It is remarkable that in the early poetry of Gongora there is no trace of this style which he afterwards invented (as his followers called it), and insisted upon as a prodigy of good taste and poetic genius. His early poetry is peculiarly simple and plain. He wrote redondillas or seguidillas in the old Spanish style, on the most common-place topics, which yet he treats with spirit and power; others of his poems are softly pathetic; but all are written without inflation--without conceits, but with all that fire and brilliancy--that gaiety and poignancy which characterised his vivid imagination. Of the first mentioned, those that even verge on the common-place, we may mention the "Child's Address to his Sister," as to how they should amuse themselves on a holiday; in which he describes the pleasures of Spanish children, with infinite vivacity and nature. The subject of another, is the story of Hero and Leander. He transforms the hero and heroine of this romantic love story, into two poor peasants--she too poor to buy a lantern, he to hire a boat. The catastrophe, the last swimming of Leander, his coming to the dreary, stormy sea beach, and his throwing himself in--though tarnished by vulgarisms, is lively and picturesque. In all that he wrote there was fire and spirit, facility and a diction truly poetic. One of his sweetest lyrics is the "Song of Catherine of Arragon," lamenting her sad destiny; it will prepossess the reader in favour of Gongora's pure style, and we therefore quote the translation of Dr. Bowring:-- "THE SONG OF CATHERINE OF ARRAGON. "O take a lesson, flowers! from me, How in a dawn all charms decay-- Less than my shadow doomed to be, Who was a wonder yesterday. I, with the early twilight born, Found ere the evening shades, a bier, And I should die in darkness lorn, But that the moon is shining here. So must _ye_ die--though ye appear So fair--and night your curtain be; O take a lesson, flowers! from me. My fleeting being was consoled When the carnation met my view: One hurrying day my doom has told-- Heaven gave that lovely flower but two. Ephemeral monarch of the wold-- I clad in gloom--in scarlet he; O take a lesson, flowers! from me. The jasmin, sweetest flower of flowers, The soonest is its radiance fled; It scarce perfumes as many hours As there are starbeams round its head. If living amber fragrance shed, The jasmine sure its shrine must be: O take a lesson, flowers! from me. The bloody-warrior fragrance gives, It towers unblushing, proud and gay; More days than other flowers it lives, It blooms through all the days of May. I'd rather like a shade decay, Than such a gaudy being be: O take a lesson, flowers! from me." The following song, sent with flowers, and asking from his lady a kiss for every sting he received while gathering them, is tender and elegant:--