Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, EL EMPLAZADO, by WILLIAM HENRY VENABLE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

EL EMPLAZADO, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: El emplazado, the summoned, the doomed one
Last Line: Heaven reechoes the auto-da-fe.
Subject(s): Cuba; Spanish-american War (1898)


EL EMPLAZADO, the Summoned, the Doomed One,
Spain whom the nations denounce and abhor,
Robe thy dismay in the black sanbenito,
Come to the frowning tribunal of war.

Curst were thy minions, their roster and scutcheon,
Alvas, Alfonsos, Archarchons of hate;
Pillared on bigotry, pride, and extortion,
Topples to ruin thy mansion of state.

Violence, Cruelty, Intrigue, and Treason,
These the false courtiers who flattered thy throne;
Empires, thy sisters, forbode thee disaster,
Even thy children their mother disown.

Suppliant Cuba, thy daughter forsaken,
Famished and bleeding and buffeted sore,
Ghastly from gashes and stabs of thy rancor,
Binds up her wounds at an alien door.

Courts and corregidors erst at thy bidding
Banished or butchered Moresco and Jew;
Ghosts from all Christendom, shades of the Martyrs
Flock from the sepulchre thee to pursue.

Wrath of retributive justice o'ertakes thee!
Brand of time's malison blisters thy brow:
Armed cabelleros and crowned kings of Bourbon,
All are unable to succor thee now.

El Emplazado, the Summoned, the Doomed One!
God's Inquisition condemns thee to-day!
Earth-shaking cannon-bolts thunder thy sentence, --
Heaven reechoes the auto-da-fe.





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