breath breathes sustenance
To nations; a majestic charity!
No marble symbol cold, in suppliant glance
Deceitful smiling; strenuous her advance,
Yet calm; while holy ardors, fancy-free,
Direct her measured steps: in every chance
Sedate--as Una 'neath the forest tree
Encompassed by the lions. Why, alas!
Must her perverse and thoughtless children turn
From her example? Why must the sulky breath
Of Bigotry stain Charity's pure glass?
Poison the springs of Art and Science--burn
The brain through life, and sear the heart in death?

SONNET

Sad is our youth, for it is ever going,
Crumbling away beneath our very feet;
Sad is our life, for onward it is flowing
In currents unperceived, because so fleet;
Sad are our hopes, for they were sweet in sowing--
But tares, self-sown, have overtopped the wheat;
Sad are our joys, for they were sweet in blowing--
And still, oh still, their dying breath is sweet;
And sweet is youth, although it hath bereft us
Of that which made our childhood sweeter still;
And sweet is middle life, for it hath left us
A nearer good to cure an older ill;
And sweet are all things, when we learn to prize them
Not for their sake, but His who grants them, or denies them!

BERNAL DIAZ DEL CASTILLO

(1498-1593)

Bernal Diaz del Castillo, one of the chief chroniclers of the conquest
of Mexico by the Spaniards, was born at Medina del Campo in Old Castile,
about the year 1498. Concerning the date of his death, authorities
differ widely. He died in Guatemala, perhaps not long after 1570, but
some say not until 1593.

Of humble origin, he determined while still a youth to seek his fortune
in the New World. In 1514 he went with Pedrarias to Darien and Cuba. He
was a common soldier with Cordoba in the first expedition to Yucatan in
1517. He accompanied Grijalva to Mexico in the following year, and
finally enlisted under the banner of Cortes. In every event that marked
the career of that brilliant commander in Mexico, Diaz had a part; he
was engaged in one hundred and nineteen battles, and was present at the
siege and surrender of the capital in 1521. Of unswerving loyalty and
bravery, according to his own naive statement, he was frequently
appointed by Cortes to highly important missions. When Cortes set out to