"Now sorrow passes: now at length I live."
In view of the poet's metaphysical refinements no decisive judgment is possible, and the dispute will continue for all time; perhaps the real posture of affairs is indicated by Latour's happy phrase concerning Herrera's "innocent immorality."
Fine as are isolated passages in these "vain, amatorious" rhapsodies, the true Herrera is best revealed in his ode to Don Juan de Austria on the occasion of the Moorish revolt in the Alpujarra, in his elegy on the death of Sebastian of Portugal at Alcázar al-Kebir, in his song upon the victory of Lepanto. In patriotism Herrera found his noblest inspiration, and in these three great pieces he attains an exceptional energy and conciseness of form. He sings the triumph of the true faith with an Hebraic fervour, a stateliness derived from biblical cadences, as he mourns the overthrow of Christianity, "the weapons of war perished," in accents of profound affliction. His sincerity and his lyrical splendour place him in the foremost rank of his country's singers; and hence his title of El divino.
Differing in temperament from Garcilaso, Herrera may be considered as the true inheritor of his predecessor's unfulfilled renown. Two of his finest sonnets—one to Carlos Quinto, the other to Don Juan de Austria—are superior to any in Garcilaso's page. The latter may be exampled here in Archdeacon Churton's rendering:—
"Deep sea, whose thundering waves in tumult roar,
Call forth thy troubled spirit—bid him rise,
And gaze, with terror pale, and hollow eyes,
On floods all flashing fire, and red with gore.
Lo! as in list enclosed, on battle-floor
Christian and Sarzan, life and death the prize,