In this unique composition Jorge Manrique approves himself, for once, a poet of absolute genius, an exquisite in lyrical orchestration. The poem opens with a slow movement, a solemn lament on the vanity of grandeur, the frailty of life; it modulates into resigned acceptance of an inscrutable decree; it closes with a superb symphony, through which are heard the voices of the seraphim and the angelic harps of Paradise. The workmanship is of almost incomparable excellence, and in scarcely one stanza can the severest criticism find a technical flaw. Jorge Manrique's sincerity touched a chord which vibrates in the universal heart, and his poem attained a popularity as immediate as it was imperishable. Camões sought to imitate it; writers like Montemôr and Silvestre glossed it; Lope de Vega declared that it should be written in letters of gold; it was done into Latin and set to music in the sixteenth century by Venegas de Henestrosa; and in our century it has been admirably translated by Longfellow in a version from which these stanzas are taken:— "_Behold of what delusive worth The bubbles we pursue on earth, The shapes we chase Amid a world of treachery; They vanish ere death shuts the eye, And leave no trace._ _Time steals them from us,—chances strange, Disastrous accidents, and change, That come to all; Even in the most exalted state, Relentless sweeps the stroke of fate; The strongest fall._ _Tell me,—the charms that lovers seek In the clear eye and blushing cheek, The hues that play O'er rosy lip and brow of snow, When hoary age approaches slow, Ah, where are they?..._ _Tourney and joust, that charmed the eye, And scarf, and gorgeous panoply, And nodding plume,— What were they but a pageant scene? What but the garlands gay and green, That deck the tomb?..._ _O Death, no more, no more delay; My spirit longs to flee away, And be at rest; The will of Heaven my will shall be,— I bow to the divine decree, To God's behest...._ _His soul to Him who gave it rose: God lead it to its long repose, Its glorious rest! And though the warrior's sun has set, Its light shall linger round us yet, Bright, radiant, blest._" By the side of this achievement the remaining poems of Enrique IV.'s reign seem wan and withered. But mention is due to the Sevillan, Pedro Guillén de Segovia (1413-74), who, beginning life under the patronage of Álvaro de Luna, Santillana, and Mena, passes into the household of the alchemist-archbishop Carrillo, and proclaims himself a disciple of Gómez Manrique. His chief performance is his metrical version of the Seven Penitential Psalms, which is remarkable as being the first attempt at introducing the biblical element into Spanish literature.