[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 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, 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, More highly prize. Onward its course the present keeps, And, did we judge of time aright, Let no one fondly dream again, 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, There all are equal. Side by side 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 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 To its high state. [thought Faith wings the soul beyond the sky, Up to that better world on high, For which we wait. |