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 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 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 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.

COPLAS DE MANRIQUE.

FROM THE SPANISH.

O LET the soul her slumbers break,
Let thought be quickened, and awake;
Awake to see

How soon this life is past and gone,
And death comes softly stealing on,
How silently!

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,

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
Would be as one.

Let no one fondly dream again,
That Hope and all her shadowy train
Will not decay;

Fleeting as were the dreams of old,
Remembered like a tale that's told,
They pass away,

Our lives are rivers, gliding free
To that unfathomed, boundless sea,
The silent grave!

Thither all earthly pomp and boast
Roll, to be swallowed up and lost
In one dark wave.

Thither the mighty torrents stray,
Thither the brook pursues its way,
And tinkling rill.

There all are equal. Side by side
The poor man and the son of pride
Lie calm and still.

I will not here invoke the throng
Of orators and sons of song,

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

His deity.

This world is but the rugged road
Which leads us to the bright abode

Of peace above;

So let us choose that narrow way,
Which leads no traveller's foot astray
From realms of love.

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,
He suffered in this vale of tears
A death of shame.

Behoid 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 accidents, 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

In the clear eye and blushing cheek,

The hues that play

O'er rosy lip and brow of snow,

When hoary age approaches slow,

Ah, where are they?

The cunning skill, the curious arts,
The glorious strength that youth imparts

In life's first stage;

These shall become a heavy weight,

When Time swings wide his outward gate
To weary age.

The noble blood of Gothic name,
Heroes emblazoned high to fame,

In long array;

How, in the onward course of time,
The landmarks of that race sublime
Were swept away!

Some the degraded slaves of lust,
Prostrate and trampled in the dust,
Shall rise no more ;

Others, by guilt and crime, maintain
The scutcheon, that, without a stain,
Their fathers bore.

Wealth and the high estate of pride,
With what untimely speed they glide,
How soon depart!

Bid not the shadowy phantoms stay,
The vassals of a mistress they,
Of fickle heart.

These gifts in Fortune's hands are found;
Her swift revolving wheel turns round,
And they are gone!

No rest the inconstant goddess knows,
But changing, and without repose,
Still hurries on.

Even could the hand of avarice save
Its gilded baubles, till the grave
Reclaimed its prey,

Let none on such poor hopes rely;
Life, like an empty dream, flits by,
And where are they?

Earthly desires and sensual lust

Are passions springing from the dust,—

They fade and die;

But in the life beyond the tomb,
They seal the immortal spirit's doom
Eternally!

The pleasures and delights, which mask
In treacherous smiles life's serious task,

What are they, all,

But the fleet coursers of the chase,
And death an ambush in the race,
Wherein we fall?

No foe, no dangerous pass, we heed,
Brook no delay,—but onward speed
With loosened rein;

And, when the fatal snare is near,
We strive to check our mad career,
But strive in vain.

Could we new charms to age impart,
And fashion with a cunning art
The human face,

As we can clothe the soul with light,
And make the glorious spirit bright
With heavenly grace,—

How busily each passing hour
Should we exert that magic power,
What ardour show,

To deck the sensual slave of sin,
Yet leave the free-born soul within,
In weeds of woe!

Monarchs, the powerful and the strong,
Famous in history and in song

Of olden time,

Saw, by the stern decrees of fate,
Their kingdoms lost, and desolate
Their race sublime.

Who is the champion? who the strong? Pontiff and priest, and sceptred throng! On these shall fall

As heavily the hand of Death,

As when it stays the shepherd's breath Beside his stall.

I speak not of the Trojan name, Neither its glory nor its shame Has met our eyes;

Nor of Rome's great and glorious dead, Though we have heard so oft, and read, Their histories.

Little avails it now to know

Of ages passed so long ago,

Nor how they rolled;

Our theme shall be of yesterday,
Which to oblivion sweeps away,

Like days of old.

Where is the King, Don Juan? Where Each royal prince and noble heir

Of Aragon ?

Where are the courtly gallantries ?
The deeds of love and high emprise,
In battle done ?