Part 2 — NOTES (continued 2)

Mr Robertson gives four poems by this poet: “La Plainte des Damnés,” “Vers les Etoiles,” “Le Tombeau du Poète,” and “Hymne au Sommeil.” His translation of the last-named also appears in this anthology.

VILLIERS DE L’ISLE-ADAM. (1838-1889.) PAGE 342

This famous French novelist and poet was born at St Brieuc, in Brittany, of parents who were each of old Breton stock. The full details of the life and work of Philippe-Auguste-Mathias de Villiers de l’Isle-Adam, son of the Marquis Joseph de Villiers de l’Isle-Adam and his wife Marie Françoise le Nepveu de Carfort, can be read in the recently-published Life, by the late Vicomte Robert du Pontavice de Heussey—an English translation of which, by Lady Mary Lloyd, was issued last year by Mr Heinemann. This distinguished writer lived in misfortune, and died amid darker shadows than those he had too long been bitterly acquainted with. His first volume of poems was published when he was little more than twenty years old—as Mr Robertson says, “one of the most remarkable ever written by so young a poet.” The young Breton poet came under the strong personal influence of Baudelaire, and in the process he lost much of his native Celtic fire and spirituality. Besides the poems given here, “Confession” (“D’aveu”) and “Discouragement” (“Découragement”), Mr Robertson translates, in his Century of French Verse, “Eblouissement” and “Les Présents.”

LECONTE DE LISLE. (1818-1894.) PAGE 344

“The great Creole poet, Charles Marie René Leconte, known as Leconte de Lisle, was the child of a Breton father and a Gascon mother, and was born at St Paul, in the isle of Bourbon (Réunion) in 1818. He had the Celtic clearness of vision and love of beauty, and the vigour and courage of the Pyrenean race. In his youth he travelled through the East Indies, and the vivid impressions of tropical colour and warmth which are visible in his poetry derive their value from the personal observation of Nature in those regions” (W. J. Robertson, A Century of French Verse). Leconte de Lisle, one of the greatest of modern French poets, is assured of immortality by his beautiful trilogy:—Poèmes Antiques (1852), Poèmes Barbares (1862), and Poèmes Tragiques (1884). The reader who, unfamiliar with this poet, wishes to know more of Leconte de Lisle and his work, cannot do better than turn first to Mr Robertson’s biographical and critical memoir in A Century of French Verse. There, too, he will find five poems from Poèmes Antiques, including the long “Dies Iræ”; two from Poèmes Barbares, and two from Poèmes Tragiques. Of the two given here, the first (“The Black Panther”) is from Poèmes Barbares, and “The Spring” (“La Source”) from Poèmes Antiques. Leconte de Lisle strove after an ideal perfection of form. The spirit of that almost flawless work of his, is of intellectual emotion rather than of passion; but in colour, and splendour of imagery, no romanticist can surpass him. He is of the great minds who create, calm and serene. He is often classed with the two great master-spirits of modern German and French literature; but, while he has neither the lyric rush nor epic sweep of Victor Hugo, nor the philosophical modernity and innate human sentiment of Gœthe, he is much more akin to the latter than to the former. For the rest, to quote Mr Robertson, “he gives the noblest expression to human revolt and desire, to ideal dreams, and to the pure and sometimes pathetic love of external nature.”

LEO-KERMORVAN. PAGE 348

Leo-Kermorvan has been represented here as one of the most distinctively Celtic of the contemporary Breton poets. In translating his “Taliesen,” as well as Louis Tiercelin’s “By Menec’hi Shore,” I have endeavoured to convey the atmosphere, as well as to be literal; and, partly to this end, and partly because of a personal preference for unrhymed metrical translation, have not ventured to make a rhymed paraphrase. M. Kermorvan is a poet worthy to be named with his two most notable living compatriots, Tristran Corbière and Charles Le Goffic.

LOUIS TIERCELIN. PAGE 351

(See foregoing note.) M. Tiercelin is a Breton poet and critic, perhaps best known as co-editor of the Parnasse de la Bretagne. No more characteristic Breton poem, apart from folk-poetry, could close Lyra Celtica. It is the keynote of the poetry that is common to all the Celtic races.

THE CELTIC FRINGE

BLISS CARMAN. PAGE 355

Mr Bliss Carman, the trans-Atlantic poet who, it seems to me, has the most distinctive note of any American poet (and the word “American” is used in its widest sense), is of Scoto-Celtic descent through his father’s side, and of East-Anglian through the maternal side; but was born of a family long settled in Canada—viz., at Fredericton, New Brunswick, in 1861. His poetry is intensely individual, and with a lyric note at once poignant and reserved. Work of very high quality is expected of him, on both sides of the Atlantic; for his beautiful lyrics and poems have appeared in the periodicals of both countries. His slight volume, Low Tide on Grand-Pré (1893), is published in this country by Mr Nutt. About half of the Songs from Vagabondia (written in collaboration with Mr Richard Hovey) are of his authorship. This book, published in 1894 by Messrs Stone & Kimball of Chicago, is to be had here through Mr Elkin Mathews. It is from the Songs that the stirring war-chant of “Gamelbar” comes.

ELLEN MACKAY HUTCHINSON. PAGE 361

This distinguished American lady is descended from old Highland stock. I know of no other book by her than Songs and Lyrics (Boston, Osgood & Co., 1881), but that is one which all lovers of poetry should possess. Miss Hutchinson’s name is best known in connection with that colossal and invaluable work, the Cyclopædia of American Literature (eleven vols.), in which she was the collaborator of Mr Edmund Clarence Stedman.

HUGH M‘CULLOCH. PAGE 364

This descendant of an old Highland family is the author of The Quest of Heracles (Stone & Kimball, Chicago, 1894).

DUNCAN CAMPBELL SCOTT. PAGE 365

Mr Scott is a member of one of the many Scoto-Celtic families settled in Canada. He was born at Ottawa in 1862, and is the author of The Magic House (1893).

THOMAS D’ARCY M‘CGEE. (1821-1868.) PAGE 366

This distinguished Irishman is to be accounted only an adopted American. He emigrated to the States in 1842, edited The Boston Pilot, and in 1857 went to Montreal and entered the Canadian Parliament. It was when returning from a night-session that he was assassinated in Ottawa by Fenian malcontents.

MARY C. G. GILLINGTON (MRS BYRON) AND ALICE E. GILLINGTON. PAGES 368-373

These two sisters, whose names have become so deservedly well-known by their contributions to British and American periodicals, are of Celtic blood, though born and resident in England. They are included here as representative of the Anglo Celtic strain so potent in England itself. The elder, Mrs Byron, was born in Cheshire in 1861. Their joint volume, Poems, was published in 1892. Mr Elkin Mathews has just published a volume entitled, A Little Book of Lyrics, by Mrs Byron.

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