Lays of Ancient Virginia | Page 5

wondrous wings,?I would soar and sing to heaven,?Till my freed soul from sordid things,?Should thus be widely riven.
THE PRINCESS OF PERU.
RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED TO MISS MARY T. ROBERTSON OF ABINGDON, VA.
Far to the wilds of rich Peru,?Gonzalo came--of pallid hue,?Strange in these Western lands of night,?Where nought, save woman's eyes, are bright.?But these have all that outward beam,?Reflected from their glances' gleam?Of light and fire, that kindle bliss;?Or sink to gloom in Death's abyss.?Gonzalo came, a son of Spain,?That land which gleams beyond the main,?And sent its children to these lands,?To gather gold with reckless hands.?And, he, Gonzalo, stood a tower,?In sturdy grace, and manly power;?No Indian's weapon was to him,?More than a sea-reed, slight and slim;?And yet to brown Iola's eye,?He seemed the lord of lady's sigh.?Gonzalo seen, her thought, her dream,?With fancy's love-fraught visions teem.?She deemed that orb of glorious fire,?To which her country's souls aspire,?That crimson god whose glowing face?Illumines all the mortal race:?She deemed his glory, only, vied?With brave Gonzalo's matchless pride.?And down along the green, fresh earth,?Where sin not yet had known its birth;?She knelt, and cast her hands and eyes,?To the bright God of those bright skies;?And worshipped him whose blessed beams,?Had given Gonzalo to her dreams.?Iola, princess of Peru,?Most fair (though of a dusky hue,)?Like this new, unpolluted clime,?Unknown to hate, unknown to crime,?Where all that dwell know but to love,?(The gentleness which marks the dove.)?And like that rich, unguarded shore,?She knew to be, and seem no more;?And like that land so rich in bloom,?Its branches wrought at noon a gloom;?Her form was bright with beauty's hues,?Which each propitious year renews;?And, as within its bosom lay,?Treasures which mocked the sun's bright ray;?In her rich soul shone wealth to shame,?That tropic sun's meridian flame.?She stood a lovely being fraught,?With that most dear to human thought,?The power to love, to force the bliss?Of heaven, to such a world as this.?Iola, dearest maiden, threw?A wondrous charm o'er all who knew?Her loveliness; her menial train?Adored her even to anxious pain.?And to her father's rapturous eyes,?She shone a rainbow--whose bright dyes?Illumed his aged spirit's night;?A thing of loveliness and light.?And in and out the Inca's hall?She went, returned to his known call.?She seemed a sunbeam sent from heaven,?To make his troubled spirit even;?For, if his soul, oppressed with grief,?In aught of earthly, sought relief;?Iola's image quickly seen,?His soul grew peaceful and serene.?In his tried spirits' darkest mood,?She was an omen still of good.?Such was the maid with hue of night,?But soul and eyes like midday light,?Whose beauty shed a sparkling spell,?O'er Peru's plain and shadowy dell;--?Who mid the rugged Andes stood,?The charm of polished womanhood,?And many a stranger wondered where,?She caught that grace and beauty's air.
"Iola!" said Gonzalo, "far?Where shines yon lovely evening star,?Sings many a gay and loving maid,?Beneath the cooling olive shade.?Their brows are whiter, too, than thine,?But yet none to me are so divine,?As thine, fair maid of dark Peru,?With heart like its Volcanoes too.?E'er since I landed on those shores,?Of endless spring, and brightest ores,?I have not thought of ought but thee,?Ne'er can my bosom now be free.?List! sweet Iola! am I vain??I deem thou lovest we well again;?For, when I sought thy downcast eyes,?They met mine with a glad surprise;?And when I spake to thee full low,?Thy voice was like a fountain's flow,?So softly sweet, so lulling, too,?It bathed my soul in rapture's dew.?Iola! sure I love thee well,?And if thou wilt thy father tell,?I deem he will not eye me ill,?Whose love is with his daughter still."?Iola raised her glance to heaven,?Then to Gonzalo, darting, even?Her soul, into his own, and said;?"This soil with blood was never red;?And, sure, my father would not slay,?Those men for whom his child will pray.?But why thinkest thou of blood? the thought,?With wretched fear is ever fraught.?Think, think of love, and gentle peace,?Gonzalo! let these bodings cease.?Think, think of love--here on my heart,?Repose, and even Death's stern dart,?By Love conjured, will turn away,?Some unloved thing of earth to slay."?"Angel of good!" Gonzalo cried,?"A thousand joys are at thy side,?Thou comest to light my dangerous way,?With calm, and pure, and heavenly ray.?I feel thou art a spirit sent,?From heaven's snow-white battlement,?To lead me through these stranger wilds,?With voice and actions like a child's,?So guiltless in thy love--so dear,?I bless thy goodness with a tear.?Oh! like thy climate's deathless spring,?Succeeding days and years shall bring,?Living affection to my heart,?Till we no more on earth can part."?"Then, dear Gonzalo! let us meet,?As oft as evening airs are sweet,?In yonder bower--my own--my dove,?And I will be thy gentle love.?That bower my Inca-father reared,?For good such thing to him appeared,?Where his Iola might be lone,?To dream of fancies all her own.?Yes! oft as evening shades came down,?On giant Andes' glittering crown?Of endless snow, that shines afar?Next to the radiant zenith star;?Then throw