Page:Mexico, picturesque, political, progressive.djvu/164

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162
MEXICO — PICTURESQUE

hint of the glowing sensuousness of tropical imagination in the entire book. Indeed, it errs somewhat in the other extreme. Its expression is based upon the colder and more formal models of the early English and French writers, with a certain stateliness of diction and fondness for mythological simile which belonged to the conception of poetry two centuries ago. But the verse remains, in this case, almost wholly uninformed by that enthusiastic flame of devotion, which often, in old times, rendered the transparent disguise of stilted phraseology incapable of hiding the natural glow within.

The idea of prefixing to each little poem the full name of its subject has a piquancy altogether Southern. We would choose, under similar circumstances, to shoot our arrows of song in the dark, or at best against a shadowy target of initials, leaving our reader to discover their aim, — half annoyed if he should guess rightly, wholly angry if he went astray. These more sincere, or perhaps more artful, people go straight to the mark. The friend or admirer chants his hymn of praise under his lady's lattice and in the open light of day. If this be too unreserved for love,