Cold and coward spirits
Shun the thought of death
With unbelieving fear,
Vain-thinking that within the grave
Have love and joy their end.
Dullards! who believe not
The eternity divine!
The disembodied spirit
Ascends to regions high
Of freedom and of bliss,
And love's sweet sentiment,
A seed sown in our souls,
Doubt not God's hand doth guard it
And lead it up to him.
The soul but breathes in love,
Which is its essence and its food,
And without love would die.
RODRIGUEZ GALVAN.
More praiseworthy, in some respects, than any of the modern poets of Mexico, is Rodriguez Galvan, the last of our trio of dramatists. He died in 1842, in his twenty-sixth year, after having without social advantages acquired a high reputation as a lyrical and dramatic writer. "At eleven years," says his biographer, "he was placed under the care of his uncle, in a book-store at the capital," and there his nightly studies made up for the impediments of his daily occupation, and "his happy disposition and love for work supplied the want of masters and fortune." An epical fragment entitled "The Fallen Angel," and his poems, "The Tomb," and "The Girandole," together with his dramas, "Muñoz" and "The Viceroy's Favorite," are mentioned as the most noted of his productions. A specimen of his dramatic style is the following piece of satire on the modern stage, from El Angel de la Guarda:
Let's think upon my comedy, and on
Its plan. Hard, cruel hard, on all who are
Romantic. Here's a coxcomb come from Rome
Or Paris; next, an old man, ignorant,
Foolish, his friend a most judicious fellow;
A fine romantic maid who weeps and shrieks
In Turkish; then, three hundred obscene gags
To make the people laugh; a prudish dame
Who speaks French badly. Here's the knot.
And the conclusion? Why, a whistle from
The second prompter.
—Or, I will erect
Like to a gallows a cadaverous drama
Shock-full of hangings and adulteries,
In which the seven infants shall be shown
The children of a king of Acapulco.
This nauseous food I'll call a play-romance,
And I'll divide it into four square parts,
Which further I'll divide in five full acts,
The scene in Aragon, the fifteenth century.
My sources shall be dramas of Dumas
And Hugo, the immoral ones of course.
What does it matter? I translate them mine.
A stupid fellow comes out and drinks in
Half of a tub of poison—gives the rest
Straight to his maid, because a vain old man
Comes with a trumpet-tongue to blow and blow
In his poor ears. The ignorant hind don't know
For two hours whether he is dead or not,
And in the place of calling upon God
He makes a long discourse. This is the way
They make our plays, and in this age of taste
Calderon, Moreto, Alarcon, Lope,
Are only mules; and in the theatre
Their works shed slumber by the bucketful.
It would require, perhaps, an intimate knowledge of the Mexican stage as it was thirty years ago to appreciate the special application of these lines; but it is plain that the young dramatist conceived a genuine contempt for a bloodthirsty and iniquitous drama. What, then, must a writer of his promise and aspirations have felt regarding that more bitter melodrama acted all round him?—what must any poet with a tolerable amount of contemplative wisdom have thought of that political madness of which Mexico has been so long the victim? Certainly, it robbed them, as it robbed others, of peace and recompense; but war respects the stage even when it destroys better institutions, and it is probable that the dramatic culture of Mexico is as well preserved as any of which it can boast. To Galvan is ascribed the first effective production on the Mexican stage of Mexican subjects. Whether the following fable bears a more than ordinary social meaning, we cannot say; but it is an instance of the poet's lively manner:
THE SELFISH DOG.
With pike and lantern at sundown,
A grim night-watchman of the town
Follows a lean dog as he flees
By order of the high police,
Who persecute the dogs and tramps,
And take up drinking, murdering scamps,
But tolerate the robbers. Well,
What matter? I've my tale to tell.
The starveling, feeling insecure,
Because a stranger, poor, demure,
Said, "Feet, what do I want you for?"
So, in a princely courtyard door,
Without "Good-day!" or e'en explaining,
"I must go in because it's raining,"
Or sending up his card at all,
As etiquette requires on call,
Or does not—really, I don't know—
He rudely entered. So I'd go
Myself. But a cur thereabout
Barked hard at him, "Get out! get out!
This is a noble's palace, sir,
A place not meet for starving cur."
Our friend replies, "My fine-tailed brother,
But for this night—" "No, no!" says t'other.
"I am pursued!" "Then leave this ground."
"I'm dying with hunger." "Wretched hound,
How can a fine, superior person
Live tail to tail with a base cur's son?"
And insult after insult giving,
He barks with fury past believing,
This high-born, proud, patrician growler,
And bullies the plebeian prowler.
Well, the sad creature, turning tail,
Escaped, for wonder, else would fail
My story like a peacock shorn.
Where now's my moral? Hark, nor scorn:
Soon after this a dog forlorn
Lost himself in the chase, and met
Some wolves whose teeth were sharply set,
And quite prepared to munch and gobble him.
All sorts of fearful fancies trouble him,
When, in this plight, his eye sees plain in
The kennel of the other canine.
Lo, what an accident! But these
Accidents pass for verities
And mightily the public please.
Now the patrician barks for aid,
And t'other dog puts out his head,
But, seeing 'tis the courtier,
He shuts the door, that low-bred cur,
And growls: "Stop there! didst ever see
A dog of noble family
With a poor cur keep company?"
With this the hungry wolves arrive
And eat the grandee dog alive.
Has the tale pleased you? No? And why?
I've spent an hour and half to try,
Hunting up rhymes—so scarce in Spanish.
Some opulent fellow, proud and clannish
Spelling through this little story
(For reading's not a common glory
Among the magnates of the day),
Will, doubtless, furiously say:
"See what sad insipidity!"
But some poor dog in misery
Will raise his head, perhaps, and sigh,
"The simple fabulist don't lie."
Now friend and critic both have I.
There is nothing in Galvan's story except his way of telling it, which is certainly vivacious; but we esteem it for some flashes of satirical meaning cast upon a state of society of whose animal life the "hungry dog" is so commonplace an object. Not, however, in his plays, which, if we may credit his Mexican critic, sometimes reveal a certain immaturity, did Galvan find his very happiest expression. He wrote the most touching and charming lyric which, after much search, we have been able to find in Mexican literature. It was, we are led to think, in 1842, when, as one of a "legation extraordinary" to South America, he sailed for Havana, there to die of fever, that he wrote the tender "Farewell to Mexico" which his countrymen love to repeat: