They fall upon their bended knees, all resting on the plain,

And each one with his clenched fist to smite his breast begins,

And promises to God on high he will forsake his

sins.

And when the heavenly knights drew near unto the battle-ground,

They dashed among the Moors and dealt unerring blows around;

Such deadly havoc there they made the foremost ranks along,

A panic terror spread unto the hindmost of the throng.

Together with these two good knights, the champions of the sky,

The Christians rallied and began to smite full sore and high;

The Moors raised up their voices and by the Koran

swore

That in their lives such deadly fray they ne'er had seen before.

Down went the misbelievers, fast sped the

bloody fight,

-

Some ghastly and dismembered lay, and some half dead with fright:

Full sorely they repented that to the field they

came,

For they saw that from the battle they should retreat with shame.

FROM THE CANCIONEROS.

The main repository of these poems is Ochoa's Tesoro de los Romanceros y Cancioneros Españoles, Paris, 1838. See also Antológia Española. Mr. Longfellow published his translations in the volume entitled Aftermath, 1873. His acquaintance with these Spanish popular songs was an early one, for there is an entry in his journal, when at Dresden, February 1, 1829: "At the Public Library in the morning till one o'clock. Found a very curious old Spanish book, treating of the troubadour poetry of Spain, entitled the Cancionero General."

I.

EYES SO TRISTFUL, EYES SO TRISTFUL.

(OJOS TRISTES, OJOS TRISTES.)

BY DIEGO DE SALDAÑA.

EYES so tristful, eyes so tristful,
Heart so full of care and cumber,
I was lapped in rest and slumber,
Ye have made me wakeful, wistful!
In this life of labor endless

Who shall comfort my distresses?
Querulous my soul and friendless
In its sorrow shuns caresses.
Ye have made me, ye have made me
Querulous of you, that care not,
Eyes so tristful, yet I dare not
Say to what ye have betrayed me.

II.

SOME DAY, SOME DAY.

(ALGUNA VEZ.)

BY CRISTÓBAL DE GASTILLEJO.

SOME day, some day,
O troubled breast,
Shalt thou find rest.
If Love in thee
To grief give birth,
Six feet of earth
Can more than he ;
There calm and free
And unoppressed

Shalt thou find rest.

The unattained
In life at last,

When life is passed,

Shall all be gained ;

And no more pained,
No more distressed,
Shalt thou find rest.

III.

COME, O DEATH, SO SILENT FLYING.

(VEN, MUERTE TAN ESCONDIDA.)

BY EL COMMENDADOR ESCRIVA.

COME, O Death, so silent flying
That unheard thy coming be,

In

Lest the sweet delight of dying
Bring life back again to me.
For thy sure approach perceiving,
my constancy and pain
I new life should win again,
Thinking that I am not living.
So to me, unconscious lying,
All unknown thy coming be,
Lest the sweet delight of dying
Bring life back again to me.
Unto him who finds thee hateful,
Death, thou art inhuman pain;
But to me, who dying gain,
Life is but a task ungrateful.

Come, then, with my wish complying,

All unheard thy coming be,

Lest the sweet delight of dying

Bring life back again to me.

IV.

GLOVE OF BLACK IN WHITE HAND BARE.

GLOVE of black in white hand bare,
And about her forehead pale
Wound a thin, transparent veil,
That doth not conceal her hair;
Sovereign attitude and air,
Cheek and neck alike displayed,
With coquettish charms arrayed,
Laughing eyes and fugitive;
This is killing men that live,
'T is not mourning for the dead.

FROM THE SWEDISH AND DANISH

INTRODUCTORY NOTE.

MR. LONGFELLOW spent the summer of 1835 in Sweden, where he occupied himself with the study of the language and literature, and with travel and observations of Swedish character. "The Swedish language," he wrote, "is soft and musical, with an accent like the lowland Scotch. It is an easy language to read, but difficult to speak with correctness, owing to some grammatical peculiarities. Sweden has one great poet, and only one. That is Tegnér, Bishop of Wexiö, who is still living. His noblest work is Frithiof's Saga, a heroic poem, founded on an old tradition." After his return to America, Mr. Longfellow wrote an article on the poem for the North American Review, giving in it the translations which are placed first in this section.

His friend Mr. Samuel Ward four years later urged him to translate another of Tegnér's poems of which Mr. Longfellow had shown him a brief specimen; and in reply Mr. Longfellow wrote, under date of October 24, 1841: "How strange! While you are urging me to translate Nattvardsbarnen [The Children of the Lord's Supper] comes a letter from Bishop Tegnér himself, saying that of all the translations he has seen of