[Page 102].—l. 12. el hercúleo estrecho, the Strait of Gibraltar.
l. 19. el puerto ... sagrado: the port of Tarifa.
l. 21. el alta sierra: el was used as the feminine article even before adjectives in earlier Spanish.
l. 30. Betis: the Latin river Bætis, the modern Guadalquivir.
[Page 103].—l. 2. luces, i.e., días.—haces, ranks.
l. 6. Churton (l. c., II, 245) has made a poetical translation of the Noche serena.
[Page 104].—l. 22. luz: i.e., Mercury.
23. estrella: i.e., Venus.
[SAN JUAN DE LA CRUZ]. St. John of the Cross (in the world, Juan de Yepes y Álvarez) was like St. Theresa a Carmelite, and like her also one of the most illustrious of the mystics and an energetic monastic reformer. His prose works of contemplative mysticism gained him the title of the Ecstatic Doctor. Of his poems, but few in number, the best is the Canción printed here, in which we see illustrated the part played by the Song of Solomon in the development of a highly sensuous element in Spanish mysticism. Cf. Biblioteca de autores españoles, vol. 27, and an ed. of the poems by W. Storck (1854); and see Ticknor, I, 208.
[Page 105].—l. 21. David Lewis has made a rhythmical version in English of this beautiful poem.