Page:Modern poets and poetry of Spain.djvu/317

Rh Northers' bear intrinsic evidence of their origin, and also the Ode entitled 'Poesy.' This one bears a strong resemblance in its general tone to the 'Epistle to His Brother' and the poem of 'Sleep and Poetry' by Keats, whose character and fate also were in some degree the same as his. They have the same sentiment, as conscious of fame awaiting them, common to all poets, but peculiarly to those of more sensitive temperament, the 'non omnis moriar,' the hope of immortality,—

If the extravagant eulogiums bestowed on the merit of the Sonnet, as a form of verse, by some Italian writers, and echoed by Boileau and others, be at all deserved, Heredia's claims to superiority may be put forward very confidently, in respect of that to 'His Wife' in dedication of the second edition of his works. It contains all the conditions required for a perfect composition of this kind, in the poetical statement of the subject, the application of it, the beautiful simile given as a counterpart, and the strikingly appropriate idea with which it closes. Of this idea, the classical reader will at once perceive the elegance and force; but he cannot do so fully, unless he have also seen in the churches of seaport towns on the continent, as for instance, that of Santa Maria del Socorro, at Cadiz, the votive offerings of gratitude for deliverances from danger.

The 'Ode to Night' might have been considered worthy of equally unqualified commendation, were it not for the circumstance that twelve out of the nineteen stanzas it contains are almost a paraphrase from the Italian of Ippolito Pindemonte. At the time of making the translation hereafter given, I had not read that very pleasing writer, but have since found the source of the poem in his ' Poesie Cam-