At this same period, so fertile in Spain with poetic genius, there
flourished two Portuguese poets, whose names are introduced here from
their connection with Spanish poetry. Saa de Miranda was horn in 1494,
and died in 1558. His Spanish poems are bucolic, and more truly imbued
with rural imagery than that of those warrior poets, whose love of the
country was that of gentlemen who enjoy the beauties of scenery and the
blandishments of the odorous breezes, rather than of persons accustomed
to the detail of pastoral life. Saa de Miranda sometimes mingled a
higher tone of description with his rural pictures; thus imitating
nature, who associates the terrible with the lovely, the storm and the
soft breath of evening. At the same time, none excels Saa de Miranda in
the union of simplicity and grace: some of his verses remind the Italian
reader of the odes of Chiabrera, such as these, describing the
wanderings of a nymph, with which his fancy adorned a woodland scene:--
Gently straying,
Gently staying,
She breathed the fragrance of the breezy field;
And, singing, fill'd her lap with flowers,
The which the meadows yield,
Painting their verdure with a thousand colours.[28]
Nor does his poetry want the charm of melancholy sentiment, nor the
vehemence of passion; while all that he writes has the peculiar merit of
a harmony and grace all his own.
[Footnote 28: "Graciosamente estando,
graciosamente andando,
blando ayre respirava al prado ameno
ella cantava, y juntamente el seno
inchiendose yva de diversas flores
en que el prado era lleno
sobre verde variado en mil colores."]