From the feathers of the peacock's wing 't was fashioned bright and fair, And glistened like the heaven above when all its stars are there. It chanced that, for the people's sins, fell the lightning's blasting stroke: Forth from all four the sacred walls the flames consuming broke; The sacred robes were all consumed, missal and holy book; And hardly with their lives the monks their crumbling walls forsook. But though the desolating flame raged fearfully and wild, It did not reach the Virgin Queen, it did not reach the Child; It did not reach the feathery screen before her face that shone, Nor injure in a farthing's worth the image or the throne. SANTA TERESA'S BOOK-MARK (LETRILLA QUE LLEVABA POR REGISTRO EN SU BREVIARIO) BY SANTA TERESA DE AVILA LET nothing disturb thee, FROM THE CANCIONEROS The main repository of these poems is Ochoa's Tesoro de los Romanceros y Cancioneros Españoles, Paris, 1:38. See also Antológia Española. Mr. Longfellow published his translations in the volume entitled Aftermath, 1873. His acquaintance with these Spanish popalar songs was an early one, for there is an entry in his journal, when at Dresden, February 1, 1829: "At the Public Library in the morning till one o'clock. Found a very curious old Spanish book, treating of the troubadour poetry of Spain, entitled the Cancionero General." I EYES SO TRISTFUL, EYES SO TRISTFUL (OJOS TRISTES, OJOS TRISTES) BY DIEGO DE SALDAÑA EYES So tristful, eyes so tristful, II SOME DAY, SOME DAY BY CRISTÓBAL DE GASTILLEJO To grief give birth, The unattained III COME, O DEATH, SO SILENT FLYING (VEN, MUERTE TAN ESCONDIDA) BY EL COMMENDADOR ESCRIVA COME, O Death, so silent flying That unheard thy coming be, Lest the sweet delight of dying Bring life back again to me. For thy sure approach perceiving, In my constancy and pain I new life should win again, Thinking that I am not living. So to me, unconscious lying, All unknown thy coming be, Lest the sweet delight of dying Bring life back again to me. Unto him who finds thee hateful, Death, thou art inhuman pain; But to me, who dying gain, Life is but a task ungrateful. Come, then, with my wish complying, All unheard thy coming be, Lest the sweet delight of dying Bring life back again to me. IV GLOVE OF BLACK IN WHITE HAND BARE GLOVE of black in white hand bare, FROM THE SWEDISH AND DANISH Mr. Longfellow spent the summer of 1835 in Sweden, where he occupied himself with the study of the language and literature, and with travel and observations of Swedish character. "The Swedish language," he wrote, "is soft and musical, with an accent like the lowland Scotch. It is an easy language to read, but difficult to speak with correctness, owing to some grammatical peculiarities. . . . Sweden has one great poet, and only one. That is Tegnér, Bishop of Wexiö, who is still living. His noblest work is Frithiof's Saga, a heroic poem, founded on an old tradition." return to America, Mr. Longfellow wrote an article on the poem for the North American Review, giving in it the translations which are placed first in this section. After his His friend Mr. Samuel Ward four years later urged him to translate another of Tegnér's poems, of which Mr. Longfellow had shown him a brief specimen; and in reply Mr. Longfellow wrote, under date of October 24, 1841: "How strange! While you are urging me to translate Nattvardsbarnen [The Children of the Lord's Supper] comes a letter from Bishop Tegnér himself, saying that of all the translations he has seen of Frithiof, my fragments are the only attempts that have fully satisfied him.' 'The only fault,' he says, 'that I can find with your translation is, that it is not complete. I take the liberty of urging you to complete the task, that I may be able to say that Frithiof has PASSAGES FROM FRITHIOF'S SAGA BY ESAIAS TEGNÉR I FRITHIOF'S HOMESTEAD THREE miles extended around the fields of the homestead, on three sides Valleys and mountains and hills, but on the fourth side was the ocean. Birch woods crowned the summits, but down the slope of the hillsides Flourished the golden corn, and man-high was waving the rye-field. Lakes, full many in number, their mirror held up for the mountains, Held for the forests up, in whose depths the high-horned reindeers Had their kingly walk, and drank of a hundred brooklets. But in the valleys widely around, there fed on the greensward Herds with shining hides and udders that longed for the milk-pail. 'Mid these scattered, now here and now there, were numberless flocks of Sheep with fleeces white, as thou seest the white-looking stray clouds, Flock-wise spread o'er the heavenly vault, when it bloweth in spring-time. been translated into at least one language.' Highly complimentary is the Bishop to my humble endeav After this kind letter, can I do less than over-ast the Nattvardsbarnen?" In his willingness, he at once set about the translation, and wrote his friend, Nor ber 6th: "It is Saturday night, and eight by the viller clock. I have just finished the translation of The C dren of the Lord's Supper; and with the very ink that wrote the last words of it, I commence this letter to you That it is with the same pen, too, this chirography m ciently makes manifest. With your permission I will mend that. The poem is indeed very beautiful; sed in parts so touching that more than once in translating it I was blinded with tears. Perhaps my weakness makes the poet strong. You shall soon judge." In the introdu tion to the volume containing the poem, Mr. Longfellow made the following remarks regarding his translation: "The translation is literal, perhaps to a fault. In no instance have I done the author a wrong by introducing into his work any supposed improvements or embellish ments of my own. I have preserved even the measure, that inexorable hexameter, in which, it must be confessed, the motions of the English muse are not unlike those of a prisoner dancing to the music of his chains; and perhaps, as Dr. Johnson said of the dancing dog. the wonder is not that she should do it so well, but that she should do it at all.'" Coursers two times twelve, all mettlesome, fast fettered storm-winds, Stamping stood in the line of stalls, and tugged at their fodder. Knotted with red were their manes, and their hoofs all white with steel shoes. Th' banquet-hall, a house by itself, was timbered of hard fir. Not five hundred men (at ten times twelve to the hundred) Filled up the roomy hall, when assembled for drinking, at Yule-tide. Thorough the hall, as long as it was, went a table of holm-oak, Polished and white, as of steel; the columns twain of the High-seat Stood at the end thereof, two gods carved out of an elm-tree; Odin with lordly look, and Frey with the sun on his frontlet. Lately between the two, on a bear-skin (the skin it was coal-black, Scarlet-red was the throat, but the paws were shodden with silver), Thorsten sat with his friends, Hospitality sitting with Gladness. Oft, when the moon through the cloud-rack flew, related the old man Wonders from distant lands he had seen, and cruises of Vikings Far away on the Baltic, and Sea of the West, and the White Sea. T Hushed sat the listening bench, and their glances hung on the graybeard's Lips, as a bee on the rose; but the Scald was thinking of Brage, Where, with his silver beard, and runes on his tongue, he is seated Under the leafy beech, and tells a tradition by Mimer's Ever-murmuring wave, himself a living tradition. Midway the floor (with thatch was it strewn) burned ever the fire-flame Glad on its stone-built hearth; and thor ough the wide-mouthed smoke-flue Looked the stars, those heavenly friends, down into the great hall. Round the walls, upon nails of steel, were hanging in order Breastplate and helmet together, and here and there among them Downward lightened a sword, as in winter evening a star shoots. More than helmets and swords the shields in the hall were resplendent, White as the orb of the sun, or white as the moon's disk of silver. Ever and anon went a maid round the board, and filled up the drink-horns, Ever she cast down her eyes and blushed; in the shield her reflection Blushed, too, even as she; this gladdened the drinking champions. II A SLEDGE-RIDE ON THE ICE KING RING with his queen to the banquet did fare, On the lake stood the ice so mirror-clear. "Fare not o'er the ice," the stranger cries; "It will burst, and full deep the cold bath lies." "The king drowns not easily," Ring outspake; "He who's afraid may go round the lake." Threatening and dark looked the stranger round, His steel shoes with haste on his feet he bound. The sledge-horse starts forth strong and free; He snorteth flames, so glad is he. "Strike out," screamed the king, "my trotter good, Let us see if thou art of Sleipner's blood." They go as a storm goes over the lake, No heed to his queen doth the old man take. But the steel-shod champion standeth not still, He passeth them by as swift as he will. He carves many runes in the frozen tide, Fair Ingeborg o'er her own name doth glide. III FRITHIOF'S TEMPTATION SPRING is coming, birds are twittering, forests leaf, and smiles the sun, And the loosened torrents downward, singing, to the ocean run; Glowing like the cheek of Freya, peeping rosebuds 'gin to ope, And in human hearts awaken love of life, and joy, and hope. Now will hunt the ancient monarch, and the queen shall join the sport: Swarming in its gorgeous splendor, is assembled all the court; Bows ring loud, and quivers rattle, stallions paw the ground alway, And, with hoods upon their eyelids, scream the falcons for their prey. See, the Queen of the chase advances ! Half of Freya, half of Rota, yet more Gaze not at her eyes' blue heaven, gaze not at her golden hair! Oh beware! her waist is slender, full her bosom is, beware! As he slumbers, hark! there sings a coalblack bird upon the bough; "Hasten, Frithiof, slay the old man, end your quarrel at a blow: Take his queen, for she is thine, and once the bridal kiss she gave, Now no human eye beholds thee, deep and silent is the grave." Frithiof listens; hark! there sings a snowwhite bird upon the bough: "Though no human eye beholds thee, Odin's eye beholds thee now. Coward! wilt thou murder sleep, and a defenceless old man slay! Whatsoe'er thou winn'st, thou canst not win a hero's fame this way." Thus the two wood-birds did warble: Frithiof took his war-sword good, Go not to the strand, Perhaps in the sand, The bones of the outlawed Viking may lie. Then, quoth the king, ""T is mournful to hear A man like a whimpering maiden cry. Even now in mine ear. What avails it? He who is born must die." With a shudder hurled it from him, far THE CHILDREN OF THE LORD'S into the gloomy wood. Coal-black bird flies down to Nastrand, but on light, unfolded wings, Like the tone of harps, the other, sounding towards the sun, upsprings. Straight the ancient king awakens. "Sweet has been my sleep," he said; "Pleasantly sleeps one in the shadow, guarded by a brave man's blade. SUPPER BY ESAIAS TEGNÉR PENTECOST, day of rejoicing, had come. |