Before, a dark-haired virgin train Stripped of his proud and martial dress, They buried the dark chief; they freed Beside the grave his battle steed; And swift an arrow cleaved its way To his stern heart! One piercing neigh Arose, and, on the dead man's plain, The rider grasps his steed again. TRANSLATIONS. [Don Jorge Manrique, the author of the following poem, flourished in the last half of the fifteenth century. He followed the profession of arms, and died on the field of battle. Mariana, in his History of Spain, makes honorable mention of him, as being present at the siege of Uclés; and speaks of him as "a youth of estimable qualities, who in this war gave brilliant proofs of his valor. He died young; and was thus cut off from long exercising his great virtues, and exhibiting to the world the light of his genius, which was already known to fame." He was mortally wounded in a skirmish near Cañavete, in the year 1479. The name of Rodrigo Manrique, the father of the poet, Conde de Paredes and Maestre de Santiago, is well known in Spanish history and song. He died in 1476; according to Mariana, in the town of Uclés; but, according to the poem of his son, in Ocaña. It was his death that called forth the poem upon which rests the literary reputation of the younger Manrique. In the language of his historian, "Don Jorge Manrique, in an elegant Ode, full of poetic beauties, rich embellishments of genius, and high moral reflections, mourned the death of his father as with a funeral hymn." This praise is not exaggerated. The poem is a model in its kind. Its conception is solemn and beautiful; and, in accordance with it, the style moves on- calm, dignified, and majestic.] COPLAS DE MANRIQUE. FROM THE SPANISH. O LET the soul her slumbers break, Awake to see How soon this life is past and gone, Swiftly our pleasures glide away, Our hearts recall the distant day With many sighs; The moments that are speeding fast We heed not, but the past, the past, - Onward its course the present keeps, And, did we judge of time aright, Let no one fondly dream again, Fleeting as were the dreams of old, Our lives are rivers, gliding free Thither all earthly pomp and boast Thither the mighty torrents stray, There all are equal. Side by side I will not here invoke the throng The deathless few; Fiction entices and deceives, And, sprinkled o'er her fragrant leaves, Lies poisonous dew. To One alone my thoughts arise, The Eternal Truth, To Him I cry, the Good and Wise, Who shared on earth our common lot, But the world comprehended not His deity. This world is but the rugged road So let us choose that narrow way, Our cradle is the starting-place, In life we run the onward race, And reach the goal; When, in the mansions of the blest, Death leaves to its eternal rest The weary soul. Did we but use it as we ought, This world would school each wandering thought To its high state. Faith wings the soul beyond the sky, Up to that better world on high, For which we wait. Yes, the glad messenger of love, To guide us to our home above, The Saviour came; Born amid mortal cares and fears, A death of shame. Behold of what delusive worth The bubbles we pursue on earth, Amid a world of treachery! They vanish ere death shuts the eye, Time steals them from us, - chances strange, Disastrous accidents, and change, That come to all; Even in the most exalted state, Tell me, the charms that lovers seek In the clear eye and blushing cheek, The hues that play O'er rosy lip and brow of snow, When hoary age approaches slow, The cunning skill, the curious arts, These shall become a heavy weight, When Time swings wide his outward gate The noble blood of Gothic name, How, in the onward course of time, Some, the degraded slaves of lust, Others, by guilt and crime, maintain Wealth and the high estate of pride, Bid not the shadowy phantoms stay, Of fickle heart. |