chains are
merited. You deserve your insecurities, and may embrace, even as ye
please, the fates which lie before you. Acquiesce in the tyranny which
offends no longer, but be sure that acquiescence never yet has
disarmed the despot when his rapacity needs a victim. Your lives and
possessions--which ye dare not peril in the cause of freedom--lie
equally at his mercy. He will not pause, as you do, to use them at his
pleasure. To save them from him there was but one way--to employ them
against him. There is no security against power but in power; and to
check the insolence of foreign strength you must oppose to it your
own. This ye have not soul to do, and I leave you to the destiny you
have chosen. This day, this night, it was yours to resolve. I have
periled all to move you to the proper resolution. You have denied me,
and I leave you. To-morrow--unless indeed I am betrayed
to-night"--looking with a sarcastic smile around him as he spoke--"I
shall unfurl the banner of the republic even within your own province,
in behalf of Bogota, and seek, even against your own desires, to
bestow upon you those blessings of liberty which ye have not the soul
to conquer for yourselves."

Hardly had these words been spoken, when the guitar again sounded from
within. Every ear was instantly hushed as the strain ascended--a
strain, more ambitious than the preceding, of melancholy and indignant
apostrophe. The improvisatrice was no longer able to control the
passionate inspiration which took its tone from the stern eloquence of
the Liberator. She caught from him the burning sentiment of scorn
which it was no longer his policy to repress, and gave it additional
effect in the polished sarcasm of her song. Our translation will
poorly suffice to convey a proper notion of the strain.

Then be it so, if serviles ye will be,
When manhood's soul had broken every chain,
'T were scarce a blessing now to make ye free,
For such condition tutored long in vain,
Yet may we weep the fortunes of our land,
Though woman's tears were never known to take
One link away from that oppressive band,
Ye have not soul, not soul enough to break!

Oh! there were hearts of might in other days,
Brave chiefs, whose memory still is dear to fame;
Alas for ours!--the gallant deeds we praise
But show more deeply red our cheeks of shame:
As from the midnight gloom the weary eye,
With sense that cannot