O Tenoctitlan, queen of cities, I see you ruined and desolate, your palaces blackened with fire, your temples desecrated, your pleasant gardens a wilderness.

I see your highborn women the wantons of stranger lords, and your princes their servants; the canals run red with the blood of your children, your gateways are blocked with their bones.

Death is about you everywhere, dishonour is your daily bread, desolation is your portion.

Farewell to you, queen of the cities, cradle of my forefathers in which I was nursed!' Thus Montezuma lamented in the darkness, and as he cried aloud the great moon rose over the edge of the world and poured its level light through the boughs of the cedars clothed in their ghostly robe of moss.

It struck upon Montezuma's tall shape, on his distraught countenance and thin hands as he waved them to and fro in his prophetic agony, on my glittering garments, and the terror-stricken band of courtiers, and the musicians who had ceased from their music.