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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.

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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,

COPLAS DE MANRIQUE

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 Wis

To Him I cry,

Who shared on earth our common lot,

But the world comprehended not

His deity.

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