Page:A history of Hungarian literature.djvu/229

 ALEXAN DER PETŐ FI 215 race. Yet this education is the common work of all men, an d each must contribute his share. Every life leaves some trace in its deeds. "A grape," he says, "is a small thing, yet it requires a whole summer to ripen it. The world requires much more. How many thousands of sunrays have toucbed one single berry. How many millions may the world need ? But the rays which help to develop and ripen the world are the souls of men. Every gre at soul is such a ray, " continues the apostle, 11 I feel that I am one of those who are helping to ripen the earth. " Petőfi once called bimself "the wild flower of Nature." But it would be a mistake to think that he did not study poetry. Certainly, he was always true to himself, bnt his talents were not altagether uncultivated. ln his selection of themes he was influenced by Lenau. His humour reminds us of Csokonai, his irony and his descriptions, of Hei ne. His boldly expressed love of freed om has much in common with the temper of Shelley and Byro n, while some of his genre poems resemble those of Béranger. His thrilling oratory shows that he admired Shakespeare, and his dramatic style, full of striking anti­ theses, recalls that of Victor Hugo. In some of his patriotic poems we seem to recognise the melancholy of Vörösmarty, and certain of his popular romances reveaJ clearly the influence of Arany. Many a river and brook flowed into that vast and deep ocean, the soul of Petőfi, and yet its most striking and ch aracteristic features, and its peculiar colours, are ali his own, and his are the pearls, too, wh ich forrned in its depths. Petőfi's poetry is the poetry of youth. People say, there are no Ionger any children, and that youth is dying