Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant

19

This is rather an imitation than a translation of the poem of the graceful French fabulist.

20

This is the very expression of the original —No te llamarán mis ojos, etc. The Spanish poets early adopted the practice of calling a lady by the name of the most expressive feature of her countenance, her eyes. The lover styled his mistress "ojos bellos," beautiful eyes; "ojos serenos," serene eyes. Green eyes seem to have been anciently thought a great beauty in Spain, and there is a very pretty ballad by an absent lover, in which he addressed his lady by the title of "green eyes;" supplicating that he may remain in her remembrance:

"¡Ay ojuelos verdes!Ay los mis ojuelos!Ay, hagan los cielosQue de mi te acuerdes!"

21

The stanza beginning with this line stands thus in the original:

"Dilo tu, amor, si lo viste;¡Mas ay! que de lastimadoDiste otro nudo a la venda,Para no ver lo que la pasado."

I am sorry to find so poor a conceit deforming so spirited a composition as this old ballad, but I have preserved it in the version. It is one of those extravagances which afterward became so common in Spanish poetry, when Gongora introduced the estilo culto, as it was called.

22

This personification of the passion of Love, by Peyre Vidal, has been referred to as a proof of how little the Provençal poets were indebted to the authors of Greece and Rome for the imagery of their poems.

23

The original of these lines is thus given by John of Nostradamus, in his Lives of the Troubadours, in a barbarous Frenchified orthography:

"Touta kausa mortala una fes perirá,Fors que l'amour de Dieu, que touiours durará.Tous nostres cors vendran essuchs, come fa l'eska,Lous Aubres leyssaran lour verdour tendra e fresca,Lous Ausselets del bosc perdran lour kant subtyeu,E non s'auzira plus lou Rossignol gentyeu.Lous Buols al Pastourgage, e las blankas fedettasSent'ran lous agulhons de las mortals Sagettas,Lous crestas d'Aries fiers, Renards, e Loups esparsKabrols, Cervys, Chamous, Senglars de toutes pars,Lous Ours hardys e forts, seran poudra, e Arena.Lou Daulphin en la Mar, lou Ton, e la Balena,Monstres impetuous, Ryaumes, e Comtas,Lous Princes, e lous Reys, seran per mort domtas.E nota ben eysso káscun: la Terra granda,(Ou l'Escritura ment) lou fermament que branda,Prendra autra figura. Enfin tout perirá,Fors que l'Amour de Dieu, que touiours durará."

24

Las Auroras de Diana, in which the original of these lines is contained, is, notwithstanding it was praised by Lope de Vega, one of the worst of the old Spanish Romances, being a tissue of riddles and affectations, with now and then a little poem of considerable beauty.

25

The author began this poem in rhyme. The following is the first draught of it as far as he proceeded, in a stanza which he found it convenient to abandon:

A midnight black with clouds is on the sky;A shadow like the first original nightFolds in, and seems to press me as I lie;No image meets the vainly wandering sight,And shot through rolling mists no starlight gleamGlances on glassy pool or rippling stream.No ruddy blaze, from dwellings bright within,Tinges the flowering summits of the grass;No sound of life is heard, no village din,Wings rustling overhead or steps that pass,While, on the breast of Earth at random thrown,I listen to her mighty voice alone.A voice of many tones: deep murmurs sentFrom waters that in darkness glide away,From woods unseen by sweeping breezes bent,From rocky chasms where darkness dwells all day,And hollows of the invisible hills around,Blent in one ceaseless, melancholy sound.O Earth! dost thou, too, sorrow for the past?Mourn'st thou thy childhood's unreturning hours,Thy springs, that briefly bloomed and faded fast,The gentle generations of thy flowers,Thy forests of the elder time, decayedAnd gone with all the tribes that loved their shade?Mourn'st thou that first fair time so early lost,The golden age that lives in poets' strains,Ere hail or lightning, whirlwind, flood, or frostScathed thy green breast, or earthquakes whelmed thy plains,Ere blood upon the shuddering ground was spilt,Or night was haunted by disease and guilt?Or haply dost thou grieve for those who die?For living things that trod a while thy face,The love of thee and heaven, and now they lieMixed with the shapeless dust the wild winds chase?I, too, must grieve, for never on thy sphereShall those bright forms and faces reappear.Ha! with a deeper and more thrilling tone,Rises that voice around me: 'tis the cryOf Earth for guilt and wrong, the eternal moanSent to the listening and long-suffering sky,I hear and tremble, and my heart grows faint,As midst the night goes up that great complaint.

26

Close to the city of Munich, in Bavaria, lies the spacious and beautiful pleasure-ground, called the English Garden, in which these lines were written, originally projected and laid out by our countryman, Count Rumford, under the auspices of one of the sovereigns of the country. Winding walks, of great extent, pass through close thickets and groves interspersed with lawns; and streams, diverted from the river Isar, traverse the grounds swiftly in various directions, the water of which, stained with the clay of the soil it has corroded in its descent from the upper country, is frequently of a turbid-white color.

27

This song refers to the expedition of the Vermonters, commanded by Ethan Allen, by whom the British fort of Ticonderoga, on Lake Champlain, was surprised and taken, in May, 1775.

28

The incident on which this poem is founded was related to the author while in Europe, in a letter from an English lady. A child died in the south of Italy, and when they went to bury it they found it revived and playing with the flowers which, after the manner of that country, had been brought to grace his funeral.

29

Shortly before the death of Schiller, he was seized with a strong desire to travel in foreign countries, as if his spirit had a presentiment of its approaching enlargement, and already longed to expatiate in a wider and more varied sphere of existence.

30

The Sanguinaria Canadensis, or blood-root, as it is commonly called, bears a delicate white flower of a musky scent, the stem of which breaks easily, and distils a juice of a bright-red color.

31

The small tree, named by the botanists Aronia Botyrapium, is called, in some parts of our country, the shad-bush, from the circumstance that it flowers about the time that the shad ascend the rivers in early spring. Its delicate sprays, covered with white blossoms before the trees are yet in leaf, have a singularly beautiful appearance in the woods.

32

I remember hearing an aged man, in the country, compare the slow movement of time in early life, and its swift flight as it approaches old age, to the drumming of a partridge or ruffed grouse in the woods – the strokes falling slow and distinct at first, and following each other more and more rapidly, till they end at last in a whirring sound.

33

This poem and that entitled "The Fountain," with one or two others in blank verse, were intended by the author as portions of a larger poem.

34

The Painted Cup, Euchroma coccinea, or Bartsia coccinea, grows in great abundance in the hazel prairies of the Western States, where its scarlet tufts make a brilliant appearance in the midst of the verdure. The Sangamon is a beautiful river, tributary to the Illinois, bordered with rich prairies.

35

"Breaks the long wave that at the pole began." – Tennent's Anster Fair.

36

"Evening and morning, and at noon, will I pray and cry aloud, and he shall hear my voice." —Psalm lv. 17.

37

"During the stay of Long's Expedition at Engineer Cantonment, three specimens of a variety of the common deer were brought in, having all the feet white near the hoofs, and extending to those on the hind-feet from a little above the spurious hoofs. This white extremity was divided, upon the sides of the foot, by the general color of the leg, which extends down near to the hoofs, leaving a white triangle in front, of which the point was elevated rather higher than the spurious hoofs." – Godman's Natural History, vol. ii., p. 314.

38

Readers who are acquainted with the Spanish language, may not be displeased at seeing the original of this little poem:

EL PÁJARO PERDIDOHuyó con vuelo incierto,Y de mis ojos ha desparecido.Mirad, si, á vuestro huerto,Mi pájaro querido,Niñas hermosas, por acaso ha huido.Sus ojos relucientesSon como los del águila orgullosa;Plumas resplandecientes,En la cabeza airosa,Lleva; y su voz es tierna y armoniosa.Mirad, si cuidadosoJunto á las flores se escondió en la grama.Ese laurel frondosoMirad, rama por rama,Que él los laureles y los flores ama.Si le halláis, por ventura,No os enamore su amoroso acento;No os prende su hermosura;Volvédmele al momento;O dejadle, si no, libre en el viento.Por que su pico de oroSolo en mi mano toma la semilla;Y no enjugaré el lloroQue veis en mi mejilla,Hasta encontrar mi prófugo avecilla.Mi vista se oscurece,Si sus ojos no ve, que son mi díaMi ánima desfalleceCon la melancolíaDe no escucharle ya su melodía.

The literature of Spain at the present day has this peculiarity, that female writers have, in considerable number, entered into competition with the other sex. One of the most remarkable of these, as a writer of both prose and poetry, is Carolina Coronado de Perry, the author of the little poem here given. The poetical literature of Spain has felt the influence of the female mind in the infusion of a certain delicacy and tenderness, and the more frequent choice of subjects which interest the domestic affections. Concerning the verses of the lady already mentioned, Don Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch, one of the most accomplished Spanish critics of the present day, and himself a successful dramatic writer, says:

"If Carolina Coronado had, through modesty, sent her productions from Estremadura to Madrid under the name of a person of the other sex, it would still have been difficult for intelligent readers to persuade themselves that they were written by a man, or at least, considering their graceful sweetness, purity of tone, simplicity of conception, brevity of development, and delicate and particular choice of subject, we should be constrained to attribute them to one yet in his early youth, whom the imagination would represent as ingenuous, innocent, and gay, who had scarce ever wandered beyond the flowery grove or pleasant valley where his cradle was rocked, and where he has been lulled to sleep by the sweetest songs of Francisea de la Torre, Garcilaso, and Melendez."

The author of the Pájaro Perdido, according to a memoir of her by Angel Fernandez de los Rios, was born at Almendralejo, in Estremadura, in 1823. At the age of nine years she began to steal from sleep, after a day passed in various lessons, and in domestic occupations, several hours every night to read the poets of her country, and other books belonging to the library of the household, among which are mentioned, as a proof of her vehement love of reading, the "Critical History of Spain," by the Abbé Masuden, "and other works equally dry and prolix." She was afterward sent to Badajoz, where she received the best education which the state of the country, then on fire with a civil war, would admit. Here the intensity of her application to her studies caused a severe malady, which has frequently recurred in after-life. At the age of thirteen years she wrote a poem entitled La Palma, which the author of her biography declares to be worthy of Herrera, and which led Espronceda, a poet of Estremadura, a man of genius, and the author of several translations from Byron, whom he resembled both in mental and personal characteristics, to address her an eulogistic sonnet. In 1843, when she was but twenty years old, a volume of her poems was published at Madrid, in which were included both that entitled La Palma and the one I have given in this note. To this volume Hartzenbusch, in his admiration for her genius, prefaced an introduction.

The task of writing verses in Spanish is not difficult. Rhymes are readily found, and the language is easily moulded into metrical forms. Those who have distinguished themselves in this literature have generally made their first essays in verse. What is remarkable enough, the men who afterward figured in political life mostly began their career as the authors of madrigals. A poem introduces the future statesman to the public, as a speech at a popular meeting introduces the candidate for political distinctions in this country. I have heard of but one of the eminent Spanish politicians of the present time, who made a boast that he was innocent of poetry; and if all that his enemies say of him be true, it would have been well both for his country and his own fame, if he had been equally innocent of corrupt practices. The compositions of Carolina Coronado, even her earliest, do not deserve to be classed with the productions of which I have spoken, and which are simply the effect of inclination and facility. They possess the mens divinior.

In 1852 a collection of poems of Carolina Coronado was brought out at Madrid, including those which were first published. The subjects are of larger variety than those which prompted her earlier productions; some of them are of a religious cast, others refer to political matters. One of them, which appears among the "Improvisations," is an energetic protest against erecting a new amphitheatre for bull-fights. The spirit in all her poetry is humane and friendly to the best interests of mankind.

Her writings in prose must not be overlooked. Among them is a novel entitled Sigea, founded on the adventures of Camoëns; another entitled Jarilla, a beautiful story, full of pictures of rural life in Estremadura, which deserves, if it could find a competent translator, to be transferred to our language. Besides these there are two other novels from her pen, Paquita and La Luz del Tejo. A few years since appeared, in a Madrid periodical, the Semanario, a series of letters written by her, giving an account of the impressions received in a journey from the Tagus to the Rhine, including a visit to England. Among the subjects on which she has written, is the idea, still warmly cherished in Spain, of uniting the entire peninsula under one government. In an ably-conducted journal of Madrid, she has given accounts of the poetesses of Spain, her contemporaries, with extracts from their writings, and a kindly estimate of their respective merits.

Her biographer speaks of her activity and efficiency in charitable enterprises, her interest in the cause of education, her visits to the primary schools of Madrid, encouraging and rewarding the pupils, and her patronage of the escuela de parvules, or infant school at Badajoz, established by a society of that city, with the design of improving the education of the laboring class.

It must have been not long after the publication of her poems, in 1852, that Carolina Coronado became the wife of an American gentleman, Mr. Horatio J. Perry, at one time our Secretary of Legation at the Court of Madrid, afterward our Chargé d'Affaires, and now, in 1863, again Secretary of Legation. Amid the duties of a wife and mother, which she fulfils with exemplary fidelity and grace, she has neither forgotten nor forsaken the literary pursuits which have given her so high a reputation.

39

The poems of the Spanish author, Francisco de Rioja, who lived in the first half of the seventeenth century, are few in number, but much esteemed. His ode on the Ruins of Italica is one of the most admired of these, but in the only collection of his poems which I have seen, it is said that the concluding stanza, in the original copy, was deemed so little worthy of the rest that it was purposely omitted in the publication. Italica was a city founded by the Romans in the south of Spain, the remains of which are still an object of interest.

40

Sella is the name given by the Vulgate to one of the wives of Lamech, mentioned in the fourth chapter of the Book of Genesis, and called Zillah in the corn-won English version of the Bible.

41

It may be esteemed presumptuous in the author of this volume to attempt a translation of any part of Homer in blank verse after that of Cowper. It has always seemed to him, however, that Cowper's version had very great defects. The style of Homer is simple, and he has been praised for fire and rapidity of narrative. Does anybody find these qualities in Cowper's Homer? If Cowper had rendered him into such English as he employed in his "Task," there would be no reason to complain; but in translating Homer he seems to have thought it necessary to use a different style from that of his original work. Almost every sentence is stiffened by some clumsy inversion; stately phrases are used when simpler ones were at hand, and would have rendered the meaning of the original better. The entire version has the appearance of being hammered out with great labor, and as a whole it is cold and constrained; scarce any thing seems spontaneous; it is only now and then that the translator has caught the fervor of his author. Homer, of course, wrote in idiomatic Greek, and, in order to produce either a true copy of the original, or an agreeable poem, should have been translated into idiomatic English.

I am almost ashamed, after this censure of an author whom, in the main, I admire as much as I do Cowper, to refer to my own translation of the Fifth Book of the Odyssey. I desire barely to say that I have endeavored to give the verses of the old Greek poet at least a simpler presentation in English, and one more conformable to the genius of our language.

42

Ampelopis, mock-grape. I have here literally translated the botanical name of the Virginia creeper – an appellation too cumbrous for verse.

43

This poem was written shortly after the author's return from a visit to Spain, and more than a twelvemonth before the overthrow of the tyrannical government of Queen Isabella and the expulsion of the Bourbons. It is not "from the Spanish" in the ordinary sense of the phrase, but is an attempt to put into a poetic form sentiments and hopes which the author frequently heard, during his visit to Spain, from the lips of the natives. We are yet to see whether these expectations of an enlightened government and national liberty are to become a reality under the new order of things.