Bilac was, on the whole, less a Parnassian than was Francisca Julia. She transmuted her passion into cold, yet appealing, symbols; Machado de Assis’s feelings do not quite fill his glass to the brim; Olavo Bilac’s passion overflows the banks of his verse. Yet he remained as true as so warm a nature as his could be to the vows of his _Profissão de Fe_, with its numerous exclamation points that stand as visible refutation of his avowed formalism. The very epigraph of the poem--and the poem itself stands as epigraph to the collection that follows--is taken from none other than that ardent soul, Victor Hugo, with whom at first the very opponents of the Romantic movement tried to maintain relations. So true is it that we retain a little of all things that we reject. Le poète est ciseleur, Le ciseleur est poète. Bilac’s would-be Parnassian _Profession of Faith_, beginning thus inconsistently with a citation from the chief of the Romantics (a citation, it may be added, that is not all consistent with Hugo’s own characteristic labours) is the herald of his own humanness. Let us now leave the “isms” to those who love them, and seek in Bilac the distinctive personality. His _Profissão de Fe_ is a bit dandified, snobbish, aloof, with a suggestion of a refined sensuality that is fully borne in his work. Não quero a Zeus Capitolino, Herculeo e bello, Talhar no marmore divino Com o camartello. Que outro--não eu!--a pedra córte Para, brutal, Erguer de Athene o altivo porte Descommunal. Mais que esse vulto extraordinario, Que assombra a vista, Seduz-me um leve relicario De fine artista. … Assim procedo. Minha penna, Segue esta norma, Por te servir, Deusa serena, Serena Fórma! … Vive! que eu viverei servindo Teu culto, e, obscuro, Tuas custodias esculpindo No ouro mais puro. Celebrarei o teu officio No altar: porem, Se inda é pequeno o sacrificio, Morra eu tambem! Caia eu tembem, sem esperanca, Porém tranquilo, Inda, ao cahir, vibrando a lança, Em prol de Estylo![1] The _Poesias_[2] upon which Bilac’s fame rests constitute but a book of average size, and consist of the following divisions: _Panoplias_ (Panoplies); _Via Lactea_ (The Milky Way); _Sarças de Fogo_ (Fire-Brambles); _Alma Inquieta_ (Restless Soul); _As Viagens_ (Voyages); _O Caçador de Esmeraldas_ (The Emerald-Hunter). The inspiration of the panoplies derives as much from the past as from the present; there is verbal coruscation aplenty,--an admirable sense of colour, imagery, fertility, symbol. Even when reading the Iliad, Bilac sees in it chiefly a poem of love: