Act 4 — TRANSLATIONS

A MEMORY OF THE HEROES OF 1760. FROM THE FRENCH OF P. LE MAY.

O ye who tread with heedless feet This dust once laid with heroes' blood, A moment turn your backward glance To years of dread inquietude: When wars disturbed our peaceful fields; When mothers drew a sobbing breath; When the great river's hilly marge Resounded with a cry of death. Then, full of fire, the heroes sprang To save our heritage and laws. They conquered! 'twas a holiday. Alas, the last in such a cause! Bloody and shamed, the flag of France Perforce recrossed the widening seas; The sad Canadian mourned his hopes, And cherished bitter memories. But noble he despite his woe! Before his lords he proudly bends, Like some tall oak that storms may shake, And bow, but never, never rend. And oft he dreams a happy dream, And sees a flag, with lilies sown, Come back whence comes the rising Sun, To float o'er landscapes all his own. Oh when the south wind on its wings Bears to his ear strange sounds afar, To him they seem the solemn chant Of triumph after clam'rous war. Those echoes weird of gallant strife E'en stir the coffined warrior-dead, As stirs a nation's inmost heart At some proud pageant nobly led. O France, once more 'neath Western skies, We see thy standards proudly wave! And Mexico's high ramparts fall Before thy squadrons, true and brave. Peace shalt thou to the land restore; For fetters shalt give back the crown; And with thy shining sword shalt hurl The base usurper from the throne. Hear ye, how in their ancient urns The ashes of our heroes wake? Thus greet they ye, fair sons of morn, For this their solemn silence break. They greet ye, whose renown hath reached Past star on star to highest heaven! Ye on whose brow their halo sits, To ye their altar shall be given! Arise, immortal phalanxes, Who fell upon a glorious day! Your century of mourning weeds Posterity would take away. Arise and see! our woods and fields No longer nourish enemies! Whom once ye fought are brothers now, One law around us throws its ties. And who shall dare our homesteads touch, That for our heritage ye gave:— And who shall drive us from the shores To which your blood the verdure gave?— E'en they shall find the oppressed will rise More powerful for the foe withstood; And ever for such heinous crime Shall pay the forfeit with their blood. Ye, our defenders in the past, Your names are still a household word! In childhood's ear old age recounts The toils your hardy youth endured. And on the field of victory Hath gratitude your memory graved! In during brass your story lives A glory to the centuries saved!

THE SONG OF THE CANADIAN VOLTIGEURS. FROM THE FRENCH OF P. LE MAY.

Our country insulted Demands quick redress. To arms, Voltigeurs! To the struggle we press. From vict'ry to vict'ry, Brave, righteous, and just, Ours the mem'ries that cling to Our forefathers' dust. Defend we our farm-lands, Our half-crumbled walls! Defend we our sweethearts, Our hearths and our halls! Our dear native tongue, Our faith keep we free! Defend we our life, For a people are we! No rulers know we, save Our time-honoured laws! And woe to the nation That sneers at our cause. Our fields and our furrows, Our woods and our streams, Should their columns invade, Shall entomb their vain dreams! To our foes, the perfidious, Be war to the knife. Intrepid, yet duteous, We leap to the strife. More terrible shewing In danger's red hour; We know to avenge, And unbroken our power. List the thunderous roar As the shot rushes by! To our war-song heroic, The chorus of joy. At the ring of the musket To the battle we fly; Come! come to the field, See us conquer or die. What! we become slaves To an alien foe? We bear their vile trammels? Our answer is, No! Assistance shall reach us From heaven's lucent arch: Come! seize we our muskets And "double-quick march!"

THE LEGEND OF THE EARTH. FROM THE FRENCH OF JEAN RAMEAU.

[The Prize Poem in the Christmas (1885) Number of the Paris Figaro, translated for the Week.]

When the Creator had laid out the deeps, The great illimitable fields of sad-eyed space, A weighty bag upon His neck He threw, Whence issued sound confused of huddled stars; And, plunging in the sack His mighty hand, He traversed all the ether's wondrous plain With slow and measured step, as doth a sower, Sowing the gloomy void with many suns. He tossed them—tossed them—some in fantastic groups, And some in luminous; some terrible. And 'neath the Sower's steps, whose grain was stars, The furrows of the sky, ecstatic, smoked. He tossed them—tossed them—out of His whirling hand, Plenteous in every place, by full broad casts Measured to rhythmic beat; and golden stars Flew o'er the wide expanse like firefly swarms. "Away! away!" cried He of worlds the Sower: "Away, ye stars! spring in the wastes of heaven; Broider its purple fields with your fair gems; Tuneful, elated, gladsome, take your course. "Go, wave of fire, into a darksome night, And there make joy, and there the pleasant day! And launch into the depths immeasurable Quick, quivering darts of glowing light and love! "I will that all within your bounds shall shine, Be glad, be prosperous, happy, blest, content, Shall sing for ever 'Glory be to Thee, Creator, Father, Sower, who with suns Hast filled infinity!'" Thus He dismissed the stars, weighted with life, Careering round their calm Creator's feet As, in a desert place July has scorched, The grains of sand may cloud the traveller's steps. And glittered all, and sang; and, hindered not, Upon their axes turned, constant and sure; Their million million voices, strong and deep, Bursting in great hosannas to the skies. And all was happiness and right, beauty and strength; And every star heard all her radiant sons With songs of love ensphere her mother-breast; And all blessed Life. And blessed the Highest Heaven. Now, when His bag of stars he had deplete, When all the dark with orbs of fire was strown, The Sower found at bottom, 'twixt two folds, A little bit of shining sun, chipped off. And wondering, knowing not what sphere unknown Revolved in crimson space all incomplete, The great Creator, at a puff, spun off This tiny bit of sun far into space; Then, mounting high up to His scarlet throne, Beyond the mist of thickly scattered worlds, Like a great crowned king whose proud eye burns At hearing from afar His people's voice, He listens, And He hears The mighty Alleluia of the stars, The choirs of glowing spheres in whirling flood Of song and high apotheosis, All surging to His feet in incense clouds. He sees eternity with rapture thrilled; He sees in one prolonged diapason The organ of the universe, vehement, roll For ever songs of praise to Him, the Sower. But suddenly He pales. From starry seas A smothered cry mounts to the upper skies; It rises, swells, grows strong; prevailing o'er All the ovation of the joyful spheres. From that dim atom of the chipped orb It comes; from wretches left forsaken, sad, Who weep the Mother-star, incessant sought And never found from that gray point of sky. And the cry said "Cursed! Cursed are we, the lost By misery led, a wretched pallid flock, Made for the light and tossed into the dark! "We are the banished ones; the exile band; The only race whose eyes are filled with tears. And if the waters of our seas be salt, 'Twas our forefathers tears that made them so. "Be He Anathema, the Sower of Light! Be He Anathema whom worlds adore!— If to our native star He join us not Be He accursed, through all creation cursed, for aye!" Then rose the God from His great scarlet throne, And gentle, moved, weeping as we, He stretched His two bright arms over the flat expanse, And in a voice of thunder launched reply:— "Morsel of Sun, calling thyself the Earth:— Chrysalides on her grey bounds supine:— Humanity—sing! for I give you Death, The Comforter, he who shall lead you back Safe to your Star of Light, And this is why—lofty, above mishap, The Poet, made for stars of molten gold, Spurns earth; his eyes; fixed on the glowing heavens, Toward which he soon shall take his freer flight.

THE EMIGRANT MOUNTAINEER. FROM THE FRENCH OF CHATEAUBRIAND.

How doth fond memory oft return To that fair spot where I was born! My sister, those were happy days In lovely France. O, country mine, my latest gaze Shall turn to France! Remember'st thou with what fond pride, Our lowly cottage hearth beside, She clasped us to her gladsome breast— Our dearest mother; While on her hair so white, we pressed Kisses, together? My sister, canst thou not recall Doré, that bathed the castle wall, And that old Moorish tower, war-worn And grey, From whence the gong struck out each morn The break of day. The tranquil lake doth mem'ry bring, Where swallows poised on lightest wing; The breeze by which the supple reed Was bent,— The setting sun whose glory filled The firmament? Rememberest thou that tender wife, Dearest companion of my life? While gathering wild flowers in the grove So sweet, Heart clung to heart, and Helen's love Flew mine to meet. O give my Helen back to me, My mountain, and my old oak tree! Memory and pain, where'er I rove, Entwine, Dear country, with my heart's deep love Around thy shrine.

FROM "LIGHTS AND SHADES." FROM THE FRENCH OF VICTOR HUGO.

When on the cliff, or in the wood I muse the summer evening by, And realize the woes of life, I contemplate Eternity. And through my shadow-chequered lot GOD meets my earnest, gazing eye; As through the dusk of tangled boughs We catch bright glimpses of the sky. Yes, when, at last Death claims her own, The spirit bursts the bonds of sense, And—like a nestling—in the tomb Finds pinions that shall bear her thence.

VILLANELLE TO ROSETTE FROM THE FRENCH OF PHILIPPE DEPORTES, SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

In my absence, though so short, You, Rosette, had changed your mind: Learning your inconstancy, I, another mistress find. Never more shall charms so free Gain ascendancy o'er me. We shall see, oh light Rosette, Which of us will first regret. While with tears I pine away, Cursing separation drear; You, who love by force of wont, Took another for your dear. Never vane all lightly hung, To the wind more swiftly swung. We shall see, oh vain Rosette, Which of us will first regret. Where are all those sacred vows,— All those tears at parting wept? Can it be those mournful plaints Came from heart so lightly kept? Heavens, that you so false could be! Who shall trust you, cursed is he. We shall see, oh false Rosette, Which of us will first regret. He who to my place has climbed, Ne'er can love you more than I; And in beauty, love, and faith, You're surpassed I own with joy. Guard your new love lest he range, Mine, the darling, knows not change. Thus we put to proof, Rosette, Which of us will first regret.