Huyó con vuelo incierto,
Y de mis ojos ha desparecido.
Mirad, si, á vuestro huerto,
Mi pájaro querido,
Niñas hermosas, por acaso ha huido.
Sus ojos relucientes
Son como los del águila orgullosa;
Plumas resplandecientes,
En la cabeza airosa,
Lleva; y su voz es tierna y armoniosa.
Mirad, si cuidadoso
Junto á las flores se escondió en la grama.
Ese laurel frondoso
Mirad, rama por rama,
Que él los laureles y los flores ama.
Si le halláis, por ventura,
No os enamore su amoroso acento;
No os prende su hermosura;
Volvédmele al momento;
O dejadle, si no, libre en el viento.
Por que su pico de oro
Solo en mi mano toma la semilla;
Y no enjugaré el lloro
Que veis en mi mejilla,
Hasta encontrar mi prófugo avecilla.
Mi vista se oscurece,
Si sus ojos no ve, que son mi día
Mi ánima desfallece
Con la melancolía
De no escucharle ya su melodía.
The literature of Spain at the present day has this peculiarity, that
female writers have, in considerable number, entered into competition
with the other sex. One of the most remarkable of these, as a writer of
both prose and poetry, is Carolina Coronado de Perry, the author of the
little poem here given. The poetical literature of Spain has felt the
influence of the female mind in the infusion of a certain delicacy and
tenderness, and the more frequent choice of subjects which interest the
domestic affections. Concerning the verses of the lady already
mentioned, Don Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch, one of the most accomplished
Spanish critics of the present day, and himself a successful dramatic
writer, says:
* * * * *
"If Carolina Coronado had, through modesty, sent her productions from
Estremadura to Madrid under the name of a person of the other sex, it
would still have been difficult for intelligent readers to persuade
themselves that they were written by a man, or at least, considering
their graceful sweetness, purity of tone, simplicity of conception,
brevity of development, and delicate and particular choice of subject,
we should be constrained to attribute them to one yet in his early
youth, whom the imagination would represent as ingenuous, innocent, and
gay, who had scarce ever wandered beyond the flowery grove or pleasant
valley where his cradle was rocked, and where he has been lulled to
sleep by the sweetest songs of Francisea de la Torre, Garcilaso, and
Melendez."
* * * * *
The author of the _Pájaro Perdido_, according to a memoir of her by
Angel Fernandez de los Rios, was born at Almendralejo, in Estremadura,
in 1823. At the age of nine years she began to steal from sleep, after a
day passed in various lessons, and in domestic occupations, several
hours every night to read the poets of her country, and other books
belonging to the library of the household, among which are mentioned, as
a proof of her vehement love of reading, the "Critical History of
Spain," by the Abbé Masuden, "and other works equally dry and prolix."
She was afterward sent to Badajoz, where she received the best education
which the state of the country, then on fire with a civil war, would
admit. Here the intensity of her application to her studies caused a
severe malady, which has frequently recurred in after-life. At the age
of thirteen years she wrote a poem entitled _La Palma_, which the author
of her biography declares to be worthy of Herrera, and which led
Espronceda, a poet of Estremadura, a man of genius, and the author of
several translations from Byron, whom he resembled both in mental and
personal characteristics, to address her an eulogistic sonnet. In 1843,
when she was but twenty years old, a volume of her poems was published
at Madrid, in which were included both that entitled _La Palma_ and the
one I have given in this note. To this volume Hartzenbusch, in his
admiration for her genius, prefaced an introduction.
The task of writing verses in Spanish is not difficult. Rhymes are
readily found, and the language is easily moulded into metrical forms.
Those who have distinguished themselves in this literature have
generally made their first essays in verse. What is remarkable enough,
the men who afterward figured in political life mostly began their
career as the authors of madrigals. A poem introduces the future
statesman to the public, as a speech at a popular meeting introduces the
candidate for political distinctions in this country. I have heard of
but one of the eminent Spanish politicians of the present time, who made
a boast that he was innocent of poetry; and if all that his enemies say
of him be true, it would have been well both for his country and his own
fame, if he had been equally innocent of corrupt practices. The
compositions of Carolina Coronado, even her earliest, do not deserve to
be classed with the productions of which I have spoken, and which are
simply the effect of inclination and facility. They possess the _mens
divinior_.
In 1852 a collection of poems of Carolina Coronado was brought out at
Madrid, including those which were first published. The subjects are of
larger variety than those which prompted her earlier productions; some
of them are of a religious cast, others refer to political matters. One
of them, which appears among the "Improvisations," is an energetic
protest against erecting a new amphitheatre for bull-fights. The spirit
in all her poetry is humane and friendly to the best interests of
mankind.
Her writings in prose must not be overlooked. Among them is a novel
entitled _Sigea_, founded on the adventures of Camoëns; another entitled
_Jarilla_, a beautiful story, full of pictures of rural life in
Estremadura, which deserves, if it could find a competent translator, to
be transferred to our language. Besides these there are two other novels
from her pen, _Paquita_ and _La Luz del Tejo_. A few years since
appeared, in a Madrid periodical, the _Semanario_, a series of letters
written by her, giving an account of the impressions received in a
journey from the Tagus to the Rhine, including a visit to England. Among
the subjects on which she has written, is the idea, still warmly
cherished in Spain, of uniting the entire peninsula under one
government. In an ably-conducted journal of Madrid, she has given
accounts of the poetesses of Spain, her contemporaries, with extracts
from their writings, and a kindly estimate of their respective merits.
Her biographer speaks of her activity and efficiency in charitable
enterprises, her interest in the cause of education, her visits to the
primary schools of Madrid, encouraging and rewarding the pupils, and her
patronage of the _escuela de parvules_, or infant school at Badajoz,
established by a society of that city, with the design of improving the
education of the laboring class.
It must have been not long after the publication of her poems, in 1852,
that Carolina Coronado became the wife of an American gentleman, Mr.
Horatio J. Perry, at one time our Secretary of Legation at the Court of
Madrid, afterward our _Chargé d'Affaires_, and now, in 1863, again
Secretary of Legation. Amid the duties of a wife and mother, which she
fulfils with exemplary fidelity and grace, she has neither forgotten nor
forsaken the literary pursuits which have given her so high a
reputation.