The Virgin of Guadalupe

The good Jehovah, dread, magnificent,
Once chose a people whom he called his own,
And out of Egypt in a wondrous way
He brought them in a dark and troublous night,
And Moses touched the Red Sea with a rod,
And the waves parted, offering them a path,
His people passed, but in the abyss remained
Egyptian horse and rider who pursued.
Marched on the flock of Jacob, and the Lord
Spread over them his all protecting wings,
As the lone eagle shields her unfledged young,
He gave them lands, and victories, and spoilsglad nation!

Which the Master of the heavens
Loved as the very apple of his eye.
But now this people, seeing themselves blessed
By him whose slightest glance they not deserved
Erected perishable images
In homage unto strange and pagan gods.
The Lord in indignation said: "They wished
To make their Maker jealous with vain gods,
Bowing in dust the sacrilegious knee
Before the dumb creation of their hands,
Well, I will sting their hearts with jealousy,

Showing myself to all unhappy lands
Without employing vail or mystery."
He said it, and his solemn word fulfilled,
Convoking from the farthest ends of the earth
Nations barbarian and civilized -
The Gaul, the Scandinavian, Roman, Greek,
And the neglected race of Mexico,
Whom the Almighty Sovereign loved so well
The holy truth he would reveal to themso that
the hard hearts of his people should
Be softened. Yet his mercy was not full:
Down from the diamond heavens he bade descend
The Virgin, who with mother's sorrowing care
Nursed him in Bethlehem when he was a child.

Near to the tremulous Tezcoco lake
Rises a bare and solitary hill,
Where never cypress tall nor cedar grows,
Nor whispering oak; nor cooling fountain laves
The waste of herbless rocks and sterile sanda
barren country' tis, dry, dusty, sad,
Where the vile worm scarce drags its length along.

Here is the place where Holy Mary comes
Down from her home above the azure heavens
To show herself to Juan, who, comfortless,
Petitioned for relief from troubles sore.
Sometimes it chances that a fragrant plant
In the dense forest blooms unseen, unknown,
Though bright its virginal buds and rare its flowers;

So doth the modest daughter of the Lord
Obscure the moon, the planets, and the stars
Which all adorn her forehead and her feet,
When lends she the poor Indian her grace,
In bounty wonderful to all his kind.
She tenders him the waters and the dew,
Prosperity of fruits and animals,
A heart of sensible humility,
And help unfailing in his future need.
The Angel of America resumes
Her radiant flight. With grateful ear he heard,
Twice did he wondering kneel, and twice again
He kissed the white feet of the holy maid.

But did not end God's providence benign:
The Almighty wished to leave to Mexicans
His Mother's likeness by his own great hand,
In token of the love he had for us.
He took the pencil, saying "We will make
In heaven's own image, as we moulded man.
But what was Adam to my beauteous one?"
So saying, drew he with serenest face
The gentle likeness of the Mother-maid.
He saw the image, and pronounced it good.

Since then, with the encircling love of heaven,
A son she sees in every Mexican.
Mildly the wandering incense she receives,
Attending to his vow with human face;
For her the teeming vapors yield their rain
To the green valley and the mountain side,
Where the bend and wave the abundant harvest fields,
And the green herbs that feed the lazy kine.
She makes the purifying breezes pass,
And on the restless and unsounded seas
She stills the rigor of the hurricane.

The frighten people see the approach of death
When the broad earth upon its axis shakes,
But the wild elements are put to sleep,
With but a smile from her mild countenance.
And she has moved the adamantine heart
Of avarice, who saw decrepit age
Creep like an insect on the dusty earth,
To open his close-shut hand, and bless the poor.
She maketh humbly kneel and kiss the ground
No less the wise than simple. She the great,
Dazzled by their own glory, doth advise
That soon their gaudy pageant shall be o'er,
And heaven's oblivion shall dissolve their fame.

How often has the timid, trembling maid
Upon the verge of ruin sought thy help,
Shutting her eyes to pleasure and to gold
At thought of thee, O Maiden pure and meek!
Centuries and ages will have vanished by,
Within their currents bearing kings and men;
Great monuments shall fall; the pyramids
Of lonely Egypt moulder in decay;
But time shall never place its fatal hand
Upon the image of the Holy Maid,
Nor on the pious love of Mexico.