THE TOLTECS JOURNEY SOUTH.

The Toltecs were the first to break the way

Toward the vertex of the Summer sun;

To catch the fervor of his ripest ray,

And talismise the pilgrimage begun.

And after many days their fasting eyes

Are feasted with Mexitli's lovely plain —

So like a newly-fashioned paradise,

An almost Eden, sprung to life again.

Her placid lakes gave back her deep blue sky

In rivalry of Nature — Nature's charms

Do cast reflected multiples, and try

To fold us in with her unnumbered arms.

Not all we see, but all we feel, invites,

Together with our seeing, to secure

An unrestricted homage; all unite

In this uncovered world, so rich and pure

And lade with sunshine, ripened into form,

Concentered rays to leaves and blossoms grown,

The larch impendent with its verdant cone,

The oak's historic battlement of storm,

The cypress mourning and exultant palms,

The provident maguey, whose offered alms

Found ready acceptation at their hands,

The maize, which they had known in northern lands,

Were native to her rich and virgin soil

And gave the husbandman unstinted spoil.

And thus, with Nature and themselves at rest,

Fresh inspiration from the God of peace

Expands and energizes every breast,

And fettered manhood labors for release.

Invention is emancipation: Time

Doth loosen Nature's fetters; man invents

Not one of those discoveries sublime

That couples his poor name with consequence.

The world had moved a million years or so

Ere Galileo blundered into prison

For telling how we are compelled to go.

The fog of superstition had not risen;

And he whose brain peered up above the cloud,

To widen the horizon of his thought,

Must be content to leave the gnarlish crowd

Of puppets and of priestcraft who have fought

The van of progress, immemorial time,

In fear some newly loosened truth might break

Some preconcerted dogma, deeming crime

The impulsive movement of the soul to slake

The thirst that God implanted there, to burn

Its way into the hidden and unseen,

And find new thoroughfares for its return,

And on creation's outer verge new entities to glean.

So did these primal pioneers look out

Beyond the compass of their husbandry,

And challenge their surroundings; manly, stout,

And earnest did they seek the mystic tree

Of knowledge in this Eden of the West,

Not interdicted by Divine decree,

But always open to the manly quest

And the unflagging purpose to be free.

The zodiac gave up its lettered scroll

To their inquiries; and the measured year

Unsealed the clasp that held it from control,

And truths that had seemed very far, revealed themselves quite near.

Their rudely fashioned lodges soon gave way

To buildings of a more pretentious form;

The forests and the quarries and the clay

Were forced to human vassalage. The charm

That held the forest templary from spoil

Was not entirely broken; after years

And Christian conquest must consume the toil

And travail of the centuries. Our tears,

Are but a poor atonement for the brand

Our westward march has made on Nature's back.

We mourn our forest fastnesses too late;

With hand unbridled we have torn their face,

And given legal sanction to their fate —

But what companionship can take their place?

Nearest to Nature's very heart of hearts,

The verdant monarchs beckon us to God;

Their benison with life alone departs;

They testify of Eden from the sod.

O man! that thy perfection should be lost,

When so much perfectness is left on earth!

How much of bitterness! With what a cost

Didst thou forget the sacred touch that hallowed thee at birth!

The worship of Hurakin, “Heart of Heaven,”

Spoke of a healthier, higher growth of soul,

The consciousness of sins to be forgiven;

A god, whom weakness could at once control;

A prophecy, of Fatherhood to come;

A ray that pencils from the “great white throne;”

A voice to energies, that had been dumb

For many centuries — prophetic groan

Of man's insatiate thirst for betterment,

Not all in vain. The white-winged dove of peace

For many years was theirs; they came and went

Beyond their borders, without let or lease;

Found sunnier climes to South; and, as a charm

Was laid upon their footsteps, they advance

To hover closer to their ancient god.

They still were pliant to his fateful glance,

And scanned his burnished surface to inquire

His potency in human destiny.

They had forgot the legend of his fire,

Yet, from his searching, steadfast eye, not one of them were free.

So pass they out from the historic ken —

Theirs, no aggressive way-mark on the earth.

We linger on their passage, and the pen

Would gladly pour regret upon the dearth

Of the indentures they have left to mark

Their peaceful, noiseless tread upon the shore;

But it is vain; yet out of all this dark,

One lesson may we glean: That evermore

The souls that move with nature on her march

Are those who drop, as she drops down her leaves;

They fill the earth with fruitfulness, and arch

The highway of the nations with their sheaves;

They sleep to history, but wake to God;

Theirs is the pass-key through eternal gates;

They write no vengeful Sanscrit on the sod;

They linger at no earthly court, but the recording seraph waits

To write them blessed of the Lord, the jewels of the fates.