Blanc--instils itself here into the mourner's mood, as, long before, a
like scene had animated the young disciples of the Grammarian; while the
"cold music" of Galuppi's Toccata seems to be echoed inauspiciously in
these lingering trochaics. Something of both moods survives, but the
dominant tone is a somewhat grey and tempered hope, remote indeed from
the oppressive sense of evanescence, the crumbling mortality, of the
second poem, remote no less from the hushed exaltation, the subdued but
rapturous confidence of the first.

The poet is growing old; the unity of poetic vision is breaking up into
conflicting aspects only to be adjusted in the give and take of debate;
he puts off his singing robes to preside as moderator, while Fancy and
Reason exchange thrust and parry on the problem of immortality;
delivering at last, as the "sad summing up of all," a balanced and
tentative affirmation. And he delivers the decision with an oppressive
sense that it is but his own. He is "Athanasius contra mundum"; and he
dwells, with a "pallid smile" which Athanasius did not inspire, upon the
marvellous power of fame. Nay, Athanasius himself has his doubts. Even
his sober hope is not a secure possession; but in the gloom of London's
November he remembers that he had hoped in the sunset glory of Salève,
and "saves up" the memory of that pregnant hour for succour in less
prosperous times.

The _Two Poets of Croisic_, published with _La Saisiaz_, cannot be
detached from it. The opening words take up the theme of "Fame," there
half mockingly played with, and the whole poem is a sarcastic criticism
of the worship of Fame. The stories of René Gentilhomme and Paul
Desfarges Maillard are told with an immense burly vivacity, in the
stanza, and a Browningesque version of the manner, of _Beppo_. Both
stories turned upon those decisive moments which habitually caught