in ramparts of the West;
Some lingered still upon the Eastern slope;
The empire yet was open to their zest,
And all were buoyant with a new-born hope.
But war, like pestilence, doth warp our lives,
And like contagion, it infects the air.
Peace comes in measure, but it never thrives
Directly after conflict, till grows fair
The flesh so lately scarred. Intestine war
Made ravage of their ranks; they ill could spare
Their bravest, yet the first to fall in fratricidal jar.
The lines, by conflict, soon were closely drawn,
And from the night of struggle nations dawn,
Whose chiefs assume the King's prerogative.
Clans fall, and clansmen perish; nations live
That pass chaotic conflict, and ensphere
Their crude material, as a new-born world,
To individual phalanxes, and rear
Their rude escutcheon. As in ether whirled,
The new born planet tracks its trial course;
So must this human query find its way,
And failure is its fashion; but still worse
Are those who fail to grapple with the day,
But look supinely on while vested rights
Are trampled under foot, and raise no hand
In deprecating gesture; from the heights
Of grim impartial history will stand
Unfading letters, written to the shame
Of those whose scourges fail to make a name.

PREHISTORIC RENDEZVOUS OF THE AZTECS.

On either side the crest of the Madre,
Where mountains kiss their hands to either sea,
One slope to blush upon the opening day,
The other, to drop down its tapestry
And hold the hand for promise of return,
Three nations, as three stars, to being burn.
The Toltecs, purest of the primal race,
The Chichamecs, devoted to the chase,
And Aztecs, strongest in the arts of war--
All, seeming thrown beneath one fateful star.
No painter limnes upon his labored scroll,
Be it fantastic, feast, or forest shades,
As war upon its victims; from the soul
(Plastic as new damped clay) it never fades
Till Time has ironed out the furrowed past;
And Peace, by laying fevered brows to rest,
Over the present has its mantle cast;
Then Nature folds its wardling to its breast.
So on these nations had been writ, in brief,
The deep-burned liturgy of hardened strife,
And through the furnace