Classic Poem

Father ! Count Illan! here—what here I say,—
Aloft—look up!—ay, father, here I stand,
Safe of my purpose now! The way is barr'd;—
Thou need'st not hasten hither!—Ho! Count Illan,
I tell thee I have barr'd the battlements!
I tell thee that no human power can curb
A desperate will. The poison and the knife—
These thou couldst wrest from me; but here I stand
Beyond thy thrall—free mistress of myself.
Though thou hadst wings, thou couldst not overtake
My purpose. I command my destiny.
Would I stand dallying on Death's threshold here,
If it were possible that hand of man
Could pluck me back?
Why didst thou bring me here
To set my foot, reluctant as I was,
On this most injured and unhappy land?
Yonder in Afric—on a foreign shore,
I might have linger'd out my wretched life—
I might have found some distant lurking place,
Where my accursed tale was never known;
Where Gothic speech would never reach my ear,—
Where among savages I might have fled
The leprous curse of infamy! But here—
In Spain,—in my own country;—night and morn
Where all good people curse me in their prayers;
Where every Moorish accent that I hear
Doth tell me of my country's overthrow,
Doth stab me like a dagger to the soul;
Here—here—in desolated Spain, whose fields
Yet reek to Heaven with blood,—whose slaughter'd sons
Lie rotting in the open light of day,
My victims;—said I, mine? Nay—Nay, Count Illan,
They are thy victims! at the throne of God
Their spirits call for vengeance on thy head;
Their blood is on thy soul,—even I, myself,
I am thy victim too,—and this death more
Must yet be placed in Hell to thy account.

O my dear country! O my mother Spain!
My cradle and my grave!—for thou art dear;
And nursed to thy undoing as I was,
Still, still I am thy child—and love thee still;
I shall be written in thy chronicles
The veriest wretch that ever yet betray'd
Her native land! From sire to son my name
Will be transmitted down for infamy!—
Never again will mother call her child
La Caba,—an Iscariot curse will lie
Upon the name, and children in their songs
Will teach the rocks and hills to echo with it
Strumpet and traitoress!
This is thy work, father
Nay, tell me not my shame is wash'd away—
That all this ruin and this misery
Is vengeance for my wrongs. I ask'd not this,—
I call'd for open, manly, Gothic vengeance.
Thou wert a vassal, and thy villain lord
Most falsely and most foully broke his faith;
Thou wert a father, and the lustful king
By force abused thy child!—Thou hadst a sword;
Shame on thee to call in the cimeter
To do thy work! Thou wert a Goth—a Christian—
Son of an old and honorable house,—
It was my boast, my proudest happiness,
To think I was the daughter of Count Illan.
Fool that I am to call this African
By that good name! O do not spread thy hands
To me!—and put not on that father's look!
Moor! turbaned misbeliever! renegade!
Circumcised traitor! Thou Count Illan, Thou!—
Thou my dear father?—cover me, O Earth?
Hell, hide me from the knowledge!