Nor quiver though the universe may quake!”
The words are included in a kind of praise or prayer, spoken by a “mortal” who is in hopeless flight before the mounting deluge. Miss Miller puts herself in the same situation in her quotation; that is to say, she readily lets it be seen that her feeling is similar to the despondency of the unhappy ones who find themselves hard pressed by the threatening mounting waters of the deluge. With this the writer allows us a deep look into the dark abyss of her longing for the sun-hero. We see that her longing is in vain; she is a mortal, only for a short time borne upwards into the light by means of the highest longing, and then sinking to death, or, much more, urged upwards by the fear of death, like the people before the deluge, and in spite of the desperate conflict, irretrievably given over to destruction. This is a mood which recalls vividly the closing scene in “Cyrano de Bergerac”:[[190]]
Cyrano:
Oh, mais ... puisqu’elle est en chemin,
Je l’attendrai debout ... et l’épée à la main.
Que dites-vous?... C’est inutile? Je le sais.
Mais on ne se bat pas dans l’espoir du succès.
Non, non. C’est bien plus beau lorsque c’est inutile.
Je sais bien qu’à la fin vous me mettrez à bas....
We already know sufficiently well what longing and what impulse it is that attempts to clear a way for itself to the light, but that it may be realized quite clearly and irrevocably, it is shown plainly in the quotation “No, let me die,” which confirms and completes all earlier remarks. The divine, the “much-beloved,” who is honored in the image of the sun, is also the goal of the longing of our poet.