Part II - Terra Nostra

Hispanic hybrid Carlos Fuentes

Chants in magical cadence

Telling a story cloak’d in smoke

And writhing fiery serpents

 

A Capitane stern at his right hand

In whom all trust is placed

Heldago Mendes of Galicia

The saviour of his race

 

An hundred tattoo’d drummer boys

At his command commenc’d to drum

And cohorts of Conquistadors

This strange land did overrun

 

With raptor’s eye and furrowed brow

The golden fields he did survey

And loos’d his cannons on the earth

Till all was blown away

 

 

And those remaining huddl’d slaves

With shackl’d legs and hands

Are set to digging their own graves

On Mendes’ cruel demand

 

The riches of this plunder’d realm

Its ornate, regal charm unmatch’d

To his most Catholic majesty

In sluggish galleons is dispatch’d