Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18.djvu/723

And they said, in their stately phrases,
"O mighty in peace and war!
No mortal blade we bring you,
But a flaming meteor.

"The sword of the Spaniard is broken,
And to you in its stead is given,
To lead and redeem a nation,
This ray of light from heaven."

The gaunt-faced Liberator
From their hands the symbol took,
And waved it aloft in the sunlight,
With a high, heroic look;

And he called the saints to witness:
"May these lips turn into dust,
And this right hand fail, if ever
It prove recreant to its trust!

"Never the sigh of a bondman
Shall cloud this gleaming steel,
But only the foe and the traitor
Its vengeful edge shall feel.

"Never a tear of my country
Its purity shall stain,
Till into your hands, who gave it,
I render it again."

Now if ever a chief was chosen
To cover a cause with shame,
And if ever there breathed a caitiff,
Bolivar was his name.

From his place among the people
To the highest seat he went,
By the winding paths of party
And the stair of accident.

A restless, weak usurper,
Striving to rear a throne,
Filling his fame with counsels
And conquests not his own;—

Now seeming to put from him
The sceptre of command,
Only that he might grasp it
With yet a firmer hand;—

His country's trusted leader,
In league with his country's foes,
Stabbing the cause that nursed him,
And openly serving those;—