The Surrender Of Spain

I

Land of unconquered Pelayo! land of the Cid Campeador!
Sea-girdled mother of men! Spain, name of glory and power;
Cradle of world-grasping Emperors, grave of the reckless invader,
How art thou fallen, my Spain! how art thou sunk at this hour!

II

Once thy magnanimous sons trod, victors, the portals of Asia,
Once the Pacific waves rushed, joyful thy banners to see;
For it was Trajan that carried the battle-flushed eagles to Dacia,
Cortés that planted thy flag fast by the uttermost sea.

III

Hast thou forgotten those days illumined with glory and honor,
When the far isles of the sea thrilled to the tread of Castile?
When every land under Heaven was flecked by the shade of thy banner,
When every beam of the sun flashed on thy conquering steel?

IV

Then through red fields of slaughter, through death and defeat and
disaster,
Still flared thy banner aloft, tattered, but free from a stain,
Now to the upstart Savoyard thou bendest to beg for a master!
How the red flush of her shame mars the proud beauty of Spain!

V

Has the red blood run cold that boiled by the Xenil and Darro?
Are the high deeds of the sires sung to the children no more?
On the dun hills of the North hast thou heard of no plough-boy
Pizarro?
Roams no young swine-herd Cortés hid by the Tagus' wild shore?

VI

Once again does Hispania bend low to the yoke of the stranger!
Once again will she rise, flinging her gyves in the sea!
Princeling of Piedmont! unwitting thou weddest with doubt and with
danger,
King over men who have learned all that it costs to be free.

The Law Of Death

The song of Kilvani: fairest she
In all the land of Savatthi.
She had one child, as sweet and gay
And dear to her as the light of day.
She was so young, and he so fair,
The same bright eyes and the same dark hair;
To see them by the blossomy way,
They seemed two children at their play.

There came a death-dart from the sky,
Kilvani saw her darling die.
The glimmering shade his eyes invades,
Out of his cheek the red bloom fades;
His warm heart feels the icy chill,
The round limbs shudder, and are still.
And yet Kilvani held him fast
Long after life's last pulse was past,
As if her kisses could restore
The smile gone out forevermore.

But when she saw her child was dead,
She scattered ashes on her head,
And seized the small corpse, pale and sweet,
And rushing wildly through the street,
She sobbing fell at Buddha's feet.
"Master, all-helpful, help me now!
Here at thy feet I humbly bow;
Have mercy, Buddha, help me now!"
She groveled on the marble floor,
And kissed the dead child o'er and o'er.
And suddenly upon the air
There fell the answer to her prayer:
"Bring me to-night a lotus tied
With thread from a house where none has died."

She rose, and laughed with thankful joy,
Sure that the god would save the boy.
She found a lotus by the stream;
She plucked it from its noonday dream.
And then from door to door she fared,
To ask what house by Death was spared.
Her heart grew cold to see the eyes
Of all dilate with slow surprise:
"Kilvani, thou hast lost thy head;
Nothing can help a child that's dead.
There stands not by the Ganges' side
A house where none hath ever died."
Thus, through the long and weary day,
From every door she bore away
Within her heart, and on her arm,
A heavier load, a deeper harm.
By gates of gold and ivory,
By wattled huts of poverty,
The same refrain heard poor Kilvani,
The living are few, the dead are many.

The evening came so still and fleet
And overtook her hurrying feet.
And, heartsick, by the sacred lane
She fell, and prayed the god again.
She sobbed and beat her bursting breast:
"Ah, thou hast mocked me, Mightiest!
Lo I have wandered far and wide;
There stands no house where none hath died."
And Buddha answered, in a tone
Soft as a flute at twilight blown,
But grand as heaven and strong as death
To him who hears with ears of faith:
"Child, thou art answered. Murmur not!
Bow, and accept the common lot."

Kilvani heard with reverence meet,
And laid her child at Buddha's feet.

Ef the way a man lights out of this world
Helps fix his heft for the other sp'ere,
I reckon my old friend Golyer's Ben
Will lay over lots of likelier men
For one thing he done down here.

You did n't know Ben? He driv a stage
On the line they called the Old Sou'-west;
He wa'n't the best man that ever you seen,
And he wa'n't so ungodly pizen mean,
No better nor worse than the rest.

He was hard on women and rough on his friends;
And he did n't have many, I'll let you know;
He hated a dog and disgusted a cat,
But he'd run off his legs for a motherless brat,
And I guess there's many jess so.

I've seed my sheer of the run of things,
I've hoofed it a many and many a miled,
But I never seed nothing that could or can
Jest git all the good from the heart of a man
Like the hands of a little child.

Well! this young one I started to tell you about,
His folks was all dead, I was fetchin' him through,
He was just at the age that's loudest for boys,
And he blowed such a horn with his sarchin' small voice,
We called him "the Little Boy Blue."

He ketched a sight of Ben on the box,
And you bet he bawled and kicked and howled,
For to git 'long of Ben, and ride thar too;
I tried to tell him it wouldn't do,
When suddingly Golyer growled,

"What's the use of making the young one cry?
Say, what's the use of being a fool?
Sling the little one up here whar he can see,
He won't git the snuffles a-ridin' with me,
The night ain't any too cool."

The child hushed cryin' the minute he spoke;
"Come up here, Major! don't let him slip."
And jest as nice as a woman could do,
He wropped his blanket around them two,
And was off in the crack of a whip.

We rattled along an hour or so,
Till we heerd a yell on the still night air.
Did you ever hear an Apache yell?
Well, ye needn't want to, this side of hell;
There's nothing more devilish there.

Caught in the shower of lead and flint
We felt the old stage stagger and plunge;
Then we heerd the voice and the whip of Ben,
As he gethered his critters up again,
And tore away with a lunge.

The passengers laughed. "Old Ben's all right,
He's druv five year and never was struck."
"Now if I 'd been thar, as sure as you live,
They'd'a' plugged me with holes as thick as a sieve;
It's the reg'lar Golyer luck."

Over hill and holler and ford and creek
Jest like the hosses had wings, we tore;
We got to Looney's, and Ben come in
And laid down the baby and axed for his gin,
And dropped in a heap on the floor.

Said he, "When they fired, I kivered the kid,
Although I ain't pretty, I'm middlin' broad;
And look! he ain't fazed by arrow nor ball,
Thank God! my own carcase stopped them all."
Then we seen his eye glaze, and his lower jaw fall,
And he carried his thanks to God.