La terre cache l'or et montre les moissons; Elle met dans le flanc des fuyantes saisons Le germe des saisons prochaines, Dans l'azur les oiseaux qui chuchotent: aimons! Et les sources au fond de l'ombre, et sur les monts L'immense tremblement des chênes. The loving loveliness of these divine verses is in sharp contrast with the fierce resonance of those in which the sea's defiance is cast as a challenge to the hopes and dreams of mankind:-- Je suis la vaste mêlée, Reptile, étant l'onde, ailée, Étant le vent; Force et fuite, haine et vie, Houle immense, poursuivie Et poursuivant. The motion of the sea was never till now so perfectly done into words as in these three last lines; but any one to whom the water was as dear or dearer than the land at its loveliest would have found a delight as of love no less conceivable than a passion as of hatred in the more visible and active life of waves, and at least as palpable to the "shaping spirit of imagination." It remains true, after all, for the greatest as for the humblest, that--in the words of one of the very few poets whose verses are fit to quote even after a verse of Hugo's-- we receive but what we give. And in our life alone doth nature live; so far, at least, as her life concerns us, and is perceptible or appreciable by our spirit or our sense. A magnificent instance of purely dramatic vision, in which the lyric note is tempered to the circumstance of the speakers with a kind of triumphant submission and severe facility, is _La Chanson des Doreurs de Proues._ The poet's unequalled and unapproached variety in mastery of metre and majesty of color and splendid simplicity of style, no less exact than sublime, and no less accurate than passionate, could hardly be better shown than by comparison of the opening verses with the stanza cited above. Nous sommes les doreurs de proues. Les vents, tournant comme des roues, Sur la verte rondeur des eaux Mêlent les lueurs et les ombres, Et dans les plis des vagues sombres Traînent les obliques vaisseaux. La bourrasque décrit des courbes, Les vents sont tortueux et fourbes, L'archer noir souffle dans son cor, Ces bruits s'ajoutent aux vertiges, Et c'est nous qui dans ces prodiges Faisons rôder des spectres d'or. Car c'est un spectre que la proue. Le flot l'étreint, l'air la secoue; Fière, elle sort de nos bazars Pour servir aux éclairs de cible, Et pour être un regard terrible Parmi les sinistres hasards.