Who hush the winds by his command?
Who guide us through this starless night?
For Thou art gone!—that cloud so bright,
That bears thee from our love away,
Springs upward through the dazzling light,
And leaves us here to weep and pray![78]
In order, however, to comprehend aright the genius and spirit of Luis de Leon, we must study, not only his lyrical poetry, but much of his prose; for, while his religious odes and hymns, beautiful in their severe exactness of style, rank him before Klopstock and Filicaja, his prose, more rich and no less idiomatic, places him at once among the greatest masters of eloquence in his native Castilian.[79]
CHAPTER X.
Cervantes. — His Family. — Education. — First Verses. — Life in Italy. — A Soldier in the Battle of Lepanto. — A Captive in Algiers. — Returns Home. — Service in Portugal. — Life in Madrid. — His Galatea, and its Character. — His Marriage. — Writes for the Stage. — His Life in Algiers. — His Numancia. — Poetical Tendencies of his Drama.