5.
Lions and tigers shall make peace
With lambs, and play together,
Sands shall be counted, and deep seas
Grow dry in rainy weather,
Ere Fortune shall the influence have
To make my soul resign
Its bliss, and call itself the slave
Of any charms but thine.
6.
For thou the magnet art, and I
The needle, oh my beauty!
And every hour thou draw'st me nigh,
In voluntary duty;
Nor is this wonderful, for call
The proudest, she will feel
That thou the mirror art of all
The ladies in Castile.
[F] The Spaniards call quebrado those shorter verses which are, as it were, broken from, and intermingled with their redondillas mayores, or octosyllabic lines, as for example:
"Recuerde el alma adormida,
Avive el seso y despierte,
Contemplando
Como se pasa la vida,
Como se viene la muerte,
Tan callando."
Manrique.
They do not however strike an English ear as destitute of harmony, but it is a harmony that in any long composition would become very monotonous.
[G] These signs I think sufficient for my purpose. Whoso desires yet farther proofs may compare the ode of Torre, which begins "Sale de la sagrada," with the two canciones of Quevedo, "Pues quitas primavera al año el ceño," and "Dulce señora mia," placed in Euterpe, whence Velasquez took the verses which he cites here and there in his discourse, to prove the resemblance. He may do more; he may look in Melpomene for the funeral Silva of the Turtle, and compare it with the very beautiful cancion of Torre, to the same bird. What a troublesome ingenuity, what exaggeration, what hyperbole, what coldness in the first; what melancholy, tenderness, and sentiment in the second! It is quite impossible that the same object could produce an inspiration so different in the same fancy. The example of Lope is cited, in the poetry of Burguillos; but the real and absolute similarity that exists between these verses and the diction of Lope and Burguillos, notwithstanding the difference of subject and character, the insinuation of Lope himself, that of Quevedo in his approbation of the same poems, the conclusive authority of Montalban and Antonio de Leon, friends and cotemporaries of Lope, who attribute them to him, make the identity of Lope with Burguillos as evident, as the reasons already alleged do the diversity of Francisco de Torre and Quevedo.
[H] Luis de Leon, although a native of Granada, finished his studies and lived in Salamanca, and consequently does not contradict this general observation.
[I] The meaning of this term will be fully understood by the English reader, when he is reminded of the style of writing which was prevalent in the time of Elizabeth, under the name of Euphuism; rich specimens whereof are exhibited by the author of Waverley, in the delectable speeches of sir Piercie Shafton.