Yet the supreme figure, not only among those who share in the anti-Romantic reaction but among all the European poets of his time, was one who had in the heyday of youth led the Romantic vanguard--Victor Hugo. Leconte de Lisle never ceased to own him his master, and Hugo's genius had since his exile, in 1851, entered upon a phase in which a poetry such as the Parnassian sought--objective, reticent, impersonal, technically consummate--was at least one of the strings of his many-chorded lyre. Three magnificent works--the very crown and flower of Hugo's production--belong to this decade, 1850-60,--the _Chatiments_, _Contemplations_, and _Legende des Siecles_. I said advisedly, one string in his lyre. Objective reticence is certainly not the virtue of the terrible indictment of 'Napoleon the Little'. On the other hand, the greatest qualities of Parnassian poetry were exemplified in many splendid pieces of the other two works, together with a large benignity which their austere Stoicism rarely permits, and I shall take as illustration of the finest achievement of poetry in this whole first phase the closing stanzas of his famous _Boaz Endormi_ in the _Legende_, whose beauty even translation cannot wholly disguise. Our decasyllable is substituted for the Alexandrine.[11] 'While thus he slumbered, Ruth, a Moabite, Lay at the feet of Boaz, her breast bare, Waiting, she knew not when, she knew not where, The sudden mystery of wakening light. Boaz knew not that there a woman lay, Nor Ruth what God desired of her could tell; Fresh rose the perfume of the asphodel, And tender breathed the dusk on Galgala. Nuptial, august, and solemn was the night, Angels no doubt were passing on the wing, For now and then there floated glimmering As it might be an azure plume in flight. The low breathing of Boaz mingled there With the soft murmur of the mossy rills. It was the month when earth is debonnaire; The lilies were in flower upon the hills. Night compassed Boaz' slumber and Ruth's dreams, The sheep-bells vaguely tinkled far and near; Infinite love breathed from the starry sphere; 'Twas the still hour when lions seek the streams. Ur and Jerimedeth were all at rest; The stars enamelled the blue vault of sky; Amid those flowers of darkness in the west The crescent shone; and with half open eye Ruth wondered, moveless, in her veils concealed, What heavenly reaper, when the day was done And harvest gathered in, had idly thrown That golden sickle on the starry field.' II. DREAM AND SYMBOL