(From A Tale of Paraguay)
AMID those marshy woodlands far and wide | |
| Which spread beyond the soaring vulture’s eye, | |
| There grew on Empalado’s southern side | |
| Groves of that tree whose leaves adust supply | |
| The Spaniards with their daily luxury; | 5 |
| A beverage whose salubrious use obtains | |
| Through many a land of mines and slavery, | |
| Even over all La Plata’s sea-like plains, | |
| And Chili’s mountain realm, and proud Peru’s domains. | |
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| But better for the injured Indian race | 10 |
| Had woods of manchineel the land o’erspread: | |
| Yea, in that tree so blest by Nature’s grace | |
| A direr curse had they inherited, | |
| Than if the Upas there had reared its head | |
| And sent its baleful scions all around, | 15 |
| Blasting where’er its effluent force was shed, | |
| In air and water, and the infected ground, | |
| All things wherein the breath or sap of life is found. | |
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| The poor Guaranies dreamt of no such ill, | |
| When for themselves in miserable hour, | 20 |
| The virtues of that leaf, with pure good-will, | |
| They taught their unsuspected visitor, | |
| New in the land as yet. They learnt his power | |
| Too soon, which law nor conscience could restrain, | |
| A fearless but inhuman conqueror, | 25 |
| Heart-hardened by the accursed lust of gain, | |
| O fatal thirst of gold! O foul reproach for Spain! | |
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| For gold and silver had the Spaniards sought, | |
| Exploring Paraguay with desperate pains, | |
| Their way through forests axe in hand they wrought; | 30 |
| Drenched from above by unremitting rains | |
| They waded over inundated plains, | |
| Forward by hope of plunder still allured; | |
| So they might one day count their golden gains, | |
| They cared not at what cost of sin procured, | 35 |
| All dangers they defied, all sufferings they endured. | |
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| Barren alike of glory and of gold | |
| That region proved to them; nor would the soil | |
| Unto their unindustrious hands unfold | |
| Harvests, the fruit of peace,—and wine and oil, | 40 |
| The treasures that repay contented toil | |
| With health and weal; treasures that with them bring | |
| No guilt for priest and penance to assoil, | |
| Nor with their venom arm the awakened sting | |
| Of conscience at that hour when life is vanishing. | 45 |
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| But keen of eye in their pursuit of gain | |
| The conquerors looked for lucre in this tree: | |
| An annual harvest there might they attain, | |
| Without the cost of annual industry. | |
| ’T was but to gather in what there grew free | 50 |
| And share Potosi’s wealth. Nor thence alone. | |
| But gold in glad exchange they soon should see | |
| From all that once the Incas called their own, | |
| Or where the Zippa’s power or Zaque’s laws were known. | |
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| For this, in fact though not in name a slave, | 55 |
| The Indian from his family was torn; | |
| And droves on droves were sent to find a grave | |
| In woods and swamps, by toil severe outworn, | |
| No friend at hand to succor or to mourn, | |
| In death unpitied, as in life unblest. | 60 |
| O miserable race, to slavery born! | |
| Yet when we look beyond this world’s unrest, | |
| More miserable then the oppressors than the opprest. | |
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