Stretch forth Thine arm, and from the brow infernal
Of Calumny the veil of Justice tear;
And from the forehead of my honest fame
Pluck the world's brand of infamy and shame!

"O King of kings!--my fathers' God!--who only
Art strong to save, by whom is all controlled,
Who givest the sea its waves, the dark and lonely
Abyss of heaven its light, the North its cold,
The air its currents, the warm sun its beams,
Life to the flowers, and motion to the streams!

"All things obey Thee, dying or reviving
As thou commandest; all, apart from Thee,
From Thee alone their life and power deriving,
Sink and are lost in vast eternity!
Yet doth the void obey Thee; since from naught
This marvellous being by Thy hand was wrought.

"O merciful God! I cannot shun Thy presence,
For through its veil of flesh Thy piercing eye
Looketh upon my spirit's unsoiled essence,
As through the pure transparence of the sky;
Let not the oppressor clap his bloody hands,
As o'er my prostrate innocence he stands!

"But if, alas, it seemeth good to Thee
That I should perish as the guilty dies,
And that in death my foes should gaze on me
With hateful malice and exulting eyes,
Speak Thou the word, and bid them shed my blood,
Fully in me Thy will be done, O God!"

On arriving at the fatal spot, he sat down as ordered, on a bench, with
his back to the soldiers. The multitude recollected that in some
affecting lines, written by the conspirator in prison, he had said that
it would be useless to seek to kill him by shooting his body,--that his
heart must be pierced ere it would cease its throbbings. At the last
moment, just as the soldiers were about to fire, he rose up and gazed for
an instant around and above him on the beautiful capital of his native
land and its sail-flecked bay, on the dense crowds about him, the blue
mountains in the distance, and the sky glorious with summer sunshine.
"Adios, mundo!" (Farewell, world!) he said calmly, and sat down. The
word was given, and five balls entered his body. Then it was that,
amidst the groans and murmurs of the horror-stricken spectators, he rose
up once more, and turned his head to the shuddering soldiers, his face
wearing an express