Like the other prose pastorals written at the same period, it is full of incongruities. Some of the poems, in particular, are as inappropriate and in as bad taste as can well be conceived; and why three or four poetical contests for prizes and several common Spanish games are introduced at all, it is not easy to imagine, since they are permitted by the conditions of no possible poetical theory for such fictions. But it must be confessed, on the other hand, that there runs through the whole an air of amenity and gentleness well suited to its subject and purpose. Several stories from the Old Testament are gracefully told, and translations from the Psalms and other parts of the Jewish Scriptures are brought in with a happy effect. Some of the original poetry, too, is to be placed among the best of Lope’s minor compositions;--such as the following imaginative little song, which is supposed to have been sung in a palm-grove, by the Madonna, to her sleeping child, and is as full of the tenderest feelings of Catholic devotion as one of Murillo’s pictures on the same subject:-- Holy angels and blest, Through these palms as ye sweep, Hold their branches at rest, For my babe is asleep. And ye Bethlehem palm-trees, As stormy winds rush In tempest and fury, Your angry noise hush;-- Move gently, move gently, Restrain your wild sweep; Hold your branches at rest,-- My babe is asleep. My babe all divine, With earth’s sorrows oppressed, Seeks in slumber an instant His grievings to rest; He slumbers,--he slumbers,-- O, hush, then, and keep Your branches all still,-- My babe is asleep! Cold blasts wheel about him,-- A rigorous storm,-- And ye see how, in vain, I would shelter his form;-- Holy angels and blest, As above me ye sweep, Hold these branches at rest,-- My babe is asleep![249] [249] Pues andais en las palmas, Angeles santos, Que se duerme mi niño, Tened los ramos. Palmas de Belen, Que mueven ayrados Los furiosos vientos, Que suenan tanto, No le hagais ruido, Corred mas passo; Que se duerme mi niño, Tened los ramos. El niño divino, Que está cansado De llorar en la tierra: Por su descanso, Sosegar quiere un poco Del tierno llanto; Que se duerme mi niño, Tened los ramos. Rigurosos hielos Le estan cercando, Ya veis que no tengo Con que guardarlo: Angeles divinos, Que vais volando, Que se duerme mi niño, Tened los ramos. Obras Sueltas, Tom. XVI. p. 332.