“Never the sigh of a bondman
      Shall cloud this gleaming steel,
    But only the foe and the traitor
      Its vengeful edge shall feel.

    “Never a tear of my country
      Its purity shall stain,
    Till into your hands, who gave it,
      I render it again.”

    Now if ever a chief was chosen
      To cover a cause with shame,
    And if ever there breathed a caitiff,
      Bolivar was his name.

    From his place among the people
      To the highest seat he went,
    By the winding paths of party
      And the stair of accident.

    A restless, weak usurper,
      Striving to rear a throne,
    Filling his fame with counsels
      And conquests not his own;—­

    Now seeming to put from him
      The sceptre of command,
    Only that he might grasp it
      With yet a firmer hand;—­

    His country’s trusted leader,
      In league with his country’s foes,
    Stabbing the cause that nursed him,
      And openly serving those;—­

    The chief of a great republic
      Plotting rebellion still,—­
    An apostate faithful only
      To his own ambitious will.

    Drunk with a vain ambition,
      In his feeble, reckless hand,
    The sword of Eternal Justice
      Became but a brawler’s brand.

    And Colombia was dissevered,
      Rent by factions, till at last
    Her name among the nations
      Is a memory of the past.

    Here the grim old Venezuelan
      Puffed fiercely his red cigar
    A brief moment, then in the ocean
      It vanished like a star;

    And he slumbered in his hammock;
      And only the ceaseless rush
    Of the reeling and sparkling waters
      Filled the solemn midnight hush,

    As I leaned by the swinging gunwale
      Of the good ship, sailing slow,
    With the steadfast heavens above her,
      And the molten heavens below.

    Then I thought with sorrow and yearning
      Of my own distracted land,
    And the sword let down from heaven
      To flame in her ruler’s hand,—­

    The sword of Freedom, resplendent
      As a beam of the morning star,
    Received, reviled, and dishonored
      By another than Bolivar!

    And my prayers flew home to my country: 
      O ye tried and fearless crew! 
    O ye pilots of the nation! 
      Now her safety is with you.

    Beware the traitorous captain,
      And the wreckers on the shore;
    Guard well the noble vessel;
      And steadily evermore,

    As ye steer through the perilous midnight,
      Let your faithful glances go
    To the steadfast stars above her,
      From their fickle gleams below.

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