Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant Part 53

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

Page 196.

_The fresh savannas of the Sangamon Here rise in gentle suells, and the long gra.s.s Is mixed with rustling hazels. Scarlet tufts Are glowing in the green, like flakes of fire._

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.

Page 204.

_The long wave rolling from the southern pole To break upon j.a.pan._

"Breaks the long wave that at the pole began."--TENNENT'S _Anster Fair._

Page 205.

_At noon the Hebrew bowed the knee And wors.h.i.+pped._

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

Page 208.

THE WHITE-FOOTED DEER.

"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."--G.o.dMAN'S _Natural History_, vol. ii., p. 314.

Page 236.

THE LOST BIRD.

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

EL PaJARO PERDIDO.

Huyo con vuelo incierto, Y de mis ojos ha desparecido.

Mirad, si, a vuestro huerto, Mi pajaro querido, Ninas hermosas, por acaso ha huido.

Sus ojos relucientes Son como los del aguila orgullosa; Plumas resplandecientes, En la cabeza airosa, Lleva; y su voz es tierna y armoniosa.

Mirad, si cuidadoso Junto a las flores se escondio en la grama.

Ese laurel frondoso Mirad, rama por rama, Que el los laureles y los flores ama.

Si le hallais, por ventura, No os enamore su amoroso acento; No os prende su hermosura; Volvedmele al momento; O dejadle, si no, libre en el viento.

Por que su pico de oro Solo en mi mano toma la semilla; Y no enjugare el lloro Que veis en mi mejilla, Hasta encontrar mi profugo avecilla.

Mi vista se oscurece, Si sus ojos no ve, que son mi dia Mi anima desfallece Con la melancolia De no escucharle ya su melodia.

The literature of Spain at the present day has this peculiarity, that female writers have, in considerable number, entered into compet.i.tion with the other s.e.x. 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 s.e.x, 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 _Pajaro 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 pa.s.sed 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 Abbe 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 ent.i.tled _La Palma_, which the author of her biography declares to be worthy of Herrera, and which led Esp.r.o.nceda, 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 ent.i.tled _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 cla.s.sed 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 ent.i.tled _Sigea_, founded on the adventures of Camoens; another ent.i.tled _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 cla.s.s.

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 _Charge 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.

Page 257

THE RUINS OF ITALICA.

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.

Page 268.

SELLA.

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.

Page 282.

HOMER'S ODYSSEY, BOOK V., TRANSLATED.

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.