The transition from Romanticism to Parnassianism in Brazil may be studied in the poetry of Luiz Guimarães and the earlier verses of Machado de Assis. I find it difficult to agree with either Verissimo or Carvalho in his estimate of Machado de Assis’s poetry; Romero has by far the more tenable view. It may be true that the _Chrysalidas_ and the _Phalenas_ of Machado de Assis, like the _Sonetos e Rimas_ of Luiz Guimarães, reveal a great refinement of form and elegance of rhyme,--even a wealth of rhythm. But colour and picturesqueness are hardly the distinguishing poetic traits of Machado de Assis, whose real poetry, as I try to show in the chapter dedicated especially to him, is in his prose. Luiz Guimarães was, from one aspect, a Romantic with a more precise technique; his form, in other words, was quite as transitional as his content. In addition to French influence he underwent that of the Italians Stecchetti and Carducci, of whom he made translations into Portuguese. His sonnet on Venice is illustrative of a number of his qualities,--his restrained _saudade_, his gift of picturesque evocation, his rich rhymes, his vocalic melody: Não es a mesma, a flor de _morbidezza_, Rainha do Adriatico! Brilhante Jordão de amor, onde Musset errante Bebeu em ondas a lustral belleza. Já não possues, ó triumphal Veneza, O teu sorriso--olympico diamante, Que se engastou do lord bardo amante Na fronte heroica de immortal grandeza. Tua escura laguna ja não sente Da antiga serenata o som plangente, E os soluços de amor que nos teus barcos. Exhalava a patricia voluptuosa.… Resta-te apenas a canção saudosa Das gemedoras pombas de São Marcos.[3]