he form of a dialogue between the Muse and the
poet--the Muse striving to console the world-wounded bard for his
troubles, and urging him to take refuge in hope and production:

Poete, prends ton luth et me donne un baiser;
La fleur de l'eglantier sent ses bourgeons eclore.
Le printemps nait ce soir; les vents vout s'embraser;
Et la bergeronette, en attendant l'aurore,
Au premier buissons vertes commence a se poser.
Poete, prends ton luth et me donne un baiser.

That is impregnated with the breath of a vernal night. The same poem
(the "Nuit de Mai") contains the famous passage about the pelican--the
passage beginning

Les plus' desesperes sont les chants les plus beaux,
Et j'en sais d'immortels qui sont de purs sanglots----

in which the legend of the pelican opening his breast to feed his
starving young is made an image of what the poet does to entertain his
readers:

Poete, c'est ainsi que font les grands poetes.
Ils laissent s'egayer ceux qui vivent un temps;
Mais les festins humains qu'ils servent a leurs fetes
Ressemblent la plupart a ceux des pelicans.

This passage is perhaps--unless we except the opening verses of
"Rolla"--Musset's noblest piece of poetic writing. We must place next
to it--next to the three "Nuits"--the admirably passionate and genuine
"Stanzas to Malibran"--a beautiful characterization of the artistic
disinterestedness of the singer who suffered her genius to consume
her--who sang herself to death. The closing verses of the poem have a
wonderful purity; to rise so high, and yet in form, in accent, to
remain so still and temperate, belongs only to great poetry; as it
would be well to remind the critic who thinks the author of the
"Stanzas to Malibran" dwarfish. There is another sort of verse in which
violence of movement is more sensible than upwardness of direction.

So far in relation to Musset's lyric genius--though we have given but a
brief and inadequate account of it. He had besides a dramatic genius of
the highest beauty, to which we have left ourself space to devote only
a few words. It is true that the drama with Musset has a decidedly
lyrical element, and that though his persons always talk prose, they
are constantly saying things which would need very little help to fall
into the mould of a stanza or a sonnet. In his dramas as in his verses,
his weakness is that he is amateurish; they lack construction; their
merit is not in th