Fragments From &Quot;The Brigand.&Quot; A Poem. Canto Iii Poem by Albert Pike

The twenty-fifth had come; Peru awoke;
One cry for freedom from her green hills broke,
From her wide plains and valleys; and the ocean
Re-echoed it. It was the first emotion
And pulse of her young heart, for LIBERTY.

Oh, holy Freedom! When, ah, when, will be
Thy triumph everywhere? When will the moan
Of the chained nations cease? When will there groan
No slave beneath the broad expanse of heaven?
When will all fetters of the oppressed be riven,
And Tyranny flee, howling, to the caves
Of the bleak mountains; or the mighty waves
All vestige of old slavery overwhelm?
When wilt thou sit, fair Freedom! at the helm
Of the whirling earth, and steer that mighty bark
Now manned by mariners austere and dark,
With cruel eyes, and wearing golden crowns,
Through the wild seas of chaos, where the frowns
Of savage clouds cast shadows on the waves,
Threathening the sailors with unwelcome graves?
Beneath those waves will then be seen the ruin
Of thrones and dominations, there bestrewing
The sandy floor of that engulfing sea,
Peopled with Fear, mad Terror, Agony,
And gaunt Destruction; steering over which,
Into calm bays and golden seas, will reach
The winged bark, where her storm-shattered sails,
No more will front the lightnings and the gales
Of tyranny and Kinghood. When! oh, when?—
'Tis sad to read the history of men,
And of men's strife for freedom,—see them rise
From the black gulfs of slavery, and flash
The lightnings of their anger in the eyes
Of trembling kings;—perhaps their tyrants dash,
Bleeding, beneath their feet, amid the crash
Of Bastilles and great palaces; and then
Sink like a wave to anarchy again.
Greece once was free;—how long? Rome, too, that wrote
Her name upon the front of nations, smote
Barbarian empires with unspairing hand,
And bent the world's will to her stern command.
Venice and England, France and Spain, in turn,
Have seen the golden fires of freedom burn.
On hill and plain, on rock and citadel;
In their large light have seen great armies swell,
And dash against the troops of Tyranny.
How often have these waves of Freedom's sea
Been baffled and borne back? How often has
Some stern avenger of the People's cause
On Despotism and Kings, himself become
A sterner lord! How often, from the foam
Of tumult and commotion, red with blood,
Some one has risen to ride the furious flood
Of the roused people's rage! How often hath
Some foreign tyrant, mighty in his wrath,
Swept quite away the ramparts of the free,
And trampled them to dust! Dost thou not see,
Oh, Freedom! In thy scroll of bloody names,
Of tiger-hearted men, whose fearful fames
Were from, thy children won, wet with thy tears,
PHILIP and CӔSAR, CROMWELL, and that man,
Mightier than all, the wondrous CORSICAN?
Futurity! hast thou a scourge like these
In store for us? Are stern Fate's dark decrees
Implacable? The cowering tiger-fiends
Are muttering even now, like restless winds,
Within the dim abysses where they brood,—
Tyranny, Priestcraft, Anarchy, and Feud;
And ever and anon they turn and writhe
Like agonized serpents, long and lithe,
Pressed down by mountains. Even now the storm
Of discontent is gathering in the warm
And sunny South. Great clouds the orient clasp,
Rearing their stormy crests, where the white asp
Of lightning quivers, angrily alive:
Freemen are seen too willingly to dive
In the accursed gulf of frantic treason, while
The foes of liberty recline and smile
Within the shadows of old hoary thrones,
Lulled by the music of starved paupers' groans.
Oh, holy Freedom! leave not yet our bark
To drift without a pilot on the dark
And stormy seas of anarchy, and then
To sink forever from the pleasant ken
Of these fair skies and sunny fields, to the home
Of nations tyrant-wrecked, states overthrown,
Republics self-slain! Our great fathers bled
And died for thee, and thy high altar fed
With the red incense of their own stout hearts;
And ere our rights are sold in the black marts
And dens of tyranny, there yet are left
Many to die for thee and thy dear gift.

The cause which made Leonidas eterne,
Embalming his great name within the urn
Of the world's heart,—which made Miltiades,
Pelopidas, and Hampden, and of these,
The twice ten thousand brothers, through all time
Immortal in stern annal and sweet rhyme,—
This cause aroused, and fired all young Peru.
The banner of the LIBERATORS threw
Its eagle shadow on the sunburnt plain,
Now peopled by a small but warlike train
Of Freedom's children. BLAS was there, with some
Five hundred men. BERNAL had left his home
Amid the mountains, with eight hundred more;
BARBON and GOMEZ to the plain did pour,
Each with his gallant regiment, of old
And veteran Catalonians, firm and bold.
ALVAREZ brought a thousand men, a part
Bold mountaineers, skilled in the hunter's art,
A part stout husbandmen, that tilled the plains,
And some old veterans who had stood through rains
Of lead and iron 'gainst Napoleon.
With them had also gathered many a one
Of smaller note; and, in the whole, the force
Amounted to five thousand, foot and horse.
PEPINA still was absent, and the band
Held in the mountains by the brave BRIGAND;
And long and anxiously through all that day,
The leaders looked to see him make his way
Into the plain;—vainly!—for until night
Nothing of him or his appeared in sight;
And when the stars near the young moon were met,
And round the camp the sentinels were set,
Still no troops came, and nothing more was known,
Except that he had failed them; haply, thrown
His weight into the Viceroy's serried ranks,
To obtain thereby pardon, perhaps, and thanks.
For four days all was conference and delay,
But on the thirtieth, just at break of day,
The scouts reported that the foe was near.
There were a few small hillocks in the rear,
Forming a broken ridge that faced the west:
Upon the left, this naked ridge did rest
On a sharp spur of the Andes, that there jutted
Into the plain; and on the right abutted
On a thick wood, protecting that extreme:
Along the front ran a small boggy stream.
To this ground they retired, and there displayed
Their troops in order for the battle, led
By ALVAREZ, whose trade it was of old;
And there, like one determined, cool and bold,
He waited for the enemy. BERNAL
Was placed upon the right, behind some small
And ragged cedars. BLAS was on the left,
His cavalry withdrawn behind a drift
Of granite boulders, from the mountain rent.
The veteran GOMEZ, with his regiment,
And old BARBON with his, the centre held.
One half the men of ALVAREZ were placed
With BLAS, the other with BERNAL. In haste
This being done, ALVAREZ took his post
Of leader, in the centre of the host.

They came like torrents swelling in the spring
Those brave and proven servants of the king;
In all the gaudy trappings of their trade,
Gay banners flying, bayonet and blade.
There was the Andalusian Regiment,
With dark green uniform; and near them went
Battalions from Galicia, and the brave
Biscayan cavalry; the old and grave
Artillery from Cordova;—troops, in fine;
From Spain's most eastern to her western line;
Their trumpets sounding an old Moorish tune.
Their leader, an old, gray-haired Catalun,
Who had learned tactics in Napoleon's school,
Threw out his heavy cavalry, to charge
The enemy's centre. Dashing out they came,
Lances and sabres glittering like keen flame.
Charge upon charge they resolutely made,
But were repulsed. Old Gomez, undismayed,
Stood stern as a rock, and poured his heavy fire
Into the squadrons with destruction dire.
And now the heavy infantry marched down,
And charged right on the centre. Brightly shown
The gleaming bayonets, as, still and swift,
It came, the musketeers unbroken drift.
Gomez fell wounded, at the first fierce crash,
But still Barbon poured in his steady flash.
Bernal wheeled out, and charged in flank the foe,
And Blas poured down, and did upon them throw
His veteran cavalry, but all in vain.
Bernal was scattered; Blas attacked again,
And still again; and still he was repulsed.
Still the old Catalun urged on his men
Against the centre. Alvarez had fought
Like a mad lion hemmed in his own den;
Provided all that his collected thought
Told him was needed; cheered his faltering troops;
Charged singly on the very thickest groups
Of the enemy; yet all in vain! Still back
And back they pushed him; while his arm grew slack
With constant havoc, and his sight grew dim,
And by his side hung useless his left limb,
Struck by a sword whose owner struck no more.
Over red heaps, through puddles of dark gore,
The foe pressed onward, Hark! behind the hills
A single trumpet! At the echoing thrills
There was a pause; and sword and bayonet
Ceased their fierce work. Another trumpet yet!
And like the roar of a pine forest, came
A thousand horsemen. Many a heart grew tame
With doubt and fear. Not long was the delay,
For, as they came, like the hoarse thunders's bay,
A thousand voices shouted 'LIBERTAD!'
Blas and Bernal their shattered squadrons led
To either side, and down the horsemen came.
Alvarez knew that eye of flashing flame
That glittered in the front, and grew again
Strong as a lion maddened by sharp pain.
Two leaders came careering in the front,
Foremost to meet the battle's fiery brunt.
The one he knew: the other, who was he?
On the black squadrons came: that charge of dree
What troops could stand? Not those who there withstood.
That coal-black steed was soon streaked o'er with blood:
Those serried riders rode down horse and man,
As trees are crushed before the hurricane.
In silence did they their fierce work of death,—
No shout, no cry, no wasting idle breath,—
But sudden wheel and fiery charge wherever
Their leader motioned,—he whose sabre never
Struck vainly in that fight,—whose arm ne'er slacked;
Whose course with dead and wounded wide was tracked.
Short was the contest: Alvarez once more
The shattered foe his bayonets drove before;
And Blas had gathered quickly in the rear
Of the black squadrons, and was charging near
Their silent captain; till, like foam and spray,
Melting before the tempest's wrath away,
The routed foe at all points fought no more,
But fled the field, in utter rout, before
The bloody tide of battle.

Valverde's day at last had come;
And every hot and hissing bomb,
That flew as if in savage glee,
Into the city of the sea,
Filled with fierce triumph his wild heart.
Shortly that proud and gorgeous mart,
The King's last stronghold in the land,
Was one wide wreck and ruin, and
They took it one bright day by storm.

Through the long, dreary solitudes
Of the wide streets all day there fell
The tramp of the stern sentinel,
Who kept his steady pace among
The broken rafters, and the throng
Of lifeless corpses; and thick smoke,
Which from the smouldering ruins broke,
O'er wounded men, whose piteous moans,
Rose from blood-dabbled pavement stones.
Valverde's victory was won,
And he had wreaked his will upon
The golden city, which had flung
Him out to starve and die among
The icy mountains.

Such, oh War!
Thy triumphs and thy trophies are!
Such are the things that earn men fame.
Oh, it should make Ambition tame,
Cause it to strew its starry crown
With dust and ashes; to sit down
And weep the triumphs it has won.
When will such curse be rained upon
This free and happy land of ours?
When will mad Tumult's thunder showers
Crush our proud cities to the ground?
When the wild cry of Plunder sound
Along our streets?—our dead be piled
Round burning shrines; our hands defiled
With the abomination of
A brother's gore? Oh, God of love!
Avert the day! Thou hast thus far
Warded from our bright natal star
The clouds of suicidal war.
Desert it not, good God! but let
It still in peaceful heavens be set
To shine upon our homes, and be
A beacon to the struggling free,
Until the last great fight is won,—
Till kings no more fear Liberty,
Nor men remember Washington.

Some days had passed. The city was at rest,
After the tumults that had torn its breast.
Carnage no more through street and palace hurried;
The ruins were removed, the dead were buried.
The living tide of busy human life
Again rolled on. Again the streets were rife
With splendor, wealth, pomp, beauty, as before.
The eagle flag was waving proudly o'er
Its domes and palaces; and here and there,
In the large squares stood the rude barracks, where
The soldiers quartered; and at every turn,
You met a sentinel, grim, silent, stern:
While now and then a sudden trumpet told
The city it was conquered.

From the cold
And snowy hills the golden sun had risen;
His rays rejoiced on dome and spire to glisten,
And danced into Antonia's chamber, through
The painted panes, taking therefrom a hue
Of soft, voluptuous, tender melancholy,
Such as we see within the dim and holy
Monotony of old cathedrals, where
The sanctity seems visible in the air;
Or in those fine old paintings, where you tell
At once the work of Titian or Raffaelle.

In her own room Antonia sate once more
In listless silence. Her pale face still wore
The same sad look of utter desolation,
But there was something of stern elevation
And calm despair in her large, lustrous eyes,
A hopeless calm, that Fate's worst blows defies.
Her maiden dressed her for the bridal there,
And busied in the long, luxuriant hair
Her taper fingers, till she massed it round
A simple comb, and placed a rose or two
Amid the folds, whose white and creamy hue
Made the hair darker. Then Antonia spoke:

'Give over, sweet Rosita! 'Tis enough!
Thy gentle hands, to-night, seem all too rough:
Perhaps it may have been my own poor head
That made me fancy pain. I go to wed
With one who heeds not looks, or else he had
But little judgment in selecting me,
So thin, so wan, so very pale and sad:
He careth not for beauty in a bride.
Nay? let it go so! He hath little pride,
And mighty love,—this future lord of mine.
It needeth not that dextrous art of thine;
When I am married, I shall get good looks,
And health and strength. 'Tis reading in sad books
Makes maidens thin.'

'What books, my lady?'
'Those
Of the deep heart. When wedded, I shall close
The pages up, and will again be well.
I have lost too much sleep of late. The cell
To which I soon shall go hath sleep enough.
Nay, girl! I do not think thy hands are rough:
Weep not at that.'

'Lady, it pains my heart
To see one, sweet and gentle as thou art,
So pale and thin, and using these sad words.
'Tis like the wild note of the anguished birds,
When their hearts break that they have lost their young.'

'Weep on, then! I have wept, but long since flung
The last poor tear-drop from my heart; and now
I cannot weep. Weep on, Rosita! Thou
Art not a bride, or thou wouldst shed no tear.
Nay, thou wouldst laugh, as the glad hour drew near.
See! I can laugh, and do!'

'Dear lady, change
The tenor of thy words! Thy looks are strange;
Thine eyes are brighter, too, than is their wont.
Ah! why do grief and sorrow ever hunt
The best and fairest?'

'Hunted!—yes! 'tis so:—
By many wild-eyed hounds. Rosita! know
I have had strange surmisings in my brain
About my reason; and at times I fain
Could wish for madness, that my utter woe
Might be forgotten in its frenzies. Oh!
Madness would be indeed a very heaven!
For then the sad and tortured heart might even
Moulder away, nor know its swift decline.
Perhaps in frenzy this poor brain of mine
Might entertain sweet dreams, and in them lose
The bitter memory of its many woes.
Oh! I could pray for madness!'

He said; and, with one mute obeisance more,
Passed from the Palace, towards the curving shore
Of the great sea turning his thoughtful course.
Night was upon the waters, and the hoarse
Voice of the ocean urged the unquiet winds
To dash upon her like vindictive fiends,
And rend her azure bosom. Far in the west
Tempest and storm sat brooding on her breast;
Clouds lowered along the horizon's gloomy verge,
Like shadowy waves, cresting the thunder-surge,
And constantly the quick, unquiet tongue
Of lightning ran from crest to crest. There rung
No voice of thunder. The white gulls were out,
Wheeling in circles. All betokened storm.

Valverde stopped, and, gazing on the waste
Of the great sea, whose waves were shoreward cast,
And now boomed hollowly around his feet,
Uttered his thoughts aloud.

What of Antonia, this momentous night?
The waning moon was now some three hours high,
And struggled to unveil her ample eye
From the torn clouds. Through a broad window fell,
At intervals, her gush of silver light
Into Antonia's chamber, through the bright
And varied staining of the gorgeous glass:
Borrowing from it, and from the heavy mass
Of damask curtains, more delicious hues,
And richer tints. There did the maiden muse,
Seated upon the tesselated floor,
In the fickle moonlight. As of one heart-sore,
Her wasted hands were crossed upon her breast,
Thin, and transparent as amythyst.
Her head hung drooping, like the heavy bud
Of a faint lily. When the abundant flood
Of the rich moonlight fell upon her face
It met in her large eye a changeless gaze,
A ghastly paleness on her brow and cheek,
Which, plainer than all words could do, did speak
Utter despair. Her glossy hair was wet,
And glittered in the moonlight like spun jet.
She had been wandering in the evening dew,
And her rich robes were with it dampened through;
For she had gone at moonrise to the spot
Where Ramon was to be, but found him not.
She waited till she grew heart-sick and faint,
With disappointment, and then sadly bent
Her slow steps homeward. There she sat, and filled
Her soul with strange conjectures, and with wild
And terrible thoughts of what had hindered him.
Then the suspicion, which, at first, a dim
And dreamy idea, undulated through
Her brain, returned, and soon and swiftly grew
Settled conviction;—she believed him gone
To his wild home the distant hill upon.
She shed no tear when this imagined truth
Came stunningly upon her. For sad youth
Seemed frail old age to her; and calm despair
Had dried the heart's springs; but she gasped for air,
Her aching eyes throbbed, but refused to shed
A single tear. Her bitter woes had led
Her soul to strange, dark, melancholy ways.
There was a slight, but still a palpable haze,
Of dull insanity upon her brain.
She shed no tear. Indeed, could one have looked
Into her heart, no single thought rebuked
Her lover for desertion. There she sate,
Utterly crushed, struck down by pitiless fate,
Too crushed for anger. Lightnings glittered through
The painted windows, and their lurid blue
Threw a death color on her pallid face.
The thunder-echoes that did wildly chase
Each other through the sky, smote on her ear
Unheeded, and her eyes closed not in fear,
But glittered in the lightning's blaze, and through
The utter darkness, with a fiery glow.

He left the priest at the great altar kneeling;
The organ through the lofty arches pealing,
The bridegroom, cleft to his chin upon the floor,
The father firmly held outside the door,
Raving as father never raved before.
On one strong arm his lovely mistress lay,
The other opened with his sword a way
Through, the dead bridegroom's partisans, to where
His own dark riders in the open air
Waited his coming, ready for the march.

The black band left the City of the Sea,
With cheer, and shout, and joyful revelry,
For in the front their Captain slowly rode,
Towards the blue mountains, and their green abode;
And, blushing with delight, his lovely bride
Rode on a gentle palfrey by his side.
And well they understood their Captain's ear,
So occupied, their merriment could not hear,
Though loud and fast and furious it rung:
So, as they rode, this wild descant they sung:

ANDALUZ! ANDALUZ! to the mountains!
Away from the toils of the plain,
To the pine-kings and rock-sheltered fountains,
And our home of wild freedom again.
The eagle's free life we will follow once more,
And through fastness and valley for plunder we'll pour.

CATALUN! CATALUN! sheathe the sabre!
Till the Captain calls for it again;—
Until then, for a life free from labor,
From slavery, thraldom and pain.
We have given them freedom, and now 'tis but fair,
That we should be free, too, from trouble and care.

VISCAINO! VISCAINO! a la frente!
The gray mountains soon will stream up;
Hurrah! for the rock-hold of plenty,
And the bold rover's heaven, his cup!
Think not of the hills and green vales of Biscay,
With the wine's ruddy rain we'll wash that dream away.

CORDOVAN! CORDOVAN! atiende!
Never turn up to heaven your eyes;
Our priest absolution shall lend you;
Learn from him to be merry and wise
The city we leave cannot hope to compete
With the palace of rock that to-morrow we'll greet.

And where is the coward would falter,
When summoned to follow his chief?
His neck shall be wed to the halter,
He shall die the foul death of a thief.
We will risk every drop of our life's purple tide,
For Valverde the brave and his new-rescued bride.