and now more than ever would the verses that follow befit the lips of their author, if speaking in his own person:—
Mon crâne plein d'échos, plein de lueurs, plein d'yeux,
Est l'antre éblouissant du grand Pan radieux;
En me voyant on croit entendre le murmure
De la ville habitée et de la moisson mûre,
Le bruit du gouffre au chant de l'azur réuni,
L'onde sur l'océan, le vent dans l'infini,
Et le frémissement des deux ailes du cygne.
It is held unseemly to speak of the living as we speak of the dead; when Victor Hugo has joined the company of his equals, but apparently not till then, it will seem strange to regard the giver of all the gifts we have received from him with less than love that deepens into worship, than worship that brightens into love. Meantime it is only in the phrase of one of his own kindred, poet and exile and prophet of a darker age than his, that the last word should here be spoken of the man by whose name our century will be known forever to all ages and nations that keep any record or memory of what was highest and most memorable in the spiritual history of the past:—
Onorate l'altissimo poeta.