FROM THE SPANISH OF VILLEGAS.
"T is sweet, in the green Spring,
To gaze upon the wakening fields around;
Birds in the thicket sing,
Winds whisper, waters prattle from the ground;
A thousand odours rise,
Breathed up from blossoms of a thousand dyes.
The pine and poplar keep
Cool from intruding suns their twilight nook ;
The lime's low branches sweep
The broken crystal of the glittering brook;
The soft green meadow seems
Spread for a place of banquets and of dreams.
Thou, who alone art fair,
And whom alone I love, art far away;
Unless thy smile be there
It makes me sad to see the earth so gay.
I care not if the train
Of leaves and flowers and blossoms go again.
Those who delight in Spanish literature will not be displeased to see the graceful original of these lines. It is here given in the ancient orthography in which the translator found it. In the last stanza of the version, he has ventured to take some liberty with the sentiment, for which his apology must be the extreme difficulty of making any approach to the beautiful and harmonious ease of the original, consistently with strict fidelity to the sense.
O, quan dulce, i suave,
Es ver al campo, quando mas recrea;
En el se quexa el ave,
El viento espira, agua lisongea,
I las pintadas flores
Crian mil visos, paren mil olores.
El alamo, i el pino,
Sirven de estorbos à la luz de Febo;
Brinda el baso contino
Del claro arroyo, con aljofar nuevo;
I la tendida graina
Mesa à la gula es, i al sueño cama.
Tu, solamente bella,
Nos haces falta, Tyndarias graciosa;
I si tu blanca hicella
No te nos presta como el alva hermosa,
Lo dulce i lo suave
Quan amargo será, quan duro, i grave.
THE
year has woke in beauty! Lo, how still
The vapours linger on the wood-crowned hill;
How, like a dream, the dewy morning breaks,
And o'er the East her golden tresses shakes;
How, in the joy of her sweet heraldry,
She takes her rosy footsteps up the sky!
And see! before her radiant-pinioned way
Planets retire and glittering worlds obey!
The dim, cold stars, their weary vigils o'er,
Down the lone vales their fading lustre pour,
Until, as if the coming pomp they knew,
They bury all their glories in the blue,
Dividing inward on their march of light,
To wait the splendour which has conquered night.
The clouds are leaving earth;-behold them rise
Like loitering lovers, when, in sad surprise,
Young light has broke upon their fond delay,
And morning shames them from their dreams away.
See how they lift them from her mountain breast
To sail in beauty round the home of rest,
While the green summits, bursting on the skies,
Catch the first greeting of those golden dyes,
Till bathed at last in one warm flood of rays,
They issue blushing from the cold embrace!
The deep-hued air is motionless around,—
Sea knows no heaving and the earth no sound;
Ascending fragrance crowns each quivering hill,
The flowers breathe odour, and the dews stand still.
How eloquently deep such praises are!
The land an altar-and the offering there!
The Spirit's splendours with its powers unfurled,
While a calm incense steals from all the world!
Now is the joyous Sabbath of the year,
The worship of the seasons. Now appear
The roses breaking in their rainbow pride,
With all the stirring beauties of the bride,
When first she bursts upon the ravished sight,
And scatters magic round her path of light!
The morn of roses!-glad and beautiful
Lone wreaths are blooming round the grottos cool,
And, in sweet solitudes, their peerless dyes
Glow deeper yet for wood-nymphs' sacred eyes.
Here they unfold their wildering witchery,
Far in the bowers where Beauty loves to hie,
And tangling round her straying sandals there,
In fairy fetters hold the imprisoned fair,
And, in the Eden luxury of bloom,
Woo her to slumber in the wild perfume.
Oh! that the year were one such noiseless day
As this now bursting on its ocean way;
Summer and silence, all the mellowed hours,
A life of bloom with worship of the flowers!
Bright rosebuds clustering on Time's weary ways,
Like an undying beauty round our days!
THE VILLAGE CHURCH.
SWEET home of peace! the ling'ring day,
Still plays upon thy turrets grey;
But silent now the voice of prayer
Which was once uprose so sweetly there;
The cricket's fitful cry alone
Is mingled with the low wind's moan.
Sadly they seem to wail the fate,
That left thy altars desolate.
Sweet home of peace! how oft I 've stood
Amid thy little solitude,
A truant boy stolen forth to get
The crane's-bill and the violet,-
And listened to the village hum
Which on the quiet air would come,
With the long echoing laugh and shout,
Sent shrilly from the urchin rout.
And oft at Autumn's balmy eve,
When the bright flowers began to leave
The faded grass, and gloriously
The harvest moon went up the sky;
From the far distant greenwood tree,
The kit's light notes of melody,
Stole upward to the holy ground,
As joyously the dance went round,
Here, when the Sabbath day was done,
And ruddily the Summer sun
Shone o'er the little vale below,-
Uprose the hymn so sweet, so slow,
The traveller in the distant glen
Paused on his way to catch again
The lingering notes, till parting day,
Threw its cold shadows o'er his way.
Those days have passed; and mournfully
The chilly wind goes rustling by,
But finds not there those beauteous flowers
It sported with in happier hours;
And gentle forms who loved to gaze
Upon their bloom in youthful days,
Like them have passed away and died,
And humbly here sleep side by side.
There's a sound of mirth in the festive room,
And a glittering troop of the proud are come;
There are ladies fair, and courtiers free,
And they meet for the evening revelry ;
The lamps in the mirrored halls are bright,
And the air is full of music and light;
Yet a cloud hangs over the scene so gay,
For the pride of that hall is far away.
She is gone from the friends she loved so well,
She is gone from the home where she joyed to dwell,
She has broken tender and long-worn ties,
And has wandered far from her native skies;
And her parents, when her name they hear,
Scarce smother the sigh, or hide the tear,-
For they feel, though among the proud and gay,
That the hope of their age is far away.
A soldier's bride,—and her love must go,
To a distant land and a dreaded foe;
Alone shall he cross the stormy main,
To wrestle with death on the battle plain?
And none be near in that time of dread,
To welcome him safe, or weep him dead?
Yes, one, adieu to the haunts of the gay,-
She has gone with her husband far away.
In her father's halls there is revelry,
But the child of his love-oh, where is she!
"T is Autumn now, and the fitful breeze
Is shedding the leaves of the faded trees;
With a sullen murmur the dark waves fret,
And home's dear thought grows dearer yet;
Does she shrink at last, and repent the day
When she went with her soldier far away?
No; she kneels by that wounded soldier's bed,
And her white arm stays his sinking head,
And she holds to his pallid lip the draught,
And her tears gush forth as the cup is quaffed;
She weeps, but her tears are joy's full tide,
For dearer his life than the world beside,
And he lives, and her father's halls so gay,
Have no joy like the wanderer's far away.
Five Books of the History of C. Cornelius Tacitus, with his Treatise on the Manners of the Germans, and his Life of Agricola. From the last German Edition of the Works of Tacitus. With English Notes, original and compiled, by E. B. WILLISTON, Professor of the Greek and Latin Languages and Literature in the American Literary, Scientific, and Military Academy. Hartford. 1826. 12mo. pp. 315.
As the parts of Tacitus comprised in this volume are read in several of the colleges and higher schools of this country, it is of some importance that notice should be given of the manner in which they have been now edited. In a slight perusal of the "Germany" and "Agricola," the following errors have been marked; Occanus for Oceanus, incesse for inesse, idem for iidem, septæ for septa, tamem for tamen, alcam for aleam, patiendi for partiendi, incusaturus for incursaturus, nitendi for nitenti, præsidiis for prædiis, tennatur for tenuatur, care for capere, viriam for virium, invita is for invitatis, nostrum for nostram, dominationibus for dominationis, avaris for avari, famulata for famulatu, exercitas for exercitus, reipublicas for reipublicæ, strepit for strepitu, acurerant for accurrerant, quarela for querela, and the word est, in one place, is wholly omitted. This is not intended as a complete list, but as a specimen only of the errors, with which this work abounds. As the part looked over is about a quarter of the whole text, some estimate can be made of the number of such mistakes, which might probably be found in the whole volume.
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