dots-menu
×

Home  »  Poems of Places An Anthology in 31 Volumes  »  For a Column at Trujillo

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Spain, Portugal, Belgium, and Holland: Vols. XIV–XV. 1876–79.

Spain: Trujillo

For a Column at Trujillo

By Robert Southey (1774–1843)

PIZARRO here was born; a greater name

The list of glory boasts not. Toil and pain,

Famine and hostile elements, and hosts

Embattled, failed to check him in his course,

Not to be wearied, not to be deterred,

Not to be overcome. A mighty realm

He overran, and with relentless arm

Slew or enslaved its unoffending sons;

And wealth and power and fame were his rewards.

There is another world beyond the grave,

According to their deeds where men are judged.

O reader! if thy daily bread be earned

By daily labor,—yea, however low,

However painful be thy lot assigned,—

Thank thou, with deepest gratitude, the God

Who made thee, that thou art not such as he.