¡Dios mío, qué solos
Se quedan los muertos!
His poetry has often been compared to that of Heine, whom he is said to have imitated. Becquer did not in fact read German; but in El Museo Universal, for which he was a collaborator, and in which he published his Rimas, there appeared one of the first versions of the Intermezzo,[1] and it is not unlikely that in imitation of the Intermezzo he was led to string his Rimas like beads upon the connecting thread of a common autobiographical theme. In the seventy-six short poems that compose his Rimas, Becquer tells "a swiftly-moving, passionate story of youth, love, treachery, despair, and final submission." "The introductory poems are meant to represent a stage of absorption in the beauty and complexity of the natural world, during which the poet, conscious of his own high, incommunicable gift, by which he sees into the life of things, is conscious of an aimless fever and restlessness which is forever turning delight into weariness."[2]
[Footnote 1: Blanco Garcia, op. cit., p. 86.]
[Footnote 2: Mrs. Ward, loc. cit., p. 316.]
Some of these poems are extremely beautiful, particularly the tenth. They form a sort of prelude to the love-story itself, which begins in our selections with the thirteenth. Not finding the realization of his ideal in art, the poet turns to love. This passion reaches its culminating point in the twenty-ninth selection, and with the thirtieth misunderstanding, dissatisfaction, and sadness begin. Despair assails him, interrupted with occasional notes of melancholy resignation, such as are so exquisitely expressed in the fifty-third poem, the best-known of all the poet's verse. With this poem the love-story proper comes to a close, and "the melancholy, no doubt more than half imaginary and poetical, of his love poems seems to broaden out into a deeper sadness embracing life as a whole, and in which disappointed passion is but one of the many elements."[1] "And, lastly, regret and passion are alike hushed in the presence of that voiceless love which shines on the face of the dead and before the eternal and tranquil slumber of the grave."[2]
[Footnote 1: Mrs. Ward, loc. cit., p.319.]
[Footnote 2: Ibid., p. 316.]
Whatever Becquer may have owed to Heine, in form or substance, he was no servile imitator. In fact, with the exception of the thirtieth, no one of his Rimas seems to be inspired directly by Heine's Intermezzo. The distinguishing note in Heine's verse is sarcasm, while that of Becquer's is pathos. Heine is the greater poet, Becquer, the profounder artist. As Blanco Garcia well points out,[1] the moral inclinations of the two poets were distinct and different also. Becquer's instinct for the supernatural freed him from Heine's skepticism and irreligion; and, though he had suffered much, he never doubted Providence.
[Footnote 1: op. cit., p.86.]
The influence of Alfred de Musset may be felt also in Becquer's Rimas, particularly in the forty-second and forty-third; but in general, the Spanish poet is "less worldly and less ardent"[1] than the French.