"No hay en el mundo mujer mas linda! Pié de Andaluza, boca de guinda, _Esprit_ rociado de Veuve Cliquot, Talle de avispa, cutis de ala, Ojos traviesos de colegiala, Como los ojos de Louise Théo."[14]
{ 262} He is not always so frivolous. Mystery torments him; he knows the bitterness of vanished illusions; a pessimist, he has a vision of the moths of death "which have such black wings, and encircle us in a funereal round." The monologue of the unbeliever is a lament like that of Sigismond de Calderon upon the vanity of life:--
"Si es castigo ¿ cual pecado, Sin saberlo, cometimos? Si premio ¿ porque ganado? Sin haberlo demandado, Responded ¿ porqué vivimos?"[15]
Poems and chronicles are filled with a like restlessness and trouble. He writes Odes worthy of an anthology; he translates De Musset and Coppee. His master is Gautier: he shares his love of the light; he sings, in love with ideal whiteness:--
"¿ Qué cosa más blanca que cándido lirio? ¿ Qué cosa más pura que místico cirio? ¿ Que cosa mas casta que tierno azahar?"[16]
The modernism of South America was inspired firstly by the Parnassian school of France, which did not until later give place to the new voice, symbolist or decadent. Verlaine, Samain, and Laforgue were then the chief models; but beneath the current of imitation a movement was forming which was more and more original, a great school of verse, the leading note of which was refinement. "We owe to foreign literatures, and more particularly to the French," says a writer already cited, "the refinement of the organs necessary to the interpretation of beauty; we owe to them our methods of observation { 263} and our love of impressions, rather than any kind of co-ordinated æsthetic perspective.... Our eyes have learned from them to see better, and our minds to gather fugitive sensations."
No writer represents this evolution, this progressive refinement, better than Ruben Dario, a poet of Central America (of Nicaragua), the recognised master of the new school and one of the greatest lyric writers of all time in the Spanish language. He is to America what Verlaine and Hugo are to France. His images, his phrases even, excite a servile imitation. A noble band of disciples aspires to continue his immortal work. He denies his disciples: "He who shall slavishly follow my track will lose his treasure, and, whether page or slave, will not be able to hide his livery." But in vain: ardent youth listens and lays its votive offerings at the feet of the great and disdainful artist.