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 thePall Mall Gazettein 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 theChoix de Poésiesthere 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 theDédicaces, 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 theConfessions,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. TheHommes d'Aujourd'huicontains 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 inImpressions and Opinions,1891, was the first that was written on Verlaine in England; my own article in theNational Reviewin 1892 was, I believe, the first detailed study of the whole of his work up to that date. At last, in theVie 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 calledVerlaine 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 dedicatedLes Mémoires d'un Veufto 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 Noirde 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 thePoèmes 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" (asalonwhich 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 thesalonof Madame Ricard. It is not generally known that Verlaine'sPoèmes Saturnienswas 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 withLa 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 ofSagesseis not the less genuine because that grave and sacred book was followed by the revolt ofParallèment.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. Thisnaïveté,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 thenaïvetêwas 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 calledInvectives,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.
(1848-1907)
LeDrageoir 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; LaCathédrale,1898;La Bièvre Saint-Séverin,1898; PagesCatholiques,1900; SainteLydwine de Schiedam,1901; De Tout, 1902; L'Oblat, 1903; TroisPrimitifs,1905; Les Foules deLourdes,1906; See also the short story,Sac au Dos,in theSoirées de Médan,1880, and the pantomime,Pierrot Sceptique,1881, in collaboration with Léon Hennique.En Routewas translated into English by Mr. Kegan Paul, in 1896; andLa Cathédraleby Miss Clara Bell, in 1898.
(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, andLettres de Jean-Arthur Rimbaud,1899; Paul Verlaine,Les Poètes Maudits,1884, and the biography by Verlaine inLes Hommes d'Aujourd'hui.Mr. George Moore was the first to write about Rimbaud in England, in "Two Unknown Poets" (Rimbaud and Laforgue) inImpressions and Opinions,1891. In Mr. John Gray'sSilverpoints,1893, there are translations of "Charleville" and "Sensation." The latter, and "Les Chercheuses de Poux," are translated by Mr. T. Sturge Moore inThe Vinedresser, and other Poems,1899.
(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, containingDes Fleurs de Bonne Volonté, Le Concile Féerique,andDerniers Vers); Poésies Complètes,1894;Œuvres Complètes, Poésies, Moralités Légendaires, Mélanges Posthumes(3 vols.), 1902, 1903.
An edition of theMoralités Légendaireswas 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.
(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 theFigaroof August 24, 1890. M. Mirbeau greeted him as the "Belgian Shakepeare," and expressed his opinion ofLa Princesse Maleineby 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 thanMacbeth,more extraordinary in thought thanHamlet."Mr. William Archer introduced M. Maeterlinck to England in an article called "A Pessimist Playwright" in theFortnightly Review,September, 1891. Less enthusiastic than M. Mirbeau, he defined the author ofLa Princesse Maleineas "a Webster who had read Alfred de Musset." A freely adapted version ofL'Intrusewas 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) andThe Intruder(by William Wilson), 1892;Pelléas and MélisandeandThe 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), andThe 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.LikeLe 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 evenLe 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 inAglavaine et Sélysetteand inPelléas 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.
From Stéphane Mallarmé
I. HÉRODIADEHerodiade.To mine own self I am a wilderness.You know it, amethyst gardens numberlessEnfolded in the flaming, subtle deep,Strange gold, that through the red earth's heavy sleepHas cherished ancient brightness like a dream,Stones whence mine eyes, pure jewels, have their gleamOf icy and melodious radiance, you,Metals, which into my young tresses drewA fatal splendour and their manifold grace!Thou, woman, born into these evil daysDisastrous 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 breathIn 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 virginityDelights me, and I would envelop meIn the terror of my tresses, that, by night,Inviolate reptile, I might feel the whiteAnd 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, loMy 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 ownImage, 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; seeHow the seraphical blue in the dim glass smiles,But I abhor the blue of the sky! Yet milesOn miles of rocking waves! Know'st not a landWhere, in the pestilent sky, men see the handOf Venus, and her shadow in dark leaves?Thither I go.Light thou the wax that grievesIn the swift flame, and sheds an alien tearOver the vain gold; wilt not say in mereChildishness?Nurse.Now?Herodiade.Farewell. You lie, O flowerOf these chill lips!I wait the unknown hour,Or, deaf to your crying and that hour supreme,Utter the lamentation of the dreamOf childhood seeing fall apart in sighsThe icy chaplet of its reveries.II. SIGHMy soul, calm sister, towards thy brow, whereon scarce grievesAn autumn strewn already with its russet leaves,And towards the wandering sky of thine angelic eyes,Mounts, as in melancholy gardens may ariseSome 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-WINDThe flesh is sad, alas! and all the books are read.Flight, only flight! I feel that birds are wild to treadThe 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 lightShadows 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 clingsTo the last farewell handkerchief's last beckonings!And are not these, the masts inviting storms, not theseThat 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. ANGUISHTo-night I do not come to conquer thee,O Beast that dost the sins of the whole world bear,Nor with my kisses' weary miseryWake a sad tempest in thy wanton hair;It is that heavy and that dreamless sleepI 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 stoneA 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 GalantesI. CLAIR DE LUNEYour soul is a sealed garden, and there goWith masque and bergamasque fair companiesPlaying on lutes and dancing and as thoughSad under their fantastic fripperies.Though they in minor keys go carollingOf love the conqueror and of life the boonThey seem to doubt the happiness they singAnd the song melts into the light of the moon,The sad light of the moon, so lovely fairThat all the birds dream in the leafy shadeAnd the slim fountains sob into the airAmong the marble statues in the glade.II. PANTOMIMEPierrot, no sentimental swain,Washes a paté down againWith furtive flagons, white and red.Cassandre, with demure content,Greets with a tear of sentimentHis nephew disinherited.That blackguard of a HarlequinPirouettes, and plots to winHis Columbine that flits and flies.Columbine dreams, and starts to findA sad heart sighing in the wind,And in her heart a voice that sighs.III. SUR L'HERBEThe Abbé wanders.—Marquis, nowSet straight your periwig, and speak!—This Cyprus wine is heavenly, howMuch 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 beA 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'ALLÉEAs in the age of shepherd king and queen,Painted and frail amid her nodding bows,Under the sombre branches and betweenThe green and mossy garden-ways she goes,With little mincing airs one keeps to petA darling and provoking perroquet.Her long-trained robe is blue, the fan she holdsWith fluent fingers girt with heavy rings,So vaguely hints of vague erotic thingsThat 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 PROMENADEThe sky so pale, and the trees, such frail things,Seem as if smiling on our bright arrayThat flits so light and gay upon the wayWith indolent airs and fluttering as of wings.The fountain wrinkles under a faint wind,And all the sifted sunlight falling throughThe lime-trees of the shadowy avenueComes 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 handDarts now and then a dainty tap, the lipRevenges 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 blentWith a shy pity pouting in the mouth.VI. DANS LA GROTTEStay, let me die, since I am true,For my distress will not delay,And the Hyrcanian tigress ravening for preyIs as a little lamb to you.Yes, here within, cruel Clymène,This steel which in how many warsHow many a Cyrus slew, or Scipio, now preparesTo end my life and end my pain.But nay, what need of steel have ITo 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 INGENUSHigh 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 stingSome fair one's whiter neck disquieted,From which the gleams of sudden whiteness shedMet in our eyes a frolic welcoming.The stealthy autumn evening faded out,And the fair creatures dreaming by our sideWords of such subtle savour to us sighedThat since that time our souls tremble and doubt.VIII. CORTÈGEA silver-vested monkey tripsAnd pirouettes before the faceOf one who twists a kerchief's laceBetween her well-gloved finger-tips.A little negro, a red elf,Carries her dropping train, and holdsAt arm's length all the heavy folds,Watching each fold displace itself.The monkey never lets his eyesWander from the fair woman's breast,White wonder that to be possessedWould call a god out of the skies.Sometimes the little negro seemsTo lift his sumptuous burden upHigher than need be, in the hopeOf seeing what all night he dreams.She goes by corridor and stair,Still to the insolent appealsOf her familiar animalsIndifferent or unaware.IX. LES COQUILLAGESEach shell incrusted in the grotWhere we two loved each other wellAn aspect of its own has got.The purple of a purple shellIs our souls' colour when they makeOur burning heart's blood visible.This pallid shell affects to takeThy languors, when thy love-tired eyesRebuke me for my mockery's sake.This counterfeits the harmoniesOf thy pink ear, and this might beThy plump short nape with rosy dyes.But one, among these, troubled me.X. EN PATINANTWe were the victims, you and I,Madame, of mutual self deceits;And that which set our brains awryMay 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 smallIn leading you and me astray.For air in springtime is so freshThat rose-buds Love has surely meantTo match the roses of the fleshHave odours almost innocent;And even the lilies that outpourTheir biting odours where the sunIs new in heaven, do but the moreEnliven and enlighten one,So stealthily the zephyr blowsA mocking breath that renders backThe heart's rest and the soul's reposeAnd the flower's aphrodisiac,And the five senses, peeping out,Take up their station at the feast,But, being by themselves, withoutTroubling 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 flameLeapt on our senses wondering.Strange flowers, fair crimson-hearted flowersPoured their ripe odours over us,And evil voices of the hoursWhispered above us in the boughs.We yielded to it all, ah me!What vertigo of fools held fastOur senses in its ecstasyUntil 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 recoverThe elegance demanded ofEvery quite irreproachable loverAnd every seemly lady-love.Now it is winter, and, alas,Our backers tremble for their stake;Already other sledges passAnd 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 enoughWhatever news there is to know.XI. FANTOCHESScaramouche waves a threatening handTo Pulcinella, and they stand,Two shadows, black against the moon.The old doctor of Bologna priesFor simples with impassive eyes,And mutters o'er a magic rune.The while his daughter, scarce half-dressed,Glides slyly 'neath the trees, in questOf her bold pirate lover's sail;Her pirate from the Spanish main,Whose passion thrills her in the painOf the loud languorous nightingale.XII. CYTHÈREBy favourable breezes fanned,A trellised harbour is at handTo 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 rainsA dainty fever through my veins;And, Love fulfilling all things, saveHunger, we 'scape, with sweets and ices,The folly of Love's sacrifices.XIII. EN BATEAUThe shepherd's star with trembling glintDrops in black water; at the hintThe 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 flingsA look that speaks of many things.The abbé has absolved againEglé, the viscount all in vainHas given his hasty heart the rein.Meanwhile the moon is up and streamsUpon the skiff that flies and seemsTo float upon a tide of dreams.XIV. LE FAUNEAn aged faun of old red clay-Laughsfrom the grassy bowling-green,Foretelling doubtless some decayOf mortal moments so sereneThat lead us lightly on our way(Love's piteous pilgrims have we been!)To this last hour that runs awayDancing to the tambourine.XV. MANDOLINEThe singers of serenadesWhisper their faded vowsUnto fair listening maidsUnder the singing boughs.Tircis, Aminte, are there,Clitandre has waited long,And Damis for many a fairTyrant 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, swoonInto the rose and greyEcstasy of the moon.XVI. A CLYMÈNEMystical strains unheard,A song without a word,Dearest, because thine eyes,Pale as the skies,Because thy voice, remoteAs the far clouds that floatVeiling for me the wholeHeaven of the soul,Because the stately scentOf thy swan's whiteness, blentWith the white lily's bloomOf thy perfume,Ah! because thy dear love,The music breathed aboveBy angels halo-crowned,Odour and sound,Hath, in my subtle heart,With some mysterious artTransposed thy harmony,So let it be!XVII. LETTREFar from your sight removed by thankless cares(The gods are witness when a lover swears)I languish and I die, Madame, as stillMy 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 lostIn very soul, I too become a ghost,I too, and in the lamentable stressOf 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 sheStill, 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 hauntThis too impatient heart: to pour the earthAnd all its treasures (of how little worth!)Before your feet as tokens of a loveEqual to the most famous flames that moveThe 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 farOut-do the deeds of Cæsar for a smile,O Cleopatra, queen of word and wile,Or, for a kiss, take flight with AntonyWith this, farewell, dear, and no more from me;How can the time it takes to read it, quiteBe worth the trouble that it took to write?XVIII. LES INDOLENTSBah! 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 toldThan 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 breathDeferring a delicious death.Ha! ha! ha! what fantastic lovers!XIX. COLUMBINEThe foolish Leander,Cape-covered Cassander,And whichIs Pierrot? 'tis heWith the hop of a fleaLeaps the ditch;And Harlequin whoRehearses anewHis sly task,With his dress that's a wonder,And eyes shining underHis mask;Mi, sol, mi, fa, do!How gaily they go,And they singAnd they laugh and they twirlRound the feet of a girlLike the Spring,Whose eyes are as greenAs a cat's are, and keenAs its claws,And her eyes without frownBid all new-comers DownWith your paws!On they go with the forceOf the stars in their course,And the speed:O tell me toward whatDisaster unthought,Without heedThe implacable fair,A rose in her hair,Holding upHer skirts as she runsLeads this dance of the dunceAnd the dupe?XX. L'AMOUR PAR TERREThe other night a sudden wind laid lowThe 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 aboveHis scattered dust, how sad it is to spellThe artist's name still faintly visibleUpon the pedestal without its Love,How sad it is to see the pedestalStill standing! as in dream I seem to hearProphetic voices whisper in my earThe lonely and despairing end of all.How sad it is! Why, even you have foundA tear for it, although your frivolous eyeLaughs at the gold and purple butterflyPoised on the piteous litter on the ground.XXI. EN SOURDINECalm where twilight leaves have stilledWith their shadow light and sound,Let our silent love be filledWith a silence as profound.Let our ravished senses blendHeart and spirit, thine and mine,With vague languors that descendFrom the branches of the pine.Close thine eyes against the day,Fold thine arms across thy breast,And for ever turn awayAll desire of all but rest.Let the lulling breaths that passIn soft wrinkles at thy feet,Tossing all the tawny grass,This and only this repeat.And when solemn eveningDims the forest's dusky air,Then the nightingale shall singThe delight of our despair.XXII. COLLOQUE SENTIMENTALIn 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 seenWhen 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 SaturniensI. SOLEILS COUCHANTSPale dawn delicatelyOver earth has spunThe sad melancholyOf the setting sun.Sad melancholyBrings oblivionIn sad songs to meWith the setting sun.And the strangest dreams,Dreams like suns that setOn the banks of the streams,Ghost and glory met,To my sense it seems,Pass, and without let,Like great suns that setOn the banks of streams.II. CHANSON D'AUTOMNEWhen a sighing beginsIn the violinsOf the autumn-song,My heart is drownedIn the slow soundLanguorous and long.Pale as with pain,Breath fails me whenThe hour tolls deep.My thoughts recoverThe days that are over,And I weep.And I goWhere the winds know,Broken and brief,To and fro,As the winds blowA dead leaf.III. FEMME ET CHATTEThey were at play, she and her cat,And it was marvellous to markThe white paw and the white hand patEach other in the deepening dark.The stealthy little lady hidUnder her mittens' silken sheathHer deadly agate nails that thridThe silk-like dagger-points of death.The cat purred primly and drew inHer claws that were of steel filed thin:The devil was in it all the same.And in the boudoir, while a shoutOf laughter in the air rang out,Four sparks of phosphor shone like flame.From La Bonne ChansonIThe white moon sitsAnd seems to broodWhere a swift voice flitsFrom each branch in the woodThat the tree-tops cover....O lover, my lover!The pool in the meadowsLike a looking-glassCasts back the shadowsThat over it passOf the willow-bower....Let us dream: 'tis the hour....A tender and vastLull of contentLike a cloud is castFrom the firmamentWhere one planet is bright....'Tis the hour of delight.IIThe fireside, the lamp's little narrow light;The dream with head on hand, and the delightOf 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 onThe nuptial shadow and night's softest bliss;Ah, it is this that without respite, thisThat without stay, my tender fancy seeks,Mad with the months and furious with the weeks.From Romances sans ParolesI'Tis the ecstasy of repose,'Tis love when tired lids close,'Tis the wood's long shudderingIn the embrace of the wind,'Tis, where grey boughs are thinned,Little voices that sing.O fresh and frail is the soundThat twitters above, around,Like the sweet tiny sighThat lies in the shaken grass;Or the sound when waters passAnd the pebbles shrink and cry.What soul is this that complainsOver the sleeping plains,And what is it that it saith?Is it mine, is it thine,This lowly hymn I divineIn the warm night, low as a breath?III 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 troubleWhat 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 showersOf old hours and of new hours flying:O to die of the swing of the hours!IIITears in my heart that weeps,Like the rain upon the town.What drowsy languor steepsIn tears my heart that weeps?O sweet sound of the rainOn earth and on the roofs!For a heart's weary painO the song of the rain!Vain tears, vain tears, my heart!What, none hath done thee wrong?Tears without reason startFrom my disheartened heart.This is the weariest woe,O heart, of love and hateToo weary, not to knowWhy thou hast all this woe.IVA frail hand in the rose-grey eveningKisses 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 againTo dandle my poor being with its breath?What wouldst thou have of me, gay laughing strain?What hadst thou, desultory faint refrainThat now into the garden to thy deathFloatest through the half-opened window-pane?VO 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 wentFrom 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 IKnow what snare we are tangled by,Seeing that, banished, we know not whetherWe are divided or together?VIWearily the plain'sEndless length expands;The snow shines like grainsOf the shifting sands.Light of day is none,Brazen is the sky;Overhead the moonSeems to live and die.Where the woods are seen,Grey the oak-trees liftThrough the vaporous screenLike the clouds that drift.Light of day is none,Brazen is the sky;Overhead the moonSeems to live and die.Broken-winded crow,And you, lean wolves, whenThe sharp north-winds blow,What do you do then?Wearily the plain'sEndless length expands;The snow shines like grainsOf the shifting sands.VIIThere's a flight of green and redIn the hurry of hills and rails,Through the shadowy twilight shedBy the lamps as daylight pales.Dim gold light flushes to bloodIn humble hollows far down;Birds sing low from a woodOf barren trees without crown.Scarcely more to be feltThan that autumn is gone;Languors, lulled in me, meltIn the still air's monotone.VIII. SPLEENThe 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 airToo calm: and I know in my mindI shall wake and not find you there.I am tired of the box-tree's shineAnd the holly's, that never will pass,And the plain's unending line,And of all but you, alas!IX. STREETSDance the jig!I loved best her pretty eyesClearer than stars in any skies,I loved her eyes for their dear lies.Dance the jig!And ah! the ways, the ways she hadOf driving a poor lover mad:It made a man's heart sad and glad.Dance the jig!But now I find the old kisses shedFrom her flower-mouth a rarer redNow that her heart to mine is dead.Dance the jig!And I recall, now I recallOld days and hours, and ever shall,And that is best, and best of all.Dance the jig!From Jadis et NaguèreI. ART POÉTIQUEMusic 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 whetherEach to other of old belong:What so dear as the dim grey songWhere 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 moonAnd 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 madeOf 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 boyHas made for us this twopenny toyWhose bells ring hollow and out of time?Music always and music still!Let your verse be the wandering thingThat flutters in flight from a soul on the wingTowards other skies at a new whim's will.Let your verse be the luck of the lureAfloat on the winds that at morning hintOf the odours of thyme and the savour of mint ...And all the rest is literature.II. MEZZETIN CHANTANTGo, and with never a careBut the care to keep happiness!Crumple a silken dressAnd snatch a song in the air.Hear the moral of all the wiseIn a world where happy follyIs wiser than melancholy:Forget the hour as it flies!The one thing needful on earth, itIs not to be whimpering.Is life after all a thingReal enough to be worth it?From SagesseIThe 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 seemsLost with the old sad pagan things,Royal as in the days of kingsThe dear hands open to me dreams.Hands of dream, hands of holy flameUpon my soul in blessing laid,What is it that these hands have saidThat my soul hears and swoons to them?Is it a phantom, this pure sightOf mother's love made tenderer,Of spirit with spirit linked to shareThe mutual kinship of delight?Good sorrow, dear remorse, and ye,Blest dreams, O hands ordained of heavenTo tell me if I am forgiven,Make but the sign that pardons me!IIO 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 vileAnd 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 notFor 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 noiseTake 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.IIISlumber dark and deepFalls across my life;I will put to sleepHope, desire, and strife.All things pass away,Good and evil seemTo my soul to-dayNothing but a dream;I a cradle laidIn a hollow cave,By a great hand swayed:Silence, like the grave.IVThe body's sadness and the languor thereofMelt and bow me with pity till I could weep,Ah! when the dark hours break it down in sleepAnd 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 unshedFor the sorrow of seeing this also over and done:Sad body, how weak and how punished under the sun!VFairer is the seaThan the minster high,Faithful nurse is she,And last lullaby,And the Virgin praysOver the sea's ways.Gifts of grief and guerdonsFrom her bounty come,And I hear her pardonsChide her angers home;Nothing in her isUnforgivingness.She is piteous,She the perilous!Friendly things to usThe 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 seaThan all fair things or we.From Parallèlement:IMPRESSION FAUSSELittle 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 allIn 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 ElleYou believe that there may beLuck 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 praysOr in some Ave that one says.I believe only in the hours,Coloured with the rosy lightsYou rain for me on sleepless nights.And so firmly I receiveThese for truth, that I believeThat only for your sake I live.From EpigrammesWhen 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 delightAt the brink of the river of light;When we are homeless at last, for a moment's spaceWithout city or abiding-place;And if the slow good-will of the world still seemTo cradle us in a dream;Then, let us sleep the last sleep with no leave-taking,And God will see to the waking.