Page:The Mexican Problem (1917).djvu/14

Back of the priest and his furious ritual, Inquisitorial phantoms arise.

Then, amid suffering, hunger and misery, flourishes Caste, built on terror and lies.

(1580)

Fray de las Casas by mad liberation loads on America burdens more great;

Blood of the African now is commingled with that of the Gryphon, the curse of the State.

This new decadence gives flowers anæmic, rich in their color, but odorless, stale;

Women inspiring but sensual agonies; bards who in all but their fantasies fail.

 

(1520-1810)

Cycles of history reading like fairy tales; viceregal brilliance of color and tone.

O the adventures of silvery eventides! Silken rope-ladder and Moorish balcon—

Falsest of vows given—furtivest coquetry—heads nodding "Yes" to the tryst of the slayer—

Swords sacrilegiously hiss from their sheathes in the very Cathedral and break off the prayer.

All the vile elegance, then of Don Juan—

Piety, decency, sanity, gone.

 

(1810)

Prophets, self-styled, raise the grito of Liberty. Over one century, lost are their cries.

(1913)

Comes, now, this meaningless, bloodletting orgy, from which our Lord God turns his pitying eyes.

Peoples tumultuous. Lands of hot fever.

Latin America, sunstruck and mad.