CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY THE MR. AND MRS. WILLIAM F. E. GURLEY BOOK FUND Cornell University Library PQ 1170.E6T49 Fleurs-de-lys. 3 1924 027 266 646 Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924027266646 FLEURS-DE-LYS FLEURS-DE-LYS A BOOK OF FRENCH POETRY FREELY TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH VERSE WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY WILFRID THORLEY Author of " Confessional and other Poems," igii ; "Paul Verlaine," 1914 BOSTON & NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 1930 $ Pa ino I' l^(.i??6i Printed in Great Britain Verball Translators sticke to the bare Text Sometimes so close, the Reader is perplext. Finding the words, to finde the wit that sprung From the first writer in his native tongue. The spirit of an Author being fled. His naked lines looke like a body dead. AURELIAN TOWNSHENI) Circa i620- L'essentiel, dans une version etrangere d'une poeme, n'est pas I'exactitude des details, mats la veriti de I'ensemble, et cette verite ne pent se rencontrer que par lefait d'une sorte de criation nottvelle par des moyens nouveaux. ALBERT MOCKEL igi6 Page I CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION BOOK I ANONYMOUS. (12th Century) 1. The Twa Systres 35 GUIOT DE DIJON (13th Century) 2. The Laye of the Ladye of Fael 36 JEHANNOT DE LESCUREL (14th Century) 3. Ballade 37 JEAN FROISSART (1337-1410) 4. Rondeau of hys Ladye 38 5. Rondeau of Fare-well 39 EUSTACHE DESCHAMPS (1340-1410) 6. Ballade of Pentecost 39 7. Rondeau of Soldierhood 40 CHRISTINE DE PISAN (1363-1430) 8. Ballade of Sprynge-tyme 41 9. Rondeau of Secret Sorrowe 42 ANONYMOUS (15th Century) 10. Folk Song : ' ' What shall I doe if love me leave ? " 42 CHARLES D'ORL^ANS (1391-1465) 11. Ballade: " O praye for peace, sweet mayde Marie " 43 12. Rondeau : " Howe comely hath Godde made her be " 45 13. Rondeau : " Myne only love, my joye, my boone " 45 14. Ballade : " Within the forest of sadde wearinesse " 46 13. Rondeau : " Tyme hath throwne downe the robe he bare " 47 16. Rondeau : " Salute for me the fellowe-ship " 47 FRANCOIS VILLON (1431- ? ) 17. From the Greater Testament : "I knowe full well I am noe saynte ' ' 48 18. The Ballade of Lovely Ladyes of Long Agoe 49 vii viii CONTENTS FRANCOIS VILLON (continued) Page 19. From the Greater Testament : " X doe bemoan my youthful sinne " 5° 20. From the Greater Testament : "I give my bodye untoe her that gatte 5^ 21. Ballade made for his Mother that she mighte praye toe Our Ladye 52 22 Epitaph in ballade form written in expectation of being hanged 53 23. His owne Epitaph 54 MELLIN DE SAINT-GELAIS (1487-1558) 24. Of hys Ladye 55 MARGUERITE DE NAVARRE (1492-1549) 25. Dizain to Clement Marot 56 CLEMENT MAROT (1495-1544) 2fi. Dizain in answer to Marguerite of Navarre 56 27. Of the Abbot and his Valet 57 28. Song : " What evil woes dull Hate maye breede " 57 29. Song : "He who with a random eye " 58 30. Ballade of Maye and of Virtue 58 CHRISTOPHE PLANTIN (1514-1589) 31. Happinesse 59 BOOK II PONTUS DE TYARD (1521-1603) 32. Sonnet : " Sleepe, sire of rest and eke of dreams the^sire " 63 PIERRE DE RONSARD (1524-1585) 33. Sonnet : " Nowe that the skiey space, the solid claye " 63 34. Sonnet : " I send to thee a posie gathered " 64 35. Sonnet : ' ' You spiky gorse, you hollye thorn-beset ' ' 65 36. Sonnet : " On my return to thee (Ah me ! my woe) " 65 37. Sonnet : " Since she is frostye as the Winter aire " 66 38. Sonnet: "When thou art old and bye the fire alone" 66 39. To Cassandra : " O mayde more tender yet ' ' 67 40. Sonnet : " Here is the wood whereof my angel sweete " 41. Sonnet : " Not sunrise that doth sette the rose a-fire " 42. Sonnet :" As you maye see upon the stem in Maye " 43. On his choice of a Grave : " Caves, and streames 70 that downward slyde " 70 69 69 CONTENTS ' ix JOACHIM DU BELLAY (1525-1560) Page 44. Sonnet : "If Lyfe's full span be but a daye that's sped " 73 45. Sonnet : "Stranger that seekest Rome in Rome, and nought ' ' 74 46. Sonnet : " Not the wild wrath of flames that sky- ward shodt ' ' 74 47. Sonnet : " The Berecynthian in her chariot " 75 48. Sonnet: " Sleepe that most heavenlye of all boones is deemed " 75 49. Sonnet : " When I could taste (as nowe no more maye be) " 76 so. A .Thresher of Wheat to the Wyndes 77 51. Sonnet : "I hate the Florentines' pelf-huntynge race ' ' 77 52. Sonnet: " Happie is he that from a f aire voyage " 78 LOUISE LABE (1526-1566) 53. Sonnet: "While that myne eyes with woeful teares doe flood " 78 54. Sonnet : "Scarce on my yieldynge pillowe doe I bend " 79 REMI BELLEAU (1528-1577) 55. April 80 ESTIENNE PASQUIER (1529-1615) 56. Sonnet : " Thy sighte denied when deare to me " 83 OLIVIER DE MAGNY (1530-1SS9) 57. Sonnet : ' ' Happye the man beyonde the city's hail " 83 ESTIENNE JODELLE (I532-IS73) 58. Sonnet : " As one astraye within the forest deepe " 84 JEAN-ANTOINE DE BAIF (1532-1589) 59. Spring Song : " Idle Winter's colde " 85 GUY DE TOURS ( ? ) 60. Sonnet : "I have noe eyes save when on" her I looke" ' 87 JEAN DOUBLET ( ? ) 61. Song : " Meseemeth that see manye shafts be notte " 87 JEAN PASSERAT (1534-1602) 62. Ode for the Fyrst of Maye 88 63. Villanelle : " I have lost my turtle fleet " 89 64. On the Death of Thulfene the Kynge's Jester 90 VAUQUELIN DE LA FRESNAYE (i53S-i6«>7) 65. Song : " Love be mute, but take thyne arc " 91 -66. Sonnet : " O pleasant wynde whose balmye breath doth fill " 91 CONTENTS GUILLAUME DU BARTAS (1544-1590) Page 67. The Pyrenees 92 PHILIPPE DESPORTES (1546-1606) 68. Villanelle : " Rosette, because I stayed awaye " 93 69. Of a Fountayne 94 70. On the Death oi Diana 94 CATHERINE DES ROCHES (15S0-IS87) 71. Quatrain on Achilles 95 THEODORE-AGRIPPA D'AUBIGNE (15S1-1630) 72. Sonnet to the Kynge 95 BOOK III FRANCOIS DE MALHERBE (15SS-1628) 73. Consolation to M. de P€rier 99 74. On the Death of his Son 100 MADEMOISELLE DE GOURNAY (1566-1645) 75. Quatrain on a Picture of Joan of Arc loi MATHURIN REGNIER (1573-1613) 76. Stanzas loi 77. A Confession in brief 102 78. His own Epitaph 104 FRAN9OIS MAYNARD (i 582-1642) 79. " Howe faire a destiny 'twould be " 104 80. Epitaph 104 THEOPHILE DE VI AU (i 590-1626) 81. The Boatmen 105 MARC-ANTOINE DE SAINT-AMANT (1594-1661) 82. The Rising Sun 106 DENIS SANGUIN DE SAINT-PAVIN (1595-1670) 83. Epigram 107 VINCENT VOITURE (1598-1648) 84. Rondeau : "In good plain French " 108 PIERRE CORNEILLE (1606-1684) 85. Stanzas to the Marquise 108 PAUL SCARRON (1610-1660) 86. His own Epitaph jj^ ISAAC DE BENSERADE (1612-1691) 87. For Madame jj^ JEAN DE LA FONTAINE (1621-1695) 88. The Grasshopper and the Ant 89. The Rat who withdrew from the World 90. The Donkey loaded with Relics III 112 "3 CONTENTS x» JEAN DE LA FONTAINE (continued) Page 91. The Oak and the Reed 113 92. The Ass clothed in the Lion's Skin 114 JEAN-BAPTISTE POQUELIN DE MOLIERE (1622-1673) 93. To Monsieur Le Vayer on the Death of his Son 115 PHILIPPE QUINAULT (1635-1688) 94. The Song of Pluto 116 JEAN RACINE (1639-1699) 95. Hymn translated from the Roman Breviary 1 17 GUILLAUME AMFRYE, ABBE DE CHAULIEU (1639-1720) 96. To the Solitude of Fontenay 118 CHARLES RIVIERE DU FRESNY (1648-1724) 97. The Next Days 119 JEAN-BAPTISTE ROUSSEAU (1670-1741) " 98. Love 120 FRANCOIS-MARIE AROUET DE VOLTAIRE (1694-1778) 99. To Madame Lullin 120 100. To M. Gr€try 122 101. For a Statue of Love 122 102. On Jean Frerqn 122 PONCE-DENIS ECOUCHARD LEBRUN (1729-1807) 103. Dialogue between a poor Poet and'* the Author 122 JEAN-FRANCOIS DUCIS (1733-1816) 104. To my Brook , 123 EVARISTE DE PARNY (1754-1801) 105. On the Death of a YoUng Girl 124 ANDRE CHENIER (1762-1794) 106. A Young Man 125 107. To Chromis 125 108. Clytie 126 109. The Flute 126 110. The Nymph asleep 127 111. The Heifer 127 112. The Young Captive 127 MARIE-JOSEPH CHENIER (1764-1811) 113. Hymn : " Source of all truth, blasphemed by every liar" 129 ANTOINE-VINCENT ARNAULT (1766-1834) 114. The Dead Leaf 130 xii CONTENTS BOOK IV PIERRE-JEAN DE B^RANGER (1780-1857) Page 115. The Swallows I33 116. Vile Spring 1 I34 MARCELINE DESBORDES-VALMORE (1786-1859) 117' The Roses of Saadi I35 ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE (1790-1869) 118. The Lake 13^ 119. The Butterfly 138 120. Memory and Hope I39 121. The West 140 §MILE DESCHAMPS (1791-1871) 122. Do not believe 141 123. The Unknown 142 ALFRED DE VIGNY (1797-1863) 124. The Snow 143 125. The Shepherd's Hut 144 126. The Sound of the Horn 147 VICTOR HUGO (1802-1885) 127. The Song of the Prow-Gilders 149 128. Song : " Toward your scented garden. Sweet " 152 129. " Since from thy brimming chalice . . ." 152 130. Guitar Song 153 131. The Vision 156 132. Childhood 156 133. June Nights 157 134. The Sleeper's Prayer 157 135. The Grave and the Rose 158 136. " I will set out to-morrow ..." 158 137. "0 France, when thou art prone and bound " 159 138. The Children of the Poor 160 139. The Sower 161 140. The Bridge 162 141. Wintry Weather 163 142. The Swallow's Nest 163 143. On the Dunes 16^ 144. The Colossus of Rhodes 167 JULIEN-AUGUSTE-PELAGE BRIZEUX (1803-1858) 145. The Nest 167 146. The Night of the Dead 168 EVARISTE BOULAY-PATY (1804-1864) 147. The Bout i6p CONTENTS ^ xiH CHARLES-AUGUSTIN SAINTE-BEUVE (1804-1869) Page 148. Sonnet : " Sleepless upon my bed, my spirit's force" 170 AUGUSTE BARBIER (1805-1882) 149. The Idol 171 150. Michael Angelo 171 FELIX ARVERS (1806-1850) 151. Sonnet : " My soul doth g^ope, a darkened way I go " 172 GERARD DE NERVAL (1808-1855) 152. The Glorified 173 153. Fantasy 173 154. Sonnet : " Free-thinker I dost thou deem that only man " 174 155. El Desdichado 175 ALFRED DE MUSSET (1810-1857) 156. Ballad to the Moon 175 157. " Pale star of evening . . ." 179 158. Song : " Brave knight that to the war doth go " 180 159. On a Dead Girl 180 160. The Muse's Wooing 182 161. Consolation 182 162. Sorrow 183 163. Fortunio's Song 184 164. Song : " When men do fii'uj upon a day " 185 THEOPHILE GAUTIER (1811-1872) 165. Terza Rima 185 166. Boat Song 187 167. Art 188 168. The Qoud 190 169. Song : " The butterflies that are thejsnow's own hue " * 191 BOOK V VICTOR DE LAPRADE (1812-1883) 170. The Summits i95 LOUISE ACKERMANN (1813-1890) 171. Immortal Love 196 JOSEPHIN SOULARY (1815-1891) 172. The Two Roses i97 173. Vain Dreams ^97 174. The Scarecrow 198 LECONTE DE LISLE (1818-1894) 175. The Ravine of Saint^Gilles i99 176. Hialmar's Heart 201 xiv CONTENTS LECONTE DE LISLE (continued) Page 177. The Spring 203 178. Night 204 179. Tre Fila d'Oro 20S 180. The Black Panther 206 181. The Showmen 207 182. After a Thousand Years 208 183. The Lion's Death . 209 184. A Festival 209 185. Cameo ' 210 186. The Supreme Consummation 211 187. Noon 211 CHARLES BAUDELAIRE (1821-1867) 188. Beauty 214 189. Tlie Giantess 214 190. Twilit Harmony 215 191. My Former Life 215 192. The Pit 216 193. Hymn 217 194. Exotijg.Perfume 217 195. The Dead Mistress 218 196. Sin 2i8 197. Self-communing 219 198. Death ' 219 HENRI MURGER (1822-1861) 199. Memories 220 LOUIS BOUILHET (1822-1869) 200. Spring 221 LOUIS MENARD (1822-1901) - 201. Stoicism 222 THEODORE DE BANVILLE (1823-1891) 202. Ballade of the Forest Haunters 223 203. To the Font-Georges 224 204. To Th£ophile Gautier 227 205. " We'll go no more the woodland way ..." 228 EUGENE MANUEL (1823-1901) 206. The Cradle 229 ANDR]^ THEURIET (1833-1907) 207. The Vine in Blossom 229 ARMAND SILVESTRE (1837-1901) 208. The Venus of Milo 231 209. Immortality 232 210. Prometheus 232 LEON DIERX (1838-1912) 211. October Evening 233 212. Winter Day 233 237 238 CONTENTS XV ACHILLE MILLIEN (1838- ) Page 213. The Three Sisters 234 SULLY PRUDHOMME (1839-1907) 214. The Inheritor 2^"; 215. The Stranger 235 , 216. Bodies and Souls 2^6 217. The Great Bear 2?7 218. Chains ' 219. Hymn to Desire EMIL BL^MONT (1839- ) 220. The Fall of the Year 238 VILLIERS DE L'lSLE-ADAM (1840-1889) 221. Avowal 239 HENRI CAZALIS (1840-1909) 222. Storm in the Night 240 223. The Harps of David 241 224. For Ever 242 BOOK VI ST^PHANE MALLARM6 (1842-1898) 225. Apparition 247 226. Wind from the Sea 247 JOSE-MARIA DE H^R^DIA (1842-1905) 227. Centaurs' Flight 248 228. The Tepidarium 249 229. To a Triumpher 249 230. The Rose Window 250 231. On the Old Bridge 250 232. The Vision of Khem 251 233. Antique Coin 253 234. The Bath 253 235. Wind from the Sea 254 236. The Bed 254 FRANCOIS COPpiE (1842-1908) ' 237. The Ruined Heart 255 CATULLE MENDfes (1842-1909) 238. Consentment 255 239. Exhortation 257 240. Soror Dolorosa 257 PAUL VERLAINE (1844-1896) 241. Sonnet : " God spake and said ..." 258 242. " The sky above the roofing lies " 259 243. " O hearken the so gentle plaint " 259 b xvi CONTENTS PAUL VERLAINE (continued) Page 244. My Familiar Dream 260 245. Green 261 246. Autumn Song 262 247. ' ' Ere thy soft ray be lost " 262 248. Nevermore 26^ 249. A Forgotten Tune 264 250. Sonnet : "All through the day down poured the traitorous flame " 264 TRISTAN CORBI^RE (1845^1875) 251. Letter from Mexico 265 GEORGES BOUTELLEAU (1846- ) 252. The Avenue 266 253. The Wild Doves 267 GABRIEL VICAIRE (1848-1900) 254. Dream Song 268 255. Poor Liza 269 AUGUSTE ANGELLIER (1848-1911) 256. Sonnet Dedicatory 272 257. Sonnet : " Thus shall we live our separate lives unknit ' ' 273 JEAN RICHEPIN (1849- ) 258. The Song of the Gypsy Boy 273 259. Proud Sonnet 274 260. The Song of the Begging Cripple 275 261. The Beggar's Look 276 LOUIS TIERCELIN (1849- ) 262. Sunset at Kerazur 277 BOOK VII ARTHUR RIMBAUD (1851-1891) 263. Sensation 281 GEORGES RODENBACH (1855-1898) 264. " In tiny townships ..." 281 265. Gentleness of Evening 282 JEAN MOREAS (1856-1910) 266. A YoUng Girl's Song 283 267. Elegy ■ 283 268. " Cast down these lilies ..." 285 HENRI-CHARLES READ (1857-1876) 269. " I think that God . . ," 285 EDMOND HARAUCOURT (1857- ) 270. The Loveliest Verses 286 CONTENTS xvii AUGUSTE GAUD (1857- ) Page 271- The Song of the Rain 287 ALBERT SAMAIN (1858-1900) 272. " There sometimes come strange evenings ..." 288 273. Autumn 290 ■ 274 A Viol's Plaint 290 275. Cleopatra 291 276. Vigil 292 ANATOLE LE BRAZ (1859- ) 277. The Song of Ahes 292 CHARLES VAN LERBERGHE (1861-1907) 278. Offering to a Dead Friend 293 MAURICE MAETERLINCK (1862- ) 279. The Seven Maids of (^lamonde 294 GR^GOIRE LE ROY (1862- ) 280. Granny spins 294 STUART MERRILL (1863-1915) 281. Easter Song 295 282. " My brow is pale upon thy knees " 296 HENRI DE REGNIER (1864- ) 283. Apparition 297 284. The Secret 298 285. Experience 298 286. Odelette 299 287. On the Strand 300 FRANCIS VIELE-GRIFFIN (1864- ) 288. Song 300 ANDRi FONTAINAS (1865- ) 289. Sonnet : " Sea-road a-tremble where the dawn- light swoons " 301 ANDRE-FERDINAND HEROLD (1865- ) 290. Sonnet : " Beloved, all the dust has turned to flower" 302 291. Sonnet : " Now with the black grape's blood the barrels flow ' ' 302 ROBERT D'HUMIERES (1868-1915) 292. The Song of the Figure-Head 303 PAUL FORT (1872- ) 293. " This Girl is dead " 304 294 "What joy when flute and violin .. ." 304 HENRY BATAILLE (1872- ) 295. Eventimes 305 xviii CONTENTS ANDr6 RIVOIRE (187a- ) Page 296. "Pale and slow, in her summer's vesture so pale " 306 CAMILLE MAUCLAIR (1872- ) 297. The Garth 307 298. Questioning 308 FERNAND GREGH (1873- ) 299. " I have grieved too much . , ." 308 CHARI.RS GU^RIN (1873-1907) 300. Out of the Deep 309 NOTES . 311 INDEX OF AUTHORS 327 INDEX OF FIRST LINES 329 INTRODUCTION GENERAL IN a western suburb of London, at no great dis- tance from the coal-yards contiguous to the railway sidings of Paddington Station, may be seen a house bearing this motto in large letters above its doorway : " Ce qui doit Stre sera. " " What must be must," I rendered it on first passing, reading its message as that of a fatalist and stoic thinker. And then doubt assailed me. " What ought to be shall be," I varied it, at once turning its author into one not at all resigned to things as they are, but sworn heroically to make the right prevail. But further deliberation revealed the rightness of my first impres- sion, for the second interpretation would need de- vrait in place of doit to justify it. This example, how- ever, may stand as an illustration of the truth that, in translation, it is a small thing to know, etymologi- cally, the literal equivalent of foreign words, the important thing being to understand their intention', and to render their effect in your own way. " II s'est hvyili le cerveau " means " He blew out his brains," and to insist that hrvler means bmn is only to make nonsense of the phrase by suggesting that some one either worried himself into a brain-fever or worked himself into a passion. This being so with a simple prose statement, the* I A 2 FLEURS-DE-LYS matter is obviously ten times more intricate when we come to poetry, where subtleties of sound are to be reproduced and the sense preserved, while duly con- forming to the tyrannous exigencies of rhyme and metre. Let it be granted, at once, that it cannot be done ; but, since the whole reason of this book is the determination to attempt it, let us see how best to guard against futility. In Leoncavallo 'swell-known operetta " I Pagliacci" the strolling player invites the peasant rout to assemble for a performance a venti tre ore, the last word filling magnificently the swelling finale of the musical phrase to which it is wedded, and, by contrast with the meagre dignity of its bare meaning, achieving a fine effect of intentionally mock pomposity. In the English version of this the tenor is made to sing " at seven you're invited," and the translation is bad, not from any disparity of meaning, but because two hard dentals are made to replace a soft " r " which is hardly more than a liaison between two open vowels. And this is done to the great hurt of the singer and his hearers — ^who are in this case, surely, the only people whom such a version can concern. When we come to the translation of works of pure literature, and especially of poetry, the same difficulties persist, while the responsibilities of the translator are extended to a wider audience, and for more permanent reasons. In the case of the interpretation of French, which is undoubtedly the foreign language best known among our countrymen, the apparent easiness of translation hides one of the greatest pitfalls, for we have filched from our Gallic cousins a good round hundred of common words which we now use to express meanings a world away from those of their native intention, or, conversely, we have kept the meaning which the INTRODUCTION 8 Norman gave them, but which the modern Frenchman has forgotten or differently applied. The English translator who should set down grief, large, re- sume or spiritual as equivalents for the like words when found in his French text would produce a most unpardonable parody of his original. In other cases, where words common to the two tongues have retained identity of meaning, they are sometimes enhaloed by poetic suggestion in the one while con- noting no more than their bare prose meaning in the other, so that their retention in translation, however correct literally, would be no less of an outrage by reducing to a hireling's rank what should remain aloof and regal. It may, indeed, almost be taken as an axiom that words from a Latin or French source, so singularly apt for scientific exposition, from the exactness with which they define material substance or action, can never fitly be used in poetry, where words, to be effective, must carry us far beyond the limits of their dictionary schedtile, and bear with them the redolence of all the dead lips that have ever breathed them. To discover why it is that build and keep may go to the stirring of feelings that construct and preserve could never help to enkindle, would lead us into questions of psychology and the relation between language and racial senti- ment ; for the least cultured feel at once the incon- gruity of imported words when used in an appeal to those " simple, sensuous, and passionate " emotions that are at the bottom of all poetry. So that when the late Mr. John Payne, (to whose fine zeal and accomplishment all lovers of that splendid wastrel Frangois Villon are for ever beholden), writes "but I desist," we are conscious at opce of a dissonance which no plea of fidelity to the French " Je me d^siste" 4 FLEURS-DE-LYS can altogether palliate. No version of poetry, how- ever faithful, can be good which does not read like poetry : to reproduce a poet's precise wording is a very doubtful need, and in any case an impossible one ; to reproduce his effect may be done if we approach the task in prayer and fasting, steadily set on forget- ting his actual words as soon as we have mastered their meaning and got the massed sound of them tyrannously resonant in our ears. The best trans- lators of poetry are, indeed, those who are least scru- pulous of fidelity in detail ; they slur over the untrans- latable, and insinuate new words and turnings of the original thought that are so perfectly in tune with their originals as to render them far less haltingly than meticulous followers of the text. The classic example of the recasting of old matter in a new mould is, of course, Fitzgerald's rendering of the " Rubaiyat of Omar Khayydm," where, according to competent witness, the imaginative insight of the translator gave a new lease of life to a work which, on its native merits, was of quite secondary rank in the immortal choirs. The real task of a translator is that of re-creating, and unless he can bring to his original as much as he takes from it, he had far better leave it alone. To a strict scholar this definition of translatioa may appear to be just what translation is not ; but, though the makers of mere cribs have their uses, they are not such as concern permanent literature, nor do they help us at all to a relish of its savour. ^As an illustration of my argument, I take a sonnet by Josdphin Soulary, the well-known " RSves Ambi- tieux " : Si j'avaJs un arpent de sol, mont, val ou plaine, Avec un filet d'eau, torrent, source ou ruisseau. INTRODUCTION 5 J'y planterais un arbre, olivier, saule ou fr£ne, J'y batirais un toit, chatune, tuile ou roseau. Sur mon arbre, un doux nid, gramen, duvet ou laine, Retiendrait un chanteur, pinson, merle ou moineau ; Sous mon toit, un doux lit, hamac, natte ou berceau, Retiendrait une enfant, blonde, brune ou ch4taine. Je ne veux qu'un arpent ; pour le mesurer mieux, Je dirais k I'enfant la plus belle k mes yeux : " Tiens-toi debout devant le soleil qui se live ; " Aussi loin que ton ombre ira sur le gazon, Aussi loin je m'en vais tracer mon horizon " — Tout bonheur que la main n'atteint pas n'est qu'un r£ve. It appears at once that the longer-syllabled line of the French sonnet has a lightness and speed of rhythm that can in no wise be rendered by the staid ten- syllabled line of the English sonnet-form, while the customary French pronunciation of words with a terminal e, (when sung to music or recited in verse), unconsciously harking back to the penultimate em- phasis of their Italian forbears, gives to plaine, frine, laine, chdtaine, leve, and rSve an effect which is common to those rhymes in English known as double or feminine. Lastly, the sestet opens with an isolated couplet which cannot effectively be paralleled in the English sonnet-form, where such a pairing of rhymes is seldom met with save at the end. To sum up, we find that to give anything like a true echo of the poet's singing we must have (a) a longer line, (6) speedier movement, (c) an interspersion of feminine endings. We can hardly make tliese last rhyme as Soulary has done, for such terminals are scarcer in English, and if our lines were so yoked they would be sure to chafe noisily against the coupling. Nor will a right music be got by using the same number of syllables to each line, for English 6 FLEURS-DE-LYS lines are swayed by stress to a degree undreamt of in French prosody, and we cannot get lightness of movement without sharpness of accentuation. Next we find that the sentiment to be expressed is the renunciation of all worldly pomp and wealth for the humbler but more perdurable joys of the hearth- stone and heaven's free air. To render torrent, source ou ruisseau in English would sound queerly, for we have not that habit of nice differentiation which is always dominant in the best French, and in poetry especially we prefer to hint the thing by its effect rather than to state it specifically. Again, how shall we get the effect of homeliness if we speak of plant- ing an olive-tree in our imaginary domain ? Wuuld not such husbandry suggest to us the exotic and the sumptuary, known alone to the world that dawdles winter through on the Riviera, returning for the London season to the joys of the Row and the glories of a box at Covent Garden ? What would the author have said had he been English ? Thorn-bush, likely enough ; for it is a tree as common with us as olives in Provence, and the staple of those hedgerows that are one of our most widespread joys. And then enfant cannot be rendered simply by child, for its accompanying adjectives will not reveal the sex as do the French ones : lassie, however, will do this for us, and bring with it the right homely accent. Here, then, is our version : Had I but an acre of loam on hill or valley, Fed by a stream that fell or loitered by. There I'd plant an ash-tree, a thorn-bush or a willow, There I'd build a low roof between me and the sky. On my tree a soft nest, feather-lined or woqlly. There should hold a singing-bird — sparrow, finch or merle ; Underneath my own roof, a baimie in the cradle Garlanding the pillow with her brown or yellow curl. INTRODUCTION 7 All I want's an acre ; and so to measure rightly, I would take the lassie bonniest to me ; " Stand thou uprightly " — so should be my bidding — " Front the rising sunbeam." So, surely should I see, " Far as thy shade on the grassy levels printed, Just so far my faring, no farther than the shade's " — All the lure of bliss that's far beyond fulfilment Holds no more for me than a fickle dream that fades. And if these few precepts seem to have failed me in my own practice, I would still say with the preacher, " Do as I say, if not as I do," pnly bidding the trans- lator bring a better skill to the exploit. II PARTICULAR THIS much was written before the following col- lection had been achieved, and it soon became evident to the writer that he was giving but random heed to his own precepts. To take the first point, it is obvious that a rondeau, a ballade, or a villanelle cannot properly be rendered without fidelity to its original form. And despite the example given above, the same rule must generally hold good for the sonnet ; and he would be a bold man who should dare to render Heredia otherwise than in a sequence of eight and six. And where anything in the nature of a refrain appears (as in the stanzas by Samain towards the end of the collection) no version can hope to achieve a right effect without reproducing the premeditated monotony of the original recurrent lines. Next, it is certainly true in many cases that words of foreign origin are more, rather than less, effective than those of home growth. Furnace is more apt 8 FLEURS-DE-LYS to suggest a spacious horror than oven, which calls up only a domestic and somewhat trivial image, though the words be in their root-meaning synony- mous. In brief, everything depends upon the sugges- tion to be conveyed, the nearness or remoteness, whether in time or space, of the atmosphere, and the degree of intimacy or aloofness which the poet puts into the pitch of his voice. Though my aim has not been to reproduce what has been often, (and always falsely), termed "a line-for- line rendering in the original metre," I must confess to having found it easier to achieve something that is nearer this misleading definition than the more valuable recasting prefigured above. And that is only another way of saying that it is easier to be a scholar than a poet, and a repetition of the disclaimer implied in my sub-title. So much that is good, (at times unsurpassably so), has been done by Lang, Wyndham, Robertson and others in the past, and by Miss Margaret Jourdain, Mr. Eugene Mason and Mr. Arthur Symons among living workers, (notto mention the occasional triumphs of original poets from Spenser to Swinburne, or of those who have been content to gather from a single furrow of the poetic field), that the present collection must argue some temerity in its maker ; but it had never^been attempted had not the difficulties of antho- logizing the best versions by other hands been found so nearly insuperable as to lead to despair in the undertaking. Here is an attempt at a representative choice, but the judicious will see that the translator has done what he could rather than what he would, and has sometimes given better credit to the small singer than to the great one. The omission of Ron- sard's " Mignonne, allons voir si la rose," Vigny's INTRODUCTION 9 " Cor," and Leconte de Lisle 's " Elfes," (to cite but three among many missing masterpieces), is a tribute to their great qualities rather than a slighting of them. The high proportion of sonnets has seemed justified by the large output and high quality shown in this form throughout nearly the whole period since its introduction, (even Fontenelle writing a good one) ; for nothing could be more grotesquely untrue than the casual judgment given by the late William Sharp in his introduction to "Sonnets of this Century," But it may be legitimately considered a failing in that some numbers have won their places more d titre de document than by intrinsic worth, (either in their original form or in the version offered), and have no better plea for their inclusion. I am sorry for it, but hope that the short period of Lenten fare offered to readers by the products of the seventeenth and eigh- teenth centuries, (to which the consensus of cultivated opinion in France gives an importance which we cannot well understand), may only whet their appe- tites for the rich banquet of the last century. That this period occupies more than one-half of the book would be alone justified by the great names that figure in it ; but an epoch of almost universal literacy, while diminishing the chance of our losing any ' ' mute inglorious Milton," renders articulate, if not greater poets, certainly a greater number of them and a more diversified music. Of the work of nearly contem- porary writers it can hardly be hoped that the choice here given will be generally considered quite repre- sentative ; but it is so difficult to keep rightly informed and critically aloof amid the trumpeting and dis- paragement of rival clans whose activities seem only to bewilder the native doctors, that a mere foreigner may be forgiven for including frankly what happens 10 FLEURS-DE-LYS « to appeal to him, and keeping a barred door whenever the originals seemed to belie their fame or baffle his understanding, or whenever, more happily effectual, he could make no approvable rendering of the beauty they brought him. In this section, moreover, the copyrights of authors and their publishers have made impossible an unre- stricted choice, (already hampered in respect of several Belgian authors by the German occupation of their country, which precluded all negotiation with them) ; but I am glad to acknowledge here the courtesy and kindness of MM. Anatole le Braz, Andr6 Fontainas, Paul Fort, Auguste Gaud, Fernand Gregh, Andr6-Fer- dinand Harold, Camille Mauclair, Henri de Regnier, and Francis Viel6-Griffin, who have allowed me to print versions of their poems ; of Mr. Bernard Miall, the authorized English translator of the poems of M. Maeterlinck, and of his publishers, Messrs. Methuen, who confirm his leave to print my one version from the work of that author ; of M. Alphonse Lemerre for a like confirmation in respect of a poem by M. Gaud ; of M. Edmond Gu^rin, representing the late Charles Guerin ; of M. Albert Mockel, representing, (alone), the late Charles Van Lerberghe and, (jointly with M. Herold), the late Stuart Merrill ; of Mile. Louise Read, representing the late Charles Henri Read ; of Mme.Vve. Robert d'Humieres, representing her late husband ; and, finally, of M. Alfred Valette, whose unstinting generosity has enabled me to repre- sent a round score of the poets originally presented to the French public by the Mercure de France. The dates of first publication have been carefully collated, and it is believed that no piece here appearing lacks proper sanction ; but if, by inadvertence, I should still have taken " French leave," I trust that no un- INTRODUCTION 11 kindness may interpret it as an attempt to filer d I'anglaise — for I should esteem it an honour for my book to heal feuds rather than to hasten them, and to be a small sign of the sealing in fast friendship of two peoples now drawn closer in a great trial. III HISTORICAL SAVE for a few numbers appearing as outriders to the procession, and in proof of its anticipation and due heralding, the following pages contain only versions of that poetry which in the widest sense can properly be said to belong to modern French Literature — ^to the literature, that is to say, which is definitely freed from the mediaeval bondage both as regards the language employed and the imaged world in which it delights to move. The two poets who inaugurate this period are in many ways typical of the two sharply distinguished classes into which men were then divided — ^the servitor, (as distinguished from the serf), and the overlord or patron. Charles d'Orl^ans, (1391-1465), the earlier of the two, (and at least a casual patron of the later and unthrifty one), was of the blood royal, and begot a child who became King of France as the twelfth Louis. Born of an Italian mother, the talented Valentine of Milan, he wholly lacked that implaca- bility of worldly pride necessary in an heir to great power. A child when his father was murdered by the Burgundians who challenged his kingship, he seems thereafter to have been no more than flotsam on the tide of political influence of which he should more 12 • FLEURS-DE-LYS properly have been the controller. Simple, melan- choly and refined, so far as any one may judge by the wistfulness and most delicate nicety displayed in the medley of laments, prayers, billets-doux, and catches which he has left us, he must have been ill at ease at Azincourt, where he was taken prisoner, being borne thence to England to spend twenty-five years as a hostage of war. His work, cast almost wholly in the very restricted form of the ballade and the rondeau, is seldom less than pretty, while at times perfect ease and aptness of language wedded to sincere, if not very profound, feeling, justify his outstanding impor- tance in the history of a literature that was feeling its way toward a fixed form and a common vocabulary. As was but likely from his station in the world and the tradition of his upbringing, his glance was held rather by the waning glamour of the mediasval age from which men were just then emerging, and his gentle muse finds her best delight in pathways worn for her by its ritual, in a certain sense of courtly behaviour and the unspoiled relish of good fellowship and good cheer. It was these two things of which Fran9ois Villon, (1431- ? ), knew but little, if we may judge by the poems which he left behind him, (nearly all of them being directly or implicitly autobio- graphical), evil fellowship and a bare platter having generally fallen to the lot of this thriftless dependent of Guillaume, priest of the parish of Villon, whose name by adoption he bore. Death as the pitiless pursuer is his predominant theme, and it is not, perhaps, going too far if we explain this obsession by the accidents of a vagabond existence in which the sharp spur of hunger drove him to burgling or the slitting of throats. It may be, of course, that he was wastrel in fibre, and blamed fortune (in ballade metre) INTRODUCTION 18 for ills that were due rather to his own evil impulse or instability. However that may be, whatever he wrote bears with it something of a stark sincerity that makes nearly all the work of his contemporaries and forerunners seem no more than pretty fooling. The vagrom feelings which they tangled in a network of nimble conceits Villon felt in his very marrow, and set down wholly without ceremonial trappings ; so that, in spite of being v^itten in a slang common in his day on the lips of cut-throats and street harpies, his work is far and away the most vital produced in his lifetime, or indeed during the hundred years that preceded or that followed it. It is full of the cutting humour of self-contempt and self-pity, with a good deal of sly railing against those betters of whom, as a Master of Arts of the University of Paris, he might once have been counted the equal. The next hundred years produced no real poet in the sense of creator, though there were a great number of skilled adapters and translators, and in that field of satirical, didactic, allegoric, and dramatic poetry which lies outside our present scope, there were writers of solid worth. Deriving a great deal from all of these, Clement Marot, (1495-1544), exhibited his nimble talent in verses of nearly every kind, the best being, perhaps, the witty dialogues and epigrams full of fine malice and a lively dramatic sense. The learned Mellin de Saint-Gelais, (1487-1558), himself the son of a very learned rhsrming bishop, was a writer of occa- sional verse, and won fame rather from the importance of the people to whom it was addressed than from its intrinsic worth. But he grafted the Italian sonnet on to the stem of FrenchJiterature, and in this form were wrritten the greater number of the pieces produced by his immediate successors, who, headed by Pierre de 14 FLEURS-DE-LYS Ronsard, (1524-1585), produced some of the supremest lyrical poetry of which France can boast, all athrob with the triumphant ardour of the Renaissance spirit, which found a new heaven on earth, and another never- failing in the life of antiquity. With a small band of fellow songsmiths calling themselves the " Pleiade," he launched his poetical manifesto " La Defense et Illustration de la Langue Frangaise," in 1549, bearing the signature of Joachim du Bellay, (1525-1560), who, next to himself, was easily the most important poet of the group. This so-called " Defense " boldly took the offensive, inveighed against the mechanical forms of the ballade and the rondeau, and urged writers to the study of Greek and Latin both for the finding of their subjects and the enrichment of their vocabulary, while counselling the abandonment of mere transla- tion. While it must be granted that, in spite of his too plethoric output and a classicism both of subject and vocabulary at times but ill-digested, Ronsard was a supremely perfect singer, he can hardly be acclaimed as of that small clan of great poets whose minds are as great as their music, so that their words lodge deeply in us when the music of them has gone by. His main theme, paraphrased by Herrick in " Gather ye rosebuds while ye may," recurring incessantly with a sameness of physical imagery, finishes by suggesting the enervation of mere bodily sickness. It is true that the idea is expressed with such perfect tenderness of suggestion in one or two pieces that these must be read as long as French is known. He has also an. astonishing vigour in giving a living intensity to subjects apparently trite, as in the sonnet in which he proposes to read Homer in three days, or in that other, (triumphantly rendered with so many more by the late George Wyndham), which closes with INTRODUCTION 16 two lines admirably illustrating his masterly ease in flashing a sudden glamour on the vision — As lightning leaps a moment and is lost, Or as a cloud wanes out upon the wind. There is in him, too, an extraordinary sense of physical delight in natural phenomena, such as is only grante'd to the incorruptible innocence of vision enjoyed by those great artists in whom the springs of childish wonder are never quenched. Du Bellay, like his friend, was a man of high lineage, and accompanied his cousin the Cardinal on a mission to Rome. Thence came the series of impressive sonnets, some of which were translated with amazing fidelity by his great contemporary Edmund Spenser, and with such perfect propriety of contemporary idiom as no modern writer can hope to come near. Du Bellay died at thirty-five and left far less than Ronsard, but he wrote little that is not exceedingly fine in that word's more primitive meaning ; he is easily the most spiritual of the Pleiade, and touched the stops of more various quills than any of his fellows. Sonnets of love, of austere meditation, of religious musing, and of sharpest satire all came from his pen. If we never get with him the hint of coarseness which the more amorous Ronsard but thinly veils, we also find no hint of that robust delight in mere physical well- being which can so transfigure the material world. With Philippe Desportes, (1545-1606),. who after Ronsard 's passing took first rank as arbiter of poetic taste, we find already Strong signs of the head getting the better of the heart, of emotion being ousted by wit. The complete iconoclast arrived in Malherbe, (1555-1628), who, notwithstanding that his best lines owe everything to that very style of which Ronsard 16 FLEURS-DE-LYS had been the sire, declared truceless war on the '• P16iade " and all its works, and insisted on verse as regular in construction and as undeviating in sequence of idea as a proposition of Euclid. He and his fol- lowers doubtlessly produced fine literature of their own kind, but it is almost wholly without the lyric quality, unless the stateliness of ceremonial pomp be deemed synonymous with it. The luxurious woods and fields of Ronsard were all pruned to the semblance of a trim parterre, and set with marble n3rmphs that never felt the flutter of a human pulse. The wanton heed and giddy cunning of the lyric poet became the splendidly null perfection of the performer by rote. Corneille, (1606-1684), and Racine, (1639-1699), Boileau, (1636-1711), and Voltaire, (1694-1778), are all great names in the history of French verse, and at least the two first-named rank as supremely fine artists in their own domain of abstract sentiment divorced from human personality. Their poetry is the flower of a social order by which its expression was very strictly constrained within limits forbidding the incoherence and forthrightness, (and therefore the verisimilitude), of overmastering passion. It is the literature of an aristocratic reserve that is horrified by anything suggestive of a " mauvais ton," and, despite the strength of several subsequent revolutions, many are the Frenchmen whose taste is still bound by its tenets. This is curiously illustrated by the sure signs of their present-day idolaters, for whom they stand as symbols of the old tradition which they love, while the iconoclasts regard them as the discredited oracles of a creed outworn. But the strictness, (not to say narrowness), of thought, and consequently of its literary garb, which culminated in Voltaire, while inducing the nimbleness and circumspection proper INTRODUCTION 17 to a tight-rope walker, allowed the poet to move only within as narrow a compass and with as unnatural a gait. The wine of Ronsard's undeniably heady vintage grew steadily drier until it became literally the vin-aigre of the cynical Voltaire. La Fontaine, (i 621-1695), alone knew how to move easily and with natural grace among the sublime commonplaces that become intolerable unless presented to us insinuatingly and with graphic sureness ; but nothing really gives us any savour of the earth-sprung grape until we come to Andr^ Chenier, (1762-1794), who, born at Constan- tinople of a Greek mother, reclothed the antique legends and idyls in his father's tongue, and died on the scaffold ere his genius had come to full fruition. Using the old rhyming French alexandrines exclu- sively for these classical subjects, he yet treated them so freshly and gave them such a flavour of sharp delight as to make them as real and as vivid as last night's flower-haunted ballroom or this morning's foursome on the links. With the dawn of the nineteenth century came a splendour of poetical talent far exceeding all the previous glories of French literature. Alphonse de Lamartine, (1790-1869), the first-bom of the new galaxy leading the romantic revival which derived from Rousseau and Chateaubriand, (and hardly less from the poets of our own land), wrote lines of a lyric sweep and moral elevation unsurpassed by any of his forerunners, and but seldom equalled by his followers. He never made a metier of poetry, which was no more than a by-product of his diplo- matic and political occupations, so that while his verses are full of flaws and not exempt from the ready- made images of the old classical school, there is little that is not suffused with vital feeling— far more feeling, B 18 FLEURS-DE-LYS indeed, than the subject-matter seems sometimes to justify. Though he is brimful of pure religion breathing household laws, it is Byron rather than Wordsworth who was his conscious exemplar among the English poets, his admiration, (as later with de Musset), leading him to assume, with an attitude somewhat ludicrously self- conscious and austere, the tinsel-woven mantle of his romantic forerunner. But he sang nobly the alliance between man and the hills that overshadow and the homes that shelter him ; he first made articulate in French poetry, (what in his own majestic way Chateau- briand had already done in prose), the feeling of pious awe for nature as the arena for heroic exploits or the stern corrector of mean ones ; and if he is but little read by the present generation, it is due to the more scientific temper of our time, which resents that particular form of vanity in which its possessor imagines himself the chosen confident and mouth- piece of the Almighty. Veneration for the foyer, for the earth as God's footstool, and threshold of a life eternal and beyond human vicissitude, may sum up the whole of a really noble achievement that in our day is apt to be obscured by our keener appetite for what is frankly of the earth or even heaven-defying. Alfred de Vigny, (1797-1863), is somewhat difficult to place, for though undoubtedly of the Romantic movement, he was never swept away by its main current. By its lofty austerity and contempt of cir- cumstance his work is in sharp contrast to the rather lachrymose parade of self-pity common to Lamartine and de Musset, and links him to the Parnassi2ms, whose work was a counterblast to theirs. English influence counted for much in his development. His INTRODUCTION 19 version of " Othello " was given at the Theatre Fran^ais four years after his marriage to an English wife, (a union which repeated, less happily, a like experiment made by Lamartine), and a year earlier than the historic production of Hugo's " Hernani." This, together with his " Chatterton " and the medise- valism of " Le Cor," classes him with his Romantic contemporaries and shows that wistful regard for old, unhappy, far-off things And battles long ago, which awoke with the dawn of Romanticism, and reminds us that a Gothic revival went hand-in-hand with it. On the other hand, the curious mysticism of " La Maison du Berger " and other pieces has caused him to be claimed as an ancestor of the Symbolists. Victor Hugo, (1802-1885), son of a general of the first empire, despite his lack of humour, his vanity and his verbosity, is the greatest poet that France has produced, whether for depth and variety of utterance or for mastery of expression. If he failed as novelist and dramatist through his cardinal lack of detach- ment and restraint, he won his right to a place among the few supreme singers of the world by his work as a lyric, and especially as an epic poet. As the former but few French poets can equal him in any given kind, while none can approach his variety either in subject or in amazing polyphony of orchestration, though it must be admitted that in some of the finer shades of sensibility, (or, more truly, perhaps, of tact in treating of them), he is wanting, and sometimes blows his own trumpet so hard as to produce a cracked blast. As an epic poet dealing with historical events still rife in his own land and time, no one can approach him either in his own tongue or in ours, unless we name 20 FLEURS-DE-LYS one who, dealing with remoter happenings, did in dramatic what Hugo did in narrative poetry, and set him beside that Shakespeare who shone for him as a beacon in the earlier years of the Romantic revolt which he led. Producing throughout the whole period of a long life like a river in spate, his faults are those of superabundance and never of stinting. With his agility of thought and of language, (the second too often and too obviously conditioning the first), he will dazzle with a dozen swift images where a single one had helped to clearer vision. Not till the burden of grief or of wrath lay heavily on him did he com- pletely cast off the shackles of his rhetoric to give the world the heart-cry that sounds in his dirge for his dead daughter, or in his righteous onslaught agsunst the usurping Napoleon III, whose coming drove him into exile for twenty years. His superb ' ' Expiation, ' ' with its astoundingly graphic description of the retreat from Moscow and the rout of Waterloo, in a rhyming alexandrine of such masterly rhythm and balance as to make it seem like a new measure after four cen- turies of hard usage, is sufficient to set him among the great epic poets of all time. Not merely does he flash on the mind's eye such pictures as Les bless€s s'abritaient dans le ventre Des chevaux morts ; au seuil des bivouacs desoI6s On voyait des clairons k leur poste gel€s, Rest^s debout, en selle et muets, blancs de givre, CoUant leur bouche en pierre aux trompettes de cuivre, but the mental agony is seized and set down with equal intensity, Et, chacun se sentant mourir, on £tait seul. It is as though he were so saturated with his subject that the direct expression of what he felt were enough INTRODUCTION 21 to ensure truth to the psychology of it. Those four lines beginning // neigeait within the first twenty, and the quiet, laconic, almost ironic couplet with which each section concludes, have the exalted restraint and clarity of supreme art, and strike on the imagination with all the force of concentred and calculated blows. It may be that the historical per- spective is wrong, but posterity is apt to be indifferent to such considerations in view of the sublimity of the poetical vista. What he had done for an age in " Les Chatiments " he achieved for the history of mankind in "La L^gende des Slides." Unquenchable compassion for all human suffering and misdoing, with unquestioning faith in man's high destiny, throbs throughout every- thing he wrote ; but he wrote so much, under such immediate pressure of events, and with such simple belief in his prophetic infallibility, that we may be forgiven for applying to so voluble a singer the words of Omar, and asking if he was always sober when he swore. But the epic Hugo lies without the scope of this volume, if, indeed, not beyond the reach of any translator's art, and I can do no more than offer a mingled posy of his lighter blooms. Gerard de Nerval, (1808-1855), who rendered " Faust " into French very finely, represents the Germanic influence in the Romantic movement of which his own life was by way of a parody, though far from being so meant. A mystic by temperament, he fell on mental disorder and committed suicide, but not before he had coloured the stream of French poetry with a strange and magical infusion with which the work of the later Symbolists was to blend. Alfred de Musset, (1810-1857), started by following in the footsteps of the early and more narrowly 22 FLEURS-DE-LYS romantic Hugo, and later, less happily, by playing at being Byron, dans sa tristesse altiere. Voluptuous, wittyj an incurable " gamin " who had played with fire and forbidden fruit from adolescence, at twenty-three he fell in with George Sand, six years his senior, escaped from the marriage yoke and already a known flouter of convention by free unions with lovers of her choice. Together they set out for Italy, where continual quarrels, Musset's illness, and George Sand's infidelity with a new-found lover in the doctor who attended him, culminated in rupture, the young poet returning to Paris unaccompanied. This crisis in his life provides the background to all that he subsequently wrote, and its exploitation roused the scorn of Leconte de Lisle, (1818-1894), a^^d the Parnas- sians, who held with him that poetry should treat of abstract beauty and rise above the stress of private sorrows and their lamentation. As the triumphs and failures of Hugo are largely incident to his position au centre de tout comme un £cho sonore, SO the attitude of Leconte de Lisle bespeaks supreme isolation from the turmoil of humanity, and a horror of that quality of emotion which is facile to grovel or exult, and is quite foreign to any feeling of shame in its self-exposure. In this he begets the great awe and little love that is given to our own aloof Milton, whom also he resembles in the elaboration of his descriptive passages, in his vast array of classical and far-sought illustration, and in a certain monotony of ponderous diction, though, like the great Puritan, he can on occasion surprise us by a shy sally of lyrical song. It is unfortunate that he never condescends INTRODUCTION 28 to a footnote or the simplification of his classical or exotic terminology ; for a vast deal of his work assumes in the reader a knowledge of the world's sagas from Iceland to Ceylon, and a close acquain- tance with the strange flora and fauna of the tropic zones to which the poet was himself native and amid which he delighted to move. He strove to see all life as an imposing spectacle, himself standing aloof ; but the very deliberation of this attitude renders intenser the emotion conveyed in certain poems which betray his discovery of himself as an agonist in the human drama he had affected to ignore. Beside him, though by chronology and early associations he was allied for a while to the Romantics, we must set Th^ophile Gautier, (1811-1872), who, beginning life as a painter, has the keen eye for the form and colour of material things which distinguishes the school. They regarded rhyme with reverence as both spur and bridle to Pegasus, and the stricter the bonds the more they rejoiced in them. So we find with them, as with de Banville, (1823-1891), and Heredia, (1842-1905), continual cultivation of such forms as the sonnet, " terza rima," and ballade. They are united, too, in their devotion to antiquity and their hatred of the Middle Ages and the religion identified with the mortification of the sinful flesh, which they preferred to regard as in itself godly. Leconte de Lisle stands for a more deliberate reaction against the extrava- gcUicies of Hugo, against his anthropomorphism that saw God's steely glance in every sunbeam and setting a snare about men's feet for ever stumbling between purgatory and paradise ; he expresses the revolt of a pessimist who had little faith in man and none in Providence, whose highest aim was to endure nobly and without complaining till welcome death should 24 FLEURS-DE-LYS make him one with the glorious but insensible world in which he dwelt as in exile or in expiation. The practice of the school seldom fell below its Spartan precepts, and if Hugo has full need of that indulgent law whereby posterity agrees to remember only what is deathless in a writer's output, these four may almost be allowed to forgo its benefits. The fastidious art of Gautier is the product of a pleasure-loving mind of meridional temper that, robust of appetite for the good things and the smooth things, and the elegant trifles and amenities of human life, was yet the more aghast at the thought of the " abhorred shears " ; and, shrinking from present realities, (other than plastic ones), sought what a modern critic has well called " an escape from life " in the contemplation and practice of his art. So, perfect craftsman though he is, he cannot be admitted to supreme rank. But his peculiar quality of visual exactitude, (Especially in landscape), served to strengthen the predilection of the Parnassians who followed him ; his feeling for delicate detail was like a spring rain to the seed of de Banville's fancy ; and his shiver at corruption passed into the shudders that, with deeper feeling and sublimer imagery, became articulate in Baudelaire. De Banville is the will-o'-the-wisp of French poetry; he links the lightest of fancies and the slightest of emotions into a gossamer of rhyme ; his thought is as flimsy as may be, and his emotion a light wanton obedient to the beck and call of his line endings ; but his winsome grace and freshness make such considera- tions appear wholly insidious and irrelevant while we are under the spell of their delightful artifice. It is doubtful whether any single poet heis ever reached such high rank as Heredia with so small a volume of work. His emotion is mainly that of a INTRODUCTION 25 connoisseur — a calm intensity of detached delight in no way involving the heart's surrender — and it is expressed in pondered artistry of the most exquisite kind. He will give you a whole civilization in a sonnet, but only because he has first become steeped in the sentiment of its era, especially as shown by its visual embodiment in forms of material pomp and magnificence. As Hugo in " La L^gende des Siecles ' ' had given us a series of historical pictures from the dawn of Time down to the era of the great Napoleon, so Leconte de Lisle, seeking more exotic themes, and without Hugo's preoccupation with what the younger poet would have termed " sham and sensuous reli- giosity," gave us a series of heroic frescoes drawn in hard, stupendous outline by an artist almost inhumanly impassive, who sat as God holding no form of creed But contemplating all, and recording phenomena with Olympian detachment and completeness. It is Heredia's glory to have filled in these outlines with the richest of colouring and the most elaborate ornamentation, for of Leconte de Lisle 's cardinal part he is but the development and culmination, gathering in intensity and concentration what he loses in range and scope. There is hardly a flaw in any of the hundred and eighteen sonnets which, (with two longer but less important narrative pieces), fill his only volume.^ Each sonnet presents a complete picture to which every word adds a touch of colour, and if, after persistent reading, the manner of its making becomes a little obvious, and the manoeuvring preliminary to the triumphant rally of his fourteenth line ceases to impose upon the reader, that is perhaps no more than an inherent defect of the 26 FLEURS-DE-LYS restricted medium in which he chose to write. Noon on the Nile two thousand years ago, Siesta in the tropic sunlight, Hannibal musing after victory, the Samurai full-armed for battle, are seen and set down with such intense clarity and completeness that each sonnet might be termed an alembic holding in little all the essentials of an epoch. His work sometimes suffers from a too aboriginal delight in mere gauds and the unattainably expensive, (just as a thousand visitors to the Tower will stand agape over the Crown jewels for one who will examine the graving of human sorrow on its walls) ; so that one sonnet will sound like a rhymed inventory of some antique looter for whom no item is a token of noble living now made dust, while another will paint the lily and gild the gold of sunrise at Constantinople with such extrava- gance of hue that the result is at once magnificent and preposterous. From this failing his master's abiding sense of futility restrained him. Allied to these 'by a scrupulous devotion to form was Charles Baudelaire, (1821-1867), whose aesthetic sensibility went along with a curious spirit of analysis which he shared with Edgar Alan Poe, whose tales he translated. He was fond of experimenting in the morbid, and in the end fell a victim to his appetite for sensation, his death being a happy release from the mental paralysis which had overwhelmed him. Like Poe, he saw the skeleton at every feast with a vision unthwarted by the beauty that enthralled him — a beauty whose flame consumes the soul that it illumines, making victims of its adorers. The two were akin again in their fondness for recurrent lines, like the restless haunting of accusing voices, though it is true that this may have been suggested to Baude- laire by the Malay " pantoum," a form to which INTRODUCTION 27 Leconte de Lisle also subdued his lofty mind. As the creator of mental images through the medium of the most superfine nervous sensations, he is one of the most direct forerunners of the Symbolists. Though nervous sensibility vvrought havoc on his fleshly part, his spiritual gaze never lost sight of the reality that lies behind appearances ; and if he was the conscious slave to them, the real man, (in spite of a blatant dissembling), was a rebel to the bondage, and could not wholly stifle the cry that sounds ever and anon like Faust's in bitter anguish for his bartered heaven. Born of a sire already turned three-score, the pride of the flesh and the delight of the eye tortured him with a wild appetite for conquests that were beyond the enjoyment of his impoverished blood : hence came the superb allure and strange nostalgia of forbidden fruit that haunt his verses ; hence too in bitter spite, perhaps spurred on by the inarticulate presentiment of an early exhaustion, came the joyless quest of emotional excesses that led only to satiety. To the Parnassian school belongs also Sully Prud- homme, (1839-1907), by his adherence to strict form, though we must agree with Leconte de Lisle that he is not quite " de la maison," owing to his exploitation of those intimate heart-searchings which his great chief regarded with so much disfavour. One of the most typical poets of his time, without any marked endowment of lyrical power, but with extreme sensi- bility and ^perfect craft and delicacy of self-analysis, he was able to express with touching sincerity the ordeal of a soul despairing of guidance in a world which had lost its power of trusting the old sanctions and prohibitions in which present happiness and eternal salvation were once to be found. Endowed with all the facility and adaptability which Sully 28 FLEURS-DE-LYS Prudhomme lacked, Catulle Mendes, (1842-1909), might have often achieved greatness had he shown the strength and stubbornness proper to an original mind that beats out its own music without stooping to mimic its betters. His house was, towards 1866, a rallying-point for all those who marched under the Parnassian banner ; he married a daughter of Gautier, and shared the faith which he continued to profess, (if not always to practise), even down to 1900, when he wrote : Car il n'est poeme au parfait aloi Qui ne soit la fleur d'une stricte loi, Car mime le vol infini de I'aigle Suit k travers cieux I'orbe d'une rigle. Paul Verlaine, (i 844-1 896), began as a Parnassian, but was afterwards regarded as the leader of the Symbolist school that aimed at the greatest freedom as regards prosody and pretended to set down nothing as a mere fact but everything as a symbol of something beyond itself. Absolute surrender to the vagrom mood without the sophistication of any con- scious moral or intellectual purpose beyond its sincere and melodious expression was the whole of his gospel ; and to him the symbolism was really no more than incidental and implied, phenomena taking on what- ever character the momentary emotion of the singer imputed to them. It fitted the man who was impul- sive as a child, and subject to sensuous iml>ressions and suggestions, to sudden passions, devotions, angers and sorrows, celestial and of the slime, which the normal man outgrows. Baudelaire's Je haie le mouvement qui dfplace les lignes did not allow that unquestioning compliance with the stress and urgency of feeling which Verlaine demanded INTRODUCTION 29 of the Muse. His was a more comfortable doctrine for those who would shirk the austires £tudes on which the elder poet insisted ; but its right applica- tion required a fineness of sensory perception and a responsiveness thereto which can hardly survive childhood, together with enough intelligence to render it significant, and a wealth of metrical invention beyond all reckoning. Child as he was, and musical as a reed, even Verlaine but seldom fulfilled all these conditions ; nor did he ever practise such metrical freedom as the theory seems to predicate. His work is remarkable for its naive candour of close confidence, which makes every poem a bulletin of the sick soul as surely as the medical chart above a sick man's pillow serves to that end for his ailing body. Only his grace and sincerity save him from being intolerably maudlin, and make his appeal as difficult to resist as the babble of a repentant child. The poetry of moods and sensations, the creation of atmosphere without any care for coherence, was the too consciously cultivated purpose of the Symbo- list Stephane Mallarmd, (1842-1898), most of whose writings mean nothing at all or suggest everything, according as you read them or into them — ^whatever you will. Here it is not the emotion that dominates the fancy and creates it ; but to the wanderings of rudderless fancy you must fit whatever emotions seem best to give purpose to their erratic course. It is somewhat like watching the gestures of a man through a pane of frosted glass without knowing the room that is behind it nor the occupation of its tenant, and trying to guess what is the matter that holds him there and the purpose of his movements. In form 30 FLEURS-DE-LYS Mallarm6 is Parnassian ; but he so clouded the Pierian spring before sipping from it that it is difficult for any but a neophyte not to find in his work an elaborate form of blague, not the less mischievous for the fact that he was himself the dupe of it. His sin as a poet, (for his earlier work shows that he was capable of true ecstasy), consists of an intellectual pride that made him disdain surrender to impulse and prefer the analysis of it ; he never gives us his emotion in the full ardour of fusion but only in a dead precipitate. And the matter is complicated by his scholarship and a consequent adoption of an alien syntax, so that he came to write in a sort of cipher of which himself alone held the key. As a protest both against the excessive ritual and visual exactitude of the Parnas- sians and the loudness and over-emphasis of Hugo, this literature of hints and half-tones seeing every- thing, as Amiel saw landscape, as an' " 6tat d'ime," and surrendering completely to the suggestions imposed by it, had a valuable influence, though it was too often weakened by followers who sought the cover of its heize for their own incompetence. The move- ment was finally dissipated in a superstitious type of mock-simple animism not far removed from silliness. The fact that the two most complete Parnassians were Creoles while Symbolism found its aptest exponents among northern men, and especially among the Belgians, is not without significance as suggesting in climate a source of the aesthetic manifestation natural to the hard glitter and sharp outline of tropic countries and the mistiness and changeability of chilly ones. And it is worth noticing that Symbolism synchronized with the rise of Impressionism in French painting, and, like its sister art, derived largely, if indirectly, from English sources. INTRODUCTION 81 From the Symbolists or the Parnassians, not seldom from both — starting with the mutinous vanguard and falling later into the ranks of the old tradition — most of the more recent poets derive, though among the more interesting are those who are most restive under the old yoke and strike out a new furrow through clay that has been long neglected, getting into closer touch with the commoner hopes and sentiments of workaday men by affecting the simplicity of a time when printing was still unlearnt and the folk-song still unforgotten, before the pause and stress derived from a musical notation had been ousted by the more stately monotony of declamatory verse. Along with this has gone a flouting of Academic ordinance by making the ear the final arbiter both of rhythm and of rhyme, and ignoring the merely visual signs of these in the printed word where rhey are no longer confirmed by the tongue's delivery as heard in familiar speech. London, April 19 17 BOOK I A MONSIEUR LE DOYEN A MESSIEURS LES PROFESSEURS DE LA FACULTE DES LETTRES DE L'UNIVERSITE DE GRENOBLE EN HOMMAGE RECONNAISSANT ANONYMOUS (i2th Century) I. THE TWA SYSTRES THE mirk did fa' lang syne, lang syne When twa fond systres wi' hands that twine Went doun to bathe whaur the waters shine. Blaw wind, bend beugh in the stormy weather, They that be leel sleep saft taegither. A ladde rode by as the red sun dipt, He saw her white whaur the waters whipt. He tookit her straught in hys airms and dipt. Blaw wind, bend beugh in the stormy weather. They that be leel sleep saft taegither. " Noo systre deare, when full's your skeel Gang hame by the road that ye ken weel. I bide wi' him that is my ain leel." Blaw wind, bend beugh in the stormy weather. They that be leel sleep saft taegither. Then wan wi' dule she greeted there Wi' drounded een and hairt maist sair To gang wi' her systre nevermair, Blaw wind, bend beugh in the stormy weather. They that be leel sleep saft taegither. " Alas ! she cried, " wae's me ! wae's me ! She leaves me lain whaur the waters be 85 36 FLEURS-DE-LYS To follow her ladde to his ain countree." Blajiv wind, bend beugh in the stormy weather. They that be leel sleep saft taegither. They turned them then nor touchit groun' Till they rode into the far-off toun And there were blest wi' the priest abune. Blaw wind, bend beugh in the stormy weather. They that be leel sleep saft taegither. GUIOT DE DIJON (13th Century) 2. THE LAYE OF THE LADYE OF FAEL FOR myne owne courage will I synge That I maye soothe and strengthen it ; For spite of all my sufferynge I will not die nor lose my wit, Though from that land of heathen shame No home-come pilgrym I doe meet, Where nowe he is whose spoken name Doth make my sad heart wildly beat. Godde ! when the cry is " Charge amayne ! " O guard the pilgrym lest he fall For whom I suffer soe great payne. For Saracens are felons all. Until the slowe yeare round shall swynge, I will endure without assuage. ! safe from peril Godde hym brynge Back from hys holie pilgrymage. FLEURS-DE-LYS 37 And, spite of all my kindred saye, Myne owne true love I will not quit To cleave unto another claye ; And mad is he that sayeth it. Godde! when the cry is " Charge amayne! " O guard the pilgrym lest he fall For whom I suffer soe great payne. For Saracens are felons all. JEHANNOT DE LESCUREL (14th Century) 3. BALLADE FAYRE, in loyaltie I thee love; love me. I will serve thee aye, Never will I straye From thy companie. Love could never flit For he hath not wit Howe to-fynde a waye: Nowe, by Goddes f aye ! Ladye, laye thy laughynge mouth On myne owne I praye. Fayre the gyft. I trowe, An thou doe bestowe. That thy heart is myne ; Then shall I be thyne More and more alsoe. FLEURS-DE-LYS Gentle ladye tell If thou fynde me well And sweet love have swaye: Nowe, by Goddes faye! Ladye, laye thy laughynge mouth On myne owne I praye. Fayre of face art thou. Never cheek and browe Could I kiss enough ; An I won thy love, 'Twere an end of woe. Soe that I may wit If thou grant me it, And thou wilt me paye : Nowe, by Goddes faye ! Ladye, laye thy laughynge mouth On myne owne I praye. JEAN FROISSART (1337-1410) 4. RONDEAU OF HYS LADYE SOE blithe am I when I a rose doe smell; Soe full of bliss when I my Ladye see; Of twayne one onlye soothes the heart of me : Soe blithe am I when I a rose doe smell. Sweet is the scent; whereas her sighte doth quell My heart soe that myne eyes ashamed be : Soe blithe am I when I a rose doe smell, Soe full of bliss when I my Ladye see. FLEURS-DE-LYS 39 5. RONDEAU OF FARE-WELL My bodye goes; I leave wyth thee my heart. Ladye most deare, fare-well till I ryde home. Ah ! woe is me that I soe far must roam : My bodye goes; I leave viryth thee my heart. But sweet remembrances shall soothe the smarte All the sad whyle till back to thee I come : My bodye goes; I leave wyth thee my heart. Ladye most deare, fare-well till I ryde home. EUSTACHE DESCHAMPS (1340-1410) 6. BALLADE OF PENTECOST ON high Pentecost I found In thys gracious month of Maye, Her to whom my heart is bound In a garden faire a-straye, Pluckynge roses. I did saye ' ' Kyss me. " " Gladlye, ' ' she reply 'd. In thys wise Love hadde hys waye, With a rose on either syde. Since her love me comforted Doubt and fear are driven awaye ; Now with Hope I ever tread On that garden of deare claye. Hence her gentle leave and aye Fond desires that abyde 40 FLEURS-DE-LYS Still as sweet as when we laye With a rose on either syde. Her sweet kyss hath driven oute More of grief than I can saye; All my sorrowe and my doubte Now is soothed by her swaye. I doe bless the houre and daye Found me thus soe faire a bryde Kissynge in soe kynde a waye, With a rose on either syde. Prince, thys ladye on a daye I did fynde for mate and bryde ; There and then I kyssed my faye With a rose on either syde. 7. RONDEAU OF SOLDIERHOOD SUMMER'S the time for soldierhood, Or Spryng when all the grass is high And sunbeams make old Winter fly: The chargers then fynde forage good, And ground is smooth wheron to lie. Summer's the time for soldierhood. Or Spryng when all the grass is high. Then snowe is thawn from wold and wood. And pilgryms synge as they goe bye. Then take thy speare with shield a-nigh. Summer's the time for soldierhood. Or Spryng when all the grass is high And sunbeams make old Winter fly. FLEURS-DE-LYS 41 CHRISTINE DE PISAN (1363-1430) 8. BALLADE OF SPRYNGE-TYME NOWE Cometh the soe gracious month of Maye That is ryghte gladsome, she that doth bestowe Such sweetnesse ; nowe be fields and woods growne gaye With leaves and floures that doe blithelye blowe. In all thynges joye hath swaye. Nowe greene the meadowe is and eke the spraye, And all thynges nowe forswear their sorrowynge For the faire boone this merrye month doth brynge. The birds goe singynge a glad roundelaye, And all thynges the like happinesse doe knowe; But woe is me that suffer such dismaye, For" wanderynge love begetteth onlye woe ; Nowe me joye cannot swaye, Who growe in sorrowe as tyme groweth gaye. Lovers well knowe how sharper grief can stynge For the faire boone this merrye month doth brynge. Nowe doe I weep, lamentynge nighte and daye Him whom I lack, and who doth nought bestowe; Nowe Love's worst onset that comes nigh to slaye, His feints and torments I doe sadlye knowe. In this sweet tyme alwaye I have noe joye who am despoiled aye Of that desire wherto soe firm I clynge For the faire boone this merrye month doth brynge. 42 FLEURS-DE-LYS 9. RONDEAU OF SECRET SORROWE HOWE hard a thynge it is to dree When heart doth weep and mouth must syng?, When grief must hyde from companie Howe hard a thynge it is to dree. Yet some must mask their miserie Lest honour be a smirched thynge: How hard a thynge it is to dree. ANONYMOUS (iSth Century) 10. FOLK SONG WHAT shall I doe if love me leave ? Night and daye I cannot sleepe. For my lover I doe grieve When unto my bed I creepe. Then I rise with bodye bare And doe on my robe of graye ; Glidynge down a secret stayre, Thro' the grove I wend awaye. There the merry larke doth synge, And the nightingale doth crye In his prettye jargonynge, ' ' See these lovers farynge bye, FLEURS-DE-LYS 43 ' ' On the river in a boat Movynge on her stately waye, ' ' With a satin saile a-float And with silken cordes for staye. " The tall maste is ivorie, And the rudder golden pale ; ' ' From a far awaye countrie Come the lads that trim the saile. " One that bears the Fleurs-de-Lys Is the Kynge of France's sonne, " And the other lad, I wis Is my owne beloved one. ' ' CHARLES D 'ORLEANS (1391-1465) II. BALLADE O PRAYE for peace, sweet mayde Marie High Queene of Heaven and world's mistrdsse. Make praye your holy companie By gentle favour, and addresse Your Sonne that from his loftinesse He maye his wajrward people heede For whom in ransom he did bleede, Nowe prone for warre that wasteth all ; O praye and never cease to plead That peace, joy's treasure, maye befall. 44 FLEURS-DE-LYS Praye priests and who live holilie; Sleeke friars leave your slothf ulnesse ; Praye learned men lest warre should be That setteth studie in sore stresse ; The ruined shrine you shall not blesse Who there nor missal write nor read, Nor followe where Lord Godde doth lead. Then loudly nowe upon Hym call, For soe ordaineth church and creed) That peace, jdy's treasure, maye befall. Praye Princes who hold landes in fee, Kynges, Dukes, Earls, all of knightly fesse. And gentlemen of chivalrie. Lest churls o'ercome your gentlenesse; In graspynge hands your wealth growes lesse. From hot dispute and evil greede. As you maye see. O intercede, (For they growe proude and rich with all Wherwith your people you should feede) That peace, joy's treasure, maye befall. Praye folk that bear hard tyrannic, For sore is your lords' feeblenesse Who cannot holde their masterie Nor help you in your evil stresse ; Praye merchant in sore paine noe lesse, Too long a-straddle on your steede, (For you noe more afar maye speede To barter in the baron's hall. Such peril doth the highwaye breede) That peace, joy's treasure, maye befall. Lord Godde Almightie doth us heede. From Earth, Sky, Ocean, in our neede FLEURS-DE-LYS 45 Let prayer rise unto Him from all, Who onlye can amend ill deede, That peace, joy's treasure, maye befall. 12. RONDEAU HOWE comely hath Godde made her be, Gracious and goode and fair of moulde That every man her doth beholde Must prayse her soul's consistencie. For who could tire of such as she Whose lovelinesse doth aye unfolde ? Howe comely hath Godde made her be. Gracious and goode and fair of moulde. Nor can I fynde by lande or sea, Or virgin maid or matron olde As doth such perfect graces holde ; The thought of her is dream to me : Howe comely hath Godde made her be! 13. RONDEAU MYNE only love, my joye, my boone. More deare to me than ought beside, I prithee joyously doe bide In hope that I maye see thee soone. I seeke a waye by nig^te, by noone. To come to thee, if Godde me guide, Myne only love, my joye, my boone. More deare to me than ought beside. And if, by wishynge it, my shoone Maye brynge me nigh thee, nought denied Of all that under heav'n doth hide, Shall sette me cryinge for the moone: Myne only love, my joye, my boone. 46 FLEURS-DE-LYS 14. BALLADE WITHIN the forest of sad wearinesse One daye uncompanied I chanced to wend, And therin did encounter love's Goddesse Who made me question of my journey's end. To whom I told howe Fortune did me rend And drive awaye into the woodland close, That not miscalled a man maye be, soe penned, A man astraye that knowes not where he goes. She, smilynge in her soe great kindlinesse, Made answer to me, ' ' Did I knowe, deare friend, Wherfor thou farest in soe sore distresse, Myne aid to thee I willyngly would lend; Since, long agoe 1 did thy heart intend For pleasant wayes, whom malice misbestowes. And much it grieveth me to see thee wend, A man astraye that knowes not where he goes." "Alas!" said I, " O sovereign princesse. Hear thou my plight and hearken to the end : 'Tis Death hath done me this dire hurtfulnesse. And taken from me my beloved friend ti 4 j In whom my hope was ; she who did attend To guide me, in my farynge ever close; Whose like nowe is not, wherfor I doe wend A man astraye that knowes not where he goes. " Syghtlesse, I goe a journey without end; And, lest that I should stumble I doe send My staff before me with unsteady blowes. And pitiful it is that I must wend, A man astraye that knowes not where he goes." FLEURS-DE-LYS 4,7 IS. RONDEAU TYME hath throwne downe the robe he bare Of winde and cold and chillye rayne, And nowe with sunbeams cleare agayne In lordlye raiment doth he fare. Each beast and birde doth nowe declare Harsh-voiced or smoothe the tidynges playne: Tyme hath throwne downe the robe he bare Of winde and cold and chillye rayne. Nowe fountaynes, streams and brookes repair Their sheeny floods that downward drayne With gold and silver in their trayne ; All thynges new vesture nowe doe weare: Tyme hath throwne downe the robe he bare. i6. RONDEAU SALUTE for me the fellowe-ship Nowe met together joyouslie, And saye howe gladlye I would be Beside them where the flagons dip ; But old Age hath me in his grip, And dried the sap of youth in me : Salute for me the fellowe-ship Nowe met together joyouslie. Tyme was I loved a wench's lip, And all my veins did dance with glee That nowe be taut with miserie, Soe tightly held in ague's grip: Salute for me the fellowe-ship. i 48 FLEURS-DE-LYS FRANCOIS VILLON (1431- ? ) 17. FROM THE GREATER TESTAMENT (XXXVIII-XLI) I KNOWE full well I am noe saynte That moves in heaven's starrie zone Star-crown6d beyond mortal taynte. My father's dead; beneath the stone He lies whose soule to Godde is flowne. I knowe my mother too must die — She's well aware of it, poor crone — And her son's lyfe doth hasten bye. I knowe that all men, rich and poor, Wyse men and foolish, priest and churl, Niggards and who keep open door. Tall, short, fair, uglye, serf and earl, And every hussyf, wench, or girl In fillet bound, or hooded tall With flaps that round the collar curl. By Death fire seized one and all. And Paris dies and Helen dies. And each in dyinge hath such payne That all his breath out of him flies. And gall over his heart doth drayne ; And then he sweats, Godde knowes ! amayne, And theryn hath but little ease. For none of all his kin be fayne To bear for him his agonies. FLEURS-DE-LYS 49 Death leaves him shudderynge and growne wan, His nose down-curved, his veins displayed. His neck all puffed, flesh smooth to span, With nerves and joints all wracked and frayed; And woman too, soe tender made, Soe soft, soe smooth bye breast and thyghes. Aye, even she must thus be laid, Or else fare straighte to Paradyse. i8. THE BALLADE OF LOVELY LADYES OF LONG AGOE O TELL me where and in what lande Is Flora and the Roman lass ? Where's Thais or the Ladye grande That was her equal in all grace ? Saye where doth Echo hyde her face Whose voice bye streame and pool doth straye. Whose beauty more than mortal was ? — But where are the white snowes borne awaye ? Where nowe is learned Heloise For whom poor Abelard lost all Quick fuel of love's agonies. And answered toe the holye call ? Likewyse I aske what doth befall The Queene that Buridan did slaye, Flung to the Seine for burial ? — But where are the white snowes borne awaye ? Queene Blanche as anye lily wan. Whose voice was sweet as syrens fayne ; Berte, Bice, Alice loved of man, Or Ermengarde that ruled in Mayne ? 50 FLEURS-DE-LYS Or Jean the goode lass from Lorrayne Burnt by tht Englysh rabble ? Saye Where are they Virgin Sovereigne ? — But where are the white snowes borne awaye ? Prince, not thys weeke, thys year shall deigne To thee their hidynge to betraye; The onlye answer thou shalt gaine — But where are the white snowes borne awaye ? 19. FROM THE GREATER TESTAMENT (XXII, XXIII, AND XXVI) I DOE bemoan my youthful sinne And the steep road I hurried bye Until I met old Age therin That hid youth's going from myne eye. Nought of his footsteps I descrye Nor palfrey's hoof-prints. How went he ? As sudden as a bird doth flye, And left me nought but beggarye. He is fled awaye and I am left Who little knowe nor understand. Less ripe than rotten, all bereft Of mirth and money, house and land. I bear upon me the harsh brand Of mine own kind who from the fold Doe drive me with unkindlye hand Because I have but little gold. Ah ! Godde, hadde I in my wild youth But studied well and walked arighte, I mighte have hadde an house in sooth And lain between warm sheets o' nighte. FLEURS-DE-LYS 51 But, naye 1 from school I took my flighte As anye naughtye ladde will doe. Nowe when these woeful words I write My heart comes nigh to break in two. 20. FROM THE GREATER TESTAMENT (LXXVI-LXXIX) I GIVE my bodye untoe her that gatte Our grandam earth ; theron, though worms maye bite Untoe the bone, they shall fynde little fatte, Soe long hath hunger fought a winnynge fighte. Straighte to the earth let it be borne outrighte: From earth that came, to ejirth at last doth come ; For everythynge, unlesse my pen mys-write. To its owne place at laste goes gladlye home. Untoe my more than father haplye founde, William of Villon, him who was more milde Untoe the babe in swaddlynge raiment bounde Than ever Mother bye her sonne beguiled; Him that did save me from adventures wilde Full often — I doe give, lest he forgette Or else be loth to praye for his dead childe, The score of books within my cabinet. Untoe this godlye man likewyse I will The tale that at my biddynge Tabarie Did copye out in large script with his quill. Than whom was never man more trustworthye. In quires beneath the table dustilye It lies, and though the laboured style wherwith 'Tis written be a hindrance, all, pardie! May be forgiven for the matter's pith. 52 FLEURS-DE-LYS Untoe my Mother, — for her soul's relief That therwith on our Ladye she maye call, Who for my sinnes hath had much bitter grief God knoweth, and much sorrowynge withal; Noe other castel have I nor strong wall Whertoe my bodye and my soul maye flee When on my path a-manye perils fall, Nor my poor Mother hath no more than me : — 21. BALLADE MADE FOR HIS MOTHER THAT SHE MIGHTE PRAYE TOE OUR LADYE LADYE of heaven that o'er earth hath swaye And of Hell's marshes art most Royal Reeve, Grant toe thy humble Christian that doth praye. To be of those thy virtue doth retrieve. Though all unworthye of thy great reprieve, Ladye and mistresse vdiom I worship well, Yet can thy virtues save my soul from Hell Despite my sinfulnesses and purge the offence See that I win to heaven. Truth I tell : And in this faith I live and will goe hence. Tell toe thy Sonne that I am his; my shame I bear untoe him to be purged of sinne. Forgive me even as the Egyptian dame Or as the clerk Theophilus who did win Thy pardon and a new life did begin. Though he hadde given his soul in bond to Hell. Guard me, O Virgin, from foul Satan's spell Soe that the holye bread I taste, nor thence Be driven, till Tjrme sounde my passynge bell : And in this faith I live and will goe hence. FLEURS-DE-LYS 63 I am but a poor old woman whose dim eyes That lack book-learning, do with joy behold Within the church a painted Paradyse With harps and eke with lutes manifold ; Therunder a huge cauldron wherin roU'd The damned seethe for ever in deep Hell, The which I fear. Goddesse, let me dwell Where joy is. Thou, the sinner's sure defence, Fill me with faith, and all my sloth dispell: And in this faith I live and will goe hence. Thou barest, Virgin Princesse, without stain, Jesus the Kynge that doth for ever reign. The Almightye, seeinge us in thrall to Hell, Didde give his deare sonne for our soul's offence To die, and from the heavens where he doth dwell, Our Lord did brynge salvation as I tell: And in this faith I live and will goe hence. 22. EPITAPH IN BALLADE FORM WHICH VIL- LON MADE FOR HIMSELF AND HIS FEL- LOWES, EXPECTYNGE TO BE HANGED ALONG WITH THEM BROTHER men that live when we have end, Let not your hearts 'gainst us be hardenynge ; For if on us your pitie ye doe spend, Likewyse to you shall Godde be pityinge. Here maye ye see our six lean trunks a-swynge. And our dead flesh that, livynge, we o'er-fed Plucked out bye bits and rottynge toe to head, While we, bare bones, to ash and dust be come. From our ill hap let noe man's mirth be bred, But praye Godde to absolve us of our doome. 54 FLEURS-DE-LYS If, brother men, we call, beyond amend, Disdayne us not for our sore trespassynge, For well ye knowe howe manye men doe wend On evil wayes thro' witless wanderynge; But intercession for our soules doe brynge Untoe the Holye Virgin's Sonne instead. That He of His deare grace have still toe shed Withal wherby to save us from Hell's fume. Let noe man nowe misuse us, being dead. But praye Godde to absolve us of our doome. The rayne hath bleached us all from end to end ; The sunne hath scorched us to a blackened strynge Mag-pyes and crowes our hoUowe eyes doe rend. Or snatch what hair bye beard or browe doth clynge. And ever without cease we swaye and swynge. Like monstrous spindles ever fluttered, By the wind's shiftye humours sore best6d, Peck't close bye all the birds that us consume As anye thimble. Ware the waye we tread, But praye Godde to absolve us of our doome. Prince Jesus, Lord of all, or live or dead, O save us from infernal serfage dread, That have nor help nor holdynge in Hell's gloome. Men, mock not what in bitter truth is said, But praye Godde to absolve us of our doome. 23. HIS OWNE EPITAPH ETERNAL rest on him bestowe, Lord, and everlastynge light, Who lacked withal for sup or bite, Shorn close on scalp and chin and browe, FLEURS-DE-LYS SS Who was scrap't bare and smooth, I trowe As any turnip round, poor wighte: Eternal rest on him bestowe. Hard doome befell him here belowe. Drove forth and smote him in sore spite. Though " I appeal ! " he cried with mighte, A form of speech that's playne enowe : Eternal rest on him bestowe. MELLIN DE SAINT-GELAIS (1487-1558) 24. OF HYS LADYE NOT all the shippes bye Venice quay, Nor oyster-shells bye Norman shore. Nor all the swannes in Temmes that be With arched neck and ebon oar. Can reach the tallie of her lore. Not wooinges made in holye guise. Nor pryde of princelynges got from Spayne, Nor all the lure of cunnynge lies. Nor all the golde that misers gaine, Can match the brightnesse of her brayne. Not all the beasts bye man untamed. Nor all the wiles of warrynge men, Nor all reprieves bye Rome proclaimed, Nor all the words ere writ by penne, Cap halve the wisdom in her kenne. 56 FLEURS-DE-LYS MARGUERITE DE NAVARRE (1492-1549) 25. DIZAIN TO CLEMENT MAROT IF but your creditors, the which you chyde, Did knowe as I the worth of your rare wit, Of all your dettes you might full soon be quit Or great or smalle, whatever still maye byde; If each did holde a dizain duly writ. What sum soever the full worth of it Would then be his by thousands multiplied. The worth of money maye by weight be tolde. But none maye knowe what guerdon doth befit Such skill as yours beyond all worth of gold. CLEMENT MAROT (1495-1544) 26. DIZAIN IN ANSWER TO THE FOREGOING MY dunnes that untoe dizains give smalle care. Did read your owne. Wheron I say'd, " You see. My noble Michael, noble Luckyfare, The Kynge's owne sister doth soe honour me." Straightwaye they deemed me of stabilitie, And rained "Your worships" and " Respected Sirs." Thus was your script to me as golden ore, For they did promise respyte — nay, they swore To let me fill — for promises — my purse While I did sweare to borrowe — as before. FLEURS-DE-LYS 57 27. OF THE ABBOT AND HIS VALET HIS grace the Abbot and his servynge ladde Are of one claye as honey is of wax; One is a loon, the other one is madde; One loves a joke, the other his sides cracks; One drinks goode wine, the other never lacks. Thus a debate one nighte between them rose : Wineless his worship would no more repose Than he would die of all his friends bereft, Wheras his valet's eyelids could not close Whyle in the bowle a single drop was left. 28. SONG WHAT evil woes dull Hate maye breede I wot not nor desire to wit. But well I wot the wounds doe bleede Since in my heart Love hath alit. Love should bear other name more fit That well were hight or fiow'r or weede Soe swift his blooms be blowne to seede. Soe fleet, or weede or flow'r insyde Her fickle heart wheron I dote ; In myne where he doth ever byde O call him rock or starry mote! For I doe ever live devote To Love, and lovynge doe deryde Death that maye never vail his pryde. 58 FLEURS*DE-LYS 29. SONG HE who with a random eye Of sweet joye would have his fill, Let him on my Ladye spye Whom God keepe and guard from ill; For she hath soe faire a grace That a thousand grievous cares Fall from him that sees her face, More alsoe, if more he bears. The great worth that is in her Is soe wonderful toe me. Always in my heart a-stir Moves her gracious memorye; The fine beautye of her face Makes me fear Death's dreadful whim, Yet most surely must her grace Win for me respyte of him. 30. BALLADE OF MAYE AND OF VIRTUE FULL gladlye in this month of Maye The Earth bestirs her and renews ; Each lover, his old fondness fey. Seeks otherwhere and hotly woos. Who in this wise his love pursues. His head is light as anye feather; Another waye my heart doth use : My love doth laste throughout alle weather. Alle lovely cheekes doe wear awaye, And at the laste their beauty lose ; FLEURS-DE-LYS 59 Tyme, grief, or sicknesse doe waylaye And take them in a tightened noose. But nothynge can or maim or bruise Her whose true heart is taut in tether; And for her beauty's fadeless hues, My love doth laste throughout alle weather. And she whose beauty thus doth staye Is Virtue, childe of heavenly thews, And to her shinynge height alwaye True lovers with sweete voice she woos. " Come, lovers, come!" ('Tis thus she sues), " O long-besought, come round me gather" (Such speech this happy mayde doth use), " My love doth laste throughout alle weather." Prince, get thee love of lastynge hues And holde her faste in loyal tether, Soe mayst thou boast, withouten ruse, "My love doth laste throughout alle weather." CHRISTOPHE PLANTIN (1514-1589) 31. HAPPINESSE WHO hath a well-built house both clean and comelye, A garden with sweet flowers over-growne. Good fruit, good wine, a child, a wyfe that dumblye Yields all her dutye to her spouse alone; Who hath nor debt, nor strife, nor love growne fickle, Nor wealth to claim from those of kindred blood; 60 FLEURS-DE-LYS Who hath content that leaves the rich their mickle, And a behavioure that is righte and good; Who liveth simplye and without self-seekynge; Who gives his heart to godlye exercise ; Who holds his servile passions from out-breakynge, Who keeps his spirit free, his judgement wise ; Who counts his beads the whyle he tends his prunynge, Doth fynde lyfe gentlye untoe death attunynge. BOOK II TO ^: HILAIRE BELLOC PONTUS DE TYARD (1521-1603) 32 SLEEPS, sire of rest and eke of dreams the sire, Nowe that the night's wide girth of darknesse dread O'er the still aire her mystie shroude hath spread. Come, fill myne eyes, O Sleepe whom I desire. For thy long absence doth my spirit tire, And sharper feels its hardship endured ; Come, Sleepe and drowse it. Like a dupe, misled Bye thy sweet falsehood, it maye seeme less dire. Already Silence with her phantom horde Broods o'er the darknesse of blynde nighte abhorr'd; Me only, faithful, dost thou leave forlorn. Come, Sleepe desired, and my browes doe bynde, For I to thee an offerynge have sworn Of nighte-shade with thy poppy-head entwyn'd. PIERRE DE RONSARD (1524-158S) 33 NOWE that the skiey space, the solid claye Feel icy fetters or hard-peltynge hail. And the stark horrour of the frozen gale Stiffens the meadowe-grass to bristles graye; es 64 FLEURS-DE-LYS Nowe that the wynde goes on his rebel waye, Down-hurlynge rocks, up-rootynge trees that wail; Nowe that the seas with swollen roar assail Beleaguered coasts with their soe wrathful spraye; Though Winter freezes all, the flames me fill Of love that his harsh coldnesse cannot kill, With mighte more strong than the rude season's holde. Beholde ye lovers, my soe strange mishap Who die of colde in Summer's kindlynge lap. And burne to death in the chill heart of colde. 34 I SEND to thee a posie gather6d An hour agoe, its sweet buds open wide ; Who had not pluckt them ere the evenynge died, Had found them fallen on the morrowe dead. Therin thou mayst beholde thy beauty fled. And a like end thy lovelinesse betide ; However thou mayst bear it in thy pride, Like wither 'd blossom it must soon be sped. Tyme hasteth ever bye, O sweet ladye ; Alas ! not Tyme, but we alone speed on. And soone lie stark beneath the cold head-stone. With our dead loves as out of mynde as we. Then look upon me nowe full lovinglie, Ere in the grave thy lovelinesse be gone. FLEURS-DE-LYS 65 35 YOU spiky gorse, you hollye thorn-beset, One on the waste, the other in the wood ; Ivye that clothes the walls of caverns rude, Sprynges that doe bubble from a sandy jet ; Pigeons that savoury kysses give and get. Doves that doe wail their endlesse widowhood ; You warblynge nightyngales that ever brood Or daye or night in amorous regret; You red-throat swallowe, the mild season's guest, If you doe see my ladye in this Sprynge Amid the fresh green grass for flowers in quest, Tell her I wait alone her deare comynge. And howe, so dire my need, without her blest, I would to death with greater thanksgivynge. 36 ON my return to thee. (Ah me! my woe), Thy kyss was frostye and as chill to taste As bloodless lips that Death hath sealed, and chaste As Dian on her brother mighte bestowe. Or girl on grandam; the betroth 'd doth soe When by her chosen cavalier embrac'd, Without or warmth, or moisture, or fond haste. What 1 Is my lip then bitter as a sloe ? 'Twere well thou hadst a lesson from the doves That beak to beak pledge tenderly their loves, Amid the branches in a long sweet bliss. Nay, I implore thee Sweetheart myne, alack! Kyss me with all thy heart within thy kyss; And, if not sbe, then holde thy kysses back. 06 FLEURS-DE-LYS 37 SINCE she is frostye as the Winter aire, Chillye as snowe that holds a heart of flint, Who loves me onlye for her praise I print, Why not quit f ondnesse and my fatal faire ? Her name and grandeur are a net to snare And hold me bounden to her service in't. Mistresse, my locks have not soe graye a tint But that another may finde pleasure there. Love, like a wanton childe, hides not the truth: You have not such rare lovelinesse in sooth As makes it wise to turn true love awaye. My April dayes will nevermore come back ; Then love me for the youth that I doe lack. And I will love you when you too are graye. . 38 WHEN thou art old and bye the fire alone Bent o'er the candle thou dost twirl the skeine, Then shalt thou quaver, with bewilder 'd brayne Howe Ronsard sang thy lovelinesse long gone. Then if thy servant hear my lover's moan Though toil doth drowse her, yet at that sweet strayne She shall arise to honour thy dead swaine. And give thy name immortal benison. I shall be buried and long turned to claye Under dark myrtle-trees wherbye I rest ; Whyle thou besyde the hearth with shrunken breast. Bewail 'st the love that thou didst spurn awaye; Then hearken nowe to thy true love's behest: Gather the roses of thy lyfe to-daye. FLEURS-DE-LYS 67 39. TO CASSANDRA O MAYDE more tender yet Than shy sweet buds that wake On rose-trees dewy wet When first the daye doth break, That from the thorny speare Half green, half red doe peere ; Faster than ivy clyngs With supple stems entwyn'd Round the stout oak in ryngs A hundred-fold that bynd With their fond arms and slym The whole wide girth of hym, Round me, O faire and fond. Let thyne arms make a ryng; Link fast the gentle bond Of thy sweet tetheryng; Let kysses givn and ta'en For evermore remayne. Not tyme nor envious dread Of other love more meet Shall fynd me sundered From thy sweet lips, my sweet. Thus kissynge will we dwell Till lyfe bid us farewell. The same moon, the same daye, And the same hour we two Shall wander far awaye, Death's pallid house to view. And those faire fields out-spread For lovers haply wed. 68 FLEURS-DE-LYS Love's self amid the flow'rs Of everlastynge sprynge Shall watch these loves of ours, Under the green boughs clynge; And we shall knowe the good Of gentle loverhood. In fields of sedge and th3mie, Along the level grounde, With many a mazy chyme Accordant airs shall sounde; While, featly to these tunes A dancer swayes and swoones. There heaven's unclouded space Shynes ever with clear light; No serpent thro' the maze Spits venom in its spite; For ever in those trees Birds synge their melodies; Soft wyndes for ever goe With gentle sound a-styr, For ever laurels throwe Their coolynge shadowe there ; There lovely flowers do swaye That never fade awaye. Somewhere in the wyde space This happye garden covers We two shall fynde our place Amid the throngynge lovers, Unwearied as these In love's sweet ecstasies. FLEURS-DE-LYS 69 40 HERE is the wood wherof my angel sweete Thrilled all the boughs in April with her song; Here are the flowers that then felt her feete When lonely in sweet thought she went along; Here is the meadowe green wheron she stray 'd That lusty grew at wafture of her hande, The soft enamel of the younglynge blade, Where she made gentle pillage of the lande; Here did she synge, and there her teares did flowe ; Here did she smile, and there her eyes transfbrt My soul soe deep that downe to death I goe; Here sat she; there her mazy footsteps mixt: On this frail loome thought-builded. Love doth weave The shadowy raiment of the lyfe I live. 41 NOT sunrise that doth sette the rose a-fire. Nor lilies growynge where the streame is thin, Nor sounds of lute, nor birds' melodious din. Nor costly gemmes held fast in golden wire. Nor Zephyrs pantynge with soe warm desire. Nor surge that round the tall ship's prowe doth spin, Nor dance of Nymphs above the babblynge lin, Nor all thynges blossomynge in Sprynge's attire. Nor armed camp with pointed lances spined. Nor shady caverns with smooth mosses lined. Nor forest boughes high-roofynge the greene maze. Nor solemn silence of dumb rocks forlorne, Give me such pleasure as a field unshorne Where without hope my hopefulnesse doth graze. 70 FLEURS-DE-LYS 42 AS you maye see upon the stem in Maye The younglynge rose's lovely bud new-bui;st Make heaven jealous of its hue when first Dawn sprinkles dew upon the new-born daye : Grace and sweet love within its leaves alwaye Make gardens redolent, till it doth thirst Too ardent for the rayne, and soon immerst Dies, leaf by leaf, upon the witherynge spraye. 'Twas thus that thou, in thy first youthfulnesse. When earth and heaven did thy beauty blesse, Wcist slayne by Fate and lower 'd to thy tomb. Take thou my sighes and teares for offerynge, This bowle of milke, this basket full of sprynge, That, live or dead, thy body rose-like bloom. 43. ON HIS CHOICE OF A GRAVE CAVES, and streames that downward slyde From the rockye mountain syde. That toward the ground belowe Fall and fiowe; And ye waves and forests greene By meanderynge meadows seene. And ye banks, and boughs that wave, Hark my stave ! When both Heav'n and Tyme decyde I no longer maye abyde. But must hence be borne awaye From the daye, FLEURS-DE-LYS fl I forbid that men should breeik Costlye marble for my sake, Vainlye a f aire stone to have For my grave. But in marble's stead a tree I would have to shadowe me, Wherupon the boughs cu:e scene Ever greene. From my bodye maye there sprynge Ivye roots and stems that clynge, And about me be enwound Round and round. Maye the tendrils of the vine Tv^ist about this grave of myne, Sheddynge lightly everywhere Shadowes spare. Maye the shepherds keep for aye Every yeare my festal daye; Maye both laddes and lambes be founde Nigh my mounde. Then the offys dulye said And their tribute rendered, Maye they hail my shade and saye In this waye : ' ' What renowne is thyne, O fane Since within thy mound is lain Him whose verses everywhere Fill the aire! 72 FLEURS-DE-LYS " Him who whyle he dwelt with us Never once grew envious Of the honours of the great Lords of state. " Naye, nor ever taught th' abuse Of love's potion, nor the use Of the art with magic blent Ancient; " But bye meadoweland and wood Showed the sacred Sisterhood Tramplynge thro' the grasses tall To his call. " For he made from out his lyre Such accordant sounds suspire, Hallow 'd with melodious words Fields and herds. " Maye sweet manna aye be shed Where he nowe lies buri6d. And the dewy balms that swaye Nights in Maye. " Round about him maye there sprynge Grass, and waters murmurynge, Ever green be one, and one Flowynge on. "We rememberynge his soe great Fame doe yearly dedicate Rites that else we doe assigne Pan divine." FLEURS-DE-LYS 78 Thus shall shepherd laddes declare Pourynge manye cupfuls there O'er me in a mingled flood, ' Milk, and blood Of their youngest lamb, whyle I In my new abode shall lie Where the ransomed spirits meet Joy complete. Neither hail nor chillye snowe To those regions can win thro', There noe thunder-bolts accurst Ever burst. But for ever there doth last Undespoil'd of blight or blast Verdure; and for ever there Sprynge is faire. JOACHIM DU BELLAY (1525-1560) 44 IF Lyfe's full span be but a daye that's sped From out eternity; if years spin bye, Drivynge our days before them hopelesslie; If all tlaynges born be thus soe swiftlye fled, Howe dost thou ponder, O soul emprisoned ? Why takst thou pleasure in soe dark a sky, Whenas thou art well-fledged and mayst fly To brighter dwellynge, with strong wing dispread ? 74 FLEURS-DE-LYS There is that good wherunto all doe presse, There is that ease wherfor all souls doe praye, There love is and sweet pleasure evermore, There, my soul, in everlastyngnesse, Beauty long-sought shall light thy lofty waye, And thou have syghte of that thou dost adore. 45 STRANGER that seekest Rome in Rome, and nought Of Rome in Rome mayst nowe perceive at all. These palaces and arches long since wrought And crumblynge walls are what men Rome nowe call. Beholde what pryde, what ruin ! and howe she Beneath whose yoke the whole wyde world did bende Was sometyme bound by her owne emperie And slaine by Tyme that maketh all thynges ende. Rome is Rome's onlye monument to fynde. And Rome by Rome herself was over-throwne; Tyber alone that to the sea doth wynde Remains of Rome. O world inconstant growne ! That which is firm is by Tyme's hand undone, And that is flittynge doth resistlesse runne. 46 NOT the wild wrath of flames that skyward shoot. Nor ruthlesse cleavage of the conquerynge sword, Nor madden 'd soldiery a-thirst for loot, That oft, Rome, hath plunder 'd thy rich hoard, Nor blowe on blowe of fickle Fortune's axe. Nor the slow rivynge of Tyme's thwarted steel, FLEURS-DE-LYS 73 Nor spite of men, nor jealous gods' attacks, Nor traitorous mighte within the commonweal. Nor the swift tumult of loud wynds that rave. Nor the o'er-fiowynge of old Tyber's tyde That oftentymes hath drown'd thee in his wave. Hath ought avail'd to lower thy great pryde That with the relique of thy glorious days Yet filleth all beholders with amaze. 47 THE Berecynthian in her chariot Tower-crowned, from whose womb many Gods^ had birth, — Such was this ancient citye in her mirth, And proud of the full brood that she begot. This citye ev'n the Phrygian's womb could not Out- vie in progeny; o'er all the earth Her mighty swaye out-topped all other worth And had noe likenesse save her owne proud lot. Rome had but Rome for righte belikenynge, Rome had but Rome alone to cause her dread; And, bye the eternal synod ordered. No human power had righte of challengynge Her whose proud mighte did match the world's, whose head Rose dauntlesse to the sky's environynge. 48 SLEEPE that most heavenlye of all boones is deemed. Softer than honey sealed each weary lid, When Love, full-laden with his pleasures, slid Straight thro' the ivory gateway, and I dreamed. 76 FLEURS-DE-LYS As ivy twines a marble shaft, meseemed Her alabaster bosom soe I did, Like wanton willowes that the Loire bestrid, Claspynge the fertile bankes wherbye he streamed. Love's cruel flame that smote my drowsy blood Set burnynge bye his swift-sped arrowe's kiss Made my soule trespass on her lips of rose, I on the brink of swift oblivion's flood, When wakefulnesse, growne jealous of my bliss. Did rouse sleep's warder and his doors unclose. 49 WHEN I could taste (eis nowe no more maye be) The honey sweete of thy soft syllables, Thou hid'st thy heavenly face, thyne eyes whose Doe holde me nowe in dire captivitie. [spells Nowe when soe sorrowful a fate I dree More deaf than a stunned shore loud ocean quells, Then art thou fain of my colde shape that dwells In outer solitude most shadowie. What evil chance! Was stranger grief e'er tolde ? Nowe maye I see, as bye a limner made. Her beauty wherof I am like to die ; Nowe maye I touch the smooth hand and beholde The lovely eyes of her who mighte me aide. Yet have not hearynge of her lightest sighe. FLEURS-DE-LYS TT SO. A THRESHER OF WHEAT TO THE WYNDES TO you light troupe that ryde On movjmge wings and glyde Above the world and slake it, And with your murmur soft Move the green shade and oft With gentle tremors shake it — For you I violets cull, And flowers beautiful. These roses and these lilies, — These roses all soe red And newly opened, These pinks and daffodillies. Nowe with your gentle breath Breathe on the plaine beneath. And lightly fan this meadowe, Whyle I doe sweat and straine At threshynge of my graine, And noon is without shadowe. SI I HATE the Florentines' pelf-huntynge race, I hate the dull sense of the Siennese, I hate Venetian^ for their double face, I hate the falsehood of the Genoese, I hate (but wot not why) the Ferrarese, I hate the Lombards for their faithlesse grace, And Naples peacocks for their pompous pace, And coward Romans for their slothful ease. 78 FLEURS-DE-LYS I hate rebellious Englyshman, brave Scot, Burgundian traitor, and French blabbynge tongue, And Spanysh pryde, and Germans at the bung: I hate some vice in every lande I wot. I hate my sinful self, but still more strong I hate a pedant more than all the lot. 52 HAPPIE is he that from a faire voyage Comes home as came the travell'd Ulysses Or him that raped the fleece, wayworn, in ease With his owne kindred to live out hys age. When shall I see agayne myne owne village, My hearth's blue smoke ? O when agayne shall So weary eyes behold the home that is [these More deare to me than a Duke's heritage ? Dearer to me my father's roofs that lean Than any Roman palace's proud gates; Dearer to me than marble the thin slates ; Dearer to me my Loire than Tyber's sheen. Dwarf Lyre's top than the Palatinate's, Soft Anjou aire than anye sea-breeze keen. LOUISE LABE (1526-1566) 53 WHILE that myne eyes with woeful teares doe flood Lamentynge ever thy lost companie. And while that, sighes and sobbynges sore withstood. My voice maye still make falterynge melodie; FLEURS-DE-LYS 79 While that my tremblynge fingers yet maye thrill The light lute string to tell thy gracious wayes ; While that my forlorn sprite hath all, its will In knowynge nought save thee and thy sweete prayse ; — That while I will not chyde slow-comynge Death. But when myne eyes are waterlesse for woe, When my voice breaks, when my hande blunder6th, And my soule in this world hath noe more showe Of fond obeisance to thy love's deare swaye, Then maye black Death make blynde my brightest daye. 54 SCARCE on my yieldynge pillowe doe I bend And fynde theron my soe desired rest, Than my sad spirit from my heavynge breast Straightwaye to thee doth fly, belov6d friend. A dream to me thy seemynge self doth send So long denied me, and my bosom blest Holdes all the happinesse of long request In sighes and teareful sobbynges without end. O gentle sleepe, O solace of sweet Nighte, O pleasant rest, soe full of such deep peace, Take not awaye this dream that is my staye; And, if my poor soule never maye have sighte. Grant that my dream in slumber maye not cease To brynge the happinesse denied by daye. 80 FLEURS-DE-LYS REMI BELLEAU (1528-1577) 55. APRIL APRIL, pryde of all the yeare When appeare Leaves, and sap in fleecy bud Gently stirs with hope to yield Fruit fulfilled From the younglynges of the wood ; April, pryde of meadowe-sheene Gold and greene. She whose lavish whim doth shed Hues and flowers a thousand-fold On the moulde In her glory garmented ; April, pryde of wyndes that sighe Lightly bye, In whose fannynge her slim thread Under boughs a snare doth weave To bereave Flora of her maidenhead ; April, thy soft hande alone Slips the zone Laying Nature's bosom bare, Stored with odours and with flowers That in showers Sweeten all the earth and aire : FLEURS-DE-LYS 81 April, pryde and pomp of Sprynge Flourishynge On my Ladye's locks that meet O'er her browes and on her bosom Brimmed with blossom Thousand-fold and full of sweet; April, on thy smilynge face Love's own grace, Lure and rapture of sweet breath ; April, scent of Gods enshrined On the wynde Sheddynge odour far beneath; 'Tis thy gentle summonynge That doth brynge Back again the truant swallowes That in Winter fled afar, — They that are Heralds tu the Sprynge that foUowes. Thorny briar and thorny boughe Blossom nowe ; Lilies, pinks, and roses red, That the sunny dayes do quicken Throng and thicken In their lovely robes outspread; And the nightyngale doth sweet Songs repeat; In the shade he warbles long, Breaks the lilt and links agayn: The sweet chayne Of his never-endynge song. 82 FLEURS-DE-LYS Love, when thou art haply come No more numb, Breathes agayne with gentle breath, And awakes the smoulderynge fire Of desire That chill Winter smothereth. In this weather fresh and sunny Bees mayke honey, Swarmynge all the sweets to sup; Each from flow'r to fiower dallies Deep in chalice There to drink its odour up. Maye perchance hath fresher wynde. Softer rind On her fruits, and dews that bear Manna and the sweet that thryves In the hives Fostered by her gracious aire ; Yet my song I give to her That doth bear Her faire name that f ounde her home On the wavy sea that broke, And awoke Into lyfe amid the foam. FLEURS-DE-LYS 88 ESTIENNE PASQUIER (1529-1615) 56 THY sighte denied when deare to me, A month to me seemed June to June, And one sadde houre devoyde of boone Was as a daye, or even three. Nowe that no more thy selfe I see. Since I for thee no longer swoone, A single daye would seeme a moone, Wert thou besyde for companie. And yet thy beauty stayes as brighte As when I found therin delighte, Who am noe more in Cupid's pow'r. 'Tis sure that beauty doth not breede Love, but that love doth sowe the seede Of what we deem is beauty's flow'r. OLIVIER DE MAGNY (1530-1559) 57 HAPPYE the man beyonde the city's hail Who lives on lande his fathers left him, where, His peaceful husbandry his only care, He hankers not for bliss beyond his pale. He never knowes nor foode nor raiment fail, But heedeth only that his tilth shall beare; And, if his householde hath not noble ware. Nor hath it burden of misfortune's bale. 84 FLEURS-DE-LYS Nowe doth he graft a tree, nowe doth he twine Round stout elm-branches the unstable vine, Nowe breaks a dam to water his parched lawne; Then home at evenynge with his smalle clan He sups bye candle-lighte, a happye man Amid good cheere, and slumbers deepe till dawne. ESTIENNE JODELLE (1532-1573) 58 AS one astraye within the forest deepe, Far from the road, nor path nor grange in sighte; As one that on the sea doth dread the inighte Of vast, wynd-vex6d waves that downward sweepe ; As one that wanders on the fields that sleepe. Without a starre, soe I in such sore plighte Have beene astraye without or path or lighte, Like barque o'erwhelmed or bewilder 'd sheepe. But when I see, as they, my nighte o'er-worne, By forest, field or wave, the fold, the quay, The boone seems greater than the evil borne. Soe I who, lackynge thee, was thus forlorne. Forget at sighte of thy faire radiancie, Forest and ocean, darke and tempest-torne. FLEURS-DE-LYS tS JEAN-ANTOINE DE BAiF (1532-1589) 59- SPRING SONG IDLE Winter's colde Nowe at last is spent ; Blithesome Sprynge beholde Full of ravishment. Earth is fledged with greene Full of buds aswaye; Leafage maykes a screene In the woodlande waye. Lighte of foot, the girl, She no slug-a-bed, Ere the rose unfurl, Plucks its drowsy head ; Soe she comelier seeme With the bud on breast, Or the rose she deem For her lover best, In his hande toe tayke As a pledge of troth, And with kissynge slake Love that's never loth. Listen from the pale. Shepherd's pipe that shrill Makes the nightyngale Sweeter sorrowe spill. 86 FLEURS-DE-LYS See the waves that flowe Crisped in the brooks, Trees with greene aglowe In their glassy looks. Nowe the sea is soft, Stay'd and smooth the wind Makes the sailes to waft Vessels untoe Ind. Nowe have all birdes sweet Song with voices suave, Larks above the wheat Swannes upon the wave; Swallowes round the roof, Nightyngales that nest In the woods aloof, Synge nor ever rest. Sorrowe and content Of my love I'll synge, An his flame be spent Or still wantonynge. Why then should I quell Songs that over-brim When all thynges up-well With the season's whim ? FLEURS-DE-LYS ST GUY DE TOURS ( ? ) 60 I HAVE noe eyes save when on her I looke, Nor noe desire save that she doth beget, Nor anye sighs save when by her forsooke, Nor anye thought save it be on her set. Soe deeply is she printed on my braine, There is nought else of worth untoe my minde; All speech of other ladies seemeth vaine, As that to me another should be kinde ; I have noe feet save unto her I wend, I have noe hands save when her owne I feel; I have noe heart save with her owne to blend, Nor ought at all save what from her I steal. Who am not myself, soe much from her I borrowe Whose long unkindnesse worketh my great sorrowe. JEAN DOUBLET ( ? ) 61 MESEEMETH that soe manye shafts be notte In the full quiver of all England's front, As Love the archer over me hath shotte Unwearied in his hunt. Sheltered amid the sacred maidens nine Whom he is said to fear, still doth he come; Beneath the waters of their spring divine His arrowes still strike home. 88 FLEURS-DE-LYS I goe my waye, but am by him out-sped; I fly, but never does the hunt growe slack. Still in my heart his cruel shaft growes red, Altho' I turn my back. JEAN PASSERAT (1534-1602) 62. ODE FOR THE FYRST OF MAYE QUIT thy bed and sleepe of twilight On this tyde, Nowe for us the dawn's red skylight Opens wyde; Heaven hath a smilynge face Ever in this moone of grace; Sweete, draw nigh 1 Let us kindle love and kiss, In this world he lives a-miss That letteth love goe bye. Come with me and leave the rabble; Under trees Let us hark the shy birdes babble Melodies; Let us listen to the stave That the nightyngale soe suave Doth prolong; Ev'n as he doth with his voice Banish sorrowe and rejoice; Brief must be our song. FLEURS-DE-LYS »9 Tjrme that wills not we should marry And be blithe, In his flight our youth doth harry With his scythe. Graye of hair, upon a daye In thy sorrowe thou shalt saye "Foolish girl! Howe hast thou with sad unthrift Squandered all thy beauty's gift On old Tyme the churl! " Leave we then our teares, and gather Ere it fade. The sweet flower of youth together, Man and mayde; Heaven hath a smilynge face Ever in this moone of grace ; Sweete, draw nigh! Let us kindle love and kiss. In this world he lives a-miss That letteth love goe bye. 63. VILLANELLE I HAVE lost my turtle fleet: Is that her owne voice blowne bye ? After her I fayne would beat. ' Dost thou sorrowe for thy sweet ? Soe, alack-a-daye, do I! I have lost my turtle fleet. If thy love hath constant heat, Soe my faith burns steadily: After her I fayne would beat, . »0 • FLEURS-DE-LYS Doth thy mournful playnte repeat ? Even soe I heave my sighe : I have lost my turtle fleet. Since noe more my love I meet, Nothynge lovely I espy: After her I fayne would beat. Death whom daily I entreat, Take thyne owne and let me die : I have lost my turtle fleet. After her I fayne would beat. 64. ON THE DEATH OF THULENE THE KYNGE'S JESTER SIRE, Thulfene is dead. I have seen his grave ; Yet mighte you raise him from his coffin narrowe; Give to the poet what to the fool you gave : Poet and fool are born of the same marrowe. One flys ambition and the other flouts; Both get poor worth for what is in their purses; Their easye humour quicklye smyles or pouts; One's speech is heedlesse as the other's verses. One hath a green head, and the other goes Clad in a prettye cap of greene and yellowe ; One synges you sonnets whyle the other's toes Move to the sound of his owne bells, poor fellowe. In this unlike : Fortune to fools makes offers. But unto poets brynges but emptye coffers. FLEURS-DE-LYS 91 VAUQUELIN DE LA FRESNAYE (1535-1607) 65. SONG LOVE be mute, but take thyne arc, For my wild and lovelye deer, In the dawn or in the dark Passtth near. Here be foot-prints. Lo ! her shape. To her heart thyne arrowe speed. Miss her not lest her escape Mock thy deed. Woe is me ! 'Tis blynde thou art ! the cruel drops that draine ! Far she flies nor feels thy dart : 1 am slaine. 66 PLEASANT wynde whose balmye breath doth fill The aire with perfume that these flowers doe freight ! O happye field wheron the teares did spill Of gentle lovers when unfortunate ! O shadye woode, O runnynge river fewifte That out of wretchednesse saw joye aryse, Pure bliss ensuinge on their long unthrift. And each in other's perfect love growne wyse. Nowe age hath purged them of all carnal neede; And, moved bye holye thoughts to thrust behynde 98 FLEURS-DE-LYS The love wheron their sinful soules did feede, Still doe they feel their wean6d hearts growe kynde When their dim eyes beholde, with waverynge looke, This wynde, thys woode, this field, this runnynge brooke. GUILLAUME DU BARTAS (1544-1590) 67. THE PYRENEES FRENCHMAN, halt here awhyle nor leave this lande Where Nature a soe rockye wall doth rear, That Ariege cleaves with his impetuous hande, A countrye that in beautye hath no peer. Pilgrym, 'tis not a mountayne thou dost see But a Briareus vast whose loftye girth Doth holde the pass against his enemie, Near Spaine from France, and France from Spanysh earth. One arm in France, the other in Spaine set, As Atlas on his head he hath like weighte; Within two seas his separate feet are wet ; The forests dense are locks upon his pate ; The rocks his bones are, and the rivers roarynge The eternal sweat of travail downward pourynge. FLEURS-DE-LYS 98 PHILIPPE DESPORTES ( I 546-1 606) 68. VILLANELLE ROSETTE, because I stayed awaye A little whyle, you wanton grew, And I who knew how you did swaye, Theron was fayne noe more of you. Noe more such fickle lovelinesse Shall holde me captive in its net: We soone shall see, light shepherdesse, Which shall be first to know regret. Whyle in vaine teares my lyfe I lose And doe bemoan my lonely fate, You who doe love by simple use. Have fond arms for another mate; Noe weather-vane more swiftly veers Before the wind than you. Rosette: We soone shall see whose love outwears — Which shall be first to knowe regret. Where are your holye promises. And where are nowe your farewell woes ? And could such sorrowe-laden cries Come from a heart that gaddynge goes ? Pardie! but you're a lyinge lasse. And curst the man whose trust you getl We soone shall see, light shepherdesse. Which shall be first to knowe regret. He who doth tayke the sweets were myne Lacks wit to woe as well as I, 94 FLEURS-DE-LYS And she I love is far more fine In beauty, love and loyaltie. Holde closely then your new-found swaine; This love of myne is firmly set, And then we soone shall see, of twaine, Which shall be first to knowe regret. 69. OF A FOUNTAYNE CHILL is the fount v^hose gentle streame doth carrye Tidynges of love as silverly it flowes Thorough green stalkes that on the brink doe tarrye Beneath the shadovtre that the alder throwes. Lithe boughs in the low wynde with soft complainynge Make love-lorn sighes within that cool retreat; Whyle the hot sun, his topmost height attainynge Doth crack the earth with his soe ardent heat. Pilgrym that on the hard high road hath wended, Sorely athirst beneath the beames that blaze, Here let thy wearinesse awhyle be ended; Here take thyne ease awhyle from dustye wayes; In the cool aire and shade thy heat forsakynge Where the chill f ountayne for thy thirst hath slakynge. 70. ON THE DEATH OF DIANA AS you maye see the sudden lightnynge smite A cloudy pathwaye and wsuie out on it, This bless6d soul, unmarked of mortal wit. Hath left her young heart's dwellynge for the lighte. My thought hath follow 'd, in default of sighte Up to heaven's arches with her presence lit, And seen howe in the glowe where she doth sit She grieveth for me here in the world's nighte FLEURS-DE-LYS 96 O Goddesse, wait no more ! the time is come, Now that thy dust is coffin 'd and thy tomb Doth wear the tribute woven of my love ; For, havynge honoured thee with this sad rite, Weary of teares and misery infinite, I leave the earth and fly to thee above. CATHERINE DES ROCHES (1550-1587) 71. QUATRAIN ON ACHILLES ACHILLES chose a meaner task when he Threw downe the distaff and took up the sworde: One weaves the raiment of humanitye. The other slits the corde. THEODORE-AGRIPPA D'AUBIGNfe {1551-1630) 72. SONNET TO THE KYNGE SIRE, your dogge Lemon, once your bed-fellowe, Nowe hath the bare ground for his nightly stead; That same true dogge that, by his instinct led. Leal friends from traitors did soe rightly knowe. His voice it was that frighted robbters soe. His teeth gript murderers; discomforted. Why hath he harde blowes and a beggar's bed, The wonted wage that royal kynges bestbwe ? , 96 FLEURS-DE-LYS His pryde, his beauty, and his winsome youth Made you to love him; but he had noe ruth ' For your ill-wishers whose bold steps he barr'd. Ye courtiers proude beholdynge haughtilie This outceist dogge that in the streets doth die, On your devotion waits a like rewarde. BOOK III TO KATHERINE T. Puck's whim once made an ass of man, As swine he grunted, changed by Circe; And even so translators can Misrender poets without mercy. I have not Orpheus' skill, but try To mimic in my tongue French singers, And guard lest I should pull awry Their harp-strings with un-nimble fingers. Here take what I have done, dear friend, My fairer Circe, void of malice; And proffer me the sweets that blend For my translation in your chalice. And may you find my faults are few. And my toil-gotten rhymes well-mated : This book I dedicate to you Who, in a day, my life translated. FRANCOIS DE MALHERBE (1555-1628) 73. CONSOLATION TO M. DU PERIER AND must thy grief, Du P^rier, knowe no end ? And the sad counselling Brought to thee fatherlike by thyne old friend But make more sharp its sting ? The sorrowe of thy daughter borne awaye By Death that comes to all, Is it a maze wherein thy mind doth straye, There lost beyond recall ? 1 I knowe what winning wayes, deare child, were hers, Nor ever would I stem In churlish wise, the falling of thy teares By misbeholding them. But of this world she was where things most glad Have ever hardest doom ; And as a rose she lived a daye who had A rose's lovely bloom. And had she lived as thou didst pray she mighte. Laden with yeares to wane At last with all her gold hair turned to white, • What then had been her gaine ? 99 100 FLEURS-DE-LYS Deemst thou that Paradise, an she were old, For her had shone more faire, Or lighter laine on her the chillye mould Or worms that burrowe there ? No, no, deare friend! for Fate drives instantlye The soul from out its ark: Age, in that setting forth leaves not the quay To followe the dim barque. Fate's most unfeeling fingers ply the sheares. Vainly on her we call ; Sternly to all our cries she stops her eares, And will not heed at all. The frugal hind that under thatch doth dwell Obeys her summoning; And at the Palace gate the sentinel Saves not bur Lord the Kynge. All murmurs 'gainst her, all despair or wrath Will bring us no release; To yield unto God's will is the one path Can lead us unto peace. 74. ON THE DEATH OF HIS SON FOR that my son hath lost his mortal shrine. This deare, brave lad on whom I did so dote, I do not saye that destiny mis-wrote. Since at the last must every life decline. But that two crafty rascals bye design Cut short his dayes with their fell blades that smote,- Therein my grief noe solace finds to quote, And all my soule doth in my grief repine. FLEURS-DE-LYS 101 O God, my Saviour, since of simple neede My soule's deep wound for evermore must bleede, The vowe of vengeance is a righteous vov^e. With thy strong arms upholde and strengthen me; Deal thou thy justice for their felon blowe. Sons of the ruffians who did murder Thee. MADEMOISELLE DE GOURNAY (1566-1645) 75. QUATRAIN ON A PICTURE OF JOAN OF ARC " HOW canst thou reconcile, O heavenly mayde, Thy melting glances and thyne eager blade ? ' ' " My soft eyes on my darling country beam; My sword doth smite her freedom to redeem. ' ' MATHURIN REGNIER (1573-1613) 76. STANZAS SINCE thyne eye so ardently ashine with love's own splendour First within my loyal heart hath kindled all of tender, Since, as tho' a saintly star, I worship at thy feet. Come, why not love me, Sweet ? Since thy loveliness that erstwhile renders thee unyielding Must, like any wither'd flower under grass for shield- ing, 102 FLEURS-DE-LYS Shrink from savage tempests storming after summer's heat, Come, why not love me. Sweet ? Wilt thou let thyne eye begetting all of love's warm pleasure Be to thy sweet self no other than a useless treasure ? Since Love like a god in every living heart doth beat. Come, why not love me, Sweet ? Dost thou wait a distant morrowe for thy deare regretting ? Thus thou wilt with fortune's hazard tease my lorn heart's frettynge. Since in a so mellowe season our two lives do meet, Come, why not love me. Sweet ? If thy beauty be so great that there be none com- paring. Heaven not created it for my poor heart's despair- ing. Since meseems it hath compassion when we do entreat. Come, why not love me. Sweet ? 77. A CONFESSION IN BRIEF SINCE sev'n sins from these our eyes Bar the gates of Paradyse, Holy father, if truth's in me, I'll abhor them everywhere, An thou wilt but to me spare Haste and lust that so do win me. FLEURS-DE-LYS 103 These in me are Nature's flaw, These nor precept, nay, nor law Nor your nimble speech can alter ; And when simple sorrowe might Save me from my sinful plight, Whim would make my lips to falter. I have tried to foil them oft With a Pater Noster soft. With a Bible text to smother; In the midst of combats fell, Voices soothe mine ire and tell Howe kind Nature is their mother. 'Tis not God hath giv'n me these To augment mine enemies. But a new Pandora sowing With her own hand far and wide. As a bane for human pride. This strange falsehood in me growing. For no saint, howe'er devout, Firm and zealous could put out Such a blaze of sinful fuel ; Carmelite, Celestine pure Never could 'gainst such a lure, Keep unbroke a law so cruel. Do thou then as I have claimed, Soe that, firm and unashamed, I've a conscience clean within me, As of old the Saints were knowne : From the sev'n sins take alone Haste and lust that so do win me. 104 FLEURS-DE-LYS 78. HIS OWN EPITAPH I LIVED a life was fancy free, Slowe-drifting on contentedly Adowne the road my feet did find; And wherefore Death should think of me I cannot guess, since steadily I alwayes kept him out of mind. FRANCOIS MAYNARD (1582-1642) 79 HOWE faire a destiny 'twould be If after death love still might thrive And followe to the grave with me, For then with death I would not strive. But Death, I fear, when he dismembers. Will leave no flame in Love's dead embers. Nowe only death I do desire Since that thy so unstable mind For me hath quenched its fickle fire. The daye I hate and all mankind; And, if in life I still am sighing, 'Tis but to save my love from dying. 80. EPITAPH HERE lies a toper drank more wine Thsm any other man was able; FLEURS-DE-LYS 105 He had no faith in Gods divine Save him that haunts a tavern table. He dropt into yon river's slime — A clumsy boatman caused the ripple. This was the first and only time He took plain water with his tipple. THEOPHILE DE VIAU (1590-1626) 81. THE BOATMEN DARLING little wing6d boys are clinging to our skulls, Tritons in their envy full of fondness swarming near; Now the wind grows gentle and the surging billow lulls, Lapsing on a stilly tide wherever we may steer. The wheeling stars smile down from heaven to help us as we go. No storm can daunt our sailor-lads, nor make their cheeks turn pale, And never doth the bird of calm nest smooth amid the flow Without a glance as he goes by to bless the flapping sail. Our Ocean is as gentle as the flood Euphrates bears; Not Pactolus nor Tagus with so rich a wave can bless; 106 FLEURS-DE-LYS Here never pilot dreads to meet with crafty buccaneers, Nor knows such long unbroken calm as leads to weariness. Here underneath a gentle sky, and far from thunder's roar. The leisurely slow watches bring us nought but smoothest ease. And here our eyes no yearning know to greet again the shore, But pity the poor angel throng that sail not on such seas. O you for whom love sighs and sighs, dear beauties still unwed. Come share with us the happiness that rides where'er we go; And we will swear to all the world that never sails were spread Above a ship with such a prize betwixt her stern and bow. MARC-ANTOINE DE SAINT- AMANT (1594-1661) 82. THE RISING SUN GODDESS of the rosy hue Holy unto Eastern eyes, Rose of dawn that doth renew Ere thy sire the Sun doth rise. Bring the daylight unto me So that I my love may see. FLEURS-DE-LYS 107 Sure the night is overworn ; Shrill the cocks salute the sun ; Mount the golden car of morn Drawn by hours that swiftly run, Haste and come that all may scan How thou paintest heaven's span. Gentle beam of my desire I behold thee. Welcome here! Heavenly thy beauty's fire On the cloud doth now appear, And thy star with pallid light , Makes the Eastern mountains bright. DENIS SANGUIN DE SAINT-PAVIN (1595-1670) 83. EPIGRAM TIRCIS makes rhymes as fast as ticking; Mine with good cause find slower birth : For his will die while still he's kicking, But mine will live when I'm in earth. 108 FLEURS-DE-LYS VINCENT VOITURE (1598-1648) 84. RONDEAU IN good plain French your words devoutly rise More solemn than a monkey could devise; Your soul aye finds so little that doth please, We well might think our France and all her sees Turned round your reverend worship pivot-wise. For every matter you have bigot sighes, For all our wickedness teares fill your eyes ; You hide your Spanish heart in homilies Of good plain French. Then leave our State untroubled of your cries; A worthy sailor-man the rudder plies : For, if we must speak frankly at our ease, Although your mind is full of subtleties, That you're a blockhead we all realize In good plain French. PIERRE CORNEILLE (1606-1684) 85. STANZAS TO THE MARQUISE MARQUISE, if on my face you spy Some trace of Time's unsparing graver. Remember when as old as I You'll hardly showe a fairer favour. FLEURS-DE-LYS 109 For Time doth take in ruthless holde The loveliest things that we do cherish ; As he hath lined my forehead old, So he will make your roses perish. The same swift planets in their course Draw on our dayes and nights unceasing; My face was once as fair as yours, And yours must soon like mine be creasing. Yet have I dazzling charms to fright The stern aspect of Time's deploying. And give me courage to despite The onward march of his destroying. Your charms by all are worshipped; But those that you esteem so lightly May well endure when yours are dead, And all your beauty growne unsightly. They may bestowe undying fame On eyes that unto me are dearest, And in a thousand yeares proclaim The beauty that for me thou wearest. And that new race beyond the grave To what I write shall render credit, And you shall have no beauty save As I alone have sung or said it. Then ponder well, my fair Marquise: Though silvery hairs do so affright you, ' Yet such as I 'twere well to please Whose printed word may bless or blight you. no FLEURS-DE-LYS PAUL SCARRON (i6io-i66o) ' 86. HIS OWN EPITAPH HE who underground doth slumber Few men envied, many pitied, Suffered deaths withouten number Ere at last this life he quitted. Friend, let not your footsteps jar on This his grave lest you awake him; For 'tis the first night poor Scarron Felt sound slumber overtake him. ISAAC DE BENSERADE (1612-1691) 87. FOR MADAME WHEN you beholde her graciousness and glory, The beauty of her features, the splendour of her birth, Like to the goddesses of early Grecian story Would you not take her for Juno come to earth ? When you behold how all are fain to serve her, When in her company how all men have adored. Her eyes that are shining with all grace and loving fervour. Would you not take her for Venus' self restored ? FLEURS-DE-LYS 111 Pallas it is that in her body dwelleth Masking all her pride in her gentleness of soul, Never showing on her brow the haughty frown that quelleth, Keeping her heart and her noble spirit whole. Were Paris here to give again his favour, Swift would be his choosing now since without despite, She alone would share the apple that he gave her With these three goddesses that in her soul unite. JEAN DE LA FONTAINE (1621-169S) 88. THE GRASSHOPPER AND THE ANT THE Grasshopper that through the Summer Her cymbals beat, [heat Found her bare board without a crumb And the chill wynd of Winter come. Not one tiny shred of fly Nor of earth-worm could she spy. Off she went her plight bewailing To the Ant beyond the railing, Begging food enough to save Her shrivell'd body from the grave Till the boughs again were shady. "I'll repay," pronounced my Lady, " Ere hot August come, your loan With the interest due thereon." Now the Ant likes not to lend, (A small fault wherein she strayes). 112 FLEURS-DE-LYS " How fared you in your Summer dayes ? " Said she to her needy friend. " Unto all, sun high- or setting, I did sing, save your displeasure." — " Did you then ? I'm glad you'd leisure! Well, now start your pirouetting." 89. THE RAT WHO WITHDREW FROM THE WORLD AMONG Levantine legends you maye find One of a rat worn out with worldly strife Who in the hollow of a round Dutch rind Withdrew to lead a cloistral life. The solitude was audible Round the deep arches of his cell. The hermit made his living in the husk. Soe well he wrought with toe and tusk. That soon within his cell's dark core Was ample victualling. What would you more ? The rat grew sleek. (The Lord doth bless alwayes Whom to his saintly service vow their dayes.) One daye a godly caller bore. As leading counsellor among the rats, For some small alms his government's behest: They had decided on a foreign quest To seek for help against the horde of cats Ratopolis did whelm; With empty pockets they had left, Since of all money was bereft The cat-beleaguered realm. They asked small tribute, counting that such aid Would be forthcoming ere five suns should fade. " My friends," replied the lonely man, " I meddle not in sub-celestial feud: FLEURS-DE-LYS 118 What can a poor soul in its solitude To help you forward in your plan But pray to heaven for the help you need ? And may the Lord thereunto give full heed." And, having answered thus, full piously The new saint shut his door (and turned the key). 4: 4: :): 4: 4: Whom do you think that I so, with craft. Show as a niggardly rat for parity ? A monk ? Why no, but a dervish daft: For I take it a monk is all loving charity. 90. THE DONKEY LOADED WITH RELICS SOME relics on a donkey being tied. The beast imagined as he proudly strode, Men bowed unto himself and not his load, And thought their ' ' Aves ' ' to himself applied. Some one who saw his error said aloud " Dull donkey, do not let your mind grow proud With such an idle whim. Incense and hymn Are for the holy relics that you carry. And these alone deserve such adoration." Men bow not to an ignorant functionary, ^But only to his circumstance and station. 91. THE OAK AND THE REED " YOU have good cause to weep your fate," Unto the slender reed the oak once said : " A wren for you must seem a dreadful weight; The least wind that doth spread 114 FLEURS-DE-LYS A ripple on the stream in spate, Makes your poor head grow pliant. Whereas my brow like to a lofty hill Not only takes the sunbeams as they spill, But to the storm's defiant. Winds that to you are blasts, to me are sighs. Still, did you spring where my boughs make a shield Of leaves above the field You need not know such agonies : I would defend you when the thunder pealed. But often on the humid brink you grow Of realms where the winds blow. Nature to you indeed seems very harsh." " Your pity," said the poor reed of the marsh, " Is kindly meant. But don't be too soft-hearted. To you the winds bear a more dreadful spite: I bend, but break not. So far you have thwarted The awful blows wherewith they smite Your stout trunk still unbending. . . . But bide your time. ' ' Scarce had he made an ending When from the horizon wildly blown The most fell blast did speed That ever yet the icy Pole did breed. The tree stood steadfast, while the reed bent down. With double effort then The wind his roots up-tore Whose lofty head unto the clouds did soar Whose feet were buried in the dust of men 92. THE ASS CLOTHED IN THE LION'S SKIN FEAR fled before a wily Ass that clad In lion's skin his head and shoulders; Though little might the creature had. He frightened all beholders. FLEURS-DE-LYS 115 An ear-tip showing to observant eyes Made plain the sham of his disguise ; And straightway Martin set him running. But those still blinded by his cunning Were much amazed his lash should dare Drive back the lion to his lair. * * * * St! How many folks who make a stir in France Remind us daily of the fabled Ass : Vain pomp, alas! The only witness of their valiance. JEAN-BAPTISTE POQUELIN DE MOLIERE (1622-1673) 93. TO M. LE VAYER ON THE DEATH OF HIS SON WEEP on Le Vayer, make thine eyes an urn, Thou hast good reason for thine Extreme woe, Wisdom herself would let her tears o'er-fiowe If her own loss were such as thou dost mourn. Vainly with idle precept the forlorn Strive to behold dry-eyed their loved ones goe; All Nature deems it but a heartless showe. And eyes such crude barbarity with scorn. Too well we knowe no weeping can make whole The dear son whom too sudden Death did reap. Not therefore doth the blowe less sharply smite : All men revered him for his virtuous soul. Large-hearted, lofty-minded, full of light. And for these things we must for ever weep. 116 FLEURS-DE-LYS PHILIPPE QUINAULT (1635-1683) 94. THE SONG OF PLUTO ALL men this path must tread; Life doth but lead To Death's reprieve. Thereby a hundred woes are thrown aside; Who still would bide But seeks the more to grieve. Draw near the darkness of this nether shore ; The rest ye so do crave Is not for mortals save Unto Death's harbour ye be ferried o'er. All souls at last have place within this gloom; All hither come And hence pass out no more. This is the law that bindeth all alive ; The might wherewith ye strive Makes but a vain effdrt. Say, wise is he That shuns the peril of this sea ? It is a storm to drive The ship unto her port. FLEURS-DE-LYS 117 JEAN RACINE (1639-1699) 95- HYMN TRANSLATED FROM THE ROMAN BREVIARY GREAT God at whose divine word of command The heavens did arise, Thou settest borders to the seas, and spann'd With thine unmeasured skies. Ev'n as the heavenly arch hath liquid plains, The earth hath streams that run And to the arid meadows bear their rains Jn time of parching sun. Lord, like the waters let thy grace down fall To heal us in thy tide. That from this day our sense be no more thrall To snares the world doth hide. And of thy faith send the propitious beams Upon our eyes to burst, And tear the mask from the infernal schemes Of wickedness accurst. Eternal Father, Son, all wisdom's source, * And Spirit, God of peace. That dost control of Time th' inconstant course, Reign on and never cease. 118 FLEURS-DE-LYS GUILLAUME AMFRYE, ABBfi DE CHAULIEU (1630-172O) 96. TO THE SOLITUDE OF FONTENAY 'MID these hamlets and these woods Life itself at last I find; Here my soul no longer broods On my sorrows left behind. Fontenay delightful where My young eyes first saw the sun, Soon unto my sires I'll fare When the race of life is run. Muses who beside this lawn Nourished me with kindly breath, Trees that saw my young life dawn You shall see it wane in death. Yet 'tis wise to breathe the air In the shadow of your boughs Tearless, and my soul prepare For that dark and awful house. Where of all the trees that I Set within the grove to wave There shall follow when I die Cypress only to my grave. FLEURS-DE-LYS 11» CHARLES RIVIERE DU FRESNY (1648-1724) 97. THE NEXT DAYS FAIR Phyllis, more niggard than coy, On getting no gain by denying. For twenty fine sheep of her boy Once oflEered a kiss for his buying. The next day to bargain once more : The shepherd found things in his favour, Demanding of kisses a score For every sheep that he gave her. The next day fair Phyllis was fain. And fearing her shepherd's displeasure, In haste gave his flock back again For a kiss that he paid her at leisure. The next day her passion so drave. Dog and sheep she'd have given unto him, For a kiss that for nothing he gave 1 To Lizette who had started to woe him. 120 FLEURS-DE-LYS JEAN-BAPTISTE ROUSSEAU (1670-1741) 98. LOVE LOVE comes not by trying, Love's a jealous God; On himself relying, Men must wait his nod. All own his prerogative ; He alone doth lawless live. In the frozen fallows Flora's throne doth rise; Wind drives home the swallows. And the wind's self dies: Love alone when he takes wing|| Turns not home from wandering. FRANCOIS-MARIE AROUET DE VOLTAIRE (1694-1778) 99. TO MADAME LULLIN AND doth my aged Muse forlorn Surprise you that she still is able. Though eighty winters she hath borne. To quaver lines of ode or fable ? Sometimes a plot of green will spring In wintry fields the frost makes hoary. FLEURS-DE-LYS 121 Spared but a while as comforting The summer season's faded glory. A bird may warble an he will, With all his brave days left behind him, But in his song shall sound no thrill Of tender love that once did bind him. 'Tis thus I touch the worn-out strings That foil these fingers once untiring, 'Tis thus I try this voice that sings E'en though the singer be expiring. " I would in death's farewell, my Queen," (TibuUus to his mistress sighing), " Fix mine eyes on thine own, and e'en Would clasp thee with the hand that's dying." But when we feel life ebb apace, The soul borne on beyond retrieving. Then have we eyes for Delia's face, Or hands to fondle her we're leaving ? Man must forget in such a plight The deeds that in his haleness please him; And when was ever mortal wight Content to feel Death's fingers seize him ? And even Delia, when in turn She lies with endless night around her. Forgets the beauty made men yearn. And love that all through life enwound her. Birth, life, and death are ours, sweetheart. And none doth know how he came hither. Each out of nothingness doth start; Where doth he go ? . . . God knoweth whither. 122 FLEURS-DE-LYS 100. TO M. GRETRY YOUR songs Paris honoured of late, The Court has rewarded with jeers. Alas! that the ears of the great Are so often such very great ears. loi. FOR A STATUE OF LOVE WHOE'ER you are, you here your master see: He is, or was, or very soon shall be. 102. ON JEAN FRERON THE other day while in the dale our friend did fare on A hidden serpent chanced to sting poor Johnny Freron. And then what think you followed on this evil spiting? The serpent burst in agony and died of biting! PONCE-DENIS ECOUCHARD LEBRUN (1729-1807) 103. DIALOGUE BETWEEN A POOR POET AND THE AUTHOR I HAVE just been robbed of papers ! — I am sorry for your grief. Yes, of all my hand-writ verses! — O! I'm sorry for the thief. FLEURS-DE-LYS 12« JEAN-FRANCOIS DUCIS (1733-1816) 104. TO MY BROOK BROOK little known whose waters run Along a wild and hidden bed, Like thee the busy world I shun And love the wilderness instead. Brook in forgetfulness now drown The sorrows of my past forlorn, And leave within my soul alone The peace that on thy tide is borne. Thy banks are dear to lilies pale And to the lowly marguerite; And by thy stream the nightingale Doth warble out his passion sweet. And nigh thee from the soul in peace Doth fall the burden of its sin; Thou all its sorrow dost release With murmurs of thy tuneful lin. When may I in drear autumn days Along the course of thy clear stream Hear the soft sound of shaken sprays Or the lone lapwing's plaintive scream ? Ah ! how I love this ancient shrine, These walls whereon the flames have fed. These pious bells that still repine With wistful music overhead ! 124 FLEURS-DE-LYS Now on the road a mother heeds Their summoning, far wandered ; Her little daughter whom she leads Says " Amen ! " as she bows her head. Where dwelt a vestal sisterhood Once saw I cloister'd rivers run That ppured their solitary flood By altars of the Holy One. Their crystal waters wandered By arch and plinth in mystic wise Where these fair angel-girls did tread The blessed fields of Paradise. My humble brook thy stream in flight — So short a life is ours below — Reminds me, thine own eremite. How Time's swift stream doth ever flow. EVARISTE DE PARNY (1754-1801) 105. ON THE DEATH OF A YOUNG GIRL SHE was a childe or hardly more ; She smiled like Innocence and wore The light on Love's own face aglow. Few were the moons — the suns in sooth Ere her unsullied heart would know His fondness break the seal of youth. But Heaven unto Death did doom The beauty of her early bloom. Then unto Heaven did she yield Her life, and^soft her eyelids sealed FLEURS-DE-LYS 125 Without a sound of murmuring heard: Just as a smile wanes out at will, Or bird's song from a drowsy bill That leaves the woodland boughs unstirred. ANDRfe CHENIER (1762-1794) 106. A YOUNG MAN I WAS a mite when she was tall and fair; She smiled on me and bid me nigh her chair. Perched on her lap my childish hand would glide Over her hair, her face, her bosom's pride, While her hand sometimes, fondling and forbearing, Would feign to chide me for its wanton faring. And she was kindest when before her bowed Poor hapless suitors whom her beauty cowed. How oft (alas 1 that childhood knows no thrill) Her kisses on my baby cheek she'd spill I While her foil'd lovers whispered at the sight, " What treasure wasted I O too happy mitel" 107. TO CHROMIS COME, young Chromis, I love thee, and I am lovely. Pale as Dian, and light as her heart is mine I Who am tall and proud as the Goddess. The shep- herds wonder When I go by them at twilight with downcast eyne, Whether indeed I am made in the fashion of mortals, And gazing, they whisper together, "What beauty divine I" 128 FLEURS-DE-LYS io8. CLYTIE MY Man4s to Clytie are crying, " Farewell, fair one! Is it thou whose footsteps here thro' the grass have run? Speak, is it thou, O Clytie ? or must I stay To wait thee still ? An thou comest not every day To muse a little on hours when I did thy will. To hold sweet parley, behold this shadow that still Doth love thee, ah ! then shall my lone heart wearily heave Within the Elysian calm and my dead bones grieve Under the burdening ground. When the dawn winds run Over thy mouth and thy bosom, beloved one. Weep, it is I thy lover whose soul hath fled Far from his hallow'd dwelling among the dead, Who on thy mouth, O dear one, alone would live. 01 weep, and with fond arms open, thy kisses give I" 109. THE FLUTE WHEN I remember I am nigh to weep : How he would hold the flute unto my lip, And, smiling, set me level with his heart. Swearing I beat him at his own smooth art. 'Twas he who taught my faltering lip to draw Sweet breath unbrokenly and without flaw Of suavest melody; my hands unskilled By his deft hands over the stops were drilled; Twas thus I learnt, though still with blundering heed, To close the gaps upon the sounding reed. FLEURS-DE-LYS 127 no. THE NYMPH ASLEEP I KNOW when noon drives shadowward their feet With silent tread to find their cool retreat, Where thro' the cresses and the pebbled ooze The roaming Naiad a random path doth choose' I gaze my fill upon the pale nymph shown With bare limbs lissom on the green bank prone, Who droops on to her hand, by lulling streams Her reed-encircled forehead while she dreams. III. THE HEIFER OLD herder's daughter, thou whose hands are skilled To draw the teat till thirty bowls be filled, Ware the red heifer with the sullen gaze That goes companionless apart to graze. Free, she will break away, untamed and fleet. Not thro' thy fingers shalt thou draw her teat. Unless thou hoist with skill a sleek limb bent And hold it slung until her store be spent. 112. THE^YOUNG CAPTIVE "THE sickle spares the springing corn, The sapling vine-stems drink unshorn All summer through dawn's dewy boon- And I, as young and fair, am fain Though now my cup be hard to drain. To hide from Death that calls too soon. " Let Stoics meet him unaghast; I weep. Before the northern blast I bow my head and lift again. 128 FLEURS-DE-LYS Sad days are nought beside the sweet. What pathway never foiled the feet ? What sea but hath its hurricane ? " Within my bosom Hope doth breed, And prison-bars stay not the speed Of his wide wings that will not fold; Scaped from the fowler's snare he flies My blithe sweet bird o'er the wide skies, And sings with heart too full to hold. « " Is death for me ? With hope unquelled I breathe, awake or slumber-held, Free from remorse for evil done. And with each dawn in this dark place All eyes speak welcome for the face Makes glad the heart of every one. ' ' Of milestones on my destined road Scarce have I counted one, or strode Beyond the trees about my home. Scarce have I yet or broken bread At the rich board that life doth spread. Or sipped the full cup still afoam. " My life's at Spring. I would behold The harvest yield, and, onward rolled, !| Would like the sun bear high my crown. Fair on my stem the garden's queen. The dawn-light my young eyes have seen And yearn to see the sun go down. " Death thou mayst wait. Go! get thee hence. Heal thou the wounds of shame's offence In hearts whereon despair doth brood. FLEURS-DE-LYS 129 For me Pan lurks, and sweet Desire Hath kisses and the Muses quire. I will not die in Maidenhood." Thus, sad and captive, as she spoke My lyre was stirred and silence broke. In pity with her moaning blent. And, shaking off my load of care, I caught the song in rhyme's soft snare, From her sweet lips and innocent. And thus these rhymes in prison twined May tempt some soul of studious mind To seek the lady who thus woo'd. So fair the face and words that pled That unto all were death most dread Within her gracious neighbourhood. MARIE-JOSEPH CHENIER (1764-1811) 113. HYMN SOURCE of all truth, blasphemed by every liar, Eternal guardian of all souls alive, Freedom's own God, of Nature the one sire In whom all live and thrive; Thou hast set the world's base under seas unsounded. Thine arm hurls wide or thunder-bolt or wind; Thou shinest in the sun whose rays unbounded Give strength to humankind ! 130 FLEURS-DE-LYS Thy shrines are found in the unfurrowed prairies, In cities opulent, in desert caves, In lowly valleys and in mountain aeries. In sky and under waves. But for thy glory there is consecrated A shrine more noble than the azure air In upright hearts where burneth unabated The incense of pure pray'r! ANTOINE-VINCENT ARNAULT (1766-1834) 114. THE DEAD LEAF WAIF in the wind, O where So swiftly dost thou speed ? " I nothing know nor heed Since thunder toppled sheer The oak-tree whence I hung. South wind or northern blast. Soft-voiced or shrill of tongue, Do drive me onward fast Who feel nor grief nor fear: By wood or valley low. By field or mountain height, I pass from mortal sight Where rose and laurel go." BOOK IV TO A. G. SHIELL PIERRE-JEAN DE BERANGER (1780-1857) 115. THE SWALLOWS ON the Moorish coast, chain-tethered, Thus a captive soldier spoke : ' ' I behold you, shining feathered Hosts that fly from Winter's yoke. You whom Hope, O! happy swallows Leaving France on truant wing, On your sunward journey follows, What home-tidings do you bring ? ' ' Three long years have passed since dumbly I implored some token gleaned From the valley where I humbly Dreamt of bliss the future screened. Where the limpid stream runs looping Round the lilac-scented garth. Have you glimpsed my cot, and swooping Gathered tidings of my hearth ? ' ' One of you perchance did quicken Under thatch where I was born; Of the mother sorely stricken You have wept the love forlorn. Prone in death she hears my coming. Grieving for the laggard beat Of my footsteps slowly homing: Do you bear love-tiding sweet ? 133 134 FLEURS-DE-LYS " Is my sister's wedding over ? Have you seen the merry throng Toasting bride and toasting lover To the sound of happy song ? And the brave lads once went leaping Into battle, do they see Home again — or are they sleeping ? Have you news of friends for me ? " Over their slain bodies striding The despoiling stranger may In my home as master biding Seek my sister to betray. There no more a mother praying, Here the heavy chains that cling — Swallows from my homeland straying, Sorrow's burden do you bring ?" 1 1 6. VILE SPRING! I SAW her at her window set. Myself at mine all winter through; And well we loved who'd never met, Our kisses crossed the avenue. Between the lindens bare of green The sight of her made all seem gay; But now you've made the boughs a screen, / Vile Spring! Why can't you keep away ? Their leafy arches serve to ban For me that lovely seraph bright I first saw feed her feathered clan One morning when the frost was white ; FLEURS-DE-LYS 135 They summoned her with songs that so Became the cue for Cupid's play: There's nothing lovelier than snow! Vile Spring! Why can't you keep away ? When she awakes you are the cause I cannot see her leave her bed As fresh as when Aurora draws The rosy curtains overhead. Now too at night I'm left in doubt What time my fair star hides her ray, And when she blows her candle out: Vile Spring! Why can't you keep away ? 'Tis Winter that I'm pining for: Ah! what I'd give to hear again The sound of pelting snows that pour In music on the window-pane. What good are all your flowers to me, Your zephyrs and your suns of May, When her sweet smile I cannot see ? Vile Spring! Why can't you keep away ? MARCELINE DESBORDES-VALMORE (1786-1859) 117. THE ROSES OF SAADI THIS morning I had roses for thee found, But I did hold them in my girdle bound So tightly that they tumbled to the ground. 136 FLEURS-DE-LYS The bonds were broken, and the swift wind bore Thy gathered roses to the sea-brimmed shore Over the water to return no more. The waves seemed red and flaming where they went. This eve my raiment is still redolent : Breathe on my bosom, love, their odours blent. ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE \ (1790-1869) 118. THE LAKE THUS ever drawn toward far shores uncharted. Into eternal darkness borne away, May we not ever on Time's sea, unthwarted, Cast anchor for a day ? O lake ! Now hardly by a year grown older. And nigh the well-known waves her eyes should Behold! I sit alone on this same boulder [greet. Thou knewest for her seat. Thus didst thou murmur in thy rocky haven, Thus didst thou shatter on its stony breast ; Thus fell the wind-flung foam on sands engraven Where her dear feet had prest. One eve — rememberest thou ? — in silence drifting, 'Twixt deep and sky no sound had echo save Afar the rowers dipping oars and lifting Over thy waters suave. FLEURS-DE-LYS 137 When all at once a voice that made earth wonder From the charmed shore drove all the echo^ wide, And rapt the wave, not fain as I nor fonder. And with sweet words did chide : " Stay thou thy flight, Time! and happy hours Trail by with laggard feet ! Let all the savour of your delight be ours Of all our days most sweet ! " Too many grieving souls to thee are praying; Nay, leave not these immune; Bear off with thee their sorrows undelaying; Leave happy souls their boon. " Nay, but in vain I ask one gracious hour; Time flies and will not hark. I bid the night abide and dawn doth shower His splendour down the dark. " Ah! let us love, my Love, for Time is heartless, Be happy while you may! Man hath no Heaven and Time's coast is chartless. He speeds; we pass away!" Churl Time, and can it be sweet moments cherished. Wherein love fills our lives with teeming bliss. Speed far away and be as swiftly perished As days when sorrow is ? Nay! Ere we go may we not leave sure traces ? Nay ! Passed for ever ? Beyond all reprieve ? What Time bestows on us, what Time effaces He nevermore shall give ? 138 FLEURS-DE-LYS O ! everlasting night, deep pit unsounded, WhaT: dost thou with engulphed days untold ? Speak! Wilt thou yield us back the bliss unbounded Once ravished from our hold ? O ! lake, mute rocks, caves, leafy woodland shading, You whom Time spares or clothes with newer sheen. Keep of this night, fair Nature, keep unfading The memory ever green! In all thy calms and all thy tempests blending. Fair lake, and in thy forelands' smiling fronts, In thy dark pines and thy wild cliffs impending Over thy crystal fonts. In the winds peissing, with a trembling lightness, Heard in the echoes that thy shores throw far. Seen in the beams that fall with sheeny whiteness Wave-borne from the clear star! Let moaning breezes thro' the rushes gliding. All perfume stirring thy sweet air above. All seen or heard or breathed bear this tiding, " Hereby they once did love!" 119. THE BUTTERFLY COMING with the daffodils and dying with the roses. Wafted by the zephyr's wing athwart the spaces high. Lurking in the flower's bloom or e'er its brezist un- closes, Reeling with sweet draughts of scent, and light, and deep blue sky; FLEURS-DE-LYS 139 Shaking wide its dusty wings and like the breezes breasting Burdenless and innocent the sky's eternal steep: — Thus doth fare the butterfly like hope that never resting, Rifles all but cannot quench desire that ever questing, Bears it home to heaven again for lasting joy and deep. 120. MEMORY AND HOPE I REBEHOLD you, O beloved Dead About these doors and windows gathered; With hands held out your own I seem to seize, As water to the eye shows mirrored faces That lean to meet our own in fond embraces Till on love-kindled lips our kisses freeze. 0! Thou who madest memory, must it be For nought at all ? . . . Nay, we must render Thee, When life is over in one stream to pour What hath gone past and what is beyond knowing, The two halves of our life together flowing. This saying " Never," and that " For evermore." Shall not this bygone Eden that we knew In our Eternal Life have shape and hue ? For where Time is not shall not all Time be ? In that calm breast whereto our souls are cleaving Shall we not find our loved ones beyond grieving About the hearth-stone of Eternity ? 140 FLEURS-DE-LYS 121. THE WEST THE sea grew silent like a seething bowl That falls as the flame dwindles; backward led Her waves still fuming in their wrath did roll As seeking sleep in her unfathomed bed; And the spent sun-star in his cloudy race Stayed on the waves a rayless orb that sank, Then plunged one half of his ensanguined face, A flaming ship that the horizon drank; Half heaven grew wan, and swooned away the wind On the limp canvas, still and mute ; the host Of shadows fell, and under their gray blind Both sky and water were together lost; And in my soul that waned as the day slept The sounds of earthly commerce no more stirred; And something in me as in Nature wept In grief and hope and gratitude unheard. And on the west a sudden door flung wide Poured floods of light that surged upon the gaze; The empurpled sky was like a tent to hide A hearthstone burning with unmeasured rays; Clouds, winds, and waters to the blazing arc Seemed all to haste as though a flnal doom Should fall on all things with the falling dark, And Nature perish in a world of gloom. Thereto the dust of evening was fanned, Thereto the white spray of the waters set; And long and sad, unconsciously I scanned The light they followed, with wide eyelids wet. FLEURS-DE-LYS 141 Till all was hidden; like an empty cup My soul was even as the horizon hid; But lo ! in me a sudden thought rose up As on the desert a lone pyramid: O light! where goest thou ? flameless sphere! O clouds, winds, waters, whither do you race ? Dust, foam, and night; you eyes; thou soul, speak clear ! Where is the goal to which you speed apace ? To Thee, Great All, of whom the sun's a ray, In whom Night, Day, and the deep Spirit sink. To whose divine impulsion all things sway, Vast sea of Being that all life doth drink! EMILE DESCHAMPS (1791-1871) 122. DO NOT BELIEVE LADY, they will tell you, " You are foolish to believe him! Why then will you suffer more than he for all his grief ? A poet, all his sorrow fades away as words relieve him; His sighs are spent in cadences, he sings for his relief. " You leave him and he languishes, he dies . . . until to-morrow. And then with his belov6d art rebuilds the world aright. 142 FLEURS-DE-LYS He finds in your dear absence an excuse for mimic sorrow, And drives away dark sorrow's self by singing of his plight." Yes, that is what they'll tell you, happy in their dis- esteeming The arts they do not understand, the friendship they deny. But you, — will you believe them in their pitiless blaspheming That will not grant a groat of worth to writers such as I ? Ah, no ! it is not sorrow that gives music to the poet; But for the scent of roses and the charm of smiles he sings ; For when my heart cries out, alas! I have no speech to show it. But weep above my idle lute and loosen all the strings. 123. THE UNKNOWN I SAW in dream a fair unknown More gentle than a sleeping child. With sudden laughter lightly blown, A fay with golden locks and wild. 'Mid daughters of the earth she flew With Ariel for her kindred sprite, And bore us news of heaven's delight . I saw you, and my dream was true! FLEURS-DE-LYS 143 I heard in dream a seraph fair Sweet-singing on our human way ; And I, of some strange charm aware, Stretched out my hands from far away; And like the tides that swell the sea I felt my full heart overbrim . . . And all my life in tears grow dim . . . It is a dream no more to me! I dreamed ; to me so dark the day The hours of sleep are boon and dear, And my deep sorrow to allay One night the holy child drew near. Ah I then to what must I give heed ? I heard her trembling voice above, " Nay dear, thou must not die for love." Alas ! it was a dream indeed ! ALFRED DE VIGNY (1797-1863) 124. THE SNOW WHEN barren boughs above us wave. And snow lies deep above the mire; When all the earth is stone to grave, And lonely poplars upward spire; When, snow on wing, the rook doth rock. Hard-frozen on his lofty perch, As stilly as the weather-cock Upon the steeple of the church; 144 FLEURS-DE-LYS Ah! then how sweet to hear the brave Old stories of the days of yore. When barren boughs above us wave, And snow lies deep, and earth lies frore. 125. THE SHEPHERD'S HUT If thy heart, groaning under life's rude burden. Writhe in its faring like an eagle hurt Trailing a weary way with proud wing shattered. Under a doom of grievous pain inert; If it but beat when its red tide is streaming. If there be hidden from all sight or seeming Love's light that once for it the horizon girt; If thy soul, shackled as my own sad soul is. By fetters and long bitter fare fordone, On the bare galley let the oar lie nerveless. Lean wanly o'er the wave and weep alone; If o'er the tide to unknown havens steering. At thy bare shoulder's sight thou shudder, fearing The brand of felony clear-scarred thereon ; And if thy body stirred by secret passion, Shy and aloof be dreadful of man's gaze; If with thy beauty tltou wouldst dwell serenely Withdrawn unsullied from the world's foul ways; If thy speech wither in the wind of slander, If thy brow redden lest thy fair thought wander In some lewd mind that, seeing and hearing, slays; Then get thee hence, leave all the towns behind thee, Nor halt on ways that soil the feet that fare; From thought's high pinnacle behold our cities Man's bane, foredoomed to endless serfage there; FLEURS-DE-LYS 145 With fields and forests for thy sacred homing Free as the sea round darkened islands foaming, Cross the sweet fields, flow'r-laden, without care. Nature awaits thee in her solemn silence, And round thy feet the lawny mists exhale. As far away the sun's last sigh sets swaying The lovely lilies like swung censers frail; The forest aisles grow dim; on waters dimmer The willow sets unsullied leaves a-shimmer And the far mountain hides in evening's veil. The friendly dusk now slumbers in the valley. On the green herbage and the golden lawn, Below shy rushes where hid founts are welling, Below the dreamy woodland far withdrawn ; It flies, and furtive thro' the wild vine shivers; It throws a grey shroud o'er the steamy rivers, And leaves the flowers of night half fain of dawn. On mine own hill the heath is rank, and hunters The ling and bracken scarce can trample through ; High on their brows the lofty wands that waver Shelter the shepherd and the stranger too. Hide there thy love and thy divine misdoing; If grass be scanty, or the bent blades blowing. Forth will I bring my Shepherd's Hut to view. Smoothly it runs upon its four wheels stirring. With roof flush with thy brow and eyes, my guest; Thy cheeks' own colour as of palest coral Tinting the night-car on its noiseless quest. Its sill is scented and its alcove roomy Where we shall find a silent couch and gloomy, Flow'r-heapt for our two heads grown fain of rest. 146 FLEURS-DE-LYS I shall see, if thou wilt, the snowy moorlands, Or lands whereon love's star her light doth pour, Or those wind-ravaged, or where snows beleaguer. Or where the dark Pole hardens to the core. We will together as fair chance may beckon. Of time or of the world why should I reckon ? All shall be lovely that thine eyes adore. She said, " I am the empty stage grown passive, From tremors of the mummer's tread immune ; My emerald stairs, my courts of alabaster, My marble columns by the Gods were hewn; I hear nor shout nor sigh ; nor, calm or stormy. Feel the slow human comedy pass o'er me. That looks to heav'n in vain for bane or boon. " Onward I roll, unseeing and unheeding. By ant-heaps or the swarming hives of men; For me alike their dwelling and their ashes; The names of nations are beyond my ken Who bare them. I am grave whom men call mother ; In Winter's icy shroud your lives I smother, Nor heed your worship when Spring come agen. " Before you I was lovely with sweet odour, Far on the wind my streaming locks flung sheer; On skiey pathways immemorial faring; On the smooth axle of a God-like sphere Spun onward. After" you thro' void space wheeling. Still shall I soar aloof from human feeling, With brow and breast that cleave the all silent air." Thus spake she vrith her proud voice full of sorrow. And in my heart I hated her, and knew FLEURS-DE-LYS 147 Our blood was in her tides; her fields and forests Were fed with our own marrow as with dew. I said unto my eyes towards her yearning, " Gaze otherwhere, and weep not for her spurning ; Give thy love only where thou canst not rue. ' ' Who twice shall know thy tender grace and gesture, Mild angel, and most mournful with thy sighs ? Who like to thee shall bring such blissful solace As thou from the wan radiance of thine eyes ? So sweet to us the swaying of thy slant face is. So sweet to us thy prone lithe body's graces, And thy pure smile in love's or sorrow's guise. Live on cold Nature, and for us rekindle Forehead and feet with thy predestined might; Live and disdain, since thou art as a Goddess, Meek man who over thee hath kingly right. More than thy kingdom and thy thriftless glory I hold the grandeur of our human story; Nor will I cry to thee, in love's despite. 126. THE SOUND OF THE HORN I LOVE the sound of the horn in the deep, dim wood- land, Whether it wail with the doe that is nigh to death. Or cry the hunter's farewell on the echoes waning, From leaf to leaf borne on by the north wind's breath. How often alone, in the shadow at midnight straying, I have smiled to hear it, how often have wept still morel 148 FLEURS-DE-LYS For I seemed to hear the rumour of things foreboding The death of the Paladin knights that lived Qf yore. O azure Mountain! O land that my heart is fain of! Franzona fells, and summits of Marbore, Fountains that fall with the drifted snows for a burden, Torrents and brooks of the Pyrenees' chill spray, Mountains frozen or fertile, throning the seasons. Who have ice for crown and the meadows about your feet, 'Tis there would I dwell, 'tis there would I wait to hearken The far-borne sound of the horn blow sad and sweet. A traveller strayed mayhap when the air is stilly. Lifts up this brazen voice that the night repeats ; With the sound of his cadenced songs for a while is blending The tiny bell of the tethered lamb that bleats. A doe that heareth the sound flies not but rather Stands still as a stone on the hill-top, while waters chime In vast uproar with the music for ever calling From the old romance of the immemorial time. Souls of the Paladins, say, do your ghosts still haunt us ? Is it you who speak to us still in the blare of the horn ? Roncevaux ! Ronceaux ! deep in thy sombre valley The shade of the noble Roland is still forlorn ! FLEURS-DE-LYS 149 VICTOR HUGO (1802-1885) 127. THE SONG OF THE PROW-GILDERS WE are the gildets of the prows. The whirl-winds the smooth sea arouse, Spun onward like a turning wheel ; They fill the hollows of the deep With shining spume and therein sweep The galleys on a slanting keel. The squall whips round, the sly winds veer; Loud the dark Archer, sounding clear, Holds the dread trumpet to his lips. Mid this bewilderment 'tis we, Though the wroth waves lurch giddily, Send forth, gold-helmed, the spectre ships. For spectre-like their golden helms Thrust thro' the flood and wind that whelms; Proud from our slips they take the sea, A dauntless mark for lightning's lance And a stern, terror-striking glance To perils lurking stealthily. Under the cooling leafage go ; Keep shut thy full seraglio; Let not the veils down fall, O Sire, From that strange throng that yestermorn Stark naked to the mart were borne For barter to the highest buyer. 150 FLEURS-DE-LYS What matters that to wind or wave, A fair slave or a dusky slalve, From Alep or from Ispahan ? From thee alike all shrink away. How wouldst thou then that that should sway The wild and wondrous ocean ? Each sates and spends his royal whim; The sceptre's thine; the storm's to him And lightning; each hath blades to smite; Thou hast thy scimitar, and he His wrath; as of the wind the sea, Men murmur at the Sultan's might. We toil for ocean and for king. Loud at our twofold task we sing! O swarthy Lord of high renown, Thy stony heart, thy steely eye Shall not to drowsy birds deny Their slumber-time when dusk comes down. For Nature holds eternal sway Nor falters; God's spread wing's alway A shield whereunder all may hide; We sing within the stilly shade Blithe songs that rise all unafraid Of black reefs hid beneath the tide. Let these our masters bear the palm, Be crowned with laurel ; we are calm So that they leave for us aloof The myriad stars, so clouds still fly On their swift courses steadily Unheeding any man's behoof. FLEURS-DE-LYS 151 June shines, and flow'r on flow'r unfurls; The rose buds on white-breasted girls; There's sport and mirth; the craftsmen sing. Ah ! then is penance hard to dree, And the shy fawns light-footed flee And set the leashed hounds quivering. O Sultan, though thy life be spent Lapped round with soothest ravishment, Yet shalt thou die, and be no more. Then live and reign — for life is sweet. The fallow deer with folded feet Lie dreaming on the forest floor. The mounted stairway leads thee back To lowly earth; bright fires turn black; The grave cries " Lol" to humankind. Time's changing moons unplurne the bird; The slow resurgent tides are stirred And dying voices freight the wind. The air is warm; bare women dive Into the pool ; buds sunward strive In heedless throngs; all's mirth and love. White lustre shimmers on the mere ; The woodland roses upward peer. Self -mirrored in the stars above. Thy galley we have gilded bright. Four hundred shackled rowers smite Out from the port the insurgent waves. She curbs the wind, she climbs the tide ; On either hand the rowlocks slide Beneath thy groaning galley-slaves. 152 FLEURS-DE-LYS 128. SONG TOWARD your scented garden, Sweet, Would flutter all my linked words, If with soft wings my rhymes might beat The ajr like birds. Like sparks along an airy path Your happy home they'd haste to find, Had they but wings for flight as hath The winged mind. By night, by day, still true to you. They'd fly with eager winnowings, If but my limping verses flew With Love's own wings. 139. "SINCE FROM THY BRIMMING CHALICE ..." SINCE from thy brimming chalice I have sipped; Since thy soft hands have held my blanched brow; Since I have breathed the redolence that slipped From thy sweet soul in earthy shadow now; Since it was mine to hear from thee such speech As made the shy heart blossom in its shrine. Thy grief and mirth up-well, thy mouth beseech My mouth, thine eyes a mirror unto mine; Since I have seen upon my brow abide One spark from thy brief star's now veiled rays; Since I have borne upon my life's full tide One roseleaf from the stem of thy sweet days ; FLEURS-DE-LYS 153 Now can I flout the swift years in their flight: Go by ! Go by ! for me Time cannot scathe ! Speed on your way with your dead garlands dight; Within my soul's a flower for ever rathe! Your wing may smite but never a drop be spilt From that full vase that, slaking, grows not less. My soul shall flame unsmothered of your silt ! My love outlive your blind f orgetf ulness ! 130. GUITAR SONG GASTIBELZA, gun on shoulder, Started this strange song : — None of you knew Donna Sabine, None among the throng ? Sing and dance, good village people For the sun falls steadily . . . There's a wind blows o'er the mountain That will madden me. None of you knew Donna Sabine My own lady fair. Mothered by the old Maugrabine Out of Antequer ? She who like an owl at nightfall From her tower cried mournfully . . . There's a wind blows o'er the mountain That will madden me. Dance and sing. Make hay, good people, While the sun doth shine. She was young, her joyous glances Made the heart to pine. 154 FLEURS-DE-LYS Spare this old man with the urchin Just a mite for charity . . . There's a wind blows o'er the mountain That will madden me. Truly but the Queen beside her Had seemed poorly graced When she crossed Toledo's river In her bodice laced. Round her neck a linked chaplet Old beyond all memory . . . There's a wind blows o'er the mountain That will madden me. Said the King himself beholding How my love was fair, " For her kiss, or smile, or only One strand of her hair, Rpyal nephew, I would barter Spain and all I hold in fee ..." There's a wind blows o'er the mountain That will madden me. Did I truly love this lady ? This I know alone: Had she but looked kindly on me I, poor dog, had gone Happily ten years to prison Captive under lock and key . . . There's a wind blows o'er the mountain That will madden me. On a summer day all sunny Life and honey 'd air. She went streamward with her sister Both to wanton there. FLEURS-DE-LYS 155 And I saw her slender playmate's Foot agleam, and hen bare knee . . . There's a wind blows o'er the mountain That will madden me. When I saw this child, I, shepherd Watching o'er my fold Thought it was Queen Cleopatra Whom I did behold; She who led the world's Lord, Caesar, Tethered, so says History . . . There's a wind blows o'er the mountain That will madden me. Dance and sing, good village people. Ere the night be old. Sabine all her love and beauty To Count Sarden sold; All for a gold ring she bartered, All for pride and jewelry . . . There's a wind blows o'er the mountain. That will madden me. I am weary; on this bench here Suffer me to stay. Now hath Sabine with her Master Gone the truant way ! On the road that leads to Sarden, If, indeed, that road it be . . . There's a wind blows o'er the mountain That will madden me. Past my hut I saw her hasting Swiftly; that was all. Now, from hour to hour I sicken, Full of tears and gall. 156 FLEURS-DE-LYS Idler, gird thy belt with daggers, To the barren wild win free . . . There's a wind blows o'er the mountain That hath maddened me ! 131. THE VISION ALOFT a white-robed angel I beheld; His splendour the loud tempest's anger quelled And won to silence the far murmuring sea. " Why comest thou, angel, this dark night to me ?" I asked him. He replied, " Thy soul to take." I trembled for in woman's guise he spake, And with my hands stretched orth to him, I said " What shall be left me when thou shalt be fled ?" He answered not, but all the heaven grew dim, O'erwhelmed with shadow. Thereon I cried to him ' ' Where wilt thou bear me ? Show me in what place. ' ' Still was he silent. " O farer thro' blue space. Art Death or Life ?" I cried. Thereon did roll All night's deep shadow o'er my ravished soul; The angel form grown dim said " Lo! I am Love." But his dark brow was fair as day's. Above, Thro' his wide wings, beyond his shadowy gaze, I saw the starry multitudes ablaze. 132. CHILDHOOD THE infant sang; the mother, life near over. Upon her darkened bed lay moaning, white; While Death above in the dim air did hover. I heard Death's rattle and the singing mite. FLEURS-DE-LYS 157 His playful babble sounding by the skylight, Told all the bliss from five brief summers drawn; His mother when he fell asleep with twilight, Beside his tender breathing coughed till dawn. They bore her to the grave for her last slumber; But the child's happy singing did not fail: Grief is a fruit; God wills not it should cumber The slender branches for its load too frail. 133. JUNE NIGHTS WHEN the long day dies in summer and flowers are closing. They scatter their odours that thrill thro' the drowsy sense, And our eyelids fall, while the sense, alert, lies dozing And behind our slumber we gaze thro' a cloudless lens. Then the stars are brighter, the dark has more soft concealment, And over the dome of heav'n is a hue of day, And the shy, dim dawn, awaiting the sun's fulfilment. Lurks all night long low down on the skyline gray. 134. THE SLEEPER'S PRAYER AS Laura to the Florentine Draw near. Beloved, to my bed; And, passing, waft thy breath divine My mouth for sign Shall behalf-opened! 158 FLEURS-DE-LYS Over my sad brow when the night Moves slowly with her darkened dreams, Gaze downward as with starry light . . . My inward sight Shall then be dazed with beams! Over my kindled mouth where lies The God-lit flame of love divine, Stoop with thy seraph's kiss, and rise A woman . . . Wise, My soul shall wake to thine ! 135. THE GRAVE AND THE ROSE NOW Grave to Rose complaineth, " With tears the dawn down raineth What dost thou. Love's own bloom ? " And Rose to Grave replieth, " What dost thou when down lieth Love's self in thy dark womb ? " Saith Rose, ' ' These tears down spilling. With honeyed breath distilling To odours I do bring." Saith Grave, ' ' O blossom grieving. Each soul of Earth's bereaving I fledge with angel's wing." 136. "I WILL SET OUT TO-MORROW ..." I WILL set out to-morrow when the dawn-light whitens all the land. my beloved, well I know thou waitest still for me; FLEURS-bE-LYS 159 And I will over forest ways or where doth rise and fall the land. I cannot bear to breathe in air so far away from thee. And I will walk with fix6d gaze on thoughts that cannot stray for thee, And all without me shall be dumb, and all devoid of light, Alone, unknown, with downcast eyes and clasped hands that pray for thee. So sad of mind, I shall be blind nor know the day from night. I shall not heed the sunset gold that down the west is raining light. Nor ships with swollen sail that to the haven onward steer, And when I shall be come to thee, by waxing or by waning light Then will I lay this holly-spray and heather on thy bier. 137. "O FRANCE, WHEN THOU ART PRONE AND BOUND " FRANCE, when thou art prone and bound Beneath the tyrant's ruthless heel, A voice from the deep caves shall sound And rive thy chains of steel. The exile watching wave and sky Shall raise a voice that men shall hear Like words that in a dream drift by Above their darkened sphere. 160 FLEURS-DE-LYS His words of menace shall be seen — His words that are as lightning's light — Like swords that fill the dark with sheen, In hidden hands that smite. Marble shall rock and mountains shake Athwart the sunset; trees that bear Green boughs shall rend their locks and rake The shadow-compassed air. His words shall be a horn that cries Shrill havoc on the ravening crows, Or as a shuddering wind that flies By graves where the grass grows. O'er newer races Time doth weld They like a thundercloud shall break; And if the quick in sloth be held. The ashamed dead shall wake. 138. THE CHILDREN OF THE POOR GIVE heed unto thisJittle lad For great is he, our God's own shrine, A light, ere earthly vesture clad. That shone in heaven's own hyaline. Bestowed by God for us on earth Out of his endless treasuring, God's wisdom shineth in his mirth. His kiss bespeaks God's pardoning. His soft light beams upon us all, Alas! Joy is his rightful path; FLEURS-DE-LYS 161 An-hungered, angel tears down fall; A-cold, all heaven thrills with wrath. If sinless ones have want for dower, Man's shameful sin's arraigned thereby; He holds the angels in his power. What thunder hurtles terribly When God doth find them here sore hurt Within the darkness of our day, Who sent them to us wing-begirt, And finds them ragged in array! 139. THE SOWER NOW falls the dusk I sit in peace Beneath this gateway and behold The ebbing daylight bring release From toil by wood and wold. With stirring at my heart I heed Above the furrows night has steeped A ragged sower throwing seed 1 Of harvests still unreaped. His tall black silhouette above The tillage deep strides on. How brave Must be his faith that time will move The grain within its grave. He crosses the unending plain, Now back, now forth ; with open palm He flings it wide and fills again. While here I muse in calm; 162 FLEURS-DE-LYS And his vast shadow from below Uplifted like a sail unfurled With mighty rumour seems to sow Athwart the starry world. 140. THE BRIDGE I GAZED on darkness where the pit most dread Yawned from its shoreless depth unfathomed. Therein nought stirred. I felt as one drawn down Within its silent endlessness to drown. Far off, beyond the shadow as though quelled Like a dim star, the Godhead I beheld. I cried: " My soul, my soul, thou must pass o'er This endless gulf that hath nor shoal nor shore. And this same night ev'n unto God must wend Over a bridge of arches without end. Nay, who can build it ? None. Most dreadful pit! weep!" While still I gazed in awe on it, A ghostly form and pale before me stept That had the seeming of a tear new wept ; A virgin's brow, a child's soft hands were his; And white he was as a pure lily is ; Light was where he clasped hands. He showed where loomed The hollow pit whereto all dust is doomed. So deep that thence no voice sounds back again. And said, " Thy bridge I'll build, if thou be fain." And on the pallid stranger I did stare. ' ' What is thy name ? ' ' said I. He answered ' ' Pray 'r. ' FLEURS-DE-LYS 163 141. WINTRY WEATHER NOW Winter turns the roadway white. In evil snares thy days are held. The bitter wind thy hand doth bite, In frosty hate thy joy is quelled. The furrows fill with snow amain. The light grows dimmer. . . . Now make fast Against the sleet thy shutter 'd pane, Thy door against the northern blast. But leave thy heart unshut to light, A holy window. If the hue Of light be lost still God may smite With splendour of his glory through. Mistrust the mortal fruit of bliss. Mistrust man's hateful lust of strife, Mistrust all priestly mysteries, But still believe in love, O life ! In love as pure as at the first Still shining thro' life's prison bars, Whose draught is wine to human thirst. Whose light is as the sheen of stars! 142. THE SWALLOW'S NEST INTO the church with pray'r go by, But throw a glance as in you go At this small nest that's hanging nigh The portico. 164 FLEURS-DE-LYS On temples resonant with pray'r The swallow all untrained and true, Doth build a little shrine more fair, More full of blue. The old porch moss doth softer grow Round fledgelings that the summer brings. And they grow quick in the warm glow Of Christ's own wings. The shrine where shadows long have lain Is thrilled with babble of delight; The nest is full of mirth. The fane Is full of night. The never-flinching saints that hear The arching doorways shake above, Are glad to feel themselves so near To spring and love. The virgins and the seers incline From their gaunt eyries fain to brood Over these hives of birds that shrine Love's holy food. A bird upon an angel falls; The apostle smiles upon his shelf, " Good day to you, brave saint!" he calls. "Good day, winged elf!" In shrines is beauty manifest. And high they soar on heaven's blue; But in the summer swallow's nest God dwelleth too. FLEURS-DE-LYS 165 143. ON THE DUNES NOW that my tasks are done, and fast Life dwindles like a torch's glow, Now that I seek the grave, down-cast By weight of years and weight of woe ; Now that belov6d things gone by ' Fade from my sight as though drawn in By some dark whirlpool of the sky On summits once I yearned to win. Now that I say, " We yet shall soar. The lie that shall stand revealed with dawn!"- I am sad, and wander on the shore Like one into his dream withdrawn. Beyond the sandhills without pause I watch unending breakers play, Cloud-flocks that fly the vulture claws Of wind that seeks k fleecy prey; The roaring tide, the humming air I hear, and sound of swathe and scythe, And in my musing mind compare The weary voices and the blithe; And often prone along some dune I lie where scant the grass is sown, Until I see the dazed moon With her foreboding eyes look down. Athwart the gulf of darkened space She mounts and sheds a light of dreams. 166 FLEURS-DE-LYS And each stares in the other's face — The man that weeps, the moon that beams. Where now are fled the days that waned ? Are all who erst have known me dead ? And are my dazzled eyeballs drained Of all the light that youth once shed ? Is all gone by ? Forlorn and frail, My voice unanswered dies away. winds ! waves I And must I fail Like gusty wind or driven spray ? Shall all I loved be lost to sight ? Within my soul there falls the gloom. O Earth whose peaks are veiled in night. Am I the ghost, and thou the tomb ? Are life, love, joy and hope all spent ? I wait, I ask, I still implore. And all my urns are earthward bent To find one drop still left to pour. How nigh remorse is memory! How everything with tears is rife ! Death, how cruel cold thy key Within the wards of human life ! Yet louder than the wind that drives The endless billows, my thought stirs: Summer is come, the thistle thrives Blue-flowered on the sandy spurs. FLEURS-DE-LYS 167 144. THE COLOSSUS OF RHODES MY name is Light. I am seventy cubits high. Ever I vsratch the unbridled waters beat, A steadfast beacon. Under my huge feet Lies Rhodes. My never-sleeping eyes descry The snow-capt hills whereon the eagles fly. The vast wheels of the star-led seasons fleet; Man lives and dies; the moon-drawn tides retreat; Fresh bales for barter on the flat wharves lie ; Day shines ; the tempest slumbers or shows ire ; Warder of the blue vast I stand alway A fixed sentinel for ever ware ; Nor dawn nor twilight can these eyeballs tire That watch sails fill, and waves like hounds that bay, In the deep trance of my Colossal stare. JULIEN-AUGUSTE-PELAGE BRIZEUX (1803-1858) 145. THE NEST THIS eve I left the flocks to stray and crop the grass with no one by Because she so desired a nest, that little lass as old as I. I bore my treasure home: a nest the tiny finches fashion deft, As firm as ever mason wrought, as soft as ever weaver weft. 168 FLEURS-DE-LYS The outer rim was like a wall built high, with creeping mosses clad, And all within was down and wool so fine and soft, O happy ladl How light the little eggs I hold! They'll make a necklace you shall wear Together threaded, little Anne, with strands from out your golden hair. If I could slip it o'er the cap you wear on Sundays, people would Believe you were a little saint just changed to child from angelhood! 146. THE NIGHT OF THE DEAD IF in this house ye lie a-bed Rouse, for this night is to the Dead ! For them God bids us knock your door, Lest they be unremember6d. For them, easy sleepers, pray! The quick go lightly on their way: Now on a bed of burning coal Perchance your buried fathers flay. Gold comes and goes; and yet behold How many sell their souls for gold. Arise, and on your chill hearth pray That God may keep your dead in fold! Be upright folk; of sin beware; Weigh well your goods at mart and fair, FLEURS-DE-LYS 169 Nor give short measure. The Lord Christ Shall pay. you well for all your care. Fire-winged, the holy Seraphin Down to the Earth shall swiftly spin, Saint Michael with his golden scales To weigh your sinful soul therein. Ah, then you'll need another bed! A pad of hay shall prop your head, And you within the winding-sheet In lidded coffin shall lie dead. Our song is a heart-rending thing; All men must weep when we do sing. Pray for your unforgotten dead; God sends the summons that we bring. EVARISTE BOULAY-PATY (1804-1864) 147, THE BOUT TWO wrestlers in a ruthless grapple strive For triumph; but thro' long, long years doth toil One whose fair brow the dew-filled flowers assoil Who seems in his young lustihood to thrive; The other an old man whose hard thews would rive The thing they clasp, but lean with long turmoil. Dull-eyed) wan-faced, with shrunken hands that coil : 'Tis Death that holdeth man within his gyve. 170 FLEURS-DE-LYS Death tightens his fell hold until at last Man underneath his pallid foe falls down Who thereon cries, " Behold a life o'erthrown!" Man for a moment knows his might doth dwindle. But rising, with his soul Death's self doth blast. And even in dying feels his glory kindle. CHARLES-AUGUSTIN SAINTE-BEUVE (1804-1869) 148 SLEEPLESS upon my bed, my spirit's force Elate upon a soundless flood did float. When sudden hooves athwart the sky grew hot And flashed the leven like a white-maned horse ; Thunder behind was goad to his swift course. And the earth quaked beneath his chariot; All beasts straight fell on stillness fear-begot, Mute in their lairs as with some wild remorse. But my soul kindled at the lightning spark; My breast rose as each flash upon the dark Tore off some wrapping that had bound me fast. More than in storm God's voice within my mind Spake loud; and as a viol to the wind My spirit rose reverberate on the blast. FLEURS-DE-LYS 171 AUGUSTE BARBIER (180S-1882) 149. THE IDOL O LIMP-HAIRED Corsican! thy France was fair By Messidor's wide sunbeams lit! Like a rebellious steed that will not bear Or golden rein or iron bit; A tameless filly whose rude flanks did smoke With blood of royal kings outpoured, She proudly trod the ancestral soil and broke At last from tyranny abhorred. Never had she yet felt the mastering hand Harass and goad with whip and rein; Her back by saddle never had been spanned, Nor dragged a foreign chain; Ungroomed her wild mane ; like a gypsy wench Proud-eyed, her haunches swayed On upright limbs; she made the whole world blench Unquiet when she neighed. ISO. MICHAEL ANGELO HOW sad a glance, how shrunk a face thou hast Michael sublime, old shaper of rude stone! Never a tear have those sad eyelids shown; Thou hast gazed like Dante on all mirth aghast. The Muse did suckle thee too well, and fast Art hath espoused thee, thou art hers alone ; Thro' threescore years of toiling thou hast known No solace save on her chill bosom vast. 172 FLEURS-DE-LYS Thy life knew but one blessing: even as God To seal the rock with thine immortal might; And fearful were the feet that nigh thee trod. Like to a lion with wild mane grown white, When thy worn life drew to its period Renowned but weary thou didst leave the light. FELIX ARVERS (1806-1850) 151 MY soul doth grope, a darkened way) I go, And that deep wound Love dealt in sudden might Must go unstanched, unhealed; nor may I show My hurt to her who heedlessly did smite; Nor dare I plead for succour in my plight. Nor that her hand should any boon bestow, But follow near her though she never know My doom of loneliness and utter night. But she whom God made of such gentleness. Will go her way without or heed or care For my love's murmur where her footsteps fare; And each day's task with pious heart will bless. Reading these lines she'll say, still unaware, "Who was this woman, then ?" and never guess. FLEURS-DE-LYS 173 GERARD DE NERVAL (1808-18SS) 152. THE GLORIFIED WHAT doth our loves befall ? They lie far underground! And happier they who all Have fairer dwelling found! They are nigh the seraph throng In skies that have no shade, And worship with sweet song God's Mother, the pure Maid. ' O spotless spouse unta'en ! O maiden-fiower in leaf I Girl-lover left in pain Alone and scarred with grief ! Deep everlasting mirth Shines out from your bright eyes Brands once put out on Earth, Flame on in Paradise! 153. FANTASY THERE is an air for which I 'd give all else That Mozart, Weber, or Rossini wrote. An old air full of languid, mournful spells That moves me only by its charm remote. And every time I hear its music heave My soul grows young again 'neath Louis Treize, 174 FLEURS-DE-LYS Two hundred years ago ... I see at eve A fair green slope whereon the sunbeams blaze; And then a red-brick castle cornice-bound In stone, with crimson gleaming from the lead, Engirdled by great parks, and moat-enwound With flowery waters by a river fed. And then a lady at a window high. Blond-haired, black-eyed, in olden garments clad . Perchance I saw her in long time gone by In that remembered other life I had. 154 FREE-THINKER! dost thou deem that only man Is sentient in a world where all is so ? Forces enslaved thy liberty bestow. Though thy vain mind the universe outspan. In beasts respect the soul thou mayst not scan. And flowers' that only Nature's self doth know; The throbs of love thro' veined metals flow; All's sentient, and hath power to bless or ban. Beware the blind wall's sightless eye alert; Ev'n matter hath a speech translatable . . . See that thou move it not to thy soul's hurt! In lowliest lives a God doth often dwell ; An unborn eye still sheath6d, the stone's face Hides a pure soul beneath that grows apace. FLEURS-DE-LYS 175 155. EL DESDICHADO I AM the dark inheritor of woe, The Prince of Aquitaine whose palace spire Lies low in dust. My star is dead. The wire Of my Starr 'd lute burns with an ebon glow. Into the grave's night send Pausilippo, Blue Latin seas; and let my soul respire The flower that won my weary heart's desire, The trellis where the rose and vine-leaf grow. Am I Love or the Moon . . . ? Lusignan or Biron . . . ? My brow's still rosy with the Queen's hot kiss; I have swooned in sea-caves where the syren is . . . Twice have I overborne Hell's surge: I won The lyre of Orpheus to sad melodies Of saints, with fairies in loud antiphon. ALFRED DE MUSSET (1810-1857) 156. BALLAD TO THE MOON 'TWAS a dusky night I spied. Hitched above the steeple high, The moon ride Like the dot above an " i." Moon what sombre ghost doth trail Thee in leash through the unknown Shadow pale. Face a-slant or fully shown ? 176 FLEURS-DE-LYS Art thou heaven's only eye Whence a sneaking cherub peefs, Us to spy As from thy wan mask he leers ? Art thou nothing but a bowl ? Or a spider huge of girth That doth roll Legless, armless, over earth ? Art thou, as I half do dread, ' That old clock that sounds the doom Of the dead Damned to hell's eternal gloom ? On thy speeding brow what toll, This same night, of time is ta'en From the whole Of their everlasting pain ? Art thou nibbled by a worm When thy disk grows black and dim, And thy form Shrivels to a crescent slim ? Who despoiled thee yesternight ? Wert thou as a huge axe-blade Hidden bright In some giant of the glade ? For thou camest, chill and wan. And they slender horn did spill On my pane Light athwart the window-sill. FLEURS-DE-LYS 177 Go, O Moon, that ebbest slow, Fair-browed Phcebe's body fell Far below. Deep into the surgy swell. Now no more than face hast thou, Wrinkled and long overworn; Even now Fades away thy brow forlorn. The white huntress give us back In her stainless maidenhood, On the track Of the drowsed deer in the wood. O ! beneath the hazel screen Underneath the budding plane, Dian Queen And her lusty hounds astrain ! Where the black kid halts in doubt High upon his rocky hill. Hearkening out How the sound drifts nearer still. Following till the quarry's ta'en, Gully, sward, or field asway Gold with grain, Dian's hounds are sped away. O eve when the winds arise, Phoebe, God Apollo's kin, Doth surprise By dim streams, a foot dipt in ! M 178 FLEURS-DE-LYS Phoebe who at close of day On the shepherd's lips doth sit Them to sway Like a light bird newly lit. Moon, the mind will ever hold Of thy loves the lovely tale, As in gold Letters that can never pale. And in youth that cannot die Blest for ever thou to him That goes by. Full of face or sickle-slim. Thou hast love from shepherds old, Thou that alabaster-browed, Nigh the fold Setst the sheep-dogs baying loud. Thou hast love from seamen hale Shut within high-builded ships That do sail Under skies without eclipse. And the girl thro' woodland ways Nimble-footed that doth fare, In thy praise Breathes her song upon the air. Like a bear that drags its chains. Thy blue eyes behold below The loud main's Endless heaving to and fro. FLEURS-DE-LYS 179 Why, be winds or loud or dumb; VVhy, be skies or foul or fair, Hither come I this way to sit and stare ? 'Tis to see in dusk of night Hitched above the steeple high, The moon bright, 157. "PALE STAR OF EVENING . . - " PALE star of evening, far herald wan, From thy blue palace thro' the sunset haze. Thy brow emerges on the boundless span Of heav'n. Where goes thy plainward gaze ? The storm has done and all the winds are stayed; The forest leaves drip downward on the heath; The golden moth skims lightly, odour-swayed. The meadows redolent beneath. What seekest thou on earth ? I see thee fare , In shy flight downward on the sky-line rent By hill-tops, smiling melancholy where Thy wavering glance grows weary and nigh spent. star (iescending on the verdurous slope. Sad tear of silver on Night's robe of grey. Thou who afar dost watch the herdsman grope With sheep that follow on the darkened way — Whither away, O star, thro' night's vast zone ? Seekst thou a reed-bed on the stream to sleep ? Or wouldst thou fall in silence, lovely one. Like a thrown pearl into the waters deep ? 180 FLEURS-DE-LYS If thou must die, fair star, and if thy head Must plunge in ocean's vasty deep, O spare One moment ere thy lovely light be sped. O star of love, leave not the heavens bare ! 158. SONG BRAVE knight that to the war doth go What wilt thou do So far away ? Dost thou behold the starless gloom. How full of doom The world's highway ? You that do deem a love that's left Will fade as swift From wounded thought, Ah ! you that after glory lust Your fame to dust Is sooner brought. Brave Knight that rideth to the fray. So far away What wilt thou dare ? I weep who smiled whenas I heard His lying word That spake me fair. 159. ON A DEAD GIRL LOVELY she was, if so be Night That slumbers in the sombre shrine, There laid by sculptor Michael's might Unmoving in her marble line. FLEURS-DE-LYS 181 And she was kind, if it suffice To succour with unheeding face, And give unseen of God's wide eyes; If heartless gold have any grace. She pondered, if the idle stir And gentle lilt of phrases low, As plaintive as a brook, aver That the shy brook doth ponder so. She prayed, if two so lovely eyes From downward gaze and upward" glance In flight from earth toward the skies, May earn the name of pray'r perchance. She might have smiled, if flowers shy That yet within the bud are sealed. Might open when the wind goes by And leaves their longing all unhealed. She might have wept, if her white hand That coldly o'er her heart is set Had ever human body spanned With dews of heavenly odour wet. She might have loved, had pride allowed That ever kept its vigil vain, And like a lamp set by a shroud. Shone in her barren heart's domain. The hue of seeming life she wore; And she has died by life unstirred. The book is fallen to the floor Whereof she never spelt a word. 182 FLEURS-DE-LYS i6o. THE MUSE'S WOOING POET, take thy lute and kiss my mouth! The wild rose feels her tender buds grow ripe; Spring is born to-night, and winds fly south ; Waiting for the dawn the throstles swing On the first green bushes burgeoning. Poet, kiss my mouth and tune thy pipe ! Poet, take thy lute ! Night on the lawn Wafts the wind in odorous veils she slips; The virgin' rose shuts jealously indrawn The pearly hornet dying in a swoon. Poet, take thy lute, and grant this boon — On my eager moiith to lay thy lips! Poet, take thy lute! Youth's kindling wine Sweeps God's veins to-night in seething flood. I am troubled; joy oppresses; winds divine Set fire upon my lips from out the South. Poet, take thy lute and kiss my mouth ; Quench my thirsty longing with thy wood! i6i. CONSOLATION WHY, O Dante, deemedst thou life's worst trial Glad reminders in days grown dark with grief ? What deep wound could prompt thee to such denial Bitter of pain's relief ? Light still shineth; and wherefore in dsirkness lying Flout the solace of beams that did erstwhile shine ? Soul of unmeasured sorrow for ever sighing. Say can this speech be thine ? FLEURS-DE-LYS 183 By this torch that lights me with flame resplendent, Thine own heart this blasphemous speech belied. Bliss remembered is dearer and more transcendent Than ought on earth beside. Nay! the forlorn that findeth a spark still glowing Under ashes that smother his miseries, He who seizes the ember and on it blowing Gazes with dazzled eyes ; He whose soul goes groping for bygone kisses. Who on the Past's flawed mirror his tears doth rain — Him thou deemedst a dupe, and his heart's fond blisses Intolerable pain! On Francesca's lips, thine own angel of glory, Couldst thou utter so bitter a speech as this ? She who left for a moment, to tell her story. Her everlasting kiss. 162. SORROW STRENGTH and Life have fled afar. Friends are not, and Mirth is dead; Gone is pride that erstwhile fed Faith in my frail star. Once I hailed a friend in Truth Ere I knew her changing guise; When the scales fell from mine eyes, Ah, the bitter ruth I Everlasting is her pow'r, And all men that pass her by 184 FLEURS-DE-LYS Unperceiving, fruitlessly Live their little hour, God doth speak and man that hears Needs must answer; all of good Life hath given me is the flood Eased my heart of tears. 163. FORTUNIO'S SONG IF you think that I'll discover Her for whom my heart doth sue, Not for kingdoms could this lover Tell her name to you. So it please you, pleasant fellow, I will sing an you will pipe, She I love hath hair like yellow Corn when it is ripe. Unto that her whim ordaineth Straight my willing heart defers. Doth she need my life, it waneth Gladly into hers. Grief of love that's unrevealed, That none other answereth, In my wounded soul lies sealed Even unto death. I'll not tell for whom I'm suing; Nay, I love ,my sweet too well, And I'll die for her I'm wooing Ere her name I tell, FLEURS-DE-LYS 185 164. SONG WHEN men do find upon a day Hope fled away And joy grown ill, There's nought can soothe their misery As melody And beauty will. Far more by lovely eyes are swayed Than by the blade Of armed foe ; And nought can bring the heart such ease As melodies Loved long ago. THEOPHILE GAUTIER (1811-1872) 165. TERZA RIMA WHEN Michael Angelo left the Sistine dome, His frescoes done, sublime with radiant gaze To tread once more the wonted streets of Rome, His arms and eyes to heaven he still did raise. His feet went stumbling on the road of clay, Who had forgotten earth in heaven's amaze. While three long moons went round thus did he stay, As though he were an angel rapt before The golden triangle's mysterious sway. 186 FLEURS-DE-LYS Brother, behold why poets suffer sore, With feet that falter on the world's hard road: For ever on high heaven do they pore ; And angels, shaking their gold locks abroad. Lean over them with sheltering arms held wide And round mouths ready with a kiss from God. They follow random ways with random stride. Bruised by the wheels or fellow farers' ire, Or fallen on pitfalls by them unespied. What care they for the crowd, or stones, or mire ? They seek by day the Visions night doth bring. Their cheeks aflame with unappeased desire. Of earthly cares they know no reckoning, And when in season due their shrine is made. Forth come they dazed from their dark covering. The glory of their holy toil hath rayed Their forms and foreheads with its golden light; Their eyes do glow with heaven's own light displayed. Night follows day, and day doth follow night. Ere yearning eyes, beseeching arms fall down; And long it is ere their feet fare aright. Our palaces for them are all o'erthrown; Their souls for ever to their shrines fly back. And leave their bodies on our ways alone. Our day to them seems than the night more black. Their eyes seek ever the blue sky divine. And the left fresco puts them on the rack. FLEURS-DE-LYS 187 Like Buonarotti, giant Lord of line, Their gaze goes ever to the heavenly vault, And marble roofs that nigh their foreheads shine. sublime blindness! O majestic fault! i66. BOAT SONG TELL me, lovely girl. Whither would you go ? For the sails unfurl And the breezes blov?! I've an ivory scull, Streams of silken flags. Golden-ruddered hull Thro' the water drags; And for ballast weight An orange round and light; And my little mate Is a seraph mite; And the sail that swings Is together sewn From the down of wings Cherubim have known. Tell me, lovely girl. Whither would you go ? For the sails unfurl And the breezes blow! 188 FLEURS-DE-LYS VVould you to the North Where the Baltic raves Say, or would you forth Over tropic waves ? Where the bergs are chill Pluck the flower of snow, Or where fierce suns spill Cull the flower below ? Tell me, lovely girl. Whither would you go ? For the sails unfurl And the breezes blow! * * * " Drive for me your keel, — ' So the girl did sigh — " To the land o' leal Where no love may die." " That's a coast, my dear. Not upon the chart Of the bays and drear Forelands of the heart." 167. ART ALL flnest art is seen In forms that foil the blade Unkeen — Verse, marble, gem inlaid. All idle bonds refuse !> Yet, so thou move aright. FLEURS-DE-LYS 189 Bind, Muse, Thy limbs in buskins tight. Spurn the too supple lilt That like an easy boot Is built For any random foot. Thou sculptor, cast aside The clay thy hands alone Have plied, Thy spirit elsewhere flown. Strive with the marble rough Hewn from Carraran steeps, — Such stuff The perfect contour keeps. From Syracuse her bronze Take thou, thereon imprest The sconce Of proud or yielding gest. With deftest hand go trace Over the agate rare The face Apollo once did wear. Painter, all tints refuse That fade; but pass thro' fire The hues So fixt to thy desire. Call up the syrens blue With looped tails entwined 190 FLEURS-DE-LYS Ensue With beasts of mythic kind. Above the world enthrone Christ and the Maid Divine ; Each one Girt with the holy sign. Though all things end in dust, Yet Art well-wrought lives on; The bust Outlasts the city gone. The buried coin or ring Dug up by some poor hind, May bring An Emperor to mind; And lines of perfect sound, Though Gods themselves may pass. Are found More durable than brass. Hew down and chisel fine. So that thy dream be sealed For sign In stuff th&t will not yield I 1 68. THE CLOUD A CLOUD the far horizon scales And shapely on the sky-line sails, As though a naked girl rose slowly Out of a lake that no shadow veils FLEURS-DE-LYS 191 And upright in her shell of pearl She sails the blue, this pallid girl, Foam-frail, a later Aphrodite Born of the foam in the air a-swirl. Behold the supple shining limb, And how she wavers in her whim, And how Dawn scatters roses, roses Over her satin shoulder slim. 169. SONG THE butterflies that are the snow's own hue Flutter in swarms above the ocean spray. butterflies, when shall I take with you The blue aerial way ? And dost thou know, O fairest of the fair, My black-eyed maiden with the spinning feet. If they could lend me wings to cleave the air Whereto I straight should fleet ? 1 should not kiss a single rose, but fly Straight over vale and forest to my goal Upon thy half-shut lips at last to die, O blossom of my soul ! BOOK V N TO THE SHADE OF ANDREW LANG DEAR Andrew whom I never met, Still o'er the years your version mellow Shows " Aucassin and Nicolette " In English verses without fellow. Your Songs and Ballads of Old France Are sweetly sung ; and on your anvil You struck out sparks that still enhance The fame of Murger and De Banville. Though here the jealous eye may find Some few of those yourself did render, Think not, my master, I am blind To what in you is blithe and tender. But he who in his book is bid To show the Gallic Muse completely. Must give again what others did Although he give them far less sweetly. And therefore, while your robes I don, I set you here among my Lares Without your leave, since you are gone To haunt the land of myths and fairies. And may your sprite upon the sill Be pledge of all that's sweet and sunny, Although I ply a wanton quill And oft-times render gall for honey. VICTOR DE LAPRADE (1812-1883) 170. THE SUMMITS I WILL go and drink the waters pure that feed the rolling river ; I will tread the frozen azure of the glacier under heel; I will bathe my body in the waves of new-born winds that shiver; The surging flood of thrilling air shall temper me like steel. Let me slumber on the mountain-top that I have toiled in winning, And, thrust in the eternal snow, my hands be purified; There, in that air, life's currents have their impulse and beginning. Ah! let me hence and breathe full deep of that unsullied tide. Then up! the moaning wind wanes out beneath the giant boulder. Doubt cannot soar so high aloof as that chill height I seek; Then up! with calm and silence swathing brow, and breast and shoulder. Within that rocky steadfastness God's solenin voice shall speak. 195 196 FLEURS-DE-LYS The air I breathe on that chill height shall fill me on descending, Along the sombre ways a ray of light shall follow me; And those that saw the toiling man toward the summit wending, Shall never guess the wayfarer returned is even he. LOUISE ACKERMANN (1813-1890) 1.7 1. IMMORTAL LOVE THE race of men in an eternal chain Hand on the quenchless embers of Love's pyre; Each takes the immortal torch and lights again Its never-ending fire. Dazed by the glory of its wandering rays, You swear when the dark night has downward rolled To hold it high above your path always, Yet dying, lose your hold. Yet will your eyes have seen its glory lit; Your life, transfigured in its sublime beam. May bear its dazzling vision to the pit That lies beyond all dream. FLEURS-DE-LYS 197 JOSEPHIN SOULARY (1815-1891) 172. THE TWO ROSES YESTREEN beneath the greenery I found young Rose in tears that shed Over a little rose's bed That was less rosy far than she. ' ' Dear heart, what can your trouble be ? " I asked the little golden-head. And she replied, ' ' Ah, sir, if said It's secret between you and me!" " As I was passing by, a rose — This same whereon my tears down pour- Told me this truth in shy soft words, A bud once blown can never close. And my fond heart's wide open for The farmer's boy that drives the herds. 173. VAIN DREAMS HAD I but an acre of loam on hill or valley, Fed by a stream that fell or loitered by. There I'd plant an ash-tree, a thorn-bush or a willow, There I'd build a low roof between me and the sky. On my tree a soft nest, feather-lined or woolly, There should hold a singing-bird — sparrow, finch or merle, Underneath my own roof, a bairnie in the cradle Garlanding the pillow with her brown or yellow curl. 198 FLEURS-DE-LYS All I want's an acre; and so to measure rightly, I would take the lassie bonniest to me; " Stand thou uprightly" — so should be my bidding — " Front the rising sunbeam." So, surely should I see. ' ' Far as thy shade on the grassy levels printed, Just so far my faring, no farther than the shade's" — All the lure of bliss that's far beyond fulfilment Holds no more for me than a fickle dream that fades. 174. THE SCARECROW UNDER her tilted hat of Tuscan rushes The brown birds at her coming swept to raid The ripe fruit in her open palm displayed. That she had gathered from the berry bushes. Never more loyal court, more queenly blushes, A queen more kind or starvelings less afraid. Vainly the grudging gardener erst forbade This foolish feeding of her wastrel thrushes. The child is dead. The churlish gardener lays Her old straw hat upon the loaded sprays. Thinking these greedy plunderers thus to scare. Vain ruse ! Reminded of her gentle heed, A thousand fledgelings to their sister speed. And evening finds the bushes all stript bare. FLEURS-DE-LYS 199 LECONTE DE LISLE (1818-1894) 175. THE RAVINE OF SAINT-GILLES THE gorge is dark below the reeds' massed slimness Wherethro' the sun at noonday may not pierce; And hidden springs slow-thridding thro' the dimness Are merged in silence of the solstice fierce. From the hard lava with mossed fissures pouring Over the lichens there is water shed And lost; from hidden tunnels of its boring It springs again along its gravel bed. There smooth and sullen a dark bluish well is, While all along are heavy boulders bound With rosy-belled lianes as on a trellis Above the velvet plots of grassy ground. The brink is fledged with cacti, and far flowing. The bent-grass waves its filmy flowers near. Where stalks the red-plumed cardinal whose going Fills the soft-nested colibris with fear. Kingfishers and green parakeets unstirring From the high peaks gaze down on the still well ; And round the black hives in a sunbeam whirring, A golden swarm of bees is audible. Puffing a warm breath o'er the bushes mazy, Stockstill amid the weed-entrammelled path, Huge oxen sniff the air that wanders hazy Clean from the running rills as from a bath ; 200 FLEURS-DE-LYS And on their peaceful flanks, their shoulders bossy, A myriad butterflies with gaudy wings, A myriad grasshoppers deride the glossy Slow swishing of the velvet tail that swings. On the rock slope flame-fllled as a live cinder The supple lizard, basking in his sloth. Simmers as though his emerald length were tinder That thrilled to the sun's kisses nothing loth. O'er mossy hollows where the quails are resting , In leafy shelter from the jungle heat, With eyes half-closed the amorous cats go questing. Smooth gliding by on velvet paws discreet. Black on a boulder, a red loin-cloth wearing, A native herdsman careless of his kine, Hums a Saklavan melody, and, staring. Dreams of the isle beyond the blue sea-line. Thus on the yawning brink all things that tingle With life thro' frond or fibre, plume or pelt, Now shine, and dream, and chant in purpose single; Yet, in a twinkling, into stillness melt. Thro' the deep pit now silence walks with darkness. Since, with a roaring sound the mountain steep Hurled from the waves its sulphurous mass, in stark- To harden in impenetrable sleep. [ness A patch of sky above the branches curving Shows in a sparkle on the air up-buoyed A flock to Ceylon or Rodrigud swerving Like flakes of snow astray on the blue void. FLEURS-DE-LYS 201 Save for this peep-hole on the water flashing, In the still night the ravine sinks to sleep ; And even a splintered boulder downward crashing Sends up no echo of its dreadful leap. He who hath probed thy ways, Nature, proveth Illusion binds thee, and thy face belies : Whether in wrath or gladness thy strength moveth, Or rage or rapture thy cold heart denies. Happy the man whose heart is his own shelter. Self-sealed, from grief or mirth or any hate, Unstirred by rumours of the world's va a welter, A gulf of silence still inviolate. In vain life stirs about him; as one hallowed, He dwells in his own heart as in a shrine ; In its unechoing darkness all is swallowed. And nothing shines there, save one flame divine. But this sole spark within its shadow hidden Is the lost beam from spaces unbeheld; It calls him hence to realms by life forbidden. And lights in him the Eternal hope unquelled ! 176. HIALMAR'S HEART A CLEAR night, icy wind, and blood-streams staining The snow where tombless lie a thousand dead, With sword still gript and eyes aghast. Complaining The ravens wheel above them still unfed. The light pours wanly from the moon's chill 'd embers. Forth from the bloody heap Hialmar lifts 202 FLEURS-DE-LYS On his snapt sword himself whose corse dismembers, The blood of battle raining from its rifts. " Ho there! Lives there one lad in whom still speech Of all the lusty throng that dawn heard sing [is Full-throated as the thrush when he beseeches Behind the thick-set bushes in the spring ? " All, all are dumb. My helm is slit, mine armour Is riddled thro' and cloven in the fray. Mine eyes weep blood. I hear a swollen clamour Like foiled sea-breakers or loud wolves that bay. " Come hither, old man-eater round me gliding. Rive thro' my bosom with thy beak of steel — The morn shall find us stark and still abiding — Bear thou my warm heart to the girl that's leal. " To far Upsala where the Jarls together, With song and golden flagons hold carouse Bear thou my heart, old rover of the heather. To Ylmer's daughter who hath heard its vows. " There shalt thou find her standing pale, uprightly Aloft the tower where the daws wheel by. And in her ears two silver rings hung lightly, And her eyes brighter than a clear-starred sky. " Tell her the love I bear her, dusky raven; Lay down thy trophy whole and red of hue ; She'll know it well, the unblanching, the uncraven, And Ylmer's daughter she shall smile on you. FLEURS-DE-LYS 203 (< I die. From twenty wounds ebbs out my spirit. Come wolves and drink my blood ! My life is done. Young, brave, unshamed, I shall soon inherit My seat where the high Gods are in the sun." 177. THE SPRING A SPRING up-sparkles in the silent forest, Far hid from blazing noon. There rushes quiver, and fain of its cool boon, Bluebells and violets hover. Not goats that crop the bitter-bladed grasses On hilly slopes hard by. Nor shepherds with their flute's suave melody. Have sullied that clear fountain. The tall black oaks by all the bees belov6d. Throw peaceful curtains wide Wherein the wild doves lurk or, drowsy, hide Their heads beneath their feathers. The dawdling stags beside the mossy thickets Draw in the unhastened dew; Under green canopies the light drips through, The lazy sylvans slumber. And the wan Naiad of the sacred fountain Lets fall her lids awhile, Dreaming, half-drowsed ; and a happy smile Flits round her mouth's red flower. * No yearning eye, love-lit, hath seen that body Beneath its limpid veil 204 FLEURS-DE-LYS All snowy white, with long locks liquid-frail, Asleep on the sand's silver. And none hath seen that cheek of maiden softness. The ivory neck, the line Of that young bosom or the shoulder fine, White arms and lips unsullied. But the lewd faun^ alert on the near branches. Spies through the leafy net Her supple body with spilt kisses wet. Beneath the water shining. Thereon he laughs with strident joy inhuman That thrills the arbour cool ; And the maid startled, pallid o'er her pool. Wanes out like a blown shadow. Ev'n as the Naiad in the distant woodland Asleep beneath the tide, Fly from the impious hand and eye, and hide Light of the soul, O Beauty! " 178. NIGHT THE spent winds on the mountain slopes at peace To sleep the swaying branches slowly woo ; The still birds drowse in dew; the foaming fleece Is gold with star-beams on the waters blue. Soft mist hides all the mountain tracks and swathes The plurfging gullies and the peaks that soar; The sad moon in her light the foliage bathes And sounds of human-kind are heard no more. FLEURS-DE-LYS 205 But on the pebbles sings the unsullied surge, The deep voice of the forest doth intone; The thrilled air bears sea-song and forest-dirge Up to the night upon her star-lit throne. Mount upward holy murmur, divine speech. Be Earth's low tidings unto Heav'n upborne, And ask the serene stars if we may reach Their thrones by an eternal pathway worn. Earth's holy orison of wood and wave Thou hast consoled me in dark days of yore; Me from my barren sorrow thou didst save And in my heart thou singest evermore 1 179. TRE FILA D'ORO m YONDER o'er the sea like a swallow hasting over, Fain would I fly till I reached the shore beyond! Vainly I long who am held a captive lover; With ,three strands of golden thread she hath my heart in bond. One is her glance, and one her smile compelling. One is her lip like a flower nigh to fall ; Nay, but I love too well, and suffer beyond telling; With three strands of golden thread she hath my heart in thrall. Ah! If I might break the so stubborn knots that bind me. Bid farewell to weeping and to pain, a truant flown ! But ah ! No ! No ! Better death in anguish find me, Than rend you asunder golden threads that she hath sewn ! 206 FLEURS-DE-LYS 1 80. THE BLACK PANTHER ALONG the clouds there spreads a rosy lustre; The horizon's laced with flame; while languidly Night from her neck unlinks the pearly cluster That falls into the sea. The sky dons flaming vesture of dawn's weaving, And folds of shifting splendour swathe the blue ; The trailing raiment reddens the sea's heaving With drops of fiery dew. On bamboo-bushes that the light wind threshes, On palms and purple-fruited fronds asway, Dew scatters silver sparks, and dawn refreshes The myriad sounds of day. From moss and flow'r, from hill and woodland spreading, Lulled by the tepid wind there now upwells A wave of air, scent-saturate, down shedding Its fever of sweet smells. By tangled paths beneath the wood's green awning. Where the thick grasses in the sunlight smoke. Where torrents roar down deep-hewn gullies yawning Under the reeds they soak ; Behold the panther comes with black limbs shining Back from her midnight hunting to her whelps Where amid bones they huddle close, repining With hunger-goaded yelps. Restless, with wary eyes like arrows probing, She steers among the boughs her furtive way. FLEURS-DE-LYS 207 And on the blackness of her velvet robing Gleam blood-stains of her prey. She drags its mangled remnant, torn asunder From a slain stag, whereon to-night she'll feed. And the frayed haunches of her dreadful plunder Drip blood on moss and weed. Round her the butterflies and wild bees muster. Skimming her supple sinews as they fleet; A myriad bushes where sweet blossoms cluster Throw perfume at her feet. The p3rthon from a scarlet cactus peering Unwinds his coil, and with a curious eye Beholds, above the bush his flat head rearing. Her stealthy form go by. She glides beneath tall fern-trees, sinking noiseless Behind mossed boles; the blazing air the while Struck dumb in the vast light above, grows voiceless Beneath the forest aisle. i8i. THE SHOWMEN LIKE to a dismal brute, dust-smothered, teased. That tugs its chain and bays the blistering sky, Trail thy torn heart who will in the foul sty That so the lewd, flesh-ravening mob be pleased; Let Love's own veil of glorious light be seized And torn from shuddering limbs divinely shy, That so the fire rekindle its dull eye. Its mirth and boorish pity be appeased! 208 FLEURS-DE-LYS Though proud and silent graveward I go hence, I'd rather plunge to endless darkness down Than sell my heart-throbs for the rabble's roar; I would not give my body like a clown To tumble on its paltry board for pence, Nor leer for lovers like a shameless whore. 182. AFTER A THOUSAND YEARS THAT night the loud voice of the sea was roaring Wroth in the darkened gullies' rocky cup. And, all dishevelled, clouds of mist were pouring Where -round the headlands the whipt spume rose up. The howling wind smote all the shades asunder And tore them on the cliff -tops; savagely With bellowing fury as of taurine thunder It drove the herded breakers of the sea. Like an enormous monster, frenzy-driven, With bristling hide and mouth afoam with wrath, The mountain rearing in the embattled heaven Moaned dreadfully, its loins white with froth. Rapt by the desperate cries, I heard more loudly, Vision, O Desire, Life new-born ! In the wild air your holy songs that proudly Called to me like the trumpeters of morn. And forth from the infernal cavern reeking My soul escaped from darkness and dire drouth, Into the feverish air of life, still seeking For Glory's laurel and for Beauty's mouth. FLEURS-DE-LYS 209 And thus the dreadful night's loud voice spake to me: "Lo! Life is sweet. Burst thou thy sepulchre!" And the mad wind with its wild notes and gloomy: " Let Beauty draw thy being into her!" And I who seek this boon of hours appalling After a buried century of decades, Hear nothing but these savage tears down falling, The muffled onset of embattled shades. 183. THE LION'S DEATH A HUNTER old whom once the desert air And bulls' blood pricked to hunger, then he scann'd The sea beyond him and the lonely sand With sullen roaring from his rocky lair. Then like a damned soul in dire Hell's despair For the lewd pleasure of a gaping band, He came and went within a cage, his grand Rude head wall-thwarted in his pacing there. Such being his vile doom perpetual All meat and drink the savage beast put by Till his wild soul in death o'er-leapt the wall. O rebel to the world's captivity. Weak heart still caged, why wilt thou too not die And like the lion make an end of all ? 184. A FESTIVAL NOR bloody altar, nor barbaric rite With tresses in a wreath of flowers bound, A fair-hued maid of lonie moves round o 210 FLEURS-DE-LYS Over the moss as the soft strings invite. Nor bloody altar, nor barbaric rite: Blithe songs, blithe laughter where the flowers abound ! Nor Pan nor Satyr do the dancers heed. A young man girt with myrtle of sweet balm Leads on the quire whose voices waft the psalm As Eros and the Cyprian goddess plead. Nor Pan nor Satyr do the dancers heed: Smooth-gliding feet, a greensward steeped in balm! Nor storm nor wind to fill the soul with fear. Thro' the blue sky the happy songs fly up. And lovely children bear the brimming cup To elders whom the green boughs over-peer. Nor storm nor wind to fill the soul with fear : A cloudless sky wherethro' the songs fly up! / 185. CAMEO LONG shall he live thro' time remembered By all the happy gods! Whose sure hand knew Over the polished onyx-stone to spread These ripples on the blue. Here, with the sun, soft with bewildered eyes Such as a young and joyous queen might have, Behold the swooning Cyprian goddess rise ^ Out of the syren wave. Naked she is; her rosy ^breasts invade , The surging waters; and her throat divine Is looped about with silver-woven braid The cloven surges twine. FLEURS-DE-LYS 211 Her golden tresses on the sea a-swim Are not in garland or in fillet bound; Her body shines like some pale lily slim Amid the violets found. She laughs and gambols, and the dolphins gay The godlike radiance of her gaze to win, Stir up the surge upon her watery way With thrust of tail and fin. i86. THE SUPREME CONSUMMATION NAY, but the world is old, nigh old as hell ; Since first man wept, since first desire o'ercame With fire more fierce and bitterer than hell's flame, The tale of time is grown too long to tell. 'Tis life is ill and dying that is well. Whether wrist-bound the sea our body claim. Or with clear eyes on heaven we fall full game To stroke of sword or to the bursting shell. Thou hast my love, O heart whom Earth so craves, burning might that bears the martyr out Whose soul in passing grows in strength serene 1 splendid blood, come shrive me in thy waves, So may I, while the vulgar rabble shout. Pass to my endless home with spirit clean ! 187. NOON NOON whose kingdom summer is, spread wide along the plain's expanse. Falls down to earth in swathes of silver from his throne in heaven's blue. 212 FLEURS-DE-LYS All is silent. Air's aflame and burns as in a breath- less trance; Earth lies drowsed beyond awaking in her robe of fiery hue. Far, in farness beyond span, stretch meadows where no shadow shows, The stream where once the cattle watered now hath no more draught to bring. Far away the forest slumbers deep amid the darkling boughs Yonder on the still horizon where they stand unquivering. All alone the tall wheat-ears wave to and fro their ripened grain, As though a tide of golden waters, heedless of the drowsy call. Sacred Earth's most careless brood with fearless lips that seek and drain To the lees the brimming chalice that the sun holds out to all. Now and then, as though a sigh from out their burning souls impels. The bosom of the heavy wheat-ears lifts a mur- murous sound, a-sway With a slow majestic motion of the golden tide that swells Till it touch the dim horizon where in haze it dies away. Nearer, mid the grasses prone lie oxen white whose dew-laps are Slow-dribbling downward, while inert with dullard gaze from languid eyes FLEURS-DE-LYS 218 Shining brightly, they pursue across the level fields afar Inner thought whereof the still unseized phantom ever flies. Get thee hence! fellow man, avoid at noon these shining fields I Or grief or gladness in thy bosom, flyl for nought is here for thee. Nature is an empty thing and nought to any man she yields : Only here the sun consumes; nought lives or sad or joyously. But if sick of sorry laughter and the bitter sound of woe, Or eager to forget the world and from its fret a way to win. Wrath or pity left behind thee, thou the uttermost wouldst know Of supremest exhaltation. Come! and steep thy soul herein. Here the sun shall speak unto thee words of a sub- limer sense ; In ardour of its quenchless flame yield up thy selfish being's dross. With slow feet returning then to sinful cities far from hence. Seven times thy heart made stronger in the furnace of thy loss, 214 FLEURS-DE-LYS CHARLES BAUDELAIRE (1821-1867) i88. BEAUTY I AM lovely as a dream of stone. Men sicken, Against my breast deep-bruis6d. I bring sore Travail of Love to poets, evermore Dumb as the Dust that no desire may quicken. Sphinx-like I am throned aloof; as plumes that thicken The breast of swans my chill heart's white at core; All rhythm-offending tumult I abhor Who am never with mirth elate nor sorrow-stricken. Poets before my noble poise and gesture That hath the pomp of all the world for vesture, Waste their sad days in study of dry reams; For I, to keep these loving suitors loyal Hold mirrors up, that make all beauty royal. In wide eyes brimming with immortal beams. ^ 189. THE GIANTESS I WOULD it had been mine in Time remote When Nature's womb a monstrous brood begat. Upon some maiden giantess to dote, As at a queen's feet some voluptuous cat; To watch her body budding, with her mind Growing in dreadful frolic; and dislimn The sombre furnace gathering heat behind The misty veil that in her eyes did swim; FLEURS-DE-LYS 215 Over her mighty shape to roam at ease, Crawl on the slope of her enormous knees; Or when the sultry heat of summer drove My mistress prone athwart the grassy space, Drowsed in the shadow of her breasts, not move Like a still hamlet at a mountain's base. 190. TWILIT HARMONY BEHOLD the hour is come when stems are thrilled, And like swung censers flowers shed their fume; Now thro' the air are sounds and odours spilled; O wistful waltz within the dizzy gloom! Now like swung censers flowers shed their fume; Now like a torn heart hath the viol trilled; O wistful waltz within the dizzy gloom 1 Like a lone shrine the sky with sorrow is filled. Now like a torn heart hath the viol trilled, A shy heart that doth hate all dark and doom! Like a lone shrine the sky with sorrow is filled. The sun is drowned in his blood's own spume. A shy heart that doth hate all dark and doom Drinks every drop from the waned light down- spilled. The sun is drowned in his blood's own spume. Thy memory lights me like a monstrance filled ! 191. MY FORMER LIFE UNDER vast colonnades that took the noon's Sea-mirrored fire, I dwelt. In eve's dim light The pillars showed majestic and upright Like basalt caves wherein the wroth sea swoons; 216 FLEURS-DE-LYS The surge that mocked the sun's face and the moon's, Merged as in solemn and most mystic rite The hues of sunset waning on my sight With mighty concord of immortal tunes. I drank voluptuous calm amid the sheen Of sea and sky and mirrored light serene; Where naked slaves with bodies steeped in balms, Eager to soothe the sorrow undivined Whereof I grew most weary, fanned the wind Athwart my brow with wafture of green palms. 192. THE PIT GREAT Pascal had his pit always in sight. All is abysmal — deed, desire, or dream Or speech ! Full often over me doth scream The wind of Fear and blows my hair upright. By the lone strand, thro' silence, depth and height, And shoreless space that doth with terrors teem . . On my black nights God's finger like a beam Traces his swarming torments infinite. Sleep is a monstrous hole that I do dread. Full of vague horror, leading none knows where; All windows open on infinity, So that my dizzy spirit in despair Longs for the torpor of the unfeeling dead. Ah! from Time's menace never to win free! FLEURS-DE-LYS 217 193- HYMN TO her the dearest, the most fair That fills my heart with light sublime, The seraph of immortal pray'r, Salute throughout immortal time ! She fills my life as from the south A salt air that the sea-wind brings. And soothes my never quenched drouth With savour of eternal springs. A redolence that sweetens all The air in some most dear demesne, A censer that some hand lets fall To smoulder in the dark unseen. how, unsullied love, to tell With any truth the thing thou art ? A grain of musk that still doth dwell Deep-hid in my unaging heart ? To her the dearest, the most fair That brings me joy and all my pow'rs. The seraph of immortal pray'r. Salute throughout immortal hours ! 194. EXOTIC PERFUME WHEN with shut eyes in autumn twilight dim I breathe thy warm breast's odour, then I see That happy shore where everlastingly The sun smites downward from his burning rim; 218 FLEURS-DE-LYS An idle land where Nature in her whim Breeds many a strange and sweetly burdened tree; Where women gaze from candid eyes and free, And the nude men are sinewy and slim. Thine odour bears me to that blessed zone : Yonder the limp sails to the yard-arms cling, Still weary with their long sea-voyaging; The perfume of green tamarinds is blown About my nostrils, and to me grows one With voices of the sailors as they sing. 195. THE DEAD MISTRESS WHEN, O my dark beloved, thou shalt drowse Beneath black marble, and thy bed-chamber Shall be deep-delv6d and thy pleasure-house Some sodden cavern whence thou mayst not stir; When thy head-stone shall so with weight oppress Thy breast and supple thighs that it shall stay Thy heart from beating and thy foot no less From hasting down the old adventurous way, — The grave that knows my inmost heart's desire Shall thus, night-long, my deathless wish repeat: " Thou who of thy sweet self didst baulk the buyer, How should I spare thee now, adulterous cheat, From Death's indignity ?" Then woman, wail! The worm shall suck thy burning body pale. 196. SIN FOR me the most foul demon still doth plot; About me like the imponderable air He flows. I drink him, and straightway am hot With shameful lusts the tongue may not declare. FLEURS-DE-LYS 219 And since he knows how I love form, he wins My soul in woman's guise, or else he'll tell Some pious tale of washing out my sins To tempt me to a draught that's brewed in Hell. He leads me far away from God's clear eyes. Halt and most sore still am I onward lured To endless plains of speechless miseries, Whereon unto my weary eyes and blurred He shows red scars, foul raiment, and the shape Of gory Ruin with her wounds a- gape. 197. SELF-COMMUNING BE wise, my. sorrow, quit thy vain unrest. Now falls the twilight of thine eager plea; The dim haze wraps the city vaporously In peace or leaves long weariness unblest. Now doth the soulless rabble, lust-possest, Beneath the unsparing goad of Pleasure flee To reap remorse in foul satiety. Come, O my sorrow, on serener quest. Behold the lost years of thy life that lean From heaven's high balcony in garments mean; Behold Regret from the deep waters rise. While the dim sun drifts downward to his bed, Hearken how eastward with unechoing tread The soft Night draws her long shroud down the skies. 198. DEATH HAUL up the anchor, captain old, Death, for it is time; We weary of the listless shore. Cast off, and so to sea! 220 FLEURS-DE-LYS Though cloud above and wave below be black as inky slime, Our hearts are beaming cores of light to dare the dark with thee! Pour out thy poison draught, and of thy comfort let us drink; So fierce the fuel burns our brain that headlong we would sweep. Or Hell or Heaven for our port, thro' sunless gulfs to sink. And hail the unknown dark to find a shore beyond the deep! HENRI MURGER (1822-1861) 199. MEMORIES HAVE you forgotten, dear Louise, That flowery strip of garden old Where I one night your hand did squeeze Athrob with love too full to hold ? Our lips in vain sought words to say. And knees touched knees where we did sit Beneath the willow-boughs asway . . . Say, do you still remember it ? Have you forgotten, dear Marie, The rings we placed upon our thirds. The hot sun setting goldenly, The shady wood so full of birds. The fountain where we met of yore That babbled thro' the summer heat — That trysting-place and many more . . . Say, do you still remember it ? FLEURS-DE-LYS 221 Have you forgotten, dear Christine, That tiny room once redolent. My own sky-scraping chamber mean. The soft May nights so blithely spent ? Those starry nights when stars would say " As we do, drop thy veils, O Sweet! And let thy lover have his way "... Say, do you still remember it ? Louise is dead, and Marie goes By sad ways downward to the mire ; Pale Christine like a flower reblows Far off to suns of southern fire. Louise and Marie and Christine, For me are all three turned to clay, Our love is dust, and I with teen Alone recall that happier day. LOUIS BOUILHET (1822-1869) 200. SPRING RISE from your bed for the Spring is born this morning; Yonder in the dell a rosy veil's adrift; All the garden thrills and sings; the sun upon your window Dazzles like a laughing face when eyelids lift. Yonder on the trellis arch the crimson roses cluster, Making heaven redolent with soft, sweet breath ; All alone the vine is bare, and mid the bursting flowers Creeps along the ancient wall, a snake in death. 222 FLEURS-DE-LYS Round the laden lilac-trees rustle in their swarming Butterflies and blue flies amid the bloom; And the wild wood hyacinth chiming on its belfry Rouses love that lay asleep in forest gloom. Now that April sows abroad her troop of ox-eye daisies, Leave your heavy cloak behind, and hark how sweet Sings the bird that calls you, your sister periwinkles Smiling up into your eyes from eyes that greet. Come, come awayl for the springs are clear at morning; Nay, dear, wait no longer for the hot noon hour; Fain would I wander while the meadows still are dewy, Telling of my love for you where fruit-trees flow'r. LOUIS MENARD (1822-1901) 201. STOICISM BRAVE strength breeds freedom, for each load we bear Tries courage and doth temper it. Be king Of thine own mind, thy conscience following The God unfailing that is shrindd there. Thinkest thou then the august powers that steer The golden spheres will for thy pleasure swing Out of their course ? In silence suffering. Play thou the man uprightly without fear. FLEURS-DE-LYS 228 The Gods alone know if man's soul survives: But steadfast is the labour of just lives, Be they no more than day-long. With calm breath They leave appraisal to the appointed judge Who for the right meet Death, and nothing grudge In envy of the Gods that know not death. THEODORE DE BANVILLE (1823-1891) 202. BALLADE OF THE FOREST HAUNTERS STILL do they sing, the swarm of mocking fays Well sheltered by the thorn and holly-leaves. Who feel the light winds' tender, frolic ways; And Dian still the lean wolf-pack bereaves Of all its courage — she whose cunning weaves A bower to hide her heart in. Many a hind Still worships her. And when the moon doth blind In her white splendour poured from a clear sky. With lovely locks adrift in the still wind, Fair Dian thro' the forest fareth by. The water-lilies and the crisped bays. The chilly elf, the soft-eyed sprite that grieves. Spin round the red dwarf in a mystic maze. Linked hand in hand beneath the nodding leaves. And green sylphs play the mummer, till upheaves A tall form on the darkness half divined; Whereon is heard long sobbing on the wind, A sigh of grief for all things gone awry, And dumb feet tear the ivy-stems that bind: Fair Dian thro' the forest fareth by. 224 FLEURS-DE-LYS 'Tis Dian seeking trophies in her chase, That hears the groan that loud the spent stag gives, Half -stifled; then the air's rude welcome lays A rosy chillness on the limb that cleaves; Her hounds, grown wroth with the loud cries she heaves, Haste onward to her bidding swift as wind. The Goddess tall whose fiery gaze can blind Draws tight the bow and lets her arrows fly; Then, shaking wide her wavy locks untwined. Fair Dian thro' the forest fareth by. Prince, it is time we left the dust behind, And stony ways whereon the hard wheels grind. In forest arbours far from human eye. The city of our questing we may find Where Dian thro' the forest fareth by. 203. TO THE FONT-GEORGES SILENT fields where I was glad When I was a little lad. And my happy days did hold Threads of gold! O Font-Georges that once I knew Where the robin-redbreasts flew. And the nightingale also Singing low! Cottage white whereon the vine Long of stem and serpentine Drank the dew-drops with its leaves From the eaves ! FLEURS-DE-LYS 225 Crystal stream that once did roll Shadowed by the upright bole Of a hollow walnut-tree Steadfastly! Chilly streams and freshets who Feeling for the griefs I knew, Trembled in the time gone by At my cry! Pool where washerwomen were Full of song and void of care Beating on the board with might Linen white ! Centenarian elder-tree Whose hoar forehead I did see, Thunder-stricken thrice and yet Firmly set! Arbours cool and copses wild In the grassy sward enisled, Where to every wind that played Poplars swayed ! Heavy purple grapes that hung On the hillside vines and clung To the laden stems that went Earthward bent; Where when autumn-time came in In her merriment would spin Round the press the vintage-sprite At twilight! 226 FLEURS-DE-LYS Briars whose ruddy fruit doth bleed, In the ravines thrown for seed, As of oaks the acorns are Sown afar! Osier-stems whose murmurs light Fill the ring-dove with affright, Willow blue, the far away's Sunset blaze ! Boughs with ruddy cherries bent. Reaping girls surprised that went Wading where the waters fleet With bare feet! Leafy arbours, rills, and lanes ; Smell of leaves and grasses; plains. Shades, and rocks that often drew Me to you! Rivers ! forests ! silence stilled I O what joys my childhood filled! My fond soul to you doth feel Far less leal Than to this poor joyless plot Where green leaf and rose are not, And the antique yew-trees raise Sombre sprays. To this sandy path that is Dearer for the untold bliss Of the hour when first I heard Her soft word ! FLEURS-DE-LYS 227 Where py love, with musing mind Gently her sweet self resigned, Leaning on my arm, and so Speaking low. Thoughts adrift, the while she tore Leaf by leaf the flower she bore With a heedless hand that left All bereft, At the hour when from the brink Trembling stars emerge, and link On the sky that shines or low'rs Silver flow'rs. 204. TO THEOPHILE GAUTIER THE poet snares his prize As in a fowler's noose. Then plies The chisel gravers use. For, that his blade may wreak On metal of hard core His freak, Deep must he carve and bore. Hard is the task ! You hold As I, the Muse must find The old Strict bondage to her mind; That, shining, firm, the flow Of lovely line hard-wrought 228 FLEURS-DE-LYS Doth show Smooth-browed the labouring thought. For you who do bestride Exalted, the wild horse Soft-eyed That down the skies doth course; ! you who have the sleight To snare in net of words Your bright Dream-pinions like a bird's; Master who mak'st us fain Of the green laurel, still You deign To ply the tool with skill. 205. "WE'LL GO NO MORE THE WOODLAND WAY ..." WE'LL go no more the woodland way, the laurel- leaves are dipt, The little cupids in the pool, the naiads on the sill Behold again the sunlit wave where beam and shadow dipt On waters poured from cups they held, now silent grown and still. The laurel-leaves are dipt, and the weary stag at bay Now trembles at the sounding horn; we'll go no more astray Where troops of lovely children once went fro- licking their fill Beneath the glance of lilies dewy-eyed and dewy-lipt. FLEURS-DE-LYS 229 Behold the scythe that shears the grass, the shat- ' tered leaves that spill I We'll go no more the woodland way, the laurel-leaves are dipt. EUGENE MANUEL (1823-1901) 206. THE CRADLE FOR nine long months she made her mother's vows To lay her God-sent baby in a shrine Most fit to hold him; it must far outshine The cot wherein the sons of kings may drowse. Out on your simple deal, your supple boughs ! The artist drew the cot of her design : It must be pearl let into rosewood fine, Though gold indeed were proper for his house. Nought seems too costly, linen or fine lace To swathe with whiteness the soft baby face Upon the pillow on his birthday morn. Now is he come, her little son, her pride! And lo ! the cradle he must sleep inside Is made of oak, and to God's acre borne. ANDRE THEURIET (1833-1907) 207. THE VINE IN BLOSSOM ALONG the vines the blossoms thrive. To-night just twenty years are mine. Ah! but it's good to be alive 230 FLEURS-DE-LYS And feel the veins that seethe and strive Like the crushed grape that turns to vrine. My brain's with idle thoughts abrim; I wander in a tipsy swoon; I run and drink the air I skim . . . Is it the draught that pricks my whim, Or blossom on the vine-festoon ? But ah 1 what odour freights the air From out the clusters of the vine . . . Ah ! had I but the heart to dare Clasp something . . . some one . . . anywhere Within these wanton arms of mine ! I fleet, as fearful as a fawn, Beneath the loaded trellises; I lay me amid blade and awn. And on the bramble-shaded lawn I taste the wild red raspberries. And to my lips that pant in drouth It seems as though a kiss were blown On breezes from the tender south ; As though a soft and scented mouth Moved down to mingle with my own. strange delight, O stranger dearth! 1 tendrils of the vine about, 1 blossoms trailing in your mirth, Is Love still roaming on the earth. And how may lovers find him out ? FLEURS-DE-LYS 231 ARMAND SILVESTRE (1837-1901) 208. THE VENUS OF MILO NO live girl's body hath such pride impassioned; Such beauty is beyond Earth's brittle clay. From the hard marble was her statue fashioned In lands where once of old the Gods held sway. No cruel soul that ever foils love's hoping, Could hide behind that bosom and that brow; And those twin summits from her torso sloping Could sheathe no heart was traitor to its vow. Like a steep rock her throat leans heavenward, yearn- For pure betrothal with diviner life ; [ing And thwarts the tide of passion in us, spurning The soiled caresses of our souls at strife. Rock upright amid our dust and ashes ! O lantern rising on our bitter strand! O statue whence the antique thought still flashes Above us like a tempest-fluttered brand! O wardress of the sacred stairway spiring To perfect beauty on the heights afar. Where we behold with dread our soul's desiring; O he who did thy marble body mar Struck deep the poet! For thine arms in breaking, Daughter of Gods, O deathless Beauty, bare The souls of all men downward, heav'n forsaking. Into the squalid vortex of despair. 232 FLEURS-DE-LYS 209. IMMORTALITY WHERE goes the starry quire ? ^ Whereto our hearts aspire To hail the eternal light. Our soul to theirs uplift That golden-winged drift Athwart the solemn night. Shade on that span immense But wardens light intense From gates that Death throws wide. Shade is but the dark way That leads from yesterday To morrows glorified. Pursue the sacred stars That mount beyond the bars Of day in linked light. As they to Death we steer, As they we wane when near The day that hath no night. 210. PROMETHEUS HIS galled flesh writhing on the rock, he thrilled With endless lamentation the lone sky. " Consort most foul whose carrion food am I, Bear off my heart and let thy brood be filled. From my red wound not all the blood is spilled. There mayst thou glut. Thy gorged beak cannot My spirit with the supreme agony, [try Live tomb most avid of my flesh unkilledl FLEURS-DE-LYS 233 Most mournful ravener, let thy beak not halt But rive my entrails with a ruthless edge : Not direst torture of thy claws can mate The torment of the mocking azure vault, The stars that laugh on an unreached ledge, The calmness of the heaven that I hate!" LEON DIERX (1838-1912) 211. OCTOBER EVENING A TREMOR slides from the hill-slopes down to the plains; From the hill-slopes and from the woods, in the plain and the croft A tremor of night passes on to the country lanes. — O! the Angelus bell in the sunset chiming aloft!— Under a chilly gust the songs grow soft. Afar the sound of singing and laughter dies In the dense mist rising up as a breath upcurls, A slow breath scattering far its last fond sighs, Its farewell sighs where the dark wood shakes in dread, — It shakes in dread, and the dry leaf eddying whirls. Whirls and falls on paths that no feet tread. 212. WINTER DAY THIS morning not one beam cleaves the cloud-blind. The laggard sun upsurges with sealed eye. And mine own gaze is dull with apathy; With the dim hour, O Soul, content thy mind! 234 FLEURS-DE-LYS Dead stars fade out like sparks upon the wind Blown from the smithy, and night's blossoms die; I sink in mine own sorrow utterly; Come, ponder, O Soul, the dark hours left behind! Night's angels now draw down their sombre pall; They will not hang their lanterns on the steep. Think of the tearless crowds that deathward creep, Of shrines where now no human footsteps fall ! Thou art but a grave, O Soul, a dusty heap; Then ponder on sleep and dark funereal ! ACHILLE MILLIEN (1838- ) 213. THE THREE SISTERS AS daylight passes there go three lasses Hand holding hand as they move down the lane. There's one singing gaily, and one smiling palely, And one in her sorrow that sighs for her swain. " O what is this hunger of love ?" saith the younger, The second makes answer, ' ' I know not. They say The heart dies without it." — "Nay, sisters dear, doubt it : I who know," saith the elder, "am dying away." FLEURS-DE-LYS 285 SULLY PRUDHOMME (1839-1907) 214. THE INHERITOR I AM kind-hearted, wish no creature ill, Yet take of oxen stunned by hands more strong. And, spite my gentleness, am glad the thong Should make my spent horse hasten up the hill. I am fair-minded, deem the poor man still My brother, and throw crumbs unto the throng; A dead, self-stinting forbear laboured long That I, from a full board, might take my fill. Honest, my sleek well-being knows no debt. I eat of bread begot of others' sweat On fields made fertile by my sires' dead help. Thus on unending massacre I browse. Nature's elect, I forage or I drowse. Bland-eyed and bloody as an ogre's whelp. 215. THE STRANGER I OFTEN wonder with what blood doth beat This truant heart that all delight doth tire, These thoughts and feelings that unquenched aspire As though unending bliss for them, were meet. Where is the paradise where thou hadst seat ? In what King's army hast thou taken hire ? Since vileness here doth flout thine eyes' desire. What beauty is thy soul's right counterfeit ? Surely my sorrow for a heav'n unknown And my divine disgust spring not unsown: Vainly I grope within my heart of mud; 236 FLEURS-DE-LYS And aye bewildered by my sobbing breast, Hearken the grief of my strange kingly guest Who veils the glory of his land and blood. 216. BODIES AND SOULS O ! happy fleshly lips that glow With kisses love-besought or ta'en, And happy breasts whose breathings flow To merge their sighs where they be fain. O! happy hearts athrob with blood, In loving kindness side by side. And happy arms of loverhood That hold each other fondly tied; And happy fingers too that clasp, And eyes that gaze, and bodies prone That are at peace in slumber's hasp. And nought at all when life is flown. But what have souls but wretched spite ? That must for ever live aloof, Like flames that glow with ardent light Behind a lantern lustre-proof. Against their prison's cloudy wall They feel their burning kinship urge. And vainly on their neighbour call Whose ardour cannot meet and merge. For these that are immortal held Were better far a single day Of life to feel their longing quelled And in espousal burnt away I FLEURS-DE-LYS 237 217. THE GREAT BEAR THE Great Bear shone, an archipelago Upon a shoreless ocean, through long eld Ere wandering shepherds from Chaldea beheld. Or ever weary soul knew fleshly woe. Innumerable beings to and fro Have wandered by its dazzling radiance spelled ; And, careless of the gaze it hath compelled, When the last man lies dead it still shall glow. " Thou art no Christian then I" believers chide. ! fatal outline that doth ever bide. Seven golden nails on the dark void of air. Thy slow march, thy chill light blur faith's far goal: 'Twas sight of thee that first bestirred my soul To seek the meaning of my nightly pray'r. 218. CHAINS A RHYTHM can link me with melodious air, And velvet's softness with this rose I feel; A smile can take my eyes as in a snare, A kiss can hold my lips as with a seal. In such frail bonds my life is held by love Of thousand other souls whereto I cling; How soft soever be the gusts that move They rend in me some fleshly fastening. 238 FLEURS-DE-LYS 219. HYMN TO DESIRE O DIE not yet, divine Desire, whose flight Doth fan all human things, O thou who givest birth unto delight By folding of thy wings. Strange wayfarer, and is thy love outgrown Made lip and flower unseal ? The hidden sources of the world unknown Wilt thou no more reveal ? On Beauty's face rain kisses, O Desire! Into the pit of Truth Bear thou thy torch's still unquenched fire Fair Son of fading Youth ! Still give us dreams, still give us love, the great Unending thirst that, ever drawing up. Is born again to life insatiate Out of the drained cup I EMIL BLEMONT (1839- ) 220. THE FALL OF THE YEAR AH ! who hath not joy of chill Autumn's slow coming ? Who finds not delight in her wistful wan face ? When skies are all gray and the seas are all foaming, Ah! then with sweet sorrow the heart fills apace. FLEURS-DE-LYS 239 Then the long day seems twilit at noon as at morning; In the air full of tears, black and bare hang the boughs; Then under the thatch the bright faggots are burning, And fog's on the roof of the old manor-house. With the pallor of death now the fallow-land blanches; Nigh the stable that shelters the cattle from harm, The reek rises upward between the slim branches In spirals that curl from the litter still warm. We walk full of dreams like a man that is sleeping; We smell the sweet odours of harvests gone by. And memory shines in the midst of our weeping Like a star that is seen on the far-away sky. We hearken no more to the cry of the swallow; The sap shrinks away from the frost that doth bind ; All is mute. Love alone hath no time that is fallow. But blossoms and sings in the teeth of the wind. VILLIERS DE L'ISLE-ADAM (1840-1889) 221. AVOWAL FOREST and plain are gone, And April's ancient spell . . . Give me thy lips ; thereon The woodland wind shall swell. Lost is the sullen stir Of Ocean's endless pain . . . 240 FLEURS-DE-LYS Speak, and my soul shall hear His surging tides again. In royal woe I weep, And dream of suns gone blind O ! bosom hide me deep As nights bereft of wind. HENRI CAZALIS (1840-1909) 222. STORM IN THE NIGHT UP leapt the wave as a wild unbroken stallion High into the air flinging wild his spumy mane. When after sojourn long in the stilly lowland ways I, on a night of storm, beheld the sea again. Loud shrieked the wind with his shrilly voice rever- berate ; Wave after wave charged the rocky ledge of land; There, as I stood alone, before the sea's dishevelling. Calm breathed my spirit on the storm-embattled strand. Up in the sky, seeking cover like a frighted thing. Swift fled the moon letting fall her misty beams; Far on the foamy main the breakers roared unceas- ingly Whipt by the wind to a rage of writhing streams. Hast thou, O Nature, hidden sorrows inconsolable ? Doth thy deep soul ache with agonies uneased ? Are the wild storms but thy salt tears falling bitterly. And the loud winds but thy wailing unappeased ? FLEURS-DE-LYS 241 Dost thou too suffer, O great Mother from whose womb we come ? We ev'n as thou in thy nights of blackest shade, Writhe in our pain with our stormy passions goading us; In thine own image, prone to darkness are we m^de. 223. THE HARPS OF DAVID SPACIOUS, splendid and pacific, the vast night unrolled before us, We listened to the chanting of the billows on the deep. Our heart-beats all bewildered by the music that they bore us. And all the harps of David in the heavens seemed to weep. The moon rose wanly in the sky, and I a dream was weaving: I dreamt that even she did sing my sorrow to allay. And all the fond waves shoreward borne with passion in their heaving But reached the strand to kiss your feet and ebb their life away; That we were two without a third in all the world's vast spaces; That I was erst an errant soul in darkness all adrift; But that the harps of gold that thrilled the deep night's hollow places Had made me sob aloud for love, and brought me you for gift; Q 242 FLEURS-DE-LYS Whereon a peacefulness arose, and splendid beams were shaking, The while I wept and laid my brow upon your knees for troth. And like my heart the heavens above, no longer void and aching, Were spanned^by the vast soul of God outspread above us both. 224. FOR EVER WITHHOLD thy love, though life betrays. No whit, but dream and still desire; And bare thy heart on human ways Though nought but wounds fulfil desire. Though all be vain, in truth still trust; Still love, desire and dream amain; So soon the heart returns to dust. With love now let it teem amain. Drink deep of art and human worth ; Heart high pursue thy loyal way; Still walk as poet lord of earth, ||.Wear purple robes in royal way. For love and dream alone are true : Like swords of lightning crossed in air. Athwart the heaven's starless blue Our life's A flame that's lost in air. Alone in ardent passion's light Our eyes see clearly ere we go Into an everlasting night With no return from where we go. FLEURS-DE-LYS 243 Consume thy brand, throw wide thy spark, And let the flame upthrust again ; Think of the grave's unending dark When thou art turned to dust again. I So near us yawns the dreadful pit; Or ere we plunge beyond desire. Now let the brand of life be lit, O heart fulfil thy fond desire I BOOK VI TO R. GEOFFREY W. SAW STEPHANE MALLARME (1842-1898) 225. APPARITION THE moon grew sad, and weeping seraphim, Musing amid the vaporous flowers aswim, With slow bows from the sobbing viols drew White tears that sank in their coronals blue. It was the blessed day of your first kiss. My reverie, eager with new miseries, Was all a-swoon with perfume of shy grief That leaves the heart to gather its own sheaf. And frets not, nor yet sickens of its prize. I wandered, and the worn way held my eyes When in the street I saw your sun-girt hair And you all smiling in the twilit air. I took you for that elf who, crowned with beams, Once passed before me in my childish dreams. And shed white posies of sweet-smelling flow'rs Star-like for tiny hands in snowy show'rs. 226. WIND FROM THE SEA WEARY is the flesh, alas! with many books the eyes are dim. Flight ! I feel that birds are wild to sweep the far-off skies, and skim The unknown foam! For nought on land shall now the gypsy heart be stayed. Not ancient gardens mirrored back by limpid eyes, since it doth wade 247 248 FLEURS-DE-LYS Into the sea-borne flood. O nights! not the clear lamplight's lonely tryst, Nor white allure of sheets unscrawled, nor yet the suckling infant kist By the young wife. I must away! The steamer rocks her ropes and spars! O haul the heavy anchor up and set all sail for tropic stars ! Now weariness at last outworn by ruthless hope's unsparing whip Still strains toward white handkerchiefs that wave their farewells from the ship. Nay, but these masts that brave the storm, may they not bend above the foam Like wind-broke spars on derelicts that mastless drift far, far from home Or happy haven-isles that flow with wine and oil that never fails ? . . . But hearken, O my heart, the singing mariners that hoist the sails! JOSE-MARIA DE HEREDIA (1842-190S) 227. CENTAURS' FLIGHT RED-HANDED and with savage thews afire. They fly toward their stronghold on the fell ; Fear on their flanks and death in front, they smell A lion lurking in the darkness dire. O'er torrent, gully, and entangled brier They leap, down-treading serpents terrible. FLEURS-DE-LYS 249 While far away into the sky up-swell High hills about Olympus' topmost spire. At times a charger in the maddened raid Rears upward, and swings round with dreadful heed, Then in a bound rejoins the wild stampede, For he has seen, by the bright moonbeams made. An awful menace of enormous breed In monstrous girth of Herculean shade. 228. THE TEPIDARIUM MYRRH sweetens all their supple limbs; they muse With flesh not loathful of the chilly flaws. A brazier mid the steady wafture draws Now flame now shadow o'er their pallid hues. On cushioned beds the crimson swathings fuse With marble and amber of fair limbs at pause, Upright or bending thro' the filmy gauze That shows the suave lines of their pliant thews. An Asian woman, bare amid the billow Of the warm air-stream, like a writhen willow Lifts nerveless arms and shivers in the wind; Whereat the Ausonian maidens pale as swans. Do marvel at the swarthy tresses twined Sleek and untrammelled round her bust of bronze. 229. TO A TRIUMPHER CHISEL upon thine arch, great king, a knot Of captive slaves and many an agid chief, With armour and the trophied spears in sheaf. Despoiled ships, and festal altars hot. 250 FLEURS-DE-LYS Whether thou be high-born or churl-begot, Thy lineage, honours, titles, long or brief, Engrave them on thy frieze or bas-relief. Lest in the time to come men know thee not. Time 's fatal weapon shakes. Wouldst thou hand down The rumour of unconquerable renown ? A weed shall rend the trophies of thy might; When all thy tale of marble pomp lies tumbled Some mower on grass-smothered stone shall smite And mar his blade upon thy glory humbled. 230. THE ROSE WINDOW THIS window hath seen many a dame and lord In robes of azure, pearl and gold that shone Bend low beneath the priestly benison Their hoods and helms whereon its radiance poured. These at the trumpet-blast would seize the sword And those the hooded falcon would set on For chace of skyey game, their masters gone To hunt for Christ the Saracenic horde. Prone lie they all on marble hearses pale. A lean hound props them in their silk or mail ; They do speak, nor listen, nor give sign. Only from eyes of stone, as though undimmed, They seek and see riot on the glass a-shine The unfading blossom of the Rose there limned. 231. ON THE OLD BRIDGE ON graven chalice or on hasp of gold With the first beam the valiant master bent, His brushes ready and his hand intent On Latin mottoes to be smoothly scrolled. FLEURS-DE-LYS 251 Over the bridge the silvern belfries tolled, The spurred heel smote, the priestly raiment went; The mounting sunbeams in the clear sky blent. And lovely girls fared onward aureol'd. And fain, whom wanton ardour swiftly drove. The wistful lads forgot their lover's seal And left the clasped hands on the rings undone. While, with a slim blade sharp as murderer's steel, Cellini, without heed, wrought on alone A dagger's hilt whereon the Titans stove. 232. THE VISION OF KHEM I 'TIS noon. Mid burning air and dreadful rays The old river rolls a desultory stream; From the' blind zenith the bright earthward beam Falls sheer. Stern Phra sets all the land ablaze. The sphinxes huge with never-flinching gaze And prone flanks crouching under sands that teem. Fix staring eyeballs as in endless dream On stony peaks that vault the unmeasured space. Sole, like a speck upon the sky's wan sheet. Far off the questing vultures wheel and wheel ; Both men and beast to the vast flame succumb. The hot earth cracks ; the Anubis very still, His image midmost in the exultant heat, Barks at the sun with brazen mouth and dumb. 252 FLEURS-DE-LYS II Old Nilos takes the round moon's silver glance. There is a stir within the burial-field Where each proud king in pose hieratic sealed Lies where they laid him in his mummied trance. As in the days of Rhamses there advance Vast swarms unnumbered that are marched and wheeled Without a sound through the dark night, and yield Their bodies to a rock-hewn necromance. Leaving on walls their counterfeited show, After the trophy-bearing priests they go In honour of Ammon, Lord of the sunbeam. Sphinxes and Rams, red-girdled, in ama^e Rear on their haunches with astonied gaze. Waked with a start from their eternal dream. Ill The innumerable multitude grows more. Now empty loom the coffins in the crypt. Their dead are risen. From each cornice slipt. Again on high the sacred falcons soar. Beasts, people, kings in one wide concourse pour. The gold crest gleams on ghastly brows; tight-lipt Are their lean mouths in old bitumen dipt. The great Gods lead: Hor, Khnoum, Ptah, Neith, Hathor. Then comes the train of Ibis-headed Toth Twice-crowned, about them the embroidered cloth Thick with blue lotus-buds. The errant band Thro' ruined shrines in pomp triumphal goes O'er chilly pavements whence the wan moon throws The immeasurable shadows on the sand. FLEURS-DE-LYS 253 233, ANTIQUE COIN STILL Etna bears the red wine and the gold Made glad Theocritus in times antique; But in our day 'twere vain for him to seek That fruit whereof his gracious verses told. As bond-slave bartered and as harlot sold, The blood of Anjou Brave and Arab Sheik Now strives in Arethusa with the Greek; Her face hath lost the godlike lines of old. Time hastes. All dies. Ev'n marble towers tumble. Old Agregente's citadel is down; Still Syracuse sleeps where the blue unfurls: Only on silver coins that cannot crumble Love set unsullied in its old renown The immortal beauty of Sicilian girls. 234. THE BATH LIKE the once lovely monster, in the tide Wade man and beast, a bare, unbridled twain 'Mid golden gusts of bitter, sea-blown rain, Their limber lines athwart the sun descried. The savage stallion and the churl astride Deep draughts of the sea's briny odour drain Glad of the icy thrill on flesh and mane From sprays that on the Atlantic billows ride. The surge swells, runs, rears upright, shatters. He Shouts loudly. The horse neighs, and with his tail Smites on the rushing blue as with a flail ; While on the sky, with blown hair, shudderingly They bear a steaming front that breaks in hail The foamy lash of the assaulting sea. 254 FLEURS-DE-LYS 235. WIND FROM THE SEA GARDEN and wold by Winter's hand are gript. AH things lie dead. Over the rock's dull gray The Atlantic rollers break in endless spray. The withered petals from the stem are stript. Yet do I feel an odour honey-dipt Blown from the sea about my nostril play Kindling my heart-ache for the far away; From what strange land has this sweet perfume slipt ? Nay, but I know. Three thousand leagues it flew Out from the West, where the Antilles blue Swoon in the ardour of the tropic zone; And I upon this surf-beat Breton strand Have breathed the truant breezes that once fanned The bud that in America was blown. 236. THE BED LET it be draped with serge or with brOcade, Sad as a bier or merry as a troth, There man's begot, begets, and dreams in sloth, Child, husband, grandsire, wife or virgin maid. Gay or funereal, with God's water spray'd Under the cross, or blest with palm, there both Begins and ends his life, in its long growth From the first dawn till the last candles fade. Rustic and shuttered, or, sundown or dawning, Flaunting its gold and crimson for an awning, Shapen of rude oak or of sycamore; Happy is he that slumbers without sin In the ancestral bed that, stout and hoar, Bids welcome and farewell to all his kin. FLEURS-DE-LYS 255 FRANCOIS COPPEE (1842-1908) 237. THE RUINED HEART MY heart was as a Roman palace fair With granite and rare marble, till a band Of ruthless passions bearing axe and brand Swept like barbarians to make havoc there. Then was there ruin and desolation where Dwelt owls and vipers on the barren land; Column and shard lay splintered on the sand, And the smooth pathway teemed with briar and tare. Thro' the unlighted day, the starless night Before my palace's disastrous plight Daunted, I stood alone and all uncheered, Till thou didst bring thy starlike self, O bride! Whereon to house our hallow 'd love I reared , An humble hut from ruins of my pride. CATULLE MENDES (1842-1909) 238. CONSENTMENT NOW Ahod on the plain kept countless sheep. His spouse one summer day fell deep asleep Under a tree nigh Bethel. While she lay A vision passed before her, in this way: 256 FLEURS-DE-LYS Herseemed she from a dream was newly woke, And Ahod was before her and thus spoke : " Woman, arise and gird thee. Of my herd Last year I sold an hundred sheep. One third Is still unpaid of the full sum agreed. But I am old and spent; and in my need Whom may I trust ? Get thee to Segor, bride, And claim the thirty shekels still denied." She murmured not of desert, thieves, or dread. " Thy servant hears thy bidding. Lord," she said. And when with lifted hand he pointed north, She took her woollen raiment and went forth. Now stony were the ways and ill to tread. With tears that blinded and with feet that bled, She fared till darkness fell, and on through night Without or human sound or human sight. Till on a sudden from the shadow smote A savage scimitar across her throat. And savage hands snatched off her robe of wool. And left her dying in a bloody pool. Thereon, in mortal terror, she awoke And found her Lord beside her, who thus spoke: " Woman, arise and gird thee. Of my herd Last year I sold an hundred sheep. One third Is still unpaid of the full sum agreed. But I am old and spent; and in my need Whom may I trust ? Get thee to Segor, bride. And claim the thirty shekels still denied." She answered, " Thou hast spoken. Lord. I haste. She called her brood about her. Then she placed i> FLEURS-DE-LYS 257 Her hands upon her first-born, and she bent To kiss her Benjamin. And all intent She took her woollen robe and forth she went. 239. EXHORTATION THOU mayst be manly an thou wilt. Go! clench thy hilt, and brave the squall Where on the peaks the whirlwind shrieks, and chase the wild stag till he fall. Get thee to battle! Brows are bright on those that fight. Win food and sleep In fast and toil. Go! share the spoil with smugglers on the mountain steep ! But in our soulless city ways, the barren days will wear thee down, Where tears but suit a griefless mute, and mirth but masks a weeping clown. As fountain spray but surges up to brim the cup of pools below, A watery plume it is our doom to waver ever to and fro, — Unstable wills by sloth worn out that shift about, and know no peace, Who in despair breathe living air and shrink in drec|.d from death's release. 240. SOROR DOLOROSA STAY. Light not the lamp. But let us slake Our eyes in shadow, and do thou unbind Thy brown hair's glossy torrent for a blind About the silent kisses that we take; 58 FLEURS-DE-LYS We are both outwearied with the old heartache. The sun-encumbered sky hath, been unkind. Now let us sway in the voluptuous wind That on night's melancholy sea doth wake. Slow sweetness, surging slumber without dream, Funereal ebb and flow in endless stream, Thy hair wherein my drenched brow doth drown , Calm eve that hateth life and fain would pause. How slow the tide of dumb oblivion draws Thro' these close-woven locks of sombre brown. PAUL VERLAINE (1844-1896) 241. "GOD SPAKE AND SAID ..." GOD spake and said, " Son, love me. Look and see My pierced side, my shining heart that bled. And my maimed feet whereon the harlot shed Her tears, and mine arms weighted painfully With burden of thy sins! Behold the tree, Nails, gall, the sponge, and all the wounds yet red To win thee from the world's vile lustihead Unto my Flesh and Blood that calls for thee. Have I not loved thee even unto death, O! brother mine in God, dear child begot Of the same Holy Spirit ? My harsh lot Have I not borne ? When direst sufferings rend, I share thy sweat, I sob with thine own breath. Thy neighbour in the dark, hapless friend!" FLEURS-DE-LYS 259 242. "THE SKY ABOVE THE ROOFING LIES THE sky above the roofing lies So blue, so calm! A pine above the roofing plies Its wafted palm. The bell in yonder tower swings In soft ding-dong. A bird in yonder pine-tree sings Its plaintive song. My God, My God, all life is there, How still, how sweet; And peaceful sounds the wafted air From mart and street. What hast thou done that downward roll Thy ceaseless tears — What hast thou done, O wastrel soul. With thy lost years ? 243. "O HEARKEN THE SO GENTLE PLAINT" O HEARKEN the so gentle plaint That weeps alone to soothe your ill, As shyly sounding and as faint As ripples on a mossy sill ! You know the voice (once dear to you ?); But now the singer's hid away And like a widow veiled from view. Although she proudly fronts the day, 260 FLEURS-DE-LYS And thro' her fluttering weeds astream Before the gusty autumn wind The steadfast star of truth doth beam Upon the troubled heart behind. It saith, (this voice you hear again), True life is to the kind of heart; That all of hate and malice wane To nothingness when we depart. It tells the bright felicities Of simple hearts that seek their kin In selfless bridal, and the bliss Of peace that seeketh nought to win. O hearken the returning voice In spousal rapture singing clear! O what can make the soul rejoice Like staunching of another's tear ? The soul that suffers without wrath Is but astray in passing wrong, How plain to follow is the path ! 1 hearken the celestial song. 244. MY FAMILIAR DREAM NOT seldom in my dreams a woman's eyes Gaze into mine love-brimmed and love-besought; This unknown woman knows my inmost thought, And now has this and now another guise. For her alone my heart unclouded lies. For her alone, alas! its maze is nought; A freshness in her healing hands is brought. And weeping low, my fevered brow she plies. FLEURS-DE-LYS 261 If she be dark or fair I cannot tell, Nor yet her name save that its sound is sweet As those of loved ones we no more may greet. Her gaze is like a statue's; and the swell Of her grave voice afar seems to retreat Like those dear voices grown inaudible. 245. GREEN HERE fruit and flowers I bring to thee; green leaves and sprays I proffer; My heart that beats for thee alone with them to thee I lift; With thy two pale white hands flout not the humble gift I offer, And may those lovely eyes of thine find sweetness in my gift. Behold I come before thee with the dew still on my forehead. The chilly wind of dawn thereon hath turned it icy frore; Ah ! suffer me to rest my load beside thy feet ador6d, There dreaming I'll grow strong again to bear the load I bore. My head upon thy maiden breast in sweet surrender leaving, Therein the stir of kisses that thy lips have shed shall sound, So shall I fall on quiet nigh thy dear heart's stormy heaving And sleep awhile, when thy fond love its haven shall have found. 262 FLEURS-DE-LYS 246. AUTUMN SONG THE sobs are long On the violins Of the barren throng Where no leaf spins; And my heart's heavy And listless grown At hearing ever Their monotone. I catch my breath And I blanch, aghast As the loud clock saith, " Thine hour is past." And I remember The days long flown, And thinking on them I weep alone; And away I go In the evil wind That starts to blow Like a thing unkind, Hither and thither From sill to stone — A drifting flotsam, A dead leaf blown. 247. "ERE THY SOFT RAY BE LOST' ERE thy soft ray be lost 1 waning star of morn, — A host Of quails sing in the corn. FLEURS-DE-LYS 263 Light with thine ebbing spark The poet's love-brimmed eyes. — The lark Climbs sunward to the skies. Look downward upon earth With eyes the dawn doth daze. — What mirth Amid the golden maize I Then flash my thought like light Down yonder, far away. — All bright The dew shines on the hay. Ere her dear lids uplift, Shine through them on her dream. — Swift, swift ! Behold I the first sunbeam. 248. NEVERMORE MEMORY, what wilt thou with me ? Autumn gales Baffle the bird's flight through the moaning air; The sun hurls wide his steady beams that stare O'er the sere wood wherethro' the north wind wails. We two alone, and both with dreams astray. With locks afloat in air and thoughts adrift. When suddenly to me her eyes uplift And her voice asks, "When wast thou happiest ? Say," As soft and song-like as when angels chaunt. And my wan smile gives answer, else untold. 264 FLEURS-DE-LYS And my weaned mouth along her white hand sips. No flowers have scent like that the first ones hold, No sounds have such sweet stress as those that haunt The first-heard "Yes " from the beloved lips. 249. A FORGOTTEN TUNE A FRAIL hand hovering sets the keys astir Wan-faced in the vague twilit rose and gray, While like the wafture of light Wings in air A doting melody begins to sway, Falters uncertain as with fear astray In this room rife with all the sweet of Her. And what is this suave to-and-fro that goes Like fondling hands of my poor being fain ? What would you, wavering song ? What longing flows In the soft babble of your shy refrain, Now wafted out in the wide air to wane Beyond the window where the garden blows ? 250. SONNET ALL through the day down poured the traitorous flame And lure of evil days. Now the sun's track Throbs with its glamour. Close thine eyes, turn back From the most dire temptation — fly the shame 1 Like hail the burning light hath downward sped. Despoiled the hillside vintage, and left prone The cornfields of the valley; the blue zone Ev'n of redeeming heaven is ravished. FLEURS-DE-LYS 265 Then blench, and hie thee soberly to pray'r! If yesterdays devour the morrows' bliss ? If madness, left behind, o'ertake thy way ? Shalt thou not slay anew old memories ? For the last wild assault do thou prepare I And, lest the storm o'erwhelm thee, haste and pray! TRISTAN CORBIERE (184S-1875) 251. LETTER FROM MEXICO *' You gave the youngster into my care. — He's dead. And many more along with him, poor little mate! The crew . . . there is none. — There's two or three. Will get back home. — It's fate. [so it's said " Nothing's so fine as a sailor's life for a youth; All the landlubbers pine for it sure enough — Save the discomfort. So now you may see for truth How prentice life is rough. " I blub as I write that, hard old case as I be. I'd have given my skin to save him and send him home . . . There's no sense in it, I know . . . but don't blame What has. to be will come. [me. 266 FLEURS-DE-LYS " The fever's here as wild as the carnival, We're all on our way to the graveyard to draw our grub. The Zouave he calls it — our old Parisian pal — Transplanting of the shrub. " Cheer up! The world here cracks like a fly in the hand . . . I found in his bundle some keepsakes he'd often kiss : The portrait of a girl, Turk slippers, and * A present for dear Sis.* "To Mamma he bid me say: that his pray'rs didn't fail. To Father: he'd sooner have died in some fierce assault. Two angels were there beside him when he set sail: A soldier. An old salt." GEORGES BOUTELLEAU (1846- ) 252. THE AVENUE CALM summer eves that once did hide The loving bliss of man and maid, Have kept their sweetness sanctified Beneath the mingled maple shade. And under the dim leafy arc That heard their vows so fond and fain, It seems as though we still may hark Dead lovers ope their lips again. FLEURS-DE-LYS 267 The mysteries they babble low Stir strange discomfort in the breast Of those that solitary go With ancient dreams all laid to rest. And slowly they seek open air Where beams still set the boughs afire, Like aged crones that quake to hear The kisses of their old desire. 253. THE WILD DOVES OVER gray skies or shining, Skimniing the tall palm-groves, Where rose-tipt briars are twining, Go by the wild gray doves. Wide-winged for ever wending If suns rise up or fall. They follow the unending Far glory of them all. From every sky imploring In torrid climes or chill. New summits beyond soaring And newer seasons still. Thus year by year we wander, Wild doves that never tire. To find for ever yonder Our haven of desire. 268 FLEURS-DE-LYS GABRIEL VICAIRE (1848-1900) 254. DREAM SONG YOU ask me whom in dream I see ? . It is a King's daughter, pardie! And all for me are her love sighs. Away, sweetheart, the moon doth rise. In robe of satin white she streams; She hath a silver comb that gleams. The moon is high eis grass unmown. Away, sweetheart, I am thine own. She hath a mantle all of gold. While my poor homespun's worn and old. Away, sweetheart, to Blissful Copse. The moon's above the willow-tops. As boys will snare a bird with glee. Her soft white fingers fold on me. The moon is in the boughs o'erhead. Away, sweetheart, and weave thy thread Thanks be to God, I well am ware The boon is sweet that lovers share. My love is lovely ; fond am I. Away, sweetheart, the moon is high. FLEURS-DE-LYS 269 255. POOR LIZA POOR Liza died two days ago, And not a word foretold her doom. Now on a stretcher she lies low Set midmost in the church's gloom. The Virgin straight upon her stares Who sinned so sore among the quick. Now at her feet a candle flares, Set in a wooden candlestick. Good folk, new-shriven, outward pass In fearful haste to leave the ghost. The cure mumbles through the mass, Lest his lean steak be over-roast. For thriftless folk his pray'rs are brief That ever leave the coffers bare. There's no one nigh for sign of grief; You well might think a dog lay there. Alone beside the door in dread I kneel but nearer dare not go. I think of the dead girl's dear head That once the sunlight gilded so ; And of her eyes like pansies blue That were so soft awhile for me, 270 FLEURS-DE-LYS Her mouth that now finds nought to do, And nevermore will smile for me. Now all my life is torn in twain By every stroke the belfry shakes, And like a poplar in the lane My soul within my body quakes. Ah ! Sweet, how you did give your face In spring-time, cheek and brow and tress ! O Misery ! Is there any place Wherein our hearts find happiness ? Of all the lasses in our town They said you had the warmest blood. And now alone you're lying down In four stout planks of beechen wood. Farewell, our frolic gambolling! Farewell, O fairest of our blooms ! No more in the mad dance you'll spring, Nor trample on the clumsy grooms ! Your arm as ivory firm and smooth Lies shrivelled as a thistle mown, Your supple throat's as black, in sooth. As all the sin that you have known. Your lips that were as roses red, And always quick with love's delight. FLEURS-DE-LYS 271 May now no more be opened; Your laughing eyes are sealed in night. Now all your comeliness is spent As any shepherd's burnt-out fire, And you are gone like smoke that's blent In air above the belfry spire. Poor soul forlorn, say have you had A glimpse of the good God on high P Are you in Hell, and are you clad In flames that from the furnace fly ? Does burning sulphur sheathe your head, ■ Or mitre made of molten ore ? Speak, speak! and is it true the dead Die, death on death, for evermore ? If nine days' fast may win reprieve From that dark way you're walking in, And for your soul white raiment weave. Nay, now will I straightway begin. O'er flood and forest I will fare With bleeding feet and heart that's riven, To Notre Dame de Fourvieres And pray to Her to be forgiven. Thrice blessed is the hand that stirs Her rosary of golden beads. 272 FLEURS-DE-LYS One single holy word of Hers Can *pash us pure of evil deeds, And white as milk. Her nod can slay The wickedness whereby we re lost. And I will give Her on Her day A summer gown, and one for frost; And at the fair I'll buy anon A windmill for Her Jesukin, With ivory sails He'll blow upon, And laugh with joy to see them spin. AUGUSTE ANGELLIER (1848-1911) 256. SONNET DEDICATORY LIKE royal galleys be my verse here written That trail their golden trappings thro' the deep. Where under a silken dais with lilies litten Upon an ivory bed the Queen doth sleep. And set proud words like gonfalons appearing Triumphant from their cordage as they go ; May lutes and cymbals make melodious hearing With Love's own viols on their decks below; May it be all ashine, with loud rhymes blended Like salvos from the bulwarks ; may it drift With tumult of immortal airs attended ; May every mast green laurel-leaves uplift: FLEURS-DE-LYS 273 For through Time's spaces and its deeps uncharted It bears thy dear name on, O royal-hearted! 257. SONNET THUS shall we live our separate lives unknit, And vain appeals shall flesh and spirit make ; Never one divine instant shall we slake Our forlorn human passion inflhite. Then when the last long sleep we shall have won, They will bury thy dear body far from me ; We shall be exiled in eternity As erst we were beneath the shining sun And last of all each most unhappy name On different marbles shall the graver mark, And the strong love that turned our souls to flame Shall be put out in the unending dark; And, kindling nought, we shall leave less behind Than any nest wherein the birds are kind. JEAN RICHEPIN (1849- ) 258. THE SONG OF THE GYPSY BOY THE havrthorn blossom's white in May. As I went by I snatched a spray. I took my little dirk-blade bare. Hi, there! With my blade bare I shore the spray' High up in air ! s 274 FLEURS-DE-LYS I wade the brook, a line to throw For silver fish. I'll show you how When in the sun my dirk shines bare. Hi, there! With my blade bare I'll show you how The fish to snare! When I am tall, for gold I'll ken To make a spear shall slaughter men, All from this little dirk I bear. Hi, there! With my blade bare I'll riddle men From heel to hair! When I am old, and bearded gray For staff I'll take my hawthorn spray, For handle this dirk-hilt I bear. Hi, there! With my blade bare Shall end the spray. Beware! Beware! 259. PROUD SONNET THE load we bear of trouble is self-made. Life is for fighting, and amid the rout Of soldier, robber, traitor, murderous lout, Hapless goes he unarmed, so fate's obeyed! Then get you corselets that will turn the blade Against the steel sheath of your bosom stout. Let each forge his own armour for the bout, And saints wear bristles lest they be waylaid. FLEURS-DE-LYS 275 So I may meet my murderers without dread, I don the hair and set the mail thereon, And dare who will to strike their felon steel ! My mail is perfect pride unconquer^d. The hairy pelt into my flesh has grown : You who would stab my heart, search where you will! 260. THE SONG OF THE BEGGING CRIPPLE WORTHY masters, worthy wives. Holy Mary bless your lives, Help the crippled beggar frail. Lord above and Mary, Hail ! Spare a mite for me ! Worthy masters, worthy wives. Charity the sinner shrives, God for gifts shall make you hale. Lord above and Mary, Hail ! , Spare a mite for me ! Worthy masters, worthy wives. Those unkind to broken lives God shall smite their crops with hail. Lord above and Mary, Hail ! Spare a mite for me 1 Worthy masters, worthy wives, Cow not calves nor woman thrives In her labour if I rail. Lord above and Mary, Hail I Spare a mite for me! 276 FLEURS-DE-LYS Worthy masters, worthy wives, Spare a penny each that thrives So to buy you bliss for bale. Lord above and Mary, Hail ! Spare a mite for me! 261. THE BEGGAR'S LOOK THE old tramp on the prowl for bread Looked at me and nothing said. With his bony hand thrust out Suddenly, nor deigned to tout For my pity. Thankless, grim. He took the penny offered him. But his wolfish eyes of gray Spake to me. I heard them say, ' ' Think you for a greasy brown I will let you tread me down ? ' ' You but show, with this mean dole Kindness to your own poor soul. ' ' When you give me this round thing 'Tis yourself you're comforting. ' ' Sharing thus your store of pelf, You owe thanks unto yourself. "A penny for an old man bowed! There's a deed to make you proud! FLEURS-DE-LYS 277 " Proud 's the day when you with pence Brand your brother's indigence! " For your penny, it were fit If I straightway spat on it. " Though I take and keep it whole, Think mot I'll forgive the dole." Thus his gray eyes on me set Spake in a dumb alphabet. I looked back as mute as he Desperate in misery. Then I shut my purse and strode Like a felon down the road, Knowing well the old man's eyes Saw my guilt, and spake no lies. LOUIS TIERCELIN (1849- ) 262. SUNSET AT KERAZUR GRAY clouds, and blue clouds, and clouds all full of roses, To what country far away at evening do you fly. Glancing in the twilit mirrors furtively and shy Of gray waves, and blue waves, and waves all full of roses ? 278 FLEURS-DE-LYS Thus in the silence, very furtive, very shy, All alone with you aloft far away they fly, My gray dreams, and blue dreams, and dreams all full of roses. BOOK VII TO MAURICE HEWLETT ARTHUR RIMBAUD (1851-1891) 263. SENSATION ON sunny summer evenings I shall wander down a bridle-path, The tall corn-blades will fondle me the while I tramp the turf; And dreaming, I shall feel the chilly sweetness on my idle path. And as a wave the wind shall lave my naked brow like surf. I shall not speak a word, no thought shall fill the heart or head of me, But love shall flow and fill my soul with its o'er- brimming tide; And I shall wander far away, a gipsy in the tread of me, As happy there with Nature fair as lover with his bride. GEORGES RODENBACH (1855-1898) 264. " IN TINY TOWNSHIPS ... " IN tiny townships when the morning drowses The belfries chime the time in the still haze. Where dawn looks down with sisterly soft gaze. The belfries chime the time above the houses. 281 282 FLEURS-DE-LYS With a pale music ere the world arouses Each chime a drifting blossom downward strays Over the gable-stairs of the dim houses As though, upgathering their misty flowers, The wind had made a posy of sweet rhsrmes That tumble downward when a belfry chimes, In faded garlands falling in soft showers In lilies pale of far-away lost hours From the dead forehead of forgotten times, With chill sweet petals, sightless, in slow showers. 265. GENTLENESS OF EVENING GENTLENESS of evening! In the room with no lamp shining The twilight is as gentle as a righteous life at end; And the shadow very slowly, very slowly steals, untwining Like a wraith of mingled smoke-wrack in the ceiling pale to blend. All's asleep. The dusk is smiling like a righteous life at ending. And in the clouded mirror with a wave and farewell smile, It seems as though you saw your own shy spirit slowly blending — That there in part you waned away and died a little while. FLEURS-DE-LYS 283 JEAN MOREAS (1856-1910) 266. A YOUNG GIRL'S SONG THE fennels said, " He is so fond, You hold his foolish heart in bond; Make ready for his home-coming." The fennels tell a guilesome thing. (May God have pity on my soul!) The daisies said, "0! prithee say Why did you give your heart away For his that's old in trespassing?" Too late, too late your questioning. (May God have pity on my soul!) The sages said, " Wait not your swain Who long in other arms hath lain." O Sages, your ill-boding leaf I'll braid about my brow for grief. (May God have pity on my soul!) 267. ELEGY MORE deep than darts from Turkish strings Love's wanton archery doth hurt To rustic lads and royal kings. For such a sloth of limbs inert God had left David's body rent Who ever held his loins girt. 284 FLEURS-DE-LYS Like Solomon grown indolent Who erst a prophet greatly wise Was at the last of glory shent. Sly mouth and visage, with soft eyes That hide fine snares of shamefulness And a foul grave whence none arise : Ev'n Agamemnon knew such stress; When Menelaus wild Helen saw Likewise did he grow comfortless. Polyxen did Achilles awe; For Omphale did Hercules The soft wool round the distafif draw. So Delecus for Stratonice Became a slave; of Cressid fond Did Troilus forget all ease. Unto a swarthy visage bond Brave Antony his blade let rust And heard no more the trumpet sound. Prudent in all save his own lust, Aurelius for his Faustine fair Did trail his laurels in the dust. So am I held by her whose hair Is fairer than is gold spun fine. (Alas! the hard heart she doth bear). So hapless is this love of mine. No more can my weak breath be blown To swell with song the reed divine Once filled all France with my renown. FLEURS-DE-LYS 285 268. " CAST DOWN THESE LILIES . . . " CAST down these lilies and these roses flaring, Let flutes fall dumb and all the voices sigh That fain would swell for me the flood ensnaring Of my desires that on the skyline die. No more upon me thy sweet breath be pouring, Fix not on me the splendour of thy gaze. For I am burning like a moth upsoaring Amid the furnace of the stars' hot rays. Tempt me no more with thy caresses clinging. Withhold the kindling wine of thy hot breath From thy mouth's amphora for ever springing; Let my heart slumber, let my heart find death. My heart is still as one in coffin wasted. In all the silence of its new-found ease; With idle sorrow for a boon untasted. Mar not the quiet of its pardoned peace. HENRI-CHARLES READ (1857-1876) 269. "I THINK THAT GOD . . . " I THINK that God when He did mould My being, with intent to spare, Gave me a heart already old Ere I drew air. 286 FLEURS-DE-LYS And thriftily He set to beat Within my breast a heart outworn, That in old life had known defeat Ere I was born. It hath survived a hundred fights, And bears a thousand wounds unhealed. But the fell arm, the blade that smites Are still concealed. A hundred passions throbbing once In bygone ages move its will ; Dead flames, dead dreams, dead sunken suns Can stir it still. Still burning with bequeathed fire For shapely women perfumed With sweetness of all wild desire Of love long dead. ' torment of most nether hell ! bitterness of burning doom ! To ache with love unquenchable, Nor know for whom. EDMOND HARAUCOURT (1857- ) 270. THE LOVELIEST VERSES THE loveliest verses are those that we never can write. They are blossoms of dream whose odour the soul respires. FLEURS-DE-LYS 287 Or smiles of a phantom, or sparks from eternal iires, Or voices borne up from the plain to the mountain height. All space is haunted with poems thro' viewless ways, A forbidden country, an Eden's inviolate plot Where the sin of the art of the singer may trespass not; Yet there if thou lovest me well thine eyes may gaze. Some eve when the fervour of love shall our souls unite, In silence — a silence that swoons in the twilit air. Come, lean thy soul o'er my soul, and read thou there The verses I heard, I heard, but could never write. AUGUSTE GAUD (i8S7- ) 271. THE SONG OF THE RAIN I HAVE drunk of rains that drench The holly-boughs' dark blind. I love a comely wench Whose eyes are kind. I have drunk of dews that drown The heart of lilies frail. The bridal bliss hath flown: curlews wail ! 288 FLEURS-DE-LYS I have drunk of rills that go Glad-singing thro' the grass. Farewell gold hair, and ! Farewell my lass I Within my vines' own leaves I have drunk the sun's red blood. My heart no longer grieves: Ah, sleep is good! All Life and Love's a snare. I have drunk the drops of cloud Beneath the turret where They weep aloud. ALBERT SAMAIN (1858-1900) 272. " THERE SOMETIMES COME STRANGE EVENINGS ..." THERE sometimes come strange evenings when the flowers' souls awaken, . When the languid air seems filled with rue for footsteps gone astray. When our hearts, however secret, are by heavy waves o'ertaken That slowly reach the lips in sighs and ebb their life away. It is on these strange evenings when the flowers' souls awaken That forth I fare as tenderly as any woman may. FLEURS-DE-LYS 289 There sometimes come clear mornings to a crown of roses climbing When the soul leaps out with joy like living water from the wild, When the heart is like a heaven full of Easter bells a- chiming And the flesh again is spotless and the spirit undefiled. It is on these clear mornings to a crown of roses climbing That forth I fare as joyously as any happy child. There sometimes come dark mornings when the heart of self o'ersated, Feels the pains of oldest age and with its spoil would fain retire, When the past seems like a faded scene whereon there moves belated, A pitiful old mummer mouthing shameful things and dire. It is on these dark mornings," with the load of self o'er- weighted. That forth I fare as bowed of gait as any grey- haired sire. There are sometimes nights of doubting when the cruel anguish rends you. When adown the slowly winding stair the tortured soul is led. When, all unforeseen, the final turn o'er vacancy suspends you, And the spirit quails before the pit and turns away in dread. It is on nights of doubting when the cruel anguish rends you, That forth I fare in darkness like a spirit from the dead. T 290 FLEURS-DE-LYS 273. AUTUMN SLOWLY we go with the old dog close behind us, Tread once again on the road too well we know. Red thro' the leafy aisle the dying sunbeams filter; Dark on the farther sky the grieving women go. As on some cloister garth, green and cell-surrounded, Still is the air with a sadness self-indrawn; Each golden leaf over-ripened flutters downward Like a phantom memory, slow-falling on the lawn. Silence walks between. . . . Hearts that furtively are scheming. Weary of their wayfaring and ripe for new emprise. Brood on their secret hopes of sighting the old haven Whence they set sail with the morning in their eyes. But all the woods to-night are so fulfilled of sorrow That ev'n our hearts are moved to lay all self aside; Soft are our stifled words that whisper in the twilight Of dead illusions as of children that have died. 274. A VIOL'S PLAINT MY heart that dreads what time may bring, Lies in thy hands a bird-like thing That flutters wild with fear of thee. So shy is he, so loth to lie. Let thy words too be low and shy. If thou wilt hold him trustfully. A single word will make him grieve, A look alone will make him heave With bitter anguish of despair. FLEURS-DE-LYS 291 For at the words thy sweet mouth saith He feels the flight of thy soft breath And trembles like a plume in air. He follows, hovering near alway, Thee wheresoever thou dost stray With soft smooth throat and trailing gown, So furtive in his flight and swift. So fickle are the wings that lift. Thou touchest him and he is flown. And when this nearness thou shalt flout Until he bleed and life ebb out. Thou shalt know nothing of his pain; So slight the touch, thou shalt not heed How on a night his heart did bleed And on thy soft glove left a stain. 275. CLEOPATRA DEEP night hangs heavily on Nilos' stream. Under the burning starlight. She, grown pale Drives off her handmaidens, and of the veil With a wide shameless gesture rends the seam, Flaunting her love-filled body in wild bliss On the high terrace like a rounded grape Swollen to ripeness; and her haked shape Writhes like a serpent in the warm air's kiss. Her wild eyes shoot out lightnings. She hath willed The world with her sweet perfume shall be filled. . . . Dark flower of sex on the night's vastness shaking! The Sphinx unmoving on the insensate sand, Glows thro' his granite like a burning brand. And feels the unending desert round him quaking. 292 FLEURS-DE-LYS 276. VIGIL TO muse. In the void of night to thrill like the rushes! . . . To be as a flame, pure, subtle, and quick with light; And, breathing the air of the hovering Thought angelic, Beware, as a God's, of our mortal brows grown To spur heroic blood into noble action ; [bright. To spurn ignoble gauds, and the tinsel snare ; To put on pride as a coat of shining armour, And leap from earth to the threshold of endless air! To feel within, like a stream of the sea down-pouring. The singing tide of the universal soul. To hear in the heart the wings of the great archangels Beating as Ocean beats on a hidden shoal; To see like Solomon, girt with a royal splendour, In pomp of gold, and perfume, and precious stones, A life's long task bear down like the Queen of Sheba, To greet us set like Kings on our royal thrones I ANATOLE LE BRAZ (1859- ) 277. THE SONG OF AHES I AM the Sea made Woman. My long hair Is blown as balm upon the world's wide space. There is no beauty on high heaven's face Save as my eyes are mirrors to it there. FLEURS-DE-LYS 293 My gold flanks lull the sunbeams; my arms bear The weary eyes to slumber. I brought grace And sense of godhead unto man ; the race Of the first Gods rose from my bosom fair. O man, thy Gods are deaf, thy pray'r denied. As one that endeth all, come take my tide ; I have love's boon to give, love's balm to spill. Leave on the wind thy wandering sail adrift. No more, no more those weary lids shall lift Whereon the clear sea's kisses now lie still. CHARLES VAN LERBERGHE (1861-1907) 278. OFFERING TO A DEAD FRIEND I BRING these flowers, these pure white flow'rs, to you in your night. For they are light. To your heart that slumbers, your eyes that see not, I I offer these, For they are peace. To your voice now faint in the mighty wind of the air you drew: They are silence too. 294 FLEURS-DE-LYS MAURICE MAETERLINCK (1862- ) 279. THE SEVEN MAIDS OF ORLAMONDE THE seven maids of Orlamonde, Whenas the fairy lifeless lay, The seven maids of Orlamonde Went groping for a way. And they have lit their seven lamps, And opened up the turret stair. Thrown open wide four hundred doors And found no daylight there. Then come they to the sounding caves, And downward o'er the rocky floor. And there they find a golden key Within a lockit door. They see the Ocean thro' the seams, And fear of death doth fleer their wit. Upon the lockit door they smite But dare not open it. GREGOIRE LE ROY (1862- ) 280. GRANNY SPINS AT her wheel the old, old granny Tells of things as old as she; Thro' drowsy lids she seems to be A child that spins at a toy jenny. FLEURS-DE-LYS 295 The flax is gold, and white's her hair. The old crone weaves it, very slowly; That she may hark, she bends her lowly Over the wheel that speaks her fair. Her right hand turns the wheel alway, And with the left the flax is spun; She thinks herself a little one That turns and turns the wheel in play. The flax she spins is tawny gold ; She sees it and it seems her hair; And now she's dancing at the fair. As round and round the wheel is roll'd. 'Tis smoothly now the wheel is plying. Smooth the flax spins by above her ; Now she hears an ancient lover Murmur how for her he's dying. Now the wheel's last turn is done; Empty hands before her spread: Her love-stories like the thread Of the flax have all been spun. STUART MERRILL (1863-191S) 281. EASTER SONG MY soul's a belfry full of bells, With warbling birds behind its bars! I see the softly mirrored stars That tremble in the glassy wells. 296 FLEURS-DE-LYS My soul's a holy place enshrin'd, My soul's a bower all in leaf! The little children weaned of grief Go wafting songs a-down the wind. My soul is full of Archangels, And full of star-y-pointing flight! I hear the flail of Fates that smite The hoarded grain with secret spells. My soul is all a-brim with bliss, My soul is full of Gods divine ! Love, come bind these eyes of mine. And lead me where thy pathway is! 282. " MY BROW IS PALE UPON THY KNEES " MY brow is pale upon thy knees With petals of dead roses hung; autumn bride, draw near my side Or e'er thy knell be rung! How tender is thy touch that soothes The weary thoughts that round me cling! Lo ! crowns do shine on sires of mine — Lift up thine eyes, and sing. Now rock me with thy lullabies, And sound of songs that erst were sweet When helmed in gold those kings of old Swooned at their ladies' feet. And while those dead times live again In music of thy simple chords, They shall be swelled like horns once held Amid the dance of swords. FLEURS-DE-LYS 297 And I shall think I fain would die Amid that rose-filled robe of thine, Too loth, alack ! to win me back The kingdom once was mine. HENRI DE REGNIER (1864- ) 283. APPARITION THE sea-hooves whiten on the far horizon. Behold! Now they are on us. The wind flies on These herded stallions with his whip that urges The savage anger of stampeding surges. Behold 1 This stumbles, and that one on-drifting After his fellow, sullen, sly, and lifting High hooves above the fallen, leaps, is riven And falls in turn ; an unseen spur is driven Into the flanks of the mad beast that follows. That charges neighing and fills up the hollows With roaring wind and noise of waters steaming. ! steeds of storm, O ! foam of white manes streaming ! I have stood to watch, 'mid bitter wind, uprightly The unending race of sea-hooves plunging whitely, And still I wait till one wild steed shall blunder Out from the host, and with sheathed wings that sunder In showers of sea-rain to my side come fawning A spume-fleet Pegasus of Ocean's Spawning. 298 FLEURS-DE-LYS 284. THE SECRET IF thou wouldst speak unto my grief, be wary; Seek not to know wherefore she doth so weep, Nor why her gaze is downcast and most chary And ever on the flow'rless way doth keep. To ease her pain, her silence and her sorrow. Tempt not benumbed forgetfulness to show The shapes of some lost love or pride or morrow Whose visage bears the shade of long ago. With speech of sun and trees and fountains woo her. Of light-filled seas and shady woods at rest Wherefrom the sky draws up the wan moon to her, And all fair things whereby wide eyes are blest. Tell her how in the spring the rose blooms gladly. And gently take her two hands and so sigh : The only memory whereof none feel sadly Is shape and sound of beauteous things gone by. 285. EXPERIENCE I WALKED behind two lovers, their kisses hearing. And watched the loth withdrawal of forms shovm black On the soft-hued sky that the tender Autumn was wearing Like the pale, pearl-gray that covers a sea-mew's back. FLEURS-DE-LYS 299 And while they wended, full near to the sea's wild riot Hurling her waves where the stones of the cliff ran out, My heart ungrudging, unbitter, knew no disquiet Of sorrow, or strife, or a futile passion of doubt. They wended along in their beautiful dream united, Blent into one and tasting their life's brief boon; They moved in the Present and I in the Past benighted, And I knew the word that Chimera would tell them soon. 286. ODELETTE I MIGHT have made all men aware What Love was mine When full noon filled the air With warm sunshine From summer's red gold that such joy doth That his laughter sounds shrill [distil As one drunken with wine. I might have cried out : My Love is all gladness, behold The mantle of purple that down to his feet About him doth fold 1 His hands are replete With roses a-flutter that scatter their sweet; The sky hath no cloud Above his warm dwelling of marble that seems As a blue-veined flesh in its whiteness Most smooth to the mouth. . . . 'Tis otherwise: I dress him in a homespun pleat, His mantle drags about his feet; There hardly lies 300 FLEURS-DE-LYS A smile about his lips as he doth fleet, And when he sings it is an air So dim that no man turns to hear Nor gather up his song-bud blown That fills the twilight full of scent; He hath not garden, roof or tent. But wears in truth a beggar's wear Lest all his wealth of love be known. 287. ON THE STRAND LIE on the sand and thro' thy fingers drain Sieve-like the pale sea's silting grain by grain. The lovely sand the sunlight turns to gold; Then, ere thou drop thy lids, again behold The sea harmonious and the stainless sky, And when thou hearest thro' thy fingers sigh The last light grain of silted sand out-flown Ere thou uplift thy lids, think how thine own Brief life is but a handful of blown sand To fall and mingle on the eternal strand.' FRANCIS VIELE-GRIFFIN (1864- ) 288. SONG IN my hands I have taken the rain that fell, — The drops that are warm as are tears that rain; I have drunk of the draught as a witch's spell For rueful bane. That so my soul in your soul should dwell. FLEURS-PE-LYS 301 I have taken the seed from the granary shed — The seed that scatters like hailstones lost ; I have sown in the furrows all hardened With morning frost, That so your mouth should not lack for bread. I have taken the grasses and leaves that fade — The leaves and grasses whose life is spent; Of these a smooth high flame have I made And redolent, To cheer your vigil of dawn delayed. With your laughing eyes and your glossy hair, The shame of your face and your mouth's red rim, I have made a bewildering dawn to flare With beams of joy and a harp's loud hymn . . . And the day as a hive hums thro' the air! ANDRE FONTAINAS (1865- ) 289. SONNET SEA-ROAD a-tremble where the dawnlight swoons On far-off ocean, shall we find at dark Our ships that prop the blue sidereal arc Have come to land beside thy loud lagoons ? City of flowers and victory whose runes Speak never of man's sorrow, but still hark The mirth of happy sea-folk, whose priests mark With pure libation nought but happy moons! 302 FLEURS-DE-LYS Keep thou life's pride and love's, the gentle light Of thine unsullied musing. With proud gaze Confront the sea, the citadel. Behold The sombre masts that shadow the sea's might, The loud wind's threat to thy fair garden ways, And ware the cloud wherefrom the thunder's roll'd. ANDRE-FERDINAND HEROLD (i86s- ) 290. SONNET BELOVED, all the dust has turned to flower. The frolic Centaurs like spurred cavalry Charge on; the ships, sail sunward, quit the quay Wherewinterthroughtheyshrank from the sea's power. Now are the temple columns made a tower Of trailing roses and convolvuli; And Dryads from each happy forest tree Hold smooth white hands out in the glad green bower. Come ! for the ways with flowers are aflame. The lily's white, the poppy's hue of shame. Or the blue violet wilt thou cull for pledge ? Now hill and vale in joyousness conspire. Cornel wander on the wide green meadow's edge That Eros fondles with a breath like fire. 291. SONNET NOW with the black grape's blood the barrels flow, And happy songs rise to the welkin's height From vine-dress6rs whose gladness seems a slight To forest boughs made voluble with woe. FLEURS-DE-LYS 303 Sere leaves and unconsol6d murmur " Lo! Autumn on branch and tree-bole like a blight, While men, in our dire misery's despite, About their toil with heartless singing go. " You laugh, poor simple churls, that have no mind For Winter stark swift-striding down the wind, The slayer of the leaves. Poor fools that sing. And hail Death's coming!" But still loud and clear Sound the glad carols of the vintaging Above the drowsy avenues and drear. ROBERT D'HUMIERES (1868-1915) 292. THE SONG OF THE FIGURE-HEAD I AM Young Adventure's Lover and I vaunt In spousal chorus to the salt sea's surge Thee Son of Flesh and Spirit will I urge To unwind the girdle the horizons flaunt. Not horror nor the lightning's lash can daunt The never-swerving brows that bear their scourge. Though the masts groan aghast. The Future 's verge Calls to me and the unfathomed waters chaunt. The cordage creaks, and craven is the hull ; The tree dreams of the land in every lull : Aloof, sublime, entranced, to the wide sky I lift a gaze no mirages can quell And lips deep-carven with the unquenchable Immortal thirsting for infinity. 304 FLEURS-DE-LYS PAUL FORT (1872- ) 293. "THIS GIRL IS DEAD" ALL in the middle of her mirth this merry girl is dead. They laid her when the light was dim in cold earth for a bed. They laid her in her finery and all unhusbanded. They laid her all unhusbanded locked tight within her bier. Then back they came all merry when the sun was overhead. With voices brave they sang a stave : we die or maid or wed. " All in the middle of her mirth this merry girl is dead." So back again into the fields to toil for daily bread. 294. "WHAT JOY WHEN FLUTE AND VIOLIN ..." WHAT joy when flute and violin make hearts leap high with their sweet sound! Now boys and girls run out and in, and all the old folk gather round. Hurray! all gay with raiment glad, now quickly , quickly let us wed, and make a pair of lass and lad ! What joy when in the church we pass, whereto the loud bells summon all — three hundred bells for the bonny lass, and one big bass for the bridegroom tall. FLEURS-DE-LYS 805 Hurray! all gay with raiment ^lad, now quickly, quickly let us wed, and make a pair of lass and lad! The bell now makes us silent all. Alas! 'tis not for us it chimes. . . . Now old folk, let your tears down fall. Perchance 'twill ring for you betimes. Hurray! all gay with raiment glad, now quickly, quickly let us wed, and make a pair of lass and lad! And now the bell will no more call. Then dance to bring them joyous hours. Long life to lad and lass and all! Ah! happy we it is not ours. Hurray! all gay with raiment glad, now quickly, quickly let us wed, and make a pair of lass and lad! What joy when flute and violin make aged limbs again seem lithe! Now boys and girls run out and in. What mirth is born of music blithe 1 HENRY BATAILLE (1872- ) 295. EVENTIMES THE hamlets die in the long eventimes, When drowsy doves into their cotes retire They die as gently as the belfry-chimes Or the blue stir of swallows round the spire. 306 FLEURS-DE-LYS Then as in vigil all the windows blaze, Spent flickering flames of vestal sisters stray With lantern-lights that hover in the haze. . . . The long grey road unwinds itself away. . . . The flowers in the gardens shrink forlorn To hear the dying hamlet leave the day, For well they love the land where they were born. Now all grows dark, the old walls wane away As soft as souls of aged crones out-worn. ANDRE RIVOIRE (1872- ) 296. "PALE AND SLOW, IN HER SUMMER'S VESTURE SO PALE" PALE and slow, in her summer's vesture so pale. So slow in her langour, ah I very pale and slow. Wending along with a sorrow that will not wail. Blind sky above and the scentless meadows below. And lo ! in her heart, borne down by a load too dire, The sound of a horn's farewell more loud than her grief. . . . Ah ! thus to pass away and to win for pyre A space heaped high with the rain of the yellow leafl Ah ! thus to die, to rest where the gold leaves rest. In the tender reluctance of air that the autumn brings, To hear the sob of the comfortless wind. Far west To welcome the falling dusk and the folding wings! FLEURS-DE-LYS 307 CAMILLE MAUCLAIR (1872- ) 297. THE GARTH THE weary leafage wanes Along the waterway, along the copse; The forest feels the rain's Light-glancing drops. The grey cloud sleeps above the close, The vine is mirrored where the water flows. The wind is calm, the drops slow-drawn From topmost leaf to leaf aground At last fall gently to the lawn With scarce a sound. On the horizon the last light delays, , All things fade out in the autumnal haze, The laggard twilight hearkens to the streams. The ruddy garth with sleep is now fulfilled. Hard by a window gleams ". . . The night of God will soon have all things stilled. influence of the rainfall and the hours On nature and upon my soul this night. On all my yearning to be calm this night! To calm forgetfulness all things are led. Wane out in sleep that comes to them at will. Not ev'n the forest's self shows any dread: 1 only slumberless behold them still, Their mild consentment in the day's demise, A child indeed, and with a child's wide eyes. . . . 308 FLEURS-DE-LYS 298. QUESTIONING DO souls grow ripe and wither too As leaves and lovely women do ? — Aye, surely, child, it must be so. And doth the heart forget as well The wounds once deemed unstanchable ?- My child, my child, God wills it so. And can forgiveness still be borne In loving hearts once left forlorn ?— Perchance, my child, it may be so. Shall we behold ourselves anon The very body joy puts on ? Nay, child, it never may be so. FERNAND GREGH (1873- ) 299. " I HAVE GRIEVED TOO MUCH ..." I HAVE grieved too much erewhile for fleeting pain, And now my griefs I may not recognize. 'Tis well they spake to me in furtive sighs. And called to me with their light voices fain; For them no more the tears will fill my eyes. FLEURS-DE-LYS 309 My sorrows now are unknown souls to me, Wayfarers who were loved perchance of yore Whom now no more I wait for patiently, They pass me by and know me now no more: Too late, too late; their souls have shut the door CHARLES GU^RIN (1873-1907) 300. OUT OF THE DEEP AT the hour when the stars from the eastern spaces are peering, I stood on the cliffs that look on the sea, and strode Alone and laughing with pride in the squall's career- ing To feel my blood leap up at the tempest's goad. At the base of the cliffs there was thunder of waves defeated; I measured the spaces of western sky whereon A sunbeam flamed farewell as the sun retreated And over the waters its waning glory shone. I leant by a rocky wall smooth-hewn and salted By the immemorial sprays of the endless tide, Like a cross on the brink of a lonely pit, exalted I clasped all space as I held my arms out wide. 310 FLEURS-DE-LYS And my full heart beat with the heart of the world's wide bosom, The sea's salt out of the sea my strong veins drew; I felt my body within me grow quick and blossom With seed of stars that the winnowing night let through. I wanted to moan more loud than the ocean thunders, To breathe out my being in air like the tempest ' wrack; And, death o'er-leapt, feel the sacred ardour that^ ^ ^ sunders The soul from self that again unto God goes back. NOTES NOTES 1. I have attempted the idiom of " The Twa Corbies " and its kindred lays, considering it most suited in character, though not wholly in time, to this folk ballad of the old French. The original may be found in Professor Legouis' admirable (and unanswerable) " Defense de la poesie fran^aise k I'usage des lecteurs anglais " (Constable). Skeel is old Scots for pail. 2. A fragment only of the whole. 3. A fragment only of the whole. Of JEHANNOT DE LES- CUREL (Johnny of the Squirrel) nothing but this nickname is known. Perhaps he was wont to sing for his supper at a tavern bearing this sign. JEAN FROISSART (p. 38). Selfsame with the Chronicler, a role in which he shines with a braver lustre. EUSTACHE DESCHAMPS (p. 39) was poet, traveller, and man- at-arms. He seems to have met Chaucer, to whom he addressed a ballade with the refrain " Grant translateur, noble Geffroy Chaucier," thus reminding us who first brought the laurel sapling to these isles, and whence he cut the shoot. 10. This is rendered from the version given in " Chansons du XV^Sifecle," collected by Gaston Paris; but it is probably of much earlier origin. 16. I have condensed the seventeen lines of the original into thirteen, the number common to the Duke's other rondeaux here rendered. Neither flagon nor wench will be found in the original, but everything which implies them. 20. The Greater Testament maintains the octosyllabic lines throughout, the variation here being due to the translator alone. Last stanza, last line, last word. Let pedants rail ! I believe that an English Villon would have abhorred the / of the purist, as firmly as I believe that good writers of English have too often been dragged askew by the perfervid zeal of Latinist grammarians. 22. Villon escaped, not for the first time; but how, when, or where he died is unknown. 23. The fine. version by the late Mr. John Payne attributes the hard stroke of the ninth line to Death; but as the original text gives no warrant for this, it seems to me likelier that Villon had in mind the outlawry and disciplinary pains which he endured 313 814 NOTES in this life. The fourth line seems to suggest that the " prison- crop " was already known in his day. 24. The original is in sonnet form; and I have endowed with incalculable wit the lady whom Saint-Gelais rallied for uncounted whimsies. MARGUERITE DE NAVARRE (p. 56). Sister of Francis I, married Henri of Navarre. She was a witty woman who wrote verse and prose, was highly esteemed by Erasmus and beloved by the grateful Marot, whom she protected. CLEMENT MAROT (p. 56). Owing to his Protestantism he sought refuge at Geneva, but was driven thence for his ill behaviour. He died in penury at Turin. 26. Third line. The second-named was probably Bonaventure Desp&iers, another writer of the Protestant fold whom Marguerite of Navarre befriended. CHRISTOPHE PLANTIN (p. 59) was a famous printer who emigrated from Tours to Antwerp in 1549, his Alcala polyglot, being his masterpiece. The Mus€e Plantin at Antwerp contains the actual press with which he printed the original of this sonnet, and copies are still printed there and sold to visitors, in the form of post-card souvenirs, for the sum of one penny. PONTUS DE TYARD (p. 63). The eldest of the Plfiade, and probably the least talented. PIERRE DE RONSARD (p. 63). His ancestor came from Rumania and fought for Philippe of Valois against the English, nearly two centuries before the poet was bom at the Chateau of Poissonnifere, built from the royal bounty awarded him for his services in war. Ronsard became page to the Dauphin Francois ; and, at twelve years of age, on the marriage of his master's sister to King James V of Scotland, accompanied her to her new home, and spent two years in Edinburgh before returning to France. He had visited Flanders, Holland, Germany, and Italy on various diplomatic missions before he was sixteen. Thenceforward, as the result of a severe illness, he was deaf. For the influence of the Plfiade on English poetry see "The French Renaissance in England," by Sidney Lee (Clarendon Press), and "The French Influence in English Literature," by A. H. Upham (Columbia University Press). The best appreciations are to be found in "Ronsard and la PKiade," by George Wyndham (Macmillan), and " Avril," by Hilaire Belloc (Duckworth). 38. Written for his third and last-sung love Helene de Surgeres, a maid-of-honour to the Queen-mother, Catherine de M^dicis. 39. Ronsard's first love, of whom we know hardly more than her name — ^Mademoiselle du Pr€. 40. This sonnet of Ronsard is a close imitation of one by Petrarch. NOTES 315 42. Written of his second love, Marie du Pin, who died a maid. 43. The original has seven more stanzas. 44. This sonnet of Du Bellay is closely imitated from one by Daniello. 47. The Berecynthian is Cybele, the goddess of Fecundity, one of the Titan dynasty and a great producer of gods. Festivals in her honour were held on Mount Berecynthus by the Phrygians, to whom she was especially dear. 50. This was Du Bellay's version from the Latin of Navagero, a Venetian (1483-1529). LOUISE LABE (p. 78) was one of the learned ladies of Lyons, where the influence of Petrarch was then predominant, it being on the main road between France and Italy and a frequent halting- place for those going to or from Rome. It was thus that she met OLIVIER DE MAGNY (p. 83) and conceived the ardent passion which so many of her sonnets celebrate. REMI BELLEAU (p. 80) travelled in Italy and translated Ana- creon. Next to Du Bellay, was probably the closest of Ronsard's friends. ESTIENNE PASQUIER (p. 83) is notable as the author of " Recherches sur la France," a most important contribution to the literary history of the sixteenth century. ESTIENNE JODELLE (p. 84) was chiefly known during his lifetime as an author of tragedies. His " Cl€op&tre " was given before Henri II, with Belleau and Jodelle himself among the players. Ronsard and his friends afterwards offered him a goat garlanded with ivy after the antique fashion, and this innocent frolic became the ground of a charge of paganism and sacrilege which embittered the old age of the erstwhile lover of Cassandra, Marie, and H^line. 58. Eighth line. I have put in barque and sheep, which all the preceding images suggest, but which Jodelle does not cite by name. JEAN-ANTOINE DE BA'i'F (p. 85) was born at Venice during one of the diplomatic missions undertaken by his father, in whose company Ronsard was afterwards to visit the German States. GUY DE TOURS and JEAN DOUBLET (p. 87). Nothing seems to be known of these two poets save that the latter was born at Dieppe and that his verses were published in 1559. JEAN PASSERAT (p. 88) is said to have been as skilled in Greek and Latin verse as he was in French. He was professor of elo- quence in the College de France, and wrote the Latin inscription which may still be read on2,the clock of the^Palais de Justice at Paris. >" 64. Addressed to Henri HI. Ninth line. " La teste verte " is a French equivalent for our "hare-brained "; but I have been 816 NOTES loth to sacrifice the verbal antithesis of the original, and am sorry that no ingenuity can preserve in English the "sonnet" and " sonnettes " of the eleventh line. GUILLAUME DU BARTAS (p. 92) wrote a long and wearisome epic of the Creation which was translated into English by Joshua Sylvester within ten years of its author's death. His fame is now deservedly rescued from oblivion by this one sonnet. PHILIPPE DESPORTES (p. 93) was bom at Chartres and started life as a lawyer's clerk, losing his place for making love to his master's wife. He then, by good luck, fell in with the retinue of Charles IX and his lady, Catherine de M^dicis, but, failing to win a footing there, took hire as secretary to the Bishop of Puy, whom he accompanied to Italy. He found time during his travels for the study of Petrarch, Bembo, and the lesser rhymers, whom he freely adapted. Returning to Paris, he obtained the patronage of the Duke of Anjou, on whose succession to the French throne he fell on smooth days and became the richest abbot in all France. 69. Appears to be adapted from the well-known epigram by Leonidas of Tarentum, No. IV, Section VI, in Mackail's " Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology." A Latin poem by Nava- gero, the Venetian scholar mentioned above, is also very like it, and perhaps served as model. 70. A good example of Petrarch transferred. THEODORE-AGRIPPA D'AUBIGNE (p. 95) was a redoubtable Protestant continually at war both with sword and pen. He was four times condemned to death, but escaped, to die peacefully at the verge of fourscore. His " Tragiques " give the history of the religious wars of the latter half of the sixteenth century in which he took an active part, and, like Ronsard's " Discours " but from the opposite camp, anticipate the " Ch&timents " of Hugo in their thunderous eloquence of invective. 72. Henri IV, whose abjuration of Protestsmtism he never forgave. FRANCOIS DE MALHERBE (p. 99) was the god of poetic idolatry during the whole of the seventeenth century, and even later. He was well dubbed by Mile de Gournay " docteur en negative," for his influence on poetry was no more than that of grammatical corrector and codifler. Critic, analyst, classifier, but not creator, his importance is mainly linguistic, and he certainly left behind him sharper and surer tools of expression than he had found. 73., The first seven and the last three stanzas of the very famous original, thus following the practice of French anthologists. 74. This was his last surviving child; but in spite of Malherbe's righteous ire, he seems to have been killed in a duel fairly fought. NOTES 317 MADEMOISELLE DE GOURNAY (p. loi) was the adopted daughter of Montaigne, and a staunch upholder of Ronsard against the onslaughts of Malherbe. MATHURIN REGNIER (p. loi) wrote brilliant satires and was well called by De Musset " De I'immortal Moliere immortal devancier." He married a daughter of Desportes. Though belonging both by chronology and his own practice to the classical school, he laughed at the pretensions of Malherbe, of whose essential prosiness he was well aware. 76. The first five of eight stanzas. 84. I have not been able to discover to whom this was addressed. ' ' Your Spanish heart ' ' (line eight) possibly means ' ' your treacher- ous heart," there being a long-smouldering feud with the neigh- bouring State, and Spanish being therefore at that time a term of strong misfavour, PIERRE CORNEILLE (p. 108) was the father of French poetical drama. The " Marquise " was Mile Duparc, a comedienne whom Corneille courted when well past his meridian. PAUL SCARRON (p. no) was famous during his lifetime as a burlesque- writer. He married the granddaughter of D'Atibigne, who afterwards became famous as Mme de Maintenon. He passed the greater part of his life paralysed and racked by rheu- matism. JEAN DE LA FONTAINE (p. in) spent a life of gentlemanly dawdling and philandering till nigh forty, when the exhaustion of his patrimony drove him to seek the favours of the great by his pen. 88. Adapted, like most of La Fontaine's fables, from JEsop. 89. This is one of La Fontaine's own invention, and the Levan- tine legend — a legend. 92. Line seven. "Martin" is — or was — a French nickname for a whip. PHILIPPE QUINAULT (p, 116) wrote the libretti for Lulli's operas. 96. A fragment from a much longer piece. 98. A fragment from the conclusion of " Circe." 99. Mme Lullin was a centenarian of Geneva. 100. Gretry is, perhaps, the most celebrated musician among the Liegeois. His statue still stands (I hope) in front of the municipal Opera House of his native city. 102. Freron was one of Voltaire's most bitter opponents. JEAN-FRAN 9OIS DUCIS (p. 123) was one of the first to adapt Shakespeare for the French stage. He greatly admired Garrick. 318 NOTES 112. Written in the prison of Saint-Lazar& where Chanter passed the last months of his life, leaving it only to mount the scaKold. Happily for us, the poet's sympathies were deceived. The fair unknown was the Duchesse de Fleury , an adept at amorous intrigue, who escaped the scaffold to continue her adventures. MARIE-JOSEPH CHENIER (p. 129), ayounger brother of Andr«. 113. The first, third, fifth, and sixth stanzas of the fourteen addressed to the " Supreme Being." ANTOINE- VINCENT ARNAULT (p. 130) wrote tragedies, which are now entirely forgotten, though he had a vogue under the first Empire. He suffered exile on the fall of Napoleon; and the " thunder " of these lines is generally interpreted as symbolizing the blow which fell on him from the new regime. PIERRE-JEAN DE BERANGER (p. 133). The enormous vogue enjoyed by B^ranger during his lifetime can only be explained by the topical character of his pieces, which have often a political bearing. His place in French literature is somewhat analogous to that of Dibdin in ours, though the Frenchman has a nimbler talent and a wider range — and other good men wrote him tunes and gave him a wide currency. 120. A fragment from the last section of "La Vigne et la Maison. ' ' 124. These few lines are the prelude to the narrative poem " La Neige," telling how White Emma, Princess of Old Gaul, fell in love with a page. 125. Fifteen stanzas from a total of forty-eight. 126. The opening section only of Vigny's masterpiece, " Le Cor," a signpost on the highway of the romantic revived, and written before the " Chanson de Roland " had received the attention which followed on the recovery at the Bodleian in 1837 of the complete manuscript. Second line, third stanza. The three chief heights of Marbore, enclosing a natural amphitheatre, are each over three thousand metres high. Last line. Roland was one of the twelve peers of Charlemagne, and perished at Roncevaux while covering the retreat of the Emperor's main army. For an excellent summary of Vigny's achievement see "French Profiles," by Edmund Gosse. 134. First line, " the Florentine," i.e. Petrarch, as the original says. 136. Written on September 3, 1847, of his daughter Leopoldine, drowned with her husband after but three months of marriage. Hugo set out as foretold, and the next day wrote his deathless monody " A Villequier," on the fourth anniversary of the calamity. 137. These lines appear as a prelude to " Les Chdtiments," and the " tyrant " is, of course. Napoleon III. NOTES 819 141. The first five of eleven stanzas, the later ones losing some- what their character of an impersonal apostrophe and appearing as an address on private and particular troubles to his unwedded spouse, Juliette Drouet. 143. Last line. The original has " le chardon des sables." Probably the sea-holly is intended. 144. Represents fourteen lines from Section VI of " Les Sept Merveilles du Monde," in the " Legende des Siecles." I am doubtful of the propriety of this recasting in a form which Hugo never used, but could not withstand the temptation which it offered for underlining the obligations due from Her^dia to his great forerunner in historiography. JULIEN-AUGUSTE-PELAGE BRIZEUX (p. 167) was the poet of Brittany. He wrote rustic tales mingled with a good deal of folk-lore gathered among the fishermen and tillers of his native soil. 146. This song — or, rather, something to the same effect — used to be sung by the Breton peasantry after nightfall each first of November in a district of French Cornwall near Finistere. CHARLES-AUGUSTIN SAINTE-BEUVE (p. 170) as a poet was all things by turn and nothing long. He helped in the rehabili- tation of Ronsard, and is now remembered for his effort to adapt the methods of the English Lakists to the French Muse. As a critic he was unrivalled. 149. The first sixteen of forty-eight lines. 152. Nerval's title, " Les Cydalises," is only understandable as a French form of the Greek KvbdKijios, and I have rendered it accordingly. 155. This sonnet should be compared with De Nerval's own "Fantasy" (No. 153) and Baudelaire's "My Former Life" (No. 191), the sentiment of reincarnation being common to all three. I have left the original (Spanish) title — meaning luckless — unrendered. Line two. Perhaps Waifre, the last of the heredi- tary Dukes, whose losing fight for freedom is described in vol. i, chap, xiv, of "The Deserts of Southern France," by S. Baring Gould. Line five. Pausilippo is a lovely grotto near Naples, tradition placing Virgil's tomb in the immediate vicinity. Line nine. The Marquis de Lusignan (i7S3-i8iS), the last of an illustrious line, fled to Hamburg on the outbreak of the first Revolution, and vainly sought reinstatement as a senator under successive regimes. His ancestor Etienne de Lusignan (1537- 1590), of the royal house of Cyprus, took holy orders and won high episcopal honours in both Italy and France, after his dynasty had been overthrown by the invading Turks Biron (1524-1592), Duke and Marshal of France, was the seven-times-wounded and never-beaten general who stormed La Rochelle duringthe Huguenot 320 NOTES troubles. Or the allusion may be to his son (1562-1602), beheaded for a treason which he refused to avow. The suggestiveness of these two names can hardly be felt by an English reader. Boadicea, Llewellyn, and Bruce might have the same evocatory power for us. The Queen of Sheba is perhaps meant in line ten, it being one of De Nerval's hallucinations that he was in love with this lady re-enshrined in later flesh. In Mr. Eccles's book (see note below) other — and perhaps likelier — personages are suggested; but the only thing certain is that all these names are merely used as symbols of lost glory. 156. Having arrived at the proper ending of his " Ballad," De Musset cocked a snook at his own Diana by parodying his lines in a set of lewd stanzas, which are to be found in some early editions. This is one of the boyish tricks which seem to suggest that Lamartine and De Lisle were right in regarding him "en gar(on." He was always young, an cceur de are. 159. This was written of the Princess Belgiojoso, one of the many lights-o' -love with whom De Musset vainly sought consola- tion after the rupture of his famous first liaison. The lady was not dead when he wrote it ; she had merely withdrawn her favours. The first stanza refers to one of four recumbent figures supporting the tomb of the grandson of " II Magnifico " in the church called of San Lorenzo at Florence. 1 60. From the " Nuit de Mai." I have taken the opening lines of several passages and linked them together into a single invoca- tion, skipping the intervening descriptions. 161. This was written in 1841, after having met George Sand by chance while out walking. Six from a total of forty-five stanzas. 162. The original is in sonnet form, with octosyllabic lines. 166. I have put stars where Gautier gives no sign of a break. It seems to me that the lyric would close more effectively on the accent of wistful suspense. The rebuff of the last two stanzas is too rude; and where is the lover who would spoil his chances with a douche of such chilly wisdom ? 167. Written in answer to the lines addressed to him byDe Banville. See No. 204. 168. The first three of nine stanzas. 170. These lines reproduce the first, second, sixth, and seventh of the forty-one stanzas entitled " Alma Parens." 171. Three stanzas from the close of " L 'Amour et La Mort." 174. Candour compels me to state that Soulary wrote of cherries and sparrows. But rhyme will not be denied. LECONTE DE LISLE (p. 199) wrote in his preface to " PoSmes Antiques": "... the entire Christian cycle is barbarous. NOTES 321 Dante, Shakespeare, and Milton prove only the strength and reach of their individual genius; their speech and their conceptions are barbarous. . . . Modern poetry, a confused reflection of the stormy personality of Byron, the sham and sensuous religiosity of Chateaubriand, the dreamy mysticism of Over-Rhine, and the realism of the Lakists, rises in self-disturbance and wastes away." Holding such views, (and proclaiming them), it is not wonderful that his recognition was long delayed, and that the poet who in French literature is to Hugo as Milton to Shakespeare in ours should have had to wait until his sixty-eighth year for election to the Academie Frangaise, when he was given the vacant fautenil of the dead Hugo in fulfilment of the latter's expressed desire. • 177. In the original the first and last lines of each stanza rhyme. 179. One of the very few poems in which Leconte de Lisle deigns to avow his tenderness. I have left his original title. 187. I am aware that my rendering of the last line is debatable, but " neant divin " makes poor sense in English, and in any case to De Lisle it may very well have implied the meaning I have here assumed for it. 189. This sonnet.is obviously referred to by Swinburne in Stanza VI of his " Ave atque Vale " in memory of the poet. So, too, No. 191 is clearly indicated in Stanza II of the same immortal elegy. X92. Pascal, the great French philosopher, as the result of an accident suffered from the hallucination of a pit continually yawning at his feet. It is curious that Baudelaire should have translated the Tales of Poe, in one of which this horrific idea is treated. "The Influence of Baudelaire," by G. Turquet-Milnes (Constable), traces very fully his literary ancestry and descendants, though we cannot help thinking that the author credits him with too large a family, and admits into the direct line many who are no more than remote collaterals. 194. Written of the Creole mistress whom he brought back from the voyage to the tropics on which he had been sent by his bewil- dered parents while he was still short of his majority. 195. Written of the same. What Baudelaire may have meant by- " Courtisane imparfaite " is not clear; but the misery he suffered from the continual infidelities of this coloured woman have suggested my rendering of " adulterous cheat." HENRI MURGER (p. 220) is best known as author of the famous " Vie de Boheme," from which the story of Puccini's well-known opera is drawn. LOUIS BOUILHET (p. 221) was at school with Flaubert. LOUIS MENARD (p. 222). A convinced communist who suffered exile. X 322 NOTES Z04. See Gautier's lines (No. 167) written in answer. ANDRE THEURIET (p. 229) is even better known as the prose- poet of the woods and fields, amid which he always moved whether as singer or story-teller. ARMAND SILVESTRE (p. 231). George Sand introduced his first book to the public. Of his poetry Anatole France has well said, " II tire de la volupte physique un mysticisme exalte." LEON DIERX (p. 233) was, like his master Leconte de Lisle, a native of Reunion. His work, perhaps, shows more affinity with the Nevroses, who derive from Baudelaire and culminate in Samain. 211. The first eleven of a long series of lines all similarly linked together by recurring phrases. ACHILLE MILLIEN (p. 234) is the poet of the Niveraais. He is a great linguist, and has collected and translated the folk-song and poetry of Eastern Europe and of the Spanish peninsula. 213. In Professor Saintsbury's " French Lyrics " will be found a twelfth-century song from which this may have been derived. 218. The last two of four stanzas. HENRI CAZALIS (p. 240) was a doctor of medicine, and pub- lished most of his books (other than medical) under the pen-name of Jean Labor. He was deeply versed in Oriental literature, and wrote a study of William Morris. STEPHANE MALLARME (p. 247) was professor of English in several of the lesser Universities, and finally at the Lycee Condorcet in Paris. He translated Poe's " Raven." He has been well described by Huysmans (writing from the life), in his novel " A Rebours, " as " raffinant sur des pensees d€jpath 281 On the Moorish coast, chain-tethered 133 O pleasant wynde whose balmye breath doth fill 91 O praye for peace, sweet mayde Marie 43 O tell me where and in what lande 49 Over gray skies or shining 267 PALE and slow, in her summer's vesture so pale 305 Pale star of evening, far herald wan 179 Poet, take thy lute and kiss my mouth 182 Poor Liza died two days ago 269 QUIT thy bed and sleepe of twilight .88 RED-HANDED and with savage thews afire 248 Rise from your bed for the Spring is born this morning 221 Rosette, because I stayed awaye 93 SALUTE for me the fellowe-ship 74 Scarce on my yieldynge pillowe doe I bend 79 Sea-road a-tremble where the dawnlight swoons 301 She was a childe or hardly more 124 Silent fields where I was glad 224 Since from thy brinmiing chalice I have sipped 152 Since sev'n sins from these our eyes 102 Since she is frostye as the Winter aire 66 Since thyne eye so ardently ashine with love's own splen- dour loi Sire, Thulene is dead. I have seen his grave 90 Sire, your dogge Lemon, once your bed-fellowe 95 Sleepe, sire of rest and eke of dreams the sire 63 Sleepe that most heavenlye of all boones is deemed 75 334 INDEX OF FIRST LINES Page Sleepless upon my bed, my spirit's force 170 Slowly we go with the old dog close behind us 290 So blithe am I when I a rose doe smell 38 Some relics on a donkey being tied 113 Source of all truth, blasphemed by every liar 129 Spacious, splendid and pacific, the vast night unrolled before us 24Z Stay. Light not the lamp. But" let us slake 257 Still do they sing, the swarm of mocking fays 223 Still Etna bears the red wine and the gold 253 Stranger that seekest Rome in Rome, and nought 74 Strength and Life have fled afar 183 Summer's the time for soldierhood 40 TELL me, lovely girl 187 That night the loud voice of the sea was roaring 208 The Berecynthian in her chariot 75 The butterflies that are the snow's own hue 191 The fennels said, " He is so fond 283 The gorge is dark below the reeds' massed slimness 199 The Grasshopper that through the Summer heat iii The Great Bear shone, an archipelago 237 The hamlets die in the long eventimes 305 The hawthorn blossom's white in May 273 The infant sang ; the mother, life near over 156 The innumerable multitude grows more 252 The load we bear of trouble is self-made 274 The loveliest verses are those that we never can write 286 The mirk did fa' lang syne, lang syne 35 The moon grew sad, and weeping seraphim 247 The old tramp on the prowl for bread 276 The other day while in the dale our friend did fare on 122 The poet snares his prize 227 The race of men in an eternal chain 196 The sea grew silent like a seething bowl 140 The sea-hooves whiten on the far horizon 297 The seven maids of Orlamonde 294 There is an air for which I'd give all else 173 There sometimes come strange evenings when the flowers' souls awaken 288 The sickle spares the springing corn 127 The sky above the roofing lies 259 The sobs are long 262 The spent winds on the mountain slopes at peace 204 The weary leafage wanes 307 This eve I left the flocks to stray and crop the grass with no one by 167 This morning I had roses for thee found 135 INDEX OF FIRST LINES 335 _,. . . Page 1 his mornmg not one beam cleaves the cloud-blind 233 This window hath seen many a dame and lord 250 Thou mayst be manly an thou wilt. Go 1 clench thy hilt and brave the squall 257 S"^ ^Z^'^ drawn toward far shores uncharted 136 Thus shall we live our separate lives unknit 273 Thy sighte denied when deare to me , 83 Tircis makes rhymes as fast as ticking 107 Tis noon. Mid burning air and dreadful rays 251 To muse. In the void of night to thrill like the rushes 292 To her the dearest, the most fair 217 Toward your scented garden, Sweet 152 To you light troupe that ryde 77 Tyme hath throwne downe the robe he bare 47 'Twas a dusky night I spied 175 Two wrestlers in a ruthless grapple strive 169 UNDER her tilted hat of Tuscan rushes 198 Under vast colonnades that took the noon's 215 Up leapt the wave as a wild unbroken stallion 240 WAIF in the wind, O where 130 We are the gilders of the prows 149 Weary is the flesh, alas! with many books the eyes are dim 247 Weep on Le Vayer, make thine eyes an urn 115 We'll go no more the woodland way, the laurel-leaves are dipt 228 What doth our loves befall ? 173 What evil woes dull Hate maye breede 57 What joy when flute and violin 304 What shall I doe if love me leave ? 42 When barren boughs above us wave 143 When I could taste (as nowe no more maye be) 76 When I remember I am nigh to weep 126 When men do find upon a day 185 When Michael Angelo left the Sistine dome ' 185 When, O my dark beloved, thou shalt drowse 218 When the long day dies in summer and flowers are closing 157 When thou art old and bye the fire alone 66 When with shut eyes in autumn twilight dim 217 When you beholde her graciousness and glory io8 Where goes the starry quire ? 232 While that myne eyes with woeful teares doe flood 78 Whoe'er you are, you here your master see 122 Who hath a well-built house both clean and comelye 59 Why, O Dante, deemedst thou life's worst trial 182 Withhold thy love, though life betrays 242 336 INDEX OF FIRST LINES Page Within the forest of sad wearinesse 46 Worthy masters, worthy wives 275 YESTREEN beneath the greenery 197 Yonder o'er the sea like a swallow hasting over 205 You ask me whom in dream I see ? 268 You gave the youngster into my care. — He's dead 265 You have good, cause to weep your fate 113 Your songs Paris honoured of late 122 You spiky gorse, you hoUye thorn-beset 65 PRINTED AT THE COMPLETE PRESS WEST NORWOOD, LONDON ■\-