ly do they mould
their own sepulchral urns. That which was yesterday is not to-day;
and let not that which is to-day trust to live to-morrow.

5. The caverns of earth are filled with pestilential dust which once
was the bones, the flesh, the bodies of great ones who sate upon
thrones, deciding causes, ruling assemblies, governing armies,
conquering provinces, possessing treasures, tearing down temples,
flattering themselves with pride, majesty, fortune, praise and
dominion. These glories have passed like the dark smoke thrown out by
the fires of Popocatepetl, leaving no monuments but the rude skins on
which they are written.

6. Ha! ha! Were I to introduce you into the obscure bowels of this
temple, and were to ask you which of these bones were those of the
powerful Achalchiuhtlanextin, first chief of the ancient Toltecs; of
Necaxecmitl, devout worshiper of the gods; if I inquire where is the
peerless beauty of the glorious empress Xiuhtzal, where the peaceable
Topiltzin, last monarch of the hapless land of Tulan; if I ask you
where are the sacred ashes of our first father Xolotl; those of the
bounteous Nopal; those of the generous Tlotzin; or even the still
warm cinders of my glorious and immortal, though unhappy and luckless
father Ixtlilxochitl; if I continued thus questioning about all our
august ancestors, what would you reply? The same that I reply--I know
not, I know not; for first and last are confounded in the common
clay. What was their fate shall be ours, and of all who follow us.

7. Unconquered princes, warlike chieftains, let us seek, let us sigh
for the heaven, for there all is eternal, and nothing is corruptible.
The darkness of the sepulchre is but the strengthening couch for the
glorious sun, and the obscurity of the night but serves to reveal the
brilliancy of the stars. No one has power to alter these heavenly
lights, for they serve to display the greatness of their Creator, and
as our eyes see them now, so saw them our earliest ancestors, and so
shall see them our latest posterity.

* * * * *

It will be seen that the philosophy of these songs is mostly of the
Epicurean and _carpe diem_ order. The certainty of death and the
mutability of fortune, observations which press themselves upon the
mind of man everywhere, are their principal staples, and cast over
them a hue of melancholy, relieved by exhortations to enjoy to the
utmost what the present moment offers of