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TO AN AZTEC IDOL, by                    
First Line: Little idol of gold / with your legs interlaced
Last Line: Lusts, little god,—little fiend!
Subject(s): Aztecs; Idols


LITTLE idol of gold
With your legs interlaced,
And your fingers a-fold
On your horrible waist,
Say, of what do you dream as you sit there and
Brood with a simper unchaste?

You're some six inches high,
Yet the devils that lurk
In the slant of your sly
And malevolent smirk,
Seem to hint at the evil of ages, left latent,
—But ready to work!

Do the days of your state
Come again as you drowse?
Do the crowds at your gate
Offer incense and vows?
Are your hand-maidens slim young Princesses, with
Emeralds bound on their brows?

Does the trend of your dream
To old rituals yearn?
Does the victim's wild scream
And the sunshine return,
With the Priests, and the blood-dabbled altars, the
Uplifted casket and urn?

Do you see in your sleep
Proud hidalgos of Spain,
And the galleons that leap
From the blue of the Main,
The sack of the temple, the treasure,
The plumes and the rapiers again?

Dead, dead are the days
When you pranked it, and preened,
And—from altar-fire blaze
To my chimney demeaned—
You sit there a-simper o'er long ago
Lusts, little god,—little fiend!





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