COPLAS DE MANRIQUE. I will not here invoke the throng The deathless few; Fiction entices and deceives, And, sprinkled o'er her fragrant leaves, 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 So let us choose that narrow way, Our cradle is the starting-place, In life we run the onward race, 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, The Saviour came; Born amid mortal cares and fears, A death of shame. 39 Behold of what delusive worth The bubbles we pursue on earth, 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 O'er rosy lip and brow of snow, When hoary age approaches slow, The cunning skill, the curious arts, The glorious strength that youth imparts These shall become a heavy weight, When Time swings wide his outward gate To weary age. The noble blood of Gothic name, In long array; How, in the onward course of time, Some, the degraded slaves of lust, Others, by guilt and crime, maintain COPLAS DE MANRIQUE. Wealth and the high estate of pride, Bid not the shadowy phantoms stay, Of fickle heart. These gifts in Fortune's hands are found; No rest the inconstant goddess knows, But changing, and without repose, Still hurries on. Even could the hand of avarice save Let none on such poor hopes rely; Life, like an empty dream, flits by, Earthly desires and sensual lust Are passions springing from the dust,- But, in the life beyond the tomb, They seal the immortal spirit's doom The pleasures and delights, which mask But the fleet coursers of the chase, Wherein we fall? No foe, no dangerous pass, we heed, And, when the fatal snare is near, G 41 Could we new charms to age impart, As we can clothe the soul with light, How busily each passing hour What ardour show, To deck the sensual slave of sin, Yet leave the freeborn 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 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, 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, COPLAS DE MANRIQUE. Where is the King, Don Juan? Where Of Aragon? Where are the courtly gallantries? The deeds of love and high emprise, Tourney and joust, that charmed the eye, And nodding plume, What were they but a pageant scene? That deck the tomb? Where are the high-born dames, and where And odors sweet? Where are the gentle knights, that came To kneel, and breathe love's ardent flame, Where is the song of Troubadour ? They loved of yore? Where is the mazy dance of old, The flowing robes, inwrought with gold, The dancers wore ? And he who next the sceptre swayed, O, in what winning smiles arrayed, But O! how false and full of guile That world, which wore so soft a smile But to betray! She, that had been his friend before, Now from the fated monarch tore Her charms away. 43 |