Explore "Alvarado" by Pablo Neruda on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Alvarado fell upon the huts with claws and knives, he razed the patrimony of the goldsmith, ravished the nuptial rose of the tribe, assaulted races, properties, religions- he was the copious coffer of the thieves, the clandestine falcon of death.
Then he went to the great green river, the Papaloapan, River of Butterflies, bearing blood on his standard.
The solemn river saw its children die or survive as slaves, it saw race and reason, juvenile heads burning in the bonfires, beside the water.
But grief, inexhaustible, continued its cruel advance toward new captaincies.