Note how similar are these verses in content to the cries of love denied that rise from Gonçalves Dias and Casimiro de Abreu,--two Romantics of the movement’s height. Carvalho, too, sees that in Alberto de Oliveira there is, in addition to the talent for description, “a subjective poet of genuine value.” For a long time Olavo Bilac enjoyed the sobriquet “Prince of Brazilian poets.” It matters little that part of his posthumous book, _Tarde_, reveals a social preoccupation. To the history of Brazilian letters, and to his countrymen, he is first of all the resounding voice of voluptuousness. And, as happens so often with the ultra-refined of his kin, the taste of his ecstasies at times is blunted by the _memento mori_ of weary thought. The world becomes a pendulum swinging between vast contrasts, and it takes both swings to complete the great vibration. O Natureza! o mãe piedosa e pura! O cruel, implacavel assassina! --Mão, que o veneno e o balsamo propina E aos sorrisos as lagrimas mistura! Pois o berço, onde a bocca pequenina Abre o infante a sorrir, e a miniatura A vaga imagem de uma sepultura, O germen vivo de uma atroz ruina?! Sempre o contraste! Passaros cantando Sobre tumulos … flores sobre a face De ascosas aguas putridas boiando.… Anda a tristeza ao lado de alegria.… E esse teu seio, de onde a noite nasce, E o mesmo seio de onde nasce o dia.…[11] The theme is as common as joy and sorrow; at the very beginning of Brazilian literature we meet it in a coarser sensualist, Gregorio de Mattos Guerra. In Raymundo Correia, in Machado de Assis, such rhymed homilies are common. They illustrate rather the philosophical background of the poets than their more artistic creativeness. Voluptuary that he was, Bilac preferred in poetry the carefully wrought miniature to the Titanic block of marble; at his best he attains a rare effect of eloquent simplicity. He was as Parnassian as a Brazilian may be in verse, yet more than once, as he chiselled his figurines, they leaped to life under his instrument, like diminutive Galateas under the breath of Pygmalion. Assim procedo, Minha penna Segue esta norma, Por te servir, Deusa serena, Serena Fórma! “Thus I proceed,” he declares in the poem that opens his _Poesias_, presenting his particular _ars poetica_. “My pen follows this standard. To serve you, Serene Goddess, Serene Form!” Yet read the entire poem; note, as an almost insignificant detail, the numerous exclamation points; note, too, that he is making love to that Goddess, that he is promising to die in her service. The words are the words of Parnassianism, but the voice is the voice of passionate personality, romantically dedicated to Style. Indeed, for the epigraph to his entire work one might quote the lines from Musset’s “Rolla”: