Samuel Kettell, ed. Specimens of American Poetry. 1829.
By The Fall of ZamporWilliam Moore Smith (17591821)
N
And madly staring horror screams!
O’er yonder field bestrew’d with dead,
See, how the lurid lightning gleams!
From yonder black brow’d cloud of night,
The mighty Capac’s dreadful form
Bursts forth upon my aching sight!
Give double horrors to the gloom,
Each pointing to the ghastly wound
That sent him, shroudless to the tomb!
For me their airy arms they wave!
Oh! stay—nor yet from Zampor fly,
We ’ll be companions in the grave!—
They ’re gone!—each shadowy form is fled,
Yet soon these hoary locks of age
Shall low as theirs in dust be laid!
Upon the haughty Spaniard’s crest,
Swift to my swelling heart, go tell
How deep thou ’st pierced thy master’s breast.
With transport smile on Zampor’s fate?
No ere the deed of death be done
The tyrant’s blood shall glut my hate.
Points where his crimson’d banners fly,
Look down, ye forms of fleeting air,
I yet shall triumph ere I die!
Rush’d on th’ unguarded Spaniard’s lord;
Around his head the lightning plays—
Reflected from his brandish’d sword:
And guide it swift to Garcia’s breast,
His pangs shall all my pangs assuage,
His death shall give my country rest.
Receive this victim at your shrine!”
Aghast the circling warriors stood
Nor could prevent the chief’s design.
’T is Zampor hurls him to his fate—
The author of my country’s woes
Now sinks the victim of my hate.”
And sheathed it deep within his own—
“I come, ye gods of lost Peru,”
He said—and died without a groan.