[Footnote 1: This poem is composed of hendecasyllabic and heptasyllabic verses, with a pentasyllabic refrain. The hendecasyllabic verses are partly of the first and partly of the second class (see Introduction), while the heptasyllabic verses have the required accent on the sixth syllable, with at least one minor variable accent, and the pentasyllabic verses on the fourth, according to rule. The even verses have the same assonance throughout.]

[Footnote 2: De asuntos falta = 'through (or for) lack of subjects.' Prose order—falta de asuntos.]

[Footnote 3: de la luz al beso. Prose order—al beso de la luz.]

[Footnote 4: Mientras... resista. Man's inability to solve these sovereign problems is nowhere more poetically expressed than in Edward Fitzgerald's translation of Omar Khayyam's RubÁiyÁt. Compare—

(XXVII)
Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and Saint, and heard great argument
About it and about: but evermore,
Came out by the same door where in I went.

(XXXI)
Up from Earth's Center through the Seventh Gate
I rose, and on the Throne of Saturn sate,
And many a Knot unravel'd by the Road;
But not the Master-knot of Human Fate.]

[Footnote 5: No sepa Á do camina. This doubt seems to assail frequently the mind of Becquer, as it does that of the old Persian poet Omar Khayyam:

(XXIX)
Into this Universe, and Why not knowing
Nor Whence, like water willy-nilly flowing;
And out of it, as Wind along the Waste
I know not Whither, willy-nilly blowing.

(LXIV)
Strange, is it not? that of the myriads who
Before us pass'd the door of Darkness through,
Not one returns to tell us of the Road,
Which to discover we must travel too.

RubÁiyÁt—Edward Fitzgerald's translation.]

[Footnote 6: el corazÓn y la cabeza. Compare—

It is the heart, and not the brain,
That to the highest doth attain.