Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18.djvu/723

1866.] And they said, in their stately phrases,

"O mighty in peace and war!

No mortal blade we bring you,

But a flaming meteor.

"The sword of the Spaniard is broken,

And to you in its stead is given,

To lead and redeem a nation,

This ray of light from heaven."

The gaunt-faced Liberator

From their hands the symbol took,

And waved it aloft in the sunlight,

With a high, heroic look;

And he called the saints to witness:

"May these lips turn into dust,

And this right hand fail, if ever

It prove recreant to its trust!

"Never the sigh of a bondman

Shall cloud this gleaming steel,

But only the foe and the traitor

Its vengeful edge shall feel.

"Never a tear of my country

Its purity shall stain,

Till into your hands, who gave it,

I render it again."

Now if ever a chief was chosen

To cover a cause with shame,

And if ever there breathed a caitiff,

Bolivar was his name.

From his place among the people

To the highest seat he went,

By the winding paths of party

And the stair of accident.

A restless, weak usurper,

Striving to rear a throne,

Filling his fame with counsels

And conquests not his own;—

Now seeming to put from him

The sceptre of command,

Only that he might grasp it

With yet a firmer hand;—

His country's trusted leader,

In league with his country's foes,

Stabbing the cause that nursed him,

And openly serving those;—