No Castilian poet since Luis de Góngora has equaled Jiménez in craft and virtuosic power. Jiménez makes of the language an instrument subtle and intricately ranged, whose farthest flexes yet lie within the natural genius of Castilian. This is his superiority as a craftsman over his master, Góngora. Góngora worked as if in minerals. His arabesques were cut and carved, like the original arabesques, in stone. In Jiménez, the arabesque is of organic substance: it is traced in flesh, blood, breath. This makes his work less assured, less sheer than the verse of Góngora which, after three centuries of misprizal, comes at last, with the work of his friend El Greco, into its kingdom of appreciation. At first glance, one doubts that the poetry of Jiménez can live as long: so fine are its lineaments, so exquisite its reliefs from the organic atmosphere on which it stands. Flowers of spirit, will they fade like flowers? The answer is, that such flowers do not fade. To examine this frail prosody, is to find it made of certainties. Jiménez has lifted from life his overtones into a form that is life’s natural emergence into consciousness from the eternal infraconscious flow. His arabesques are therefore as organic as their base. Jiménez belongs to the race of Góngora and San Juan de la Cruz--a race of poets who are immortal, and hermetic. * * * * * Again Spain is speaking for the world. This painter and this lyrist, in the true sense, are _poets_. Their word is a creation, immediate as life and as eternal: and this conjunction of time and of eternity is birth. _CHAPTER XIV_ _THE PORT OF COLUMBUS_ _The Scene is a bare height over a little town, white huddled with shard roofs. Coppery, the río Tinto widens and swirls through sands into the Gulf of Cádiz. Upon the height, stand two old men, bare-headed. They are clad in the gentility of their days. But the cloth is thread, the brocade is dim, the velvet shines and yellow is the lace. The one is tall. He holds behind his back, martially, an arm with a crippled hand. He is erect. His features are hard and large: only his mouth, too delicate and his eyes, tender and dark as a womb, belie the warrior. The second man is short. Beaked is his nose, and the eyes have a watery gleam. His hair is silken white above the swarthy skin. The tall man speaks_: CERVANTES--Why did you ask that I should meet you here? COLUMBUS--This is Palos de la Frontera. [_There is a pause in which with a hard hand he wipes his watery eyes._] From here the first time we sailed. Here, seven months later, we returned. Bringing back---- CERVANTES--A world. COLUMBUS--Nay. Bringing back a Grave. CERVANTES--[_Regarding the town and not_ COLUMBUS’ _words_.]--Here, now, is nothing. COLUMBUS--Look beyond the fat sands of the Gulf. Look beyond the sea.