The entire poetic endeavor of Paludan-Müller in this period was, upon the whole, one magnificent, many-shaded leave-taking of Gaia. What else, indeed, was the tendency of romance! It feared and shunned the life about it, and the era so wholly devoid of character in which its poets, to their sorrow, found themselves born. Paludan-Müller with his whole soul shared this repugnance of the romantic school for the actual surroundings of the poet, as well as its aversion to lingering, even in fancy, about this heavy, dark globe which kept up its ceaseless revolutions with the poet and all his air-castles, whether he would have it so or not. The age in which he lived was loathsome to him, and he had his own era and his own contemporaries in mind when he permitted Tithon to say of his:-- "What fruits thinkest thou this era will develop? An era 'tis that needs a mighty storm To rouse its energies from heavy slumber; An era full of dreams instead of efforts, Of petty competition, not of action bold; An era when each crowns himself with glory And sees himself in heroes of the past, When mortals would be lofty as immortals And yet have servile minds--how I abhor them!" True, this description concerns Asia Minor at the time of the Trojan War; but it is one that accords marvellously well with that given in "Adam Homo" of the reign of Christian VIII. in Denmark:-- "It was a time when mediocre mortals Were puffed up everywhere with boastful pride; * * * * * * * * * * * A time when there were those together clustered Who something great to pass proposed to bring, While they at best accomplished not a thing." It is readily comprehensible that a poet who cast so gloomy a gaze upon his surroundings should have preferred, like Tithon, a sojourn in the "realm of the aurora" to that among his own contemporaries. The most singular fact of all was that he was not alone in his predilection for this higher sphere. All the best brains of the period had instituted the same comparison and made the same choice; there was a poetic vein in most of them, and so it came to pass that in the realm of the aurora the poet found himself in a numerous company.