THE SPIRIT OF POETRY. THERE is a quiet spirit in these woods, And frequent, on the everlasting hills, Its feet go forth, when it doth wrap itself And here, amid The silent majesty of these deep woods, Its presence shall uplift thy thoughts from earth, Their tops the green trees lift. Hence gifted bards The flowers, the leaves, the river on its way, Their old poetic legends to the wind. And this is the sweet spirit, that doth fill As a bright image of the light and beauty The heaven of April, with its changing light, And on her lip the rich, red rose. Her hair Is like the summer tresses of the trees, When twilight makes them brown, and on her cheek Blushes the richness of an autumn sky, With ever-shifting beauty. Then her breath, It is so like the gentle air of Spring, As, from the morning's dewy flowers, it comes Heard in the still night, with its passionate cadence. BURIAL OF THE MINNISINK. ON sunny slope and beechen swell, Far upward in the mellow light Rose the blue hills. One cloud of white. Around a far uplifted cone, In the warm blush of evening shone; An image of the silver lakes, By which the Indian's soul awakes. But soon a funeral hymn was heard They sang, that by his native bowers A dark cloak of the roebuck's skin Before, a dark-haired virgin train Stripped of his proud and martial dress, They buried the dark chief, they freed TRANSLATIONS. COPLAS DE MANRIQUE. FROM THE SPANISH. [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 honourable 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 valour. 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 Canavete, 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 Ocana. 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.] O LET the soul her slumbers break, How soon this life is past and gone, |