Come! for at last you shall enjoy within my arms All the wantonness, all the fascinations, All the delights of eternal rest! This is impressed in far superior fashion by one of the best sonnets Bilac ever wrote: _Sahara Vitae_. Here, in the image of life’s desert, he conveys a haunting sense of helpless futility such as one gets only rarely, from such sonnets, say, as the great Shelleyan one, _Ozymandias of Egypt_. Lá vão! O céo se arqueia Como um tecto de bronze infindo e quente, E o sol fuzila e, fuzilando, ardente Criva de flechas de aço o mar de areia.… Lá vão, com os olhos onde a sêde ateia Um fogo estranho, procurando em frente Esse oasis do amor que, claramente, Além, bello e falaz, se delineia. Mas o simun da morte sopra: a tromba Convulsa envolve-os, prostra-os; e aplacada Sobre si mesma roda e exhausta tomba.… E o sol de novo no igneo céo fuzila.… E sobre a geração exterminada A areia dorme placida e tranquila.[7] For the clearness of its imagery, for the perfect progress of a symbol that is part and parcel of the poetry, this might have come out of Dante. It is not often that fourteen lines contain so complete, so devastating a commentary. Side by side with _Beijo Eterno_ (Eternal Kiss) it occurs in the _Poesias_, as if to reveal its relation as reverse to the obverse of the poet’s voluptuousness. _Beijo Eterno_, like _A Alvorada de Amor_, is one of the central poems of Olavo Bilac. It is the linked sweetness of Catullus long drawn out. It is the sensuous ardour of the poet inundating all time and all space, while _Sahara Vitae_ is the languor that follows upon the fulfilment of ardour. They are both as much a part of the poet as the two sides are part of the coin. The first and last of the ten stanzas of _Beijo Eterno_ epitomize the Dionysiac outburst; they are alike: Quero um beijo sem fim, Que dure a vida enteira e aplaque a meu desejo! Ferve-me o sangue. Acalma-o com teu beijo, Beija-me assim! O ouvido fecha ao rumor Do mundo, e beija-me querida! Vive so para mim, só para a minha vida, Só para o meu amor![8] In less amorous mood he can sing a serenade--_A Canção de Romeu_--(Romeo’s Song) to which any Juliet might well open her window: As estrellas surgiram Todas: e o limpio veo Como lirios alvissimos, cobriram Do ceo. De todas a mais bella Não veio ainda, porem: Falta uma estrella.… És tu!… Abre a janella, E vem![9]