THE PRISONER'S ROMANCE.

"Deja el alma que es libre."

SIR gaoler! leave the spirit free,-
The spirit is a wanderer still:
O gaoler! leave the spirit free,
And chain the body if you will.

My eyes between the iron bars

Still throw their living glances round, And they shall be as northern stars, By which the friendly port is found. And theirs shall be a tongue, to be Heard when the mortal voice is still.

O gaoler, leave the spirit free,

And chain the body if you will.

You cannot, cannot chain the soul,
Although the body you confine;
The spirit bursts through all control,
And soon is free,-and so is mine.
Love has unbounded mastery

In this your prison. You fulfil,

Sir gaoler! love's supreme decree:
Love is the lord imperial still.

O gaoler! leave the spirit free,
And chain the body if you will.

Romancero General. Valladolid, 1605, p. 11.

WEEP NOT, MY MOTHER!

"No llores mi madre."

WEEP not, my mother,-why

Wouldst add to woes like mine?

My woe is great enough

Without those tears of thine.

For I, unhappy one!

In luckless hour was born:

No dog was heard to bark;
No cock to hail the morn.

An evil-fated hag

Alone came near thy bed,
And she pour'd out a curse
Of sorrow on my head.
"Where'er he loves, no love

Shall meet his love,” she said.

The evil-fated hag

This curse pour'd out on me, That, when I loved the most I most should hated be. By fortune's turning, where I now am crush'd in dust, That wheel which turns and turns, And still be turning must.

My hours of joy are gone,
And buried with the dead.

I stretch'd my hand ;-when lo!
Even as the wind 'twas fled.

O mother, I was born

In some unholy place;
I am a she-wolf's whelp,
And none of human race.
Let all who would be blest,

Far from the curs'd one flee,

For all their joy will fly

If they but look at me.

Romancero del Conde Don Sancho, Böhl, 159.

K

LOVELY FLOW'RET, LOVELY FLOW'RET.

"Rosa fresca, rosa fresca."

"LOVELY flow'ret, lovely flow'ret,

O! what thoughts your

beauties move

When I prest thee to my bosom,

Little did I know of love;
Now that I have learnt to love thee,
Seeking thee in vain I rove."
"But the fault was thine, young

Thine it was-it was not mine:
He who brought thy earliest letter
Was a messenger of thine:

warrior;

And he told me graceless traitor

Yes! he told me—

-lying one

That thou wert already married

In the province of Leōn:

Where thou hadst a lovely lady,

And, like flowers too, many a son."

"Lady! he was but a traitor,

And his tale was all untrue

In Castille I never enter'd

From Leon, too, I withdrew When I was in early boyhood, And of love I nothing knew."

Romancero General, Madrid, 1604, p.

132.