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Wherein the demon gods themselves might deign to By whom the scheme of that wise order was combined.

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Nor with her clarion's blast awoke the slumbering air? Gladness in every heart, and mirth on every tongue.

XII.

Thou who despisest so debased a fate, As in the pride of wisdom thou mayst call These meek submissive Indians' low estate, Look round the world, and see where over all Injurious passions hold mankind in thrall! How barbarous Force asserts a ruthless reign, Or Mammon, o'er his portion of the ball, Hath learn'd a baser empire to maintain, Mammon, the god of all who give their souls to gain.

XIII.

Behold the fraudful arts, the covert strife, The jarring interests that engross mankind; The low pursuits, the selfish aims of life; Studies that weary and contract the mind, That bring no joy, and leave no peace behind; And Death approaching to dissolve the spell! The immortal soul, which hath so long been blind, Recovers then clear sight, and sees too well The error of its ways, when irretrievable.

XIV.

Far happier the Guaranies' humble race, With whom in dutiful conteniment wise, The gentle virtues had their dwelling place. With them the dear domestic charities Sustain'd no blight from fortune; natural ties There suffer'd no divorcement, save alone That which in course of nature might arise: No artificial wants and ills were known; But there they dwelt as if the world were all their own.

XV.

Obedience in its laws that takes delight
Was theirs; simplicity that knows no art;
Love, friendship, grateful duty in its height;
Meekness and truth, that keep all strife apart,
And faith and hope which elevate the heart
Upon its heavenly heritage intent.

Poor, erring, self-tormentor that thou art;

O Man! and on thine own undoing bent,

XVIII.

There on the altar was his image set,

The lamp before it burning night and day, And there was incensed, when his votaries met Before the sacred shrine, their beads to say, And for his fancied intercession pray, Devoutly as in faith they bent the knee. Such adoration they were taught to pay. Good man, how little had he ween'd that he Should thus obtain a place in Rome's idolatry!

XIX.

But chiefly there the Mother of our Lord,
His blessed daughter, by the multitude
Was for their special patroness adored..
Amid the square on high her image stood,
Clasping the Babe in her beatitude,

The Babe divine on whom she fix'd her sight;
And in their hearts, albe the work was rude,
It raised the thought of all-commanding might,
Combined with boundless love and mercy infinite.

XX.

To this great family the Jesuit brought

His new-found children now; for young and old Ile deem'd alike his children while he wrought For their salvation,-seeking to unfold The saving mysteries in the creed enroll'd, To their slow minds, that could but ill conceive The import of the mighty truths he told. But errors they have none to which they cleave, And whatsoe'er he tells they willingly believe.

XXI.

Safe from that pride of ignorance were they
That with small knowledge thinks itself full wise.
How at believing aught should these delay,
When every where new objects meet their eyes
To fill the soul with wonder and surprise?
Not of itself, but by temptation bred,

In man doth impious unbelief arise;
It is our instinct to believe and dread,

Wherewith canst thou be blest, if not with these con- God bids us love, and then our faith is perfected.

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XXIV.

Even when the spirit to that secret wood
Return'd, slow Mondai's silent stream beside,
No longer there it found the solitude
Which late it left: strange faces were descried,
Voices, and sounds of music far and wide,
And buildings seem'd to tower amid the trees,
And forms of men and beasts on every side,
As ever-wakeful fancy hears and sees,

XXX.

They laid her in the Garden of the Dead.
Such as a Christian burial-place should be
Was that fair spot, where every grave was spread
With flowers, and not a weed to spring was free;
But the pure blossoms of the orange tree
Dropt, like a shower of fragrance, on the bier;
And palms, the type of immortality,
Planted in stately colonnades, appear,

All things that it had heard, and seen, and more than That all was verdant there throughout the unvarying these.

XXV.

For in their sleep strange forms deform'd they saw
Of frightful fiends, their ghostly enemies:
And souls who must abide the rigorous law
Weltering in fire, and there, with dolorous cries
Blaspheming roll around their hopeless eyes;
And those who, doom'd a shorter term to bear
In penal flames, look upward to the skies,
Seeking and finding consolation there,

year.

ΧΧΧΙ.

Nor ever did irreverent feet intrude
Within that sacred spot; nor sound of mirth,
Unseemly there profane the solitude,
Where solemnly committed earth to earth,
Waiting the summons for their second birth,
Whole generations in Death's peaceful fold
Collected lay, green innocence, ripe worth,
Youth full of hope, and age whose days were told,

And feel, like dew from Heaven, the precious aid of Compress'd alike into that mass of mortal mould.

prayer.

XXVI.

And Angels who around their glorious Queen
In adoration bent their heads abased;
And infant faces in their dreams were seen
Hovering on cherub wings; and Spirits placed
To be their guards invisible, who chased
With fiery arms their fiendish foes away:
Such visions overheated fancy traced,
Peopling the night with a confused array

XXXII.

Mortal, and yet at the Archangel's voice
To put on immortality. That call
Shall one day make the sentient dust rejoice;
These bodies then shall rise and cast off all
Corruption, with whate'er of earthly thrall
Had clogg'd the heavenly image, then set free.
How then should Death a Christian's heart appal?
Lo, Heaven for you is open;-enter, ye

That made its hours of rest more restless than the day. Children of God, and heirs of his eternity!

XXVII.

To all who from an old erratic course

Of life, within the Jesuit's fold were led,

The change was perilous. They felt the force Of habit, when, till then in forests bred, A thick perpetual umbrage overhead, They came to dwell in open light and air. This ill the Fathers long had learnt to dread, And still devised such means as might prepare The new-reclaim'd unhurt this total change to bear.

XXVIII.

All thoughts and occupations to commute,
To change their air, their water, and their food,
And those old habits suddenly uproot
Conform'd to which the vital powers pursued
Their functions, such mutation is too rude
For man's fine frame unshaken to sustain.
And these poor children of the solitude
Began ere long to pay the bitter pain

XXXIII.

This hope supported Mooma, hand in hand
When with Yeruti at the grave she stood.
Less even now of death they understand
Than of the joys eternal that ensued;
The bliss of infinite beatitude

To them had been their teacher's favourite theme,
Wherewith their hearts so fully were imbued,
That it the sole reality might seem,

Life, death, and all things else, a shadow or a dream.

XXXIV.

Yea, so possest with that best hope were they,
That if the heavens had opened overhead,
And the Archangel with his trump that day
To judgment had convoked the quick and dead,
They would have heard the summons not with dread,
But in the joy of faith that knows no fear:
Come Lord! come quickly! would this pair have said,
And thou, O Queen of men and Angels dear,

That their new way of life brought with it in its train. Lift us whom thou hast loved into thy happy sphere!

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