Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE PASSING OF SPAIN FROM THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE, by SAMUEL VALENTINE COLE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE PASSING OF SPAIN FROM THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE, by                    
First Line: The lord communed with his heart in heaven
Last Line: The passing away of spain.
Subject(s): Cities; Messages & Messengers; Spain; Travel; Urban Life; Journeys; Trips


THE Lord communed with His heart in heaven
And said: "It has been my way
To cancel at last the men or the states
That sin and disobey.
Four hundred years I have waited,—four,
And still they are starved and slain:
That my name on earth be reverenced more,
Shall I make an end of Spain?"

For the prayers rolled up about His throne,
Like a cloud, from every side;
And vast the cloud of witnesses
The souls of those who had died.
Columbus himself was there; said he:
"I found her the virgin lands
Of half the world; she found for me
The chains upon my hands."

And the souls of her best citizens came,
Five hundred thousand strong,
To tell of the Inquisition fires
And all that giant wrong.
And the souls of the sons of the Netherlands came
And said 'twas thus and thus:
"Remember Philip and Alva's shame—
Lord, how they butchered us!"

And the souls of the slain, from far away
In Mexico and Peru,
Cried to the Power that seeks and saves,
"Good Lord, the charge is true!"
And the souls of them that suffered and fell
In the islands of the main,
Thousands on thousands, came to swell
The awful guilt of Spain.

Then said the Lord in His great sad heart:
"It shall no more endure;
If I rise in my might and make an end,
My justice stands secure."
And He motioned the seraphs that do His word,
To fly to the earth and do;
And the flaming seraphs that bear the sword,
In silence bowed, and flew.

They said as they flew: "The earth is His
To save, not the devil's to mar;
Some things are better than money is,
And some things worse than war."
The messengers, while on they swept,
Cried: "Fear not; it is well;
For this kind goeth not out except
By sword and shot and shell."

At last the darkening shadow drew
Across the morning sun:
A shiver, as if presaging doom,
Throughout the world did run.
And when the cloud, so big with dread,
Broke over Manila's bay,
The far-off nations, whispering, said:
"Hush! Spain is passing away."

Down through the Windward Passage, round
The sweep of the southern seas,
The cloud belched forth of its righteousness
To heal sin's long disease.
For hither and thither they swiftly went
Who ne'er bear sword in vain,
And to heaven and earth their mission meant
The passing away of Spain.

When they sheathed the sword, and the guns grew cold,
And the desolate Isle was free;
When the ships that carried the fragments off
Put sullenly forth to sea,—
The eyes of every people and land
Watched—silent and awed at the plain
Irresistible pressure of God's right hand—
The passing away of Spain.





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