Now o’er the west in melting softness streams
A lustre, milder than the morning beams;
A purer dawn dispell’d the fearful night, 115
And nature glow’d in all the blooms of light;
The birds awake the note that hails the day,
And spread their pinions in the purple ray;
A zone of gold the wave’s still bosom bound,
And beauty shed a placid smile around. 120
Then, first awaking from his mournful trance,
The wretched Capac cast an eager glance
On his lov’d babe; th’ unconscious infant smil’d,
And showers of softer sorrow bath’d his child. 
The hollow voice now sounds in fancy’s ear, 125
She sees the dying look, the parting tear,
That sought with anxious tenderness to save
That dear memorial from the closing grave: 
He clasps the object of his love’s last care,
And vows for him the load of life to bear; 130
To rear the blossom of a faded flower,
And bid remembrance sooth each ling’ring hour. 
He journey’d o’er a dreary length of way,
To plains where freedom shed her hallow’d ray;
O’er many a pathless wood, and mountain hoar, 135
To that fair clime her lifeless form he bore. 
Ye who ne’er suffer’d passions hopeless pain,
Deem not the toil that sooths its anguish vain;
Its fondness to the mould’ring corse extends,
Its faithful tear with the cold ashes blends. 140
Perchance, the conscious spirit of the dead
Numbers the drops affection loves to shed;
Perchance a sigh of holy pity gives
To the sad bosom, where its image lives. 
Oh nature! sure thy sympathetic ties 145
Shall o’er the ruins of the grave arise;
Undying spring from the relentless tomb,
And shed, in scenes of love, a lasting bloom. 
Not long Iberia’s sullied trophies wave,
Her guilty warriors press th’ untimely grave; 150
For av’rice, rising from the caves of earth,
Wakes all her savage spirit into birth;
Bids proud Almagro feel her baleful flame,
And Cusco’s treasures from Pizarro claim: 
Pizarro holds the rich alluring prize, 155
With firmer grasp, the fires of discord rise. 
Now fierce in hostile rage, each warlike train
Purple with issuing gore Peruvia’s plain;
There, breathing hate, and vengeful death they flood,
And bath’d their impious bands in kindred blood; 160
While pensive on each hill, whose lofty brow
O’erhung with sable woods the vale below;
Peruvia’s hapless tribes in scatter’d throngs,
Beheld the fiends of strife avenge their wrongs. 
Now conquest, bending on her crimson wings, 165
Her sanguine laurel to Pizarro brings;
While bound, and trembling in her iron chain,
Almagro swells the victor’s captive train.