Wise Oyoyotzin! prudent king!
Unrivalled Prince, and great!
Enjoy the fragrant flowers that spring
Around thy kingly state;
A day will come which shall destroy
Thy present bliss,—thy present joy,—
When fate the sceptre of command
Shall wrench from out thy royal hand,—
Thy moon diminished rise;
And, as thy pride and strength are quenched,
From thy adherents shall be wrenched
All that they love or prize.
When sorrow shall my truth attest,
And this thy throne decline,—
The birds of thy ancestral nest,
The princes of thy line,—
The mighty of thy race,—shall see
The bitter ills of poverty;—
And then shall memory recall
Thy envied greatness, and on all
Thy brilliant triumphs dwell;
And as they think on by-gone years,
Compared with present shame, their tears
Shall to an ocean swell.