The same incorrectness and bad taste that mark his style, composed of words and phrases noble and sublime, united with others as mean and trivial, are found in his images and thoughts, which are mixed together without economy, judgment, or decorum. The following sonnet will show this miserable confusion better than any description:—
"Cæsar, the fortunate and forceful, bled;
Pity and warning know it not—a wreath
This of his glory, for there is a death
Even to the grave that sepulchres the dead.
Dies life, and like life, dies, and soon is fled
The rich and sumptuous funeral; time flies,
And, in his unseen circuit, stills the cries,
Shouts, and huzzas, that fame delights to spread.
The sun and moon wind night and day the web
Of the world's life robust, and dost thou weep
The warning which age sends thee? all things ebb!
Auroras are but smiling illnesses,
Delight the lemon of our health, nor less
Our sextons the sure hours that seem to creep."
In spite of these defects, which are certainly very great, Quevedo will be read with respect, and be justly admired in many passages. In the first place, his verse is for the most part full and sonorous, his rhyme rich and easy, and yet this merit, the first which a poet should possess, is not the principal one; our author knows how to accompany them with many touches, excellent, some from the brightness of their colouring, others from their spirit and boldness. His poetry, strong and nervous, proceeds impetuously to its end; and if his movements betray too much of the effort, affectation, and bad taste of the writer, their course is yet frequently seen to have a wildness, an audacity, and a singularity, that is surprising. His verses oft-times spring from his own imagination, and without extraneous aid strike the ear with their loud and strong vibration, or sculpture themselves in the mind by the profundity of the thought they develope, or by the novelty and strength of the expression. From no one can such beautiful isolated verses be quoted as from him; from no one, poetic periods so stately and so strong.
"Pure, ardent virtue was a joy divine."
"The' unbounded hemisphere fatigued his rage."
"I felt my falchion conquered by old age."
"Lashed by the waves, before, around, behind,
And rudely lashed by the remorseless wind;
The storm's thy glory, and its groans, that tear
The clouds, move more thy triumph than thy care.
Then, daring cliff, thou reign'st in majesty,
When the blast rages and the sea rides high."
Rome buried in her Ruins.
"Pilgrim, thou look'st in Rome for Rome divine,
And ev'n in Rome no Rome canst find! her crowd
Of mural wonders is a corse, whose shroud
And fitting tomb is the lone Aventine.
She lies where reigned the kingly Palatine,
And Time's worn medals more of ruin show
From her ten thousand fights than ev'n the blow
Struck at the crown of her Imperial line.
Tiber alone remains, whose rushing tide
Waters the town now sepulchred in stone,
And weeps its funeral with fraternal tears:
Oh Rome! in thy wild beauty, power, and pride,
The durable is fled, and what alone
Is fugitive, abides the ravening years."