Ah! how cold are their caresses!

Pallid cheeks and haggard bosoms!
Spectral gleam their snow-white dresses,
And from loose, dishevelled tresses
Fall the hyacinthine blossoms!

O my songs! whose winsome measures
Filled my heart with secret rapture!
Children of my golden leisures!
Must even your delights and pleasures
Fade and perish with the capture ?

Fair they seemed, those songs sonorous,
When they came to me unbidden;
Voices single, and in chorus,
Like the wild birds singing o'er us
In the dark of branches hidden.

Disenchantment! Disillusion!
Must each noble aspiration
Come at last to this conclusion,
Jarring discord, wild confusion,
Lassitude, renunciation ?

Not with steeper fall nor faster,
From the sun's serene dominions,
Not through brighter realms nor vaster,
In swift ruin and disaster

Icarus fell with shattered pinions!

Sweet Pandora! dear Pandora!
Why did mighty Jove create thee
Coy as Thetis, fair as Flora,
Beautiful as young Aurora,

If to win thee is to hate thee?

No, not hate thee! for this feeling
Of unrest and long resistance

Is but passionate appealing,
A prophetic whisper stealing

O'er the chords of our existence.

Him whom thou dost once enamour,
Thou, beloved, never leavest;
In life's discord, strife, and clamour,
Still he feels thy spell of glamour ;

Him of hope thou ne'er bereavest.

Weary hearts by thee are lifted,

Struggling souls by thee are strengthened, Clouds of fear asunder rifted,

Truth from falsehood cleansed and sifted,
Lives, like days in summer, lengthened.

Therefore art thou ever dearer,
O my Sibyl! my deceiver!

For thou makest each mystery clearer,
And the unattained seems nearer

When thou fillest my heart with fever!

Muse of all the Gifts and Graces!
Though the fields around us wither,
There are ampler realms and spaces,
Where no foot has left its traces;
Let us turn and wander thither.

NOTES.

Note 1, p. 101.-"As Lope says."

"La cólers

de un Español sentado no se templa,

sino le representan en dos horas

hasta el final juicio desde el Génesis."-Lope de Vega.

Note 2, p.104.-Abernuncio Satanas."-"Digo, Señora, respondió Sancho, lo que tengo dicho, que de los azotes abernuncio. Abrenuncio, habeis de decir, Sancho, y no como decis, dijo el Duque."-Don Quixote, Part II., ch. 35.

Note 3, p. 115.-" Fray Carrillo."-The allusion here is to a Spanish epigram.

66

Siempre Fray Carrillo estás

cansándonos acá fuera;

quien en tu celda estuviera

para no verte jamas!"

Böhl de Faber. Floresta, No. 611.

Note 4, p. 115.-"Padre Francisco."-This is from an Italian popular song. "Padre Francesco,

Padre Francesco!'

-Cosa volete del Padre Francesco

V'è una bella ragazzina

Che si vuole confessar!'

Fatte l' entrare, fatte l' entrare!

Che la voglio confessare."

Kopisch. Volksthümliche Poesien aus allen Mundarten
Italiens und seiner Inseln, p. 194.

Note 5, p. 117.-"Ave! cujus calcem clare."-From a monkish hymn of the twelfth century, in Sir Alexander Croke's Essay on the Origin, Progress, and Decline of Rhyming Latin Verse, p. 109.

Note 6, p. 125.-"The gold of the Busné."-Busné is the name given by the Gipsies to all who are not of their race.

Note 7, p. 125.-"Count of the Calés."-The Gipsies call themselves Calés. See Borrow's valuable and extremely interesting work, The Zinculi, or an Account of the Gipsies in Spain. London, 1841.

Note 8, p. 129.-"Asks if his money-bags would rise."-"¿Y volviéndome á un lado, ví á un Avariento, que estaba preguntando á otro (que por haber sido embalsamado, y estar léxos sus tripas no habiaha, porque no habian llegado si habian de resucitar aquel dia todos los enterrados), si resucitarian unos bolsones suyos ?"-El Sueno de las Caleras.

Note 9, page 129.-"And amen! said my Cid Campeador."-A line from the ancient Poema del Cid.

"Amen, dixo mio Cid el Campeador."-Line 3044.

Note 10, p. 131.-" The river of his thoughts."-This expression is from Dante; "Si che chiaro

Per essa scenda della mente il fiume.'

Byron has likewise used the expression; though I do not recollect in which of his poems.

Note 11, p. 132.-" Mari Franca."-A common Spanish proverb, used to turn aside a question one does not wish to answer;

"Porque casó Mari Franca

quatro leguas de Salamanca."

Note 12, p. 133.-"Ay, soft, emerald eyes."-The Spaniards, with good reason, consider this colour of the eye as beautiful, and celebrate it in song; as, for example, in the well-known Villancico;

"Ay ojuelos verdes,
ay los mis ojuelos,
ay hagan los cielos
que de mi te acuerdes!

Tengo confianza

de mis verdes ojos."

Böhl de Faber. Floresta, No. 255.

Dante speaks of Beatrice's eyes as emeralds. Purgatorio, xxxi. 116, Lami says, in his Annotazioni, "Erano i suoi occhi d' un turchino verdiccio. simile a quel del mare."

Note 13, p. 134.-"The Avenging Child."-See the ancient Ballads of El Infante Vengador, and Calaynos.

Note 14, p. 135.-"All are sleeping."-From the Spanish. Böhl's Floresta, No. 282.

Note 15, p. 149.-"Good night."-From the Spanish; as are likewise the songs immediately following, and that which commences the first scene of Act III.

Note 16, p. 165.-"The evil eye."-" In the Gitano language, casting the evil eye is called Querelar nasula, which simply means making sick, and which, according to the common superstition, is accomplished by casting an evil look at people, especially children, who, from the tenderness of their constitution, are supposed to be more easily blighted than those of a more mature age. After receiving the evil glance, they fall sick, and die in a few

hours.

"The Spaniards have very little to say respecting the evil eye, though the belief in it is very prevalent, especially in Andalusia, amongst the lower orders. A stag's horn is considered a good safeguard, and on that account a small horn, tipped with silver, is frequently attached to the children's necks by means of a cord braided from the hair of a black mare's tail. Should the evil glance be cast, it is imagined that the horn receives it, and instantly snaps asunder. Such horns may be purchased in some of the silversmiths' shops at Seville."-BORROW's Zincali, vol. I., ch. ix.

Note 17, p. 166.-" On the top of a mountain I stand."-This and the following scraps of song are from Borrow's Zincali; or an Account of the Gipsies in Spain.

The Gipsy words in the same scene may be thus interpreted:

John-Dorados, pieces of gold.
Pigeon, a simpleton.

In your morocco, stripped.

Doves, sheets.

Moon, a shirt.

Chirelin, a thief.

Murcigalleros, those who steal at

nightfall.

Rastilleros, footpads.

Hermit, highway-robber.

Planets, candles.
Commandments, the fingers.
Saint Martin asleep, to rob a per-

son asleep.

Lanterns, eyes.

Goblin, police officer.

Papagayo, a spy.

Vineyards and Dancing John, to

take flight.

Note 18, p. 176.-"If thou art sleeping, maiden.". is likewise the song of the Contrabandista.

-From the Spanish; as

Note 19, p. 183.-"All the Foresters of Flanders."-The title of Foresters was given to the early governors of Flanders, appointed by the kings of France. Lyderick du Bucq, in the days of Clotaire the Second, was the first of them; and Beaudoin Bras-de-Fer, who stole away the fair Judith, daughter of Charles the Bald, from the French court, and married her in Bruges, was the last. After him, the title of Forester was changed to that of Count. Philippe d'Alsace, Guy de Dampierre, and Louis de Crécy, coming later in the order of time, were therefore rather Counts than Foresters. Philippe went twice to the Holy Land as a Crusader, and died of the plague at St. Jean-d'Acre, shortly after the capture of the city by the Christians. Guy de Dampierre died in the prison of Compiègne. Louis de Crécy was son and successor of Robert de Béthune, who strangled his wife, Yolande de Bourgogne, with the bridle of his horse, for having poisoned, at the age of eleven years, Charles, his son by his first wife, Blanche d'Anjou.

Note 20, p. 183.-" Stately dames, like queens attended."-When Philippele-Bel, king of France, visited Flanders with his queen, she was so astonished at the magnificence of the dames of Bruges, that she exclaimed," Je croyais être seule reine ici, mais il paraît que ceux de Flandre qui se trouvent dans nos prisons sont tous des princes, car leurs femmes sont habillées comme des princesses et des reines.'

When the burgomasters of Ghent, Bruges, and Ypres went to Paris to pay homage to King John, in 1351, they were received with great pomp and distinction; but, being invited to a festival, they observed that their seats at table were not furnished with cushions; whereupon, to make known their displeasure at this want of regard to their dignity, they folded their richly embroidered cloaks and seated themselves upon them. On rising from table, they left their cloaks behind them, and, being informed of their apparent forgetfulness, Simon van Eertrycke, burgomaster of Bruges, replied,-"We Flemings are not in the habit of carrying away our cushions after dinner."

Note 21, p. 183.-"Knights who bore the Fleece of Gold."-Philippe de Bourgogne, surnamed Le Bon, espoused Isabella of Portugal,, on the 10th of January, 1430; and on the same day instituted the famous order of the Fleece of Gold.

Note 22, p. 184.-" I beheld the gentle Mary."-Marie de Valois, Duchess of Burgundy, was left by the death of her father, Charles le Téméraire, at the age of twenty, the richest heiress of Europe. She came to Bruges, as Countess of Flanders, in 1477, and in the same year was married by proxy to the Archduke Maximilian. According to the custom of the time, the Duke of Bavaria, Maximilian's substitute, slept with the princess. They were both in complete dress, separated by a naked sword, and attended by four armed