ARTHUR SYMONS (continued 5)

VILLIERS DE L'ISLE-ADAM

(1838-1889)

Premières Poésies,1859; Isis, 1862; Elën, 1864; Morgane, 1865; Claire Lenoir(in the Revue des Lettres et des Arts), 1867; L'Evasion, 1870; La Révolte, 1870; Azraël, 1878; Le Nouveau Monde, 1880; Contes Cruels, 1880; L'Eve Future, 1886; Akëdysséril, 1886; L'Amour Suprême, 1886; Tribulat Bonhomet, 1887; Histoires Insolites, 1888; Nouveaux Contes Cruels, 1889; Axël, 1890; Chez les Passants, 1890; Propos d'Au-delà, 1893; Histoires Souveraines, 1899 (a selection).

Among works announced, but never published, it may be interesting to mention: Seid, William de Strally, Faust, Poésies Nouvelles (Intermèdes; Gog; Ave, Mater Victa; Poésies diverses), La Tentation sur la Montagne, Le Vieux de la Montagne, L'Adoration des Mages, Méditations Littéraires, Mélanges, Théâtre (2 vols.), Documents sur les Règnes de Charles VI. et de Charles VII., L'Illusionisme, De la Connaissance de l'Utile, L'Exégèse Divine.

A sympathetic, but slightly vague, Life of Villiers was written by his cousin, Vicomte Robert du Pontavice de Heussey: Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, 1893; it was translated into English by Lady Mary Lloyd, 1894. See Verlaine's Poètes Maudits, 1884, and his biography of Villiers in Les Hommes d'Aujourd'hui, the series of penny biographies, with caricature portraits, published by Vanier; also Mallarmé's Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, the reprint of a lecture given at Brussels a few months after Villiers, death. La Révolte was translated by Mrs. Theresa Barclay in the Fortnightly Review, December, 1897, and acted in London by the New Stage Club in 1906. I have translated a little poem, Aveu, from the interlude of verse in the Contes Cruels called Chant d'Amour, in Days and Nights, 1889. An article of mine, the first, I believe, to be written on Villiers in English, appeared in the Woman's World in 1889; another in the Illustrated London News in 1891.

LÉON CLADEL

(1835-1892)

Les Martyrs Ridicules. Preface par Charles Baudelaire, 1862; Pierre Patient, 1862; L'Amour Romantique, 1882; Le Deuxième Mystère de l'Incarnation, 1883; Le Bouscassié, 1889; La Fête-Votive de Saint Bartholomée Porte-Glaive, 1872; Les Vas-nu-Pieds, 1874; Celui de la Croix-aux-Bœufs, 1878; Bonshommes, 1879; Ompdrailles Le Tombeau des Lutteurs, 1879; N'a q'un Œil, 1885; Tity Foyssac IV, 1886; Petits Chiens de Léon Cladel, 1879; Par Devant Notaire, 1880; Crête-Rouge, 1880; Six Morceaux de la Littérature, 1880; Kerkades Garde-Barrière, 1884; Urbains et Ruraux, 1884; Léon Cladel et ses Kyrielle des Chiens, 1885; Héros et Pantins, 1885; Quelques Sires, 1885; Mi-Diable, 1886; Gueux de Marque, 1887; Effigies d'Inconnus, 1888; Raca, 1888; Seize Morceaux de Littérature, 1889; L'ancien, 1889; Juive-Errante, 1897.

EMILE ZOLA

(1840-1902)

Les Rougon-Macquart, 1871-1893; La Fortune des Rougons, 1871; La Curée, 1872; Le Ventre de Paris, 1873; La Conquête de Pluisans, 1874; La Faute de l'abbé Mouret, 1875; Son Excellence Eugène Rougon, 1876; L'Assommoir, 1876; Une Page d'Amour, 1878; Nana, 1880; Pot.-Bouille, 1882; Au Bonheur des Dames, 1883; La Joie de Vivre, 1884; Madeleine Fer at, 1885; La Confession de Claude, 1886; Contes à Ninon, 1891; Nouveaux Contes à Ninon, 1874; Le Capitaine Burle, 1883; La joie de vivre, 1884; Les Mystères de Marseilles, 1885; Mes Haines, 1866; Le Roman Expérimental, 1881; Nos Auteurs dramatiques, 1881; Documents littéraires, 1881; Une Compagne, 1882. Théâtre: Thérèse Raquin, Les Héritiers Rabourdin, La Bouton de Rose, 1890; L'Argent, 1891; L'Attaque du Moulin, 1890; La Bête Humaine, 1890; La Débâcle, 1892; Le Doctor Pascal, 1893; Germinie, 1885; Mon Salon, 1886; Le naturalisme au Théâtre, 1889; L'Œuvre, 1886; Le Rêve, 1892; Paris, 1898; Rome, 1896; Lourdes, 1894; Fécondité, 1899; Travail, 1901; Vérité, 1903.

STÉPHANE MALLARMÉ

(1842-1898)

Le Corbeau (traduit de Poe), 1875; La Dernière Mode, 1875; L'Après-Midi d'un Faune, 1876; Le Vathek de Beckford, 1876; Petite Philologie à l'Usage des Classes et du Monde: Les Mots Anglais, 1877; Poésies Complètes (photogravées sur le manuscrit), 1887; Les Poèmes de Poe, 1888; Le Ten o'Clock de M. Whistler, 1888; Pages, 1891; Les Miens: Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, 1892; Vers et Prose, 1892; La Musique et les Lettres (Oxford, Cambridge), 1894; Divagations, 1897; Poésies, 1899.

See, on this difficult subject, Edmund Gosse, Questions at Issue, 1893, in which will be found the first study of Mallarmé that appeared in English; and Vittorio Pica, Letteratura d'Eccezione,1899, which contains a carefully-documented study of more than a hundred pages. There is a translation of the poem called "Fleurs" in Mr. John Gray's Silverpoints,1893, and translations of "Hérodiade" and three shorter poems will be found in the first volume of my collected poems. Several of the poems in prose have been translated into English; my translation of the "Plainte d'Automne," contained in this volume, was made in momentary forgetfulness that the same poem in prose had already been translated by Mr. George Moore in Confessions of a Young Man. Mr. Moore also translated "Le Phénomène Futur" in the Savoy, July, 1896.

PAUL VERLAINE

(1844-1896)

Poèmes Saturniens, 1866; Fêtes Galantes, 1869; La Bonne Chanson, 1870; Romances sans Paroles, 1874; Sagesse, 1881; Les Poètes Maudits, 1884; Jadis et Naguère, 1884; Les Mémoires d'un Veuf, 1886; Louise Leclercq (suivi de Le Poteau, Pierre Duchatelet, Madame Aubin), 1887; Amour, 1888; Parallèlement, 1889; Dédicaces, 1890; Bonheur, 1891; Mes Hôpitaux, 1891; Chansons pour Elle, 1891; Liturgies Intimes, 1892; Mes Prisons, 1893; Odes en son Honneur, 1893; Elégies, 1893; Quinze Jours en Hollande, 1894; Dans les Limbes, 1894; Epigrammes, 1894; Confessions, 1895; Chair, 1896; Invectives, 1896; Voyage en France d'un Français (posthumous), 1907.

The complete works of Verlaine are now published in six volumes at the Librairie Léon Vanier (now Messein); the text is very incorrectly printed, and it is still necessary to refer to the earlier editions in separate volumes. A Choix de Poésies,1891, with a preface by François Coppée, and a reproduction of Carrière's admirable portrait, is published in one volume by Charpentier; the series of Hommes d'Aujourd'hui contains twenty-seven biographical notices by Verlaine; and a considerable number of poems and prose articles exists, scattered in various magazines, some of them English, such as the Senate; in some cases the articles themselves are translated into English, such as "My Visit to London," in the Savoy for April, 1896, and "Notes on England: Myself as a French Master," and "Shakespeare and Racine," in the Fortnightly Review for July, 1894, and September, 1894. The first English translation in verse from Verlaine is Arthur O'Shaughnessy's rendering of "Clair de Lune" in Fêtes Galantes, under the title "Pastel," in Songs of a Worker, 1881. A volume of translations in verse, Poems of Verlaine, by Gertrude Hall, was published in America in 1895. In Mr. John Gray's Silverpoints, 1893, there are translations of "Parsifal," "A Crucifix," "Le Chevalier Malheur," "Spleen," "Clair de Lune," "Mon Dieu m'a dit," and "Green."

As I have mentioned, there have been many portraits of Verlaine. The three portraits drawn on lithographic paper by Mr. Rothenstein, and published in 1898, are but the latest, if also among the best, of a long series, of which Mr. Rothenstein himself has done two or three others, one of which was reproduced in the Pall Mall Gazette in 1894, when Verlaine was in London. M. F. A. Cazals, a young artist who was one of Verlaine's most intimate friends, has done I should not like to say how many portraits, some of which he has gathered together in a little book, Paul Verlaine: ses Portraits, 1898. There are portraits in nine of Verlaine's own books, several of them by M. Cazals (roughly jotted, expressive notes of moments), one by M. Anquetin (a strong piece of thinking flesh and blood), and in the Choix de Poésies there is a reproduction of the cloudy, inspired poet of M. Eugène Carrière's painting. Another portrait, which I have not seen, but which Verlaine himself calls, in the Dédicaces, un portrait enfin reposé, was done by M. Aman-Jean. M. Niederhausern has done a bust in bronze, Mr. Rothenstein a portrait medallion. A new edition of the Confessions, 1899, contains a number of sketches; Verlaine Dessinateur, 1896, many more; and there are yet others in the extremely objectionable book of M. Charles Donos, Verlaine Intime, 1898. The Hommes d'Aujourd'hui contains a caricature-portrait, many other portraits have appeared in French and English and German and Italian magazines, and there is yet another portrait in the admirable little book of Charles Morice, Paul Verlaine, 1888, which contains by far the best study that has ever been made of Verlaine as a poet. I believe Mr. George Moore's article, "A Great Poet," reprinted in Impressions and Opinions, 1891, was the first that was written on Verlaine in England; my own article in the National Review in 1892 was, I believe, the first detailed study of the whole of his work up to that date. At last, in the Vie de Paul Verlaine, of Edmund Lepelletier, there has come the authentic record.

An honest and instructed life of Verlaine has long been wanted, if only as an antidote to the defamatory production called Verlaine Intime, made up out of materials collected by the publisher Léon Vanier in his own defense, in order that a hard taskmaster might be presented to the world in the colours of a benefactor. A "legend" which may well have seemed plausible to those who knew Verlaine only at the end of his life, has obtained currency; and a comparison of Verlaine with Villon, not only as a poet (which is to his honour), but also as a man, has been made, and believed. Lepelletier's book is an exact chronicle of a friendship which lasted, without a break, for thirty-six years—that is, from the time when Verlaine was sixteen to the time of his death; and a more sane, loyal and impartial chronicle of any man's life we have never read. It is written with full knowledge of every part of the career which it traces; and it is written by a man who puts down whatever he knows exactly as he believes it to have been. His conclusion is that "on peut fouiller sa vie au microscope: on y reconnaîtra des fautes, des folies, des faiblesses, bien des souffrances aussi, avec de la fatalité au fond, pas de honte véritable, pas une vile et indigne action. Les vrais amis du poète peuvent donc revendiquer pour lui l'épithete d'honnête homme, sans doute très vulgaire, mais qui, aux yeux de certains, a encore du prix."

In 1886 Verlaine dedicated Les Mémoires d'un Veuf to Lepelletier, affirming the resolve, on his part, to "garder intacte la vielle amitié si forte et si belle." The compact has been kept nobly by the survivor.

It may, indeed, be questioned whether Lepelletier does not insist a little too much on the bourgeois element which he finds in Verlaine. When a man has suffered under unjust accusations, it is natural for his friends to defend him under whatever aspect seems to them most generally convincing. So it is interesting to know that for seven years Verlaine was in a municipal office, the Bureau des Budgets et Comptes, and that later, in 1882, he made an application, which was refused, for leave to return to his former post. Lepelletier reproaches the authorities for an action which he takes to have precipitated Verlaine into the final misery of his vagabondage. He would have lived quietly, he says, and written in security. Both assumptions may be doubted. What was bourgeois, and contented with quiet, was a small part of the nature of one who was too strong as well as too weak to remain within limits. The terrible force of Verlaine's weakness would always, in the process of making him a poet, have carried him far from that "tranquilité d'une sinécure bureaucratique" which Lepelletier strangely regrets for him. It is hardly permitted, in looking back over a disastrous life which has expressed itself in notable poetry, to regret that the end should have been attained, by no matter what means.

On moral questions Lepelletier speaks with the authority of an intimate friendship, and from a point of view which seems wholly without prejudice. He defends Verlaine with evident conviction against the most serious charges brought against him, and he shows at least, on documentary evidence, that nothing of the darker part of his "legend" was ever proved against him in any of his arrests and imprisonments. Drink, and mad rages let loose by drink, account, ignobly enough, for all of them. In the famous quarrel with Rimbaud, which brought him into prison for eighteen months, the accusation reads:

"Pour avoir, à Bruxelles, le 10 juillet, 1873, volontairement portés des coups et fait des blessures ayant entraîné une incapacité de travail personnel à Arthur Rimbaud."

The whole account of this episode is given by M. Lepelletier in great detail, and from this we learn that it was by the merest change of mind on the part of Rimbaud, or by sudden treachery, that the matter came into the courts at all. Lepelletier supplies an unfavourable account of Rimbaud, whom he looks upon as the evil counsellor of Verlaine—probably with justice. There is little doubt that Rimbaud, apart from his genuine touch of precocious power, which had its influence on the genius of Verlaine, was a "mauvais sujet" of a selfish and mischievous kind. He was destructive and pitiless; and having done his worst, he went off carelessly into Africa.

It will surprise some readers to learn that Verlaine took his degree of "bachelier-ès-lettres," and that on leaving the Lycée Bonaparte he received a certificate placing him "au nombre des sujets distingués que compte l'établissement." He was well grounded in Latin, and fairly well in English, and at several intervals in his life attempted to master Spanish, with the vague desire of translating Calderon. At an early period he read French literature, classical and modern, with avidity; translations of English, German and Eastern classics; books of criticism and philosophy.

"Il admirait beaucoup Joseph de Maîstre. Le Rouge et le Noir de Stendhal avait produce sur lui une forte impression. Il avait déniché, on ne sait où, une Vie de sainte Thérèse, qu'il lisait avec ravissement."

He was absorbed in Baudelaire, Gautier, Leconte de Lisle, Banville; he read Pétrus Borel and Aloysius Bertrand. The only poem that remains of this early period is the "Nocturne Parisien" of the Poèmes Saturniens, which dates from about his twentieth year. Jules de Goncourt defined it as "un beau poème sinistre mêlant comme une Morgue à Notre-Dame." Baudelaire, as Sainte-Beuve, in a charming letter of real appreciation, pointed out, is here the evident "point de départ, pour aller au delà."

The chapter in which Lepelletier tells the story of the origin of the most famous literary movement since that of 1830, the "Parnasse," is one of the most entertaining in the book, and gives, in its narrative of the receptions "chez Nina" (a salon which Lepelletier describes as the ancestor of the "Chat Noir"), a vivid picture of the days when Villiers de l'Isle-Adam and François Coppée were beginners together. Nina de Villars was one of the oddest people of her time: she made a kind of private Bohemia for poets, musicians, all kinds of artists and eccentric people, herself the most eccentric of them all. It was at her house that the members of the "Parnasse" gathered, while they selected as their more formal meeting-place the salon of Madame Ricard. It is not generally known that Verlaine's Poèmes Saturniens was the third volume to be issued by the house of Lemerre, afterwards to become a famous "publisher of poets," and it was in this volume that the new laws of the Parnasse were first formulated—that impassivity, that "marble egoism," which Verlaine was so soon to reject for a more living impulse, but which neither Leconte de Lisle nor Héredia was ever to abandon. When one thinks of the later Verlaine, it is curious to turn to that first formula:

Est-elle en marvre où non, le Vénus de Milo?

Verlaine's verse suddenly becomes human with La Bonne Chanson, though the humanity in it is not yet salted as with fire. It is the record of the event which, as Lepelletier says, dominated his whole life; the marriage with Mathilde Maute, the young girl with whom he had fallen in love at first sight, and whose desertion of him, however explicable, he never forgot nor forgave. Nothing could be more just or delicate than Lepelletier's treatment of the whole situation and there is no doubt that he is right in saying that the young wife "eût une grande responsabilité dans les désordres de l'existence désorbitée du poète." Verlaine, as he says, "était bon, aimant, et c'était comme un souffrant qu'il fallait le traiter." "Vous n'avez rien compris à ma simplicité," he wrote long afterwards, addressing the woman of whom Lepelletier says, "Il l'aima toujours, il n'aima qu'elle."

With his marriage Verlaine's disasters begin. Rimbaud enters his life and turns the current of it; the vagabondage begins, in France and England, and the letters written from London are among the most vivid documents in the book: thumbnail sketches full of keen observation. Then comes his imprisonment and conversion to Catholicism. Here Lepelletier, while he gives us an infinity of details which he alone could give, adopts an attitude which we cannot think to be justified, and which, as a matter of fact, Verlaine protested against during his lifetime. "Cette conversion fut-elle profonde et véridique?" he asks; and he answers, "Je ne le crois pas." That his conversion had much influence on Verlaine's conduct cannot be contended, but conduct and belief are two different things. Sincerity of the moment was his fundamental characteristic, but the moments made and remade his moods in their passing. The religion of Sagesse is not the less genuine because that grave and sacred book was followed by the revolt of Parallèment. Verlaine tried to explain—in the poems themselves, in prefaces, and in conversation with friends—how natural it was to sin and to repent, and to use the same childlike words in the immediate rendering of sin and of repentance. This naïveté, which made any regular existence an impossibility, was a part of him which gave a quality to his work unlike that of any other poet of our time. At the end of his life hardly anything but the naïvetê was left, and the poems became mere outcries and gestures. Lepelletier is justly indignant at the action of Vanier in publishing after Verlaine's deaths the collection called Invectives, made up of scraps and impromptus which the poet certainly never intended to publish. Here we see part of the weakness of a great man, who becomes petty when he puts off his true character and tries to be angry. "J'ai la fureur d'aimer," he says somewhere, and there is no essential part of his work which is not the expression of some form of love, grotesque or heroic, human or divine.

Of all this later, more and more miserable part of the life of Verlaine, Lepelletier has less to tell us. It has been sufficiently commented on, not always by friendly or understanding witnesses. What we get in this book, for the first time, is a view of the life as a whole, with all that is beautiful, tragic, and desperate in it. It is not an apology: it is a statement. It not only does honor to a great and unhappy man of genius; it does him justice.

JORIS-KARL HUYSMANS

(1848-1907)

Le Drageoir à épices, 1874; Marthe: Histoire d'une Fille, 1876; Les Sœurs Vatard, 1879; Croquis Parisiens, 1880; En Ménage, 1881; A Vau-l'Eau, 1882; L'Art Moderne, 1883; A Rebours, 1884; Un Dilemme, 1887; En Rade, 1887; Certains,1889; La Bièvre,1890; Là-Bas, 1891; En Route, 1895; La Cathédrale, 1898; La Bièvre Saint-Séverin, 1898; Pages Catholiques, 1900; Sainte Lydwine de Schiedam, 1901; De Tout, 1902; L'Oblat, 1903; Trois Primitifs, 1905; Les Foules de Lourdes, 1906; See also the short story, Sac au Dos, in the Soirées de Médan, 1880, and the pantomime, Pierrot Sceptique, 1881, in collaboration with Léon Hennique. En Route was translated into English by Mr. Kegan Paul, in 1896; and La Cathédrale by Miss Clara Bell, in 1898.

ARTHUR RIMBAUD

(1854-1891)

Une Saison en Enfer, 1873; Les Illuminations, 1886; Reliquaire, 1891 (containing several poems falsely attributed to Rimbaud); Les Illuminations: Une Saison en Enfer, 1892; Poésies Complètes, 1895; Œuvres, 1898.

See also Paterne Berrichon, La Vie de Jean-Arthur Rimbaud, 1898, and Lettres de Jean-Arthur Rimbaud, 1899; Paul Verlaine, Les Poètes Maudits,1884, and the biography by Verlaine in Les Hommes d'Aujourd'hui. Mr. George Moore was the first to write about Rimbaud in England, in "Two Unknown Poets" (Rimbaud and Laforgue) in Impressions and Opinions, 1891. In Mr. John Gray's Silverpoints, 1893, there are translations of "Charleville" and "Sensation." The latter, and "Les Chercheuses de Poux," are translated by Mr. T. Sturge Moore in The Vinedresser, and other Poems, 1899.

JULES LAFORGUE

(1860-1887)

Les Complaintes, 1885; L'Imitation de Notre-Dame la Lune, 1886; Le Concile Féerique, 1886; Moralités Légendaires, 1887; Derniers Vers, 1890 (a privately printed volume, containing Des Fleurs de Bonne Volonté, Le Concile Féerique, and Derniers Vers); Poésies Complètes, 1894; Œuvres Complètes, Poésies, Moralités Légendaires, Mélanges Posthumes (3 vols.), 1902, 1903.

An edition of the Moralités Légendaires was published in 1897, under the care of M. Lucien Pissarro, at the Sign of the Dial; it is printed in Mr. Ricketts' admirable type, and makes one of the most beautiful volumes issued in French during this century. In 1896 M. Camille Mauclair, with his supple instinct for contemporary values, wrote a study, or rather an eulogy, of Laforgue, to which M. Maeterlinck contributed a few searching and delicate words by way of preface.

MAURICE MAETERLINCK

(1862)

Serres Chaudes, 1889; La Princesse Maleine, 1890; Les Aveugles (L'Intruse, Les Aveugles), 1890; L'Ornement des Noces Spirituelles, de Ruysbroeck l'Admirable, 1891; Les Sept Princesses, 1891; Pelléas et Mélisande, 1892; Alladine et Palomides, Intérieur, La Mort de Tintagiles, 1894; Annabella, de John Ford, 1895; Les Disciples à Sais et les Fragments de Novalis, 1895; Le Trésor des Humbles, 1896; Douze Chansons, 1896; Aglavaine et Sélysette, 1896; La Sagesse et la Destinée, 1898; Théâtre, 1901 (3 vols.); La Vie des Abeilles, 1901; Monna Vanna, 1902; Le Temple Enseveli, 1902; Joyzelle, 1903; Le Double Jardin, 1904; L'Intelligence des Fleurs, 1907.

M. Maeterlinck has had the good or bad fortune to be more promptly, and more violently, praised at the beginning of his career than at all events any other writer of whom I have spoken in this volume. His fame in France was made by a flaming article of M. Octave Mirbeau in the Figaro of August 24, 1890. M. Mirbeau greeted him as the "Belgian Shakepeare," and expressed his opinion of La Princesse Maleine by saying "M. Maeterlinck has given us the greatest work of genius that has been produced in our time, and the most extraordinary and the most naïve too, comparable (dare I say?) superior in beauty to what is most beautiful in Shakespeare ... more tragic than Macbeth, more extraordinary in thought than Hamlet." Mr. William Archer introduced M. Maeterlinck to England in an article called "A Pessimist Playwright" in the Fortnightly Review, September, 1891. Less enthusiastic than M. Mirbeau, he defined the author of La Princesse Maleine as "a Webster who had read Alfred de Musset." A freely adapted version of L'Intruse was given by Mr. Tree at the Haymarket Theatre, January 27, 1892, and since that time many of M. Maeterlinck's plays have been acted, without cuts, or with but few cuts, at various London theatres. Several of his books have also been translated into English: The Princesse Maleine (by Gerard Harry) and The Intruder (by William Wilson), 1892; Pelléas and Mélisande and The Sightless (by Laurence Alma-Tadema), 1892; Ruysbroeck and the Mystics (by J. T. Stoddart), 1894; The Treasure of the Humble (by A. Sutro), 1897; Aglavaine and Sélysette (by A. Sutro), 1897; Wisdom and Destiny (by A. Sutro), 1898; Alladine and Palomides (by A. Sutro), Interior (by William Archer), and The Death of Tintagiles (by A. Sutro), 1899.

I have spoken, in this volume, chiefly of Maeterlinck's essays, and but little of his plays, and I have said all that I had to say without special reference to the second volume of essays, La Sagesse et la Destinée. Like Le Trésor des Humbles, that book is a message, a doctrine, even more than it is a piece of literature. It is a treatise on wisdom and happiness, on the search for happiness because it is wisdom, not for wisdom because it is happiness. It is a book of patient and resigned philosophy, a very Flemish philosophy, more resigned than even Le Trésor des Humbles. In a sense it seems to aim less high. An ecstatic mysticism has given way to a kind of prudence. Is this coming nearer to the earth really an intellectual ascent or descent? At least it is a divergence, and it probably indicates a divergence in art as well as in meditation. Yet, while it is quite possible to at least indicate Maeterlinck's position as a philosopher, it seems to me premature to attempt to define his position as a dramatist. Interesting as his dramatic work has always been, there is, in the later dramas, so singular an advance in all the qualities that go to make great art, that I find it impossible at this stage of his development, to treat his dramatic work as in any sense the final expression of a personality. What the next stage of his development may be it is impossible to say. He will not write more beautiful dramas than he has written in Aglavaine et Sélysette and in Pelléas et Mêlisande. But he may, and he probably will, write something which will move the general world more profoundly, touching it more closely, in the manner of the great writers, in whom beauty has not been more beautiful than in writers less great, but has come to men with a more splendid energy.

TRANSLATIONS

From Stéphane Mallarmé

I. HÉRODIADE Herodiade. To mine own self I am a wilderness. You know it, amethyst gardens numberless Enfolded in the flaming, subtle deep, Strange gold, that through the red earth's heavy sleep Has cherished ancient brightness like a dream, Stones whence mine eyes, pure jewels, have their gleam Of icy and melodious radiance, you, Metals, which into my young tresses drew A fatal splendour and their manifold grace! Thou, woman, born into these evil days Disastrous to the cavern sibylline, Who speakest, prophesying not of one divine, But of a mortal, if from that close sheath, My robes, rustle the wild enchanted breath In the white quiver of my nakedness, In the warm air of summer, O prophetess, (And woman's body obeys that ancient claim) Behold me in my shivering starry shame, I die! The horror of my virginity Delights me, and I would envelop me In the terror of my tresses, that, by night, Inviolate reptile, I might feel the white And glimmering radiance of thy frozen fire, Thou that art chaste and diest of desire, White night of ice and of the cruel snow! Eternal sister, my lone sister, lo My dreams uplifted before thee! now, apart, So rare a crystal is my dreaming heart, I live in a monotonous land alone, And all about me lives but in mine own Image, the idolatrous mirror of my pride, Mirroring this Hérodiade diamond-eyed. I am indeed alone, O charm and curse! Nurse. O lady, would you die then? Herodiade. No, poor nurse; Be calm, and leave me; prithee, pardon me, But, ere thou go, close to the casement; see How the seraphical blue in the dim glass smiles, But I abhor the blue of the sky! Yet miles On miles of rocking waves! Know'st not a land Where, in the pestilent sky, men see the hand Of Venus, and her shadow in dark leaves? Thither I go. Light thou the wax that grieves In the swift flame, and sheds an alien tear Over the vain gold; wilt not say in mere Childishness? Nurse. Now? Herodiade. Farewell. You lie, O flower Of these chill lips! I wait the unknown hour, Or, deaf to your crying and that hour supreme, Utter the lamentation of the dream Of childhood seeing fall apart in sighs The icy chaplet of its reveries. II. SIGH My soul, calm sister, towards thy brow, whereon scarce grieves An autumn strewn already with its russet leaves, And towards the wandering sky of thine angelic eyes, Mounts, as in melancholy gardens may arise Some faithful fountain sighing whitely towards the blue! Towards the blue pale and pure that sad October knew, When, in those depths, it mirrored languors infinité, And agonising leaves upon the waters white, Windily drifting, traced a furrow cold and dun, Where, in one long last ray, lingered the yellow sun. III. SEA-WIND The flesh is sad, alas! and all the books are read. Flight, only flight! I feel that birds are wild to tread The floor of unknown foam, and to attain the skies! Nought, neither ancient gardens mirrored in the eyes, Shall hold this heart that bathes in waters its delight, O nights! nor yet my waking lamp, whose lonely light Shadows the vacant paper, whiteness profits best, Nor the young wife who rocks her baby on her breast. I will depart! O steamer, swaying rope and spar, Lift anchor for exotic lands that lie afar! A weariness, outworn by cruel hopes, still clings To the last farewell handkerchief's last beckonings! And are not these, the masts inviting storms, not these That an awakening wind bends over wrecking seas, Lost, not a sail, a sail, a flowering isle, ere long? But, O my heart, hear thou, hear thou the sailors' song! IV. ANGUISH To-night I do not come to conquer thee, O Beast that dost the sins of the whole world bear, Nor with my kisses' weary misery Wake a sad tempest in thy wanton hair; It is that heavy and that dreamless sleep I ask of the close curtains of thy bed, Which, after all thy treacheries, folds thee deep, Who knowest oblivion better than the dead. For Vice, that gnaws with keener tooth than Time, Brands me as thee, of barren conquest proud; But while thou guardest in thy breast of stone A heart that fears no fang of any crime, I wander palely, haunted by my shroud, Fearing to die if I but sleep alone. From Paul Verlaine: Fêtes Galantes I. CLAIR DE LUNE Your soul is a sealed garden, and there go With masque and bergamasque fair companies Playing on lutes and dancing and as though Sad under their fantastic fripperies. Though they in minor keys go carolling Of love the conqueror and of life the boon They seem to doubt the happiness they sing And the song melts into the light of the moon, The sad light of the moon, so lovely fair That all the birds dream in the leafy shade And the slim fountains sob into the air Among the marble statues in the glade. II. PANTOMIME Pierrot, no sentimental swain, Washes a paté down again With furtive flagons, white and red. Cassandre, with demure content, Greets with a tear of sentiment His nephew disinherited. That blackguard of a Harlequin Pirouettes, and plots to win His Columbine that flits and flies. Columbine dreams, and starts to find A sad heart sighing in the wind, And in her heart a voice that sighs. III. SUR L'HERBE The Abbé wanders.—Marquis, now Set straight your periwig, and speak! —This Cyprus wine is heavenly, how Much less, Camargo, than your cheek! —My goddess ...—Do, mi, sol, la, si. —Abbé, such treason who'll forgive you? —May I die, ladies, if there be A star in heaven I will not give you! —I'd be my lady's lapdog; then ... —Shepherdess, kiss your shepherd soon, Shepherd, come kiss ...—Well, gentlemen? —Do, mi, so.—Hey, good-night, good moon! IV. L'ALLÉE As in the age of shepherd king and queen, Painted and frail amid her nodding bows, Under the sombre branches and between The green and mossy garden-ways she goes, With little mincing airs one keeps to pet A darling and provoking perroquet. Her long-trained robe is blue, the fan she holds With fluent fingers girt with heavy rings, So vaguely hints of vague erotic things That her eye smiles, musing among its folds. —Blonde too, a tiny nose, a rosy mouth, Artful as that sly patch that makes more sly, In her divine unconscious pride of youth, The slightly simpering sparkle of the eye. V. A LA PROMENADE The sky so pale, and the trees, such frail things, Seem as if smiling on our bright array That flits so light and gay upon the way With indolent airs and fluttering as of wings. The fountain wrinkles under a faint wind, And all the sifted sunlight falling through The lime-trees of the shadowy avenue Comes to us blue and shadowy-pale and thinned. Faultlessly fickle, and yet fond enough, With fonds hearts not too tender to be free, We wander whispering deliciously, And every lover leads a lady-love, Whose imperceptible and roguish hand Darts now and then a dainty tap, the lip Revenges on an extreme finger-tip, The tip of the left little finger, and, The deed being so excessive and uncouth, A duly freezing look deals punishment, That in the instant of the act is blent With a shy pity pouting in the mouth. VI. DANS LA GROTTE Stay, let me die, since I am true, For my distress will not delay, And the Hyrcanian tigress ravening for prey Is as a little lamb to you. Yes, here within, cruel Clymène, This steel which in how many wars How many a Cyrus slew, or Scipio, now prepares To end my life and end my pain. But nay, what need of steel have I To haste my passage to the shades? Did not Love pierce my heart, beyond all mortal aids, With the first arrow of your eye? VII. LES INGENUS High heels and long skirts intercepting them, So that, according to the wind or way, An ankle peeped and vanished as in play; And well we loved the malice of the game. Sometimes an insect with its jealous sting Some fair one's whiter neck disquieted, From which the gleams of sudden whiteness shed Met in our eyes a frolic welcoming. The stealthy autumn evening faded out, And the fair creatures dreaming by our side Words of such subtle savour to us sighed That since that time our souls tremble and doubt. VIII. CORTÈGE A silver-vested monkey trips And pirouettes before the face Of one who twists a kerchief's lace Between her well-gloved finger-tips. A little negro, a red elf, Carries her dropping train, and holds At arm's length all the heavy folds, Watching each fold displace itself. The monkey never lets his eyes Wander from the fair woman's breast, White wonder that to be possessed Would call a god out of the skies. Sometimes the little negro seems To lift his sumptuous burden up Higher than need be, in the hope Of seeing what all night he dreams. She goes by corridor and stair, Still to the insolent appeals Of her familiar animals Indifferent or unaware. IX. LES COQUILLAGES Each shell incrusted in the grot Where we two loved each other well An aspect of its own has got. The purple of a purple shell Is our souls' colour when they make Our burning heart's blood visible. This pallid shell affects to take Thy languors, when thy love-tired eyes Rebuke me for my mockery's sake. This counterfeits the harmonies Of thy pink ear, and this might be Thy plump short nape with rosy dyes. But one, among these, troubled me. X. EN PATINANT We were the victims, you and I, Madame, of mutual self deceits; And that which set our brains awry May well have been the summer heats. And the spring too, if I recall, Contributed to spoil our play, And yet its share, I think, was small In leading you and me astray. For air in springtime is so fresh That rose-buds Love has surely meant To match the roses of the flesh Have odours almost innocent; And even the lilies that outpour Their biting odours where the sun Is new in heaven, do but the more Enliven and enlighten one, So stealthily the zephyr blows A mocking breath that renders back The heart's rest and the soul's repose And the flower's aphrodisiac, And the five senses, peeping out, Take up their station at the feast, But, being by themselves, without Troubling the reason in the least. That was the time of azure skies, (Madame, do you remember it?) And sonnets to my lady's eyes, And cautious kisses not too sweet. Free from all passion's idle pother, Full of mere kindliness, how long, How well we liked not loved each other, Without one rapture or one wrong! Ah, happy hours! But summer came: Farewell, fresh breezes of the spring! A wind of pleasure like a flame Leapt on our senses wondering. Strange flowers, fair crimson-hearted flowers Poured their ripe odours over us, And evil voices of the hours Whispered above us in the boughs. We yielded to it all, ah me! What vertigo of fools held fast Our senses in its ecstasy Until the heat of summer passed? There were vain tears and vainer laughter, And hands indefinitely pressed, Moist sadnesses, and swoonings after, And what vague void within the breast? But autumn came to our relief, Its light grown cold, its gusts grown rough, Came to remind us, sharp and brief, That we had wantoned long enough, And led us quickly to recover The elegance demanded of Every quite irreproachable lover And every seemly lady-love. Now it is winter, and, alas, Our backers tremble for their stake; Already other sledges pass And leave us toiling in their wake. Put both your hands into your muff, Sit back, now, steady! off we go. Fanchon will tell us soon enough Whatever news there is to know. XI. FANTOCHES Scaramouche waves a threatening hand To Pulcinella, and they stand, Two shadows, black against the moon. The old doctor of Bologna pries For simples with impassive eyes, And mutters o'er a magic rune. The while his daughter, scarce half-dressed, Glides slyly 'neath the trees, in quest Of her bold pirate lover's sail; Her pirate from the Spanish main, Whose passion thrills her in the pain Of the loud languorous nightingale. XII. CYTHÈRE By favourable breezes fanned, A trellised harbour is at hand To shield us from the summer airs; The scent of roses, fainting sweet, Afloat upon the summer heat, Blends with the perfume that she wears. True to the promise her eyes gave, She ventures all, and her mouth rains A dainty fever through my veins; And, Love fulfilling all things, save Hunger, we 'scape, with sweets and ices, The folly of Love's sacrifices. XIII. EN BATEAU The shepherd's star with trembling glint Drops in black water; at the hint The pilot fumbles for his flint. Now is the time or never, sirs. No hand that wanders wisely errs: I touch a hand, and is it hers? The knightly Atys strikes the strings, And to the faithless Chloris flings A look that speaks of many things. The abbé has absolved again Eglé, the viscount all in vain Has given his hasty heart the rein. Meanwhile the moon is up and streams Upon the skiff that flies and seems To float upon a tide of dreams. XIV. LE FAUNE An aged faun of old red clay-Laughs from the grassy bowling-green, Foretelling doubtless some decay Of mortal moments so serene That lead us lightly on our way (Love's piteous pilgrims have we been!) To this last hour that runs away Dancing to the tambourine. XV. MANDOLINE The singers of serenades Whisper their faded vows Unto fair listening maids Under the singing boughs. Tircis, Aminte, are there, Clitandre has waited long, And Damis for many a fair Tyrant makes many a song. Their short vests, silken and bright, Their long pale silken trains, Their elegance of delight, Twine soft blue silken chains. And the mandolines and they, Faintlier breathing, swoon Into the rose and grey Ecstasy of the moon. XVI. A CLYMÈNE Mystical strains unheard, A song without a word, Dearest, because thine eyes, Pale as the skies, Because thy voice, remote As the far clouds that float Veiling for me the whole Heaven of the soul, Because the stately scent Of thy swan's whiteness, blent With the white lily's bloom Of thy perfume, Ah! because thy dear love, The music breathed above By angels halo-crowned, Odour and sound, Hath, in my subtle heart, With some mysterious art Transposed thy harmony, So let it be! XVII. LETTRE Far from your sight removed by thankless cares (The gods are witness when a lover swears) I languish and I die, Madame, as still My use is, which I punctually fulfil, And go, through heavy-hearted woes conveyed, Attended ever by your lovely shade, By day in thought, by night in dreams of hell, And day and night, Madame, adorable! So that at length my dwindling body lost In very soul, I too become a ghost, I too, and in the lamentable stress Of vain desires remembering happiness, Remembered kisses, now, alas, unfelt, My shadow shall into your shadow melt. Meanwhile, dearest, your most obedient slave. How does the sweet society behave, Thy cat, thy dog, thy parrot? and is she Still, as of old, the black-eyed Silvanie (I had loved black eyes if thine had not been blue) Who ogled me at moments, palsambleu! Thy tender friend and thy sweet confidant? One dream there is, Madame, long wont to haunt This too impatient heart: to pour the earth And all its treasures (of how little worth!) Before your feet as tokens of a love Equal to the most famous flames that move The hearts of men to conquer all but death. Cleopatra was less loved, yes, on my faith, By Antony or Cæsar than you are, Madame, by me, who truly would by far Out-do the deeds of Cæsar for a smile, O Cleopatra, queen of word and wile, Or, for a kiss, take flight with Antony With this, farewell, dear, and no more from me; How can the time it takes to read it, quite Be worth the trouble that it took to write? XVIII. LES INDOLENTS Bah! spite of Fate, that says us nay, Suppose we die together, eh? —A rare conclusion you discover —What's rare is good. Let us die so, Like lovers in Boccaccio. —Ha! ha! ha! you fantastic lover! —Nay, not fantastic. If you will, Fond, surely irreproachable. Suppose, then, that we die together? —Good sir, your jests are fitlier told Than when you speak of love or gold. Why speak at all, in this glad weather? Whereat, behold them once again, Tircis beside his Dorimène, Not far from two blithe rustic rovers, For some caprice of idle breath Deferring a delicious death. Ha! ha! ha! what fantastic lovers! XIX. COLUMBINE The foolish Leander, Cape-covered Cassander, And which Is Pierrot? 'tis he With the hop of a flea Leaps the ditch; And Harlequin who Rehearses anew His sly task, With his dress that's a wonder, And eyes shining under His mask; Mi, sol, mi, fa, do! How gaily they go, And they sing And they laugh and they twirl Round the feet of a girl Like the Spring, Whose eyes are as green As a cat's are, and keen As its claws, And her eyes without frown Bid all new-comers Down With your paws! On they go with the force Of the stars in their course, And the speed: O tell me toward what Disaster unthought, Without heed The implacable fair, A rose in her hair, Holding up Her skirts as she runs Leads this dance of the dunce And the dupe? XX. L'AMOUR PAR TERRE The other night a sudden wind laid low The Love, shooting an arrow at a mark, In the mysterious corner of the park, Whose smile disquieted us long ago. The wind has overthrown him, and above His scattered dust, how sad it is to spell The artist's name still faintly visible Upon the pedestal without its Love, How sad it is to see the pedestal Still standing! as in dream I seem to hear Prophetic voices whisper in my ear The lonely and despairing end of all. How sad it is! Why, even you have found A tear for it, although your frivolous eye Laughs at the gold and purple butterfly Poised on the piteous litter on the ground. XXI. EN SOURDINE Calm where twilight leaves have stilled With their shadow light and sound, Let our silent love be filled With a silence as profound. Let our ravished senses blend Heart and spirit, thine and mine, With vague languors that descend From the branches of the pine. Close thine eyes against the day, Fold thine arms across thy breast, And for ever turn away All desire of all but rest. Let the lulling breaths that pass In soft wrinkles at thy feet, Tossing all the tawny grass, This and only this repeat. And when solemn evening Dims the forest's dusky air, Then the nightingale shall sing The delight of our despair. XXII. COLLOQUE SENTIMENTAL In the old park, solitary and vast, Over the frozen ground two forms once passed. Their lips were languid and their eyes were dead, And hardly could be heard the words they said. In the old park, solitary and vast, Two ghosts once met to summon up the past. —Do you remember our old ecstasy? —Why would you bring it back again to me? —Do you still dream as you dreamed long ago? Does your heart beat to my heart's beating? —No. —Ah, those old days, what joys have those days seen When your lips met my lips!—It may have been. —How blue the sky was, and our hope how light! —Hope has flown helpless back into the night. They walked through weeds withered and grasses dead, And only the night heard the words they said. From Poèmes Saturniens I. SOLEILS COUCHANTS Pale dawn delicately Over earth has spun The sad melancholy Of the setting sun. Sad melancholy Brings oblivion In sad songs to me With the setting sun. And the strangest dreams, Dreams like suns that set On the banks of the streams, Ghost and glory met, To my sense it seems, Pass, and without let, Like great suns that set On the banks of streams. II. CHANSON D'AUTOMNE When a sighing begins In the violins Of the autumn-song, My heart is drowned In the slow sound Languorous and long. Pale as with pain, Breath fails me when The hour tolls deep. My thoughts recover The days that are over, And I weep. And I go Where the winds know, Broken and brief, To and fro, As the winds blow A dead leaf. III. FEMME ET CHATTE They were at play, she and her cat, And it was marvellous to mark The white paw and the white hand pat Each other in the deepening dark. The stealthy little lady hid Under her mittens' silken sheath Her deadly agate nails that thrid The silk-like dagger-points of death. The cat purred primly and drew in Her claws that were of steel filed thin: The devil was in it all the same. And in the boudoir, while a shout Of laughter in the air rang out, Four sparks of phosphor shone like flame. From La Bonne Chanson I The white moon sits And seems to brood Where a swift voice flits From each branch in the wood That the tree-tops cover.... O lover, my lover! The pool in the meadows Like a looking-glass Casts back the shadows That over it pass Of the willow-bower.... Let us dream: 'tis the hour.... A tender and vast Lull of content Like a cloud is cast From the firmament Where one planet is bright.... 'Tis the hour of delight. II The fireside, the lamp's little narrow light; The dream with head on hand, and the delight Of eyes that lose themselves in loving looks; The hour of steaming tea and of shut books; The solace to know evening almost gone; The dainty weariness of waiting on The nuptial shadow and night's softest bliss; Ah, it is this that without respite, this That without stay, my tender fancy seeks, Mad with the months and furious with the weeks. From Romances sans Paroles I 'Tis the ecstasy of repose, 'Tis love when tired lids close, 'Tis the wood's long shuddering In the embrace of the wind, 'Tis, where grey boughs are thinned, Little voices that sing. O fresh and frail is the sound That twitters above, around, Like the sweet tiny sigh That lies in the shaken grass; Or the sound when waters pass And the pebbles shrink and cry. What soul is this that complains Over the sleeping plains, And what is it that it saith? Is it mine, is it thine, This lowly hymn I divine In the warm night, low as a breath? II I divine, through the veil of a murmuring, The subtle contour of voices gone, And I see, in the glimmering lights that sing, The promise, pale love, of a future dawn. And my soul and my heart in trouble What are they but an eye that sees, As through a mist an eye sees double, Airs forgotten of songs like these? O to die of no other dying, Love, than this that computes the showers Of old hours and of new hours flying: O to die of the swing of the hours! III Tears in my heart that weeps, Like the rain upon the town. What drowsy languor steeps In tears my heart that weeps? O sweet sound of the rain On earth and on the roofs! For a heart's weary pain O the song of the rain! Vain tears, vain tears, my heart! What, none hath done thee wrong? Tears without reason start From my disheartened heart. This is the weariest woe, O heart, of love and hate Too weary, not to know Why thou hast all this woe. IV A frail hand in the rose-grey evening Kisses the shining keys that hardly stir, While, with the light, small flutter of a wing, And old song, like an old tired wanderer, Goes very softly, as if trembling, About the room long redolent of Her. What lullaby is this that comes again To dandle my poor being with its breath? What wouldst thou have of me, gay laughing strain? What hadst thou, desultory faint refrain That now into the garden to thy death Floatest through the half-opened window-pane? V O sad, sad was my soul, alas! For a woman, a woman's sake it was. I have had no comfort since that day, Although my heart went its way, Although my heart and my soul went From the woman into banishment. I have had no comfort since that day, Although my heart went its way. And my heart, being sore in me, Said to my soul: How can this be, How can this be or have been thus, This proud, sad banishment of us? My soul said to my heart: Do I Know what snare we are tangled by, Seeing that, banished, we know not whether We are divided or together? VI Wearily the plain's Endless length expands; The snow shines like grains Of the shifting sands. Light of day is none, Brazen is the sky; Overhead the moon Seems to live and die. Where the woods are seen, Grey the oak-trees lift Through the vaporous screen Like the clouds that drift. Light of day is none, Brazen is the sky; Overhead the moon Seems to live and die. Broken-winded crow, And you, lean wolves, when The sharp north-winds blow, What do you do then? Wearily the plain's Endless length expands; The snow shines like grains Of the shifting sands. VII There's a flight of green and red In the hurry of hills and rails, Through the shadowy twilight shed By the lamps as daylight pales. Dim gold light flushes to blood In humble hollows far down; Birds sing low from a wood Of barren trees without crown. Scarcely more to be felt Than that autumn is gone; Languors, lulled in me, melt In the still air's monotone. VIII. SPLEEN The roses were all red, The ivy was all black: Dear, if you turn your head, All my despairs come back. The sky was too blue, too kind, The sea too green, and the air Too calm: and I know in my mind I shall wake and not find you there. I am tired of the box-tree's shine And the holly's, that never will pass, And the plain's unending line, And of all but you, alas! IX. STREETS Dance the jig! I loved best her pretty eyes Clearer than stars in any skies, I loved her eyes for their dear lies. Dance the jig! And ah! the ways, the ways she had Of driving a poor lover mad: It made a man's heart sad and glad. Dance the jig! But now I find the old kisses shed From her flower-mouth a rarer red Now that her heart to mine is dead. Dance the jig! And I recall, now I recall Old days and hours, and ever shall, And that is best, and best of all. Dance the jig! From Jadis et Naguère I. ART POÉTIQUE Music first and foremost of all! Choose your measure of odd not even, Let it melt in the air of heaven, Pose not, poise not, but rise and fall. Choose your words, but think not whether Each to other of old belong: What so dear as the dim grey song Where clear and vague are joined together? 'Tis veils of beauty for beautiful eyes, 'Tis the trembling light of the naked noon, 'Tis a medley of blue and gold, the moon And stars in the cool of autumn skies. Let every shape of its shade be born; Colour, away! come to me, shade! Only of shade can the marriage be made Of dream with dream and of flute with horn. Shun the Point, lest death with it come, Unholy laughter and cruel wit (For the eyes of the angels weep at it) And all the garbage of scullery-scum. Take Eloquence, and wring the neck of him! You had better, by force, from time to time, Put a little sense in the head of Rhyme: If you watch him not, you will be at the beck of him. O, who shall tell us the wrongs of Rhyme? What witless savage or what deaf boy Has made for us this twopenny toy Whose bells ring hollow and out of time? Music always and music still! Let your verse be the wandering thing That flutters in flight from a soul on the wing Towards other skies at a new whim's will. Let your verse be the luck of the lure Afloat on the winds that at morning hint Of the odours of thyme and the savour of mint ... And all the rest is literature. II. MEZZETIN CHANTANT Go, and with never a care But the care to keep happiness! Crumple a silken dress And snatch a song in the air. Hear the moral of all the wise In a world where happy folly Is wiser than melancholy: Forget the hour as it flies! The one thing needful on earth, it Is not to be whimpering. Is life after all a thing Real enough to be worth it? From Sagesse I The little hands that once were mine, The hands I loved, the lovely hands, After the roadways and the strands, And realms and kingdoms once divine, And mortal loss of all that seems Lost with the old sad pagan things, Royal as in the days of kings The dear hands open to me dreams. Hands of dream, hands of holy flame Upon my soul in blessing laid, What is it that these hands have said That my soul hears and swoons to them? Is it a phantom, this pure sight Of mother's love made tenderer, Of spirit with spirit linked to share The mutual kinship of delight? Good sorrow, dear remorse, and ye, Blest dreams, O hands ordained of heaven To tell me if I am forgiven, Make but the sign that pardons me! II O my God, thou hast wounded me with love, Behold the wound, that is still vibrating, O my God, thou hast wounded me with love. O my God, thy fear hath fallen upon me, Behold the burn is there, and it throbs aloud, O my God, thy fear hath fallen upon me. O my God, I have known that all is vile And that thy glory hath stationed itself in me, O my God, I have known that all is vile. Drown my soul in floods, floods of thy wine, Mingle my life with the body of thy bread, Drown my soul in floods, floods of thy wine. Take my blood, that I have not poured out, Take my flesh, unworthy of suffering, Take my blood, that I have not poured out. Take my brow, that has only learned to blush, To be the footstool of thine adorable feet, Take my brow, that has only learned to blush. Take my hands, because they have laboured not For coals of fire and for rare frankincense, Take my hands, because they have laboured not. Take my heart, that has beaten for vain things, To throb under the thorns of Calvary, Take my heart that has beaten for vain things. Take my feet, frivolous travellers, That they may run to the crying of thy grace, Take my feet, frivolous travellers. Take my voice, a harsh and a lying noise, For the reproaches of thy Penitence, Take my voice, a harsh and a lying noise Take mine eyes, luminaries of deceit, That they may be extinguished in the tears of prayer, Take mine eyes, luminaries of deceit. Alas, thou, God of pardon and promises, What is the pit of mine ingratitude, Alas, thou, God of pardon and promises. God of terror and God of holiness, Alas, my sinfulness is a black abyss, God of terror and God of holiness. Thou, God of peace, of joy and delight, All my tears, all my ignorances, Thou, God of peace, of joy and delight. Thou, O God, knowest all this, all this, How poor I am, poorer than any man, Thou, O God, knowest all this, all this. And what I have, my God, I give to thee. III Slumber dark and deep Falls across my life; I will put to sleep Hope, desire, and strife. All things pass away, Good and evil seem To my soul to-day Nothing but a dream; I a cradle laid In a hollow cave, By a great hand swayed: Silence, like the grave. IV The body's sadness and the languor thereof Melt and bow me with pity till I could weep, Ah! when the dark hours break it down in sleep And the bedclothes score the skin and the hot hands move; Alert for a little with the fever of day, Damp still with the heavy sweat of the night that has thinned, Like a bird that trembles on a roof in the wind: And the feet that are sorrowful because of the way, And the breast that a hand has scarred with a double blow, And the mouth that as an open wound is red, And the flesh that shivers and is a painted show, And the eyes, poor eyes so lovely with tears unshed For the sorrow of seeing this also over and done: Sad body, how weak and how punished under the sun! V Fairer is the sea Than the minster high, Faithful nurse is she, And last lullaby, And the Virgin prays Over the sea's ways. Gifts of grief and guerdons From her bounty come, And I hear her pardons Chide her angers home; Nothing in her is Unforgivingness. She is piteous, She the perilous! Friendly things to us The wave sings to us: You whose hope is past, Here is peace at last. And beneath the skies, Brighter-hued than they, She has azure dyes, Rose and green and grey. Better is the sea Than all fair things or we. From Parallèlement: IMPRESSION FAUSSE Little lady mouse, Black upon the grey of light; Little lady mouse, Grey upon the night. Now they ring the bell, All good prisoners slumber deep; Now they ring the bell, Nothing now but sleep. Only pleasant dreams, Love's enough for thinking of; Only pleasant dreams, Long live love! Moonlight over all, Someone snoring heavily; Moonlight over all In reality. Now there comes a cloud, It is dark as midnight here; Now there comes a cloud, Dawn begins to peer. Little lady mouse, Rosy in a ray of blue, Little lady mouse: Up now, all of you! From Chansons pour Elle You believe that there may be Luck in strangers in the tea: I believe only in your eyes. You believe in fairy-tales, Days one wins and days one fails: I believe only in your lies. You believe in heavenly powers, In some saint to whom one prays Or in some Ave that one says. I believe only in the hours, Coloured with the rosy lights You rain for me on sleepless nights. And so firmly I receive These for truth, that I believe That only for your sake I live. From Epigrammes When we go together, if I may see her again, Into the dark wood and the rain; When we are drunken with air and the sun's delight At the brink of the river of light; When we are homeless at last, for a moment's space Without city or abiding-place; And if the slow good-will of the world still seem To cradle us in a dream; Then, let us sleep the last sleep with no leave-taking, And God will see to the waking.