_Prosas Profanas_, published in 1900, is, according to the phrase of his incomparable critic, José Enrique Rodo, "the full tension of his poet's bow." From the paradoxical title to the wealth of metre, all is strange in this delicate piece of work, which opens a new literary cycle, as did _Emaux et Camées_ or _Fleurs du mal_ in France. The originality of the book comes from the poet's prodigious faculty of recognising in each school what is essential to him, and in appropriating it, without, therefore, ceasing to be personal. A lyric unrest carries him to one manner or another, but, archaic or modern, it becomes his own. His grace, suppleness, and learned complexity are unequalled; he will write a Symphony in _Gris Majeur_ like Gautier, or poems in the manner of Verlaine, or a _Chant an Centaure_ in the manner of Maurice de Guerin. His work is not built of imposing granite, but of many coloured marbles, with strange and decadent shades, such as the chiseller of the _Camées_ loved. [Illustration: RUFINO BLANCO FOMBONA (VENEZUELA). Contemporary poet, novelist, and thinker. To face p. 264.] His verse possesses at once the sensuality of a faun, the distinction of a marquis of the _Grand Siècle_, and the disenchantment of a mystic. No form, no period can arrest his wandering spirit:-- "Yo persigo una forma que no encuentra mi estilo, Boton de pensamiento que busca ser la rosa."[18] In the presence of love, art, and life he experiences an enthusiasm which quickly vanishes; he discovers the final melancholy of all things. He knows, with the Roman, the sadness that lurks in human joys: _quod in ipsis floribus angit_. But before singing his autumnal bitterness of heart {265} he sings of nature, of ancient civilisations, of the art of all ages, and of the pageantry of life.