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:

_¡Dios mío, qué 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
swiftly-moving, passionate story of youth, love, treachery, despair,
and final submission." "The introductory poems are meant to represent