technically consummate--was at least one of the strings of his
many-chorded lyre. Three magnificent works--the very crown and flower of
Hugo's production--belong to this decade, 1850-60,--the _Châtiments_,
_Contemplations_, and _Légende des Siècles_. I said advisedly, one
string in his lyre. Objective reticence is certainly not the virtue of
the terrible indictment of 'Napoleon the Little'. On the other hand, the
greatest qualities of Parnassian poetry were exemplified in many
splendid pieces of the other two works, together with a large benignity
which their austere Stoicism rarely permits, and I shall take as
illustration of the finest achievement of poetry in this whole first
phase the closing stanzas of his famous _Boaz Endormi_ in the _Légende_,
whose beauty even translation cannot wholly disguise. Our decasyllable
is substituted for the Alexandrine.[11]

'While thus he slumbered, Ruth, a Moabite,
Lay at the feet of Boaz, her breast bare,
Waiting, she knew not when, she knew not where,
The sudden mystery of wakening light.

Boaz knew not that there a woman lay,
Nor Ruth what God desired of her could tell;
Fresh rose the perfume of the asphodel,
And tender breathed the dusk on Galgala.

Nuptial, august, and solemn was the night,
Angels no doubt were passing on the wing,
For now and then there floated glimmering
As it might be an azure plume in flight.

The low breathing of Boaz mingled there