rness,
that occupies itself in weeping and in seeking out itself rather than
in pouring itself forth on external objects."[1] In this matter of
lyrical subjectivism Becquer is unique, for it cannot be found in any
other of the Spanish poets except such mystic writers as San Juan de
la Cruz or Fray Luis de Leon.

[Footnote 1: Blanco Garcia, _op. cit._, p. 83.]

In one of Becquer's most beautiful writings in prose, in a _Prologo_
to a collection of _Cantares_ by Augusto Ferran y Fornies, our author
describes two kinds of poetry that present themselves to one's choice:
"There is a poetry which is magnificent and sonorous, the offspring of
meditation and art, which adorns itself with all the pomp of language,
moves along with a cadenced majesty, speaks to the imagination,
perfects its images, and leads it at will through unknown paths,
beguiling with its harmony and beauty." "There is another poetry,
natural, rapid, terse, which springs from the soul as an electric
spark, which strikes our feelings with a word, and flees away. Bare of
artificiality, free within a free form, it awakens by the aid of one
kindred idea the thousand others that sleep in the bottomless ocean of
fancy. The first has an acknowledged value; it is the poetry of
everybody. The second lacks any absolute standard of measurement; it
takes the proportions of the imagination that it impresses; it may be
called the poetry of poets."[1]

[Footnote 1: _Obras_, vol. III, pp. 112-113.]

In this description of the short, terse, and striking compositions of
his friend Ferran, Becquer has written likewise the apology for his
own verse. His was a poetry of "rapid, elemental impressions." He
strikes but one chord at a time on his lyre, but he leaves you
thrilled. This extreme simplicity and naturalness of expression may be
well illustrated by the refrain of the seventy-third poem:

_iDios mio, que solos
Se quedan los muertos!_

His poetry has often been compared to that of Heine, whom he is said
to have imitated. Becquer did not in fact read German; but in _El
Museo Universal_, for which he was a collaborator, and in which he
published his _Rimas_, there appeared one of the first versions of the
_Intermezzo_,[1] and it is not unlikely that in imitation of the
_Intermezzo_ he was led to string his _Rimas_ like beads upon the
connecting thread of a common autobiographical theme. In the
seventy-six short poems that compose his _Rimas_, Becquer tells "a