Page:A history of Hungarian literature.djvu/294

 28o HUNGARIAN LITERATURE The other pessimistic poet was GYULA REVICZKY (I8SS­ I88c)). His short life was a continual struggle with disease and poverty. Like Schopenhauer and Heine, he gave expression to two con trasting tempers, now resignation and a conviction of the world's vanity, and now, a keen desire to live. In his poem, The Death of Pa u, the two feelings are mingled. Pown in the waist of a sh ip there is boisterous reve lry, and wc hear the sound of music and drinking and dancing. Suddenly a vo ice calls to the helmsman, u Thamus l " but the helrnsmao does not heed the su mmons. Again comes the cry u Thamus l " and he leaves the heim, mounts the upper deck and looks arou nd, but as far as eye can reach there is no living thing. He is about to descend agai n, wh en his name is called for the third time, and on his startled ear there fali the words : 11 When thou reachest the headland, cry aloud, 1 The great Pan is dead.' " The helmsman obeys and cries, 1 1 Th e great Pan is dead," whereupon he hears the sou nd of sobbing among the trees and hills, sighs are borne upon the breeze, and ali Nature is filled with the sound of wailing. The reign of the Pagan gods is over, the great Pan is dead, and a voice cries : 1' Pan and his merry tribe have gone, but the one God remains, not in stones and trees, but in the heart. Hitherto the world has belonged to the proud and happy, but henceforth those who suffer sh all own th e earth. There shall be a sweetness even in tears, and though the forest is si lent, the sad will find in it peace." And then, far off, near th e horizon, there appears in the sky the Cross, bathed in the red light of the morning. While most of the poets in th e fifties and sixties fo und their model in Arany, the chief follower of Petőfi in lyric song Wci.S the ardent and fervently patriotic KÁLMÁN T ÖTH ( 183I- I881).