Thou paradise serene,
Eternal joyful hours
Thy disembodied soul shall welcome in thy towers!
It was chiefly in Spanish literature at this time that Nature was used allegorically. Tieck[[19]] says: 'In Calderon's poetry, and that of his contemporaries, we often find, in romances and song-like metres, most charming descriptions of the sea, mountains, gardens, and woody valleys, but almost always used allegorically, and with an artistic polish which ends by giving us, not so much a real impression of Nature, as one of clever description in musical verse, repeated again and again with slight variations.' This is true of Leon, but far more of Calderon, since it belongs to the very essence of drama. But, despite his passion for description and his Catholic and conventional tone, there is inexhaustible fancy, splendid colour, and a modern element of individuality in his poems. His heroes are conscious of their own ego, feel themselves to be 'a miniature world,' and search out their own feelings 'in the wild waves of emotion' (as Aurelian, for example, in Zenobia).
Fernando says in The Constant Prince:
These flowers awoke in beauty and delight
At early dawn, when stars began to set;
At eve they leave us but a fond regret,
Locked in the cold embraces of the night.
These shades that shame the rainbow's arch of light.