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The Promises of the Fair Written on the Sea Sands
THE following is a little adventure of Love, which is a great favourite with the Spanish nation, and wears fomething of an original air.
A fair-one, walking by the sea-side, wrote with her finger on the sands—
Antes muerta, que mudada.
I will die before I change.
He for whom these words were intended followed soon after. Having recognized the hand of the person whom he loved, his heart beat with rapture at the marks she left of her fidelity and her constancy. But, while he was dwelling with pIeasure on these delicious words, a wave from the sea rolled over and effaced them. This occasioned our raptured lover to muse in another mode; and, however violent his passion might have been, he directly concluded, that it was not prudent to rely on things said by a woman, and written on sand. George de Montemajor, a Spanish poet, has turned the thought into verse:
Mira el amor lo que ordena,
Que os viene a hazer creer,
Cosas dichas por Muger,
Y escritas en el Arena.
Which may be thus imitated—
The Lover, as he pleas’d surveys
The billet from his Fav’rite’s hand,
Believes the things a Woman says,
Believes the things she writes on sand.
Posted by misteraitch at August 9, 2006 08:30 AM
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