the God-Son,
To speak in behalf of her people.
She plead for the chiefs of Tlascala--
Las Casas had no abler ally
When he struck the stone heart of Cortez--
And the stonier heart of Castile,
In his earnest prayer for the Aztecs
And the ill-starred King Moctheuzoma.
Her blood gave its ardent petition
In behalf of her race and her people,
Her bronzed hand pressing the balance
On the side of mercy and manhood.

When the light first shines in the cavern
Damp and dark with moldering ages,
It gathers each gleam of the crystals
That cycles have hoarded in brilliance;
So the heart, groping back to the sunlight,
Over graves of its superstitions,
Throws its shoots through every crevice
That promises health to its fibers.
Thus the virgin soul of Malinche
(The image of God on its tablet)
Made the glow of her first impressions
The heart and the soul of the gospel.

But how cunningly clasp the fetters
That fate has unconsciously molded;
And yet, how they pinion our passport
On the trend of further indulgence--
The conquest was hardly completed,
And the maid in the fullest enjoyment
Of the treasure she aided to purchase
When the island divulges its secret,
And the wife of his early loving,
And the wife of his after loathing,
Appears at the door of the Chieftain.
O Malinche! brown-eyed Malinche!
The finger of fate is upon you;
The wrongs of your conscienceless mother
Were the scar and bane of your _childhood_.
The years with their velveted footfalls
Have forced them far back in the shadows,--
But here comes a heart that is bleeding
For the touch of its earliest treasure.
With an even right you have won it;
Upon your warm bosom have worn it.
But another, unknown, has possessed it,
And puts forth her hand to recover.
Will you strike at her just petition?
Love is love; but hers is the older,
And it has grown sharp with its longing;
The hunger of years is upon it,
And pleads all the patience of loving.

They me