TRANSLATIONS FROM THE SPANISH. COPLAS DE MANRIQUE. 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 Roderigo 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. H. W. L. Oн let the soul her slumbers break, Let thought be quickened, and awake; How soon this life is past and gone, And death comes softly stealing on, Swiftly our pleasures glide away, The moments that are speeding fast We heed not, but the past, the past, More highly prize. Onward its course the present keeps, Onward the constant current sweeps, Till life is done; And, did we judge of time aright, The past and future in their flight Let no one fondly dream again, Will not decay; Fleeting as were the dreams of old, Our lives are rivers, gliding free Thither all earthly pomp and boast Thither the mighty torrents stray, And tinkling rill. 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, the Good and Wise, To Him I cry, Who shared on earth our common lot, But the world comprehended not This world is but the rugged road So let us choose that narrow way, Our cradle is the starting-place, Life is the running of the race, We reach the goal When, in the mansions of the blest, Death leaves to its eternal rest The weary soul. Line 24. In life we run the onward race, Line 25. And reach the goal 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, Born amid mortal cares and fears, Behold of what delusive worth The bubbles we pursue on earth, The shapes we chase Amid a world of treachery! They vanish ere death shuts the eye, And leave no trace. Time steals them from us, chances strange, Disastrous accident, and change, That come to all; Even in the most exalted state, Relentless sweeps the stroke of fate; The strongest fall. Tell me, the charms that lovers seek; O'er rosy lip and brow of snow, Line 21. That comes to all; 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, The landmarks of that race sublime 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. These gifts in Fortune's hands are found; Her swift revolving wheel turns round, Line 19. The escutcheon, that without a stain, |