In some divinest vision of the saint
    By Raffael dreamed, I heard thee mourn the dead—­
    The martyred host who fearless there, though faint,
Walked the rough road that up to Heaven’s gate led: 
    These were the pictures Calderon loved to paint
    In golden hues that here perchance have fled.

II.

Yet take the colder copy from my hand,
    Not for its own but for the master’s sake,—­
    Take it, as thou, returning home, wilt take
    From that divinest soft Italian land
Fixed shadows of the Beautiful and Grand
    In sunless pictures that the sun doth make—­
    Reflections that may pleasant memories wake
    Of all that Raffael touched, or Angelo planned:—­
As these may keep what memory else might lose,
    So may this photograph of verse impart
    An image, though without the native hues
Of Calderon’s fire, and yet with Calderon’s art,
    Of what Thou lovest through a kindred Muse
    That sings in heaven, yet nestles in the heart.

D. F. M. C.

Dublin, August 24th, 1869.

PREFATORY NOTE.

THE PROFESSOR OF POETRY AT OXFORD AND THE AUTOS SACRAMENTALES OF CALDERON.

Although the Drama here presented to the public is not an ‘Auto,’ the present may be a not inappropriate occasion to draw the attention of all candid readers to the remarks of the Professor of Poetry at Oxford on the ‘Autos Sacramentales’ of Calderon—­remarks founded entirely on the volume of translations from these Autos published by me in 1867,[*] although not mentioned by name, as I conceive in fairness it ought to have been, by Sir F. H. Doyle in his printed Lectures.[+]

In his otherwise excellent analysis of The Dream of Gerontius, Sir F. H. Doyle is mistaken as to any direct impression having been made upon the mind of Dr. Newman in reference to it by the Autos of Calderon.  So late as March 3, 1867, in thanking me for the volume made use of by Sir F. H. Doyle, Dr. Newman implies that up to that period he had not devoted any particular attention even to this most important and unique development of Spanish religious poetry.  The only complete Auto of Calderon that had previously appeared in English—­my own translation of The Sorceries of Sin, had, indeed, been in his hands from 1859, and I wish I could flatter myself that it had in any way led to the production of a master-piece like The Dream of Gerontius.  But I cannot indulge that delusion.  Dr. Newman had internally and externally too many sources of inspiration to necessitate an adoption even of such high models as the Spanish Autos.  Besides, The Dream of Gerontius is no more an Auto than Paradise Lost, or the Divina Commedia.  In these, only real personages, spiritual and material, are represented,