At length Almagro, and Alphonso’s train,
Each peril past, unite on Cusco’s plain: 
Capac, who now beheld with anxious woe,
Th’ increasing numbers of the powerful foe,
Resolves to pierce beneath the shroud of night 5
The hostile camp, and brave the vent’rous fight;
Tho’ weak the wrong’d Peruvians arrowy showers,
To the dire weapons stern Iberia pours. 
Fierce was th’ unequal contest, for the soul
When rais’d by some high passion’s strong controul, 10
New strings the nerves, and o’er the glowing frame
Breathes the warm spirit of heroic flame.

But from the scene where raging slaughter burns,
The timid muse with pallid horror turns: 
The sounds of frantic woe she panting hears, 15
Where anguish dims a mother’s eye with tears;
Or where the maid, who gave to love’s soft power
Her faithful spirit, weeps the parting hour: 
And ah, till death shall ease the tender woe,
That soul must languish, and those tears must flow; 20
For never with the thrill that rapture proves
Shall bless’d affection hail the form she loves;
Her eager glance no more that form shall view,
Her quiv’ring lip has breath’d the last adieu! 
Now night, that pour’d upon her hollow gale 25
The moan of death, withdrew her mournful veil;
The sun rose lovely from the sleeping flood,
And morning glitter’d o’er the field of blood;
Where bath’d in gore, Peruvia’s vanquish’d train
Lay cold and senseless on the sanguine plain. 30
Capac, their gen’rous chief, whose ardent soul
Had sought the rage of battle to controul,
Beheld with keen despair his warriors yield,
And fled indignant from the conquer’d field. 
From Cusco now a wretched throng repair, 35
Who tread mid’ slaughter’d heaps in mute despair,
O’er some lov’d corse the shroud of earth to spread,
And drop the sacred tear that sooths the dead: 
No shriek was heard, for agony supprest
The fond complaints which ease the swelling breast:  40
Each hope for ever lost, they only crave
The deep repose which wraps the shelt’ring grave. 
So the meek Lama, lur’d by some decoy
Of man, from all his unembitter’d joy;
Ere while, as free as roves the wand’ring breeze, 45
Meets the hard burden on his bending knees[A];
O’er rocks, and mountains, dark, and waste he goes,
Nor shuns the path where no soft herbage grows;
Till worn with toil, on earth he prostrate lies,
Heeds not the barb’rous lash, but patient dies. 50
Swift o’er the field of death sad Cora flew,
Her infant to his mother’s bosom grew;
She seeks her wretched lord, who fled the plain
With the last remnant of his vanquish’d train: 
Thro’ the lone vale, or forest’s sombrous