Coplas De Manrique by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The speaker reflects on the passing of pleasure, wealth, youth, and royal power, contrasting their loss with Christian eternal life. He then recounts Roderic Manrique’s virtues and military deeds. At Ocana, personified Death calls the knight to depart; Manrique accepts God’s will, prays for pardon through redeeming grace, and dies surrounded by his family.
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · Genre: Elegy, Meditative Poetry, Religious Poetry · 4,486 words
First lines
O let the soul her slumbers break, / Let thought be quickened, and awake; / Awake to see / How soon this life is past and gone, / And death comes softly stealing on, / How silently!
Swiftly our pleasures glide away, / Our hearts recall the distant day / With many sighs; / The moments that are speeding fast / We heed not, but the past, -- the past, / More highly prize.
Genres
- Elegy — The verse commemorates Roderic Manrique’s deeds, recounts his death among his family, and closes with the enduring light of his memory.
- Meditative Poetry — The speaker considers the disappearance of youth, pleasure, wealth, and royal courts, comparing lives to rivers flowing toward the grave.
- Religious Poetry — Earthly life is presented as preparation for heaven, and the dying knight asks Christ for pardon through redeeming grace rather than personal merit.
Tags
mortality · Christian salvation · chivalry · earthly power · remembrance · deathbed prayer
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Coplas De Manrique is listed on Textopian as a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, dated Date unknown.
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- Work type: Poem
- Author: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
- Date: Date unknown
- Language: English
- Genres: Elegy, Meditative Poetry, Religious Poetry
- Length: 4,486 words
- Structure: 1 section, 84 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Fairly Easy (7th Grade)
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