( 38 ) 



TO THE PALO DI VAC A, 

 THE C(3\V OR MOTHER TREE. 



[THE Cow-Tree gives forth its milky fluid most abundantly at 

 sunrise. Humboldt and Bonpland drank a considerable quantity of 

 it, and found it of a pleasant smell and taste, and quite free from 

 acrimony. It grows in parched situations, where a drop of rain 

 never falls for six months together : it has a dry and leather-like 

 foliage, and huge twisted roots, which seem hardly to penetrate the 

 ground ; yet when an incision is made into its bark, it yields its pe- 

 culiar fluid very abundantly, and this is freely drunk by the native 

 Indians.] 



Whence is thy pure, thy milky stream ? 



Where does thy life spring well ? 

 Is it, as untaught Indians dream, 

 Their mother there does dwell ? 

 That midst the waving of thy leaves, 



Within thy trunk confined, 

 Their simple faith hopes and believes- 



The mother's soul is shrined ? 



That, as the Memnon sighs, touch'd by the sun's first ray,* 

 So stirs the mother's yearning love, whilst round her children 

 pray? 



fount of love ! O generous tree ! 

 I hail thy gushing tide ; 



Joys, memories, are roused by thee, 

 Tears from a source long dried. 



1 think of all my mother's love, 



I think of all her pride, 

 When dancing forth, a joyous child, 



I prattled at her side. 



1 kneel before thy rugged stem ; my soul is stirr'd by prayer ; 

 I bless thee, for thou shadowest forth my mother's love and care. 



* Connected with the early Indian superstitions, is the belief of a 

 general father and mother, a Ynca and a Mama, who dwelt for some 

 time amongst them, teaching various agricultural and social arts. They at 

 length disappeared from the earth, and became objects of worship a 

 fable having some remote analogy to the Isis and Osiris of the earliest 

 Egyptian records. 



