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 man. 4. A feeble nation of Guarani race, Thinn'd by perpetual wars, but unsubdued, Had taken up at length a resting place Among those tracts of lake and swamp and wood, Where Mondai issuing from its solitude Flows with slow stream to Empalado's bed. It was a region desolate and rude; But thither had the horde for safety fled, And being there conceal'd in peace their lives they led. 5. There had the tribe a safe asylum found Amid those marshes wide and woodlands dense, The mortal seed had lain among them still, And quicken'd now to work the Lord's mysterious will. 6. Alas, it was no medicable grief Which herbs might reach! Nor could the jug gler's power With all his antic mummeries bring relief. From death; the strong man sunk beneath its rage, And death cut short the thread of childhood and of age. 7. No time for customary mourning now; With hand close-clench'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, And piercing recollections, would full fain From anguish that the soul must else endure. Than those heart-wounds which only time can cure, And He in whom alone the hopes of man are sure. 9. None sorrow'd here; the sense of woe was sear'd, When every one endured his own sore ill. The prostrate sufferers neither hoped nor fear'd; Its fatal course, rest cometh at the end! For aught but this; nor did they long attend Thatwelcome boon from death, the never-failing friend. 10. Who is there to make ready now the pit, Shall swathe the sleeper for his bed of earth, 11. Unwept, unshrouded, and unsepulchred, The hammock where they hang, for winding sheet suffices the deserted dead: And grave 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 is o'er, On the white bones the mouldering roof will fall; Seeds will take root, and spring in sun and shower; And Mother Earth ere long with her green pall, Resuming to herself the wreck, will cover all. 13. Oh! better thus with earth to have their part, Than in Egyptian catacombs to lie, Age after age preserved by horrid art, In ghastly image of humanity! Strange pride that with corruption thus would vie! And strange delusion that would thus maintain The fleshly form, till cycles shall pass by, And in the series of the eternal chain, The spirit come to seek its old abode again. 14. One pair alone survived the general fate; Left in such drear and mournful solitude, That death might seem a preferable state. Not more deprest the Arkite patriarch stood, When landing first on Ararat he view'd, Where all around the mountain summits lay, Like islands seen amid the boundless flood: Nor our first parents more forlorn than they, Thro' Eden when they took their solitary way. 15. Alike to them, it seem'd in their despair, Whither they wander'd from the infected spot. Left as they were in that unhappy lot, They reck'd not when their fate, nor where, nor what, In this resignment to their hopeless case, Indifferent to all choice or circumstance of place. 16. That palsying stupor past away ere long, And as the spring of health resumed its power, 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 They rightly deem'd the Power who rules above And in their state forlorn they found this thought Of natural faith with hope and consolation fraught. |