STUDIES

IN

MODERN POETRY

By

the

same

Writer.

Saggi di letteratura ingtese. Bari, Laterza.

Nuovi saggi di letteratura inglese. Torino, Societa Editrice
Internazionale.

Studi sul Romanticismo inglese. Bari, Laterza.

Sulla lirica di A. Tennyson. Bari, Laterza.

Traduzioni dalla poesia anglosassone, con introduzione e note.

Bari, Laterza.

Le Poesie

di E. A. Poe, tradotte. Bari, Laterza.

Liriche scelte di Shelley e Keats con introduzione e

Bologna, Zanichelli.

commento.

STUDIES
IN

MODERN POETRY
BY

FEDERICO OLIVERO
Professor of English Literature in the University of Turin

HUMPHREY MILFORD
LONDON: Amen

Corner, E. C.

1921

4.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Turin

Printed by Vincenzo

Bona

- via
Ospedale,

(83101).

TO

ANNIBALE PASTORE
PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY

IN

THE UNIVERSITY OF TURIN

WITH DEEP AFFECTION

1^

4C-^8^2

CONTENTS
On

the

poems

of E. A.

Poe

The author's thanks are due

Lore,

to the

Editors of Poet

The Poetry Review, for kind permission

to

include in this book the studies which originally ap-

peared in

their periodicals

and

are here reprinted

with additions.

The essays on Foe and Swinburne have been published., in part, in Nuovi saggi di letteratura inglese.

On

the

In his essay

poems

of E.

A.

Poe,

on the poetic principle Poe defines the

'

art of verse as

the rhythmical creation of beauty ',

and finds its source in the human aspiration to supernal
loveliness. In The Raven, more than in any of his

poems, the form is direct in its appeal to the reader's

mind, in calling up before us the effulgence of another
world, in expressing that thirst for immortality, which
is the true essence of poetry. Here all is transformed
by the magic of art, and endowed with a wider meaning

and a deeper significance; we perceive that the bird

is a symbol of despair,
that the poet's eager questions

are not only suggested by his love for the lost Lenore,
but spring out of his heart's core as spiritual flowers

that they are indeed

aspiring to an eternal sun,
the utterance of his intense and ardent yearning for

everlasting

sublimity

beauty

life.

is

In this mystic transfiguration of reality,

attained

we

enjoy the pure ecstasy of

noble

in the sincere, perfect manifestation of a

The

forlorn melancholy at the beginning is graturned

into utter hopelessness, the hesitating
dually
questioning into violent imprecations, while the
soul.

sumptuous and
F.

Olivero.

quiet

room

is

transformed into a
I

sombre place

'

This change is
by horror haunted
about
means
of
subtle
of
modifications
by
brought

tone;

the

'.

themes

various

are

cleverly introduced,
giving the impression of exquisite melodies soaring
above the tumult of harsh discords. The faint whispering

of the sorrowful Past becomes almost inaudible in his

pensive loneliness and then rings the grim laughter

of despair, which, through some sorcery of the imagination, has taken the shape of an uncanny bird,
;

whose fiery eyes seem to burn in his inmost heart,

whose inexorable answers always disappoint his soul
yearning to be consoled, unwilling to yield. At the
sinister call the poet awakes from weariness to terror;
his mind shrinks shuddering from the dark gulf, while
bitter regrets, mournful remembrances come flocking
around him. Yet Hope still outlives the cruel trial;
out of the mystery of death the echo of the crystal
tinkHng of angelic harps still sweetens his obscure

agony. In his spiritual garden, where the roses of joy

have been thinned by the winter chill of grief, the

memory

of Lenore, not in the slumber of death, but

clothed in unearthly radiance,

still

shines, imperishably

beautiful; he may still dream in the grove of palms,

where the nepenthe offers him its dewy urn of forgetfulness. But at last the ethereal image, quivering like
the reflection of a water-lily in azure waters, begins
to fade the bright visage, around which his thoughts
rose in fragrant incense, disappears, as when a cloud
;

thickens over the

moon;

the seraphic strains die on

the

moaning breeze.
While in Ulalume and The Sleeper the
to weave the spell of verbal melody are
cealed, in

some

stanzas of The

Raven we

artifices

used

skilfully

con-

feel

perhaps

too conscious of the effort to produce musical effects

by means of the arrangement of rhymes and by the

we

use of alHteration;

are,

however, deeply impressed,

throughout the poem, by the weird, long-resounding

cadences, by the well-timed recurrence of the leading

themes and thek striking development. Moreover the

musical glamour is enhanced through the contrast
between the impassioned tone of the poet's questions,
remembrance and inti-

the delicate harmonies of sad

mate sorrow, and the abrupt, monotonous resonance of

the bird's answer. There is a parallel effect of violent
chiaroscuro in the colouring and illumination of the

the soft glow of the angelic visitation, the

vision of gleaming wings, of golden censers swung
by Seraphim, the radiant figure of Lenore, being
contrasted with the darkness of the stormy night, the

picture,

gloom of the Plutonian

shore. Likewise the celestial

splendour, the divine repose of

opposed to the motionless, fatal
the poet's soul

The main

'

shall

be

distant

'

lifted,

characteristics

are here revealed

'

Aidenn is
from
shadow
which
nevermore
'

of Poe's

artistic

his pathos, his terrors

temper
and hopes
;

the images with their visionary glow are representative

of his essential mood, in which a delicate melancholy
is

blended with an inexplicable awe.

Even more
vainly

subtly mystical
seeking release from

is

Ulalume.

painful

The

poet,

memories,

is

the winged sister

with Psyche,
wandering
of his dreams, the image of his soul,
through a
titanic forest, where hellish Powers are lurking beside
at night,

the shadows fall heavily on his heart as

on the withering, dew-drenched leaves whispering of

misty tarns

unattained happiness, of hopeless grief.

And now

the

growing radiance of an unknown star spreads a veil

of glimmering light over the skies the crystalline rays
flitting through the funereal branches pierce'the sombre
;

draperies woven by autumnal vapours, and seem to

trace a path leading to the ebony door of a sepulchre.
tries in

Psyche

vain to dissuade

him from the

lure

of the dismal place the poet yields to the sortilege,

and suddenly a remembrance dawns upon him once,
;

in this ancestral vault,

was

laid

by him the beautiful

Ulalume; no more the magnificence of dreams was

in her eyes, like a treasure under the waves of the
sea; the pallor of death overspread her pure features.
in this

Here,

end of

his brightest hopes, the

Ulalume
lyrics

ghoul-haunted woods, he had seen the

is

the

here, as in

beginning of his sorrow.

most technically perfect of Poe's

a sonata of Schumann, the mournful

repetends are woven into a fantastic rhapsody, a dark

arabesque of mystic loveliness; the all-pervading
harmony turns, as only music can do, his personal
grief into universal pathos, his pain into perfect beauty.
The witchery of fairy harps seems to ring in his lines

and

to allure

throbbing

him

despair, his heart's

rhythm of the incantation.

irresistibly

falling in with the

to

The

bizarre symbols compose a severe and strange

pattern around the central figure; the fiery river of

lava flowing from Mount Yaanek in ice-bound, hyperboreal regions is an emblem of passion burning in a

desolate

mind
'

scintillant

Astarte,

the

Death-star, the

'

sinfully

planet, arises with sibylline brilliancy over

the mist of confuse remembrances.

It is like entering
a buried world of sepulchral solemnity, of somptuous

charm, a world hardly known in art, except in Odilon

Redon's drawings, in De Quincey's Suspiria de Pro-

fundis or in Francis Thompson's Mistress of Vision.

There is a demoniac fascination in this underworld,
dimly lit by the bediamonded tiara of the Assyrian
queen of Love and Death. Far from the gaudy and
noisy life, the poet's soul, caught in the golden web
of dreams, builds a visionary universe out of rapturous
melodies, out of intoxicating perfumes of exotic spices;
the mysterious star glitters with the treacherous light
which plays in the hearts of malefic gems; Psyche,
the divine child,

is

weeping, powerless to

fight against

avenue leads to the

immemorial tomb, where sleep the dead shrouded in
purple and dusky gold, and around which the vamthe wicked spell;

the

cypress

pires are silently hovering.

In The Sleeper the author intended to immortalise

the vision of a fair lady lying in death's sweet and

conscious sleep, with a strange smile on her pale lips.

Every trace of earth has passed away, the storm of

life

is

over,

quenched
night.

the

the

sullen

conflagration of passion is
and silence of eternal

at last into the stillness

The

details of the wistful,

lake,

the

garden,

the

symbolic landscape,
crumbling tower,

attain a sort of supernatural loveliness in this sacred

peace. For all their sad and sombre tones, there is

a hidden ecstasy, as of unearthly bliss, in these lines.
The sense of immortality is only enhanced by the
hint at the fluttering, eerie

Shadows,

at the

worms

of

crawling about, vainly threatening the

incorruptible essence of the spirit.
The most ethereal figures depicted by Tennyson
seem to have nothing to tell beyond their message
corruption,

of dainty, ephemeral grace; like a passing day-dream

they do not linger in our memory, but soon dwindle

into faint gleaming clouds; on the contrary

a deep, inner meaning in the image evoked

an image conceived in the

everlasting beauty. Like a

fire

we

feel

by Poe,
of an ardent love for

face drawn by Fernand

and
Khnopff, her visage
strange, as of a creature beyond life, luminous in the atmosphere of
mystery and pathos created by the haunting melody
is

fair

among the fantastic surroundings of

entwined
subtly
symbols. The real world fades away
at the solemn music, and from the silver and violet
background of the moonlit night, the lady stands
of the verse,

out, like a mystic flower,

drooping

its

head

in

beauty

for ever.

The Conqueror

the
felt

melancholy
lure and

the

is

Worm

with a subject well

a spirit bent in sombre
mystery of the grave; it satisfies
requirements of a mind, which has

appropriate to the
meditation on the

made

deals

demands of

the

out

allegory
haunt the conscience of

bitterness of the world.

of

the

man

grandest

The

ideas which

unearthly Powers, passion,

and death; the argument of a morality-play is concentrated in the pithy lines of a lyric poem. Here
:

Death has no fascinating beauty, as in Leopardi's

we do not see in his eyes the peace of
e Morte
eternal skies, as in James Thomson's figuration. Here
the mystic side of death does not reveal itself to the

Amore

soul blinded

haunts

by sorrow; only his inevitable horror

mind to him death is not the
angel opening the golden doors of immor-

the

beautiful

poet's

but a monster, acting with the wild rush of a

poisonous snake.

tality,

The weird drama

to error, to

is

played by

men

driven to

sin,

madness by uncanny, powerful Shadows,

the

emblems of

no ray of hope

glimmer of

illusive

the

enfolding

hatred

love,
in

and terror

there

is

gloomy scene, not even the

beauty. And behind the clouds

the

an

stage

obscure

is

thing

lurking;

suddenly it rushes out, thirsting for human blood;

and no sooner has the monstrous adder chosen its
victim, that

darts to

him and buries

fangs in
his flesh
the crowd is rapidly destroyed by the dire
worm, the stage is splashed with blood, strewn with
it

its

bodies, ridged with heaps of corpses; the

with gore, writhes and writhes,
snake,
the last. And then the curtain
to
working destruction
falls down with thunder, hiding for ever the doomed

crumpled

now crimson

land of Man.

when

From this terrible image

be

shall

it

music

of the world,
out by the avenging flame,

burnt

the spheres dies away in mournful

echoes; the Seraphim, the eternal spectators, shim-

the

of

wings, arise aghast, and

the tragedy of human life

in their silvery

mering pale

proclaim that the play

is

and the hero the Conqueror Worm.

In this lyric
the song of Ligeia
a peculiar
grandeur is obtained not only through remoteness of
time and indefiniteness of space, as in Dreamland^

but through the vast scope of the allegory; there

nothing dimly shadowed

Sea\

all

is

tragic certainty in this

effect of the picture

scale

of

only

be

lyric is

of

life.

it

is

the

is

subject.

is

The City in the

world-drama. The

forth, as in

increased in proportion to the

difficulty of the task can

The

appreciated by considering how the short

made to hold the whole of Poe's conception

The

neither

metrical arrangement is simple and grave

a musical caprice, as The Bells^ nor a
;

rhapsody, as Ulalume\ the limpid melody, sustained

by the deep chords of the rhymes, flows rapidly on,

and the mournful cries of heart-rending pain wander
subtly through its harmony. The wild strains sink into
the inmost depths of the soul, awaking thrilling echoes,

augmenting

gradually

in

intensity,

until

worked out into the magnificent

cleverly
the close.

they are
climax of

While in The Sleeper it is not easy to devine at

once, under the thick web of symbolical images, the
inmost significance of the poem, we realise immediately .the meaning of the allegoric picture in The

Haunted

Palace.

Roderick Usher

The

'

'

object of the improvisation of

to praise the supreme Power which

is

endowed man with sublime spiritual faculties, with

noble beauty, and, at the same time, to lament the
has

darkened mind, the downfall of a divine

work. The healthy and vigorous condition of mind is
distress of a

of fine proportions, of stately

the
magnificence
glory of the image is brought into
forcible evidence by the contrast with the following

depicted as a palace
;

of

the

of

Castle

Madness, looming
through dark mists, its red windows glaring like rifts
of fire in the black walls. Although at a close examirepresentation

nation

we

find details of singular beauty,

gold of the
serene glow

hair

compared

of the

to golden

to

'

the glossy
banners, the

luminous

eyes
through which the wanderers saw

windows

',

moving musically,
a lute's well-tuned law,

Spirits

To

the general effect of clearness and directness is obtained

at the cost of suggestive power; as in a Byzantine
mosaic, the outlines are too rigid and symmetrical to

possess a deep aesthetic charm. Each symbolic feature

to reality; but poetical
is made to conform strictly

beauty is sacrificed in this restraint imposed by the

author on the vague manner of expression, mainly

founded on the fascination of music, which is his own

characteristic style. Here for once the wild luxuriance
of his imagination is checked by the preoccupation of
being precise; the result is a certain stiffness and

works of art.
Ulalume and Tke
Dreamland',
remembrance
emblems
of
are
Raven
driving the
The Conqueror Worm and The
soul to despair
City in the Sea are elaborate allegories of the invincible Power, which shall at last rule on the universe,
when the world withers into a shadow, and darkness rolling in from the dead silence of infinite space
this poem is a
blots out the abode of men
coldness, often found in allegoric

Symbolic too

is

symbol of the irrevocable Past, of the twilight realm

of imperishable memories, through which is wandering,
for ever lost, the desolate spirit.

The

lilies

trembling

on the brink of lonely pools, the trees twisted into

fantastic shapes, the convulsed seas, the solemn
mountains, the fiery skies, all these various images
blend into a single impression, suggesting a bizarre
country, a world beyond the world. Some of the details

burn with a dazzling glare the misty outline of others

vanish in the gloom there is an incessant motion in
;

the surging ocean, in the clouds; the monotony of

perpetual unrest pervades the uncanny landscape. And
in this secluded land, where we come borne on the

wings of an eerie music, where shrouded ghosts of

beloved friends are roaming in spectral forests, an idol
reigns, a dark idol on an ebony throne.

10

The graceful and dismal symbols brought in again

and again by the recurring couplets, by the selfrepeating movements of the rhythm, return in the
structure of the poem as soul-entangling patterns in
a magic arabesque. The arrangement of sounds is so

contrived as to weave a mournful and delicate dirge,

as to compose a music, which is like the mystic

chanting of waves breaking on an eternal shore.

Unlike some passages in A/ Aaraaf and Tamerlane,

which are

of

patchwork

brilliant,

images. The City in the Sea blends

a

majestic

the

whole;

traceries

but desultory

all its

details into

on the

walls, the

lintels, the open work of the spires,

the jewelled tombs, contribute to the austere grandeur
of the titanic town, the huge and fantastic cathedral

carvings on the

of Death.

Its

domes and minarets

numberless

are

mirrored in the glassy waves of the sea, beneath which

we descry
high,

There
seems

the lurid flare of the fires of Hell.

a sinister
is

island

lit

It rises

by the shimmering ocean.

something hieratic

in its architecture,

which

the styles; we are struck by

a barbaric splendour in its richness of gold and marble,
and by a Greek purity in the freezes, combining in
to partake of

dainty ornaments

'

all

the viol, the violet and the vine

'.

The

visionary city seems to take the reflection of the

sumptuous and horrid dream glowing in the poet's
heart, a dream in which the dreadful solemnity of
overlaid with the stately
Conqueror of all human greatness.

death

is

is

clad in imperial state

pomp

suiting the

The

ghastliness of
the weird town itself

corpses
like a royal corpse, swathed in gorgeous cerements,
;

is

waiting for

its

final

doom

in a

begemmed

vault.

The City in the Sea forms with Dreamland a mystic

II

but while in the latter a

diptych of the afterworld
sense of sadness is predominant, in the former we are
;

sway of nameless terror. Here it is the

realm of silence and immobility, pf utter stillness; and
yet there is anguish and fever in the clouds curling
upwards as coils of incense from invisible censers
under the

swung before

the dark idol; there

waves; and

in the

there

at last

is

a hidden anxiety
motion, or rather

is

the prefiguration of motion, of the instant

when, amid no earthly moans,

that town shall S(^ttle hence.

Down, down

Fairyland is a landscape seen by visionary eyes, a

refuge of peace for the weary soul, a dusky land
where we hardly descry cypress groves and grey
waterfalls on the misty hills; in the pale glimmer all

and silent, steeped in lethargic languor castles,

hamlets and forests, the haunts of fairy people, lie
deeply asleep in the magic light. It is a secluded
is still

valley in the country where the Castle of Indolence

of James Thomson raises its enchanted turrets; the

same

opiate atmosphere
heavy with drowsiness,
pervades the dale, rendered more fantastic by the
,

change of illumination according to the waxing and

waning of gigantic moons. In the introduction to the
the poet reveals to us how
to him by a moonbeam

first

draft

of

the

scene

was suggested

the

poem

playing through the rose-entwined bower, waking,

with its tinkling on the grass, dreamy echoes in
'

his

'

mind.

We

find in

The Valley of Unrest a scene of a quite

opposite character.
a

mind

distressed

Here Poe has drawn the image of

by unaccountable terrors, by a

feverish restlessness; silence

and peace never descend

into the forlorn dell, quivering, as a volcanic chasm,

with the turmoil of inner fires. The impression of

deepened by the perpetual motion of the

is

mystery

clouds, waters, trees, flowers

presences comes from

sensitive,

this

a suggestion of invisible
inexplicable agitation; a

melancholy soul seems to

of the scene

the shuddering

lilies

live in

every part

bend over the tombs

of everlasting sorrow
of
the
violets; the trees are
eyes
the
a
tale
of
waters palpitate as
despair,
whispering
the
clouds
rustle
and
with a bizarre
suffering hearts,
like ghostly

tears

memories;

glisten in the blue

murmuring, with heavy and long sighing and sobbing.

The only image

of rest

is

slanting sunbeams, lying

the red-gold light of the

drowsily on the trembling

flowers.

Should we compare

this lyric with the

prose-poem

we might

perceive at once that Poe has refined

on his former conception and found a new element

Silence,

of deeper

awe

in the absolute stillness of a

motionless

landscape.
In The Bells the poet does not

of

but

of

aim

at the

universal joys

expression

and

sorrows;
although he draws his inspiration from sweet or sombre
recollections of his own life, of his happy childhood,
his marriage, the premature death of his wife, yet he
is

individual,

rather thinking of the various vicissitudes of man,

of his time

when everything appears

AppareU'd

The

in celestial light,

glory and the freshness of a dream,

of the joy and peace of sacred love, of sudden dangers,

of the inevitable doom. The visions of infancy glitter

13
in the first stanza, while a fragrance of nuptial flowers

second strophe. He suggests

his thoughts by means of the different sound of bells,
as they tinkle at Christmas-tide under a sky all

seems

to breathe out of the

a-shiver with

the

ring with golden

trembling lamps of

harmony

stars,

as they

calling to festal rites, or

clang beneath fiery clouds, or clash in the Tower of

the Ghouls. The ghostly king is tolling in the steeple,
as

if

crown for Death to wear;

against which vainly dashes the

hammering an

in the

dark

iron

fortress,

yelling or imploring surge of

with

feverish,

proclaim that
shall

hurried

he rings the knell

as

strokes,

though eager to

come at last, when earth

white flame. The magnificent sym-

Doomsday

burn into a

life,

is

phonic arrangement of the lines gives a peculiar

fas-

cination to the complex, fantastic imagery the rushing

rhythm is quivering with intense fervour.
;

We
In

come now to poems of love and remembrance.

Annabel Lee the memory of a delicate girl, departed

from earth in youth and beauty, blossoms in the poet's

heart as a lonely lily, waving, slender and frail, on
the strand of the ocean. With trembling tenderness

and tears the poet weaves a garland of glimmering

flowers around the never-forgotten grave. A deep
emotion arises from this mournful lullaby, from its
deeply alive with intense pathos. The form
as in a folk-song,
expresses with a quaint naivete
the theme which is always haunting Poe's mind: the
death of beauty. The subtle shades of feeling are
lines

pointed

out

in

this

ballad

by changes of melody

contrived, and a striking eflect is obtained

by means of repetends, almost too persistent in their
frequent occurrence the tone of the chords rich and

skilfully

'

14
'

blends with a touching simpUcity of diction.

lamentation is woven out of the solemn images

Strange

The

of the sea, the sepulchre, the cold winds of death

and the pathos of the picture is deepened by the
twilight atmosphere darkening the desolate place.
In To One in Paradise the image of the departed,
;

radiant with eternal happiness, is contrasted with dark

the lonely
symbols of the poet's miserable life,

shore of a sombre sea, a grim hurricane blighting his

hopes, huding to the ground the proud eagles of his
songs.

The

wilderness, stretching far away about him,

to the breathless calm of immortal skies.

is

opposed
Sorrow has dimmed the

star of joy, for ever

pain,

a fiery lightning, has blasted the tree of life

but a
wind scatters the clouds, rends the heavy mist, and,
among the wreck of the storm floating slowly away,
;

affords

him glimpses of supernal

regions, where his

Damozel, waits for him

Beloved, like the Blessed

beside the glittering waters of musical

rivers, clothed

in a glory of silvery radiance.

mystic tenderness pervades the

poem To

Helen^

once only
The moon is
[I saw thee once
...].
a
an
opal light, raining
mystic influence on
shedding
the garden, where the lady is sitting among the crimson
glow of roses; hope shines in her eyes, and the poet
yields to the soothing

murmurous

magic of the balmy

leaves, singing in

an undertone,

air,

of the

lulling his

His heart awakens to a new happiness

as he stands on the threshold of the enchanted garden.
sorrow to

rest.

And now

the moon is setting; no more its beams

on the grass in pools of effulgent splendour;
and now, as a tune melts floating away on the wind,
sleep

the lady disappears

among

the

gloomy

trees.

Violets

15

are hidden in darkness, but the white figure

always present to his mind, upholding in the cup
of her woven fingers a deathless flame, shimmering

and

lilies

is

shadow under the

pure, beautiful
soul has set its seal upon the poet's heart; a change
is wrought in him for ever; the lake of Pain is changed

in the

into

flight

her

unwithering

eyes, like immortal stars, draw a

shivering light on the black waves, as if a

water-lilies

path

dark flowers into

silver, its

liquid

leafy roof.

of

of blessed Spirits had crossed them from end

Her eyes shine for ever
celestial gems

joy is born
no more Sorrow,
exalting Power, and the poet bows
to death, because he sees eternal

under the forest shades

Fate

of Hfe;

shadowy

The

to end.

shore.

lines

is

To

[Mrs.

out of the agony

but a clement,
with resignation

hopes beyond a

Marie Louise Shew]

'

Not

'

long ago, the writer ... look like a preliminary sketch

of the reverie To Helen
I
saw thee once...
'

'

both, however, were published in 1848. They reflect

with a dreamy grace the same blissful mood, the
soul-uplifting vision of a noble,

woman. Hope

discloses

to

the

pure, compassionate

poet an empurpled

perspective, where the radiant image, softened by a

luminous haze, by a floating veil of violet vapours,
rises, as

a guiding star in the solitary night of his

life.

To Helen [Helen, thy beauty...]

has carved as in an exquisite cameo a profile

In the short lyric

the artist

of Hellenic grace, a visage seen in that mystic slumber

reality ends and dream begins, where the

where

hardness and inequalities of matter are smoothed into

absolute perfection by a visionary light; a halo of
spiritual lustre

surrounds the shapely head.

We

have

i6

not in this

poem

the obvious ideal of loveUness evoked

lacking, in spite of its refined characterthe

ethereal
istics,
glory, which alone endows with a

by Tennyson,

perennial glamour a work of art; we have here a

portrait of more intimate beauty, more direct in its

We

appeal to our noblest faculties.

feel that at last a

beauty growing out of the purest recollections of life,

a beauty which evades definition and can only be
suggested by the inevitable charm of music, has been
rendered by a form carried to the point where outline,
colour and sentiment

become pure melody. The musical

element, however, is here subtly concealed under the

apparent ease of the versification, under the rhythm

quivering with the fervour of the inspiration.

While this little poem may be compared to an agate
intaglio and Annabel Lee to a memorial jewel of ivory

and

pale gems, Eulalie looks rather like a figure

outlined on the burning amethysts and topazes of a
stained-glass window, an apparition clothed in radiant
colours.

The clouds
as

appears

sorrow are broken, and she

momentary gleam of joy, her golden
of

beauty of her visage.

picture has not the hard metallic glitter of Moore's
Oriental descriptions, but the diaphanous prismatic

curls framing the smiling, pure

The

glow of Shelley's Epipsychidion or Mallarme's Sainte.

For Annie is perhaps superior in the musical arrangement of the lines; and yet, in spite of the living
melody flowing from stanza to stanza as a harmonious

on a marble bed, in spite of the vivid expression

of the unearthly bliss in which are now merged the
impassioned remembrances of the poet, the emotion

river

aroused

There

is
is

not so deep as

something

when Poe

artificial in

is

at his best.

the texture of the

17

strophes, there

is

a wearisome prolixity in the insistent

when the fairy music

recurrence of the repentends, and

we have no haunting feeUng

of beauty, as
or
Ulalume
The Sleeper.
Israjel remains, with Eulalie^ an exception in Poe's
sombre work; both poems are the utterance of an
is

over,

after reading

ecstatic joy. The bright spirit Israfel is the emblem

of the poet's delight in music, of the rapture which
certainly filled his heart while he was composing his

fascinating melodies. Here we see his longing after

the only kind of poetry apt to convey his dreams, a

intimately connected with music, as solely

through verbal harmonies could be realised his ideal
of aesthetic perfection. The lyric is also the expression

poetry

after a more luminous and jocund

from our mortal mornings grey ',
a
where
the
from
withdrawn
soul,
world,
earthly cares,
enjoys an infinite bliss. The red lightning, the moon,
the dancing stars weave a garland of light around the

of his yearning

world, far

'

symbol of perfect song, of the

which
harmony
transfigures reality, adding a mystic
beautiful angel, the

the

grace to passion, clothing

earth

with a veil of

ethereal splendour.

To

my Mother

earnest, sincere

Mrs.

is

a tribute of love, a token of his

affection

towards his mother-in-law,

native refinement and the

Clemm. Revealing the

spontaneous ardour of a thankful heart, the pensive

lines clothe with living music a deep and unchanging
tenderness for the noble soul, whose steady and
faithful support made it possible for the unhappy and

and work. The poem is

pervaded with a mystic feeling, which finds also utterance in the beautiful prayer, inserted in Morella Hymn^
self-absorbed artist

to

live

F.

Olivero.

t8

a prayer like a delicate illumination on the marge

of the sombre tale,
a brief lyric endowed with

pure energy of inspiration and religious fervour.

The address Jo
[Beloved amid the earnest
woes ...] expresses with exquisite phrasing, with penetrating

thought

melody,

of

thankfulness;

the

closing image, delicately shaped by his fancy, contrasting his stormy life with the radiance of an unalterable affection, shows the changeless serenity of love

above the troubled weariness of a

struggles

not

especially against
I heed not that

its

'

heart, torn

by

bitter

against the exterior world, but

wild inmost tendencies. The poem

only

my

earthly

lot...

',

a combination

of regret and sorrow,

makes its appeal through a
of
sense
pity touching with noble pathos the passionate
outburst; in its brevity it is a flawless accomplishment
and hardly wants further development. On the cons O
d (Frances Osgood)
trary the verses To F

'

Thou wouldst be loved

} ...'

are

a complimentary
likewise the lines

address of no great intrinsic value

The bowers whereat, in dreams, ...' interweaving dim
;

'

reveries and vague symbols, embodying uncertain

echoes of passion rather than well definite thoughts,
show few signs of his poetic faculty; a deep pathos

burns

in the simile:

Thine eyes,

in

Heaven of

heart enshrined,

Then

Godl

desolately fall,
on my funereal

mind

Like starlight on a pall;

but the conception

is

not adequately developed and

lacks a corresponding vigour of expression.

The delicate trifle
Valentine belongs,

as

An

19
to a lighter kind of poetry than any of Poe's
compositions, and, although it shows a remarkable

Enigma,

constructive

skill, it

is

enfeebled by the

artifice

which

making; both of them look like mere metexercises, vacuous and futile. In To the River

led to
rical

its

somewhat frivolous thought is wrought into a graceful image, and the fresh atmosphere is lit up with
a

a sense of gaiety, very rare in Poe.

In Stanzas the poet gives utterance for the
to his aspirations

after

\hat

spiritual

first

time

beauty which

pierces through matter he has by now trained his ear

to catch the leading strains in the vast symphony of
;

the world, and educated his eye to perceive a meaning

in the intricate pattern of lines and colours of the

An

feeHng of invisible presences

creeps over him while he is contemplating the changeful scenery; Nature's voice rouses an uncanny echo

landscape.

in his heart,

eerie

her inward splendour

haunts his mind.

vision of beauty

supernal, transcending sensible

a symbol and a token
of
forms, a vision which is
'

'

beyond mortal existence, dawns in his inmost

his forehead shall bend under the
an ecstasy of love
diadem of unearthly dreams
a

life

soul; henceforth

for eternal things shall bridge the time of his life

from

moment of this revelation to his death.

As regards the form, we notice in these lines the
more or less conscious adoption of a new manner of

the

expression,

but

far

full

of audacity in

its

naive

originality,

from perfect; notwithstanding the elaborate

craftsmanship, the phrase

is

still

elusive

the artist

emotions by means of a
thoroughly personal style, which, however, only conveys
a suggestion of his subtle conceptions. It is in Alone
strives to

impart

his

rare

20
that

we

find

representation of this unusual

vision of a soul enclosed

clear

state.

The

psychological
within the boundaries

of

utter loneliness

is

at

once

limited and sharpened, the sight sifting, so to say, the

impressions, and discarding the common, trivial sen-

most peculiar perseems

to
brood over the
ceptions.
mystic twilight
to
the
on
the
borderland between
world;
poet, living
Dream and Reality, Nature becomes a magic, living
sations in order to let in only the

temple, such

pondances

as

Baudelaire describes in his Corres-

La Nature

est

un temple

o\x

de vivants

piliers

Laissent parfois sortir de confuses paroles;

L'homme y passe a travers des forets de symboles

Qui I'observent avec des regards familiers.

The sunbeams

in the

wood

turn to dancing elves,

the ruddy gold of the autumnal foliage to the glowing

hair of fairies, flowers have human visages, and the

towering cloud becomes a threatening demon.

The appeal of a Medusaean beauty underlies the
subtle

poem

Silence

here

the

spiritual

landscape

beyond the bdlindaries of the world, to limits

which seem no more within the ken of man; here the
introspective mind of the poet instead of suggesting
stretches

a sense of dismal grandeur by shaping his feelings

into well-definite symbols, as he does in The City in
the Sea and Dreamland^ adopts a simple, direct ex-

pression

to

remembered

convey

an

abstract emotion, the long-

terror he has

experienced

in

his

wan-

derings through the realm of thought. According to

Poe there are two kinds of silence a material, finite
:

silence,

-- that of solitude

and death,

and an

;2i

the silence of unearthlyincorporeal, infinite one,

to
forbidden
mankind; they bear the same
places,

shadow, of the shore to the

of the body to the soul. The former

relation of a solid to

its

far-reaching sea,
dwells in desolate, secluded corners, in churchyards
haunted by sad memories, where the words no more
'

'

are carved on the crumbling tombstones; there is no

terror in it, no power to harm, but a soothing me-

lancholy; the latter

the

of

soul

Silence

is

untrodden by the foot

magic
hovering
of man, and a destructive force lurks in its nameless
dread. We become aware of mysterious possibilities)
elf,

we
the

in regions

are thrilled with a sense of hidden danger through

spell of the sober, reticent phrases, while we

admire the originality of conception and the successful

effort to disentangle elementary emotions from a

complex psychological

state (i).

The essential originality of The Lake does not lie

so much in the vivid' suggestion of the sombre glamour
of dark, lonely waters, for ever still among black pine
forests and basaltic cHffs, as in the subtle notation of
that strange delight in terror, of that perverse enjoyment
of intense dread, which is the keynote of his best tales.

Poe's

soul

Beauty

was overpowered by a new kind of

the beauty of Terror his spell-bound mind

did not see any possibility of escape, and gave itself
;

up to" the elation of the deadly enchantment. It is the

same lure which he symbolized in the bewitching
brilliancy of Astarte, in Ulalume.

(i) The metrical scheme is that of the Shakespearean

sonnet, with a line added after the eighth verse, rhyming
'
with the preceding one, like a chiave in a canzone stanza.
'

In this

poem, however, the author

is
only halftherefore a certain vagueness
noticeable; the new feeling, which
.

conscious of this charm

of expression is
the jewelled mine could not bribe
'

is

only dimly evoked by the

is

only

elfin

him

guessed at, as a visage, perhaps

under a black mask.

define

to

music of

',

his lines,

sinister or

beautiful,

In Evening
Poe has done

Star^ as in several of his juvenile works,

utmost to attain originality the main

his

idea remains, however, rather quaint than beautiful.

Although we cannot overlook in the poem the presence
of a peculiar sensitiveness, we find traces of a flagging
of the inspiration, falling into the strained and the

obscure. Spirits of the Dead is the first of his poems

where we meet with that weirdness which will hereafter
be the keynote of his songs. The form is still reluctant
and he only succeeds to suggest vague, disquieting
sensations; nevertheless the rhythm and music of the
lines are already his own, and when the severe, deep

chord

is

first

struck, a string

long silent in our

becomes immediately responsive to

whole has the stem, ominous fascination of a

heart

it.

The

wistful,

uncanny face looking out of the gloom of a sepulchral

vault and the effect is intensified by the veil hiding
;

the background, the veil of Mystery hanging over the

land beyond the grave.

And

the mist

upon the hill

Shadowy, shadowy, yet unbroken,
Is a symbol and a token.

How

A
The

hangs upon the trees,

mystery of mysteries
it

three lyrics Dreams^ Romance^

Dream have
several points of affinity both as regards thought

23

they spring indeed from the same source

,of inspiration: an intense yearning to forget reality
in the ecstasy of visions, mingled with the regret for

and form

the vanished dreams of childhood.

Poe says

'To

a passionate
'

in the first of these

poems, dreams
are better than reality, even though dreams be sorrow ';
life would be a continuous rapture, were it possible,
as it was to him in his early years, to dream without
heart

',

^'
M/
j

f*^'^^
<s,64

among the creatures of the fantasy,

possible to keep for ever the power of

interruption, to live

were

it

transfiguring the material world into an ideal universe.

These

lines, though far from perfect in expression,

are important as showing already in the poet a selfcentred soul which was hardly likely to adapt itself
to an age given to mean pursuits, a soul too delicate

to

come

willingly in contact with real

life.

The

cha-

racteristic passage,

have

In climes of

my

left

my

very heart

imagining, apart
home, with beings that have been

From mine own

Of mine own thought,

foreshadows his creation of a purely imaginative world

in his

works

sition,

owing to

poetry and

in

in prose.

his imperfect

In this

compo-

mastery of the form, Poe

gives us only slight, blurred hints of his psychologstate; yielding to the confuse promptings of

ical

still

uncertain

inspiration he does not succeed in

working out his poem into an organic whole; it has

the painful vagueness inherent to a hasty sketch, and,
especially in the first draft, the images woven into
an intricate pattern are extremely desultory and
congruous.* Nevertheless

it

is

in-

interesting as the literal

24

rendering of one of his characteristic moods; it shows

us his thirst for emotions stirred by apparitions rather

than by

by

reality,

by the

rather than

spirits of things

their exterior appearances. Consistently with this

desire

for

weariness of

fantastic loveliness,

life,

the

'

it

reveals an utter

taedium vitae

'

of a mind

unconcerned with worldly matters.

While in A Dream we have to do with the
of a unique vision of overpowering
parition

which was to him

spirit, a lovely beam', a star

in
than the sun of Truth,

'

bliss,

spell

a holy ap-

like a lonely

guiding

'more purely bright'

Romance he

deals with

the change wrought in his soul by the stern influence

of sorrow; when eternal condor years spread over
'

'

^^

him their darkening wings, he came to disdain a light

kind of inspiration, and thought worth while to compose only such verses in which should vibrate an inmost,
passionate intensity, to play on his fairy harp only
music in which his heart should tremble with the
'

string

This

'.

lyric is

even more faulty from a technical

point of view than the two above mentioned poems

the author makes little attempt to clearness and order

the long involved sentences and the over-subtlety of

expression produce a sense of obscurity and uncertainty. In the first draft the keynote of his whole
future

work
I

is

struck in the fine lines

could not love except where Death

mingling his with Beauty's breath.

Was

Here too the image of the symbolic storm is more

and the psychological change is
dwelt upon with keener insight.

vividly developed,

25

its

in 'The happiest day

the happiest hour...'
a lyric which owing to its excessive brevity and
the poet
elliptical form remains rather obscure

Yet

recognises

that

wicked, weakening influence was

lurking in the lure of visionary hours, in the elation

which gives place

to

smarting

pain,

that in the

fugitive rapture of his youthful dream of power and

pride there was a subtle poison which would in'

'

sensibly destroy the noblest faculties of the soul.

Eldorado

longing
has been witheld

undaunted

in

interprets

insatiate

for

the

allegoric

form the poet's

unattainable,

from him

in

life;

for
his

all

that

daring,

has not fallen on the way, but, as

the gallant knight untired by his vain wanderings, is
still striving for the conquest of the supreme ideal.
spirit

The sonnet To

Science^ in

which Poe, as

in

To Zante^

scheme instead of the

traditional Italian form, is a somewhat rhetorical invective against the vulture which preys on the poet's
adopted the English

metrical

'

heart

',

spreading

tastic side of his

How
Who

its

dark wings over the radiant, fan-

conception of the universe.

should he love thee? or

how deem

thee wise,

wouldst not leave him in his wandering

To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies,
Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?
It

is

lations

remarkable that in aftertime

were to be for Poe a source of

scientific

specu-

lofty inspiration;

witness the prose-poem Eureka, In To Zante the triteness of the theme

a lovely place becoming accursed for being linked to painful memories
is

redeemed by the sincere pathos of the

salient technical feature

Its

the repetitioninspiration.
of the words

26
'

foreshadows the striking refrain in

no more
The Raven.
It seems at first that no definite purpose were in
the poet's mind while composing the quaint tracery
of images bearing the title A Dream within a Dream\
one
in the first draft of the poem the leading idea,
'

of sad parting, of dreamy,

lonely sorrow,
appears

but dimly through the network of strange metaphors,

is indeed lost in the vague, desultory expression; but
in its definitive form we become aware of an intense
feeling of

extreme

distress

and despair.

He was

not

able, however, to turn into true poetry a highly poetical

mood, owing to the fact that he only caught partial

as
glimpses of his psychological condition. Besides,
Poe himself pointed out dealing with Shelley's Indian
a too short development is not apSerenade (i),

propriate where a deep emotion,

gives rise to a poetical effusion.

such as here,

We miss the personal note in the Bridal Ballad, pervaded by the influence of Moore and Coleridge the
poet has not yet found his true self; there is no
;

original current of feeling to vivify the carefully chiselled strophes, and we meet with a common romantic

pathos rather than with sincere passion.

of the task was uncongenial to his

we

perceive

drama

exterior

(i)

...

that

it

is

in

he

wanted

order

clear that a

to feel

to

mind

The

be free from any

his inward

and express

poem may be improperly

nature

as in Lenore,

brief.

very short poem, while now and then producing a brilliant

or vivid, never produces a profound or enduring effect. There
must be the steady pressing down of the stamp upon the

wax.' The Poetic Principle.

27

tragedy. The only remarkable thing in the poem is

the happy rendering of the dreamy sorrow of the bride,

who

has been struck and stunned by sharp and sudden

The poem I saw thee on thy bridal day shows
evident traces of Byron's and Scott's influence, and
'

'

pain.

Lenore, as Tamerlane,
juvenile tendency
a deep tenderness

is

typical

to Byronic rant;
is

discernible

broken

of his

instance

it is

a dirge,

through the

where
fitful,

bursts of indignant
bitter
and
but
he
does not discard
sarcasm;
passion
of
and
blemishes
expression,
thought
vulgarities

irregular utterance,

into

which are even

[entitled:

rhetoric in

more obvious

two drafts of 1831

Paean] smd 1843. Poe falls likewise into
T/ie Coliseum, which is not worthy to be
in the

compared with other compositions on the grandeur of

ruins, on the ancient majesty of Rome, such as Shelley's
or Byron's

drawn

its

chief value lies in the accumulation of

details; but the golden

haze of remotewhich the poet endeavoured to steep his

picture, is wanting, and we cannot but feel that he
has not been able to render the stately melancholy of
well

ness, into

his subject.

Tamerlane we perceive a conflict between the

to be original and sincere, and the influence of
Byron, between the native bend of the poet to an
In

eff"ort

elliptical,

subtle

manner of expression and

tation of an inflated,

emphatic

style.

There

is

the imia strange

pathos in the lonely figure of the hero, as

it stands,
outlined
on
a
on
the
darkly
stormy sky,
top of a
there
is
the
of
a
mountain;
mystery
tragic fate on
the conqueror's visage, as he bends under the burden

remembrances and contemplates his

once a lovely garden, now grown wild, choked

of bitter-sweet
life,

28

with

tomb.

There

glimmering about an

weeds,

poisonous

a lofty

is

reticence

early

throughout

his

speeches, as he wanders among the ruins of the

shattered temple of his hopes, brooding among the
crumbling walls, still gorgeously painted with the

never fading memories of youth. But, considered as

a work of art, Tamerlane is not an organic whole;
we can easily draw a line between the artificial, merely

ornamental parts and the outbursts of genuine passion.

some passages

deeply suggestive, though far

the quaint beauty of Poe's dream
shines out; his poetic energy is already revealed by
that strangeness of conception, on which he lays par-

In

from flawless

ticular stress in the exposition of his aesthetic theories

his true self pierces

now and then through

the heavy

ornamentation; but his individuality, his personal

accent are still disguised under a borrowed dress.

Only

one

at a close perusal

impassioned

ardour, which

vivid radiance

in

his

gradually

descries the

brighten up into a
later works. In Part I, in the
will

graceful picture of the two children, in the tenderness

of their affection, we get a foreshadowing of the
ethereal love kindling

Annabel Lee^ and we may

production from the magnificent dethe

thunderstorm. As regards the style,
of
scription
his mind has not yet been trained to see the difference
between rhetoric and true inspiration; the same fact

of his

:k

strophes of Eulalie and

foresee the tragic splendour

the

mature

in the first poems of Leopardi.

attention to the rhythm, he
considerable
Devoting
overlooks the shades of tone, the charm of subdued

may be observed

we soon get weary of the loud

the utterance, kept at its highest pitch,

harmonies, so that
sonority

of

29

without any break, as a long outcry; this unabated

and produces
does not discard the ephemeral appeal of tawdry embellishments; he does not
understand the beauty of those phrases of Shakespeare
and Wordsworth, the significance of which is only

vehemence

is

an

monotony. He

effect of

unfit for a sustained effort

grasped by meditation, but then lies deep for ever in

our inmost soul. Besides, the occasional obscurity of
expression, blurring the ideas, weakens the general
feel that the author is only on the
impressions.
his
of
world, and has not yet found the
poetic
edge

We

music to
lacks

the

set his feelings to.

sense

of

reality

The

figure of

which

Tamerlane

we admire

in

Browning's personages; the creative energy of Poe lay

on another line; he is unfit to the task of representing
a soul so very unlike his own, and in his gallery of
delicate, ghostly pictures there is no place for this
rude bronze cast. In the portrait of the hero he evinces
a desire to startle rather than to stir a lasting emotion,
attain the reserved beauty of Rem-

and he does not

brandt, but the vain clamouring of Rubens.

The freshness of feeling and the original

naivete

we

are wont to look for in juvenile compositions are

absolutely wanting in the dramatic fragment, Politian\
it is an immature work, in which a certain
lyric fervour

does not make

a
subject,

up for the weak treatment of the

work in its remoteness from life in dial-

ogue and

in the rigid outlines

characters

more akin

art at the

awakening of the English drama than to

in the portraiture of
to the productions of untrained

the spirited writings of the Elizabethans. Poe tried

to paint violent contrasts of feeling, following the
practice of the playwrights of the XVII. Century, but

30
his

attempt remains a

failure.

Whilst

in the

Elizabethan

drama the crude, rough form is admirably fitted for

the representation of a tragic world in which stormy,
blind, primitive passions are at play, here the mannered,
declamatory style fails to produce the intended effect.
Beddoes, in his Death's Jest-book, Keats in Otho the

Great and

in the

much more

fragment of King Stephen approached

closely to the style of the Elizabethans.

Poe shows no sense of the precision in characterdrawing which the dramatic form requires; he vainly
an

of lifelikeness to the personare awkwardly sketched. He proposed to

strives to impart

air

ages, who
contrast Alexander's

weariness

with

Politian's

im-

petuous temper, and Jacintha's careless impertinence

with Lalage's thirst for affection but he only empha;

sized the unreality of the whole. Politian himself, a

Renaissance man with a blending of Romantic languor,
a soul inexplicably wavering between grim despair
and passionate love, remains unimpressive. The dialogue, where Wyatt's song is inset, is clogged by the
slow movement; the repetitions in Alexander's and
Lalage's speeches scarcely admit of excuse; there is

no sustained power

in the

in Politian's outburst

monologues, except perhaps

about the primeval glory of newly

discovered lands. Poe wrought out for himself a peculiar style, too studied to be natural, too adorned

appear spontaneous, a style which

between pro.saic sing-song and highflown declamation, and induces a deadening sense of
monotony, because sincerity gives everywhere place

with

images

to

clumsily hesitates

to artifice.

The
effects

research
is

for

peculiar

already apparent

in

musical

and

pictorial

Al Aaraaf\ some

pass-

31

ages, though of

intrinsic value,

little

tendency towards a new

illustrate

Poe's

conception of poetry.

The

argument of the poem is a vision of cosmic splendours,

suggested by the birth and disappearance of a star,
Al Aaraaf, discovered by Tycho Brahe. Risen out of
the mystery of space, it attained, in a short time, an
intense brilliancy, which, however, lasted only a few

weeks; then the glittering world began to fade, and

soon sank into darkness.
The ethereal birth is first

described with gorgeous hues

while iridescent gleams

streak the sky, the pearly mists curl into floating
wreaths of vaporous radiance, and the new celestial

body

arises, encircled

by bands of purple

landed by many-coloured

light, gar-

Warmed by

satellites.

the

fiery refulgence of the neighbouring suns, the ground

bursts into blossom, and the land lies spread before
us, a wilderness

of

fragrant

gems; we see

its

pre-

Nesace, crowned with opal beams, kneel

siding
on the flowers, we listen to her enraptured song to
spirit,

Heaven. She beseeches

a Voice makes answer:

my

herald'.

Thus ends

God

Carry
the

His will, and

embassy; be thou
Part; in the second

to reveal

'

my

first

portion Nesace's temple is described; she is singing

a sortilege in order to summon the Spirits of Beauty
of her realm from the bowers where they lie asleep
;

beneath the silent streams of

stars,

out of the shadows

of the woods, a fairy being, Ligeia, emerges; the air

lit with pale fire around her
hair; she and the other

is

attending Spirits flock around Nesace, except two,

lanthe and Angelo, who remain apart, absorbed in

And

their love shall stand as an impenbetween existence and immortality,

excluding them from everlasting bliss the divine light

their love.

etrable

barrier

fades

away from

their souls, tainted with earthly, im-

perfect passion; they

fall,

because

Heaven

Who

to them no hope imparts

hear not for the beating of their hearts.

The elements, out of which the poem arose, are

but imperfectly fused the poet had not yet acquired
a complete command of the material, and in his haste
;

body forth his desultory dreams he composed a

work far from faultless; its construction lacks symmetry
to

and proportion, and the episode of Angelo and lanthe

rather unsatisfactorily framed in the passage where
Angelo relates the end of the doomed world is not
intimately connected with the rest. Several lines are
little more than an echo of Lalla Rookh or of The
Revolt of Islam we feel a sense of artificiality in the
is

style heavily laden with

ornaments; besides, there

is

a tendency to use bizarre similes, which fail to strike

us as spontaneous and fitting. Nevertheless, although
Al Aaraaf shows a mind not yet ripe to reveal itself

especially
through an original form, we find in it
in the lyric passages, such as the prayer and the incantation

sung by Nesace

acteristic of the

poet's

the suggestive
later

works;

the

grace, char-

crude and

somewhat tawdry splendour of the elaborate descriptions will afterwards give way to the soft, unearthly
glow of Ulalume and The City in the Sea.
In his essays on poetry he expressed his ardent
enthusiasm for the mystical beauty that embodies the
loftiest ideals of the soul, its immortal hopes and its
An immortal instinct,
purest and noblest feelings.
'

deep within the spirit of man, is a sense of the

Beautiful. But he who shall simply sing of the sights,

33

and sounds, and odours, and colours, and sentiments,

which greet him in common with all mankind, has
yet failed to prove his divine
thirst

unquenchable,

to allay

title. We have still a

which he has not shown

us the crystal springs. This thirst belongs to the immortality of Man. It is no mere appreciation of the

Beauty before

us,

but a wild effort to reach the Beauty

above. Inspired by an ecstatic presence of the glories

beyond the grave, we struggle by multiform combinthings and thoughts of Time to
attain a portion of that Loveliness whose very elements
appertain to eternity alone '. In his analysis of the
ations

the

among

principles of poetic composition he looks out for what

at the same time most essential and most elusive

is

in art,

i.

for the cause

e.,

exercised by
this occult

all

motive

undercurrent

'.

The

gestive element

of

the irresistible appeal

masterpieces on the soul.

what he

in

calls

'

He

the

finds

mystic

character of this hidden and sug-

clearly expressed in his objections

to Coleridge's remarks about the different qualities of
Fancy and Imagination. The distinction between these

two

is

intellectual faculties, so acutely investigated in the

Biographia Literaria,

is

not accepted by Poe; for him

the

synthesis of Coleridge's discrimination: 'Fancy

combines. Imagination creates ', does not include any
substantial difference; neither creates, since the

mind cannot imagine anything

human

that does not exist in

which strikes us in the

so-called imaginative creation, arises from mere novelty
of combination. The true distinction
and a distinction
reality; the aspect of novelty,

only in
^

degree
'

lies in 'the

consideration of the mystic'.

in which there is

be called a composition

Mystic may
beneath the transparent current of meaning, an under or
F. Olivero.

34

suggestive one '; the mystic element lifts the conception

into the ideal. In The Sensitive Plant there is little
'

of fancy, and everything of imagination; with each

note of the lyre is heard a ghostly, and, not always a
distinct, but an august and soul-exalting echo in every
;

glimpse of beauty presented, we catch, through long

and wild vistas, dim bewildering visions of a far more
ethereal beauty beyond '.
tint of sadness
is inseparably connected with
all the highest manifestations of Beauty; and, Beauty
'

being
really

'

the

province of poetry, the tone of all

instinct with

true

deep and noble poetry must be

melancholy.
-

It

must

also be observed that

times in his
in

critical writings

on
Ligeia

and

Poe dwells several

in his tales

the truth of Bacon's

notably

aphorism,

that

Beauty is always accompanied by a certain strangeness,

Poe is not only concerned with the spiritual element
in art, but also with the technicalities of verse. His
theories on metre

are

expounded

Rationale of Verse. Verse, and

in the

all its

essay The

characteristics:

rhythm, measure, stanza, rhyme, alliteration, refrain,

The
the enjoyment of equality '.
originate from
rudiment of verse is the spondee; but, as an equal

'

measure would engender a sense of monotony, there

arises the necessity of varying the metrical unity,
uniformity being the principle, variety the principle's
safeguard from self-destruction by excess of self.

From

the succession of a series of the

also arise a sense of

same

feet

would

monotony; hence the necessity

of curtailing the series into parts, i. e., lines, which,

in order to answer to the wish for equality, must have
an equal number of feet but, for variety's sake, dif;

35

may be used

ferent feet

inant

in a single line, the

predom-

remaining, however, unaltered.

arises from the want of defining the lines to

character

Rhyme

the ear by means of the termination, and the strophic

division from a proportional equality of number

among

lines.

To Poe
of

temperament of musician rather than

was rather a source of suggestive

verse
painter

melodies than a casket of visionary gems. His lines

are overladen with harmony, as Shelley's and Keats's
with colour.

'

It

is

in

music

',

he says,

'

that the soul

most nearly attains the great end for which, when

the
inspired by the poetic sentiment, it struggles,
creation of supernal Beauty
And he tried to transfer
the soul of music into his poetry.

'.

On

Swinburne's

Atalanta

in

Calydon,

Atalanta in Calydon is the strange fruit of a mind

imbued and enriched with classic thought and at the
same time influenced by the ideals of Preraphaelitism.
As an interpreter of life, Swinburne looks at the world
through the sombre glass of Hellenic pessimism, being
equally far from the mystic serenity of Wordsworth
and the ardent optimism of Browning. A close imitation of the Greek drama is manifest throughout the
play; yet, as in Milton's Samson Agonistes and Shelley's

Prometheus Unbound^ the poet's original freshness of

here we have not an
inspiration remains untouched
attempt to copy what is inimitable, but to renew,
;

according to modern aesthetic aspirations, the tragic

dream of a heroic age and an ancient literary form.

The

essential subject of the play jsthe trag^ic struggle

between man and

fate.

The gods thems^ves,

in spite

of their apparent strength, are underjthe control of

the mystic laws of destiny
human passions afford
them the means to accomplish their revenge, but both
gods and men are at the same time the instruments
;

37

and the victims _ofji supreme ^ inexorable power. The

sudden wrath of Althaea is not only the cause of
Meleager's death, but the manifestation of the inev-

According to the pagan'

conception which forms the groundwork .of the play,
itable

fulfilment

of

fate.

'

rather than its

dramatis personae
are,
of
dark
the
characters,
might
destiny, the vindictive
the
and
blind
the
of
passions of men.
gods,
anger
its

true

'

The tragedy

is

symbolical, the mythic

substantially

argument being exalted

into an allegoric representation

man the sufferings of the personas individual griefs, but as

not
considered
are
ages
human
of
the
sorrows
the august
soul, as the universal
of the sad fate of

misery and distress of mankind under the sway of

merciless rulers.

world as

The

poet's aim
flashing in

it

appeared,
before the Hellenic mind

ist

to represent the^

splendour and terror,

the drama, however, draws

its vital strength from being, under the veil of a Greek
myth, the utterance of the author'^s inmost belief, of
his rebellion against the

obscure and supreme powers

of destiny. This pessimistic conception of

deeply rooted in Swinburne's heart, and

life

was

lingers

throughout his work Atalanta in Calydon is the wild

outbreak of his hatred against the mysterious agencies
;

of fate. This wind of revolt is the spirit pulsing at

the core of a tragedy in which man works out his
own destruction led by the crafty devices of an

unknown
he

finds

voluntary

force.

As Shelley

bitter

in his

pleasure

darkness

in

in

which

Prometheus Unbound^
throwing, from the
he plunged himself,

flaming darts against the sombre phantom created by

his own mind. His hate attains its highest expression
in the choric

songs

38

Not as with sundering of the earth

Nor

as with cleaving of the sea...

Fate, mother of desires and fears,

Bore unto men the law of tears;

But sudden, an unfathered flame,
And broken out of night, she shone,
She, without body, without name,
In day's forgotten and foregone;...

Clouds and great

stars,

thunders and snows,

...

The life that breathes, the life that grows,

Even all these knew her: for she is great;
The daughter of doom, the mother of death.
...

The. sister of sorrow; a lifelong weight

That no man's finger lighteneth,
Nor any god can lighten, fate (i).

A
[

8*

parallel conception occurs in Poems and Ballads

series, pp. 96-99] and in a gorgeously elaborated

passage of Tristram of Lyonesse

was born ere spirit and flesh were made,

The power beyond all godhead which puts on

Fate, that

...

All forms of multitudinous unison,

raiment of eternal change inwrought

With shapes and hues more

Where all things old

And one deep chord

bear

subtly spun than thought,

fruit

throbs

all

of all things new

the music through,...

heaven and deeper than the grave.

That saves and spares not, spares and doth not save,
Whose judgment into no god's hand is given [p. 133].

Fate, higher than

The
death

...

ancient soul rebelled against the mystery of

death was not the realm of peace, or even of

everlasting forgetfulness, but the entrance to a world

of twilight sadness, where melancholy shadows are
roaming on pale asphodel fields, or wailing, oppressed

(i)

Poetical Works, London, Chatto

& Windus,

1905. IV, 312.

39

with mournful remembrances, by nocturnal streams

(i);

therefore the hero's soul yearns to be dissolved in the

universal life of nature, in the restless winds, in the

tumultuous surges.
death

Yet beauty

on the

sits

pallor of

thy luminous face,

Thine imperious eyes!

the grief, o the grace,

of day when it dies

As
It

is

not Keats' desire to die

the

in

ecstatic

con-

templation of beauty, in a rapture of impassioned

song, but a wish for unconscious death, for a rapid
passage from the world of men and strife to the world

of shadows and eternal calm.

L^e_and

love,
from

of the plot,

hatred are J^^^

forth

a delicate tree

its

silvery,

flame.

putting
slender boughs,

The

evil

blossoms

hatred,

poet's violent

a wild,

condemnation of

consuming
love is one of the leading strains in his impassioned
rhapsody. Love is fair, but the source of ruin and death:
Before thee the laughter, behind thee the tears of desire
And twain go forth beside thee, a man with a maid; ...
But Fate is the name of her; and his name is Death (2).

(i) Cf. in

Bacchylides, the words of Meleager to Hercules:

^ivvv&ri 6e

fioL

ipvxa yZvxsta,
'

yvcHv d' dXiyoad'evioiv

aial nvfjiatov 6h nvecav ddnQvaa TAd(4,0)v
dyAaav ij^av nQoZeiTrcov [V, 151].
'

(2) Cf.

Antigone, 781:

"Egcog dvCxate ftdxctv,

naC a' o^T d^avdtoiv
oijd''

'Love,

&f*sQio)v ah y

...

cpi^ifA^og

otdelg
'

dv^qoinatv

invincible in fight,

<5'

^;fa>v f^if^rivev.

none of the immortals can avoid

40

The_conc_eption of Ipye as of a wicked, destructive

power lingers throughout Swinburne's work it creates
;

and poisonous atmosphere, which thickens

around the glittering and sinister allegories of Poems
and Ballads. Gazing intently on the events of human
a turbid

existence, the

poet only descries

the

in

gloom of

mystery the medusaean face of destiny life dissolves

into a pageant of shadows, sorrow remaining the only
;

reality

love

is

no more the bond of soul to

soul,

but a cruel lure to bitterness and despair. The life of

man is surrounded by the twofold mystery of birth

and death

the close of the

2'^'^

chorus.

His

life is a watch or a vision

Between a sleep and a sleep,

is

an echo of Prospero's words

We
As dreams
Is

are such

stuft

made

on, and our little life

rounded with a sleep [Temp. IV, i, 156].

are

But yet we perceive, side by side with this dark

conception of death, the supreme .need of faith in
man's immortality in the glowing words uttered by
Althaea, when she is speaking of the bliss attending
the heroes' souls in the other world there they enjoy
;

Immortal honour,

...

having past-

To

the clear seat and remote throne of souls.

Lands indiscoverable in the unheard-of west.

Round which the strong stream of a sacred sea

Rolls without wind for ever ; ...

thee and none of the ephemeral men; but

Ms heart is possessed by madness'.

who has

thee in

41

Sages and singers fiery from the god.

Live there a life no liker to the gods;
But nearer than their life of terrene days.
Love thou such life and look for such a death
attitude of

(i).

mind

the poet
burning pathos and the
fugitive joy of his personages, the pity and terror of
dark events, into a perfect aesthetic harmony, perIn spite of his

knows how

to

gloomy

blend the

vading with intense splendour of beauty the whole

An inmost elation is ringing
an
his
evident sign that the poet,
song,
throughout
structure of his work.

as every consummate artist, holds an absolute control

that his soul moves in a sphere
over his argument,
of beauty, high above the crude reality of the plot.

An

impassive,

unbroken

the

serenity,

sheds
lofty aesthetic conception,
the whole tragedy, the sinister and

Cf Pindar, Olympian Odes,

(I)

800L

(5'

II,

68

its

result of a

radiance over

cruel

conflict of

iT6AfA,aaav ioTQlg

dnb 7idf4,7iav ddtatov ^%eiv

ezetAav A tog 66dv naQa K.q6vov xvQaiv ^vd'a (laxaQOiv

k'A.aTEQOid'L f4,etvavTeg

'

'ipv%dv^

vdaog

(byieavldeg

aiQai TCEQinvioiaiv,
Tcc

fA,Ev

%eQo6d'ev

5qia,olol zaiv

javd'eiA,a

6h

an dykauiv

XQ^^ov

(pAeyei,

devdQe(ov, ddoig'

6'

dAZa

(peQ^eu,

%eQag dvanXiyiovzi nal azecpdvotg...

'But they who, dwelling

in either

world, have thrice been

valiant in keeping their souls pure from all wrong, go by

the road of Zeus to the tower of Cronus, where the sea-

breezes blow around the islands of the blessed, and flowers

of gold are flaming, some on tITe strand from radiant trees,
others fostered by the water ; and they wreathe their hands
with garlands and wreaths of them

'.

42

hatred and love being thus refined into a vision of

pure dehght.

Every personage
light of

illuminated

loveliness

spiritual

the

is

by the imperious

and grandeur

Althaea,

is more
passionate v^oman,
finely wrought than the other characters, Atalanta
being merely the unconscious instrument of destiny,

however,

fierce,

Meleager the heroic victim, Oeneus the acquiescent

soul. Only Althaea is given a prominent place in the

drama by her

gift of vision, her tragic wrath, her

her fiery
against fate and the gods
better
than
other
speeches embody,
any
passage in
the play, except the choric songs, that spirit of
desperate pessimism and angry revolt which is the

bitter

taunts

gloomy base of the work. To her visionary soul,

haunted by prophetic dreams, are revealed the hidden
threads of the woof of events
she deepens with
sombre forebodings her torment and the unbearable
;

owing to her intercourse with

the hostile, invisible Powers, and to her stubborn fight
against them, that she comes to be the true protagonist
in whose soul the unequal battle is fought and lost,
the symbolic representative of mankind's strife against
pangs of remorse.

It is

fate.

The gods

are

many

about

me

am

one.

Besides, in her tender love for Meleager shines at

best that poetry of childlife, of which Swinburne

its
is

the unrivalled master.

Meleager is the type of the warrior in heroic ages,

His daring, una noble and pure
flower of war
'

'.

daunted soul reveals

itself at first in his

narrative of

the sailing to the conquest of the Golden Fleece, and

43

then in the fight against the Northern tribes (i).

His lofty, impetuous spirit is impatient of baseness
with sudden assault he kills Althaea's brothers, Toxeus
;

and Plexippus
chaste

love

yet in his heart burns a fervent and

for

and his dying speech

solemn pathos.

Atalanta,

instinct with a deep,

is

'

Atalanta,__lhti__flget-opted Juintress, the

snowys ouled maid \ glitters as a star^ arnon^_jthe cloudy,

gloomy passions^ of the tragedy but

and cold. Tenderness and love seem
;

its

to

light
t)e

is

pale

unkUQwn

to the heart of the virgin follower of Diana. Meleager,

Althaea and her brothers are shaped with a wide

apprehension
insight in

of

human

life,

with

nature

deep,

the poet

Shakespearean
however, in

fails,

the portraiture of Atalanta, making of her a creature

aloof from man and his inheritance of sorrow, an
abstraction of beauty, purity and grace rather than a

person of flesh and blood. Even in the last scene,

Althaea falls into a frenzy of despair and

while

powers which destroy her son, she

does not show any deep pain, any heart-rending grief;
sorrow appears only as a shadow on the limpid lake
of her calm beauty, a shadow drawn like a grey veil
inveigles against the

over the azure, unruffled waters. Even when the poet

makes her step out from the background, where she
is usually kept, in the storm of the
tragedy, he does
so with a strange delicacy in his voice.

(i) For the conception of the hero's character in the Latin

play of William Gager, Meleager, performed at Christ Church
in 1581, printed in 1592, see F. S. Boas, University Drama

in the

Tudor Age. Oxford, 191 4.

P- 165

ff.

44

The sweetness

face shall be no

Thy

For thy

And
/

of spring in thine hair, and the light in thine

life shall fall

[eyes
of thy fate.
as a leaf and be shed as the rain;

more

fair at

the

fall

the veil of thine head shall be grief;

and the crown

[shall be pain.

The two

principal aesthetic elements, which, subtly

/interwoven, go to the making of the play, are the
I

beauty of man's destiny and the rapturous

of nature. Yet even in nature the poet
perceives an inmost tragedy, and the perishable
tragic

\ loveliness

magnificence of the world

same pathos which he

mournful hue
earth.
'

fell!

for

him

instinct with the

in the soul of

man

thus cast over the splendour of the

comes, radiant, but with flowers that

is

Summer
And spring

'

'

shall

be ruined with the

storm eat up

like fire the

help comes

man from

to

is

finds

rain,

ashen autumn days

'.

and

No

the serene, indifferent beauty

of nature,

except a soothing influence, which is

admirably expressed in the luminous and fragrant
interlude, combining an exuberant fancy and a strict
realism in

rendering of 'natural magic'.

its

that

now,

too

were

wells and water-floods,

Streams of ancient hills, and where

By deep

All the wan green places bear

Blossoms cleaving to the sod ...
There the year is sweet, and there
!

Earth

And

is full of secret springs.

the fervent rose-cheeked hours

...

There are sunless, there look pale

In dim leaves and hidden air.

The same
into the

artifice

of bringing

freshness and light

gloom of tragedy by means of the

picture of

45

a sweet natural scene

Colonus^ 670

may be observed

in

Oedipus at

^A.(t)Qaig hnb ^daaaig,

zbv oivoiTibv e'xovaa xiaadv
xal rdv a^axov d'eov]

(pvXXdda /4,vQi6xaQ7tov dvi^Xtov

dvi^vef*6v ze TtdvKov
'

Xifi(bva)v

d-dZZst

6'

o'dQavCag

6 y.aX^C^otQvg xar'

vdQMoaog,

hn dxvag
^^ap

del

f^^eyd^aiv d'ealv

dQy^atov arecpdvof^', 8 is
y^Qvaavy^g nQoxog otS' dvjtvoi
'

KQ^Vat ^LVT^d'OVaVV
Kfjcpiaov vofAddsg ^eed'QCov,

...

S,where the harmonious nightingale mostly dwells, and

sings in the green valleys, abiding continually in the
wine-coloured ivy and the foliage of the inaccessible

wood

of the god, with myriads of fruits, without sun

and sheltered from the wind of all storms
there
;

the narcissus with fine bunches of flowers ever blows,

day after day, fostered by the dew of heaven, an

ancient crown of great goddesses there flourishes the

crocus with golden glow and the sleepless, wandering
;

sources of the Cephisus never dry up

Sea -poetry
Meleager's

'.

some splendid passages in

when he relates how the bold

vivifies

speech,

navigators

saw through narrowing

reefs

The

lightning of the intolerable wave

Flash, and the white wet flame of breakers burn

Far under a kindling south-wind, as a lamp

Burns and bends all its blowing flame one way.

46
It is

same

the

vivid sense of the poetry of the ocean,

which glows more deeply and widely

Lyonesse

in

Tristram of

the quick sea shone

And shivered like spread wings of angels blown

By the sun's breath before him and a low
;

Sweet gale shook

As

all

the foam-flowers of thin

into rainfall of sea-roses

snow

shed

Leaf by wild leaf on that green garden-bed

till and sea-winds turn and
plough
For rosy and fiery round the running prow
Fluttered the flakes and feathers of the spray,
And bloomed Hke blossoms cast by God away
To waste on the ardent water [p. 26].

Which tempests

One

of the

most elaborate

picture

in

the

play,

painted with wonderful richness of colour and precision

of touch, occurs in the description of the place where
the warriors rest after having killed the monstrous
boar.

With

the passage in which Swinburne describes

the marshy ground where crouches the boar,

the gr6en ooze of a sun-struck marsh
Shook with a thousand reeds untunable,

we may compare Ovid \Metamorphoses^

the story of Atalanta

is

VIII,

where

related at length, 260-525],

concava vallis erat, quo se demittere rivi

adsuerunt pluvialis aquae; tenet ima lacunae
lenta

salix...

viminaque

Compare

et

iuncique palustres

longa parvae sub harundine cannae

[334].

also the picture of Atalanta,

from her white braced shoulder the plumed shafts

Rang, and the bow shone from her side,

47

with
ex umero pendens resonabat eburnea laevo
telorum ciistos, arcum quoque laeva tenebat [320];

and the death of Ancaeus, struck by the boar,

and as flakes of weak-winged snow
the hard thews of his heaving Hmbs
and
rent flesh fell every way, and blood
Broke,
Flew, and fierce fragments of no more a man ;
all

Break,

concidit

Ancaeus glomerataque sanguine multo

viscera lapsa fluunt; madefacta est terra cruore [401].

The
at

fortitude of

Meleager

in

death

is

also hinted

by Ovid,
magnos superat

virtute dolores [517].

His_dramatic gift manifests itself not only in the

general conception of his work, but also in the shaping
of the allegoric images which adorn the speeches^of
the personages and the lyJ'icJiing_b^th(e^ chorus. The
same tragic power we observe in the treatment of

passion shines out in the pageant of symbolic figures

they emerge in the same fitful splendour, in the stormy
play of Hght and shadow which enwraps the characters;
;

there

is

an inmost tragedy

in

each of his allegories,

and the contradictory traits of the personages' souls

are mirrored in them. There is under their brilliancy
the presage of a brooding storm, there is in them the
same strange chord of terror and beauty, of pity and
revolt, and the same strain of sorrow which runs

through the hearts of the characters

their

fantastic

argument.

they have, in
intimacy with the
are not cold abstractions, but real

richness,

They

close

48

beings, and, in no less degree than his personages,

reveal the poet's creative energy and his sensibiUty
to the pathos of human Hfe. The grim and glorious

imagery

not the product of a mind overpowered

fantasy, by the spell of merely

is

by the excess of

it does not surround the play as

a glittering frame, but is intimately interwoven with
the central figures. His metaphors too are kindled with
intellectual light, and are not the vain flowers of a

ornamental beauty

ground where fancy is allowed to run riot, but they

impress us with a sense of intense joy and pain clothed
in beauty. Thus in the veiled language used by Althaea

when addressing
hinting at

the souls of her dead brothers and

her vengeance

For ye shall have such wood to funeral fire

As no king hath, ... much costlier than fine gold,
And more than many lives of wandering men.

In several scenes the fitness of the form, the refined

word-music cannot redeem the faults of prolixity and

reclamation but, while in the long-drawn speeches of
Althaea concentration of utterance is often wanting,
in the dialogues we meet with that brevity and
;

pungency of expression, which are characteristic of

Greek G%i%oiiv^ia, Yet even this overflow and

the

superabundance of discourse is full of lyric passion

and adorned with rich imagery. The monotony is
reUeved by strange and beautiful similes. New and
striking epithets occur in the descriptive passages and
so that his
increase the graphic power of his style
terse and vivid expression makes the world of vision
;

tangible as the real world. To cite an

especially illustrative and significant of this

as wellnigh

example

49
style fusing the inmost energy of conception with an
exquisite grace, let us quote the passage
:

What

shall

Shall they

be done with

all

make watersprings

these tears of ours ?

heaven

in the fair

To bathe the brows of morning ? or like flowers

Be shed and shine before the starriest hours,
Or made the raiment of the weeping seven ?

The

characteristic

particularly in the

glow of his imagination rs seen

metaphors, as in the picture of the

firebrand bursting into flowers of flame [p. 257], while

the originality of his creative energy shows at its best
in

such passages displaying the

gifts

sombre grandeur and

alike to a

of a

to a

as the second Chorus, or in such

mind

sensitive

dreamy

ecstatic

grace,
outbursts

of song as the address to Spring:

Where

shall

we

find her,

how

shall

we

sing to her ?

For the stars and the winds are unto her

As

raiment...

86 1, during his travel in Italy, he made the

acquaintance of Walter Savage Landor, whose enthusiastic admiration for Greek art and literature exercised
In

no doubt a strong influence on the young poet. To

S. Landor Atalanta in Calydon is dedicated
(i).
But even since he was studying at Balliol College, the
great scholar Jowett had noticed his genial comprehension of the Hellenic mind and of its aesthetic
manifestations. In this play he gives u not a vain
echo, but the spirit itself of Greek dramatic poetry;

W.

(i)

See

his

Works, V,
F.

Song for

the Centenary of

W.

S.

Landor

[Poet.

7].

Olivero.

50

we perceive

in

him the ardent student of Aeschylus

and Sophocles, yet never slavish in imitation. In his

ode to Athens [Poet Works, V, 205] he evokes the
dramas of Aeschylus and Sophocles, the Agamemnon,
Darker dawned the song with stormier wings above the watch[fire spread
Whence from Ida toward the hill of Hermes leapt the light
[that said

Troy was fallen, a torch

funereal for the king's triumphal head,

and the Antigone,

Sister too

supreme

make

to

the bride's hope good.

woman

Daughter too divine as

Spouse of only death

in

to

be noted,

mateless maidenhood.

Althaea's frenzied utterance after she has committed

the brand to the

prophetic

has

fire

something of Cassandra's
Aga^nemnon [cf. p. 310 and

raving in the

1080 ff.]. Also, the passage where Meleager

describes to his mother the warriors coming to the

Ag.

scene

hunt, recalls a

[370

A
is

in

The Seven against Thebes

ff.]-

strik ing feature of the

the tendency

Prer aphaelite

towards Greek

artJ_ its

movement
chaste and

exquisitely simple harmony of outlines, its spirituality

of expression did strongly appeal to painters and poets

who were
tation

The

striving after primitive

and an

influence

is

Jones, in his subjects

in the

stately

modes

of represen-

conception of life and nature.

especially manifest in Edward Burne-

idealistic

derived from Hellenic myths,

pure and noble profiles of his

and graceful grouping, and even

of the folds of their dress.

It

is

figures, in their
in the

treatment

evident also in the

^=-?t---z- <--z-

fp-?%^^ou^
51

symmetrical elegance of Leighton's compositions, in

attitudes of Moore's allegorical figures and in

the

Walter Crane's drawings. The classic world was an

alluring mirage to D. G. Rossetti and to William
Morris.

Weobserve

the

same tendency

in

Swinburne

h is poetry is furth er inflnprir^^d f)y"lhp__Rnrnantir ideaFs'

of the Pre rapb;^^Htp<^ To Burne-Jones is dedicated the
first

in

series of

the

Poems and Ballads, where we remark,

descriptive

parts,

Preraphaelite

minute and vividly coloured details

for

liking

but the chief

sour ce of inspiration is Rossetti's tragic conce ption of

love the cruel smile of the symbolic figures is derived
;

from the glamour of wickedness and loveliness of

Rossetti's visages. Already in some traits of Atalanta
in Calydon burns the sombre passion of the poet of
Sister Helen and Troy Town
for instance, in the
;

fateful

and

sinister character of the heroine's

woman, she

She, the strange

Red from

beauty

spilt blood, a

the flower, the sword,

mortal flower to men,

Adorable, detestable.

the Hellenic splendour of imagination

with
a Romantic pathos gives a result not
blending
dissimilar from the fine effects of bright colouring and

*In

his

lines

deep melancholy obtained by Tennyson in such poems

Oenone and Tithonus. Swinburne dreamed perhaps
an art which should blend the grandeur of Phidias

,as

with the subtlety of Botticelli.

his

form a heady perfume

Elizabethan poetry so that his

,

marble

in its classic

Besides,

distilled

there

style, as lucid as

simplicity,

is

is

in

from the flowers of

white

interspersed with

veins of brilliant ore, and we find quaint metaphors

and similes scattered among his limpid phrases. As an

52

example of Elizabethan richness of fantasy in the

development of the image we suggest the description
of Meleager's helmet [p. 257], in which the abundant
elegance of Spenser is joined to a Marlovian force
and glow of colour [cf. JTamburlaine P. 2, 4095 ff.].
We clearly perceive the various ways in which the
classical drama may be appreciated, when we compare
Swinburne's play with the Prometheus Unbound of
,

Shelley

both

poets are looking at the wonderful

of the Hellenic genius, but from a

achievements

wholly different standpoint. Shelley borrowed from

A eschylus and Sophocles t heir inmost

the dra mas of

sp irit, while Swinburne adhered

exterior form and structure

through his work

mo re

strictly to their"

yet the former conveyed

his optimistic message of ultimate
;

Man and

Nature, and the latter set as

the
a basis to his play
pessimistic conception of the
Greek dramatists. Besides, Swinburne does not attain

happiness for

in Atalanta in Calydon the exquisite originality and

the ethereal glow of Shelley in the elaboration of the
image, the spirituality and delicate splendour that we

see for instance in the Fury's speech

'As from the rose which the pale priestess kneels

To gather from her festal crown of flowers

The aerial crimson falls, flushing her cheek,
So from our

victim's destined

The shade which

Else

we

agony

our form invests us round,

are shapeless as our mother Night '.
is

Atalanta in Calydon was published in 1865, when

the poet was twenty-eight years of age upwards of
forty years more of intense activity were reserved
;

expansion of his genius both in

dramatic poetry
but the splendour of
for the

lyric
this

and

in

tragedy

53

remained unsurpassed. Nor was

of the
in

same

it

excelled by a

drama

character, Erecktkeus, which he published

lacks the lofty inspiration, the deep pathos,

1876; it
shorn of the

far-stretching radiance which we

admire in the earlier play. Nev ertheless Atalanta in
it

is

Calf don does not attain the sup reme heights of poetry,
because it lacks mystery ', that depth of thought and
pass ion which^^asse th sKow 7 a nd can not be clearly
^

'

expresse^Lj^^en-^ by the, ^great est

which

m asters

of

art,

hut

admirably suggested in their loftiest passag es

with such ever-remembered, farlines,
reaching
weaving words laden with numberless
is

we do not meet here

suggestions

into

We

supernal

admire

song,

as

in

Dante or

Swinburne's w^ork not so

Shakespeare.
much the depth of thought as the pa ssion for beauty;
the unflagging fervour of his inspiration running
in

throughout the play, the

passionate utterance, the

of
the
verbal
music, show the sublime elation
magic
of a soul which moves in a radiant dream, reveal

him

as a true poet, a

'

dweller

among

visions

'.

Stephane Mallarme,

The undercurrent

of meaning, to which Poe alludes

The Philosophy of Composition^ has become
the essential element in Mallarme's poetry, the vital
in his essay

principle holding together their beautiful but apparently

unconnected images. He adopted a manner of expres-

sion blending sensations and emotions into a forcible

and impressive whole, not unlike the form that Verlaine

has

used

in

such

vague

and suggestive

Crepuscule du Soir Mystique and

lyrics

as

the quaint stanzas

Le
Je devine, a travers un murmure,
beginning
contour subtil des voix anciennes ', in Romances sans
'

paroles. There is indeed a kind of euphuisjn in the

style of his works, in which striking thoughts flash

through the thickly-woven intricacy of metaphors; the

images appear to us surrounded by a quivering halo,
as if by the pale radiance cast up from moonlit waves.
In his lyrics, in his Poemes en prose, in the essays
collected under the title of Divagations, in his
translation

of Poe's

poems, he employed the same

elaborateness, the same preciosity, which had a strong

appeal for the younger generation. Several French

and Belgian poets followed

in his

wake

in Fontainas'

55

Estuaires

Ombre

d'

for

example, unmistakable traces

of Mallarme's symbolism show themselves almost on

every page; likewise in Lerberghe's spiritual melodies
his influence

is

clearly
in

perceptible, in art,

His influence

seen.

such

also

is

exquisite and enigmatic

works as Fernand Khnopff's Incense, the Prisoner,

and, in music, in the strange harmonies
Dreamer,
of Debussy's interpretation of
Apres-midi d'un
Faune.
The world had no meaning to him it was merely
an arabesque of strange, hauting "beauty. Consequently
there is a curious detachment in his way of looking
at life; we meet with no passionate interest, no
inquisitiveness, but with an impassible contemplation

of a magnificent pageant. Beautiful figures in purple

the gold of Joy, the dark purple of Pain
and gold

are

wandering through the forest of Illusion all

is darkness and the mystery of Death.
He
seems to watch the ebb and flow of passion with cold,
;

around

impassive eyes, as if conscious of the futility of all

things but of dreams. Shut away from the tumult of
life,

living in a

glimpses

world of his own, he gets only faint

and he tried to build
things

of material

above the actual world an abstract world of thought,

where a floating perfume, a Vv^hisper, a poignant
cadence, a delicate shade of colour, were the only
remains of

But

reality.

acutely alone

this

in his

ideal universe

sense of solitude

is

he

supreme

felt

in his

mind, and inspired to him perhaps the most splendid,

and the saddest, of

his lines.

Mallarme's chief claim to distinction

that he expressed with

among

the

supreme melanSymbolists
of
the poet caused
loneliness
the
and
sweetness
choly
is

56

not only by the incomprehension of the crowd, but,

all, by the impossibility to manifest his dream,

above

by the transcendental character of beauty.

according to Mallarme's conception,
whose true abode is another sphere

is

Beauty,
a divine Idea,

she appears to
us only as a shadow, the contemplation of perfect beauty
being out of the reach of the human soul. In Hero-

where

diade

the Princess

is

the symbol of beauty,

soul the

You
latter says
and the Nurse of the
or do I see here the shade of a princess?
are alive
'

'

An

analogous thought occurs

in

Shelley's

Hymn

to

intellectual beauty^

The awful shadow

of

Floats though unseen

Like aught that for

some unseen Power

among us;
...

its

Dear, and yet dearer for

grace
its

And
in

may be

mystery.

the same notion is echoed

honour of beauty from Plato,

in

Spenser's

Hymn

perfect beauty, which all men adore.

face and feature doth so much excell

Whose

All mortal sense, that none the

same may

tell.

In the concept of Plato all loveliness on earth is but

a shadow of an absolute beauty. Socrates, in the
Phaedrus^ says that wisdom is the loveliest of all

ideas
to

and the

figure of

Wisdom

in Spenser's

Hymn

heavenly beauty foreshadows in a certain way the

image of the French poet.

in his bosom Sapience doth sit,
The sovereign darling of the Deity,

There

Clad Jike a queen in royal robes, most fit

For so great power and peerless majesty,

57

And all with gems and jewels gorgeously

Adorned, that brighter than the stars appear,
And make

When

the

mistress she
'

her native brightness seem more

clear.

Nurse wishes to pay homage

forbidden to do it.

her

to

is

Nurse. Grant to

my

lips

your fingers and their

rings.

Herodiade.

Keep

back.

Beauty were not Death

kiss

would

me,

kill

if

'.

All art, being an aspiration to beauty, a suggestion

of a world beyond the world, is a yearning, through
find a similar conception in
death, to eternity.

We

Francis Thompson's Mistress of Vision

Her song

said that no springing

Paradise but evermore

Hangeth on a singing
That has chords of weeping,

And

that sings the after -sleeping

To souls that wake too sore.

*But woe the singer, woel* she

said; 'beyond the

dead his

[singing lore*'

The passage
of mortality

in the

expressed

Die, for

When
And

into another region free

the

realm of beauty

XX. strophe

of the

from the
is

stain

powerfully

same poem

none other way canst live.

earth and heaven lay down

their veil,

that apocalypse turns thee pale;

When

thy seeing blindeth thee

To what thy

fellow-mortals see;

When

their sight to thee is sightless;

Their living, death; their light, most lightless;

Search no more,
Pass the gates of Luthany, tread the region Elenore.

58

This yearning is already apparent in Baudelaire,

in the poeme en prose Anywhere out of the worlds
in which the soul, unsatisfied with the mirage of foreign
'

'

at

cries

countries,

last

to

'

It does not
poet
be out of this world

the

'

matter where, provided it

and in The Voyage'. 'Death, old captain, it is time;
This land bores us; o Death,
let us weigh anchor.
!

sail
If sky and sea are as black as
our hearts, well-known to you, are filled with
bright rays. We wish to dive to the bottom of the

us get under

let

ink,

abyss, to the

inmost depth of the unknown to find

'

something new

an exile on earth, and she is astonished

to find herself surrounded by its perishable loveliness.

Beauty

'

is

By what charms

lured

to

this

asks

',

world

.!^

Herodiade,

What morning

magnificence over the dying horizons }

of her exile; why is she here? what
feels utterly alone, living
unprofitable to men, like

She

by

herself,

many

'

have

sheds
'

She

for.?*

been

its
is

sad

afraid

And

she

unapproachable,

radiant

and useless

immortal, and, remembering her native

things.
to keep her splendour inviolate, to
desires
heaven,
of the eternal gems of the
reflection
the
preserve
is

the
palace where she was born. I dream of exiles
golden torrent of my immaculate hair is everlasting,
'

and

my

want

my

hair, that

has mirrored you, jewels of

natal wall, to retain the sterile coldness of metal

in its cruel flashes

and

dull pallors

'.

She

is

insensible

to human distress, in her serene, unreachable glow

my hairs are not flowers to shed oblivion to human

'

pain

'.

Beauty wishes to see herself reflected

the mirror of Art; in vain.

How

in a mirror,

often has she sought

59

memories of her heavenly

works
She descried

the

aesthetic

as

much

grasp,

in the

less express, beauty.

Human

not allowed to attain perfect loveliness

their

poems, paintings,
frail,

tarnished

Herodiade

is

statues,

fully

visions are

and, even in

productions, in their

finest

grace of

them only

shadow, since Art cannot

elusive

faint,

life

herself in

efforts

supreme
music men draw

but a

image of beauty. Then, in despair,

conscious at last of the vanity of all

endeavours, of the gulph between herself and

mankind all her dreams are inaccessible to the soul

their

of man.

'

mirror, chilly water frozen

by weariness

your frame, how many times, and for hours and

hours, sick of dreaming, and looking for my rememin

brances, that are like dead leaves under the deep

hole of your crystal, I appeared to myself as a shadow
'

far

away

Beauty
'

is

therefore surrounded by utter loneliness.

And

Nurse.

for

whom do you

anguish, the unknown

of your being }

keep, devoured by
effulgence and the vain mystery

Herodiade. For myself.

Nurse. Sad is the flower that grows solitary, and
has no other emotion but to behold with atony its

own shade

in the

water

'.

And

then Herodiade breaks out into an impassioned

outburst, one of the highest flights of the poet's genius.
'

Yes,
all

it is

alone!

for myself, only for myself, that

You know

it,

blossom,

gardens of amethyst, buried for

ever in dazzled abysses,

you, hidden gold, keeping
your ancient glow beneath the dark sleep of primeval
earth,

you,

precious stones, from which

my

limpid jewels, borrow their melodious clarity,

eyes,
and

6o

you, metals, that give a fatal radiance and a heavy

flow to my young hair
observe in him that strange discontent which
'

We

Walter Pater has so subtly analysed in his portrait

of Watteau an infinite sadness is lurking behind his
;

gorgeous visions, and all his songs are in a minor

tone. His enigmatic work is like the ivory face of
Medusa, framed by tangles of golden snakes we are
;

lured to scan her changeful smile, to wring the secret

seems to withhold
Yet he felt a yearning,
vague, but intense, towards the Infinite and the Eternal.
'I go
he says in Les Fenetres^ to all the windows
from which I may turn my shoulders to life
and
to
the
washed
with
eternal
close
dews,
there,
glass
gilt by the chaste morning of the Infinite, I behold
from her pale

for ever the

lips; she, sphinx-like,

mystery of her

life.

'

',

myself turned into a higher being, carrying my dream

as a diadem,
in the antenatal skies where beauty
is blossoming for ever
For him the beauty of nature

'.

could only be appreciated through the medium of art

or when transfigured by immortal hopes
;

Que

la vitre soit Tart, soit la mysticite.

His aesthetic ecstasies were so intense that they

revealed to him an everlasting realm of Beauty, as
if the
real firmament were looped back from our
'

mortal mornings grey

know

herself

among

'.

His soul

is

vainly trying to

the elusive reflections of fleeting

images.

The poet's aspiration to supernal beauty is symbolised in L'Azur. The azure of heaven is for Mallarme,
as for Baudelaire, the
ideal.

'

The serene

symbol of

purity, of the haunting

of
the
eternal
blue, indolently
irony

6i

beautiful like the flowers,

poet, who
desert of sorrows.

overwhelms the strengthless

while

crossing a sterile
I flee, with closed
eyes, and yet
I feel it looking at my soul with the
intensity of a
remorse.
Arise, fogs
crushing
pour out your
monotonous ashes, with long tatters of mist, and build
curses his genius

And you, dear Weariness,

of the Lethean pools, gathering slime and
pale reeds, and stop with unwearied hand the large
blue holes that birds tear open maliciously in this
up a great

silent ceiling.

come out

roof.

me

Matter, give

oblivion of the cruel ideal

I pray in vain. The azure is

and of sin.
triumphing,
it makes itself a
and I hear it singing in the bells
voice and peals out of the living metals in the blue
;

We may compare with these

chimes of the Angelus
lines what Baudelaire says in one of his Poemes en
'

'

Inimitable chastity of the blue

prose
of heaven strikes me with dismay, and
:

limpidity. Ah
or
for ever flee
pain

The

feel

depth

enraged

must one eternally writhe in

from the Beautiful }
and in
the sonnet L'aube spirituelle
When the white and
at

its

'

'

vermilion dawn, with the corrosive ideal, enters the

room of a libertine, an angel awakes in the slumbering
brute. Before him the inaccessible azure of the spiritual

heavens opens and deepens with the fascination of

an abyss
'

Mallarme shares with Verlaine and other writers of

this group the conception of an adverse fate in the
poet's

life.

had stated

Already, in Tenebres^ one of their leaders

this idea
;

Sur son trone d'airain, le Destin qui s'en

Imbibe leur eponge avec du fiel amer,
Et la Necessite les tord dans sa tenaille.

raille,

62
'

On

his throne of bronze, Destiny,

laughing at them,

them a sponge with bitter gall, and

Verlaine
Necessity wrings them in her pincers
it
in
and
his
Les
developed
adopted
essays
poetes
maudits] the title of his Poemes saturniens refers to
these people born under an evil star,
Saturne, astre
in the lyric Grotesques
fauve, cher aux necromanciens
he describes these ill-fated artists and points out the
reason of the hatred against them
they are abhorred
because in their eyes smiles and weeps, fastidious to
imbibes

for

'.

'

'

'

the vulgar, the love of eternal things '. Mallarme, in

Le Guignon^ shows us the evil genius that drives his
The wild
ill-starred friends to calamity and disaster.
'

hair of the beggars of Azure, who tread our earthly

roads, floated in sudden flashes above the haggard

herd of men. Always with the hope of reaching the

sea, they travelled without bread, staff or urn, biting

And most of
sombre mountain passes, only death
That is: the radiant dreams
kissing their silent lips
of poets craving for ideal beauty, and yet doomed to
live among us, shone far above the crowd engaged
the golden citron of the bitter ideal.

them died

in

'.

in

low

pursuits

beholding
their

with

an

unconquerable

at last the vision of the infinite,

hope of

they dragged

days without comfort, support or relief, trying

nourishment from the splendid fruit of

to get their
their mind

and most of them met with a lonely,

Roaming in the wilderness, they run

inglorious end.
before the whip of an angry monarch, their wicked
'

of wrath, they turn and challenge the

perverse king, only to drive their rusty rapier through
a mocking carcass '.
Why ', exclaims the poet in
full

destiny;

'

'

despair,

why do

not these luckless heroes put on the

63
rags of charlatans

scarlet

to

attract the

he expresses

in

mob

a sonnet

'

where

conception
he compares the poet to a swan imprisoned in a
Its neck strives to shake off the white
frozen lake.

parallel

'

agony, but the bird shall never

of the ice in which

from the horror

rise

plumage
caught. Phantomby its pure splendour, the
Swan becomes motionless in the cold dream of disdain
its

is

like, assigned to this place

that enfolds
in

it

in its useless exile

among

agony

uncongenial

'.

The poet

surroundings

writhes
;

but,

of the vanity of his efforts, becomes

insensible to the cold indifference and contempt of

conscious at

last

He was certainly very different from those

who, greedy of notice, endeavour to force
personalities upon us. As no concession to the

the crowd.
artists,

their

popular taste
this

Mallarme,
is

is

conceivable in such a fine writer as

complaint sounds strange indeed, and

it

truly characteristic of a dreamer.

Nobody in fact
can for a moment

who

has a clear vision of reality

hope that these rare and beautiful dreams

entertain the

may be

understood,

much

less

appreciated,

by the

crowd.
This conception was further enhanced,

in

the case

of Mallarme, by the reluctance to reveal his poetical

dreams; in his essay on Hamlet, the hero assumes
for

him a

of

significance, becomes the symbol

soul that shrinks instinctively from

special

delicate

its true self to the mob.

This character is
him the synthesis of an inward drama the poet
is torn between the impulse of destiny compelling
him to appear before the world, and his yearning for
Hamlet represents a personage with an
secrecy.

showing
to

'

intimate occult tragedy, that

is,

the adolescent,

who

64

beginning of life, and who

and
pensive
lofty minds with the
mourning garments which he pleases to wear. I
recognise in him the emblem of the man who writhes
in pain under the fatal evil of having to show himself
to the world

from us

vanished
shall

haunt

at the

all

'.

His poems-in-prose intermingle the homely with the

rare,

his

conception of the difference between

this

form and verse being that verse is only to deal with

the noblest and highest ideas while the poem-in-prose
blends

ordinary

narrow

in

of vision,

life

with

dream.

In

these

pieces,

compass and yet opening vast perspectives

the objects that give them their titles are

mere pretexts or starting-points the fantastic element

comes in unexpectedly, as the poet follows the thread
;

of suggestion.

memory. He

The Pipe

is

the analysis of a trick of

away the

finds his pipe, and, throwing

'

cigarettes, lights

it,

like a serious

man, who,

to

work

in a better way, wants to smoke for a long while,

without trouble'. 'But I had not foreseen the surprise

that this forgotten creature

soon as

blew out the

great books that

this faithful

first

had

in store

whiff,

since

such a London as

my

me. As

had not touched

return, and London

intended to write

friend

for

cleanly forgot the

I had felt,
living alone, entirely by
to me. I saw
one
appeared
year ago
myself,
its furniture, sprinkled with coal
a
sombre
room,
again
dust, on which sprawled thtf lean black cat, the great
fires, and the housemaid pouring out coal in the iron
when the postman struck the
grate, at morning
solemn double knock that made me live I have seen

the

window those

sickly trees of the

again through
desert square, and the sea, and myself shivering on

65

my beloved in her long grey

round her neck fluttered the terrible
handkerchief that is waved when we say farewell and

the steamer's deck, with

And

mantle.

Winter Skiver he obtains the

part for ever '. In

calculated effect by

means of

The Water-lily

of details.

a skilful

arrangement

a pretext to

is

show how

he prefers dream to reality he has rowed for a long

time on the river, and now he is near the park of a
lady to whom he has to take a message suddenly he
hears a slight noise; perhaps the lady is coming and
;

her beauty
do,

may

dream

my

To

absence diffused
a place,

fascinate his

sum up

in this solitude

soul.
at a

and

somebody plucks one of

'

What am

to

glance the virginal

as, to

remember

these magic water-

closed, enfolding with their hollow whiteness

a nothing made of inviolate dreams of a happiness
lilies,

that shall never exist

gather

one of these flowers

and leave the place

The most exquisite among these little masterpieces
Ever since Mary left
is doubtlessly Autumn Plaint.
'.

'

me

for another star

Venus

have

Orion,
always

Altair, or

cherished

is it

you, green

solitude.

How

a long day have I whiled away, alone, with

By 'alone' I mean 'without a material being',

many

my

cat!

and my cat is a mystic companion, a spirit. Thus I

have spent long days alone with my cat, and, alone,
with one of the authors of the Latin decadence;
for,

lady is no more, strangely and

have loved all that is summed up in this

since the white

curiously

Therefore the last languishing summer

are
days
my favourite season, and the hour in which
I take a walk is when the sun
lingers over the horizon

word

fall.

before vanishing away, and casts rays of yellow copper

F.

OHVERO.

66

on the grey walls and of red copper on the windowpanes.

Likewise

love

the

writers

of the

Roman

was reading one of these dear poems

decadence.
whose spots of rouge have for me a greater charm
I

than the incarnate of youth

when

a barrel-organ

and melancholy, beneath my

began
window. It was playing in the avenue of poplars, the
leaves of which seem dismal to me even in Spring,
to sing, languid

since

Mary passed

accompanied by lighted
remembrance
the barrel-organ made me dream desperately. It played
an old-fashioned, banal air, and yet I enjoyed it slowly,
and I did not get up to throw a penny out of the
window, lest I chanced to see that the instrument did
there,

tapers, for the last time. In the twilight of

not sing by itself.

It is an autumnal world

he stands on the threshold

of a garden, of which he shares the serene melancholy;

the sun is like a gleaming topaz, and the breeze is

soughing mournfully through the groves

dimmed by

the chilly incense of October; dead leaves fall lightly

on the shivering lake, on the last flowers
crysan:

themums of

curled amber, frail roses around the pale

of
a pond, verbenas that the sunset rays
amethyst
to
seem
have stained with a fiery dye.
forest

red-gold in the slanting sunbeams, dusky bronze in

the violet shadow
sleeps in the distance; a mystic,

yearning melody, like the song of a lonely star,

on the wind, filling his mind with visions.

floats
'

My

ascends toward your brows and

the moving sky of your angelic eyes, as, in a melana faithful
white fountain-jet rises,
choly garden
soul,

o calm

sister,

the tender blue of pale

sighing, toward the azure,
and pure October that mirrors in the large basins

67
its infinite languor, and lets trail on the dead water,
where the wandering agony of ruddy leaves driven
by the breeze traces a cold furrow, a long yellow

sunbeam

'.

There he has built his Palace of Art an edifice

of lapislazuli and gold, supported by slender columns
of polished bronze around which are twined exotic
'

',

To

flowers.
hall,

read his

where cups
iridescent

slim

is like entering a sumptuous

with Byzantine enamels and
glasses stand on a table of onyx
veined surface the painted ceiling.

poems

inlaid

mirroring on its
He is fond of the

grace, of the quaint

Arcadia of the XVIII. century as

refinement of an

factitious

well as of the bizarre fancies of Japanese art.

The preciosity of
some of his sonnets

his

inspiration

may be

seen in

in octosyllabics, in the lines, for

on Mademoiselle Mallarme's fan; the fan

istance,

is

O dreamer, learn how to keep my wing

your hand, so as to plunge me into pure delight,
'

speaking
in

without roving away as a bird's wing would like to

a twilight freshness breathes on you at every
do
;

when

am

folded up, I
am like a sceptre that you place against the fires
of your bracelet '. Not only this
gold and gems

fluttering of

my

wing

and,

preciosity, but

of the

even a certain 'mievrerie', characteristic

XVIII. century, appears in the sonnet Placet

Princess, call me the shepherd of your smiles,
'

futile
so that fan-winged Love may paint me, a flute in
hands, lulling to sleep this sheepfold '.
:

Curiously enough at
reaction

to

the

artificiality

complexity of modern
for

method of

first

art

life,

we

sight,

of

his

my

but as a natural
style

and

the

see in Mallarme a wish

extremely simplified and for

68

serenity in the conception of existence. He expressed

Las de Tamer repos '.
it in
the Hnes beginning
'

'

of the bitter

Weary

offends

glory

by which

rest,

for

which

my

once

idleness

forsook

the

infancy of the woods of roses under the

I will leave aside the
natural azure
greedy Art of

adorable

Smiling at the old reproaches of my

my genius, I wish to imitate

a cruel land.

friends, of the past, of

a Chinese
his

His heart

artist.

pure ecstasy

is

limpid and refined, and

on cups as white as snow

is

to paint,

from the moon, a bizarre flower that perfumes

his transparent life, the flower he has felt, when a
stolen

child, grafting

itself to

And, serenely,

am

the blue

filigree

of his soul.

going to choose a simple land-

scape; a blue, thin, pale line should suggest a lake,

the sky being represented by the bare porcelain; the
clear crescent of the moon, partly lost in a white
cloud, dips
from three
for

its

horn

great

reeds

three

in the

eyelashes

Which

'.

mirror of waters, not far

of emerald, that stand

is

to

say

Weary

of

my

my dream of poetical fame, for

simple life and the contemplation

laziness that frustrates

which once
of natural

complex

left

beauty, I will leave

of our Western

aside
art,

style

the

strange,

greedy of new

without minding at all the criticism of

impressions,
the
friends,
example of ancient poet, and my inspiration. I shall imitate Eastern art; I dream of a new
style in poetry, clear
will suffice to paint

and sober

an

only a few details

ideal, placid landscape.

He was

deeply interested in the relations between

music and poetry; both try to disentangle an outline
of harmony from the mystic arabesque of the universe;
but

in the

former we miss a supreme element, the

69

'Music and Literature', he says

same face of the soul but in music
idea.

'

(i),

this

are the

visage

is

dark, in literature translucent with thought, luminous

with the brightness of the Idea '. Both tend to the
'

pure

idea

'

of a thing, not at the thing

itself

with

specified and individual characters; yet in poetry the

idea is manifested and definitely outlined, while music
only expresses the emotion stirred by it. I utter the
'

word

'

flower

and, out of the oblivion to which

',

voice relegates

known

all

my

shapes different from the blossoms

me, musically and suavely rises the very

idea of a flower, of the flower absent from all bouquets'.
It is commonly believed that Mallarme identifies verse
to

with music

on the contrary, as we have

just seen,

he distinguishes between the tune without words and

music is indipendent
the song endowed with ideas
;

of thought, poetry

is

not.

The musical

character that

where melody is certainly an intrinsic

mere ornament, is rather due to his
a
and
not
power

marks

his lines,

wish to absorb into poetry the elements of music. A

quotation from his Divagation^ relativement au versc^
furnishes the best

commentary

to this statement.

'We

now

just about to seek the art of transposing the

symphony into the book, thus taking back our own
property [music] because it is not from the elemental

are

sonorities of brass-, string-

and wind-instruments, but

from the word charged with thought at its highest

understood as the
degree [poetry], that music

ensemble of the relations existing among

must result

{i)

and

all

things

'.

La Musique
at

Pembroke

et les Lettres;

a lecture held at Cambridge

College, Oxford.

70

Some

of his

poems seem indeed

to

re-echo the

deHcacy and intensity of pathos of Chopin

and Schumann; a musical glamour enwraps his ethereal
mystical

figures half-seen in the twilight, Seraphim bending over

their sobbing viols among vapoury flowers, their eyes

holding in their blue depths the gleam of stars.

'

The moon

was growing sad. Some dreaming Seraphim, in tears,

drew from their dying viols, in the calm of vapoury
flowers, white sobs that

chalices

my

inebriated

which

swept over the blue

torment me, subtly

reverie, loving to

itself with the perfume of that sadness,

even without regret or disillusion
the

realisation

dream leaves

of a

in

the

heart of the

And with sunlight in your hair, at evening,

dreamer.

you appeared,
thought

lightly

to

see

smiling, to me in the street, and I

the bright-hooded fairy, who once

dreams letting snow down from her

half-closed hands white bouquets of perfumed stars'.
He strove to capture the most elusive impressions,
to isolate and intensify them
and, like tinklings of
passed in

my

a fairy harp, his exquisite strains succeed in evoking

those faint, delicate images which hover on the verge

of

consciousness

symbols

and

tokens

of

half-

forgotten joys and sorrows. He was an artist extremely

sensitive to all the capacities of expression afforded

by the medium he chose; he found out accordingly

new suggestions in the sounds and musical arrangement of words. Sometimes, looking at pictures, we
feel, in spite

of the limitation of colour and

line,

musical impression, chiefly because they are endowed

with the nostalgic pathos, the infinite aspiration which is
the soul of music, but also because of their vagueness,
effected by means of vaporous lights and finely shaded

71
tints.

Indefiniteness in description, precision in emotion,

the proper characteristics of the art of

are indeed

sounds and the painters who conceived these peculiar

works cared more for exactness of emotion than for
a faithful portraiture of nature. The same happens, in
the domain of poetry, with Poe's and Mallarme's lyrics;
rhythm is here moulded on the very throbbings of
;

the heart, passion is changed into beautiful chords and

cadences; the outlines of their images are indetermi-

rendering of emotion is intense and

precise. Their perusal is, however, beset with difficulties; Mallarme was content with allusions, with
nate, but their

the

hints, with

kind of

elliptical

suggestiveness we
is not presented,

find in a Japanese print; the reader

for instance, with a

full,

but he feels like one,

detailed description of Spring;

sitting at the window on

who

a misty morning knows that Spring is

cloudlet of plum-blossoms drifting past
cold wind.

come by a
him on the

His poems are marred by the obscurity produced

by the crowding of ornaments, and, above all, by their
analogies so new and far-fetched that, ruled by the
natural association of ideas,

we miss

the connecting

between feeHng and image. Several of

remain indeed ambiguous, unsolved riddles,

link

traceries of

words without any

his

poems

deHcate

significance.

hard, in the eclogue The afternoon of a faun,

to discern and seize the idea sunk beneath the surface
It is

of intricate imagery
themselves from the

yet

some

obscure

pictures

tissue,

and

disengage

what

is

abstruse throws in brighter relief their strict realism,

the glaucous gold of far
especially in colour
the
hour
when the forest takes on
'at
greeneries
'

'

72

hues of gold and ashes '. The faun, in the fierce

of noon, on the shore of a Sicilian marsh
asleep under flowers of sparkling light, calls up,

silence

'

electing for confident

that is, on his pipes, the

the

hollow

memory

reeds

playing,

',

of a 'flight of swans',

of the Naiads fleeing away at his approach.

Yet, in most cases, the veil of dazzling rays fades
away at a careful perusal, and the meaning appears.

The

distortion

and blurring of the image

excessive

is

caused

thought is hid by
the fiery brilliance of the metaphors with which it is
clothed. We perceive at first only an arabesque of gems;

by

its

elaboration, the

solely after a close examination that a change

gradually overspreads the picture the main lines stand
is

it

out from the glittering background, and we descry the

Hving idea, the visage of the poem's soul, enclosed

We

must here observe that

on purpose (i); was
conceptions from vulgar eyes

in its lustrous

setting.

Mallarme used

this cryptic style

merely to conceal his

or was it his aim to reflect the mystery of the external
world in the mystery of his poetical form.? Both in
his poetry and in his prose he is fond of reticence,

it

of choosing with fastidious taste the finest shades of

language to express the perplexity of his mind.
In his first productions he adopted the grim,
desperate pessimism of Baudelaire, and repeated with

(i) Cf.

Petrarca, Epist. Sen. XII, 2:

Officium (poetae) est

fingere id est componere atque ornare et veritatem rerum

vel mortalium vel naturalium vel quarumlibet aliarum artifi-

adumbrare coloribus, velo amoenae fictionis obnubere,

quo remoto Veritas elucescat, eo gratior inventu quo difficilior
ciosis

sit

quaesitu'.

73
slight variations the brutal conceptions of the

Fleurs

du Mal\ afterwards he endeavoured to interpret life

in a new way, and, while acquiring technical mastery,
found the inspiration he needed in Poe and in Whistler.
of Ulalume and Ligeia, the painter of

The author

the Nocturnes^ taught him the suggestive power of

symbols, the refinement of an ardent spiritualism,

together with a lofty elegance of expression. In Poe's

a flower,
symbolic art, a thing meaningless in reality

becomes

the means of expressing a

a tree, a star
a
a
mood,
psychological condition
just as
thought,
in Whistler's portrait of his mother the black, spangled
;

background becomes an emblem of

mystery. Yet, although his aesthetic ideal has been
moulded by these combined influences, his originality

curtain in the

like the fragrance of

remains unimpaired; a perfume,

unknown

lines; with a

flowers, clings to his subtile

tropes and complex figures of

speech, with a diction extremely refined and harmonious, with a flawless versification, he could produce

abounding

style

in

such a perfect achievement as Sainte.

Saint
lies

is

standing close to the

her viol of

the gilding

is

sandal-wood

falling off,

casement
still

'

The

pale

on the

sill

glistening though

her viol on which she once

would play,
accompanied by flute or mandore.
She holds open the ancient book of the Magnificat^
The
chanted long ago at vespers and compline.

storied panes of the casement, bright

monstrance,
are swept
the
by an Angel soaring

whose
an
spread
wing
Angel
by
evening sky,
with her
Hke a harp. And she
touching
the instrumental plumage, she,
dainty
as a

in

in his flight

is

is

finger-tip

the musician of silence

'.

lightly

74

moment when the soul, weary of earthly

the radiant efflorescence of dreams,
to
turns
troubles,
has seldom been expressed with such a magnificence
The

ecstatic

of sound and colour as in Les Fenetres\

evening lies bleeding among the roofs

'When

the

his eyes
brimful with splendour,
golden ships, beautiful as swans, asleep on a river of
their flashing sides rocking
purple and of perfumes,
of
remembrances
'.
full
in a nonchalance
Every work

on the horizon

behold,

of art

is

an altered transcript of

reality;

Mallarme's

power of transfiguring reality into a refulgent vision

may be well exemplified by Les Fleurs. From the
'

avalanches of gold and ancient azure, and from the

eternal snow of the stars, you detached, on the first

day of the world, these great chalices to deck the

and you made
earth, still unstained by disasters
;

the Hlies' sobbing whiteness, that, through the blue

incense of paled horizons, rises dreamily to the weeping

moon and
beams

rolls

on seas of sighs

lightly

swept by

its

'.

There

is

something hopeless

for perfection

walks hand

in

in his passionate quest

him the richly-clad figure of Beauty

hand with the gloomy image of Death.
for

deep-seated melancholy is to be
found in his agnosticism; with the impending thought

The

cause of this

of the inevitable doom, a strange hush steals over his

spiritual garden, the lawns strewn with a crimson rain
of rose-leaves, the golden mirage of Autumn reflected
in the marble basins, steals into the hall, where a

pensive visage mirrors itself in the greenish waters

of an ancient looking-glass; a far-off song is faintly
heard, weird as the lullaby of unseen Dryads, or the
dirge of waves breaking on the shore of an enchanted

75
sea. He is startled by the idea of the vanity of his
pursuit of pleasure as a wanderer, who looking into
a lonely tarn, finds himself confronted by death-pale

faces gleaming beneath the sombre emerald of the

waters. In the dewy stillness of his nocturnal orchard

he is caressed by the fragrance of invisible flowers;

in a sunrise
yet he does not admit their existence
scarlet
where
clouds
curl
into
sky
glistening foam, he
;

does not descry the inmost creative Spirit of Light.

Among

his disciples

it

was reserved

for Paul Claudel

the privilege of breaking the evil spell and of asserting

the bliss of a firm belief.
must not look in M^l-

We

larme's

rapture of Spring, but

dying year, of all beautiful and
not for the diamond of Joy, but

poetry for the naive

for the sadness of the

perishable things,
for the precious stone that glimmers on the tiara of
Dreams, the mysterious opal.

Paul Verlaine,

'

Beside the glaring colours and hard outlines of the

the poetical world of Verlaine appears
',

Parnassiens

wrapt in misty lights and transparent shadows. For

Leconte de Lisle and Heredia the aesthetic charm
lay in the exterior glow of beautiful things, for Verlaine in their inmost significance. Therefore he gave,
with Mallarme, a powerful impulse to bring about the
transition
result

of

from the

'

Parnasse

Parnassian

the

'

to

The

Symbolism.

technique

is

the

nearest

approach to painting; Verlaine's, to music; the work

of the former school is a pageant of vivid dreams,
that of the latter a set of

melodies.

He

is

rather a

musician than a poet; he gives us arabesques instead

of clear profiles, the emotion produced by the subject
rather than its shape or hue. Nevertheless the influence
of the

'

Parnasse
is

pictorial style

'

the
lingers in his hearly poems
manifest for instance in Caesar Borgia^
;

a full-length portrait\ the duke Caesar stands out from

the dusky background of a rich vestibule, at the end
of which glimmer the white marble busts of Horace
and Tibullus
his black eyes, black hair and black
'

velvet dress contrast with the

sumptuous evening gold,

77

with the

dull,

noble pallor of his face, furrowed with

to the manner of Spanish and

Venetian painters. And his forehead, full of formidable projects, broods under the cap, on which a

deep shades, according

feather

rubies
In

quivers, springing out of a brooch

of fiery

'.

the

book where

Saturniens^ his

this

inspiration

poem is found, Pohnes

may be traced back to

Hugo, Lamartine and Vigny;

but the

technique of

these singers has here undergone a strange refinement

the images seem to rise through a mellower atmo;

sphere; they appear vaguely, as things seen through

floating mist or half-lost in the mystery of distance

they melt into each other like clouds;

we

only catch

glimpses of them, as they steal away on rapid wings.

He foresaw that the distinct melody of these poets
and the excessive and artificial splendour of Poemes

Barbares and Les Trophies were apt to cloy, to dazzle

and tire, and preferred a scenery of subdued tints
and softened outlines. His landscapes, bathed in a

shimmering light, undergo a gradual transformation

perfumes turn into colours and sounds
feeling and
sensation are so intimately fused that we cannot
;

disentangle their elements

yet the freshness of the

breathes
from his verse.
original, genuine perception
In The Shepherd's hour he thus evokes the moment
;

when the crimson harvest moon rises on the darkening

The moon hangs
meadows spangled with fireflies
'

the meadows,
red and low over the hazy horizon
covered with a dancing mist, fall asleep; there is a
;

croaking of frogs in the green rushes, through which

wanders a
the zenith

shiver.
fills

The

water-flowers close their chalices,

white, the Evening

with dim gleams

78

Night'. As he gazes on the

autumn wind, an image of his
life comes to his mind
The prolonged sobbing of
the violins of autumn pierces my heart with a monotonous languor;... and I go drifting on the evil wind
that carries me hither and thither, as a dead leaf
There is a subtle toning of hues in his pictures, in
Star emerges; and it
blown by the

is

leaves

'

'.

which a chord of colours

developed into harmonies

is

through almost imperceptible gradations. His poetical

realm appears sometimes as a symbolical, shifting,
in Crepuscule du soir mystique^
intangible world
the Remembrance, blending with the Twilight, burns
with a quivering red light on the glowing horizon of
;

'

'

flaming

being
of

Hope

in close

Eugene

yet his images preserve their vitality,

union with life. As in the paintings

Carriere, the lines of the figures are blurred,

but their emotional power

reve familier

'
:

is

Her name

intense; he says, in
I
remember that

Mon
it

is

sweet and sonorous, as the names of people whom

from Life. Her look is like the
I loved, now exiled
look of statues, and in her remote, calm and grave
voice she has the inflexions of v.oices now hushed in
death, and once so dear to

me

'.

Poemes Saturniens we are struck by the predominance of the pictorial element, in Romances sans
paroles of the musical; these lyrics charm us by mere
beauty of sound. He preferred, above all metrical
In

forms, the 'song', conscious of the effects of which

capable, of the resources that lie within 'its narrow

it is

He treats the poetic material with a rigid

that no insignificant details are admitted,
so
economy,
and there is not a syllabe but adds a suggestive note

compass.

to the melody, a fine

and unforeseen modulation

to

79

With

vague rhythm and hovering

seem
to be set to the fitful music
poems
of winds and waters. These subtle variations in a

the cadence.

their

accents, these

minor key acquire a high expressiveness, as if a magic

were hid in the words; as we Hsten to the subtly
modulated chant we seem to perceive the sounds and
hues of a twilight land. 'O frail and fresh murmur!
it

is

like the soft voice of wind-stirred grass, or the

rolling of pebbles

under swirling water

'.

Life

comes

but vaguely, with fugitive emotions, into these reveries;

I descry in a murmur the subtle outlines of ancient
'

and

musical gleams the future sunrise

of a pale dawning love '. It is a series of dreamy

voices,

in the

landscapes, exquisite, if somewhat wan and evanescent,

the fruit of visionary hours; they lead us to a region
of

freshness

and

in

calm, where,
flowers nod

the

deepening

the glens and

gloaming,
frankincense
the
path. There
floating mist scents like
rain-wet

is

new

indefinite

in

note, a dying loveliness, in these

like

old

half-remembered

lieder

',

melodies

airs,

whispered, not sung. Here words, without ceasing to

be poetry, grow to the intensity of music.

His lines appear spontaneous and

free

the poet

to say: 'The song is a self-revelation; only let

the soul sing by itself. Yet he works with a stern artistic
conscience, shrinking from no labour, with a scrupu-

seems

subject and phrase,

discriminating subtly in the analysis of his sensations
and emotions. These rornances are variations on

lous

and deliberate selection

in

'

'

feverish, tired mood we seem to overhear

mere echoes ol^the inner song.
The piano, kissed by a frail hand, gleams vaguely
the rose and grey evening, while, with a light rustle

the

same

them, as
'

in

8o

of wings, a very old, feeble and charming air roams

discreetly, almost scared, in the boudoir perfumed by
her.

song

What do you wish from me,

What have you wished from me,

refrain

sweet, playful
uncertain

fine,

going soon to die towards the window ajar

'

on the little garden ?

But a keen poignancy is obtained by sharpening
and in the landscapes,
vague sorrows and griefs
;

by a temperance of expression, by omitting certain

outlines and tints, by fusing the personal element with
the external. Therefore, in spite of their apparent

we

artificiality

were done
careful

limitations

because

his

form

the inexpressible
of landscape and

sums up
at

in

is

these

that

realise

He

after nature.

little

water-colours

obtains rare effects through

seems vague and reticent

always fluttering on the edge of
he chooses only the curiosities
he

'

feeling
short

yet with essential art he

a way of looking

these

'

lyrics

life.

evoked the parks of Lenotre,

In Fetes galantes he

their tall hedges of clipped box-trees, their rustUng

draperies of ivy, their avenues peopled with the
languid figures of Watteau. Fountains are sobbing in

the moonlight, statues dreaming in the violet distance,

while among honey-tinted roses and mauve azaleas
he leads his frivolous bergeries ', his ladies dressed
'

as shepherdesses, his masquerades. Harlequin, Pierrot,

Colombine, foolish and tragic, with a smile of strange

despair.
'

Here

commedia

too,

dell'arte'

where
rise to

the personages of the

be the actors of a pass-

ionate inward drama, we have a kind of symbolism

an attitude of the soul is translated into the scene of
;

pantomime.

And keen

is

our interest in the

trifling

8i

drama

being played by the maskers, because

it is an
image of our interior tragedy. We descry
secret tears in the obUque eyes behind the mask, and
a weary, bitter smile on their farded lips, the tragic
that

is

smile of Watteau's L' Indifferent. As in Schumann's

Ca7'nival, the artist is weaving beautiful patterns of
sound not only to convey the charm of his psychological state, the grace of a refined weariness, but to
breathe his very soul into the quaint, many-coloured

shapes.

And

of feeling

Love and

'

mainly concerned with nuances

have
not Love, but the Shadow of
we
he

its

'

is

They

mystery.

are

dancing,

singing,

but although
disguises
bright
and
love
their
luck
in everything
a
victorious
they sing
in
not
seem
to
their
do
believe
happiness;
they do, they

'

fanciful

playing, in

and

their songs mingle with the moonlight

with
the calm, sad, beautiful moonlight, that sets the birds

dreaming
the

tall,

in the trees

and makes the

fountain-jets

slender fountain-jets among the statues

sob
'.
follow
in
her
Colombine
They
queer

with ecstasy
'

dance

sombre

or

prophetic
cruel

tell

stars,

disaster

is

the

me

toward what

implacable

child

leading her flock of dupes.?' They are whiling away

the hours in idle talk; but the phrases uttered by
the ladies fall sometimes strangely on the heart of

The evening was falling, an

autumn
evening; then they said in a very
equivocal
low tone words so strange that since then our soul
trembles struck with amazement'. There is a kind of

the frivolous listeners.

'

indefinable anguish in their vain love;

'drive away
for ever all purpose from your heart asleep
let us
;

be persuaded to a supreme indifference by the lulling

sweet breath of the breeze that wrinkles into russet
F.

OHVERO.

82

waves the dying grass at your feet; and when, solemn,

the evening falls from the black oaks, the nightingale
will

sing, voice of

our despair

And,

'.

at last, only

the ruins of love are strewn on their path.

'

In the

and bleak park two Shadows are recalling

the past.
'Do you remember our ancient ecstasy.^'
Does your heart always throb at
'Why should I.^'
the mere mention of my name.? Do you always see
No
How blue was
my soul in your dreams }
old, lonely

'

'

'

'.

how

'

'

'

great our hope

Hope has fled away,
Thus they walked
vanquished, toward a black sky '.
in the weeds of the path forlorn, and only the night

the sky,

,heard their words

'.

a new phase in his poetry

from
the
he emerges
sensual, poisonous dreams that

With Sagesse begins

enthralled his soul; a new emotion, a mysterious joy,

in the train of sorrow
the horizon is

has followed

no more an inscrutable, unanswering gloom; the first

sunbeam of Hope glides on the water, tracing a golden
path for heavenly apparitions. Henceforth his images,
quickened by an intense inner life, assume a supernatural radiance his songs have the rapture that springs
from the deepest sources of religious meditation. His
work takes on a new grace, the charm of an almond;

bloom, mystically white, near some dark

lonely pool, all its blossoms quivering like tiny silver

tree, in full

wings

in the breeze.

The

is washed away,
mind yet the remembrance
sincere remorse, mingling a dim

stain of guilt

a blissful calm enfolds the

remains, a
sadness with his exultation; the chilliness of the bleak

of sins

Night lingers
of the

in his soul

Dawn. He

his prayer

rises

lifts

to

his

drunk with the splendour

mind to eternal hopes and

an ecstatic chant.

It

is

not the

83

hymn of Faber,
Newman; he never rises

limpid

the

poetry of

introspective

to the ardours of

Crashawi

but his lyrics are full of a secret beauty, of deep

tenderness and love they glow with a subdued fire,
;

when through

as

a thin veil of mist a

lily

reveals

its

core of burning gold. In his wanderings through the

Land of Evil, the night had closed above his soul,

he seemed to

stars,

under the weight of sultry darkness;

of sky appeared, bright with
above the sombre plain; and, as he surveys the

ruins

wrought by

stifle

at last a serene

tract

sin in his heart, and, sick of vain

desires, yearns to infinite peace,

he sings the victory

over temptations, the purification, the springing up

of the soul, soaring on immortal wings.

There

is

technique

unwearied
is

also in Sagesse a striking change in his

he speaks of his novel ideals in lyrics
in fervour, perfect in

execution

the feeling

by the simplicity and purity of the form.

shows his technical skill in the treatment of difficult

intensified

He

metres; in his invocation to the Holy Virgin the short'

lined strophes, in their smooth, free

elan ', are like
the slender columns and spires of a Gothic cathedral.

Although polished with utmost care, his lines retain

no trace of the labour. He draws from simple expressions a grace unknown to more robust, but more
in his sonnets, which remain
superficial writers
;

matchless

in

harmonious

their

colloquialisms mixed up with

God said to me
You see my pierced
and

my

tears,
sins,

my
my

find

heart bleeding,
Magdalen laves with her
arms aching under the weight of your
Have I not loved you even
hands

bruised

and
and

we

exquisite phrases.
must love me.

My son, you
side, my radiant
'

'

freedom,

feet

that

84

my

death, o

unto

Holy Ghost

in the

Have

brother in
?

Have

Father, o my son
not suffered as it was

my
I

I not sobbed your

agony supreme,
poor friend who are seeking me where I am ?
You must love me; my love is the fire consuming
for ever the flesh and evaporating it like a perfume.

written

'

'

My love is the deluge destroying in its waves all

wicked germs, so that one day the Cross may be
raised up, and, by an incomparable miracle of mercy,
daunted. It was
1 may possess you, trembling and
my

purpose, since all eternity, that you, poor soul

forlorn, should love me, who alone remain to you!'
'

'

Lord, you have truly described my

soul. I love you; but look how low am I, and your
Look at my sad
love mounts up like a flame

answered

struggles

would

shadow covered

that at least your

my shame, but you have no shadow, you, uprising

Love, calm fountain (i), bitter only to those who love
their

sealed

damnation, you, perfect light except to eyes

by a deadly kiss'. In another sonnet the images

embody

in their living splendour the

'

passion.

But, even on earth,

beauty of mystic

will

you

enjoy

my

gifts

your heart, love of poverty, and my mystic

peace
evenings, when the soul unfolds to a serene hope,
and seems to taste, according to my promise, of the
in

the moon glides on the religious

eternal Chalice
calm of the sky, when the angelus-bell rings, rose
then the spirit waits to be raised into
and black
;

my

Light, into the endless awakening in my perennial

to be
Charity, the unceasing music of my praise,

'

(i)

Quoniam apud

bimus lumen

te est fons vitae

'

[Psalms,

XXXV,

lo].

et in

lumine tuo vide-

85
in Myself, in the lovely radiance of

your sorrows,

'

of your sorrows, at last mine, and that I loved

At the beginning of the book he relates his con!

version.

'

riding in silence,
old heart with his spear. All

good knight

Misfortune pierced my
the blood of my heart spirted out in a scarlet jet,
then it evaporated on the flowers, in the sunlight.
shadow covered my sight, a cry rose to my lips, and

my

heart died with a wild shiver.

Then

the knight

came near me,

alighted from his horse

and touched me with his hand; with his fingers in
the iron gauntlet he probed my wound, while he
proclaimed his Law with a hard voice. And lo at
the icy touch a new heart was born in me, a heart
pure and bold and now a young heart, fervid with

Misfortune

a divine

simplicity, throbs

in

my

breast.

And

the

wise knight, having mounted again his horse, beckoned

me while he was going away and cried
I still

to

hear that voice

is

good

only for

'

At

be prudent

least

once

Because

this

'.

La bonne chanson

is

pure,

joyous

interlude

between the sombre melancholy of Poemes Saturniens

and the refined weariness of Fetes galantes. There
is

April

morning. As

Bonheur, there

is

the rosy effulgence of an

Amour, Liturgies intimes and

in

something virginal
in

it,

here an effective

concentration in

which the homely

and the rare are curiously mingled, and to which a
certain preciosity lends an additional charm. On the
his

seemingly slip-shod

style,

in

contrary in Jadis et naguere we become aware of a

not only are some of these
failing of his powers
;

lyrics

very low in aesthetic merit, but

we

find in

them

a tendency to sickly, feverish dreams begotten in the

86
bitter quest of pleasure, of the

the music of the lines

is

'

bourreau sans merci

no longer

perfect,

'

and we

turn disgusted from these cynical, repulsive compositions, the offspring of a diseased intellect haunted

by turbid

hallucinations.

The same may be

said of

Parallelement.

His lines possessed a life-giving power and they

left a lingering echo in subsequent poetry. He showed
a new delicacy in the handling of the somptuous,

heavy materials used by the

same technique appears

writer.

It is

reflected

in Francis

the

in

Parnassiens

',

and the

many

contemporary

that

we

find faithfully

Jammes

characteristics of Verlaine, his

inward

and his sense of loving abandonment and

repose in God. At a certain period of his life the
hyacinth of sensuality yielded to the mystic passionflower
and he rose to the same conception of the
struggle

human
labours

is

humble

of easy and wearisome

a state of election that requires a great love',

existence. 'A

life

had said the poet of Bonheur, and this thought is

re-echoed in Clairieres dans le del and in Georgiques
ckretiennes. Verlaine initiated him to that process of
transfiguration through which the landscape becomes
alive with eternal beings; in the freshness and silence
of the dewfall the murmurings of trees turn into voices,
a far chime of bells, stealing softly upon the dreamer,

becomes

a heavenly song
Angels appear,
head
a
circlet of silver
surrounded
pensive
by
;

their
light.

Arthur Rimbaud.

The

aesthetic theory of Arthur Rimbaud is a kind

of idealism. His poetic world appears to us as the

product of a fervid, and often morbid, imagination.

Far from copying outward things, he selects as subjects
his visions.

whose aim

His work
is

to

the offspring of a fantasy,

is

deform

real objects, thus fashioning

shapes widely different from the material entities.

His scenery is only a modification of reality yet the
combination of forms and colours is so very quaint,
the variation of hue and alteration of line go so far
;

seem to develop independwhich gave them birth. He

constantly transforms sounds and perfumes into colours
and music, dreams into solid objects, material bodies

that at last the metaphors

ently

of

the

objects

into ethereal beings.

This method of composition leads to strange results;

pictures appear underived from nature, as the

his

sensations that gave them rise remain undetected,

each figure being associated but by a remote analogy

with

its

source.

The images, breaking

out into

new

aspects, build other figures, until the visible world

covered over with a

veil

is

of shifting hallucinations.

88

Therefore his

'

'

poemes en prose

look at

composed of disconnected metaphors,

first

set beside

as

if

each

other against all laws of coordination and association

of ideas. The queer combination of images seems to
transcend the limits of logic. Then
at least in his

best works

just

as in a kaleidoscope

the

bits of

coloured glass arrange themselves into definite patclouds of words are pierced by brilliant

terns, the

rays of thought

and the meaningless sequence of

phrases acquires a signification.

The reader must be initiated to this

method; then
he becomes aware of the sincerity of the poet, and
recognises that his form is no mere play of words
or mannerism, but

kind of expression faithfully

His style is in perfect

rendering his psychological state.

accord with his condition of mind, the phrase keeping

pace with his quick, sudden changes of mood. As it
is always the case with genuine inspiration, with the
spontaneity of an art springing irresistibly from the

every trope, every epithet appears inevitable.

Their language ', says Shelley, of the true poets,

soul,
'

marks the before

unapprehended relations of things and perpetuates
their apprehension;
these relations are said by Bacon
to be the same footsteps of nature impressed upon
'

is

vitally

metaphorical

that

is,

it

'

the various objects of the world (i). On the other

hand, this method leads to absurd caprices, to hideous,
brutal pictures, the product of a perverse, diseased
'

mind, of the mental disorder following the excess.

Besides, several of these poems are mere sketches
or formless experiments. The poet seems to be writing

(i)

defense of poetry, ch.

3.

89

merely for himself;

his creations

appear unsubstantial,

their contours uncertain, blurred as

by the quivering
heat exhaled by a marsh or burning sand.
Le Bateau ivre, with its magnificence of diction,
its keen sense-perceptions and intense
feeling, remains
his

work.

finest

Here he

is

master of a style that

preserves its delicacy without losing its vigour. The

boat is an emblem of his heart, driven by blind
passions, yielding to all impulses. This symbol was
suggested by the trite allegory of the storm-tossed
ship, but his genius

enabled him to endow

it

with a

striking originality. His artistic faculties appear fully

developed when he is barely seventeen, revealing a

genius that has cleared at a bound the preliminary

he is
stage. He finds at once the adequate form
;

at

able,
his

the

utmost

outset

in the

of

his

poetical

handling of metre.

career,

There

to
is

do
no

or stumbling in the headlong rush of his

he
the chords of rhymes, uses the colours
strikes
lines;
of his palette, with a sure hand. We admire the
faltering

technical

beauty of his work, as he, aiming

at ex-

ceptional effects, creates vivid impressions with swift,

broad strokes, avoiding explanatory

details, dwelling
only upon the essential, his object being to concentrate the attention upon the characteristic features of

the

image.

Le Bateau ivre is a
them answering

seascapes, each of

brilliant

series of

to a special

mood;

here, sacrificing reality to a higher poetical truth, the

artist shows us his inward world of beauty, a world

known only

to the fantasy,

born of an ecstatic con-

templation of coruscating visions.

'

feel

As

was gliding down impassive rivers, I did not

myself dragged by the men, who had me in
I

90

tow; certain boisterous Redskins had taken them as

having nailed them to variegated stakes.

I cared not for crews; when, with the death of these
men, all the racket came to an end, the rivers let
targets,

me
my

drift

wherever

pleased.

awaking on the sea

nights I danced on the

The storm has blessed

lighter than a cork, for ten

billows, with

no regret

for

eyes of the lamps. Sweeter than to children

the pulp of sour apples, the green water soaked
And thenceforth I have
through my firwood hull.
the

silly

bathed

in the

poem of the milky, star-infused ocean,

darting through the greenish azure, where a drowned
man, pensive, livid, entranced, sometimes descends.

know

the skies bursting into lightnings, the

the
surf, the currents; I know the evening,
waterspouts,
and the dawn soaring high as a flight of numberless
I

white doves,
and I have sometimes viewed what
man has only fancied to have descried.
I
have

spied the sun low on the horizon, spotted with mystic

horrors, illuming long, violet coagulations; for whole
months I have followed the surges, charging the reefs
like hysterical herds;

have dashed against incred-

ible Floridas where panthers' eyes glared through

the flowers; I have seen marshes in fermentation, vast
nets in which the bulk of a leviathan lies rotting

amid the rushes I have beheld glaciers, silver suns,

waves of mother-of-pearl, skies of glowing embers,
and dusky bays where gigantic serpents, gnawed by
bugs, drop from twisted trees exhaling black perfumes.
I have been hailed
by ineffable breezes; at times
the sea, whose sobbing eased my violent roll, raised
towards me, a martyr weary of poles and zones, its
shadowy blossoms crowned with yellow suckers.
;

91

And now

a boat that has been lost under the

I,

weedy

hair of lonely creeks, thrown by the hurricane up into

the ether where no bird can live,
I, whose swamped

Hansa sailer would pick up,

came out of purple mists,
I,

carcass no gunboat, no

free,

reeking as

who

pierced the flushing sky, the sky like a wall

covered with lichens of sunlight and dribblings of
blue,
I, who ran, speckled with tiny electric moons,

I
a crazy plank escorted by black hippocamps,
I have
gazed
regret the ancient parapets of Europe.

at sidereal archipelagoes, islands, delirious skies that

expand before the rower;

too much.

Dawns

appalling, and sunlight

for Europe,

is

it

but, indeed,

have wept

are harrowing, moonlight

bitter.

If I

feel

for a dark, cold pool,

is

always
longing

on which,

in

nightfall, a child, crouching, full of sadness,

sets afloat a boat as frail as a May butterfly.
surging seas, I cannot any more cross the wake

the

balmy

argosies, or dance in the pride of

standards and flames, or swim under the horrid eyes
of pontoons

of cotton-laden
'

Claudel expresses in rich and forcible language the

eagerness of Rimbaud's soul in the search for new,
exotic impressions (i).
those places where the

who
may

'

Who

would have

ientered

angels are chained,

would have spelf the golden text, of which you
decipher two or three lines, for a second, in the
evil

'

evening sky
Turning our attention to the structure of the verse,
.?

we

are impressed

(i)

La Messe Id-bas,

by the vehemence of rhythm and

Nouvelle Revue Fran^aise

1919, p. 43.

92

phrasing with which the poet, smitten by the shock

of sudden and violent sensations, tries to render his

inward turmoil.

We

must go

to Baudelaire in order

to find such a vigorous sense of metre.

of

Baudelaire's

poem

La Mort

are

Some

features
in

recognisable

this

lis

D'espace et de lumiere

s'enivrent
et

de cieux embrases;

Montrez-nous les ecrins de vos riches memoires,

Ces bijoux merveilleux, faits d'astres et d'ethers.

La
La

gloire

du

soleil sur la

mer

violette,

gloire des cites dans le soleil couchant,

Allumaient dans nos coeurs une ardeur inquiete
De plonger dans un ciel au reflet allechant.

His w^ork stands distinctly apart from all other

manifestations of Symbolism, as the image is to him
of the
not only a reflection but an
equivalent
emotion. He does not convey an idea or a sensation
'

'

by means of suggestion or periphrasis, as it is the

case with Mallarme or Saint-Pol-Roux; the metaphor
is to him
interchangeable with the impression, his
'

'

prime object being the identification of dream with

Poetical eloquence ', says Newman (i),
reality.
which
consists, first, in the power of illustration
'

'

the poet uses, not as the orator, voluntarily, for the

sake of clearness or ornament, but almost by constraint,
as the sole outlet
feeling

and expression of intense inward

'.

The Illuminations

of coloured-prints

(i) Poetry,

he uses
fall

into

the

word

two groups

in the sense
:

projections

with reference to Aristotle's Poetics, ch.

7.

93

means of symbols, and merely fanciful

in prose
being unhampered by
rhyme, rhythm and metrical laws, afforded to him
ample liberty of conception and execution. Free from
of emotions by

pictures.

all

The

'

restrictions,

not only with

poem

',

he boldly takes his own way he plays

fancy, but with sight; all kinds of
;

images, angels and men, giants and dragons, flowers

glaciers, flock about him, streaming out of his

and

mind

continuous flow. With a strong tendency to

exaggerate, he delights in startling shocks of colours
in

and sounds. He

is uncapable to check the

dangerous
bent of his poetical faculties; the ill-governed activity
of fantasy runs riot. As in the moral field, he is a

He mingles trivialities and rare

and highly elaborate phrases.
idioms
images, simple
Viewed in their exteriorities his poems appear confused,
bewildering, like an Impressionistic picture close to
rebel

to

all

rules.

the eyes of the observer. Besides, we notice in his

use of line and tint, a barbaric strength, just as the

broad outlines and the

flat, glaring colours of Gauguin's

pictures recall a primitive art. But let us pierce through
the many-coloured veil to the inner world out of which

they sprang, and

before our mind.

they will rise clear and distinct

The sentences are not logically

arranged, and yet the required impression emerges

from the turmoil of clashing metaphors. The following
piece, Flowers, is characteristic of his method, with
its

qualities

and shortcomings.

From

a gold step
amid silk ropes, grey gauzes,
green velvets and crystal discs turning as black as
I see the
bronze in the sun
foxglove blow over a
'

carpet of silver filigree...

gold scattered on agate,

descry pieces of yellow

mahogany

pillars

upholding

94

an emerald

dome

and bouquets of white

satin

and

Like a god
ruby rods surround the water-rose.
with huge blue eyes and snowy limbs, the sea and the
thin

sky attract to the marble terraces the crowd of young

and strong roses' (i).

Here he combines various images, subordinating

up by it in his mind he
aims at giving, through this embroidery of metaphors,
an impression of life, freshness and bright colour.
reality to the fancies stirred

The

Autres Illuminations^ with its

mystic atmosphere, its crude realism and its effects
of light in a sombre interior, recalls in some way an
last

in

piece

The pool seemed a sinister

etching of Rembrandt.
wash-house. One day the afternoon sun was spreading
a large scythe of light on the buried waters, like a
'

white angel lying on his side in this cistern; and all

All sins,
the reflections, infinitely pale, quivered.

thin

and strong threads spun by the

throw

themselves

Master came. The

Hke the

last

against a

into

the

light in the

water.

the

divine

vaulted pond was yellow

leaves of the vine.

column

wished to

devil,

And

The Saviour stood

'.

The

following passages (2), in which the fantastic

and the homely are strangely blended, bear with them
the atmosphere of the bewitched land where the poet
lives
they introduce us abruptly into the sphere of
;

experience of a morbidly sensitive nature they are

reverberations, at once vague and intense, of the
;

emotional conditions under which they were produced;

in both the dominant note is a poignant weariness.

'

Mercure de France

(i)

(Euvres,

(2)

Childhood^ V, p. 131.

',

1898, p. 124.

Fairy, p. 202.

95
'

Grant

me

at

At
ground.
terranean

last a

sepulchre, far

down under-

an immense distance above

my

sub-

houses have their foundations, mists

hall,

the mud is red or black. Monstrous city,

gather
On my side, nothing but the thickness
endless night!
of the globe; perhaps, gulfs of azure, wells of fire.

In the hours of bitterness

I
imagine balls of sapphire,
I am lord of the silence. Why should
metal.
of
spheres
the suspicion of an air-hole wanly loom in a corner
'

of the vault
'

.?

For Helen were evoked the luxuriant ornamental

of shadowy virgin forests and the impassive

trees

The ardent

radiances of the astral silences.

heat of

summer was confided to silent birds, and its indolence

to a boat made of priceless griefs drifting through

For the
coves of dead loves and faint perfumes.
childhood of Helen throbbed the heart of the poor,
shivered the thickets and the shadows, shimmered the
And her eyes and her dancing
legends of heaven.

movements
things,

the

are finer

cool

still

breezes,

than the glow of precious

the delight of beautiful

scenery and exquisite hours '.

They are built up of details seemingly irrelevant

and incoherent, which, at a closer scrutiny, appear

indispensable, each of them contributing to the required
effect. The poet works the crowd of images sprung
from

his luxuriant fantasy into

securing a single

He

'

tone

an organic whole, thus

'

in his

composition.

continually confronting and solving problems

of expression; he relies on the power of suggestion
is

contained in language
derived from
grammar
'

is
'

not the term

in

'

'

glamour

order to describe

sensations hard to fix in word-painting, hallucinations,

96

the emotions of a

man awaking from

the form and motion of each consonant, and

myself that

it

was possible
to

accessible

language

me

to

I
I

settled

flattered

to find a poetical

senses

the

all

'

a trance.

'

(i).

'

accustomed myself to the simple hallucination; I saw

very distinctly, and truly, a mosque in tne place of
a factory, a hall in the depths of a lake, monsters,
a vaudeville placard raised terrors before
mysteries;

my
new

eyes

'.

stars

'I

have tried to invent new flowers,

'.

Emphasis

is

laid

upon

instead

of

fictitious creatures

substantial

mirage
choosing without hesitation

reality,

we have
the

poet

illusions rather than truth.

The work

of fancy is carried to an excess and the

of
boldness
metaphors knows no limit; all kinds of
queer shapes are wrought into the woof. 'Is it a

mock-show

'

merely jesting
like

?
is the poet in earnest or
asks the bewildered reader. He is

or serious art
}

painter

who,

copying

continually shift his point of view.

reader,

whose mind

is

landscape,

w^ould

Much

to the

is left

required to supply the missing

up the gaps between images and ideas.

We are not only shocked by this want of connection,
but also by false, strident notes, by wrong proportion
and perspective, and bad taste. To think that, in some
links, to

fill

at least of his

early

poems,

his object

is

to

startle

reader, is not wholly to misconceive his aim.

Several of these pieces are spoilt by trivial thoughts
and indecent phrases.

the

Aloysius Bertrand laid the foundation of this form

of poetry in his Gaspard de la Nuit\ taking the hint

(i)

CEuvres, pp. 293, 241, 258.

97

from

book Baudelaire brought

it to a complete
Bertrand's
Unlike
pieces, where everydevelopment.

this

relie

sharply defined, Baudelaire's

is

thing

on suggestion

upon

refining

charm.
it

J.

Le

in

gave
besides trying
extolled
Drageoir aux epices
style,

it

K. Huysmans

his

subtler

hand

at

form of

this

which, condensing thought, feeling and

a small compass, can produce the im-

expression,
in

imagery

for their effect.

Baudelaire's

poems in prose
Then Mallarme,

poem or even of a tale. Rimbaud

went farther on with their rich workmanship, their
originality and intensity of emotion, some of the Illu-

pressions of a long
;

minations can easily bear comparison with the best

compositions of Baudelaire and Mallarme.

While imagination plays the main part

in Illunti-

the leading power

nations^ psychological analysis
in Une Saison en Enfer. In the tension of his soul,
is

all

his intellectual faculties are astir, concentrated in

an

effort to bring before us a synthesis of his

life.

An

utterance

where
of

whole

intense emotion smoulders under the sarcastic

a nostalgic

in this

aspiration

book; hence the

is

present

vitality of

it

every-

as a

work

art.

Season in Hell

has laid aside

all

As

as

a personal confession where he

is

it is

his

wont

in all his utterances

relating the bitter experiences of

in the presence of Eternity, he shows us

restraint

his soul.

in

most intimate view of himself, his perplexities,

anomalies, frailties, his sudden changes of mood; but
he reveals at the same time a rare energy in struggling
his

against inward foes, a sincere horror of sin, a yearning

I perceive that
to wisdom and truth.
my spirit lies
'

asleep. If

it

always were

F. Olivero.

full

awake from

this

moment,
7

98

we might soon
us with
this

attain Truth, that perhaps

If it

its

weeping Angels.
moment, I should not have yielded

surrounds

had been awake to

to destructive

O purity, purity It is this minute of

awaking that has given me the vision of Purity; through
the spirit one goes to God (i). He is eager to cleanse
instincts.

'

heart

his

of the

of

infection
'

vice

tendency to conversion (2).

It is to
treasure
YOU that

my

hence a clear

hags, poverty, hatred!

was given

in trust

succeeded to destroy in my soul all human hopes. I

have stretched myself in the mud. I have bounded,
silently, as a wild beast,

But

all

on

all

joys, to strangle them.

can be saved. Doubtless, debauch is beastly

I shall bless
rottenness must be thrown far away.
I

love my brothers. God is my strength and

praise God '. These thoughts were born of sorrow
in a mind whose wrong ideals failed utterly when put
life; I shall
I

to the ordeal of action, a

mind therefore embittered

with disillusions. But he was not unconscious of pangs

of conscience, of the pursuit of the 'hound of Heaven'.

O happiness in the most lurid

sweet even to death, warned me
'

its

towns,

tooth,

cockcrow, ad
I felt obliged to travel, to break the
matutinum
charms crowded in my brain. On the sea, that I loved
'.

as though
I

saw

it

might have laved away

rise the

of salvation

Cross that consoles

came

'

at

'.

all

often to his mind.

of science.

my

And
'

foulness,

the vision

Divine Love

perceive that
keys
grants
nature is only a spectacle of goodness. The song of

alone

(i)

the

(Envres, p. 251.

(2) lb.,

pp. 215, 223, 224.

99
rises from the ship that comes to save; it is
the song of divine love (i).
The underlying idea of these pages is not unlike
Baudelaire's conception in The Flowers of Evil he

Angels

'

finds in Christianity the basis for the ideal vision of

he recognises sin and guilt; his leading thought

a piercing outcry out of the abyss of corruption,
Out of the depths of the dark
the cry of Baudelaire:
life;
is

'

gulf where my soul has fallen down, I invoke your

mercy, o You, the only One I love '. It is a meditation
on the conflict of Good and Evil, on the drama of a
disorderly, dissolute life, like Wilde's De Profundis.
It shows us a weak temper, easily yielding to temptation,
to influences of environment, to

from

afar

we

sophisms that lure

intellectual health; with a feeling of surprise

words uttered by a man, who, in

at times insane. His thoughts
seems
rambling talk,
are often coloured by an extreme dejection (2). 'You
shall remain a hyena
cries the demon who had
crowned me with such lovely poppies.
Get death
all
and
all the
desires,
your
your egotism
through
sins'.
are
in
Such
'these
few
capital
phrases
frequent
hideous leaflets of the pocket-book of a damned man'.
He was yearning after the Absolute, the Eternal
'Raise your eyes', says Claudel to him (3), 'and look
at the Host in the monstrance
what you are seeking
listen to these

his

',

'

so far

away Eternity,

in this life

(i)

there'.

(Euvres, pp. 247, 224.

(2) Ib.f p.

(3)

is

216.

La Messe

Id-bas, 38.

accessible to

all

the senses,

lOO

counterpart to this poetry is to be found in art

in some paintings of James Ensor, but, above all, in
the drawings of Henry De Groux, Charles Doudelet,
Charles Schwabe and Heinrich Vogeler.
find an

We

of style

in

Corbiere's Yellow

analogous conception
Loves^ Cross's Sandalwood Casket, Les Chants de Maldoror of Lautreamont, Les Palais Nomades of G. Kahn.

He shows

spiritual and formal affinities with Laforgue,

and, in suggestive power, with Nerval's sonnets; with
Nerval, he is the forerunner of many a recent singer;

can be easily recognised in contemporary

poetry, as his manner of expression is, on the whole,

his influence

congenial to the high-strung and eager mind of to-day's

we meet, for instance, with clear reflections

writers;

of his style in such an important poet as Claudel.

The medium through which these wild images are

he does not
is a straightforward diction
recur to the winding syntax, the curious inversions
and intricacies of Mallarme, but adopts the simplicity

conveyed

of Baudelaire.

The

Rimbaud

in the fact

lies
is

the

difference between Mallarme and

that, while to

of

essential

the

art,
suggestion
object is the definiteness of the image.

the

former

latter's

One

main

tries to

'

'

estomper the image, rousing far

enlarge, expand,
echoes in the soul, weaving a spell easier to feel than
to elucidate; the other, on the contrary, circumscribes
the figure sharply, frames each picture in well-defined
limits. In Mallarm6 the light of the mental
phantasm
'

'

is
it

is

broken up into prismatic reflections, in Rimbaud

has a fixed, hallucinating glare. This kind of poetry
we think
comparatively rare in other literatures
;

of Blake, and yet the aim of Rimbaud is not to see

the spiritual form
of things, but to modify their
'

'

shapes

the closest

be found

parallel to his art

in Coleridge's

Kubla Khan.

is

perhaps to

In certain jottings

we may

also find a foreshadowing of the

in the note entitled
French poet
Tke night is at hand, in Anima Poetae^ for example.
counsellors
The sweet prattle of the chimes

of Coleridge

subtleties of the

'

pleading

in the

court of

Love

then the clock, the

solemn sentence of the mighty Judge

long pause
between each pregnant, inappellable word, too deeply
weighed to be reversed in the High- Justice-Court of
A more richly solemn sound than
Time and Fate.
dead
this eleven o'clock at Antwerp I never heard

enough

to

to be the

be opaque as central gold, yet clear enough

mountain air
'.

Claudel has justly defined the spiritual attitude of

Rimbaud, absolute in his choice of evil or good
;

'

who

he was like the merchant

unique pearl, and who, to get

house and sells all he has
'

makes

the poet say

dise, the true place
resembles Hell '.
:

'

Until
for

me

has been told of a

leaves at once his

and again, where he
have not found Parais
that which most
it,

Creation was his intent, not the more or less exact

he was well aware that in the
portraiture of things
;

power lies the source of the highest poetry,

the chief aim of art is to build up an imaginary

creative
for

world out of

reality.

Paul Claudel

Paul Claudel

is

the direct descendant of the leaders

of French symbolism

but instead of mirroring pas-

and aesthetic ideals, he refines

sively
their
technique, and prolongs their thoughts into
upon
Mallarme's
daring and unforeseen developments.
poetry had been like the ecstatic radiance of a sunset
over an autumnal garden, a sumptuous and melancholy
mirage, a dream of splendour and mystery and lurktheir ethical

ing despair. The Verlainian twilight diffused a tender

iridescence on the red-gold trees and the crimsonflecked chalices yet the glades were haunted by evil
;

shapes, alluring voices mingled their whispers with the

sound of vesper bells; only when the first stars began
to glisten, the sultry

atmosphere was pervaded by a

mystic calm. Then, with Maeterlinck, a sinister night

its shadows, through which tragic figures were
glimmering: AUadine dying in a grotto of blue roses,
Maleine strangled by the false Queen with her ruby-

spread

necklace, Melisande weeping near the lonely fountain

the pale Intruder was approaching silently in the strange
park, while the peacocks flew among the cypresses and
;

the swans floated dead, like perished dreams, on the

I03

The poetry of Claudel recalls

sunrise, when great white stars are

black stillness of the lake.

the time just before

still
throbbing in the west, but a skylark is already
a fiery speck above the dark earth
trilling on high

struck

by the

rim

world's

first

there

freshness; the heart

and we seem
a fervid

ray of the sun hidden under the

a confused elation, a divine

is
is

brimful with tumultuous hopes,

to hear the pulses of creation beat with

rhythm

in

the

awakening.
His dramas derive

in

of the

exultation

some way from

work of

universal

the allegoric

Villiers de I'lsle-Adam Morgane, Elen, Axel,

and there is a reminiscence of the tale Duke of Portland in the scene between Viplaine and Pierre de
but in Claudel
Craon, in L'annonce faite a Marie
:

there

is

more limpid

vision of

life,

bringing a widening

of outlook, an enlargement of sympathy and a greater

depth of thought. His technique in the treatment of

owes something to Walt Whitman yet

bound together by sweet
and quaint cadences, a new, wild melody, which we
should look for in vain in contemporary poetry the
rhythm keeps time with the rush of the inspiration,
the

'

'

vers libre

there

is

in his verses, hardly

while the images, a seething tide, well out of his

exhaustless fantasy. But it is in his lofty spiritualism,
that the essential merit of his work is to be found
;

his plays

are

enacted in the world of mind rather

than of matter, and his personages

move

within his

soul's sphere.

The

fulfilment of the promise contained in his early

annonce faite a Marie, which

productions came with
was wrought out of a symbolic drama. La jeune fllle
Violaine, published in

1901, in the volume

LArbre.

I04
profile of the protagonist, Violaine, is drawn with
exquisite tenderness thirsting for sacrifice, she never

The

swerves from her path, never shrinks from new and

harder trials, unafraid of scorn and pain, unafraid of
death, since death is to her only a barrier to everlasting bliss;

listening

she treads with sure

constantly

toiling

the

to

foot the

upwards,

call

of the

Infinite,

most arduous

in

Her unconscious grandeur, her

pilgrimage
spiritual

crags,

sublime.

ardour

is

evoked in a magnificent passage. 'And already', says

Pierre de Craon, as the fiery hue of the pomegranateblossom shimmers on all sides under the bud unable
'

any more, the effulgence of the Angel,

to whom death is unknown, took possession of our
little sister
She confidently expects the coming
(i).
to contain

it

'

agony, unmoved, untroubled, like a fallen star glistening with heavenly rays among the shadows of the
waiting to reascend to its celestial mansion
there was a foreboding of early death in her delicate
earth,

loveliness.
'

Yet, as

was leaving

see in her eyes, among

a flower unknown '.
Pierre de Craon

'
:

'

I could
says her father,
the flowers of the Spring, rise
',

The

vocation of death, like a

solemn lily
Disowned by Jacques, discrowned of her bridal
diadem, calm among obscure torments, with unflinching
fortitude she clasps the Hand which is to guide her;
'.

and the imperishable flame of divine Love lights her

lonely way. A willing holocaust, she bends her adoring

(i)

Uannonce faite a Marie,

^aise', 1914, p. 196.

Paris, ^Nouvelle

Revue Fran-

105

brow before the Will supreme

when

it

as voluntary as sin

is

exquisite

dead

'
;

powerful is pain,
with what an

And

'
!

pathos the poet evokes the figure of the

Her body is still soft and pliant while
'

girl

who was

was holding the body

in a sitting posture with her hands around the waist,
oh, how her head drooped backwards, like the head

the nun,

of the partridge

warm,
to

we

dressing her,

that

hand

in his

'
!

the

hunter has gathered, still

the miracle of restoring

When

the child of her sister, Mara, is accomplished,

forget the woes of the blind leper girl, and she

life

and her
surrounded by an unearthly glow
father sees in her the saint enthroned
may your
father, o Violaine, see you high above himself, through

arises

'

eternity, at the place that has

you, as far as tlie smoky fire of

all

been reserved for

my hearth is from

the morning star, when this fair virgin lays

head on the breast of the Sun

its

illumined

'

originality of conception appears in the

in which Pierre de Craon tries to realize his

Claudel's

manner
dream of a gorgeous cathedral erected

to the

memory

of Violaine; he is looking for the atmosphere of the

nave, rather than for its shape, dimension or architectural effects; the church will be filled with a golden

remembrance of the

ring that the girl has

the radiance of her soul will pervade the
I am
I take with me your ring
going
lofty aisles.
I shall
to make of this circlet a golden seed

light, as a

given him

'

enclose the morning gold among the walls of my

The common light is subject to change,
church.
but the light that I shall filter under those vaulted

ceilings

does not vary.

of arrangements

known only

The

architect,

by means

to him, builds the edifice

io6

of stone like a
gives

filter

in the waters of

lustre to the

its

And he

God's light, and

whole structure as to a pearl
'.

himself to

sets

master', says the apprentice,

glass

windows

sand.

It is

make

gold, to

render

arduous

the

'

Our

designing the stainedhere to fetch

'is

why he sends us
more difficult to make
that's

blow on

task.

this

light

tharf to

matter and to

heavy

'

as our bodies of clay shall be

transparent,
into
transmuted
bodies of glory ', according to Saint
Paul.
That's why he pours down into large pure
it

vases, filled with glowing water, hyacinth, ultramarine,

gold, vermilion,

and beholds those beautiful inmost

roses, looks how the coloured water turns when struck

by the sun and the grace of God, and how it changes

and blooms

in the matrass

The mystic

of

love

'.

Pierre

de

Craon

and

the

thoughtful serenity of Violaine's father, Anne Vercors,

are contrasted with the base cunning and the cruelty
of

Mara

so

much

indeed, the plot appears overstrained, not

on account of the rash act of compassion

of Violaine to Pierre de Craon, as for the incredible

wickedness of Mara
insatiate of evil, as Violaine
;

of sacrifice, she

kills

Violaine,

thus

monstrous ingratitude her benefits

in

repaying with
her envy and

We

perceive that this

jealousy she is illogic, absurd.
blackness has been introduced into the picture to set
off the splendour of the heroine

too

evident

beauty.

but the

artifice is

however, does not lack

as
a serene moonlit night,
of
great peace,
;

the

contrast,

and the supreme joy of self-sacrifice, are in Violaine's

heart
but Mara is struggling in the shadowy river
of her malice, and, after the crime, a terrible gloom
descends on her mind.
I am no more the same as
;

'

I07

once! There

be

is

afraid. All

broken

in

widowed,
Violaine
blind

is

something of an end in myself. Don't

the same to me. There is something

and

myself,

childless
is

quenched

remain

woman

'.

but

The

light in the eyes of

Mara

is

it

like

helpless,

that

is

really

because a pure soul, unflawed by any earthly

through the events, piercing the

matter to truth, unweaving the web of appearances; but evil sits in darkness. Claudel's mysticism
desires, sees clearly
veil of

is

deep and sincere

he

conscious that

is

God

is

urging us with infinite love on the steep ascent of

moral perfection, and this consciousness spreads

throughout

of

vision

his

the divine

life,

till

all

creatures

immanence and

are

the whole

penetrated by
universe becomes aglow with spiritual light. Sorrow's
task is to cleanse and purify; only through pain shall

man conquer

evil

and there

is

a stern joy in suffering

The cup of sorrow is deep

right
and
who
sets his lips to it once, does
says Violaine,
not take them away when he wishes to! He descries
for the

cause.

'

',

'

'

and distress a pledge of immortality

and gleams of sublime beauty in the
of
the
human
soul. Life must be like a taper
agonies
back
its
essence
of light, while its substance
giving
is burning out in secret pain; existence is to him a
gift, the best use of which is to return it to God, as
an offering on behalf of others. What's the value of

in life's misery

and future

bliss,

'

'

the world
'

compared with life's.? says AnneVercors;

and how may the value of life be known, if not by
'

giving it away }
Claudel is master

of a forcible and impressive

the
of
his passionate utterance is like
style;
harmony
the music of a waterfall, blending melodies and rich

io8

chords in

its

thunder

sented, as the

the images are variously preof surrounding objects in

reflections

the rushing sheet of water, sometimes Umpidly mirrored in a glassy curve, sometimes broken by the
whirls of spray and haloed with a changing lustre.

His metaphors are sometimes like clouds too dazzling

have their shapes immediately perceived, their

to

outlines being blurred by excessive brightness they

throng thickly, following one another in breathless
rapidity, expressed in a form which relies mainly
;

force and yet

subtly chiselled the effort to

with
the utmost precision, to
express
meaning
render sensations in their original purity, shows itself

upon

is

his

elaborated phrase. Take, for instance,

The voice of
penetrating notation
the bird, that we descry on the topmost branch at
the same time of the morning star, is so sweet that
in his curiously
this

'

strangely

we do not know
we only see the
heart

either

if

eternal

the bird
star

is

singing, or

glittering

if

its

against

'.

When
perceived

Tete

d' Or was

that a

new

1891, it was
had risen on the horizon

published in

star

of poetry, a strange star, sparkling with wild flashes

of colour, like Antares in the September haze
it
;

ascended from the vapoury

line

and

it

shone

at last

with a limpid glitter in the blue

yet even in this
work
the
early
imaginative energy is displayed in
the originality and grandeur of the conception. The
;

protagonist, Simon Agnel, is a tragic symbol of the

ruler and the conqueror; the rutilant hair, golden as
a blown flame, as a wave at sunrise, crowns his brow,

marking him as a born master of men; his sceptred

hand shall sway the multitudes he shall be at first
;

I09

a threatening, at last a saving force yet liis imperial

soul never rejoices in domination; he labours under
;

the weight of his task sublime as under a fatal necessity, and there is gladness in his dying hour, as
when the sun, having done its radiant course, sinks

He had come ', says the Messenger,

our king, a prince of unique beauty, adorned with
And we, full of secret sorrow,
wonderful deeds
'

in purple glory.
'

remembered

his face

shy and terrible

ible sadness, a universal

An

'.

inexpress-

mourning, follow his death

we have let him go says the Captain,

and he has gone as gold sinking under water! (i).
In this drama, dictated by an inspiration borne on
impetuous wings, full of the stormy roar of armies,
in battle

'

',

'

'

of clangour of trumpets, of cries of distress, the poet

reveals a mind free and open to all visitations of
thought,

mind

that

meditated

has

with

strange

intensity on the destiny of man, a fantasy that has

looked on the fiery fountains of suns
the material
world is transfigured by the ardour of his soul
;

nevertheless,

we wish

for a closer

unity

of action,

and the tendency to a strict symbolism sets a limito his powers in character- drawing.
The
Princess is by turn the emblem of Poetry, of Love,
of Beauty; adorned with a jewelled stole, with a quaint
tiara, she is an allegory of the immortal song, gushing
tation

forever from the heart of man.

'

The Muse sometimes

our earthly paths,

and, her hair bristling
with laurels, she walks along the waters, singing verses,
alone, like a wild hind '. Then, ragged, forlorn, crustrays in

(i)

Tete

p. 148.

d'Or

in

UArbre,

Paris,

Mercure de France *, 1901,

by an outlaw, she symbolises loveliness supreme

O Grace with transpierced hands, sweet

cified

'

in death.

'

as the last sun

Likewise, the other personages
appear by turn real creatures and changeful abstractions. The splendour of the style shows an intellect
!

that has

been fed on the

loftiest poetry,

on Aeschylus

of the

translation

his

(witness
Agamemnon), Dante,
there is an
Shakespeare, above all on the Bible
evident reminiscence of Macbeth in these words of
;

Tete

'

d'Or

Farewell!

Men, adieu!

Farewell,
a
noise
of
dead
leaves,
footsteps through
gestures,
pitiful speeches uttered over and over with the patient
violence of a madman, confusion of figures and words;
all

this

one moment

for

The

'.

rapidity with which

images, the exuberance

with which he develops his conceptions, almost crush
the idea under the wealth of accumulated details, of
his thoughts

crystallize

into

metaphors and clustered similes; yet we are always

far from an empty magniloquence, and there is often
a

biblical

in

grandeur

utterance

his

panting with

only half-articulated, as if speech were

the stress of emotion. Let us quote by
under
sinking
the description of the first victory
of
illustration
way
excitement,

of Tete d'Or

'

behind them, as

And
if

then,

all

say that a panic arose

of a sudden, although

it

was

Night, lifting up her gigantic head with its

diadem of stars, had blown the trumpet of dizziness

day.

Others
hostile

were

astonished

ranks, like horses

and trembled, and

the

struck with horror by the

clang of chains, threw themselves backwards '. As

with the first appearance of the hero on the battle
field,

so with the

and

powerful

last;

and

the Eastern armies are routed,

bizarre

image

conveys

the

Ill
'

disorder of their defeat.

that rabble,

and

they scattered like a herd.

back

turns

we charged against
way under our despair,

Thrice

at last, giving

And

as the Indian, worried,

glance at the elephant he

with pain, pursuing him, like

in his race to

has wounded, maddened

a mountain, across the dazzling rice-fields,
us behind themselves

they saw

'.

While m,^Tete d' Or the subject and scenery are

wholly mythic and fantastic, and do not belong to
any particular place or age, in L'annonce there is a
certain local colour and a faint historic background,
and in
Echange he portrays the life of the great

American towns, contrasting it with the beauty of

nature unspoiled by man. Louis Laine and Thomas
Pollock are the representatives of these two aspects
of the New World.
Echange is the tragedy of a man
impatient of civilization, stifling among the huddled

gigantic sky-scrapers, wildly following his instinctive

impulses; his happiness is to lie in the forest, breathing

the perfumes of the summer night, or to roam by

the shoie, looking at the green glancing wings of the
but he is enticed by
waves, at the glittering surge
;

and ruined by
and
vice.
dissipation
Here the poet gives utterance to his enthusiasm for
natural beauty, and reproduces with extraordinary
vividness the colours of sea and cloud, the evanescent
charm of the seasons. Oh, may I behold the end of

the

wiles

of the

tentaculaire

ville.

'

the
and
season when the day, even since dawn,

the
when
and
as
mellow
sky always pure,
evening,
the

year,

and the

leaf

coloured as a cheek,
is

soft

the maples and the sumacs kindle, and the first look
as dressed in a gold raiment that hardly clings to

them, and the others quiver Hke great beech-trees,

when
azure

trees are green or rosy or red, and the sea is Hke

fire (i). Nature, a well of wonder, brims his soul
'

with a strange elation, and he feels with a thrilling

consciousness the joy of spring, the languor of autumn,
cherishing the earth with a passionate, almost fierce
love
he renders with the same crude intensity the
;

moods of the landscape, solemn or exquisitely

moment when light begins to fail and the
mountains' arise like shadowy altars, or when the
immense rose of dawn opens, unfolds, and the sea
various

the
sad,
is

covered with myriad petals of

incandescent horizon, or

when

in the forest

lonely pool
fairies, the

light drifting to the

the

and, like

moon

lights the

emerald eyes of

ghostly flowers.
His vivid colours recall the palette of Gauguin, Van
Gogh, or Cezanne. Between the fields of grass and

among

fire-flies palpitate

'

white

flowers, the

mussel-shell

'.

vehemence,

is

sea

His

blue like the inside of a

is

in

style,

boisterous

certain

rather akin to Rimbaud's

we

notice

in his daring touches the same technique which was

used in the making of the gorgeous and barbaric
pictures of the Bateau ivre
:

lors, je me suis baigne dans le poeme

mer, infuse d'astres et lactescent,

Et,

des

De

la

Devorant

les azurs verts, ou, flottaison

bleme

Et ravie, un noye pensif parfois descend';

.

L'aube exaltee

ainsi qu'un

je sais le soir,

peuple de colombes,

J*ai heurt6, savez-vous? d'incroyables Florides

Melant aux fleurs des yeux de pantheres.

(i)

UEchange,

ib., p.

242.

"3
Nature

is

to

him a crowd of

clad in splendour,

spirits,

adoring God's mysterious aim, conforming to His will;

and all things are harmonized into one grand chord

He

formulates this thought in a

If this leaf turns
characteristic passage of La Ville.
yellow, it is neither because the earth has taken such

of beauty.

clearly

'

a position on

its

... nor that,

dropping
and nourishment to the

heavenly path,
shelter

down,
may give
It
grains and the insects at the foot of the tree.
turns yellow to supply holily the neighbouring leaf,
which is red, with the note needed for the full chord.
it

What's the use of the orchis

in the heart of the

virgin forest, of the sapphire that no miner will ever

The Being, who created
dig out of its veinstone }

and preserves

us,

knows the reason why, and we

secretly to His glory '.

of the effort to build up

contribute

tragedy

La

Ville

society

the

is

without

religious foundations; the town is wrecked, the founder,

Besme, killed by the mob; but on its ruins a new

government

arises,

The conception
dramas;

his

is

based on justice and

freedom.

not so distinct as in the

dream of the

other

ideal city remains undefined,

and the significance of the whole play only looms

in

the distance; he prefers to give hints rather than to

explain, and some characters, in spite of their verbiage,
do not tell their secret, wear impenetrable masks to
the

last.

The

influence of Ibsen

is

felt

throughout.

Yet he sounds with keen insight the depths of human

nature and finds new emotions, venturing into unhe shows how man's
explored regions of the soul
;

union with the cosmic plan, how the

external and the internal world are intimately interlife

is

in close

penetrated; he withdraws the material

F. Olivero.

veil,

discovering
8

114

the all-pervading spirit, the spirit silently quickening

the sod, reviving the spark hidden in the root, the
force that rushes the stars along their courses.

Le Repos du

septienie

Far East

jour

is

a fruit of his residence

the action of the play takes place

in China; the people being harassed by the spirits of
the dead, the Emperor descends to the underworld
in the

persecution, and returns

law of rest on a day of the week.

to learn the motive of the

the

to proclaim

work

In this

his absolute

disregard of conventional
in caprices of phrase as

forms leads him to indulge

well as in extravagances in the construction of the plot.

His acquaintance with exotic scenery and manners

represented by a book of wonderful

far better

is

sketches, Connaissance de I'Est, where he shows a

habit of keen, alert observation, and that peculiar,
quaint grace in evoking the landscape which we meet

with

in

the

woodcuts of Hokusai and Hiroshige.

realism, and yet with an intense poetical

With a

strict

feeling

he conveys the exotic atmosphere,

and outlandish features of landscapes

nese

through

which Rimbaud
satility

of his

Chi-

that bold directness of expression to

had pointed out the way. The ver-

mind

is

also

on the Development of
those aesthetic

local colour

mostly

proved by

his fine essay

the churchy a contribution to

studies of architecture

among which

La

Cathedrale of Joris Karl Huysmans stands foremost.

His lyric faculty attains its highest level in the

Cantate a trois voix(\)^ where three women, Fausta,

Laeta, Beata, are singing, while they watch the dawn

(i)

In

Deux Poemes

farce). Paris,

d'Ete (the second, Protee, is a mediocre

'Nouvelle Revue Frangaise', 1914.

115

break over the slumber of the

harvest-fields, in a district of

The poet weaves

the Rhone.
single

hills

and the ripening

France

in the valley of
the three voices into a

melody, welding them into a continuous song

by means of the interlacing of rhymes and the unity

of rhythm and tone. One of the singers is on the
waiting for her betrothed, the second,
of a nostalgic yearning, the third,
looks out from her darkened home to

threshold of

an exile,
a

life,

full

is

widow,

and in the rapture of a moonlit night

between spring and summer, they express in alternate
verses their exultation, their melancholy, their hopes
sublime. Blending with flowing ease its various cadences, the manifold song carries us away on the
stream of its melody to mystic places, where the wind
Eternity

is

laden with the fragrance of eternal gardens, where

soul stands with quivering wings on a lofty

the

summit, her entranced eyes

full

of visions.

The

poet's

thoughts are lifted by a fervid imagination and clothed

with rich and various ornamentation, each idea being,
so to say, counterpointed with unexpected metaphors,

which gleam and glide away during its development.

The beauty of nature produces in him a kind of
the images grow fast and numberless,
intoxication
;

he gathers them

in large

sheaves, and so abundant

we have

to choose from them in

crop
order to build up again the scenery or the emotion

is

the

that

by which they were suggested.

See how the

artist

conveys the ecstasy of dawn, mingling in a sumptuous

chord reality and fancy The sky once again becomes
'

pale before us.

What

is

this light,

sisters

.?

This mystery working in the deep.?

This new day.?
This occult torch, lighting up the things from

ii6

The

ceasing to be night,
has
become
water,
diaphanous '.
by little,
And the passing of youth is described with a glowing
pageantry of figures, as in a painting of Byam Shaw

behind

night, without

like

little

'Where is Spring? Where are the hues of childhood?

Where is that blue so pure, that almost incandescent
Where the freshness of the wild rose ?
green ?

Where, on your

face, that red

ardour of Pentecost,

the fiery tint of the purple, like evening in a pinethe sunbeam in the month of May?' The

wood and

metaphors and similes are hammered

in the heat of

inspiration, so that they retain the dazzling brilliance

of their birth in the poet's mind, a passionate or
emotional rather than intellectual radiance.

The

influence of Shelley is perceptible in the colouring and that of Mallarme in the audacity of diction,
in the twisted syntax of the phrase, in the choice of
rare epithets; thus, for instance, in the

rose

'
;

evening

image of the
the rose vaguely blooms, only for one
and lo
from each stem the complex

And
;

butterfly, just

now imprisoned by

flown away!'

And

originality

its own wings, has

the striking evidence, the
inevitableness of the style of

there

and the

is

he himself,

some of his similitudes

who is young and strong

of a single

moment

Browning

in

And

'

this

soon,

trophy
death

going to dissolve,
and the white flowers
into
immortal
life,
merging
of spring on

all

parts

into a sea sucking

is

disappear into" the

back

its

foam

'.

But

foHage, as
in Claudel,

with this novelty of form, there is a deep undercurrent

of thought, which imparts an earnest, stern and mystic

grandeur to a style which would be only a curious

play of words, to a poetic land, which, without this

117

bracing wind from the eternal ocean, would cloy the

soul with its heavy perfumes. Says Anne Vercors, in
the Annonce,

'

live

on the threshold of death, and

And

an inexplicable joy is in myself.

the night and it does not frighten
there also

all

is

clear

me

now I enter
I know that

and well ordered

enter the

season of that great celestial winter that sets all things

where the eternal
in motion, the sky of the night

Farmer urges on

the

Seven Oxen,

his

eye fixed to

a changeless star, as we set our eyes on the green

branch that marks the end of the furrow '. Thus is

Heaven

figured by the mind of the simple

not
labourer,
forget his effort in driving
straight the plough, while he is thinking of the Infinite
thus the homely blends with the sublime in a poetry

the realm of

who does

based on everlasting truth.

In the dramas contained
feeling his

way

with

the conception of

life

L'Arbre, Claudel was

L'Annonce an elevation in
in

raised his art to a greater height

and led inevitably to a new interpretation of existence

and to set a different value on the things of the world.
Therefore in his translation of Coventry Patmore we
perceive that the subtle charm of this poetry has been
fully

apprehended by a kindred

spirit

his

mastery

of form enables him to keep unaltered, as far as it

is possible in a foreign
language, the grace and vigour
of the original. The main source of his inspiration is
a mystic vision of the universe, as it is conceived
in the beautiful

phrase of St Augustine that he has

Art poetique
universi saeculi pulprefixed
chritudo... velut magnum carmen ineffabilis modulatoris
The poet is creating again and preserving for
to his

'

'.

ever

all

things in his work.

'

cannot name a thing

ii8

becomes

the leaf turns yellow and

the fruit drops to the ground, but the leaf and the
ripe fruit and the rose in my verse do not perish;

but

it

eternal

they vanish from earth, but their names in my mind

do not perish for ever. They evade time with my
;

voice

make

things eternal '.

His inspiration flows in his Odes (i) like a stream,
carrying sand and gems, hardly repressed by the
I

all

severity of the

freedom, he
to thought;

sometimes, in his utmost

into-grossness. His utterance is close

argument

falls
it is

a voice with

many

accents, cadences,

answering to the cries, agonies, ecstasies of the soul.

Sometimes it rings too loud, clamorous, as if straining
to reflect the ideas breaking into flashes, into dazzling
bursts

of

splendour.

endowed with
waves

It

is

a most

particular qualities,

individual

form,

moulded upon the

of

emotion, yet ruled by a vivid sense of

rhythm and music. He is audacious in the use of
images, sometimes, perhaps, overbold; but the apparent disarray of words and thoughts is harmonised
into a whole, and each of his odes has a kind of
intellectual

symmetry,

attains a

unity of his inner world.

unity

So great

is

reflecting the

the

number

of

images that he draws from the well-stored treasurehouse of his memory that these odes seem to lack
concentration
for the same reason the main idea
;

appears only through a gradual revelation.

start into life,

humanised

Things

in the

mystic atmosphere
the mountain source gives to drink to the Ocean
An intellectual energy
with its little cockle-shell
;

'

'.

(i)

19^3-

Cinq grandes Odes. Paris,

'

Nouvelle Revue FranQaise

*,

119

of his verse, a thinking power, very

now-a-days when all poetry is founded on
sensation. His poetry is the expansion of an inward
richness, made audible in verbal music and visible to
at the root

is

rare

the

mind by means of imagery, the vesture of

world of thought.
Side by side with
observes in Dante,
into Hell, as one,

this

reasoning power

which he

ascending to Heaven, going down

who, steadying a foot on the logical
'

ground, advances the other in a sure stride

is

in his

sistible,

'Thus

his

'

there

work the spontaneity, the mysterious, irrealmost unconscious impulse of inspiration.

work, without knowing what I do; thus the

mind, with a deadly spasm, ejects the words out of

itself, like to a source that does not know anything

We

'

feel
pressure and the weight of the air (i).
the elation of the poet's soul, in spite of the selfishness

but

its

and baseness of an atheistic world,

exultant in his
continual effort, with an unwearied hand,
inebriated
with joy in his task, which is to make legible the

divine handwriting, bearing testimony to the preestablished harmony and purpose of the universe.
Thus
'

the

monk, who enters again

his ruined

convent,

is

happy, because he has all that he wants, his book

and a superior above him; and, having crossed himself,
he sits down, and to copy it well, opens before him
the Gospel at the first page and begins again the gold
initial on the purple scroll '.
The Five great Odes were conceived in a meditation

illuminated by the Grace, and composed by a mind responsive to heavenly visitations, to mystic promptings.

(i)

Ib.y

pp. 67, 16, 116.

I20

They
of

are the fruit of an impassioned

The poet

life.

is

contemplation
not content with the exterior

beauty of temporal things, but is looking for their

hidden source, for the divine forces by which they
are ruled, for the
destructible

the

whirling cloud

beyond
At night he is looking

world.

and the

realities

unchanging

life

in-

of the

'

the immense,
You have given us the nocturnal
sky
heaven
and the observer seeks and finds, as in a
'

active

at

'

Hercules and
pivots and the rubies,
the
the
constellations
like
to
Halcyone,
clasp on the
pontiff's shoulder and to the great ornaments set with
watch,

the

stones of various colours, and here and there, at the

boundaries of the world, where the work of Creation
ends, the nebulae, as, when the sea has been violently
tossed, the calm returns and on all sides arise large
sheets of turbid salt'
this

(i).

But he

is

not satisfied with

contemplation of the exterior world, and he pe-

beyond the universe, beyond the Creation,

wondrous order and alacrity and yet a
with
working
vortex of things doomed to die, to the Creator, to
netrates,

the

centre

of miraculous

fire

and the

firmament

becomes an image of eternal delight, the perennial

heaven of saved souls, burning inextinguishably in the
conflagration of the eternal Love. The Catholic Church
is the temple the lamps of which Satan's wrath shall
never put out, nor shall he undermine the adamantine
vaults.

Through

it

the souls are saved

it

is

miraculous fishing; 'innumerable stars are caught

meshes of the

net'.

The

death; 'as*one descries

(i) lb.,

soul lives
little

'Magnificat*, p. 87.

its

true

life

like a
in the

beyond

spiders or certain larvae

121

of insects hidden in purses, like precious stones well

concealed in their small bags of cotton-wool or satin,
I

have been shown a brood of suns

in the

chilly

discern

you,

folds

my

still

entangled

of a nebula, and it is so that I

brothers, in the mud and under

disguise like stars in pain

'.

Death, instead of darkening

the soul free as a planet beginning to run

eternal race in its orbit. The poet beholds all the

us, sets
its

dead

countless

as

Heaven

is-

stars

in

And

an immense sky.

yearning for more.

And we must

listen to

the pitiful cry of the dead and help them

after the
star of Bethlehem, our darkness is craving for stars '.
'

The Angel of God, once a year, takes from the altar

a pyx brimful with our good works, mortifications,
rosaries,

goes

to

masses offered for the repose of

Purgatory

little

star

is

souls,

and

shining brightly

and the dead come and receive

the suffrages and are relieved.
Not otherwise, on a
sombre Christmas morning, have I seen the crowd of
Chinese women, row after row, press to Holy Com-

between

his fingers;

'

munion, their heads covered with long black veils '.

Les Muses was inspired, he tells us, by a carving
on a sarcophagus found on the Ostia road. The nine
Muses he here regards as the faculties of the poetical
soul,

and

his

purpose

is

to each

to

show

other.

how

they

are

In their midst

is
indissolubly joined
the
Terpsichore,
goddess of the dance, the essential
principle of rhythm
Mnemosyne (who is here in;

troduced

emblem

instead

of

Calliope),

the

eldest,

is

the

memory, and she never speaks, but listens,

feels
she is the inmost source of all art.
ponders,
Next to her is Clio, the recorder of facts; Melpomene,
the weaver of tragic plots, gives the movement of
of

122

action to the ode

Thalia, with her laughing

mask,

symbolises the joy of song, while Polymnia seeks for

the right expression, 'how to say' a thing; Erato is
the gift of inspiration, the initial love of creation, the
necessary

absorbed

beginning of all aesthetic work. Urania,

laws of the Universe, suggests and

in the

governs the development of thought; the idea comes

mind

like a sudden planet arising,

or
above
the spiritual horizon ', and she
rose,
yellow
rules the growth of the system of ideas
climbing,
like the Pleiades in their ascension, through the sky

to the poet's

'

'

march

'.
Euterpe, the musical conception of the
holds
a lyre
do not drop from my hand ',
world,
the poet exclaims,
o seven-stringed lyre, that I may

in

'

'

see

the universe through the well-stretched strings,

both the earth with its fires and heaven with its
all

'

stars

U Esprit

In

et

V Eau he compares

sea, as a

the

symbol of freedom and the infinite, with the superior

liberty and penetration of the soul. It is through the
and
spirit that we are united to God in this world
;

from the contemplation of the transitory Creation the

in the sunlight,

the

'

rises to a vision of eternity.

poet

essential

If

how much more

soul

in the

dew coruscates
human ruby and

the

the

intellectual

'

ray

'

When

not only our eyes that acclaim

Hesperus appears,
the inextinguishable star, but it is our heart that greets
it with exultation
and, o my God, if you have set
it is

this rose in the

sky and endowed with such a great

glory this globule of gold in the

light,

how much more You

vivified

beam

will glorify

by an everlasting soul

of the created

immortal

Man

'
!

In the third ode. Magnificat, he recalls the benefits

received from the Lord, and raises to

that he has

123

a song of thankfulness because He has delivered

from the worship of Idols, from death, from
how heavy is my heart with
evil inclinations.

Him

his soul

'

its

You and how

the praise of

difficult for

it

to rise to

heavy censer of gold, crammed

with incense and living coals, which flying for an instant to the end of its stretched chain, soon redescends,

You

is

it

like the

leaving in its place in the sunbeam a great cloud

of thick smoke!
Everything is solemn, magnificent
and useful in the world
looking at the untiring
'

activity of the universe he asks for his place among

he expresses his submission to the
God's servants
his
dilection
for the task reserved to the
divine will,
;

poet, which is to find God in all things and to render

them assimilable to love.
The fourth ode is a dialogue between the poet and
'

however, the goddess of art, but

the Muse whose true^ name is the Grace ', that is,

the

Muse,

not,

the saving Grace.

He

her back, wishing

of the word, being somewhat
intoxicated by the beauty of the material he works
if the
with
vintager does not enter with impunity
to

be only an

tries to thrust

artist

'

winepress, do you think that I may crush my

great vintage of words without the vapours mounting
to my brain
His only desire is to perfect his tools
the

'

.^

and

to fully enjoy the gift of song;

he would

like to

serene, well-ordered poem, indicted by the

inspiration going at an even pace, instead of running

write

'

with his hand on the back of the winged horse that

drags him along in its broken race which is half a flight

and

half a leap

first

to

duty

the

is

'.

But she answers him that his

he ought to listen

to sanctify his soul

appeal

of the

eternal

Love, to catch the

124

which she, the immortal Angel, is

is of Heaven and
fleeting
For I am not here
on earth are her radiant feet.
for ever, but I am unsteady on this ground as a man
at the bottom of the water that pushes him upwards,
as a bird that tries to alight on a bough, its wings
half-folded, as a flame quivering on the wick.
hour

precious

at his side

in

because she

'

Look, look,

for

short

this

moment,

your well-

at

'

her visage that destroys death '. Rejoice

in your triumph, for he who has no attachment to
laugh, o immortal,
anything is the master of all
beloved, at

to see yourself

among

perishable things

they seem

be there, and pass away, but you are with God

Yet sometimes he feels himself dragged to
for ever

to

'.

by the burden of

'

I hear
body of fles'h
bride
who
comes
to
without
the nocturnal
me,
again
a word, comes again with her heart like to the bread
of sorrow or a vase full of tears, comes again from

earth

his

Hades, from the other side of this low canal which

is not even lighted by the ray of a leaden star or by
the dismal horn of Hecate

La Maison fermee
inwardly, the

ideal

is

life

'.

the symbol of a life turned

of the artist. The poet is

by the crowd for the obscurity of his

and for his carelessness of the interests of
mankind. You have become like nature
they say,
and are as devoid of attention for us as the hills
we ask you to give completion with your mind to
the things of the earth, none of which is complete
besides, your language is not like ours, we do not
recognise the words that we have brought you'. The

reproached
verse

'

',

'

poet answers that his first duty is to fulfil the mission

with which he has been entrusted by the Lord, the

12=

office of re-uniting all

things in

Him

therefore his

mind must needs be turned inwardly toward God.

His only passion is now to know God, to see how
every thing is contained in all the others, and to
prove it by creating every object again in his mind (i).
In order to contain all things his soul has to be
circumscribed within definite limits

a closed House

like the Universe which is inexhaustible and yet

enclosed in well-defined boundaries. All the space is
filled up with the laws of a divine geometry, built

up with splendid
in the

calculations, like the computations

Apocalypse; 'You have set each milliary star

gold lamps around your sepulchre

in its place, like the

in

Jerusalem

like the

He

and

Ten Wise

has once sung

visible Sisters

descry

all

your

stars

watchful

Virgins to whom oil never fails '.

the interior Muses, the nine indi-

now he

will

extol the great exterior

Ones, the four Cardinal Virtues, the Keepers of the

spiritual House. In the first, Prudence, reigns above
duty, the rapture of a swift and
as
straight course toward the aim of self-perfection,
in a motor-driver, who, going full speed, in the night,

the

all

sense

of

'

holds his eyes riveted for hours and hours on the

little
white lamp in the bottom of the valley, his

and neither the snow masks his hard-set face

nor the frost sews up his inflexible eyelids '. Fortitude
goal

grasps the lightning with her right hand, while with

the left she strangles the serpent
and the brunt of
demons breaks against her large breast; all evil winds,
;

all

the Powers of the Air, blow on her face, but have

(i) Cf.

his

Art poetique, pp.

125-7.

126

no force against the

the ruler of

invincible rock.

Temperance

keeping the right tension

life,

is

in the vital

strength she is the infallible conscience, the supreme

discrimination of the artist who selects and casts away
;

and

thoughts, inexorably, acting beyond

explanation; and her secret art preserves through all
changes what must be always the same. Justice con-

images

siders the
for evil

The

end of

and

all

makes up our accounts

things and

for good.

Processional which ends the series of the Odes

preludes, with its austere simplicity, to the style of

another book of poems, Corona benignitatis anni Dei.
In the

Odes the

not carry

on

its

inspiration

is

like a river that

does

waters straight to the sea, but spreads

over the fields, fostering luxuriant crops

its

way

of images; here it is running clear and swift between

its banks.
And, with this change of form, there is
also a

change of matter.

In

his

former

lyrics

he

contrasts the shifting realities of earthly life with the

eternal; he is looking at things with the transfiguring
power of love, until the world appears penetrated

with a divine effluence, and we feel a divine perfume

in the fragrance of flowers. Here he concentrates his

on supernal things, beyond life. There he

the
perishable towns of men, here the city of
sings
the
God,
everlasting house built on rock-foundations.
In Corona benignitatis anni Dei he is content with
attention

the bare outline of ideas and he sets

them down in
have no more

The lines
clear, unadorned phrases.
the impetuous rush of the Magnificat, the antistrophic
movement of La Muse qui est la Grace in couplets
or triplets bound by a rhyme, they look like a chanted
'

'

prayer.

In the

Odes he was

still

clogged by human

127

deliver me from
and yearned to be purified
the thraldom and weight of this inert matter clarify
me, divest me of this execrable gloom!' Here there
His
is renunciation and the quiet joy of wisdom.
'

love,

style in this

taken from

'

work may be
The Group of
'

speaks of St Simon.

He

illustrated

by

a passage

the Apostles ', where he

has taken the earth by its

greatest width, where there is no fear of seeing the

end of it or the sea looming up in an indentation.

He
He

has before himself the whole curve of our planet.

crosses the Tanais and it is he alone that sits

before a

little fire

in the desert

between the Ural and

He

has no need of long speeches, books,

all
his luggage is the name of Jesus on
interpreters;
his lips, and a little wine and meal in his scrip, the

the Ob.

cross

on

in his right

his breast.

He

hand, and the stone for the Mass

goes to all places where smoke

rises

from the hearths, and the fatherly

deep

in

him

'.

He

looks

lovingly

his

at

instinct

is

converts,

and the snub-nosed

Mongolians that he has baptised gaze at him when
he starts again on his way turning to them his visage
'glad

of

their

docile

souls,

in the sun, with eyes full of tears '.

The
flame
of
burns
limpid
prayer
steadily throughout the
and
here
there
flashes
in beautiful images.
and
work,

smiling

'

Which

of so

many

suns an Angel tore away by

chance, as a torch, to light the way to the three Old

Men?' (i) he says of the star of Bethlehem; and of
baptism Henceforward, as far as the last well in the
'

desert, as far as the soon-dried

(i)

puddle

Corona Benignitatis Anni Dei. Paris,

Frangaise', 1915, p. 23.

'

in the road.

Nouvelle Revue

not a drop of water, that

there

is

make

a Christian, that,

is

in us of

most

is

communing

not sufficient to
with what there

and pure, does not inwardly

vital

fecundate for Heaven the future star'.

The

creative faculty of his imagination

is

throughout his poems and dramas and even

work

manifest
in

such

Art poetique, though in a difin L'Otage it appears at its lowest,

because the poet tried to combine his two main
tendencies, the mystic and the realistic, with a too
visible effort, into a tragedy half historical and half
Claudel has restored to the French
psychological.
the poetical
flat and dirty stuff,
with
flooded
stage,
and
close
to
He
yet the voice
keeps
reality,
play
a philosophic
ferent degree

as

'

'.

heard throughout his work.

While Verhaeren cannot step out of the lyric field,

of poetry

is

distinctly

Claudel passes freely from the dramatic to the

and blends both

the dramatic

styles in his technique.

gift,

which

lyric,

He

possesses
consists in a knowledge of

human

nature not only deep but also wide and thus

the
allows
poet to show life to us not only in its
essence but in its variety too. As it is indispensable

drama, he lays

in

particular

stress

on the

'

'

ethic

element.
In

L Otage

we have

in Turelure, the villain of the

once wily and

thus
brutal, he wields pitilessly his power,
heightening
the heroism of Sygne. In Le Pere humilie his technical
play, a

ability

the

subtle

shows

salient

Orian, are

study

of malice

at

the searching analysis of Pensee;

of the two brothers, Orso and
drawn with sure strokes. In both plays,
itself in

features

L'Annonce faite a Marie, the interest is

centred on a woman self-sacrifice and forgiveness are

and

also in

129

main spring in Sygne and Violaine;

The Bear and the Moon is a
love.
there is a keen human
and
quaint
poignant play
respectively the

in

is

it

Pensee,

pathos distilled in

The Art

its

Poetique

grotesque fancy.
contains an exposition

of his

philosophical, rather than aesthetic, teories. It is diand

vided into two parts
knowledge of time
the
of
The
first
of
world
and
oneself.
'knowledge
'

'

expounds

interpretation of the universe, that

his

is,

of the figure created round us by simultaneous things.

Space is a finished design time is the design on the
making, in motion. The source of movement is the
;

'

quivering that invades matter when in contact with

a different reahty, spirit (i). The harmonic cause that
rules the

ment of
'

gathering of beings at a determinate mois the art of the Creator, the

their duration

poetical art

Movement

'.

is

the permanent action of

ij:s existence.
Weight
'

matter, and the very support of

is

not the effect of attraction exercised from outside

upon an

inert

mass

method syllogism

it

is

the

same mass

which

in

enclosed, and the stone

bird towards the tree '.

the impetus (elan)

the ground as the

is

flies

'

is

superseded by metaphor

to

In his
;

the

had for its organ the syllogism, the new

one has the metaphor, the operation resulting from
the joined and contemporary existence of two dif-

old logic

ferent things

books,

it

the metaphor

the native

is
'

that

exists

exist

in

itself,

because
but

in

art

is

not only used in our

employed by everything

every
infinite

thing

does

relation

not

to all

only
other

things.

(i)

F.

Art poetique. Paris, ^Mercure de France', 1915,

OHVERO.

p. 38.

I30

Therefore, he says in the second part, the first

degree of knowledge, in inanimate beings, consists
it is by
in the statement of relations among things
;

their limits that things

by

other.

Nothing ends

inside as well
every thing
up by
the outside void which would be traced by its

in itself

as

know each
is

built

its

and each individual trait is determined

by the others. So that all things are disposed as in
the harmony of a perfect picture; 'the rose, with its
absent form

crimson hue, enjoins to the sun to paint other flowers

white or blue '.
It is

mystic and the passionate

in the fusion of the

that his poetry shines of

purest splendour, as when

glamour, the last moments of
its

he evokes, with a new

man who has preferred God's love to earthly joys;
the time will soon come when another door dis-

the
'

solves,

when

in this life,

arms of

his

he,

who

has met but slight recognition

having done his task,

falls asleep in the

of
the
eternal
Bird
and already
Angel,
Paradise appears on every side through

the dusky
the diaphanous

walls,

and the censers of the Night

mingle with the smell of the corrupted wick, the flame

His poetry
of which is flickering and going out '.
leads us along a way barred now and then by creepers

and brambles, darkened by overhanging foliage, steep

with hard ascent
yet the carolling of birds floods
;

the air with music, the

thickets

dazzling

shafts

of

light,

are

diapered with

and the path, crossed by

ascends towards the Sun

beautiful, strange blossoms,

that crowns the everlasting

hills.

Georges Rodenbach.

The background

of the

delicate

landscapes evoked in his poems

the pale Venice of the North

is,

and melancholy

without exception,

Bruges-la-Morte.

him each of the ancient houses revealed

individuality in the profile of

its

To

marked

gable, in the shape

diamond-paned casements, in the brown and

ruddy shades of its finely weathered walls; each house
seemed to mirror its tall and narrow fagade in the
motionless water, and to dream, ecstatic in the eternal

of

its

contemplation of its own image. And another world

trembled and gleamed under their long rows in the

dormant waters of the

canals,

the

unsubstantial

dreamland where uncertain

were
figures
quivering among glimpses of luminous
world of reflections

clouds, of blue sky, of copper-coloured foliage.

The poet experienced an intense grief as he lingered

lonely squares, bathed in the rosy light of

sunset, streaked with the mauve shadows of planethe strangely human melancholy of the old
trees
in the

132

town remained struck

into his soul forever

appearance came

its

frail,

have for him a sad

he
from
which
never
yearned to be free.
glamour,
forlorn

to

The desolate city assumed for him

human visage, the beauty of a fairy

the pathos of a

princess, pale in
death, adorned with antique jewels of red gold and
mood of resigned, inexplicable sadness
aquamarines.

settled deeply in the poet's heart;

model

to

his

soul

was as

it

on the mystic

if

he tried

loveliness of the

enchanted town.
His ideal world

is

'

The Realm

of Silence

not,

however, of the weird silence of haunted lands, as

conceived by Poe in his visions of wonder and terror,
but of the dreamy

brooding over ancient,

magnificent palaces and autumnal gardens it is an
silence

unearthly stillness made more intense by the drowsy

chimes of church-bells, by rare footfalls, by the

monotonous trickling of broken fountains. It is also

'The Realm of Remembrance', the misty region where
the things

of the past appear distorted into eerie

forms, where the sorrows of life, so far from growing
less poignant through the clouded distance,
are
increased to a wild, heart-rending pain by new

elements supplied by fantasy.

Sad was his conception of
recoiled

he instinctively
from the cruel struggles of the world, and

took refuge

in the

life

solitude of his

poetic

universe

a pageant of wan figures drifting

passed by him
on the wind
without stirring the surface of his soul
his sensibility was extremely keen, but only to abstract
feelings, to refined impressions. Only the pale amber

life

of the winter sun, the perfume wafted by blossoming

from the cloister.

lilac-bushes, the singing of 'b^guines'

133

as fugitive glimmers
House of Vision
and echoes of the outer world.
Fernand Khnopff has painted in his Recluse a fit
emblem of Rodenbach's soul; in her grey eyes there
are a strange ecstasy and a bitter sorrow, a proud
disdain and a nostalgic yearning
she has sought a
in
the unbroken stillness of a land far from
refuge

entered his

'

',

the world

but she

now

is

a prisoner of dreams.

Rodenbach loved the calm of forgotten rooms;

his

secluded apartments he

by the

felt

beings which lead a secret

fantastic

familiar objects; simple,

in

himself surrounded
life

in

homely things impressed him

with a sense of mysterious sufferings the diaphanous

cups, the slim glasses vibrating to some distant echo,
;

the curtains

seeming

to retain in their

snowy

folds

the pallor of moonlight, the lamps opening their golden

eyes in the twilight appeared to him endowed with
a kind of spiritual beauty. Our attention is made to

converge upon common, apparently insignificant things;

from them the poet shapes symbols of love, passion

and death, and every emblem changes

through some slight alteration either
shape or

its

significance

in its

colour and

in its surroundings.

The literary activity of Georges Rodenbach may

be divided into three periods; in the juvenile poems
\Les Tristesses, 1879; La Jeunesse blanche, 1886]
the influence of Lamartine and Alfred de Vigny is
still clearly visible; he first showed his
original power
Le Regne du
1896 by Les

in
in

Silence [1891], which was followed

Vies encloses] here his passion for

the beautiful town shines in

'

town,

two are the

my

sister,

city in

its

full

to which

splendour.

am

alike

mourning, now asleep,

We

and with

134

none of the vessels

no ships in its sad harbour,
that once mirrored in its water their golden sides
and yet, what does it matter ? The sky is better
And is
seen, in its full beauty, on empty waters.
;

as

in a lookingnot the essential glory to reflect,

to
eternal
with
azure their
the
angelize
things,
glass,
it

It is because we
iridescent impassible appearance?
are so docile to its will that the remote heaven paints
that its sweet
you and my soul with the same hues,

gardens are imprinted in our hearts,

soul,

and you. Dead Town,

my

you,

my

'

sister

(i).

The leading influences were now Verlaine and

Mallarm6 especially the exquisite nonchalance of the
former had a strong appeal for him; in fact, in spite
of all the painstaking care with which he chiselled
his images, combined the sounds and disposed his
;

lines in skilful

diction

arrangement, a simple, straightforward

him far more than the artificial

attracted

charm of a complex style. The subdued melodies of

his verse seem to reecho the song of vesper bells,
the whisper of winds and water they are the dirge
;

of dying flowers.

'

My soul, during all this long, dreary afternoon,

has suffered the approaching death of a bunch of
flowers;

were

they
room, where my

benumbed.
they would

of the water

(i)

last

p. 9.

from

me

in a

neighbouring

had brought them, already

and I beHeved
withering blossoms
one day more, steeped in the pity
fear

'

(2).

Le Regne du

(2) lb.,

far

Silence, 'Paris, Fasquelle, 1901, ^p- 105-7.

135

His poetry

we

is

connected with the

art of his country;

mysticism
grace of Memlinc and
and
van
der
there is a similar
Weyden
Rogier
in the works of
of
nature
and
life
comprehension
in the paintings of Baertsoen
contemporary artists
the

feel in his

and Buysse,

drawings of Auguste Donnay, in

in the

the sculptures of Georges Minne.

Rodenbach never fell under the

influence of the

'

'

he preferred the atmosphere of the

Pamassiens
'Symbolistes', where only now and then rare 'nuances'
shimmer through the opalescent haze. He loved the
;

evanescent

smile

of a

faded

than a

better

pastel

glaring composition of Rubens, just as he liked to

sing the pale flame of a lamp rather than a gorgeous
sunset.
'

The lamp has

mystery

of

just

been

lit,

smile

fire, nativity in the glass

It

of

light,

like a

is

a golden butterfly;
sulphur -yellow and blue star,
the room is surprised of this sudden happiness,
saved from the poverty of being dark, like one who

has received alms

'

The lamp

'.

in the

room

a white rose,
opening
the
garden of evening
is

of a sudden in the grey

lamp in the room is a white
water-Ulies

We
each

seem

to

blow

moon,

its

rays

in the mirrors' (i).

are aware that the images scattered throughout

poem without any apparent link are bound

together by subtle

chord

affinities

same psychological

that they belong to the

they are but the

that

myriad facets of a single gem.

(i)

and at

Le Miroir du del

He

chooses a theme

natal, Paris, Fasquelle, 1898, p. 18.

136

and works

out through various tones, in the returning

cadences of the verse, each time showing it in a
modified shape, under a new light. His themes are
it

often sensations that

the thought

is

left

it is

hard to put into words

suspended, as

if

and

the conclusive

chord had to be supplied by the reader.

salient feature of this period

is

the frequent use

of allegory, so that his aesthetic theory can be summed

up in the formula poetry is the expression of feeling
by means of symbols and verbal melody. In this way
:

every thing becomes the emblem of a spiritual attitude, and therefore an inexhaustible source of inspiration. His lines in The Voyage in the Eyes show us
a characteristic
infinite,
itself

anew!

wanders

example of

living

it

'Windows

(i).

of the

mirrors in which the universe creates

Some eyes are frozen lands, where one

unknown some keep the

in the pathless

glow of an ancient sunset that was the moment of

essential love and shed its leaves in them as a great

and others are blue of having so long gazed

the sky. And some eyes are older than the faces
the eyes are October,
which they are

are
of roses, the
the
the
April
rose;
at

set

in

lips in

in

latter

full

Or are they sometimes

dead leaves.
windows of an orphanage, where we descry between
the snowy curtains a flame, the echo of a hearth in
the depth of the house of the soul, round which come
former

of

and go and

sit

down

reflections of stars

eyes luminous

(i)

flights

What

lamps
prolong

the Passions
or of

of stairs

clarities

'

Les Vies encloses, Paris, Fasquelle, 1896,

p. 181

in the

137

The

period of his art

third

is

represented by Le
is all aglow with

Miroir du del Natal [1898], which

of

radiance

the

remember

that

fervent

'

Lord, I
mysticism.
on a serious day I have pledged

myself to write a work

for

You

that the

your glory,
I have
led

in your praise; therefore it is

lamps are here burning, proclaiming

in thankfulness for

it is

my

swans

in

your

pilgrimage

gifts that

You

to

the

doves are a symbol of my

fountain-jets soaring
I
have sought your Face in the Hosts, the
faith; and
The fine poem Les Cierges may
viaticum of love
as

'.

be quoted

as a

characteristic

instance

flowers of Rodenbach's poetical garden.

The tapers burn slowly in the aisles
'

of the

last

they seem

to be in pain; do they perhaps really suffer?

They
appear to die in spasms of light, as hollyhocks

shedding their leaves;

to say

farewell

as

their

lips.

shivering flames
pale

burning,

they make
the sins

seem

tapers

expiation on the church-chandeliers for

of men with their pious fires
and to be
;

'

martyrs

is

their pride

(i).

Some

mystic poets have endowed their symbolic

world with such an intellectual light that a spiritual
ray seems to enrich their images with a golden glow,
even when they are taken from objects otherwise
or vulgar
in the work of Georges Rodenbach several passages afford striking examples of

indifl"erent

this poetic transfiguration (2).

The

artist

knows how

Le Miroir du del natal p. 212.

See his poems on Les Reverberes
The street-lamps are little cages in which the flames have
taken shelter from wind and rain; weary birds frightened
(i)

(2)
'

138

new and deeper imby the subtle magic of his style. As he

as he
gazes upon old miniatures or a faded arras
our

to quicken

to

sensibility

pressions

looks in the gloaming at the flowers in his lonely

the sorrow
garden, at the silent rain of their petals

of beautiful things, of the

fate,

lies

heavy upon

dumb

victims of a destroying
his heart. At the same time we

is in these objects
something which
before eluded our apprehension, an indwelling spirit,
whose message strikes now upon our mind with a

realize that there

Rodenbach loved these sad things

an instinctive pity for his humble companions,

strange intensity.

he

felt

for their poignant agony in the twilight and the

submissive passion of their death, as they disappeared
conscious
in the rising tide of the nocturnal gloom
;

of their melancholy beauty, he yielded to their tacit

influence.

approaching, it is now quite near,

symbol of the death of which we were too forgetful;
'

Night

is

the

shadow is deepening; everything already turns

towards the night;
only a lily emerged for a longer

by the mystery of the horizon, they know how

golden

The

flight

and they prefer

street-lamp

'

is it

is

possible

it

to live captive

looking at

wonders

its

that

in

shadow on

frail is their

the glass'.

the ground

the golden butterfly, its

reflected on the earth, may be nothing

luminous essence, when

more than the rigid black figure that shuts up its light within
bounds of darkness ?
*
we share the same fate, the same
O stars, my sisters
pulsation, as if a single heart were the source of our throbbing
we are alike in loneliness, and we can live
and of yours;
'

in the night.

only
the eternal

O, to go out, to be quenched at last in

Le Miroir du del natal, pp. 8i, 83, 90.

Dawn \'

139

The

from the gloom.

time

knickknacks

pensive

yield softly (sad to feel themselves like closed urns)

to the power of the shadow that gives them a humble

death

and

my

inanimate things

soul

follows

the

example of the

'

(i).

The supreme wisdom

is

for

him

to

be a

keep the powers of the

contemplative soul, to

self-

mind

fastened upon its inmost thoughts; a symbol of this

kind of existence, calm and yet not lying in torpor,
in itself, he depicts in Mental Aquarium^
part of Les Vies encloses. The aquarium pities
the sea, the rivers, which are in motion, stirred by

absorbed

the

first

exterior

life

pageant.

It

for

its

its

only

interest

lies

in

its

interior

cares far less for reflections of reality than

inward mystery, and

what

it

now

it

has of eternal.

destroy

possesses
frail

its

It

itself

its only aim is to apprehend

has shut out the world, and
entirely, and no wind can

inmost universe.

His outlook

is

thus

deliberately limited by a firm purpose to never yield

to the desire of change, to the attraction of outward

mirages, to what he calls 'the temptation of clouds',

the lure of the far-winged, wandering clouds.
In spite of his detachment from life, love enters
his soul, a love consistent with the

dominant mood,

attuned to the background, with the same abandon-

ment

to sadness, subtilised

by pain to the vanishingdead water floats

point.
and your white face
your visage, o unique Beloved!
smiles in the moon- reflection
visionary, martyred

'

On

perishing
(i)

the surface of this

in the cold

Les Vies encloses,

water

p. 42.

because my increasing

140

pain blots out

all

mirages, and the black

swans

of

despair, cruel and wild, gliding inexorably toward the

haloed face tear it to pieces in the waves '.

His mental attitude was the same towards his town

the swans, gliding on the path traced by moonbeams

the brilliant patches of sunlight roaming on the
the languid scent of
black waters on a stormy day

leaves the

dead
very outlines of trees and houses,
borrow a new significance from his passionate sadness,
and the silent tragedy of things seems to take place
in his inmost heart.
Autumn of walls, stones scatAncient houses, of which
tering as dead leaves
the decayed roofs shed, leaf by leaf, their crimson
*

a dying garden of great geraniums!' Bruges

evoked by him wreathed with the dying

tiles like
is

often

splendour of autumn, garlanded with the ruddy gold

of chrysanthemums, veiled with the violet mist of

October
to

yield

it

is

their

evening dew.

when remembrances seem

the season

fragrance, as flowers in the

the rushes, brightened by the

sweetest

Among

dancing reflections of tiny waves, the last yellow iris

shivers in the chilly breeze, while from the elm-trees
the leaves are falling fast upon the chalices of waterlilies and the dark, agate-coloured water of the solitary

The

gilded spire of a church soars from highroofs

into a bleak, sombre sky, tinkling with
pitched
the crystalline melodies of carillons '. The music falls

pond.

'

'

roofs and the black gables as a bouquet

of sounds, in withered garlands, in invisible lilies, in
petals so slow and pale that they seem to drop from

upon the

the brows of dead years '. Over the winding streets

and the bridges arched upon the sepulchral depth of
deserted waterways, over the sandy downs crowned

141

with wind-mills,
of rainy days,

is

diffused the hesitating luminosity

the fading light revives, in

when

continual alternative, into a tender glow, as the clouds

open and close, chased by the fitful gusts of the

seawind.

Rodenbach described

this

scenery with the exquisite

that such a subject

demands, bestowing
workmanship
on his pictures a kind of dramatic vitality, as if they
were representations of tragedies acted in silence and
mystery
tragedies of which the characters were

the

living

personalities

of things.

narrow poetic world allowed him

This apparently
full

scope for the

expression of his own individuality, because it was in

itself complete, held indissolubly together by mystic
affinities, a thing of harmonious beauty.

Emile Verhaeren,

The work

in

which Verhaeren

first

revealed

his

the lyrical trilogy Les Soirs, Les DeIt was written

bacles, Les Flambeaux noirs.
during
that period of the Romantic movement, when the
personality

is

poetical current, not only in France, but also in the

neighbouring countries, was dividing into two streams,

one of which continued the traditional course, while
the other swerved aside and went wandering through
forest of Symbolism.
What gives Verhaeren's

the

is the combination of
and
Lamartine's
Hugo's
styles with the dark thought
of Baudelaire and the graphic vigour of Gautier. But
there is a new strain in his soul, and here he records
with a forcible form a set of original, wild, deep

poems

their peculiar character

impressions.
Les Soirs are

essentially a mirror of the hopeless

of
his
dejection
spirit, Les Debacles reveal the disease
of his mind, and Les Flambeaux noirs show us the

gloom of

a darkened soul, the last stage of his intel-

lectual illness.

Les Soirs he

limits himself to sing the tragic

of
sunsets, the desolate grandeur of midnight
splendour

In

143

skies

his

world does not know either the freshness

dawn

or the radiance of noon; the blood-red glare

of a perpetual afterglow broods over the horizon of

of

his

dreamland. The lonely marshes

glittering

with

reflect
metallic iridescence through tufts of rushes
no breath of life
as a broken mirror the dying sun
;

is

blowing upon

this wilderness,

no breeze wrinkles

the imprisoned river, stretching far in scattered pools

to a sky of greenish vapours and flaring crimson
clouds.

'

The evening

skies shed the blood of their

marshes, as on red mirrors set to

'An
reflect the martyrdom of the evenings
(i).

wounds on

the

'

of purple hues, of crimson rivers,

rotting beyond the dwindling plains, and violently,
with its clouds, as with powerful fists, it crushes the
full

evening sky,
is

sun upon the greenish horizon' (2). In a poem of 1886,

published in Les Bords de la Route (3), he had already

evoked a landscape of a similar character. Look at

the proud grandeur of a stately twilight, spreading,
with reflections of hidden torches and mirrors, through
'

the corpse of
the many-coloured, fragrant evening;
the day is lying on the pasture land, and black ravens
are soaring among the golden gleams
of gall of the decaying sunset '.

When

Verhaeren

has

to

emotions a
has only to

(i)

express

and the
his

essential

Poemes [Les Soirs, Les Debacles, Les Flambeaux

Mercure de France ', 1895, P- ^9'

(2) lb., p. 67.

*

Paris,

he
hopeless sadness, a wild sorrow
draw upon a large treasure of images

Paris,

(3)

flecks

Mercure de France \

1895, p. 17.

noirs],

144

accumulated

during his long hours of solitary and

intense contemplation; and the outcome of the mystic

wedding of his soul with the external world is a morbid

and deep poetry of nature,

vading
peculiar

his mournful ideas perwith

a
things
strange, vehement life, his
feelings casting on the landscape a lurid

all

shadow, where no sense of joy, not even a sweet

melancholy, can survive. The trees, in their mantles
of dusty gold, seem to go as weary pilgrims towards
a never approaching goal, on the plains lying dead

under the autumnal clouds hanging motionless in a

the woods, when the blast is not
leaden sky
their
gnarled boughs, shudder with the terror
wringing

of eternal pain

the

cliffs raise

their

impotent wrath,

dumb

despair, to the sunset glowing with a bitter,

vain passion and no one shall know the mystery of

their

and no one

the tortured

stones,

unseen hand

will close the Hds of the stars

shall

What steps, like tolling bells,

come and break the eternity of
'

eyes.
will

when an
diamond

tell
'

what

cohorts

the dead hours

and close for ever these

of this weary midnight,
of
stone, mystic golden crystals, between the
eyes
of
this weary midnight?'
eyelids

Autumn

is

to

him no time of slow and melancholy

decay, but a bright outburst of life, the supreme and

fullest bloom of the Rose of Nature, the apotheosis
of the magnificent forces ruling the world, and yet
the dominion of an imperial, solemn Form, whose

crowned with the diadem of Death. See how

October, lazily, heedlessly, is growing and dying in

head
this

'

is

apples, clots of fire

grapes, beads of
dream would be to die in this way, under

scenery

gold! My
a supreme

harmony of colours and songs flowing

145

with

together,

the golden Hghts of sunsets in

my

'

eyes
His mind
!

is haunted by funereal
images; night is
him the vault where are lying unknown heroes
who died on their roads to glorious goals
the stars
burning round the gigantic catafalque as glimmering

to

'

golden catafalque rises in the distance,

the stars are lifting their rows of lamps towards
silver glimmers streaking the black vestibules of
tapers.

when

temples far away.

What

closed in this coffin

is

The

men of shadow...
Nature shows him only
a wan maiden
symbols of universal death; the moon
'

heart of

her golden coffin

in

staircase of clouds

to

is

the

carried down
tomb waiting

the depths of a desolate lagoon.

And

his

the
for

ebony
her

own

in

face,

haggard, careworn countenance looks like the

sepulchre of his blighted hopes, of his dreams all

his

turned to dust.

Ton

front,

comme un

tombeau, dominera tes reves,

Et sera ta frayeur, en des miroirs,

la nuit (i).

The tower

in which he lives has two windows

on
opposite sides. From one of them his sight
looking
stretches over gardens and a fabulous sea to the

horizon gleaming with visions of the Past. From the

other he beholds huge towns, and mankind in painful
effort, and ships steaming out of a cloudy horizon

where breaks the uncertain dawn of the Future. On

one side it is, sometimes, as with Rodenbach, the rosy
and golden lamps of a dead town, swans on moonlit

(i)

Poemes, pp.

F. Olivero.

69, 82.

146

agony of flowers

canals, the

in

secluded rooms

or

a small fishing-town of Flanders, its brown-sailed

boats, its harbour where only a lantern gleams on the
it is

wharf, a dim emerald in the misty evening. Like Gilsoul and Villaert he paints the poetry of dying towns,

ancient walls, scarred like old faces bearing the marks

of numberless sorrows, reflected in stagnant canals,
belfries upraising the gilt dial of the clock like a

brazen shield to the rays of the setting sun, the roofs

of gabled houses sharply outlined in black on skies
of burnished gold. The medieval ages are to him a
sumptuous vision of jewelled queens, of warrior-kings

proud gesture on the death-field

falling with a

the

poetry of cathedrals, the ardour of faith contrast with

barbaric cruelty, the glow of burning towns, the trag-

edy of treachery and poison played in shadowy halls

glimmering with the wealth of plunder. He sings the
glory of Flanders, the struggle for liberty; his figures
grim, majestic shapes, heroes and thinkers, with

stand out
visages of iron will, of undaunted energy
from a background of gloom and fire. Here he lets
his fancy

its

spread

wings

in wild flights.

On

a balcony

a lonely princess, in a green dalmatic embroidered with

rubies, a gold tiara studded with opals on her red hair,
gazes with azure dreamy eyes at the silent tragedy of

the sunset.

On

royal swans

the lake of turquoise and emerald the

come

crowned heads

at evening, raising

transformed by
with rainbow-coloured exotic flowers,
flit

proudly their

they are the kings of the legends,

The gardens overflow
a sorceress.

the flaming birds of the

Tropics

among which
and

display the sapphires of their plumage. It

gated world, like a wizard's glass sphere.

peacocks
is

a varie-

147

In

Les Heures

Claires,

Les Heures

d' Apres-midi (i)

the expression of the scene is one of serenity and joy

the air has the trasparence and the prismatic reflections
of a crystal
purple and silver butterflies flit from
;

chalice to chalice; the grass is blue with the last haze

of dawn, still clinging to the emerald grass-blades
;

in the all-pervading

shower of white

light, faint violet

shadows lie on the gravel, bracelets of dew-gems hang

lulled by a perfumed breeze Care
on the boughs
lies asleep on the flowers, Joy sings ecstatic ditties.
Here pomegranates show the pale rubies of their heart
among translucent amber-coloured grapes. Then the
evening light spreads illusive beds of irises on the
;

now

and diaphanous flowers are

dying in the moonlight, and the hawthorn's honeyed
fragrance floats on the breeze.
In Les Moines he leads us into holy gardens where
white chalices of purity and peace emerge from the
ponds; and

it is

night,

thorns of sorrow, and an unearthly light, as of a divine

sunrise, illuminates the apparition of dreaming Angels.

Here the prayer

rises
in

from the heart of monks as a

supernatural stillness which

the

blossoming lily,
broods on this entranced land, enclosed by austere
mountains and lonely forests. Here the only motion
is the reflection of
flying Angels mirrored in the

ponds; here the pallid hands of monks are joined in

It is the hour
prayer, in a supernatural stillness.
'

Angels, in wreath-like flight, come down

again to gather in the plains of silent air the unearthly
and such is the
lily that perfumes the legends

when

the

silence

round the

(i) Paris,

cloister,

and such the

'Mercure de France', 1917.

mystery

148

spread over the horizon, that they can hear the chaste
beautiful Ulies

On

grow upon the mountains

the other side

the tumultuous

'

(i).

of big
towns, the elation of rushing force, minds of thinkers
and muscles of workmen, tense, vibrating in the effort.
is

it

life

trains start wearily on the huge viaduct curving

the
quays, silhouetted on smoke-clouds trailing
along
on sooty roofs and grimy walls, the sunset glowing

Long

like a

red-hot iron bar in the

The

black horizon.

town is rapidly encroaching upon the country; where

once smiled pastoral cottages and gold-lit orchard

now rise grim rectangular buildings roses of

burst from the melting ores, instead of flowers.
Vice and sin crouch iu the town as in a den;
but
trees,

fire

the

poet

hopes that the

still

some day,

the

fields

may be

source of joy to mankind

again,
cups
'

brimful with verginal clarity and health '. He likes to

steep his mind in these tumultuous whirlpools, London,
Liverpool, Antwerp, to wander in the din and glare
of huge, busy harbours, among the ships, big liners
that have come from the glamour of tropical seas,

steamers that have wreathed grimy garlands of smoke

round the glittering spires of icebergs. The sun sets

behind

the

dusky

weary beams

hulls,

the sinister

folding

crimson fan of

appeals of the tugs echo

gaunt cranes swing their arms

with weird gestures in the gathering night.
Like
Meunier and Brangwyn, like Pennell, he portrays the

in

twilight, the

the

human

effort,

the world throbbing with

mankind

is

Les Moines, Paris, 'Mercure de France', 1895, *Soir

La Clemence in Les Visages de
', p.
185, and cf.
Mercure de France % 1916, p. 29.
Vie, Paris,

(i)

'

religieux

'

la

life;

'

149

a torrent, rushing, raging through obstacles mountains

the power of
are cleft, hills levelled, seas dried
;

destruction

The world

is

is

fighting with the power of creation.

reflected in his soul as in a red mirror,

where everything

is

changed

into

flame, a

fire

everything acquires a new life and is changing rapidly;

we see the diffuse, slow working of forces concentrated

We see the
mingle with the blood-red beams
ships
through the
and quickened.

reflections of furnaces

mist,

of sunset slanting
to the unknown,

sailing

under unknown

stars; the lighthouses shine along

the coast as golden-hearted flowers; their reflections
tremble on the dark waters, luminous fingers pointing
see the trains, rushing out of
to the infinite.

We

populous towns, between rows of mournful, tomb-like

houses, crossing like swift, ruby-eyed adders desolate

aglow with many-coloured

and
lamps, rumbling
clattering as they slaken their
speed along the platforms swarming with eager silent
crowds. Celle des Voyages (i) represents the lure of
plains, entering far stations

the exotic.

It

is

she

who

fills

the heart of

man

with

an insatiable craving for far travels by land and sea.

And first she appears embodied in the figure-head
of a ship,

her

arms stretched from the prow

to

visionary horizons; her eyes reverberate on the waves

their hallucinating glow; her red hair burns as a torch

gloom of the storm. Then she is imaged by

a train; she bounds in thunder over bridges spanning
her eyes are the living
firth and mountain chasm
in the

Les Vignes de ma Muraille, Paris, Mercure de France ',

1898, p. 153, and cf. Le Voyage in Les Forces tumultueuses,
Paris, Mercure de France ', 1902, p. 161.
'

(i)

'

'

'

I50

coals of the furnace, her hair

is

smoke ascending

the

from the engine to the lamp-lit domes of stations, at

night; the sound of whistles is her voice, a cry of
anguish, an appeal to the infinite.

He

describes the tentacled town, its bridges tressed

its columns surmounted with
Gorgons' faces,

with iron,

grim by day, a
its

ossuary

glowing octopus in the night, with

around. And over the town reign,

all

the

Ideas

we dream

of them, far away

on the elbow, triumphal,
unchanged through red dawns, dusky moons, vermilion sunsets
they are Justice, Pity, Beauty. Meanwhile the search for scientific truth is going on in
invisible,

the suns,

among

leaning
;

'

'

'

laboratories, observatories, amidst telescopes,

monu-

mental crystals, diapered minerals, swords of vergin

sun steeped in prisms, glowing crucibles'; the conquest
of matter is pursued in these buildings, similar to
Solomon's House in the Atlantis of Bacon. Thought
obstinately darting tow^ards truth through the facts,
life
rising from facts to laws, in anguish and hope
is

is

scrutinised

atom

to

star

by monstrous or fastidious eyes, from

the humble and attentive scientist
;

rhythm of Nature's laws. The

world is made of stars and of men (i).
Up there,
since what times, in what deep gardens of the skies,
round what suns, in the fulgor of the energetic space,
are the myriad swarms of tragic planets turning }
Some star has hurled them out and they fly, like bees,
among the bowers of the golden ether; and each turns
'

struggles to find the

(i)

1917,

La

'

multiple Splendeur,

p. 9.

Paris,

Mercure de France

*,

151

round its maternal star. O, the great white silence and

the strict universal order presiding over the unbounded,
rumbling race of the golden orbs round their natal fire,

and the monstrous and

logical

bushes of

swarming, the leaves

spreading farther and

and
farther, climbing higher
higher, Hving, dying,
multiplying, illuminating and burning each other, like
the jewels of an unfathomable diadem rising rows
on rows
We find a symbol of this aspiration in Les Cordiers.
Along the downs, on the outskirts of the village, in
the ardent and weary evening, the old visionary
ropemaker, stepping backwards, combines in his hands
out of the
the threads coming to him from afar,
infinite.
One hears his wheel humming, turned by
on the rakes upright along the path
invisible hands
the hemp cords stretch their tresses. Out of the dizzy
distance he draws to him the horizons, both of the
Once it was a wandering,
Past and of the Future.
hand
the
of God traced a road of
when
mystic life,
in the depth of the
the
blue
Chanaans
towards
gold
once it was a fervid existence, when the
twilights
of flame, the

fire,

Heaven fought against the red ensign

The Present is painful effort. Future a dim
of hope (i). The poet insists especially on the

white Cross of
of Hell.

vision

union of intuition and

scientific research

in the serene

distance a double staircase hangs its blue steps Dream

and Science are ascending it, and, though they started
from opposite sides, will meet on the top.
;

(i)

Les Villages

1898, p. 70.

illusoires ,

Paris,

Mercure de France

',#

152

Yet in Celui du Savoir is represented the failure of

science to cope with the supreme problems; Revelation
alone can show the absolute truth and point out the

The proud

right way.

scientist has vainly

sceptical

looked for certainty in crumbling systems and shifting

theories; always baffled by error, he cannot find out
the first cause and now study means to him a hopeless
effort to drive away some doubts only to be confronted
;

by new ones.

The

burn without illuming the

desert of darkness beyond, the wilderness that no
man can explore. And this symbolic figure is followed
stars

by Celui du Rien^ the embodiment of despair looking

on the phosphorescent sea of death, with an ironic
laughter before the universal sepulchre, brooding on
the leprous horror of disease and corruption. His words
are a development of Hamlet's theme
Your worm
is your only emperor for diet
your fat king and
your lean beggar is but variable service; two dishes,
but to one table that's the end
Les Pecheurs (i)
are emblems of intellectual perversity, of lonely
'

'.

thinkers, blind to the eternal laws, building up with

fastidious care vain, perishable systems.
The old

anglers are fishing on the river, at night, side by side

yet, isolated in the mist, they never see, never help
each other
they fish up misery, disease, remorse,
;

standing in their boats, where the motionless flame

of a red lantern is aureoled with great haloes of blood-

Their work is their ruin. Weary, and yet intent on

the black water, lost in their dark torture, they never

(i)

Les Villages

illusoires, p. 15.

chemins, pp. 106, 114.

Les Apparus dans mes

153

think

of the sky, of the

miraculous

stars,

of ever-

lasting truth.

The atmosphere
poisonous

air

of his dreams

of Maeterlinck's

stifling as the blue,

is

chaudes

Serres

his

spell-bound, visionary soul has no power to disentangle

herself ,from the net of incoherent images, subtly

woven by

a black magic. Baudelaire's influence is to

in the dark melancholy of his general

be detected

phantoms hovering above

in
his soul is drowning.
'Mare
which
that
Tenebrarum
In Heures mornes^ Le Depart^ he leads us to the dusky,
limitless land, once visited by Baudelaire and De
tone, but especially in the
'

Quincey in their opium

French poet,

trances

the

lines of

the

Sur le fond de mes nuits Dieu de son doigt savant

Dessine un cauchemar multiforme et sans treve,
'

On

my

the background of

nights the finger of all-knowing

[God
Draws, without

respite, a

many- shaped nightmare

',

are the keynote of several eerie poems contained in

Les Debacles and Les Flambeaux noirs. Idols of gold
rise on pedestals of basalt in the twilight
idols of
black marble stare at him in moonlit caves, with the
;

gleam of fateful stars in their eyes of precious stones.

Satanic guiles embodied in ghastly forms, they allure
his soul with their wicked irresistible smile; they descry
inmost thoughts

a cruel serenity sits on their

the
Black
foreheads,
serenity of inexorable destiny.
idols arise in the desert of my heart
they stand

his

'

upright, heavy blocks of wood, ornamented with horns

and stones;
with their eyes like the eyes of wolves,

154

with their eyes like the moon, at night they are staring
at me
they are the motionless horizon of my

tumultuous sky, whose blue depths' have been raided

they are my eternal, torturing
by ancient storms
;

gods

In the following lines this appeal

'.

comes

to

him
'

O,
pomp of Indian scenery.
this craving to be, all at once, the hieratic monster,
of a black brilliance, under the ruby-studded portico

through the barbaric

and to look, tragic impasof a temple, in Benares,

sive witness, at the mythic heaven, where the dreadful
Siva furiously drives his chariot drawn by horses with
ruts

manes,

through the clouds;

fire thunder-

tracing golden
flying

the axle-tree
the chariot of
the wild steeds rear on heaps of
ing;
is

slaughtered
the sea appears in the distance, with
observe in Le Gel {2) the
million eyes' (i).

men
its

glittering,

scarlet,

We

formation of a mystic figure in the poet's mind, deeply

affected by the majesty of a serene winter night.
Silent are the woods, the sea

And
And
And

its

and

this

great sky

steady, darting effulgence!

nothing will change this essential order

realm of sharp, corrosive snow.

this

And one is seized by the dread of an everlasting winter,

And of a god suddenly arising, stately, radiant and glacial.

He

has vainly endeavoured to wring the secret out

the awful figures, whose
lips, vainly questioned

of their

unfathomable eyes

glitter as

phosphoric jewels

in the

Les Flambeaux noirs, *Les dieux', pp. 183-5; ^^^ DeLa-bas ', pp. 97-100.
bacles,
(2) Les Soirs, p. 37.
(i)

'

155

And

gloom.

all

man

that

has done, goaded either by

necessity or by the desire to increase the amount of

joy allotted to him, appears to the poet unprofitable

and wasted. Both the crumbling hut, so utterly sad

and forlorn in the gathering night, and the monstrous
town swarming with people, where mankind bows to

the lust of gain, kneels before the golden idol,

both these expressions of human life seem to him
against the laws of an
Rising, like a nightmare, in the
voluminous yellow smoke, in the fogs,
the inextricable town, great with the evening glamour, is seething,

symbols of a useless

fight

'

inflexible destiny.

behold

dream of

London
London is

sleep.

hands

reeking

gold,
O those

is

dreaming

tossing

lifted in

in

racing of million

steps

to

its

huge

feverish

prayer to gold, those

and then

monstrous hands stretched toward gold,

the

its

the

Tabor of

gold,

towering vast and massive far away in some immense

dream

'
!

(i).

Toute la Flandre he has expressed his love for

his native country, even for its most desolate regions.
In

'

Hills of sand rise along the crying and sobbing of

waves on the desert shores of Flanders, from end to
end. It is a land of trial and anguish, a land of wrath
when the winter billows raise higher and higher in
the mist their funereal monuments of water
Sad
and desolate they are, and yet his heart always turns
to them, as the boat of which he says in Un bateau
de Flandres (2). Her crew were dead, when she
'.

'

'Londres*, p. 45.
Guirlande des Dunes in

(i) Ibid.,

(2)

La

Mercure de France',

Toute la Flandre, Paris,

1920, pp. 206, 210.

156

came back, after many a day of

mere wreck
In his first
terror and storm, to her native shore
the
undaunted
of
his race,
he
had
power
poems
sung
Artevelde and the Flemish heroes, the wild beauty
of mediaeval times, of ages of war and freedom; he
had descended into the forgotten tombs of the kings
a

'.

of old, and, descrying among the royal dust the ruby

ring and the jewelled helmet, had exalted the renown
'

of his native country.

They passed along the fields,
and they suddenly fell
the harbours, the castles,

down, bleeding out

then

their corpses
passed, sun-like, into the legends (i).
But, afterwards, he shut out of his mind the dream
their heart;

'

of ancient glory, and having turned his look to modern

times he felt with keen grief the loss of all noble
ideals,

he was struck with pity and disgust at the sight

without confidence in God, without

of the crowd

fervour, without hope. With Jan Steen and Teniers,

he had stooped to paint, in Les Flamands, the sordid
kermesses ', the coarseness of low life.
ribaldry of
'

The windmill

in

Le

Pe'cke (2) symbolises the

power

The old crazy

of darkness ruling the criminal rabble.
windmill of ancient sins turns creaking, moaning upon
its knoll, cuffed by the wind, in the stormy evening.
'

It

is

the mill of ruin, grinding sin and scattering it

it is the emblem of the work

broadcast in the fields

of evil going on in the world. The devil's heart throbs

in its carcass. And all sinners come to it. Those who

sow

(1)
(2)

tares instead of barley

the

Les Bords de la route, p. 42.

Les Campagnes hallucinees, p.

53.

preachers of wrong

157
ideals, those

who throw

the

who

of revolt, the
all

invisible poison into the sources

subtle destroyers of happiness and faith, those

the leaders
burn the stacks of hay and corn

come

to

murderer, the miser, the

it,

bringing their criminal

turning with the fiend's

their

wicked resolve.

advice, confirmed in

crafty

And

blasphemer,
purpose, re-

the mill never stops

at

looks like a gigantic spider weaving its cobweb

night
as high as the stars '. In the grim conception of the
poet the mill of evil seems to accord the rhythm of
it

that turn under

the rhythm of the stars,
the stress of a fatal law, like its grindstones '.
The conception of the power of evil is transferred
its

'

sails to

from town to countryside in Les Campagnes halluLes Villages illusoires. The sinister emblem

cinees and

of the wickedness lurking in the sickly fields, in the

bewitched souls of the labourers, is an old woman (i)

seems a bird crushed

by a blast of wind against the downs. She is the
embodiment of sombre love and subtle hatred, the
phophetess of evil, stubborn and melancholy, brooding

living in a lonely, crazy hut that

'

looking at herself in the cracked

mirror of egotism. She comes out in the gloaming

over

lost secrets,

and casts her spell on the land and trees speak at

her passage, Uke hands chopped off the leaves drop
on her path.
;

Such is his tragic conception for him human effort

is not watched by eyes of Angels unseen and blessed
by a Hand divine. Although he is not, like most
;

dreamers, a stranger to the aspirations of men, he

(i)

'La

Vieille' in

Les Villager

illusoires, p. 39.

158

his

them no comfort. He tries in vain to

the utmost
mind with illusory ideals

he

reaches

gives

is

nebulous

pantheism,

intoxicate
limit that

not

unlike

In La Multiple Splendour (i) Death says

him: 'What you fear is your beauty; Life above
and Death beneath the earth tress the flowers of their

Shelley's.
to

mystery on the brows of your eternity

to

him a

An

path.

'.

Mankind

is

lost in a forest,

seeking anxiously a
inscrutable destiny rules with an iron sceptre
child

the bleeding, tortured crowd of men, leading them...

are far even from Carlyle's conception:
whither.-^

We

'

The Universe

is

not dead and demoniacal, a charnelbut godlike, and my Father's '.

house with spectres

When,

like a sad Narcissus sitting

on the bank of

a weird pool, he explores his pale reflection in the

dark mirror of Nature, he only perceives the dizziness
of terror in his look, the smile of despair on his lips.

Even the blossoming of a garden in spring-time. is to

him but a symbol of the vain magnificence of his
dreams, of his fruitless effort, of his ineffectual yearning
towards happiness, and also of his solitary and proud
disdain.

Beauty

is

dying, lonely, forsaken, along the

gleaming alleys; no hand plucks the fine flowers, their

perfumes vanish on the breeze, their chalices burst

open as caskets of jewels only to reflect the purple

of the desolate evening.
Songe a ces lys royaux, a ces roses ducales,
Fiers d*eux-m6mes et qui fleurissent a Tecart,
Dans un jardin, use de siecles, quelque part,
Et n'ont jamais courbe leurs tiges verticales.

'

(i)

La Mort

*,

p. 147.

159
Inutiles pourtant, inutiles et vains,

Parfums demain perdus, coroUes demain mortes,

Et personne pour s'en venir ouvrir les portes
Et les faire servir au pMe orgueil des mains (i).

He

is

aware of the

brilliant illusion;

be able to dispel
tries to love his

bitter deception lurking under the

but he also knows that he will not

yearning to happiness and he

ambition in spite of its treachery,
his

conscious that these aspirations are

life

itself.

Hommes

tristes, ceux-la qui croient a leur genie

Et fous! et qui peinent, sereins de vanite;

Mais

Aime

qui t'es instruit de ta futilite,

ton vain d6sir pour sa toute ironie.

toi,

Besides he knows that he

which

is

not

fit

for the deadly

fought in the world uninterruptedly,

without truce, and from his tower of pride he looks
battle

in

is

sombre dejection on the pageantry of

Tu

life.

seras le fievreux ploye, sur les fenetres,

la vie et ses chars d'or

D*ou Ton pent voir bondir

(2).

His anguish changes into a torturing doubt, into a wild

rush for light and truth his sadness rises to the despair
;

(i)

Think of those royal lilies, think of those ducal

Proud of themselves and blossoming apart,

roses,

in a garden worn by centuries,

have never bent their vertical stems.

Somewhere,

And

that

Nevertheless they are useless, useless and vain,

Perfumes to-morrow lost, flowers to-morrow dead,

And nobody will come and open the

And adorn with them the pale pride
(2)

Les Debacles, pp.

94, 95, 81.

doors
of hands

*.

i6o

of a blindman striving to escape from a house on fire,

reason breaks under the strain and dies in

until his

the hopeless struggle.

En sa robe, couleur de feu

Le cadavre de ma raison

et

de poison,

Traine sur la Tamise;

En sa robe de joyaux morts, que solennise
L'heure de pourpre a Thorizon,
Le cadavre de ma raison
Traine sur la Tamise.
Elle s*en va vers les hasards
Au fond de Tombre et des brouillards,
Au long bruit sourd de tocsins lourds,
Cassant leur aile au coin des tours;
Derriere elle, laissant inassouvie

La

ville

immense de

la

Vie;

va vers Tinconnu noir

Dormir en des tombeaux de soir,
La-bas, ou les vagues lentes et fortes,
Ouvrant leurs trous illimites,
Elle s'en

Engloutissent a toute eternite

Les mortes

(i).

Considered from the point of view of thought,

Verhaeren is rather superficial, easily content with
*

fire and poison, the corpse of my reason is

on the Thames shrouded in its robe of dead jewels,
solemn with the purple hour glowing over the horizon, the
corpse of my reason is floating on the Thames. It is going
towards the perils lurking in the shadows and the fogs,
accompanied by the long, dull sound of the heavy knells,
(i)

Clothed in

floating

crumpling their wings against the corners of the towers;

leaving behind, unsatiated, the immense city of Life;

it is drifting towards the black unknown, it is going to
sleep in twilight graves, far away, where the waves, slow
it

is

and strong, yawning

eternity the dead '.

in

Umitless chasms, swallow for

Finale ', pp. 205-8.
*

lb.,

all

i6i

flimsy metaphysics. Besides, elements of discord and

hatred are dangerously intermingled in his reckless

thinking

and the self-glorification of man ends in

Yet there is a yearning to Faith in his

boast.

empty

He says, in the poem Saint Georges

agnosticism.
I set the flowers of
in his pale fierce
my sorrow
hands

he gave

'

me

his valour

and marked

my

heart

with a cross'; and mystic figures surround his heart;

'They are Forgiveness, Goodness, Sacrifice and pensive

each of them has drunk infinity from the

Love

Christian chalice

'

In his hours of

despondency his
is sometimes stirred by mystic, vehement
aspirations towards the Absolute, the Eternal.
He had
before, in Les Moines, clearly expressed these tendencies
he was then leading us through a blessed
land of peaceful joy, through holy gardens where the
lilies of chastity
emerge from the brambles of pain,
where the apparitions of dreaming angels illuminate
(i).

soul

woods of

the

the ideal country.

Blessed are the men, O Lord, who dwell in You;

evil of the wicked age has not corroded their soul;
Death is to them like a sun, and the terrible tragedy

The
Of

the black, atheistic century does not shake their faith.

Dark

to our eyes, they are for

You

like the lamps,

Which

the Angels, on earth, with their trembling fingers

Light up in the funereal twilights;
They set them around Your forehead, as an aureole.

Blessed

is the holy monk, kneeling

Before the Cross ;
His heart is like a tarn on the white mountain,

(i)

Les Apparus dans mes Chemins, pp.

F. Olivero.

125, 133.

1 62

tarn reflecting in

All the splendour of

its

pale,

God

dormant mirrors

flowing upon the earth

(i).

In a square of his ideal town rises the statue of an

in forest glades where grimly
bishop (2)

ancient

loomed the cromlechs he preached the Gospel to the

he was the clear apostle,
wild people of the North
the sun of patience and mercy, the sweetness that
came down from Calvary to mankind in distress and
;

despair.

The Gothic

by the sumptuous glow

the cafiltered through the stained-glass windows
thedrals slender and bright as a Madonna painted by
a Flemish

cathedrals

lit

Primitive, through which

appealed to his mind.

had
visibly

the

burns

soul

The soul of the ancient day has pierced through the

With its sorrow, its incense, its prayer,
And it shines now in the suns of the monstrances.
In the
in the

city

clear

the

cathedrals

heavenward

gold,

arise, eternal, exulting

flight

of their clusters of

And

the monstrances raise their

silver,

fixed
diamond, crystal
in the dark aisle, at Vespers,

columns and arches.

effulgence

pensive eyes

jewels, like
when the evenings invite to long prayers.
tall

weeping

stone

tapers, through

all

Framed

in

time, they are the

heart of Faith, glowing in the wild town. They reign

for ever, enthroned in the gold of bright feast-days

All

and
Christmas, Easter, Whitsunday
are the soul of religion alive with mystic glory as an
Saints,

everlasting sun.

(i)

(2)

Les Moines, p. 243.

Les Villes tentaculaires,

p.

120.

i63
this background of blazing
the
ghosts of remorse there is
gems
in him a desire for renunciation, a love of suffering;
he would like to quench his fever among the stone

Sometimes, however,

dimmed by

is

crypts, in the

of penitential

flowers

shade of

chilly

churches where only a crucifix gleams under the violet

I dream
ray alighting on it from the rose-window.
'

of a

life

torn by

dumb

in

in

an iron

life

tortures, only
'

all

cloister,

a
haircloth,

the flesh

Reliques (2)
introspection.

burnt by fasting,
where one could abolish,

by the

life

soul's ardour, at last

His pensive attitude

(i).

the

is

She

in

Celle des

outcome of memory and

self-

keeper of the

in a

the

is

relics,

room

of gold; at evening, with slow hands, she opens

the caskets in which are the memories of the dead.
It is

she that keeps the rings

the grave of the betrothed;

tears of silence out of the

She

left
it is

on the ground near

she

who

gathers the

depth of black jewels.

the pale love of the Past.

Looking at medals,
she
remembers
the poet's
prayer-books,
the
the
the
and
ancestors,
traveller,
soldier,
mystic
voices come to her from afar, like weary barges with
is

illuminated

drooping sails and black oars on the sea of her heart.

She gives the glowing gems the caress of her hair,

(i)
*

Les Debacles^

p. 103.

See

this existence in black of

also

ib.,

Les Vepres, 107-8

through

mystic old women,

gardens in black and the church-porches, and, for

hours and hours, the ecstasy at the foot of a monstrance, at
and the
twilight, in some chapels of a cathedral in black,
of
shadow
a
tall
stretched
the
straight
pillar,
upon
flagstones,
as an arm of dark will
the

'

(2)

Les Vignes de

ma

Muraille, p. 181.

164

her hands, her eyes. She is Memory, the symbolic

lady of the gold room, in nocturnal and effulgent
raiment

throws

and she comes

silent

pebble

to the poet, at evening, and

in the dead water of his

remorses.

in

This vague feeling begins to glow as a mystic hope

The Ladies of the Island (i). They are spinning

on the shore of a tranquil bay, closed

in the straight

folds of their mantles, like Gothic statues.

threads

of

silver

of

candour,

and gold they

mystic

ardour

for

With long

plait a diadem of
their docile head.

Patiently, piously, they weave the white carpets that

silence spreads under the feet of self-sacrifice, they
embroider opals and sapphires on the thin woof that
repentance offers to God, they make with wool impermeable garments to cover and protect human
Meanwhile on their hands glide the long
distress.
shadows of flowers, as the sun is setting calmly at the
end of the secluded gulf. The poet dares not land
on the isle; he is still too prood, too eager of earthly
pleasure but, one day, the grey boat of his sorrow
will come to this strand and be saved by the love
of the mystic ladies. The last figure evoked in Les
Apparus dans mes Chemins is his Beatrice (2), the

girl

who

died long ago, but

who

is

always present

She leads him to the cathedrals of Faith,

and his main effort in life will to be follow the golden
footprints that her feet leave on the sand of white
silence. He feels her leaning over him, gazing at him

to his mind.

with remembering eyes.

(i)

(2)

lb., p.
'

176.

L'Attendue

',

p. 141.

She

is

now

in a

garden so

of gold flowers and so blazing with light that

here the saintly girl,
even the shadows are golden
full

whose counsels are sweetly helping

long weary way, is living for ever

new happiness.
The style he adopts

on the

his heart

clarity of

in the

her

and the lowest

the ideal
et

Bete

la

recalls

',

between

to represent the fight

instincts,

Baudelaire's

between
rough

'

I'Ange

power of

Elsewhere he yields to the influence of

and
the tenderness of Sagesse strikes us in
Verlaine,
a deeper way, coming after discords of anguish and

image

pain

(i).

(2).

true

dramatic effect

is

but seldom attained in

Les Aubes and Le Clottre, in spite of their

dialogic form, remain essentially lyric in character.
The Cloister shows but little constructive skill the

his plays;

'

d6nouement

'

leaves

us

cold.

In

Helene de Sparte he only obtains

Philippe II and
isolated

eff'ects.

Perhaps Browning's monologue would have been the

with all their vigour of
right form for these works
;

(i) Cfr.

Les DebadeSy 87:

Leve ta volonte qui choit centre la borne

Et sursaute, debout, rosse a terra, mon coeur
and Les Fleurs du Mai,

Morne

LXXXII

esprit, autrefois

L'Espoir, dont Teperon

amoureux de
attisait

la lutte,

ton ardeur,

Ne veux plus t'enfourcher,

Vieux cheval dont le pied a chaque obstacle

butte.

'

Listen your heart remembers the litde village; receive

(2)
then with confidence, in this weary hour, your good guardian
angel, who will robe you again with your childhood*.
:

lb., p. 92.

i66

and we feel throughout

want of a true dramatic imagination.
There is a decline is his later work, in Les Rhythmes
souverains (191 7), Les Flammes hautes (191 7), Les
Bles mouvants (191 8), where he is merely retracing
diction, they fail to impress us

'

'

the

his steps.

As regards
remarked
Verhaeren

first

it
ought to be
Les
Soirs that
trilogy

his
*

uses the

but

it is

he

suitable

medium
its

In

utter

its

for

free

this

the

with a forcible

are written in traditional

vers libre

and to

'

vers libre

will stick in his later

inspiration.

ear; in

'

in the

itself at its best,

lines

in

is

it

The preceding books

effect.

forms

the metres he employs

that

'

that his art

shows

arrangement of the
as to the most
and fervour of his

poems

rush

treatment he trusts wholly to his

freedom the rhythms

twists the lines

with the turbulence of a hurricane wringing forest

boughs, and the rhymes follow in quick succession

His verse is a faithful

far-resounding chords.
it is as
mirror of his emotions
changeful as water,
of
under
the
pain, reflecting in a
lightnings
flashing

with

stilness the ghosts of his

grim

ing in the

He

golden beams of

morbid

fantasy, quiver-

joy.

lavishes the richest colours of his palette in his

endeavour to paint the emblems of

his ardent soul,

the smouldering ruins of his heroic ideals, the sunset

of his hopes, as Baudelaire did trying to portray the
changing tints of his hallucinations, ces rouges de
'

cuivre, ces ors verts, ces tons de turquoise se fondant

avec le saphir, toutes ces teintes qui brulent et se

decomposent dans
(i)

le

Theophile Gautier

p. XVI.

grand incendie
in

'

Preface

'

to

'

final

(i).

To

Les Fleurs du Mai,

167

intensify the luminous atmosphere of his pictures, to

infuse the intense light haunting his soul into his

descriptions,

crimson

he

accumulates

an

with

of

effect

and

gold

fantastic

scarlet

and

gorgeousness,

wrapping in a golden radiance his fairy islands,

where the Dreams, crimson-clad, are scattering on
the foam with golden fingers the gold flowers dropping
'

from the sun,

kindling

bleak

November

in the

walls

shadowy

'

'

funereal pyres of red gold

evening,
opening in the

of titanic towns

'

great golden eyes

'

between red eyelids (i). As some contemporary

artists, with whom he shares the tendency to deal
as Odilon Redon, James
with macabre subjects
he likes violent contrasts
Henri
de
Groux
Ensor,
tumultuous fights between
of light and shadow
clouds and sunbeams piercing with fiery swords the

monsters of dark vapours

oceans,

all

pitch-black

chasms and dazzling crests of foam

Cyclopean
towns of ebony and gold.
He investigated in his essay on Rembrandt an

own he too was fond

and shadow through which
objects shine as meteors in the gloom and personages
emerge out of dim perspectives, struck by fantastic
rays. In Les Villes Tentaculaires he has drawn, with
the vigour of Sattler's 'estampes'. Death as a gigantic
artistic

method very

like his

effects of light

of those

gravedigger sweeping, during the plague, into a huge

Even more
pit the whole population of the town.
fantastic

is

'

the

Sonneur

Les Soirs

(i)

lb.,

(2)

Les Villages

',

(2)

in a

pp. 13, 52, 53, 55.

illusoires, p. 34.

stormy night the

i68

church-steeple struck by lightning

ringer calls for

is

on

fire;

the bell-

help clinging frantically to the ropes, but

aglow crumbles down and the great bell

and the bell, sinking into the damp
falls upon him;
his
and was his coffin'. Au bord
grave
dug
ground,

the tower

all

'

is a series of grim etchings, not unlike

the nightmares of Goya; the acid bites deeply in the

de la route

producing opaque shadows and glaring lights;

the artist seems to be haunted by the visions he
It is the hour of pious gloom,
himself has created.
plate,

'

is dreaming of the dead splendours

of the great sun which has died.
And, mournfully
the
sepulchral consecration, an immense
celebrating

when everyone

hearse, wrapt in dead and petrified light, rises in my

and, look! the moon, solemnised by the rite
mind,

of the Dead, having climbed the black sky irradiated

with tapers and souls, keeps vigil, in the terror of

do not
twilight, with its ghostly flaming eye '.

We

perceive any penumbra, any transparent shade in his

dusky frescoes on which spots

of coloured light would be dancing and playing, as
when the rays of the sun are sifted through windpictures; they are like

tossed trees.

And from

these

murky

blazing horizons, strange sounds

ating in his

and

sibyls,

mad

from these

long reverberalluring songs of wizards

terror, the clamour of routed

soul magic,

shouts of

lands,

arise,

burning towers, the echo of

voices
of
agony and distress, the cry
clanging bells,
of suffering nature. On the lonely moorland he listens
armies,

the

crash

of

a faint cry, bewailing an agony,

to a cry of despair,
to a knell in the closing night. 'O my
far away',
'

soul, sad with the

bells

sadness of evening, listen to the

other, sobbing over the dead,

calling to each

i69

shedding

tears

of

bronze,

weeping

in

mournful

accord, 7 listen to the dead calling to the dead

'

(i).

Les Soirs, Les DeLes Flambeaux noirs Les Campagnes hal Les
tentaculaires, Les Aubes
lucinees, Les
It

is

in his

lyrical

trilogies

bacles,

Villes

illusoires, Les Apparus dans mes chemins,

that Verhaeren has
Vignes de ma muraille
of
his
a
true self, which we
us
complete image
given
in
of
his
only get glimpses
plays and later poems.

Villages

Les

In these

trilogies

he crosses the

circle traced

round

him by combined influences of French and foreign

poets, and enters his own ground, where he can
build a fit dwelling for his soul, a sombre and
powerful work of art, sad with the gloom and fantastic carvings of Romanesque churches, fervent with
the

soaring

slender

columns and

Gothic cathedrals.

(i)

Les Soirs, pp.

36, 63.

aerial

arches

of

Charles

Van

Lerberghe.

Lerberghe's world is a garden in a divine peace.

Fountains whisper and glance among rose-groves or
behind waving rows of lilies, birds sing and dart

flames through

winged
the shadows
veil

over the

dewy boughs. At evening

woods and draw a blue
dreaming landscape; at dawn mists arise
steal out of the

from the

and from their opaque background*

rills,
white spray of hawthorn, a rose, a dew- bejewelled branch stands out. This calm scenery
luminous and pure as a painting by Puvis de Chaonly a

vannes

is a symbol of the soul's happiness

she
weaves out of her dreams this poetic world
here
nature is a creation of her will, a vision she evokes
round herself like a shimmering sphere that she can
breathe out and dissolve.
;

'

There, as

in far mirrors, is

recorded the glowing

of ecstatic gardens; there the ripples of material

things come and die in short waves, as on a calm

life

shore; there, under an arch of happy blossoms, passes

a sphere of azure and water. All the fugitive things
reflect

themselves in

brittle as glass, as

It

its

trembling grace.
as
an
innocent mind
pure

it

is

as

holds

171

the sky and the earth in the trance of a summer

day. Something sacred is in it, as in the eye of man.

all

It
it

is

frail

symbol of

has something of

my

joy and of your beauty,

soul and of yours,
o divine

my

who passed among

child,

these shadows and flowers,

'

clothed with our earthly roses (i).

In my morning prayer I see a great and beautiful
it has a little
door of gold, shutting out
garden
the world;
and, O, the soul of all things emanates
'

as a suave fragrance in this sacred garden that a soul

has created in her dream (2).
'

lit

Therefore he leads us to unexplored gardens, halfin the profound peace of dawn.

Here, translated

into a rarefied atmosphere, earthly things are changed,

but preserve their character, as in harmonics, or when

struck and the echoed notes ascend through

higher pitches keeping the fundamental tone. On the
farthest shore of matter, things break into rainbow-

a chord

is

then he catches and draws their dying

this world, shadowy, far-removed,
in the joy of the poet's entranced
blossomed
hesitating,
to quiver and to be always on
seems
contemplation,
coloured spray
contours.

And

all

the point of disappearing as a dream.

Even grave,
sorrowful ideas look slight and flimsy, as dark-green
firs

appear violet on the distant mountain-side.

is only concerned with his inner world, un-

He

conscious of everything else but his visions

hence
the exclusion from his work of external facts.
The
;

clamour of

life

sounds

faintly in the

remoteness of

(i)

Entrevisions, Bnixelles, Lacomblez, 1898, p. 33.

(2)

La Chanson

'

d'Eve, Paris,

Merc, de France

',

1904, p. 41.

172

most singers; but here,

mass
absolutely
Hedged round
by dreams, he purposely ignores the rough ways of

of golden clouds,

in this aerial castle in a

silent.

it is

When he deals directly with life the poevalue of his productions is remarkably lessened.
influence of Maeterlinck is easily traceable in

the world.
tical

The

his first attempt at

drama, Les Flaireurs.

Pan

is

play of scanty interest; it depends upon a thin vein

of fancy, and it seems a hasty work, to judge by its

workmanship.
His object

to

emphasize hints, far-off murmurs,

to
floating scents, appearances seen by glimpses,
pierce with

things.

The

is

deeper sight through the surface of

brightness of daylight

He

is

not enough for

I seek what

says in La Chanson d'Eve

hides in the light '.
His poetry does
or
emotions, but their echoes
thoughts

him.

'

not convey
it does not

his
portray real beings, but their fugitive reflects
aim is not to render the outside of things but their
;

inward beauty, perceived, or rather divined, by an

inner sight.
His purpose is the intimation of spirit
in matter.

The

central figure of his picture is an emblematic

representation of the soul, a virginal, joyful creature
of beauty. Her eyes are full of wonder and delight;

an ecstatic smile
utters

are

on her

is

instinct

lips,

and the words she

charm that

with such a musical

they melt into song. Her garments, woven out of the

rainbow and moonlight, shed a vague sheen round

her; the loveliest things

sunbeams, flowers, glittering
waters
compose a frame to her as to the highest

marvel

of creation

and the

spiritual

noblest feelings, adorn her long,

fair hair

Powers, the
with gems
:

173

diamonds of chaste

joy, opals of nostalgic melancholy,

rubies of love.

She

fond of retiring in the penumbra of woods

is

and waft on the breeze her dream-bubbles on

the surface of which the world mirrors itself more
lustrous and entrancing. She is like a fairy in a cave
to sing

encrusted with mother-of-pearl, by the sea.

None of
her thoughts goes beyond the blue circle traced by
these pale aquamarines on her brow. Her joy is made
*

of simple things, a

little

sand, a pink shell, a pearl

because nobody knows, as

make, with the

this strange soul,

how

to

reflection of a far smile, flash out into

a celestial dream the sweet and pale glow of this

pearl in which faint reflections change into flames

and

becomes a song

light

Sometimes she appears

'.

to the poet arrayed in her full glory,

Queen

of

Sheba, gorgeous with the pomp of the East, wise

with the learning of ages, the flower of the world.

Que te dirai-je a Toi,

En ce pays de solitude,

qui viens de Tinconnu,

.

Chere ame, qui viens du fond des ombres,

Comme une reine de Saba,

Dans

la gloire

Et dont

De

d'une splendeur sombre,

avec de scintillements
.

les mains,

diamants,

Frappent doucement?

She

is

for ever

her story

young, she has outlived centuries

the tale of the ever aspiring mind, soaring

and
As Psyche in the ancient myth,
higher
higher.
as the Helen of Poe, she holds the lamp where burns
is

the eternal

fire

According

of love.

to his conception of nature, he declines

to consider material things as the only realities afforded

174

to our

comprehension
they are for him the pale
the inmost light glowing in his soul,
;

reflections of

they are appearances evoked by his

own mind, un-

and changeful as his own moods. They

only interest him as far as they supply him with
beautiful images to express his intellectual passion
and the visions haunting his spirit. An earthly thing
must change itself into an ethereal form, must be
substantial

transfigured in the fire of his emotions, must drop

its dross and merely
keep its soul, to be fit to be

woven into the arabesques of his world, which is a

true lyrical world, a dreamland of pure beauty. He
never describes but to portray a psychological condition, and he conveys the subtlest shades of feeling
by

slightly

The

changing the arrangement of a few symbols.

mind in which we can produce a living

state of

work of

only one the ecstasy of beauty. The

of his art comes undoubtedly from this

art is

monotony

particular aesthetic standpoint, from this clear screen

upon which he projects his allegories, his joy bestowing

the same peaceful splendour upon all his figures.
Since the tone of his feelings undergoes very slight
a
variations, he requires few images to signify it
;

white rose, a limpid source, a twittering bird, a blossoming spray are the few notes needed to compose

He

his tunes.

does

not

draw much from the

exhaustible store of nature

reality,

he

is

satisfied

floating in his fantasy,

coloured

through

the

in-

without even looking at

with

delineating the images

passing lustrous and rainbow-

vanishing

mist of a

dream.

The charm

of his landscapes is made up of frail,

evanescent forms and transparent hues
the tints of

summer day

blue

and gold

are

those he most

175

blue
frequently chooses to paint his allegories with
the
on
hazes
the
are
trembling
thoughts
;

as virginal

source, and golden as the soul's

clouds and the waves.

mystic joy are the

Dans un parfum de roses blanches

EUe est assise et songe;
Et Tombre est belle comme s'il s'y mirait un ange.

Le soir descend, le bosquet dort;

Entre ses feuilles et ses branches,
Sur le paradis bleu s'ouvre un paradis

Though

d'or.

the soul lives in a solitary land she does

not feel lonely in her green and golden paradise all

things round her are quickened by a mysterious spirit
;

they speak to her, they sing and dance, they

from
smile
the depth of waters, from the shadow of
of

life;

thickets.

The Hours,

the bright-winged daughters of

the sky, sing to her the merry morning song, the

lullabies of twilight
and when she is afraid of the
;

night, they raise their starry torches.

The whole scenery is crowded with beautiful Shapes.

Night walks on the sea-shore and leads the shadows

Out of the
gleam of the afterglow (i).
of
the
East
and
depths
silently, smiling in
calmly
her sombre thought
comes the sacred summer-night,

to the rosy

step
light.

by

step, with the

shades lengthening in the

The shadows creep under her

like

winged

chimeras, and the Night leads with her long trailing

gold hair, as with reins, this gloomy herd, leads it
down to the ocean, where the blood of a divine death

(i)

EntrevisionSj 'Nocturne', p. 17.

176

has mixed roses with the water

armour, the

visor

Dawn,

'.

of her helmet lowered

in a

black

over her

on the mountain
she carries a silken
standard embroidered with blue dragons, which begins
to gleam and rustle in the rising morning breeze
and now she discloses her glorious brows, and her
eyes, rides

wings^ soars in the fiery sky. The

allegories of Night, Twililght and Dawn are combined
'
Three young girls were
in the poem Gold Boat (i).

steed,

opening

its

coming from the East; -^ one was black, and, steering

the bark, told strange stories;
another was brown,
the
sheets, suggested the gesture of an
and, holding

her immobility
but the last had golden
locks, which, while she lay asleep in the bows, trailed
on the waves and she brought, under her eyelids,
in

angel

light

'.

The
night

fountains arise singing, weeping, in the moonlit

the rain scatters her necklace of pearls in the

summer air, and the flowers quiver and resound

harmoniously under her humid fingers; and the snow
over the white velvet plain. He
is a flight of swans
sultry

listens to the

emerald,
flowers as
in the

He

song of the leaves

We

murmuring

forest

green shade the intoxicating

sea, over

echoed by the

of dreams'.

of lightning, flying over the

gardens of fire; their laughter is

look, they cut down,

the harvest of darkness

swords, as scythes;
furrows of the storm,
The souls of flowers are

glitter as

they
in

the

'.

'

Barque

lilies

demons

cliffs;

'

(i) lb.,

are the eternal

crowned with
an ocean with foam, the forest where blow
the vast,

discries the

violet

'
:

d'or', p. 45.

177

asleep in the chalices; but sometimes they come forth,

by a flash of lightning, and their eyes reflect
the perspective of dazzled gardens. He speaks to the
startled

where

have spread roses

and myrrh I lay you tenderly, o dead daughter of
the immortal sun. And lo! under my breath you are
born again, and you are elated with the joy of seeing
flame

'

Upon

this

altar,

anew and of

The

flames dance, their

wind, their blue wings
golden hair flying on
shedding a keen fragrance of spikenard.
Passions and ideas appear to him in beautiful

the light

living

'.

the

images

he perceives love as a
Fille

sombre au

wild-eyed

tragic,

girl,

coeur sauvage,

Beaute terrible aux yeux jaloux,

rushing through brambles, carrying a flaring torch

in the winter night; elsewhere the allegory is changed
into the figure

of a god

eternally

young and

fair,

He
smiling among luminous wreaths of flowers.
an
he
looks
and
only light
everlasting Spring
'

is

at

a blossom that awakes, a swaying bough, a ray, a bee,

a shadow spreading in the pink and green daylight;

Hope

stays

on the threshold of

his

thought

and

'

Prayer, always granted, upon his lips (i).

The poet sees a girl asleep, and he soon descries
ethereal figures round her.
She sleeps in her little

room with beauty, goodness and love.

she is like a
Beauty dreams, closed in her wings
in
and
her
hand
holds
a
flower.
Goodsister,
strange
ness lies asleep on her breast, and in her hand keeps

shadowy

(i)

La Chanson

F. Olivero.

d'Eve, pp. 91,56; Entrevisions, pp. 44,55.

12

178

Love

a pearl But
in

awake and watches,

is

her hand carries a flame

smiling,

and

(i).

The poet
a

girl,

discovers on the sea-shore the grave of

whose sumptuous robes and lily-garlands have

been turned into dust, but whose spirit is now a

splendour and a song, and whose love is still living.
Death broke the diadem which encircled her hair, but
left the imperishable diamonds on the sand, glistening
for ever in sunlight and starlight, as a token showing
that

the

beautiful

creature

is

not

lost,

that her im-

passioned heart burned with an everlastijig, unearthly

an invisible presence
in the
fire, that she floats

radiance

of day, in the

blue

glimmering night

(2).

Here all of her, her body, her raiment, her flowers,

became dust again, and her soul, carried away elsewhere, was born anew in song and effulgence. But
a light brittle band, broken sweetly in death, encircled
'

her delicate temples with imperishable diamonds. As

a sign of her, in this place, alone on the yellow sand,
the eternal stones still trace the image of her forehead.

He,

whom

them on

the gods have led here, he

who has seen

way, stays, dazzled, gazing at this splendour

Lost! and sunbeams
that he thought for ever lost.
alight

his

on them

traveller,

meaning of things

mysterious
was not lost

you do not know the

;

only this splendour

'.

And the poet sees a little girl dead, her face white
moonbeam among the gold hair; but her lips are

as a

drinking the water of eternal life from a cup carried

by Angels unseen. She has reached death and ful'

(i) lb., p. 57.

(2) lb.,

'Inscription sur le sable', p. 29.

179
filled

her task on earth

The

reached happiness.

and her eyes are

take her, o Lord she has

moon shines upon her face

of clouds; her half-parted lips

full

seem to rest on the brim of an invisible cup

The mystic joy, which characterizes Entrevisions^
breathing throughout the book as a fragrant wind, is
also to be felt now and then in La Chanson d'Eve\
but we perceive in the latter work that the soul
descries ^ new signification in the simplest events,
'.

having acquired a moral sense, a conscience. It is as

though the fairy creature of Entrevisions had been

endowed with a human heart, and, besides enjoying

mere pleasure of existing, were now conscious of
the responsibilities connected with life. Once she was

the

with

contented

through her golden eye-

looking

'

as through sunbeams
at the images of the
world reflected in her magic mirror; her delight was
lashes,

to entwine the

glittering

leaves of her passion with

But sometimes, when she

was leaning her weary forehead on her hands, when
her eyes were kindled by the remote splendours of
as a
a light divine and the words of prayer came

the

lilies

of her thoughts.

'

smile of roses

'

to her trembling lips, she

was troubled

by
by a deep craving towards
the dreamy gardens where she was born and where
I walk
she wished to die.
under blue veils, roses
a strange melancholy,
'

are hanging above

sun kisses
eyelids

the sea

sings

see the

ray through

close to me.

And

my

do not

am weeping. O happiness, just now you

me in your arms o, let me go back
shade of my sad and sombre gardens, where

know why

have received
into the

head; I know that angels are

not raise my eyes. The

my

me and I dare
me lightly I

waiting for

i8o

was born and where

is

new

blessed with a

song

is

wish to die

vision of the world,

she

and her

an unearthly joy.

instinct with

Tres doucement,

et

comme on

Lents, extasies, un a un,

Elle evoque les mots divins,
EUe assemble devant Dieu
Ses premieres paroles,

En

And now

'.

prie,

...

sa premiere chanson.

O ma

parole,

Qui troubles a peine un peu,

De
L'air

tes ailes,

de silence bleu!

O parole humaine,
Parole ou, pensive, j'entends
Enfin

mon ^me meme,

Et son

murmure

vivant

Moi, je t'ecoute, un autre te voit,

Tu es une rose dans ma voix.

His intention

La Chanson

in

d'Eve

is

...

to trace the

Eve

is here
progress of evil in an innocent heart.
not so much the Eve of the Bible as a symbol of
the soul. She has a kind of impersonality the poet
;

speaks

his

related

in

mind through her

lips.

The

subject

is

not

form, but in snatches of song.

narrative

At the opening we see Eve awakening, unstained,

untroubled, to the blissful sight of the virgin world
the first part is a hymn of joy, expressing the delight
of her innocence.
The bower is closed, impenetrable,
;

'

all

dark with roses

but

pluck, one

white roses of this blossomy curtain

between

my

lifted

hands, whence

one, the

andby gradually,

falls

the veil of this

i8i

mortal day, appears, pale and wonderful with blue

space, the immense flower of heaven '. She walks in
a sacred atmosphere, attended by Angels; they rock
her to sleep, the rustle of their wings is like whispered

words

'

to her.

They

thought ends

my

soul;

And

I
I

are the radiant horizon

where

over the edge of my

they
and
rose
their white wings.
amidst
shine,
gold,
lean

among them

palpitate

of an ardent, deep flower, just

They descend from

like the

mysterious heart
in the world '.

now blown

their mystic country, and, turning

round her with flashing wings, enclose

sister in

their

divine

long spirals of splendour.

Ce

de lumiere
du silence, ...
Ce frolement de Taube
Peut-etre est-ce la robe
Blanche d'un seraphin,
La robe d'or et de lin
D'un ange dont les pas
Approchent de la terre,
Mais que Ton n'apergoit pas
Perdu dans la lumiere.

They
'

rire

fleur

are like the Angels of R.

In the turmoil of

his sweetness

hands,

his

and

life

may

his radiant

blessing

hand

M. Rilke.

my

hisAngel,
raiment,
praying
forget

yet

in

my

innermost

dreams I shall always keep his folded wings, that

stand behind him like a white cypress
His face was like a landscape, half in joy and half
now absorbed in a calm imploration
in pain,
now torn by pain and his lips were like the stone
whence once wonder-working waters sprang, that now
'.

'

He

silent asleep

'.

l82
'

His hands remain in

my memory

like blind birds,

others have gone beyond the waves

that,
to a longer Spring, in the old bare lime-tree must
And in his eyes is the
stand the winter wind.

when

the

splendour of the
his powerful

first

wings

Then comes

day;

but, far above

all,

emerge

'.

the stealthy approach of

evil, in

many

red-haired mermaids, little fairies, and, at

disguises
last, the turquoise-spotted snake. The magic of evil,
hinted at in Entrevisions, is re-echoed in La Chanson
:

d'Eve. In his earlier

work

(i)

'

he says

None

of us

minds the strange creatures whose song, so simple,

one might say inadvertently and as if in
weaves
around us, in the twilight, a web of enchantplay

ment, a tissue of pale, rose dreams, like fire dissolved

in the air, a veil that spreads and gradually interposes

between the world and

not go.

None

us,

and out of which we

of us takes care of the

fairies,

shall

who,

mysteriously, with a quaint smile on their lips, trace

round us circles of little charmed steps, which narrow

round us more and more, gradually closing to us all

the wide horizon of the world, circles out of which
we shall not go '. Here Twilight, a wicked fairy,
whispering a sortilege, weaves a

veil

around the

and
a veil of pale fire and wan flowers
spreads in the air a net of baleful stars,
;

De

ses subtiles mains complices etendit

L'insidieux

Here the

des etoiles obliques.

filet

fairies try to entice

closure, to separate

(i)

soul,

Evening

her into a magic en-

her from her divine

Entrevisions, p. 59.

guardians

i83

and they sing: Enchanted circle, wall of brightness,

enclose and keep Eve imprisoned
let us surround
'

Angels may not enter it '. They

the
that little gold flame
want to get
soul of Eve,
and she complies with their wish, but refuses their
raiments woven of azure and moonlight, jewels
gifts,
this place so that the

'

'

'

moths of blue

glistening like

fire';

she desires to be

free, but feels a subtle despair.

Why have my Angels
flown away? Why are blossoms and sources no more
'

me? Why
The mermaids call

friendly to

all

seems afar?'

to her with bewitching songs

their
concealing
guile with crafty words, with subtle
wiles, the

Sirens

her the origin of the world

tell

sing how the earth emerged as an immense

cradle of flowers from the desert waters, brought up

they

by unseen hands, and how they beheld her lying

asleep under a sky of pale stars and white roses
'

'.

Eve
'

descries their sea-green eyes, their floating hair,

golden wave or a long sunbeam in the water'.

like a

Looking

at the

she descries

open
filling
if

wan

black river glittering with moonlight

chalices rising through the water to

in the silver light

they are mysterious flowers,

her heart with dark forebodings
it seems as

among

their

pale

an unseen Power were

flames

The wave trembles, black and deep,

watching her.
and all at once the moon flashes out on it. Then she
'

from the bottom of the water, pale long frail

flowers, that rise, open, and mirror themselves in her

allures,

Blowing mysteriously, like a

deadly foreboding, they set on the moonlit wave their
long white tapers. And now I seem to be spied by
some strange being
beyond life and yet close to
me
invisible in the light
She feels a yearning

impalpable splendour.

'.

i84

towards the pale queen, the moon, pale as a waterocean of silence, towards
lily asleep on the motionless
the

unknown realm beyond

the

boundaries of

life.

O
air, flower of the inexistence,
in the motionless oceans of radiant silences you shine
white blossom of the

'

death in a desert sky and all the earth is pale

O moon, what a unanimous shiver
with your light.
ascends from the groves towards your summit of

like

What

and what a
sobbing rise from the waves towards your calm shores!
O white blossom, you see our insatiate soul; o, draw
irrespirable peace

a wild

plaint

'

us to you, beyond life

Wandering in the twilight,
she starts at the sudden appearance of a stranger, a
god crowned with roses, leaning against the forbidden
!

despair at a lonely
have seen on the skirt of

Tree, gazing
I

evening,

with

star.

my

'

This

groves a

he was leaning
young god, strange and wonderful
with his white hand against the tree of the gold fruits,
the tree which it is death to touch. His hyacinth hair
;

roses; his visage resembled Love's.

was crowned with

footsteps smothered in the flowers, nor

the throbbing of my heart could turn hini away from

my

Neither

his
star

He was gazing, in the blue sky, at a

and
lonely like him, with a long look of
pale

dreams.

farewell

'.

After having sinned, plucking the forbidden fruit,

she is for some time the prey of an impious elation;
but she is soon aware of the ruin of her soul;

defiled

by

An

sin,

haunted by remorse. Eve yearns for

standing by her in the gathering

night; Eden, the image of life, is vanishing into the
gloom, into death and she would speak to him, would

death.

angel

is

tell

him her anguish

but he

is

so divine that she

i85

human words. And one

dares not address him with

day, in the silence

that

is

it

Evil,

is

Death

it

beyond the walls of

reigns

Eden, an awful Shape glares

'

at

Who

her with eager eyes

has risen before me
;

O, speak
emptiness, out of nothing ?
I am
do not look at me in that way, in silence.
out of the

afraid

not see you.

will

help me
And in

My

angels,

'.

Eve's

appears, with a
divine sisters.

Vers

soul

dumb

new Idea

appeal in her look,

le soleil s'en

come and
Sorrow

among

her

vont ensemble

Mes

pensees, divines soeurs

Elles chantent; Fair pale en tremble
Comme s'il y tombait des fleurs.
;

Une

s'attarde la derniere,

Tristement, au bord du chemin,

D'ou monte Tame du matin

Et

la

rosea a la lumiere.

Celle-la qui s'evanouit

Au

fond de ses larmes mortelles,

Ne chante pas, mais c'est par

Que le soleil Tattire a lui.

elles

is an
angel; when he spreads his wings the
hidden by a bleak darkness
but he does
not destroy Hfe, he only suspends it for a while.

Death

Earth
'

And

over

an

is

the

me

sombre Angel soared

his large wings.

unknown

breath,

the

The

to the sky, spreading

earth shivered under

flowers'

chalices

closed,

trembling, and the world disappeared from my eyes.

Yet I heard the spheres afar the stars were still
alive.
And then it was like a sunrise, when Azrael,

i86

folding his wings, descended with the night

in their feathers.

wave, spellbound,

He smiled at his fugitive

now broke at once and

immense
shade.
fell

as a

wild swan, and I saw a sunbeam, arrested on its

way by the Angel's hand, quiver, and sweetly resume
its

flight

With

'.

his quiet joy, his child-like serenity,

Lerberghe

represents the spirit of dawn in the symbolist movement, of which Mallarme is the sumptuous sunset,

Verlaine the twilight, and Maeterlinck the moonlit

night.

We

are

still

in the

enchanted garden where

tandis que mon coeur expire

bulles des songes lilas,

Les

Mon ame, aux

Arrose un

Un
Les

Un

clair

is

de lune ou transparaissent

tristes

de ses mains

an elevation from

sphere of thought

The mind

cire,

lys jaunis des lendemains^

clair de lune ou seules naissent

Les ombres
but there

mains de
de lune las,

freles

clair

lit

by

this

sadness into a

a passion for abstract beauty.

always aspiring to ascend from reality

to abstractions, but these, emerging from the shades
of

is

Sorrow,

of Joy (I).
Eternal

are

now

crowned

with

the

diadem

the smile of this garden and this palace.

There the blue shadows of the sundial and the fountain
'

mark

is

the hour, there

sphinxes,

lie

all

things

seem

to

be seen

in

and Dream, like two calm

stretched on the impassable threshold.

remembrance.

(i) Eriirevisions,

Solitude

'Sous

les

arches de roses',

p. 127.

i87

On

the top

door

the

along

gold staircase there is a white

balustrade climb the bindweed's

of the

and arches of roses bend above

Only sunbeams ascend the steps; and these
rays are the train of some invisible Queen, followed
by her page, Silence
Nevertheless a subtle melancholy comes into his
serene domain as an inevitable reflection of the decay
and mortality of the real world. This is evident in the
Adieu (i).
scenery tinged with a nostalgic pathos oi
All was vanishing in the evening silence and becoming the imperceptible yesterday; things that were
dying seemed immortal; others, languidly, exhaled to
flowers; fine wreaths

the stairs.

'.

'

And

heaven.

yet, at this

hour supreme, keeping our

faces turned towards our happiness, lingering in the

twilight, in tears, withdrawn into ourselves, we longed,
in spite of the vanity of our hope, to live again this
alone could not detach ourselves
beautiful day.
from the things around us, even at this hour, when

We

perfume departed from the roses and

L' Insinuee is a symbol
threshold'.
visualised by the poet and soon lost
;

light

from our

of
'

happiness
she vanished

into the

deep splendour, dying away in a mirage of

flower-dust, quivering gleams, foam scattered on the
wind. O calm solitude, and you, boundless gardens
still abloom with her presence, enchanted paradise of
an illusive love, of which I have reached the threshold
and where I come to die, I will not touch even
lightly

too.

frail appearances lest I should lose you

wish
to behold you, to smile at you from
only

your

(i) lb,, p.

131.

i88

the depth of

my

thought.

of

is

in you,

and

am

and I recline among wings and roses

Although traces of the Parnassian school still linger
some of his descriptions, we perceive that in most

in her,

in

She

'.

them he has done with the artificial scenery of

Leon Dierx. It was rather by the spell

Gautier and

of music than by gorgeous colours that his visions

several of his lyrics suggest with
could be evoked
;

melody a depth of feeling that could not be

conveyed through the somewhat thicker medium of

their

images.

Modem

The work

of

Belgian Poets.

modern Belgian

lyrists is

the result

of various currents of inspiration, of French Impressionism and English Preraphaelism, of the Parnas'

'

and of the Symbolists. Although their form

lacks the exquisite finish of the leading French poets,
their verses are endowed with the gifts which go to
siens

the

making of

true art

a sincere feeling

and a

rich

imaginative power. They sing the praise of Flanders,

they express the soul of the Belgian nation, revealing

a deep affection for their native land, a tender love,

which has

just

their religious

now been
poems

raised to heroic efforts; and

bear witness to the fervour of

their heart, to a spiritual

turies

by untiring

ground cultivated

hands.

And

in all of

for cen-

them we

the inmost energy characteristic of their

and
which is manifest in all the productions of
race,
Flemish art, in Meunier's vigorous bas-reliefs, in the
paintings of Eugene Laermans and Emile Claus, in
the music of Cesar Franck.
Fernand Severin sings a kind of beauty that appeals

perceive

to chaste

and fervent minds; we observe the influence

190

of Lamartine in this poetry which admits us in the

it shows a character
secrets of the heart

intimate

extremity sensitive, but avoiding any strong display

There is an austere grace in the simple
of feeling.
structure, in the slow, meditative melody of his lines,

endowed with a strong emotional power. In his lyrics

of love we are attracted by the soul-light that shines
You do not know
in the wistful eyes of his figures.
'

your mystic wealth, and this

Be thou the
dear to me.

gift

of ignorance

is

very

fragrant along my
paths, and the imperishable treasure of the poor man
You had only to open your desthat I have been.
lily

olate hands,

from them

'

and unknown splendours rained down

His nature is too delicate to come
(i).

willingly in contact with real life; 'the wisest souls',

he says, having closed their eyes for ever to the
'

uncertain mirage that troubles their pale sisters, behold

the silent pageants of ideal figures passing in their
'

mind

(2).

a stately

His form, based on classical models, keeps

and yet his
dignity in its elegiac tone
;

garland of classic flowers is bitten by the frost of a

his voice;
northern fantasy, of a Romantic autumn
;

quivers with repressed emotion while he descries a

O dying
symbol of his life in the sunset clouds.
'

as by an
calm
evening a cloud,
image of my destiny.
adorned with all the sunset fires, drifts towards the
forest in languid, solitary flight; and the wood shall

days

have been

thrilled

by your charm,

In this

receive this radiant treasure, in

the children of the Earth!

(i)

Poemes ingenus,

(2) lb., p. 82.

its

fall

unknown

'

Paris, Fischbacher, 1899, P- 60.

to

There is a Romantic pathos in the Hmpid atmosphere

of the places forlorn that he loves; 'I evoke, beneath
a sky unexplored by human eyes, in a peaceful land,
where the sweet widespread smile of a serene light

wood all murmuring

The same subdued passion

lingers longer than anywhere, a

with Lethean sources

is

noticeable

those

as

in this

'.

landscape, as clear and

These

of Chenier.

violet

these mornings of mother-of-pearl,

full

tender

evenings and
of trembling

rays and vague shadows, hardly conceal, under their

sacred veils, harmonious valleys where fountains are
His thoughts pass before us as petals blown
singing
'.

from an orchard over an azure lake,

and yet we remark that each of them is heavy with
The leaves were opening, as
the tears of the dawn.
in

snow-flakes

frail

as blossoms

o,

may

a slender spray of these

shivering branches, where the chilly dew has left its

tears, enwreathe for ever my weary head
On the contrary, the poetic world of Max Elskamp
!

made up

of evanescent shadows, but of objects

he shows a distinct personal note
in his lyrics, founded on a curious realism, vivid as
coloured prints. In La Louange de la Vie and in the

is

not

sharply outlined

songs published under the title of Enluminures, he

devoted himself to paint in verse his native Flanders.

He

loves his hamlet on the sea shore, and its lamps

and the coloured wharf-lights are to him as the gleam

of friendly eyes he paints the fishing villages under

dawn-flushed skies, the smoke curling up in the bright
blue air from red-tiled cottages, the green-hulled
;

barges in the canals, rocked by the pulsing tide, the

windmills turning in the freshening gale.
Look here
'

192
at an image', he says to us (i); 'the

wind blows and

it: trees, masts,
bend
before
crosses, rushes,
things
and the sea is howling, foaming under the
pines
all

for the

squall,

feast of

the

boats,

pitching,

rolling,

waves below, waves above. Then

the boatman, seated in the stern, laughing

bowsprits in air,

look at

he

glad to trust himself to the sea

he has chosen, a kind of life dear to
is

He

it

is

all

the

life

Flemish

sings the peacefulness of Sundays, the

mirth of simple hearts
Now it is morning on the

souls

'.

'

meadows

Holy Mary, look

at

human

life

how

it is

infinitely sweet, from the trees and the pools to the

roofs islanded in verdure Mary, behold your towns
!

as happy as children, proclaiming with all their bells,

even to the far horizon, the pure peace of the Gospel,
from the tops of all their steeples, in the golden

dawn

'

(2).

He employs
which

recall

an original method in his compositions

the decorative drawings of Gisbert

Combaz, and obtains a striking vividness of effects

by juxtaposition rather than from association of
images. Here is his description of a flower-market
:

'

the great day of gardeners, the day all

Then,
in white and in rose,
Wednesday, like a bunch of
is

it

flowers, a

and roses

day ringing with songs, fragrant with lilacs

and the prayers, uttered by the clear
;

We

voices of the chimes, are all granted '.

may note
the
trait
of
his
another
poetry
yet
folk-song character
a
he sings with
careless voice, with
of his lyrics
:

(i)

Enluminures, Bruxelles, Lacomblez, 1898, pp. 55, 18.

La Louange de la Vie, Paris, Mercure de France
*

(2)

1898, p. 235.

',

193

but his
cadences, with unsteady rhythm
quaint music makes a strong appeal to minds jaded
by the stilted verse of his fellow-singers and this
faltering

appeal

is

bound

and

to last

to increase, being

founded

on simplicity and truth.

Albert Giraud prefers to the free air of the fields
and the sea an exotic palace, where perfumes are
burning in enamelled censers, where the diapered
floors and the walls of marble are alight with arabesques of precious stones, where princesses are
dreaming in enchanted bowers. 'Weary of gold swords
and pale jewels, the princesses have closed for all
eternity their eyes; their strange voices are silent for

ever

they sleep

their

in

holding

in

remote,

hands slim

vermiUon mansion,
of gems, whose

liHes

flames evoke a sunlit garden in their

dreams (i). His allegoric figures are dressed in black
and gold brocade, as if the poet had blent the ideas
of death and somptuousness into a rich and sombre

flower-like
'

chord.
tive

He

adorns his pictures with the quaint inven-

fertility

that

fills

the

capitals

of

Romanesque

columns with monsters and fantastic blossoms. The

most characteristic features of his poetry may be

by the following passages, in which he

describes an idol in a palace on fire and the victory
of a royal maiden over a wyvern. The first reminds

illustrated

us of
'

some

bizarre

drawings of Reginald Savage

shadowy golden hair bristling with snakes, cruel

rubies encircling its flat head, the idol looms larger
Its

in the rosy

(i)

Heros

F.

and azure incense haze

et

OHVERO.

all

around the

Pierrots, Paris, Fischbacher, 1898, p. 19.

1}

194

manor

burning and crumbling down, and the flames,

bursting into the red crypt, open, like peacocks, the
is

The other with the

fiery eyes of their scalet tails '.
neatness and precision of its details in its fantastic
conception recalls the primitive grace of Carpaccio.
One day, leaving the sweet mansion of her infancy,
'

her handmaids at the spinning-wheel, her flowers, her

clavichord, she has gone forth, as in a trance, defenceher

of a strange design.
And now she returns, pale with joy, pensive, leading
towards the castle decked with banners of victory,
less,

alone,

heart

full

the dazzling monster she has tamed, leading with a

frail silk- thread the dreadful, ravenous beast; through
the hair on its furry sides, as between long eyelashes,

numberless eyes of gold, opal and beryl open in the

holes of
In the

its

black cuirass their radiant pupils

poems

he takes refuge

collected under the

in the

title

glamour of the

'.

Hors du

Siecle

Past.

Puisque je n'ai pu vivre en ces siecles magiques,

Puisque mes chers soleils pour d'autres yeux ont lui,
Je m' exile a jamais dans ces vers nostalgiques.

In the sequence of rondels, entitled Pierrot Lunaire^

we meet with

the

same quaint images, curiously

attractive in their intricacies, distorted, as

if

the poet's

fancy refashioned natural objects into queer shapes;

they are like apparitions rising and fading away on

they come on us with a sensation
stagnant waters
;

of surprise, with the unexpected strangeness and

The melancholy storks,
grace of Japanese prints.
'

whitish on the black horizon, have seen the slanting

of a great sun of despair.
pool, full of metallic

fires

195

on

eyes, reflects
relics of the

its

day

tarnished mirror, where the last

still
shimmering, the images

are

turned upside down of the melancholy storks'. The

tricks of fancy are rendered with rare skill by means
of the insistent refrain, of the elaborate technique of
we see him under

the rondel. In these short strains

two

as a painter of grotesques,
aspects
the
humorous
with
fantasy of a Breughel,
depicting
a
with a suppressed smile,
motley people of Italian
different

masks and

and as a subtle musician, calling

notes of a sylph warbling on his
tiny lute, an enchanted wood, where the wild glances
of elves and fairies gleam amid shadowy boughs. But
Pierrots,

up with the

in

all

these

eerie

ditties

bizarre imagination

there

is

curious

mingling of

and of penetrating sadness, the

element getting the upper hand in such a

as
Violon de Lune^ the latter, with a tragic
poem
solemnity, in Les Croix.

former

The

soul of the quivering violin,

full

of silence and

harmony, dreams in its varnished case a troubling,

languid dream. Who, with a sorrowful hand, will set
vibrating in the infinite night the soul of the quivering
violin.^
The Moon, with a slim, slow beam, as with

a white luminous bow, is caressing with agonising

sweetness, the soul of the quivering violin '.
All beautiful verses are large crosses, upon which
'

the poets are hanging, blood-stained, blinded by the

vultures that wheel round them in a grim flight. Far

from the drunken clamours of the mob, the poets

have died, and the setting suns are like royal crowns
over their heads. All beautiful verses are large
crosses

'.

Subjects of a similar character are treated, with a

196

poems of Val^re

lighter touch, in the

Chateau des Merveilles

Gille(i),

especially akin in
of Pierrot Lunaire.
is

its

whose

delicate

We

are
fancy to the rondels
in a little garden of box-trees and yews, trimmed
into curious shapes, with a background of tall horse'

chestnuts in

bloom, kindling their rosy candles

And it takes on a quaint
(2).

full

Christmas-trees

as

charm

'

white and red Venetian

of
bunches
lanterns,
golden grapes cling to all the
boughs; silent gondolas on misty ponds, gUding under
in

a night

the inwoven

rockets

green, spread
tail

of Catherine-wheels, throw dazzling

suddenly the fireworks, orange, blue,

fires

and

'

feast

on the darkness a glowing peacock

(3).

On

the other hand, in such a

poem

as Psyche he

shows a serious and pensive attitude of mind.

d'onyx se consume la lampe;
desespoir habite en son palais desert,
Et Tombre de la nuit jusqu'a son ame rampe.

Sur

la table

Le

Trahissant sa promesse elle a voulu savoir;

que le desir Tenchaine

Elle sait desormais

objets decevants d'un monde inferieur

Qui fuira sous la main ainsi qu'une ombre vaine,
Et tentera les sens sans assouvir le coeur.

Aux

Accepte la Douleur qui

Redresse ton front las,

(i)

La

Cithare, 1897;

Le

te

prend par

la

et poursuis ton

main
chemin

Collier d'Opales, 1899;

Le

Coffret

d^Ebene, 1901.
(2)

Le Chateau des

page

14.

(3)

lb.,

'h2L Fete

Merveilles^ Bruxelles,

de

nuit', p. 27.

Lacomblez, 1893,

197

a travers ce sejour de Tepreuve;

fenchaine a la terre;
Les yeux fixes au del, marche vers I'ldeal
Marche; et regeneree, et le front radieux,
Le visage eclaire d'un auguste sourire,
Remonte vers la sphere immobile des dieux (i).

Sans

faiblir,

le vil desir qui

Dompte

Iwan Gilkin we have a kind of poetry which

In

is

the product of a morbid sensitiveness rather than of

a deep intellectual fervour, as in Fernand Severin
;

we

by
sickly exuberance of his
introduces
on
his shadowy stage the
he
fantasy
his poems, where we often
horrible and the foul
meet with strident notes and wild similes, are like
shocked

are

the

scentless flowers buried in a cave, or rising

from the

poisonous ooze of a sombre marsh. Besides, his work

by a too strict imitation of Baudelaire. He

overcome by the tyranny of the senses, and the
pleasures he is hunting for leave him perpetually
and yet the poignancy of regret reveals
dissatisfied
an unquenchable aspiration towards the Ideal.
Iwan
Gilkin and Jean Delville are intimately related to each
is

spoiled

is

shaping of visions is regarded;

both are haunted by dreadful apparitions; wan masks

other, as far as the

hang

in the

gloom;

bulk of iron and

titanic palaces raise their

gloomy

stone, suffused

with the red glow

the grandiose mingles with the
of burning cities
macabre in a sinister, barbaric splendour. In Le
Frisson du Sphynx of Delville, the poet himself seems
;

shudder

to

the

(i)

haunted

La

quaint figures he has evoked, at

forests, at the grottoes peopled with

at the

Citharey Paris, Fischbacher, 1897, p. 167.

198

jewelled idols, at the symbolic personages that emerge

with a spectral effulgence from the fuliginous back-

ground.

these
In reaction against this Baudelairean revival
there arose
a la Jerome Bosch ',
fantastic pieces

'

a group of singers who aimed at a healthier poetical

taste, at a forcible rendering of a conception of life
based on Faith. Some of them, as Thomas Braun

and Jean Casier, are

'intimistes*,

painters of homely-

surroundings, of familiar objects, which, however,

acquire a high significance becoming in some way
spiritualised

and

others,

by the intensity of the expression,

as Georges Ramaekers and Edouard Ned,

adopted the emblematic style that we find

and Quarles, but with modern colour and

Like the
'

'

woodcuts

value

with

coloured
of
the

Braun

'

'

estampes
possess

characteristic

Herbert

originality.

of Elskamp,
distinct

the

aesthetic

Flemish tendency to

family scenes, he finds the source of

in the interior of a

in

humble cottage

his inspiration

and when he

looks outside, he delights in a pure contemplation of

nature, expressed through simple enumerations, with

an

art at

once naive and

diction des

that their

Thus

in

La

Bene-

{\)\ 'Bless the birds of the forest,

may recall the voice of wind and

song
bless
the

birds fond of light, that the sun

shine at their last hour, and the birds of darkness,

waves,

may

refined.

Oiseaux

that night may be sweet to their funereal flight,

bless the birds lashed by the surge, that their flight

may

(i)

not go astray and break against the turning

Le Livre des Benedictions, Bruxelles, Schepens,

fire

1900.

199

of

lighthouses,

but

may

tell

the

sailors

how

near

they are to land, to the earth, where are the flowers

The same
of Jean

feeling vivifies the fresh

Casier and of

Armand

and pure

Praviel.

'.

lines

'

the

I,

poorest of creatures ', says the former, I am to see,

one day, in all His beauty, God, who thinks of me,
He hides His splendour behind Nature
loves me.
'

if

the veil

liness

be

is

so charming, what will His

own

love-

'

(i).

In the poetry of

the latter the visionary element

the mists hovering
interpenetrated with the real
over a pool change imperceptibly into mystic forms.
The tall trees whisper mysteriously above the pool.
is

'

It is

the hour propitious to the

the

paling

skies,

daylight, appear

Dead we

love

beneath

beloved Shapes, triumphing over

phantoms tremble over the water,

evening haze our Dead are looking at us, and

Immortality rises out of the Grave. In the distance,

in the

An autumn wood grows

(2).
by soft gradations into a lofty cathedral, 'some church
beyond the world, rising from gold carpets to the
slender nervures of the vaulted roof,
a church where
harps are throbbing...

'

one might go astray among numberless pillars (3).

In his utterance there may be heard the
elegiac
undertone that accompanies the song of a heart
'

trusting to divine

'

If our hands let

compassion (4).
trail our robes of innocence in the mire of
impurity,
preserve at least in our wasted heart, as in a sombre

(i)

Harmonies Chretiennes, Gand, SifFer^ 1889,

Poemes mystiques, Bruxelles, La Lutte ',

p. 33.

(2)

(3) lb., p.

16.

(4) lb., p. 42.

1900, p. 18.

200

garden, a timid white rose, the flower of contrite

so that, at the last day, we may offer
repentance,
You its frail grace, and that the dreadful evening may

become

immaculate Rose

feast of

Candour,

when,
place of the sun, an everlasting
will open in the depths of Heaven'.
While Braun and Casier deal directly with
in the

Rose

life,

G. Ramaekers uses reality as a symbol; he is in our

times a representative of the medieval allegoric school,

and

in

his

modern
and

Chant des

trois

Regnes he revives with

'

'

subtility the ancient lore of the

Physiologi

'

he employs their mystic symbolism,

Lapidaries
their
without adopting
didactic, passionless tone. He
'

differs

from the French

avoid

direct

drawn

in

'

'

Symbolistes

because they

and his pictures are often

hard outlines and crude colours as devices
description,

of heraldry. He reattaches himself to the Parnassiens

with his tendency to bright hues and definite contours;
like them he loves the purple splendour of sunsets,
'

'

the refractions of light on mosaics of precious stones;

yet there is not in him, as in the Parnasse poets, a

kind of self-effacement behind gorgeous dreams; his

fervour vivifies his imagery. The things he chooses

quickened to new life by the spiritual

bestowed
upon them. In The Eternal
significance
Gems he sings the emerald, green like the sea and

to paint are

'

the

sacred

forest,

has set His hope

clear

it

as

the

eyes wherein

evokes the evening

God

light

on

diaphanous grass in the peace of blissful plains'; the

a jewel of fire, dropped from the
sardonyx is
it joins
sorrow to glory, the
chasuble of sunset
'

purple of Calvary and the gold of the Tabor, death

it
is
the unfathomable sorrow of
and victory
;

20I

Mary standing beside Her

on the

son, in the evening,

'

Golgotha

From

(i).

point of view, the aim of poetry is to

discover the ideas latent in material bodies, and to
summon up these visionary forms in the mystical air,
so that,

his

in

his

every thing has its

an emanation, like the

representation,

thought, like

corresponding
Spirits that Blake drew

sitting

on the chalices of

Therefore material objects

imaginary flowers.

either suggest a subtle idea

as in his

his

may

consideration

Edens of the funereal depths

on precious stones
of the Earth, you alone reveal to us the inmost
Mystery that transforms into diamonds of Grace the
'

of

coals

symbols

Remorse

or

they

various

their

in

'

enclose

may

parts.

Thus

in

several

Passion-

'

In the pagan drowsiness of the manyflower (2)

coloured garden, a flower spoke to me of divine
Sorrow. Like the head of the Son of God, of the
:

sacred King crowned with thorns, its chalice is covered with purple threads
and the three cruel nails
;

are formed

by the three

The

tendrils are

whips
and the
by the fury of the executioners,
sharp leaves look Hke spears. The details of the
emblematic flower recall the martyrdom, and the
sorrows the sum of which surpassed the numberless
pistils.

twisted

sufferings of men '.

find the same characteristics in

We

Mon

(i)

jardin

fleuri^

Le Chant des

rendar, 1906,
(2) Ib.y p.

trots

p. 103.

160.

though

his palette

Edouard Ned's
is more sober

Regnes, Bruxelles, editions de *Du-

202

and subdued.

He

cultivates his mystic blossoms that

and
higher into a fervid atmosphere,
spring higher
towards the eternal Sun. In Flowers of Eternity (i)
he says
My queen, Pain, has cast into my heart,
'

for the vast granaries of the future harvest, the sacred

and plants of Virtue, Works

and Prayers have slowly grown up in my mind,

seed of these flowers

Heaven

lifting to

What are now

the petals of their golden chalices.

me the thistles of human frailties,

to

the nightly frost, the sultriness of day, the winds of

heart is all a-blossom
Egotism and Hatred ?

with

of

My

love
love,

suavity
love for
crucified,

who

all

for

the

sweet

Jesus
are the darlings of mis-

all the sorrowful, my brethren in Jesus,

are climbing, in tatters, barefooted, the Calvary
of life.
Grow, my beautiful flowers, and, when the

fortune, for

who

day of harvest comes, when the Master, followed by

the Reapers, appears in the glistening haze of the
Dawn, among the golden Suns lighting the plains,
Angels will cut your stately stems with the
splendour of your ripe fruit, and bring your radiant
bundles into the granaries of the Father, in the eternal

the

Azure

The

'.

lyrics of

Victor Kinon

are the songs of a

hear the minster-bells

(2)

pilgrim in a forest, rejoicing to

already mingling with the prattle of

of boughs.

(i)

and

Man Jardin
cf.

fleuri,

'Les Rameaux'

rills

and the

rustle

Bruxelles, Schepens, 1898, p. 51;

his Poemes CatholiqueSy Arlon,

in

Goffinet, 1896, pp. 37-40.

(2)

Chansons du

petit pelerin

Bruxelles, Schepens, 1898.

a Notre-Dame de Montaigu,

203

Ma bonne

Mere, enfin, voyez, je suis venu,

Maintenant je suis pres de vous, a Montaigu.

Maintenant c'est magnificat et joie en pleurs

Et tous les anges font musique dans mon coeur.
Or, enfin, concedez pour derniere faveur
chapelle avec des lilas dans mon coeur,

Une

Ou
Ma

bruleront des cierges roses, nuit et jour.

douce Dame en or qui souriez toujours (i).

With Gregoire Le Roy we look

at a

widely different

side of Belgian poetry; he too, like Gilkin and Delville, fell under the influence of Baudelaire and of

the

'

Decadents

'

but, although not entirely free from

models, his art is more per-

imitation of traditional
sonal, the ideas

and the moods having been uncon-

sciously assimilated rather than openly borrowed. His

soul lies inert in a kind of languid despair, and yet
it

IS

tormented

in

its

inaction

by a

feverisli disqui-

by apparitions, haunted by a sense of

His lyrics are the production of a
doom.
impending
on
mind living
recollections, not on direct experiences,
etude, visited

overwhelmed by an inexplicable melancholy, by

crises

midst of a dusky
land through which a phantom river glides,
a sad
house and yet a place of refuge, the Dwelling of
of causeless

grief, isolated

in the

'

O, the lonely house, without hope, without

love, where Sorrow, one day, came and remained, a
O sad mansion! Silence
mystic and beloved sister.

the Soul.

is

its

master

one's tears.

(i)

there

one weeps, without motive, all

is too full, and longs

Sometimes our soul

lb., p. 20.

204

Vain desire
One who has wept so
to flee away.
Don't go out it
much cannot Hve without Sorrow.
You will be as an exile, regretting the
is useless.
!

house forlorn

'

(i). Images spring out lit as by lightnwith the intensity of things seen through
a narrow slit, or loom, barely visible, under a faint

ing flashes,

and now

a visage of ashen pallor, the

fixed eyes starting suddenly out of the impenetrable
mist

darkness,

and

it

is

now

pale hands rise like a spectral

On the window pane of my

reflection in the night.

'

two hands are pressed, hands of pain, ominous

hands, slender hands of Death. Sinister they are to
heart,

behold, so nocturnal, so moon-pale, lifting towards

me their despair, like the hands of a man lost for

No,

ever.

cursed,
to die

tapers

for,

these hands could not bless

they were
seen
mortal
their
pallor, I wished
having

And
lit

for a

they shine through

death-watch '.

His originality does not

lie

in

my

house, as two

details,

but in the

general tone of the poems; a note of sadness sounds

persistently in his lines, opening a long-closed door to
wild dreams, to impressions never felt before.
He
a
minor
and
prefers
key,
recurring rhymes, awaking

a vague,
long echoes, ending in poignant chords,
weird chanting, as of voices from a world beyond

the world.

He

is fond of
introducing pale, symbolic figures in
dark palaces; they appear and vanish away as the
wisp of vapour that the sunset kindles for an instant
on the far mountain side, that glimmers
a faiiy

his

(i)

La Chanson du Pauvre^

Mercure de France',

p.

125.

205

and drifts away. In lines of mournful melody,

shape
which fitly lend themselves to the utterance of a
sombre pathos, he shows us the mysterious grace of
his Mistress of Vision (i).
this

'

manor of dreams, with

Who
its

is the Lady, that, in

casements hardly ajar,

from the green plains and the horizon of illusions,

What are
reigns upright on the gloomy throne ?
far

these grey, funereal walls that

the pool, as a criminal in his

who

mirror themselves
own soul Who
?

in
is

the queen that, since numbergirl,

Who are these mystic
less years, is waiting here ?
in
monastic
halls, under lamps of an
souls, that,

the sickly

is

Eastern pattern, are weaving pale clothes?

are they weaving

them

And whom

'

for

We

recognise in the passage quoted the imagery

of Foe, from whom he also caught that magic of
'
word-melody, which, by means of repetends ', gradually reveals the path leading to the inmost chambers
of the soul. This music becomes more eerie in the

second part of the book, Mon cceur pleure d' autrefois,

where the object of rendering exceptional impressions
is

attained through a subtler tuning of the instrument.

Here the poet, cutting away the non-essential, refraining from a too sharp delineation of image or thought,
and always with a touch of reticence, conveys in
impressive his peculiar states of mind.
In his continual intercourse with abstractions, pond-

lines vividly

ering intently on sensations incommunicable

except
manifold
his
and
emotions
complex allegories,
through
take shape before his eyes in emblematic effigies.

(i)

lb., p.

175.

206
'

in the

was evening

It

women

Three

thread of Death.
Through
mournful October.

sat spinning the

the chinks of the door, the wind howled a tragic
ballad, and on the table the gleam of a candle swayed

Near the hearth, where a scanty

soul.
of
holly lay writhing, the three Women of
bough
Fate, the three Spinners of Death, were brooding on
All the people of the Past,
the same recollection.

like a

dying

all those who stung them with

died
had
remorse,
they were the only survivors of
the centuries, and so old, that, in the depth of their
and they could
memory, all lamps had gone out,

all

the beloved ones,

;

not find any more in their remote, black soul the

remembrances of ages past' (i). He never neglects

lost

the supernatural element, as some superficial writers

the voice of ShakeHence it is
are wont to do.

that we make

'

comes

as a warning

trifles
speare (2)
of terrors, ensconcing ourselves into seeming knowledge, when we should submit ourselves to an un-

known

fear*.

His evocations become thereby charged

the poet interprets their meaning,
momentary illumination the mystery

with significance
disclosing in a

that lurks in them.

'

On

on these dying waters

wan

pool of my dream,
sometimes, with the
the white
from them

the

sinister,

unearthly voice that rises

Swans of the legend appear. What secrets are weighing
what
upon them, making their motion so slow

stories enacted in manorial

halls,

what events veiled

from us by the black wings of fabulous evenings

And why is their attitude so stately and proud
.?

(I) lb., p. 84.

{2)

All's well that ends well,

II,

in, 4.

.?

207

do we think that they move towards ancient

Why

'

tombs, towards the other world ?

Poetry, as he conceives it, consists
to recapture transient

in

moods, quickly

an endeavour
obliterated, as

to express that
wave-marks on a surf-beaten shore,
of
which
comes to us
after
out
reach,
longing
things
as a breeze from a distant sea.

The pensive character of the Belgian soul is represented in a different way in Georges Marlow. Two
paramount in his work Verlaine's and
Rodenbach's the latter guided him in the choice of
subjects, from the former he caught the sense of
His short poems are conceived in
verbal harmony.
influences are

same mood of Verlaine's tuneful ditties, and, as

of Rodenbach on Bruges-la-Morte, the
main source of his inspiration is his predilection for
a dying town of Flanders.
What land, even if

the

in the dirges

'

may give me the infinite languor of your

desolate church-towers, o little town, so beautiful in
enchanted,

your slow agony

.?

Why

should

from

flee

this

exile, which, with all its bitterness, still charms my

heart >
The voices of the open sea would drown
^

the songs that I love

He sings the peace of
(i).
cathedrals that Delaunois has so finely evoked in his
whose sweet melancholy
paintings, the Holy Virgin
'

'

eyes are lit with reflections of stars ', the tapers,

dream-flowers lighting the garden of souls '. He listens
'

to the rambling talk of the water lost in the labyrinth

of the weather-worn houses
the trembling soul of
;

and yet enthralled, as the poet's

by the dolorous charm of the place. The water

the water

is

sad,

'

heart,

(i)

UAme

en

exil,

Brnxelles,

Deman,

1895, p. 57.

208

babbles for ever and ever amid these joyless towers;

The merry mariners
lisps incessantly love-songs.

it

here and
have died before leaving the harbour
there white feathers glide on the shivering stream,
but the foolish
through the reflections of boughs
;

where Ophelia lies asleep

ill and
weak, to tell sweet
although

water

these old towers

but, as he

tires

itself,

fancies to

'

(i).

sense of loneliness darkens at

life,

idle

his

first

comes nearer and nearer

view of

to his ideal

of renunciation, the suavity of a mystic repose per-

vades his

soul.

flowers and

'

For You, o Lord,

my jewels

have

and, with a mere wavingmyof

I

left

Your hand, you have withered the roses of Illusion'.

Andre Fontainas is, with Mockel, the exponent of
Mallarme's aesthetic principles; but in his book where
evident
strict imitation is more
Les Estuaires
the obscurity of his master is often und' Ombre

relieved

by

his

deep suggestiveness.

He

has been too

eager to dispense with the precision that is indispensable to convey the rare shades of feeling he
the images
affects, and we cannot retrace his dream
hover before our eyes without setting into a definite
Sometimes, however, from the dark tangle
pattern.
emerges the beauty of individual passages, such as
;

Aux havres d'or naguere ou s'incurvait Corinthe

Nul ephebe ne vogue en voeux d'^me nouvelle
Vers les fauves toisons que Taurore y revile (2).

(i) Ih., p.

II.

'Les Estuaires d'Ombre',

cure de France', 1897, p. 156.
(2)

in Crepuscules, Paris,

'Mer

209

Le fleuve d'oubli sombre ou plongent nos cypres

Roule Tepais gravier du reve et des regrets
Sous le miroir terni de son obsidiane (i).

Now

in
and then we are struck by fine images
ancient meadows, among pools of water-lilies, she is
passing, her eyes tender as amethyst dawns and more
'

'

sad than twilights on moonlit lakes (2).

His soul is estranged from life, and pain

is

him

to

an abstract feeling, independent from the impressions

produced by

reality

Le reve

est malfaisant, et vivre c^est assez.

Following the example set by Verhaeren, Albert

a metre that, with
Mockel adopted the vers-libre
its loose texture and shifting stresses, its changing
recurrence of rhymes and its arbitrary length of
'

',

strophe, lends
In Verhaeren

in light

the

effects of harmony.
rhythm of a violent

soft undulations of a reverie,

cadences, dying

into

similitary to Lerberghe's

striking

noticeable

in

Walking on

Mockel' s

faint

chords.

visionary art is
of reality.

transfiguration

woodland path he looks

at the leaves

in the breeze, at the intricacies of the

boughs,
clasped hands, into a harmonious
whisperings of love fill the thick forest, and

trembling
'

various

to

Mockel the

passion, in

pausing

itself

we observe

interlaced,

like

dome
a hymn breaks
;

'

out of a myriad of elated voices (3).

In the light playing on a flower of glass he discerns

(i) lb., p.

166.

(2)

'Les Vergers

(3)

ClarUSy Paris,

illusoires', in Crepuscules, p. 14.

*

F.

OnvERo.

Mercure de France',

1902, p. 119.
14

2IO

the vestige of the exulting flame by which the crystal

Are you not the daughter of
petals were fashioned.
'

Has not your coruscating

chalice sprung out of

heaven, when the ardent
soul of the wood, imbued with sunshine, was born
again in the spasm of death? And its memory follows

Fire
a

aspiring to

blaze

free

you, like a scarlet angel

In the solitude of the forest

'.

'

His
ethereal beings are visible to his inward eye (i).
his hand holds a
hair is spread as a wave of light
;

flower

unknown

and

his mystic whiteness

all

like

is

but what is the radiance

clouds mirrored in water;
that wraps him as in a gleaming snowy raiment ? It
is

a wing

look

disclosed

is

Angel

and,

to

the immortal

our

among the shadows

Wanderer of the Azure has
morning,

eyes.

shape of an

In the limpid
of holm-oaks, the divine
folded his pinions an
;

When he awakes, soaring

here asleep.
Angel
at once with an irresistible impulse, he will vanish
lies

with a clear unearthly cry in the sunrise, like the

incandescent dream that crosses the ether when a

meteor

flashes

The sonnets

through the interstellar spaces '.

of Emile van Arenberg are a

example of the Parnassian influence; for these

attracted

by mere

exteriorities, to represent in

fair

artists,

word-

painting the play of colours of a Persian carpet or a

Chinese cup was quite sufficient to satisfy the aims
of poetry.

Therefore they looked for a style lucid

and correct, if cold and unimpassioned; and the result

was a polished artificiality. Such a style we clearly
see

in

(i) lb.,

the

following

pp. 22, 72.

piece

of Arenberg.

'

In

the

211

crimson boudoir the lamp, clouded

an amaranth

in

looks like a dreamy moon in dim purple

Garnets, rubies, cornelians, corals interlaced
vapours.
in incarnadine twigs, mingle in a casket the blood
globe,

The whole scale of

on the carpet.
embroidered
carmine sings in the flowers
A vermilion macaw flutters through the room, and
of sunrise with flames of

fire.

its shrill cry bursts like a scarlet stroke of colour in

the red silence '.

The

spontaneity of Elskamp is reechoed in the naive

pathos of Paul Gerardy's songs. Sometimes his verse,
almost childishly simple, degenerates into doggerel

more often

it

shows an

artist

endowed with

a nimble

mood varies with every change

now it is the storm, the tumult
now the gaiety of vintage-time

sureness of touch. His

of hour or weather;

of surging vapours
comes like a burst of sunlight into his melancholy.
Summer performs in the burning skies its tragedy,
'

which hideous gods come and go, wrapt in gold

The light sinks and changes quaintly
and fire.
from glowing embers of ominous gold the huge
hurricane clouds are rising in a slow, fatidical march.
in

A gale

blows from the darkness, the

distress, while the tragedy

sombre thunders
'

The

is

pray in
going on, played with
bells

'

(i).

starry blue night pales as

morning advances;

the red-winged sun ascends look at the world aureoled

by a divine rainbow! Look at the benignant shower
;

makes germinate and grow the holy bread, the

wine of wisdom supreme, and new roses.
Say your
that

'

(i)

Roseaux, Paris,

Mercure de France

',

1898, p. 140.

212

prayer, the prayer of the good strong man, who never

for the sun
to make Hope fearless
complains

now rhythming

is

its

golden joy on the sacred

'

vines

(i).

In his love

and

poems we descry

some of

in

playing with

his

'

'

ballades

a trace of affectation,

he vainly endeavours,

trifling conceits, to

give interest to futile

subjects. But in the lyrics where he takes Heine for

his model the frivolity of sentiment is replaced by a
power of analysis through which the slightest emotions
are noted, although he is content in his expression

with mere hints.

somewhat

In a

Waller,

who

left

similar strain are the lyrics of

us a booklet

(2)

full

Max

of promise in

odd mixture of sentiment and irony. The mingled

influence of Gilkin and Gille is perceptible in Fernand
Roussel (3) and Arthur Dupont (4), while Jean Dominique (5) and Georges Rency (6) follow the inspiration
its

of Severin. Their poems, as well as the lines of Paulin

Brogneaux (7), disclose a soul too sensitive to deal

with real life. There is a certain vagueness

songs that they raise in their solitude; but we

directly
in the

always find a charm in their clear melody and in that

natural grace which

is

the

outcome of

sincerity.

(i) lb., p.
(2)

(3)
(4)

La
Le

137^
Flute a Siebely Bruxelles, Lacomblez, 1891.
Jar din de I'Ame, Malines, Godenne, 1892.

U Envoi des

Rives, Bruxelles, Lacomblez, 1892.

L'Aile mouillee, Paris, Mercure de France '.

U Ombre

'

(5)

*Le Cyclamen',

des Roses, Bruxelles,

1901.

Lacomblez, 1896.

(6)

Vie, Bruxelles,

(7)

Ulsolement, Paris, Fischbacher, 190 1.

213

Arnold Goffin and

poets
there is a strong
Georges Ramaekers, for instance
as in Jean Dominique and
mystic feeling; in others
several

In

of

these

Valere Gille

and yet it
from their

the reHgious sense

is hardly perceptible,
not entirely absent; it breathes faintly
lines as a fragrance of incense still clings

is

to a dalmatic long enclosed in

a forgotten chest.

Des anges, maintenant, sont passes dans

laissent sur la mer flotter leurs ombres

le

lis

Comme

de grandes violettes qui se fondent.

Les anges sont monies sur la dune palie,

vent;

Mais void qu'une fille a pleure sur la dune.

sont venus ce soir du, bout du ciel divin,
Et du fond de la mer, et de I'air et de Tombre,
Pour s'abriter au creux de son petit chagrin
Plus mysterieux que le monde (i).
lis

In a few, anxious to startle the

public, sincerity is
sacrificed to extravagance with a misdirection of the

imaginative power. Most of them, however, aware of

the seriousness of art, shrink from a forced originality,
of purpose is rewarded by a
noble simplicity of thought and form. But all are the
exponents of a nation that awakes to the full con-

and

their

earnestness

sciousness of

(I)

its

individuality.

Jean Dominique,

VOmbre

des Roses, p. 42.

Modern

Poets,

Italian

Antonio Fogazzaro.
The
bulk

work of Fogazzaro, though

poetical

proportion to his prose writings,

in

is,

little

in

however

as with Meredith's and Hardy's far from inconsid-

erable in quality. The fruit of impassioned meditation,

his short lyrics and his longer poems alike leave the

impression of a strong personality, of an ardent temper

curbed by mystic laws.

is

Poetry

him

to

essentially

immortal

hopes, the
rhythmical expression
her
music of the soul singing out
rapture to her
Creator. He finds the revelation of the Divine in a
of

the

examination of his inner

close

the

changing

kindled by

forms

faith,

by

of

beauty

self
;

a fervid love of

and throughout

his

inspiration

is

God and mankind,

a deep consciousness of Heaven's ruling and allpervading power. In his moments of vivid insight
he descries with trembling joy the far effulgence from

by

the world seems to dissolve like

the eternal sphere
a vast mirage, and a sudden light breaks in his inmost
;

heart.

the

'

No

sounds

lake only

mountains, no ripples on
shadows of milky clouds and

in the

faint

215

brown

cliffs;

but the

glimmer of the Eternal shines

out from a secret depth

shimmer, which
behind vapours
liness of nature

is

now

'

(i).

he

in

like

myself

diffused

the

by

that soft

sun hidden

Beholding the mysterious love-

pervaded by a strange
an
unknown
bliss; he is conscious
by
broods everywhere, concealed under the
feels his soul

ecstasy, thrilled
that a spirit

shapes and the colours

he

aware of an invisible

is

presence and traces this quickening force in all things

I do not know what
exulting in their serene grace.
'

unearthly

dwells

being

forests, in pensive
it

me

if

was infused

it

the

swinging

mountain-tops

and loves me.

lives,

in

Why

into

is

the

matter by an almighty breath,

yet
it

wave,

in

know

that

not able to

tell

sorrowful prison of
if it fell here

or

Why canno^ it express the

paradise ?
the
splendour of everlasting hopes, the
griefs sublime,
ardent desire that it conveys to my soul ?
Every
from a

lost

blade of grass, every bough, every billow, in this

moment yearns
speak; but

it

tremblingly towards me, would fain

and yet a flame, that is not
cannot;

We

are reminded by this

mine, pierces my
(2).
passage of the lines of Wordsworth
soul'

have

felt

presence that disturbs me with the joy

Of elevated thoughts a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air
;

And

(i)

page

the blue sky, and in the

mind of man.

Poesie, Milano, Baldini e Castoldi, 1908.

'Silence',

198.
'

(2) lb.,

Valsolda,

Novissima Verba

',

VII, p. 250.

2l6

His conception of the world

'

is

Quoniam tanquam momentum

te orbis terrarum, et

the biblical one

(i).

staterae, sic est ante

tanquam gutta roris antelucani,

Tu autem Domine in
tuum in generationem

quae descendit in terram '.

aeternum permanebis, solium

'

et

generationem '.
Like Shelley, Fogazzaro finds a human pathos in
inanimate things; the waterfall sends out in sleepless
its

pain

cry forlorn;

its

voice soars like a message of

sorrow over the tremulous lake, reaches

among

the

weakened

of the opposite shore, and dies

the vales as among misty flowers
the blue

to a sigh

cliffs

headlands are listening to its lament that does not

change, that sounds night and day as if the rushing
waters were tormented by an inexorable

fate.

Quest'onda non ha pace,

Quest'onda mai non tace,

Ognor trabocca e piomba

senza fine romba

Sulle deserte prode.

II

lago posa ed ode;

Odono

monti bui;

Ogni quiete gode

Del mio remote pianto

The poet
over

the

(2).

hears the church bells ring at vesper-time

glimmering

lake,

waking

melody the

to

For the whole world before thee is as the least grain

of the balance, and as a drop of the morning dew, that falleth
down upon the earth'. 'But thou, O Lord, shalt remain
(i)

for ever, thy throne

from generation

to generation

XI, 23; Thr.V, 19.

(2)

Valsolda, p. 243.

'.

Sap.

217

echoes of the

valleys

indued with solemn melancholy, as

distress of

expression of the

come

voices

their

all

to

him

they were the

if

creatures, of

living

sufferings unknown, of yearnings and passionate supThe light is born and dies
The Bells
plications.
*

'

what

Lord, on
;

remains of sunsets and sunrises?

but the Eternal, is vaiii '.

Echoes
'.
Is
vain
The
Bells'.
From
the
the
valleys'.
from
the
let
us
and
from
depths,
weep
pray
heights,
this

earth,

all,

'

'

and the dead,

for the living

so

afflictions

many

Have

for so

many

mercy on

sins,

us,

Forgive the agony that does not

the error that denies Thee, the love

Let us pray
the churchyard some are
innocent Thou alone, Mystery,

bend

Thee.

to

sleep in

some

Miranda,

a.

that does

those

guilty,

knowest the truth

In

for

Lord

to Thee,

call

not

for

who

they say,
alone

Thou

'

(i).

tragic

we have

idyll,

the

delicate

outline of a figure seen in the light of a creative

an image
fancy, rather than a realistic portrait,

ethereal

the

like

reflection

of moonlit

clouds in a

pool. Yet she is one of those creatures under whose

outward quiet a flame is alive, burning fiercely
thwarted in her affection, she vainly tries to break
the spell of tender memories
the vehemence of the
;

inner

fire

wears

broken-hearted.

out her

frail

The tragedy

body, and she dies

from the fact,

arises

weakness and trouble resulting from the

morbid condition of her mind, she does not urge her
will to an entire renunciation. In Miranda
an early
work
shows
himself
a
master
of
Fogazzaro
already
that, in the

(i)

Valsolda,

Sera \

p. 240.

2l8
'

psychological analysis; but this poemetto is a study

the
of that spiritual languor which might be called
on
autumn of sentiment the insistence
refining upon
'

'

Miranda's anguish and the tortures of her secret agony,

though it produces fine emotional effects and inspires
verses of a profound tenderness, is too apt to fall
maudlin and the lachrymose. Yet, in the main,

into the

We

noble, elevated, the pathos intense.

perceive in the subject a research for the psychological picturesque', just as some painters of our time

the feeling

is

'

seek a

'

'

romantic picturesque

in

landscape and figure-

The same impression we

get from Miranda

grouping.
Previati's
Funerals
Gaetano
is given us by
of a Virgin\
we are steeped in the same rich twilight of mystic

perceive the same sorrow full of immortal

yearnings; we see the same pale figures of white-clad
maidens, leaning among rows of lilies, in an atmoart

we

sphere of greenish and turquoise blues and veiled

We

have the same pensiveness of Dall' Oca

Bianca's Loves of the Souls^ and, in some passages,
the more robust thoughtfulness of Alphonse Legros'
golds.

Ex-voto.

Fogazzaro shows a refined sense of beauty

in his

observations of natural scenery, catching, so to say,

the most spiritual aspects of the landscape, when the

mountains

are transfigured by the purple evening

the lake mirrors the angelic radiance
or
when
light,
sense of mystery clings to his
of the morning-star.

descriptions; a characteristic example of it

by the lyric Returning from Work (i),

boats heaving into

'

(i)

Valsolda,

II

is

afforded

where the
sight through the fog assume a

Ritorno dal lavoro

',

p. 217.

219

Dense
symbolic significance.
over the lake it rains.
Far,
*

vapours are spread

away, a wave of

far

mingled voices, sweet, calm, grave, swings in the

Looking intently, I only see dusky,
deep mist.
The mystic melody goes on without
desolate waters.

approaching

pause,

slowly,

sweet,

calm,

grave,

as

mariners, on a boundless ocean, far

native shore, at nightfall, were raising to

though some

from their

God

a simple prayer.

But,

look

the

boats, full

of singing people, show their dark stems through the

mist. The oars come and go amid the fragrant heaps
an impatient kid stands on the
of new-mown hay

is

Thus may

be granted you, when your work

done, and the end of your placid days is come,

prow.

it

your small boat, filled with the harvest, to

In Miranda he frames the
the strand of Mystery *.
in
of
passion
striking descriptive passages
analysis
wandering among the mountains she comes upon
to steer

sights

of awful grandeur or of delicate loveliness

soft enchantment fills the air, a trans;

sometimes a

stands revealed to her, opening

a
on
silently
blossoming height, with its deep meadows veiled by the azure mist of harebells, starred
with orange lilies and glowing blue gentians. To-day
a pretty
we have been to 'The Field of Flowers
name. There, on the edge of a murky chasm, fronting
a black mountain, myriads of dainty flowerets were
shivering in the wind, as if they had fled from every
crag around threatened by the scythe, and were still
lucent

paradise

'

',

trembling with

fear.

seem enamoured of

(i)

Miranda,

p. 141.

The old

trees, the

their timid smile

huge Alps,

(i).

220

Sometimes

the immemorial sadness, the dark

of
mountains, the silent ranks of pines, the
majesty
clouds overshading the brows of precipices, waken in

her mind a dream of a sunless world, of a realm of

death and utter oblivion.
High above me a sea of
'

fog, silence, cold.

Here and there, through the mist,

enormous mountains;...
a strange feeling overrules my mind; the last epoch
of the world seems to have come; an austere old age
weighs on the foreheads of the alpine giants, absorbed
in solemn thoughts of God.
The radiance, the vain
show of sea and hills are past from centuries. Even
the sun is darkened. And if I were to speak I should

shadowy woods, snowy

sides of

lower

my

voice, as in church

'.

Through keen-scented

pinewoods she reaches a place whence she descries

a little lake, lying afar in pensive loneliness, in charmed
sleep, turned to a many-hued jewel by the reflection
of the evening sky.
'We walked on soft mossy
we
meadows, where the foot sinks noiselessly,
went over gentle risings of the ground, through
secluded dingles and humble hillocks,
until we
discerned far below, among sombre firs, the quivering

of blue waters.

small lake glistens, gem-like, in

a ring of woods and lawns and hills.

It was sunset;
the snow of the fiery-red mountain-heads mirrored

the midst of the limpid tarn'. The sultry air

of the Mediterranean shores, the sea fanned to sleep
by the languid breath of roses and mimosas, come

itself in

her
the glamour of a dream-world
which here hangs low on the horizon,
casting a flickering ray on the waves, looks estranged,
Still stunned by the
unfamiliar, in its solitary pride.

upon her

beloved

like

star,

'

violent throbbing of the train, that brought

me

here,

221

The
fancy myself dead and in a world of spirits.
star, that in my native land rises high in the blue,
between two gloomy mountain-tops, here glitters low
I

over the haze of the sky-line tinged with pink and

Yonder, they say, there is the sea
pale green.
my lonely star has therefore become a queen, and

her feet a silver

at

trails

She too

skirt.

stranger to

me.

by the

last

ardour of

to fast

consuming wood, bursts

is

now

com-

my thought, my
and it is enough '.
panion, you are still with me;
During a short period she is held as in a trance

before dying out.

aware,

The
in

life,

till

which, like a flame clinging

into a brilliant blaze

a glorious sunset!
I would
never find rest,
ride over fiery

over oceans,

work,

work.

now, of the ardour hidden

vile oil

my

'What

follow you. Sun, and

deserts,

eternal

life's

never was

in myself.

burnt out, a powerful essence now glows

Until to-day I looked at forms
lamp.

and hues with drowsy eyes; now I feel everything I

if it were in my heart; there it becomes
alive (i). Prati and Aleardi were the precursors of
the kind of poems to which Miranda belongs, and

perceive as
'

Fogazzaro's treatment of blank verse there are

traces of Aleardi's technique.
For his lyrics Fogazzaro preferred metres various in movement and
in

cadences, but he did not often seek for great elaborateness in metrical structure, and, when he did, his
verse is not always free from a certain stiffness of

rhythm and a harshness of sound

trary,

sink

(i)

it

is

into

running too smoothly,

prose.

Miranda, pp.

In

several

when, on the conseems about to

it

cases,

131, 148, iii, 158.

however, as

in

222

Samarith of Gaulan and in the interpretation of

Schumann's Op. 12 (i), he obtains fine symphonic
effects by moulding the stress-arrangement on the
very throbbing of the pulse of passion.
In Samarith of Gaulan the poet throws a vivid

Hght on the soul of a sorrowful, impassioned girl, and

brings out her mystic love by contrasting it with the
taunts and rough jests of the worldly youngster trying
to wake in her heart memories of vain pleasures, of

jewelled dresses and garlanded cups. But the Saviour

appears to her; only He can assuage her longing for
from the shore she runs to Him through
Eternity
;

the blinding

surges,

on the tossing sea of passion,

descrying now and then in the storm His figure

covered with splendour. At daybreak she dies on the
she is not lonely in her death, and, where
the ripples spread into pearly dew, she receives from
immortal hands the crown of supernal bliss. The

strand

close of the

poem

is

particularly fine.

'

Samarith, her
ran with swift,

eyes glowing with unquenchable fire,

unconscious feet over the black yelling surge, through
the furious tempest, over the harsh shrieking surf,

through the silver whirlpool of waters, by the wind

tossed, scattered, cast to the

moon.

She

offered to

straining after Him her

beseeching arms, holding out her face to Him, whom
she descried at intervals before her.
He, enfolded

Him

her hope, her

faith,

by the silvery spray, called her with His imperious

... At last
look, and soon disappeared in the storm.
she
beach.
There
she fell panting on the
lay among

(i)

Versioni dalla musicay Da Schumann, Peszi fantastici,

Nella Notte ', p. 347.
'

Op. 12,

223

and the foam, motionless, supine, her

the boulders

waxen, her lips half-open, exhausted, but still

palpitating. She did not see or feel any more herself,
the world, or even Him.
But, when the glory of
sunrise beamed wide in heaven, rising from behind
face

the

gloomy deserts of Gaulan, the colour of her

she
changed;
'

Come

to

Me

'

face

heard her beloved Jesus whispering:

she strove in vain to raise her heavy

she smiled, and died *.

The theme of his novels is essentially the strife
between the enticements of the world and the call

eyelids

of a lofty ideal, the call to a Hfe dedicated to the

of God
the main personages tend to an

service

ascetic purity, but without ever attaining

it

the worldly element insinuating itself in

way

into

their

would-be

mystic speculations; the

brings

them

intellectual

vehemence of

into conflict with their

completely,

some

subtle

passions
their

and

emotions

religious

views

though they exalt the spiritual side of their attachments, they do not arrive at the absolute renunciation
of the true mystic. The motive is only faintly shad-

owed

a melancholy
The Mystery of the Poet
idyll in the minor tone of Miranda, interspersed with
delicate lyrics,
but Daniele Cortis is a typical
in

example of this struggle between love and duty.

Old World and Little Modern World are clever

Little

sketches of an historical moment, the dawn of Italian

fight for freedom, in the northern provinces. The
leading thought of inward struggle between good and
evil powers returns in The Saint and Leila, in which
the author, stepping on dangerous ground, expounds
his theories they were written when his powers were
;

failing

and he was treading entangled paths

in spir-

224
In

itual loneliness.

his

all

books we

ourselves

feel

confronted with studies of moral problems, not unlike

Hawthorne's subtle examinations of sin-stricken con-

poem Night of Passion he

sciences. In the beautiful

expresses with lyric brevity the idea, which, as we

have seen, is the ground-thought of his novels the
:

struggle between the lure of matter and the aspirations

of the soul.

The

fascination of the night-magic, the

woman, the outburst of mystic

apparition of the dead

elation, are rendered

with poignant
concentrated in his inner

is

energy

intensity

all

and the

life,

imploration arises from his heart like a fragrance

from a flower opening to a Spring sky. Infinite God,
penetrate, through every sense, into the secret depths
'

of

my

sick

heart,

and think,

feel

burn

take

And

of love!

lo

out and renew

me

all

that

Thee on a whirlwind

to

before

there,

me, the dead

woman

appears, reclining among flowers, smiling to

the sound of unearthly voices, entranced, pale with
an immense vision.
The clouds have a sense of

mystery, the knowing shadow shudders, every blossom

to the stern, sublime
gives up its soul, like incense,

hear her soft voice, and

she
of love or of pain

Love.
She comes
words I do not know if
goes on speaking so tenderly, so sadly!
loud that

my

cannot hear,

head, as a sign

face,

weep so

an aerial hand upon

feel

of forgiveness

inspire into the depth of

my

and

raise

my

heart the breath

All is solemn, all the world

of the departed one.
seems to kneel in adoration
thy
speak. Lord
servant is ready (i).
;

(i)

Ultimo

'

Ciclo,

Notte di Passione',

p. 382.

225

swept away, stirred by the tumult

All his doubts

of combat, he prepares to dare the powers of Evil,

Closed
to wage war to the prophets of despair.

'

armour, thoughtful, through shadows forlorn, I go

Wherever
towards the clash of a remote conflict.
the battle is engaged, a place is reserved for me.
in

Soldier

advance to help the

man up from

faith sublime, that lifts

mud, to support

the alluring

all

fervent
'

love and noble indignation kindled by this faith (i).

The same zeal shines out, undaunted, in At Night-fall^
a poem composed from the standpoint of one who

he is lying on
views life from a towering altitude
the conquered summit, looking calmly on his existence
he hears a voice calling him
of strife and sorrow
;

he knows that, though his

again to the fight
are
soul
and
his
weary, his energies spent, his
body
work is not completely done, and he is ready to obey
forth

summons, conscious

the divine

that the

battle shall

The evening is closing, and

not be fought in vain.
am lying, wounded, exhausted,
I, so bold at dawn,
I served the
at my place,
fronting the stars...
'

Almighty

now

implore peace

die here, turned to the orient.

are looking at

Perhaps,

fate

me

so intently
my lofty, true

perhaps,

blood,

God

Let

be

it

because

bids

so, let

us

me

should like to

O evening-star, you
What do you mean
;

friend,

did

you know

not yet give

and die standing up.

without tremor or fear

shed

its

rise

rise,

the heart burst open before

last drops of life (2).

let

Him,

and

'

(i)

Valsolda, 'Novissima Verba', XI, p. 254.

{2)

Ultimo

Ciclo,

F, Olivero.

my
my

all

'Scende

la sera', p. 431.
is

226

Fogazzaro was more concerned with thought than

with form; his poetry, which might be compared with
Coventry Patmore's for mystic ardency, does not
possess the finish of The Unknown Eros. He lacks
*

the fine touch of Manzoni and Zanella, who were in

some way his leaders in technique. He combines

spontaneity with a literary grace, a direct truth of

utterance
leaving bare the outlines of thought by
with a fervid elodiscarding all mere ornament

quence;

his lyrics

keep the

bloom and freshness

first

of their original draft. But, while the poet is looking

for lofty effects, the artist is often too easily satisfied
with the expression. His style

overcome by his eagerness

ideas and emotions.

in a certain

is

manner

to set forth his wealth of

The tendency of Fogazzaro to devote special

attention to the spiritual side of life
a propensity
roused in part by the example of such keen psychostarted a
logists as Paul Bourget and Henry James

movement which

freed Italian

realism. His influence

was

literature

in the

from a low

main an ennobling

and elevating one he is to be ranked among those

authors whose attitude to life, renewing the very
spirit of aesthetic theories, produces an emotional
;

rather than a descriptive art,

an art which intensifies
the individuality of the craftsman, and which we may

see

represented, perhaps in

vaporous

and

paintings of

its

exquisitely poignant
Carriere.

Eugene

form, by the
figures in the

fullest

227

Arturo Graf's Medusa,

The seed

singers
Collins,

Blair

in

in

of pessimism hidden in the early Romantic

the delicate melancholy of Gray and
the

burst

sombre meditations of Young and

into

strange

efflorescence

with the

dreams of Poe, with Beddoes's grotesque Dances of

Death ', with Thomson's City of Dreadful Night\ its
'

bitter fragrance

pervades the atmosphere of the poetical

world of Swinburne and of Arnold

it

overshadows

the region where Gissing and Hardy show us their

creatures under the sway of a blind, pitiless fate. In
art, we first descry this conception of life in the

desperate smile of Watteau, in his figures apparently

but concealing under their gaiety an
incurable melancholy; in music, its very spirit sings

light-hearted,

with a mournful sweetness in the Nocturnes of Chopin

lullabies of heavenly grace to a suffering world,

promises of everlasting peace, soothing from the starry

skies the imploring agony of mankind
while in
Beethoven's melodies Sorrow appears so angelically
beautiful that we cannot but recognise that she is
;

divine.

In the realm of poetry the dark plant did not take

long to strike its roots and spread in Italy, distilling

228

a poison which soaked deeply into our souls.

The

black

flower of pessimism blows under serene southern skies

as well as on bleak northern crags
its
intoxicating
;

ancient Indian valleys, over the silky

ripple of the ^gean and on the hills of Recanati. It
is sometimes the outcome of the weariness
engendered

perfume

floats in

by the monotony of the sea's and sky's changeless

blue, by the radiance of a luxuriant landscape, bringing
out more sharply the contrast between its indifferent
loveliness and human anguish and distress. With Leopardi the dusky island of sadness breaks at once into
view on the serene ocean of Italian poetry, and looms
gigantic, projecting

its

shadow on several contempo-

rary writers.

it

Graf's pessimistic conception has a twofold origin;

springs from an innate bias of his mind and from

the mingled influence of Leopardi and Baudelaire

the latter's is indeed predominant, and most of his
;

dismal airs were

composed while he was wandering

in the poisonous, artificial

garden of the French poet.

classic perfection is prevalent in Leopardi, tinged,

however, with a romantic

seems

at times

pathos, as a white star

the topa? fires of the

imbued with

afterglow in which it is setting. Graf's poems leave

us with disgust in our heart, and not with that
transcending sense of beauty which, in Leopardi, rises

above

his desperate desolation. In the refinement of

thought, in the soulful melody of the verse lies the

difference between Graf and the author of the Re-

me^nbrances {Le Ricordanze). Although not so shallow

and

diffuse as the

artist

insipid

lucubrations of Rapisardi,

poems are sometimes unsatisfying, because the

in him can be content with a superficial emphasis,

Graf's

229

neglecting those subtle shades of feeling which alone

give a supreme value to a work of art. On the other

he does not show any of those audacities of

side

diction which reveal a perfect mastery of language.

But he has in common with these melancholy Romantic singers a narrow and dark outlook on life
;

the lamentation of mankind, lying in the

of sorrow, in utter abandonment to despair

their

song

is

bondage
they do not even
spiritual fetters.

try to free

themselves from their

Their attitude of mind

neither that

is

lofty melancholy which is born of nostalgic yearnings

towards the eternal, and blended with supernal hopes
the melancholy of Chateaubriand and Lamartine

nor

that

sombre earnestness
of existence

conception
point of view

where

from a broad

arising
Dante's
or Shakespeare's

the trivial

mixed

is

to the

sublime, tragedy to farce, rough ditties to melodies

of celestial harps; but it is a corrosive taedium vitae^
a pernicious disease of the soul.
The poet observes this baleful

through

his

mind, encroaching upon

destroying all healthful germs.

of my soul a dreadful thought
a poisonous
skies,

fruit,

that in a

'

all

spread

other ideas,

In the

murky night
slowly ripening, like

is

dusky

thought

valley,

under remote

sucks a black mixture of bitter venoms from

And

the day

when

shall die

The wicked
the sluggish air and the putrid slime.
in
the
is
darkness,
silently little by
growing
thought
;

little,

is

it

all

fills

the bewildered soul.

near, the hour

is

going to strike,

of the poison with which the lurid fruit is infused

and swollen (i).
perceive in him a morbid liking
'

(i)

We

Medusa, Torino, Loescher, 1890,

p. 227.

230
for ugliness, for the bizarre and the macabre; besides,
some of his poems are seasoned with the coarse

spices of a low realism. His mind is a mirror tarnished

by the mist of doubt, by the vapours of dim, inconideas, based on the fallacies of Schoand
Hartmann. As voluntary exiles, these
penhauer
thinkers withdraw from the world of men, and keep

sequential

hostile, surly attitude towards life.

Graf recognises that there dwells in him a proud,
rebel spirit, hard to himself, born to be his ruin and

to the last their

'

to cause distress to others

'.

He

only descried under the brilliancy of the outward show the cruelty of the struggle for existence,
the

work of destruction; and this perception clouded

overpowered his judgment. He forgot that

his vision,

from the rocky ground of the caves of sorrow imperishable gems are often born. Intent, above all, to
the inward drama, Arthur Graf vainly tries to explore
the labyrinth of his mind, where, as the lonely soul
in Tennyson's Palace of Art^ he finds himself con-

fronted by lurid, enigmatic shadows (i).

Neither from
the stars of fire, nor in the sidereal silence, in the
unearthly stillness of a more remote, unknown sky,
'

the immutable Fate watching us

but, wrapped
in gloom, he is sitting, as a supreme monarch, within
is

ourselves, in the dark recess

where the lightning of

Inexorable, occult, he rules

thought has its birth.
with silent gestures the course of our wretched life*

There he

is

'

laws,

remorse, unconcerned with our heart-

breaking woes

(i) lb.,

sombre dictator of hard

sitting,

insensible to

Fato \

'.

p. 266.

231

He

is terrified by the power of inexplicable forces,

the
immensity of space, where every instant sees
by
the birth and the death of numberless worlds, hurled

into

unexplored

gulfs

inexhaustible

the

by

fiery

Do you know the heavy

deep.
the horror of the
mortal anguish of the infinite ?
into
bottomless
which, through all
ocean,
endless,
fountains

'

of the

eternity, the

hours sink down and the

perish

ages
the black, profound, algid sky, where the
clamorous

many-coloured vanity of the world vanishes as mist?

Do you know what it is to feel the tears of all the
living, the silence of the dead?' In his atheistic conception the universe becomes to him a hateful un-

solvable riddle; in his nightmare he is lost in druidic

woods, through which death is riding on his spectral
he is wandering on desolate plains, along
steed
slate-coloured swamps, or under pale arctic fires; he
;

soaring in the limitless space, where the stars as

flower-dust are strewn. And he compares himself to

is

a burning meteor crossing the icy gloom of the

endless night (i).
'You, refulgent stars, with which
the ether is blossoming and glistening,
you, strange

clouds of splendour, ripening in unknown abysses the

you, streaming comets,
fiery seeds of future suns,
in
aimless
I,
too, am a star, driven
flight,
roving

by

a blind,

irresistible

air flashing fiercely,

in

void

the

and

motion

enter the gelid

scattering warmth, light and

I
do not see the centre of

life

my

'

orbit

Art

itself,

(i) lb.,

its mystic significance, beto him, a subtle, fatal pain. Poetry

deprived of

comes a torment

pp. 129, 119.

232

not conceived as a flower growing spontaneously

out of the soul, but as a parasitic plant feeding its
is

gorgeous blossoms on the vital sap of the tree to

which it clings, on the very blood of the singer's
O green, sharp leaflet he says to the
heart.
'

',

you seem to me as sharp as a

as
hemlock
or wormwood
Even
thorn, as green
the penetrating charm of music cannot pour balm on
his wounded heart; the beautiful lyric on Schubert's
emblematic

'

laurel,

'.

Serenade ends with a cry of agonised pain.

The
moon is travelling, clear and slow, behind the poplars
'

ocean

is

thickly

the

shore of the shimmering

covered with holm-oaks
the

in long, straight line

slender tapering columns of a ruined Ionic temple

From afar,
gleam as a pale dawn in the blue mist.

from

afar, through the placid immensity of the night,

the long note, panting with
a song comes to me
;

anguish, drunk with tears, swings slowly in the uniThe melody flies over the meadows,
versal stillness.

awakes the echoing dales, floods the serene heaven,

trembling with mournful remembrances, full of a

heart-rending sadness

'.

There is hardly a bright reflection in his sombre

dream-palace the same idea informs all his poems,
mirrored in different symbols
grim, wild images,
;

the chimeric brood of a feverish brain. But they are

not mere decorative details
they are, on the con;

surcharged with meaning.

Take, for instance.

The Sphinx (\)\ 'Lonely, in the midst of the desert,
the hieratic monster lifts up erect her imperious head
Her
out of the sands heaped around her sides.

trary,

(i) lb., p. 8i.

233

sky her
behold the
lips are tightly set, her large calm eyes
Men and gods pass and dissolve around
infinite.
inscrutable face

seems carved

in the beryl

she does not appear to change the wilderness

Who
strewn with ruins of vanished centuries.

her
is

knows what is stirring in her brain.? Does she comprehend the word in a single thought ? Does she
meditate on the inanity of the whole universe?' He
hypnotized by the haggard eyes of Medusa, the

is

symbol of

his despair

'
;

You

alone,

standing, changeless, clear, huge, in

my

Medusa, are

troubled soul,

'

among melting shapes

He endeavours to bring
!

life and nature within the

shadow of his own despair therefore whenever he
alights on a bright subject, he turns it into an emblem
this interpretation is stubbornly forced on
of pain
even the azure sky lies
all events, on all things
lid of a sepulchre
like
the
the
world
on
Only
heavy
he
finds in the landscape
as
in
Water
Lily (i),
rarely,
an image of purity and joy. Under the lustrous, silky
;

'

'.

'

sky

of

motionless,
sides.

and

Spring morning, the

On

taciturn,

black,

rises

ancient pine wood,

on the mountain-

the summit, where the forest is deeper

sterner, a limpid tarn, enclosed by a narrow

margin, gleams,

silent, as if

enchanted

and a

solitary

blossoms on the water's transparent

as a love-dream blows on the depth of a chaste

water-lily

veil,

soul,

touched by the ray of a divine idea

His poems are like vigorous engravings, somewhat
crudely drawn, with rigid outlines and a violent chiaroscuro, with a hard metallic glitter in their lights and
'.

(i) lb., p.

234.

234

an inky blackness in their shadows. There is often

a striking, diamond-like limpidity in these elaborate
etchings.
as if they

a perfect

But his allegories are studiously combined,

had not been perceived at a single glance,

by a
the

only possible and inevitable

the idea, but had been wrought out

whole, the

embodiment of

persistent effort.
distinction

We

might say, according to

of

Coleridge, that his images are

rather
than by imagination. Cominspired by fancy
for
Poe's
instance,
pare,
City in the Sea with Graf's

King Death
the

both poems embody the same idea in

same obvious symbols; but the latter is wanting
;

that mysterious fascination, that strangeness and that

sense of reality which are the tests of all true works

huge mountain, made of walls of fallen

cities, arises black against the vast glimmer of stars;
on its precipitous summit a stately temple glows,
round, open on all sides, with an opal dome and
In the midst, on a throne draped
diamond columns.
with dark purple, Death is sitting, motionless, crowned,
of

art.

'

beholding the world prone at his feet '.

When he sets to record his impressions the

memory

of happy hours fades from his mind, and he restricts

himself to the notation of afflictions and troubles,

excluding

from

lights; likewise,

his

when

landscape all cheerful

dealing with the outward world,

interior

his imperfect vision, struck only

keeps our attention

things.

the sun

Thus
falls

riveted

to

by mournful

details,

darker side of

the

As a dying gladiator
the
farthest gap in the
from
down, and,

in

Tragic Sunset

'

sky staring with his fiery pupil, hurls himself into the
depth of the greenish waves. Smoky clouds throng
and he still
all around him, a threatening crown
;

235

wounds them, shooting awry

beams.
world

'

(i).

waves; she

swoops down on the

submerged by these shadowy
the solemn harmony of Creation,

the

zenith

The

soul

is

quivering, red-hot
a huge bird of

horrible, sombre, as

Then,

prey, from

his

deaf to

Night

is

blind to the awful majesty of the Universe; she cannot

Canst thou
understand any more the sublime words
'

bring forth the day star in its time, and make the
evening star to rise upon the children of the earth ?

'

(Job,

XXXVIII,

His poetry

is

32).

the

outcome of

theories, that can only

answers to the

supreme
unsatisfying
of confuse systems, pulled down and
weakly rebuilt by successive thinkers, futile attempts
to find a solution of the mystery of the universe
give

evasive,

questions,

faith.

This fundamental

When

the poet has spent

without the leading light of

error leads to fatal results.

always baffled endeavours, he mocks

and noble efforts; his soul is burning

his energies in

at all lofty ideals

with anger, and subtle irony makes place to stinging

sarcasm and violent invective. I curse you, gloomy
'

labyrinth of my
eternal enemy,

mind, and

and you, O

you,

my

sad heart,

my

baleful dream, parching

soul with the thirst of vain desire, luring on its

way forlorn my proud, sterile life, you also, ringing

my

verse, draining my
the anguish which

vigour, repeating

in

empty play

slowly killing me '. Sometimes,

however, his sardonic laughter changes to a weary
sigh, his imprecation dies down to a passionate
is

sobbing.

(i) lb.,

pp. 223, 200.

236

Though he
law, there

is

is

loath in his pride to admit a divine

in his heart

longing for the

Infinite,

an unquenchable, insatiable
and, even in his crises of

we meet with mystic

despair,

'

yearnings, with fervid

golden sunbeam, making green

brambles
thorns
and
among sullen rocks, graagain
into
descend
my heart, and thaw the frost
ciously

supplications.

hideous death, so that the fragrant flower of

hope may spring up again from this hard ground '.
Now and then a sudden light pierces the gloom, a
of this

sudden awakening to truth

stirs

the soul

'
;

hear in

the boundless peace of everlasting space the plashing

and I remember
and singing of the Fountains of Life

my

ancient hopes, and

dead

faith'.

Hope

is still

my

find again in
heart the
alive in his inmost soul: 'a
'

and

shivering on the verge of the horizon! (i),

will rise and glisten clearer and clearer in later

star

little

it

years

is

tracing

the

course

of his

inspiration

from

to The Rhymes of the Forest we perceive a

brightening of outlook, we are aware that the poet
is aiming at a broader and healthier vision of life.

Medusa

(i) lb., p.

191.

237

Giovanni

was the herald of a new poetical school,

with others, such as G. Gozzano
which belong
Giovanni Cena and Francesco Paand P. Mastri
Pascoli

to

stonchi.

Madre

book of

lyrics

poignant with intense

pathos, where he evokes the agony of his soul at the

is a tragic prelude to his later

death of his mother

compositions, the
note struck in his

poems of In Umbra. The mournful

production sounds persistently

throughout his work. When just on the threshold of
to learn a hard lesson,
like Pascoli
youth he had
first

distress, he felt the sting of

and
deeper into his heart then
pain pierce deeper
serious
view of life that underthe
he came to adopt
lies all his literary achievements. Mother is a message
of sorrow, uttered with a simple, rude power; we can
as,

brooding

over his

easily follow, mirrored in the limpid lines, the progress

mind from the numbness, the painful trance

brought about by these hard experiences, to resignation
of his

and hope.

He

too

like Pascoli

was held back from despair

by the remembrance of a humble, loving

soul

in

238
his

dark inner world the figure of his mother arises

aureoled with the radiance of immortality.

I stood senseless and dumb,
looking at the endless
'

snowfields
stirred,

hung from

by no breath of wind

flowers,

the

When

trees.

heard the

murmur of prayers die into the white stillness,

The bed was like an altar; she was lying
turned.

slow
I

pearly

her hands folded on her breast;

around was so sweet and serene that I said

in a pious attitude,

and all
Her
'For certain God has come down to her'.
eyes shone Hke a flame, transfiguring her face (i).
:

'

When

he

is lost in a labyrinth peopled with

ghostly
with
presences,
whispering phantoms, she comes to
her effulgence pierces through the changeful
him
appearances of the earth, and her love is to him a
;

secure pledge of everlasting life. But still my dizzy

a
soul is reeling on the brink of a black chasm
'

great part of myself sleeps, buried in a place whence

I close my weary eyes; I lean
mortal sight recoils.

head upon my hand;

Ught as a breath, a Shadow
comes to me, leans over me, strokes my hair
O
full
dark
vain dream
of
My spirit,
things, is

my

'

'

as a blind man, looks

to
speaks

Then you
the
words hard to understand
watchful soul from her inmost realms, and unfold
to her the wondrous treasures of the shadow. You
a moment, the cloud, behind
dissolve,
and my mortal senses
which Mystery
glowing,

be struck dumb
then you
explain how
groping
into

in

itself,

the

gloom

to itself

it

it

itself

listens,

'

will call

'.

will

for
is

will

(i)

Madrtf Torino, Streglio, 1900,

it

will

p. 33.

339

was

all

for

illusion

the flesh

Truth

is

how

both of us,
And he
(i).

only outside
bends before the

Apparition, weaving a wreath of mystical roses for

her grave
his heart, like a flower crushed in the
;

and intoxicating fragrance. He

his
with
father
to
visit the recent tomb
rare
goes
blades of grass were withering, yellow, on the black
earth. One heard the mournful murmur of the neigh-

dust, exhales a bitter

'

But
bouring rill, a whisper, as of human words.
the sky was so beautiful, so prodigious the sun
He looks at the boundless fields, at the forests,
'

golden over the resonant river, at the terse mountains,

shone among
which, already covered with snow,
clouds
foreheads
like
stately
flaming
high uplifted in

an apotheosis

and hope

'
:

*,

and he breaks

into

words of ecstasy

Mother, to you, until

live,

conse-

you gave me among keen throes,

and which I lost too soon, and this voice trembling
with raptures and spasms, and the pulse of life rushing
out of the unfathomable abysm, and all colours and
shapes, and what is inside and outside our existence,
and this soul of mine, which kindles as a star and
crate the joy of

life

ascends towards the serene heavens of the

Light

for ever

While

his first

infinite

'

(2).

book

a wild outcry wrung from

his heart by a private sorrow, the subsequent volume.
In Umbra^ is devoted to the world around him; his
is

ennobled by pain, feels itself

His vision of
suffering mankind.
spirit,

opposed

in

sympathy with

life

is

to the egotistic sensualism of the

(i) lb.,

pp.

(2) lb.,

pp. 67, 68.

7, 58, 64.

therefore

Decadent

240

book we

school. In this

gloom gradually
to a

place

dreamful

human

from

lifting

cheerless, stern

of a soul

state

peculiar

his soul, but

We

day.

still

making

perceive the

perplexed by a long

He

turns to the contemplation of

in the wards of hospitals he compels

isolation.

distress

dawn, the

assist to a sinister

his heart to drink to the dregs the bitter draught of

pain; his look alights with infinite pity on the wasted

faces; he feels the vain aspirations to the sun, to life;

soul,

do you

Do you

mountains.?
Far, far

away

quaff this
dim sense

sigh for the

still

strive

still

are sunrises

human
of a

'

sacredness of sorrow.

he understands the

O my

snows of the

mystic
towards free horizons.?

O my

and sunsets.

soul,

sorrow, absorb this pain and this

living,

unknown Shadow, and

this

smell of dying flesh, floating on the air like an acrid

'The sun is flooding with light, through
incense'.

the high windows, the

how many

Temple

of Sorrow.

sun!

loving words are whispering to thee these

The beds are

souls never satiated with thy glory

glowing as white

'

'

where human sacrifices are

The dying behold in the gem-

altars

'

slowly wasting
like,

out

away

'.

pale skies the last twisting flights of birds work

they behold the slender
long embroideries,

boughs swing
in the

in the

daylight,

feel,

even

grimly

over

evening breeze, they

Somebody, who

rises

and draws them under his wide wings,

will
which
bring them into the silent realm of the
Shadow (i). He is trying to see what hides below
their souls,
'

the immediate

(i)

surface of

life,

to pierce

In Umbra, Torino, Streglio, 1899, pp.

the matter

9, 10.

241

edging with clay the divinity of the

soul.

Sometimes,

rebelling against the malignity of the world, he is

led to a dark conception of life, not unlike George

His work is
Gissing's grim outlook on mankind.
therefore rough and harsh, but adorned now and
then by delicate images, like frail, sparse blossoms
on a twisted ancient hawthorn blasted by the lightning;

and everywhere burns an eager yearning

for spiritual

beauty.

Nature is to Giovanni Cena the gorgeous stage

where the tragedy of man is enacted and the soul
may find some comfort by raising her eyes from the
;

contemplation of her inmost wounds to the changeful

The poet
always listening intently to the mysterious voices

magnificence of the surrounding scenery.

is

of nature,

by

to

birds, to

the

the short, enigmatic phrases uttered

hoarse lamentation of the torrent

struggling through the dale he endeavours to interpret the meaning of its serene smile, he descries a
;

relationship

vastness

between

of night.

his

He
in

sorrow and the sad, starry

hates

the

crowded

streets,

wooded

lonely
only
valleys, in
sun-flecked
or
at
the desert
secluded,
copses,
looking
fields, where, dimly lit by a smouldering autumn
feeling

happy

last daisies and the crimson flowers of

weave a strange pattern on the faded gold of

sunset, the
trefoil

the stubble.

The scenery of Piedmont could hardly be better

represented in painting than by-Fontanesi's, Delleani's,
Calderini's works; in poetry it still awaited expression,
except for Carducci's famous ode. In Cena we do not
only find a clear-sighted observer of rural subjects,
but an

artist

F. Olivero.

whose mind has grasped the

essentiali6

242

of the Piedmontese landscape.

ities

terse mirror of

rivers

its

His lines are a

in their pale

keeping
green
waters the unstained purity of the glaciers where they
had their birth
of its hills covered with acacia

blossoms

thickets, white with

in

May,

their

honeyed

the sunny slopes humming with bees

of its crown of Alps, glorious after the storm, when
banks of mist are lying in the deep sapphire of

scent

filling

mountain hollows and

their

aerial gold. Its character

intimately

icate

glittering
at

tops

arise in

once rugged and

del-

akin to the poet's soul, exercises

a constant attraction for him

and he draws from his

keen perceptions the comfort which dwells in natural
loveliness, the peace breathing from the plains when
a luminous haze is hanging over the iridescent snowfields (i), the rapture which comes from hushed
;

summer evenings, when,

meadows lie asleep

the

animate world
sibility.

is

fragrant with new-mown hay,

in the warm light. The inthus quickened by his poetic sen-

Like Pascoli, he derives many of

his

themes

from rural scenes, trying to render the mystery which

underlies the simplest aspects of life.
In technique he belongs to the Impressionist school;
with such poets as Verlaine and Jammes he shares a
direct and vivid simplicity of representation. Rejecting what

is

merely decorative and keeping what

is

It was one of those mild, pallid days, veiled by subtle

transparencies, in which all things assume virginal appear*
ances and unusual vibrations *.
The changeless vapoury

(i)

sunlight spread faint gleams upon the roofs, and the rays
pierced the violet veil floating over the white purity of the

snow

*.

Madre,

p. 13.

243

and genuine they reach a depth of impression which is rendered more poignant by the
effect of concentration. In the lyrics of Giovanni Cena
expressive

sorrowful

mirrored

memories tremble

as

black winter

in a shivering, lonely pool;

trees

but grief blends

musically with a sincere feeling of spiritual loveliness,

and the charm of his poetry lies in this chord of

beauty and pain.

244

Francesco Pastonchi.

Francesco Pastonchi was born

the
its

Riviera

gliasco, that

of

in

San Remo, on

but he has Hved so long in Turin and

neighbourhood, especially in the village of Gru'

its

sons.

',

Piedmont may

The milder

however, betrays

Some
their

itself

rightly claim

him

as

one

character of his native race,

in the tone of his inspiration.

singers of northern Italy seem to reflect in

rather ruthlessly, as in the mirror of a

work

gloomy pool, the grimness of

the mist-enwreathed glaciers
on the contrary, the

its
;

reflection,

frowning mountains,

in Pastonchi's

though

poems,

faithful in the

main, is softened by a tender lustre, as if by the

radiance of water-lilies scattered on the surface of the
>

He

hand the monotby rows

of mulberry-trees, the hills rising pale and desolate
in the hazy atmosphere, but he fondly lingers on
blossoming orchards, on the peace of starry nights,
on the mellow glow of autumn gardens. This statement may be well exemplified by The Last Fruit, a
poem full of delicate beauty. When July was glowing,
in the calm shade of the orchards the fruits were
black tarn.

depicts with skilful

onous expanse of furrowed

fields

crossed

'

smiling golden-red through the luxuriant foliage,

until they were gathered by the countryman.
Now,

245

serene autumnal weather, one of them

in the

still

on the bough, forgotten by the reaping

glistening

hook

is

the

instilled its sweetest

tree has

child.

its late, last

The

into

sap

fair fruit, as

yet untouched,
inspires with love

on the top of the slim bare tree,

and it appears as if, inthe whole dying valley,
the
tangible, it enclosed within its crimson beauty
last flames of the nostalgic soul of autumn' (i). His
capacity to evoke the stern grandeur of the Northern
scenery is evinced by the fine and vigorous sonnet,

I am
looking at you, titanic
of remote evening
the
black
glare
against
poplars,
no wind-breath troubles the peace of your
clouds

The proud poplars.

'

weeping
flights

The

speak to you, timidly

surround
the swallows
you with wheeling

souls.

dreamy

but

you

rivulets

rear,

disdainful,

shadow.

the

motionless

your
Meanwhile

lashapes
gathering
bourers are coming back from the tilled plains,
white oxen jogging on before them, no more urged
And you, poplars, see these dwarfish
by the switch.

in

beings

vanish

through

shaggy

brakes,

and

you

'

(2).
silently await the birth of the stars
In his first volume of poems. La Giostra d'Amore

{The Tournament of Love), he was clearly under the

influence of the Italian

lyric poets of the

thirteenth

and fourteenth centuries, particularly of Guido Guithe

nizelli, Guido Cavalcanti and Cino da Pistoia
;

book

is

therefore

medieval

poetry,

representative

of the* revival of

which was started

raphaelites.

(i)

Belfonte, Torino, Streglio, 1903, p. 57.

(2) lb., p.

103.

by

the

Pre-

246

His conceptions are transfigured by a mystic sense.

think that, in a friendly evening, she, who here

'

sighing worn by melancholy, urged by a desire

drawing her to Heaven, will soar up like an angel.
To the poets she appears then a chimera shaped

is

by

but the trees, quivering

their delirious mind,

as

a lyre, will sing the praise of her who ascends to a

She is like the angelized lady of
brighter sphere '.

Nuova.

She has forgotten all wordly

and mortal praise cannot touch her any more.
like a lily
pure and white and slender

the Vita

'

yet she
lets fly

is

as steadfast

When
;

as a fortress.
safe

is

of Carducci he describes her in a church.

radiant with a

she

as

shadows

new

prayed,
to

Love

under angels' wings' (i).

which recalls a well-known poem

the darts, she

In a sonnet (2)

cares,

How
and

loveliness

bright

Heaven

star

From

'.

She was
and from her lips,

soared
that

conception of love rules his life.

the star ascend from her praying

'

'

through

moment

Since

the

new

have seen

lips, I feel

no more

the appeal of sense, no more I rebel against the just

restraint. Free from wild desires, triumphing over all
'

vain tumults, to-day

is love ".

say:

have truly known what

The Tournament of Love^ though a fine achievein imitative art, does not reveal the true char-

ment

acter of the author

falls

the

into the rhetorical,

sentimental here too often

and the

rigid, stately figures,

images painted by Margaritone d'Arezzo or

Taddeo Gaddi, are not transfigured, as their protolike

(i)

La

(2) lb.,

Giostra d'Amore, Milano, Treves, pp. 40, 71.

pp. 14, 15.

247

by fervent emotion and immortal longings.

types,

They are simple and almost abstract beings,

with an artificial loveliness
as in a richly

endowed
wrought

arras they hold

and roses with

lilies

stiff

gestures

they represent the dawning of love in the poet's heart,

but we cannot help wishing for a more sincere
expression of his feelings.
,In Belfonte he is beyond his poetic prime,

and

displays a gravity of thought and a sobriety of form

which are wanting in his earlier works he is no more
;

dreaming

garden of the

in the walled

Rose, but roving on

Roman

de la

and mountains. It was Pascoli's example which broke the spell; but his return
to nature is also the inevitable outcome of a weariness
of the world.

hills

The contemplation

of natural

beauty

of forgetfulness over the sorrows of

he finds a pure, spontaneous joy in the
the Past
quickening spirit of Spring, which gives him control

throws a

veil

over

his

restless

heart.

In

lonely

gardens,

when

October colours the air and the shadows are slowly

shifting round the golden trees, the poet, lulled by
the tune of unseen

a peace
and quenches the sombre
As he wanders through valley and
fire of passion.
meadow he descries in the clouds unknown blossoms
thus in Towards the
of dream and mystic figures

which drowns

choirs of birds, attains

his anguish

Unknown.
a

royal

dragon.

'

Over the

palace
It

the afterglow sets on fire

of vapours, dragged by a bristling

seems as

if

hills

the whole of

it,

even the dark

tower rising in the midst, were going to tumble down,

Pale clouds are
were yearning to fall into ruins.

in a throng to the great crimson furnace

other cloudlets, a white flock, are passing under the

sailing

248

With the growing shadows all far

conflagration.
noises melt into the whisper of a river, which rapidly
draws my thoughts along with its course.
All is
unknown.

flying towards the

me

sweet to

is

it

yet

'

to

go

know nothing

on, surrounded

else:

by mys-

And when, under

tery

(i).

stars,

among

the limpid flames of the

the mountains, he listens to the murmur

of the sleepless stream, he forgets the vain tumults

of youth.
O Night, I never enjoyed your mystery
so much as in these Alpine dales. Here, when I think
'

of the fleeting years, and of the mystic rhythm of

the worlds, and of the eternal smile of the skies
heedless of our earthly tears, I feel myself free from
all vain dreams of glory, I clearly perceive the low-

my

ness of

heart and of

my

'

song

(2).

The poet has lived so long in close and intimate

communion with nature that mountains, waters and
trees

have assumed

for

the vitality of

human

Peach-tree and

Water

his

him the intense pathos and

beings. The Blossoming of the

are the best representatives of

impassioned apprehension of

slender

peach-tree,

March

feeling

the

life in

caress

nature.

of the

'

The
soft

but he
air, would fain burst into bloom,
sees the mountains still capped with snow, and is
afraid of being confronted by the sudden threat of
bitter winds.

may
One

He

displease the

night he

is

tall

anxious, too, that his blossoming

poplar, the king of the horizons '.

is pervaded by a
strange thrill, and, at
he
himself
beholds
radiant
with dew, wrapped
sunrise,
'

(i) lb., p.
(2)

19.

lb., p. 36.

249

cloud of flowers, swaying softly in

the morning breeze (i).
His soul is in perfect accord with the surrounding
in a rosy, fragrant

'

landscape; nature

to

is

him a source of inexhaustible

delight, and he paints the rural scenery with a calm

enjoyment quickened by flashes of fancy and sudden
suggestions of subtle truths. We are far from Words-

poignant tenderness and from Tennyson's

dream-like pathos; the emotional depth, the passionate
earnestness of Matthew Arnold are also beyond the

worth's

but he succeeds in
reach of Pastonchi's inspiration
inner life of nature,
that
fervid
of
us
giving
glimpses
;

(i) lb., p.

loi.

Cf.

'

Water

',

ib.,

p. ii6:

'

love you, water,

in the lap of Night, or in mountain caves bristling with

icicles ;
I love you, yearning through the untrodden wilder-

born

ness to the bountiful sun.

course,

now you

down, veiled

in

Now

are swallowed

a rock withstands your

you slide
by a chasm ;

shadow, then you plunge

come

into caverns,

and

out to mirror again the sky.

Restless, childish, for
ever untamed, with what a timid sweetness you weep in the
deserted courtyard!
But, merrily garrulous, through the

brambles of a
poor,
liche,

ditch,

you

are a faithful companion to the

along the shadows of his lonely path

pp. 67, 70

'.

Acqua, che un desiderio di luce

Trae da remote vene
Per la inquieta chiarita dei fonti,

...

Acqua, allegrezza eterna della terra

Che ne ride con tremulo fulgore,
Tesoro cui nessun pugno rinserra
Ma gode ogni umil cuore, ...
E tu cantavi assiduamente ignara
Ripercotendo

Anima

le turchine selci,

gaia d'un vallon solingo.

Cf. in Ita-

250

human

souls seem to partake as of an

wine.
The girl singing in the autumn
intoxicating
the
purple vineyards becomes in his
twilight among
a
fit
emblem
of the eternal youth of the earth,
poem

of which

of the mystic

powers hidden

in its depth.

For a

long time, in the smoky evening, I had looked for

the woman, who had drawn me from rest with her

sweet singing.

I shall
never forget that sincere,
which did not turn, froward, from me,

youthful face,
but stood more

proud, more absorbed.

dusky
under the dying day
The vines broke its
silent melancholy with their blood-red rows.
She,
as if April were blooming all around, was raising the
plain

song of her youth to the

fields

burnt out and to the

The same symbolic meaning is

vineyards
evident in A Warnings where the image of the boy
rifled

'.

suggests

the

to

of

poet
'

life.

simple,

November

if
is

somewhat

sad,

lulled to a

philosophy
deep
drowsiness by the melodies of far rivers;
the Earth
wears a tender smile,
like a girl falling asleep under

the spell of a golden dream.

boy, near a stream,
is
snapping twigs from a ragged hedge, amusing
himself to throw them into the resounding swirl of

sometimes you too, like that

flying away, and cast into the waves
what a provident sort gives you.
Rouse yourself,
it is time;
and, even of bare twigs, weave for yourself a simple crown
(i).
waters.

boy, look at

my

soul,

life

'

easy to trace the revelation of beauty which

gradually dawned upon his soul, and the growth of
It

is

(i) lb.,

pp. 56, 58.

251

technique, through his works, The Tournament

of Love, the odes Italiche Belfonte and the book
of poems Sul Limite dell'Ombra.
Limpidity is the
his

foremost quality of his style, a quality which he shares

with but a few of his

contemporaries, lured by the

impressionism '. The

dazzling, transitory
richness of his song, as he renders his various moods

charm of

'

with fine modulations of tone, reveals a perfection in

poetical technique, which may sometimes atone for
the

slightness

of

the

subject,

and

which

is

only

thoroughly enjoyed by people who can

perceive and
mere music of the language, the verbal
melody woven out of harmonious words by an accomplished craftsman. The metre employed throughout
in its strict symmetry and
Belfonte is the sonnet
order this metrical form might become monotonous,
were it not treated with consummate art and given
appreciate the

a flowing

ease

by the frequent use of overlapping

to draw manifold effects
from the resources of the sonnet by means of subtle
lines.

The poet knows how

devices

strange chords of rhymes, inner changes of

rhythm and unexpected cadences. Un Tramonto (i),
where the difficult rhyming of words stressed on the
:

but two is managed with great skill, is,

rather
an elaborate experiment than a true
however,
work of art.
last syllabe

vein of sadness, determined

partly

by the lack

of religious principles and partly by the influence of

Carducci's and D'Annunzio's pagan conception of the

world, runs throughout his

(i) lb., p. 56,

1905;

and

cf.

work

he feels that vain

Sul Limite dell'Ombra, Torino, Streglio,

'Ammonimento',

p. 163.

252
is

his love of nature,

and

that, in spite of his

keen

perception of her beauty, she is separated from his

soul by a mysterious gulf; he is struck with the same
despair, which the Belgian poet Fernand Severin has
so finely expressed in Le Cceur en Detresse
:

Ne pouvoir t'embrasser, Nature fraternelle,

Pressentir seulement ton grand coeur ingenu,
Et

lui

parler toujours un langage inconnu

His individuality gives him a place

poets, who, avoiding the sterner side of

among
life,

the

live in

isolation, and inspire us through their

melodies with that peculiar calm not untinged with
melancholy, which we are wont to associate with

a romantic

autumn and the

light of serene sunset skies.

253

La

Cattedrale of Francesco Chiesa,

The medieval

pursuit after
forms that might convey, with quick, intense appeal
to mind and senses, their mystic aspirations, created
a style intimately responsive to the Romantic soul.

The Gothic

architects,

cathedrals,

their

in

rising

like

visible

music

in

noble proportions, awake long

heart of modern writers
they turn with a
the various
the
times
to
when
passionate regret
reverberations

lofty,

in the

manifestations of the aesthetic ideal

the

poem, the

seemed to forsake the earth and

song, the building
soar in exultation, in plenitude of spirit, to the serenest
heights of heaven.
In

La

bird to

Cattedrale, the poet's soul flies like a nestward

the Middle Ages, to a world purified by

Chiesa does not sing,

loveliness of such edifices as

suffering, strengthened

by

faith.

however, the softer

the churches of Siena and Orvieto

enamelled
interior

caskets,

painted

inlaid

with

dainty-coloured,

rare

as an illuminated

marbles, their
missal
but 'the

stern, grey, titanic cathedrals of the North,

their

borrowing
grand outlines from the structure of mountains

254

and clouds, standing out pale and

sombre background of tumultuous

stately
skies.

from the

He evokes

these mighty buildings, he idealises them into a single

the veil of ages is rent asunder by his
archetype
;

The Shadow of a powerful

imagination.
a Shadow dismal, and
epoch rises before my soul,
as if it lifted up again its
yet sparkling with gold,
'

vivid

royal

its

treasures,

hear a vast

flashing,

weapons.

strange

chord of hymns

and

litanies,

dull

clangour of vehement bells, a clashing of iron and

the pang of a gigantic work.
stone,
Through the

bustling streets gorgeous pageants and bands of

warriors are passing, upraising many-coloured signs
And the Plague brandcrosses, standards, swords.
:

her scythe.
Men vanish away their mirth,
their wrath are no more;
thou, O Temple, rearest,
as a mountain, thy dreadful pinnacles, and impassively
ishes

holdest thy sway

'

(i).

His suggestive lines bring before us those times

when

the scattered tribes united to build the magnificent shrine

day by day the structure grew, swift
;

as a dream, beautiful as a heavenly, unfading vision.

At

nightfall

the

workmen descended from

scaffoldings as into a pit of darkness.

'

the high

Then, amidst

the din of hammers. Night appeared, silent, slow, closed

in funereal veils, her hair entangled with stars and

mournful clouds.

And

the

artisans

came down,

along columns, over bridges, through dark passages,

with a dim rumble, as the rings of a chain lowered
And
by Night into a deep, mysterious chasm.

(i)

La

Cattedrale, Milano, Baldini, p. 5.

255

Night, at last alone, sat

surrounded

the interrupted works,

among

and her hair,

by towers and arches;
laden with jewels and shadows, streamed over the
pause of the human effort (i). With the first gleam of
dawn the work was resumed; the stone blocks were
with a dull clang, like
hoisted up, were hammered,
the voice of bells muffled by thick snow
And at
'

'

'.

'

your white image,

and stood on the top.
last

Holy Virgin, ascended,

And

You

diffused a lustre

on the black surging stream of people, and the

days received a drop of your serene grace
troubled earthly impurity

sometimes

yields

river, so that a

the sand

An

its

not

otherwise

fleeting
in their

rock

hidden wealth to the passing

golden thread flows

down mixed

with

'.

earnest, sincere^ fervour

craftsmen

'
;

everybody

inspired

the

humble

own page in the

Someone came to work from
wrote his

great book of stone '.

his native forest, bringing with him the remembrance of
the trees and of the shadow of the valley where he lived.
'

And

Spring blossomed on the tops of the columns,

and, through the flowers, loomed the sleepless, eager
or the
eyes, the cruel, enigmatic face of a sphinx,
claws sprang out of a writhing, sneering devil '. And

they carved on the plinths the scornful melancholy

of demons. The obscure Presence, indeed, walked
the people
Satan, prowling furtive
to
a sacrilegious rage,
roused
them
gloom,
destruction
them
to
and
stirred
they set fire
outrage
to the shrine, and the flames spurted from the crackinvisible
in

among

the

(i) lb., p.

15.

256
ling

windows, coiled around the

In the

spires.

fitful

glare the Stygian crowd of monsters in the gargoyles

seemed to start into life, to hover
vultures in

suspended

flight

waiting

for the prey

the timber

burst into blaze, and lead fell in deadly showers from

the melting roofs.
And Victory
after she had, with

'

a bound, disentangled herself from uncertain trials,

and was safe
ran through the streets, flaunting her

red ensigns and her

corpses

maddened,

fires

she

over the glazed eyes of

climbed the steep stair-

And

ascended to the roof.

cases,

mob

the raving

was watched by the statue of the Saviour and by

the figure of Satan,
And You, O Lord, You opened
with
arms,
paternal invitation to forgiveness and
your
'

peace

but grim scorn flamed in Satan's eyes

'.

The work of destruction takes place; then the flames

draped the lofty ruins with huge crimson curtains,
'

and licked the hands of the King of Hell, as their

But a sudden awe dispersed the angry
master's
and
the
church rose again from the blackened
rabble,
the
barbaric hordes had laid waste the
when
remains;
land, from the blood- drenched ground the cathedral
sprang up again, like the immortal symbol of the
As from the
yearning of Man towards the Infinite.
'.

'

conquered towns the blaze leaped high

ness, straight,

thin,

mingled

with yells,

in the

dark-

from

the

sad earth arose steeples, cusps, spires, mingled with

songs, tapering like flames, as white as dawn '.

The poet is pervaded by a fervid enthusiasm while

he beholds in his synthetic vision the cathedrals,
beautiful and fantastic as

if

revealed to the

artist in

above the dusky plains

a trance, gHmmering
harried by savage conquerors
like lilies

they are indeed a

257

sublime

of

source

in

They change

inspiration.

in the afterwonderful way according to the light

glow, lit by the reflection of cloudlets ardent and
;

thin as fluttering leaf-gold, the ancient structure

all

made

shades

seems

amber and ivory, touched with faint purple

when the moon in a halo of roses appears

of

over the trees

the
beauty

and

the azure sky turns pale at her

weather-worn walls take on a frail

dream-like grace. At night, through the ringlets of

stone slender as vine-tendrils, the constellations are

seen slowly drifting on the fathomless sea, and their

sparks of fire crown with a changeful diadem the statues

emerging, outlined in black, from the shadowy mass

The medieval artist carved the
of the church.

numberless

effigies

on

and

frieze

capital with bold

strokes, with daring originality and power; with power,

and yet with poetical naivete ', with a pathetic del'

icacy, the

same

made him

that

insert in the clumsy,

on the missal-bindings clear amethysts

heavy
and moonstones opalescent as mistletoe-berries. Under
his chisel the marble rippled into snow-white flowers
traceries

the

stone

filigrees

along

the

glistened like
branches of blossoming

foam or dewy

crystallised

roofs

hawthorn, dividing the sunlight into sheaves of slanting

vaporous rays through their traceries.

The

architects

managed

skilfully the

illumination

they opened large stained-glass windows

in its sides, so that the walls seemed hung with
tapestries of gems, the ogives burned like glowing
of the nave

embers

the

in

apsis,

the

rose-windows

shone

like

jewelled butterflies; the iridescent light broke as with

a burst of melody the darkness of the aisles, sounded
~a high note of colour in the
F. Olivero.

murky

forest of pillars
17

258

And

and arches.

incense-clouds were

the

like the

exotic perfume of this fantastic efflorescence, unfolded

by the fervour of a spiritual Spring. The lofty windows ', says the poet, are glaring like a blood-red
'

'

sunset

wood

intertwined

boughs of a black
get perplexed about the meaning

the

through
our eyes

of these incandescent pages

He observes the strange
illuminations
spires

seem

at

'

(i).

sundown

to blaze

and

of the

effects
'

the

all

various

pinnacles

and

flicker as the beautiful fierce

flames of a pyre, stirred up by a great wind '.

In
the moonlight the cathedral is like a pale mountain
wrapping itself in veils of ghostly silver and gold
'

'

and the moon explores the temple with its wandering

rays searching for Beauty, wherever she hides herself,
the wan light
disentangling her from the shadows
flows sweetly, spreads into wide pools on the marble
'

'

'

gathers as a tremulous treasure in the folds of

the draperies of the statues '. And, in the storm, when
clouds lie brooding on gables and buttresses, the
floor,

is

Ughtning

playing

the

among

lashes furiously the gaunt walls,

'

pinnacles, the rain

the cathedral hurls

thousand spears, lets loose its swift,

barking monsters, from whose snouts the water rushes
down with a long howl '.
in defiance

its

But the Gothic

the recesses

Mystery

and

artist left

of aisles

and

unbroken the shadow

vault, as

in the twilight

in

an emblem of

atmosphere the golden

flames of tapers and lamps are Uke adoring angels,

who can only be traced by the splendour of their

(i) lb., p. 39.

259
eyes.

Beyond

the

portal,

thronged with

effigies

of

prophets and kings, a great gloom confronts the poet,

a mystery, as of deep roads stretching afar to places
'

out of all human quest '. The dark air is throbbing

with the roar of bells; and the blind beggars, crouching in the porch, appear to listen to a grander music,

hymns, the pealing of the organ, have come

Motionless as marble, among the marble
the
men are lying on the threshold,
blind
pillars,
a
wind moaning with infinite woe,
listening to
... Then
blowing, it seems, from profound caves.
But
all voices are hushed
the echoes die out.

after the

to

an end.

'

there 'remains an eagerness in their still, blind eyes,

as if they were intent on an unknown sound, louder

than

all

sounds, ascending with the incense-wreaths;

perhaps

Lord, as to
they are listening to You,
a nocturnal sea overflowing the invisible strand'.
The medieval architects tried to slake their thirst
of the Infinite by shaping with a severe magnificence
an
an image of the intangible World their work
her
of
of
the
fervent
of
mankind,
prayers
allegory
;

poignant and nostalgic sorrow, of her indomitable

Hope

outlasts the

old cities, shedding

on the rude minds

We

still see it in grey,

influence
of beauty
refining
from afar, in a moonlit night,

centuries.
its

sharp, thin spire emerges from the houses like the

lance of a warrior watching over the slumbering town.
its

Francesco Chiesa has sung

its

sequence of vigorous sonnets.

He

restraint of this metrical form,

mystic beauty in a
breaks the traditional

sometimes extending

a single sentence through the fourteen lines; and the

ample, impetuous phrase, where the thought expands
at ease, gives

the

sonnet an energy and a rapidity

26o

of

movement not

to

be found

The

structure.

cramped
solemn organ tones and

to

tions of bells.

poems

Though

are varied in

mood

and more
seem composed

in its old

ringing lines

to resound with the vibra-

the subject be one, these

they are written with an

always succinct and synthetic, and the

dense
chiselled,
expression is well suited to the closeabrupt

style,

knit texture of the verse.

work

'

La

de longue haleine

a high poetical

gift.

',

Cattedrale, though not

is

a sufficient proof of

Giovanni Pascoli.

not

as an

inexplicable dream, but as a

is the main theme
of Pavivid, consoling reality
He contemplates the landscape with
scoli's poetry.
the wondering, eager eyes of a child, with a primitive

Nature

he does not derive his knowlfreshness of feeling

the
nature
from
works of other writers, but
of
edge
;

from a long and intimate acquaintance with country

Italian poetry was not to be renovated by turning

life.

to classical waiters, but

by rendering

in

an original

the elusive beauty of the world.

Therefore, in
the lyrics of Myricae and in most of his subsequent
poems, he tried to express with a new, deeply

way

appealing

simplicity the various aspects of everloveliness which surrounded his soul.

He

changing
loved the humblest things as well as the grandest
he depicted with the same
appearances of nature
the
floweret
accuracy
withering in a cranny of a
;

crumbling wall and the glory of the sun setting

the

sea the

beam and
mountains.

in

gnats quivering in the slanting evening

the stormy clouds gathering over the

262

Among
exquisite
vast and

his

most

striking

characteristics

is

an

perception of the sounds composing the

continuous symphony of the countryside.

He

conveys with a skilful arrangement of words,

enhanced by the use of onomatopoeias, the song of
the redbreast echoing in the stillness of an autumn
swallows soaring in mellow
sunset skies, the chirping of crickets in summer nights,
the eerie call of the owlet at moonrise.
Where was

twilight, the twittering of

'

the

moon

the

sky,

seemed

hiding ? a pearly dawn already floated in

and the almond-tree and the apple-tree

on tip-toe to have a better look at it.

lightning was playing in the black clouds low
on the horizon; a voice was calling from the fields:
kiu...
The stars were shimmering, thinly scattered
to rise

The

I heard the
in the milky mist
swinging of the seawaves, a rustling in the brakes, I felt my heart startA sound of
ling as at an echo of a cry far away.
;

sobbing throbbed

Above

in the distance: kiu...

all

the luminous tree-tops a sigh of wind was shivering

the grasshoppers shook their tiny silver bells (tin;

klings to invisible doors that perhaps will nevermore

and there was that death-wail
be opened .?)

'

kiu...

(i).

phrases and his parsimony of

remind us of Impressionist paintings or of

His short
details

elliptical

prints, where mere fragments of outlines

and patches of colour suggest the complete representa-

Japanese

tion of a landscape or of a figure, the less important

parts being easily supplied by the imagination of the

(1)

Myricae, Livorno, Giusti, 1908.

'

L'Assiuolo

',

p. 125.

263

onlooker. His work, however, is not merely descriphe has not only the vividness of images to

tive

to produce a forcible and lasting

a
delicate
sensitiveness and a passionate
impression;
love for hidden, humble sorrows bring a new charm
trust to in order

He

into his poetry.

understands the tragedy of the

blasted oak-tree, the

uncanny melancholy of the song

of a little waterfall in shadowy woods
and the
the
frail
on
strewn
the
raindrops
petals
upon
ground
by the storm wind are to him like glistening tears.
He knows how to suggest the shiver of mystic terror,
the dim sad forebodings, which haunt and darken
the soul when a shadow crosses the sunny solitary
;

when an

path,

uncertain shape

steals

silently

away

into the twilight distance, when the merry warble of

birds stops suddenly in a radiant blossoming orchard.

The

serene, studious

out from a dark,

when

the

life

tragic

poet was

still

of Giovanni Pascoli stands

background
a boy
was
:

father

his

killed

while

the sombre
home, among lonely hills
remembrance Hngers throughout his work, and a deep

returning

pathos underlies his brilliant descriptions. The lyric

The Tenth of August (\) may be quoted as a charac-

example of the inmost spirit of his poetry. It

the night of St Lawrence, and the sky seems to
weep over the earth showers of falling stars.

teristic
is

'

know why

so

many

down through the calm

stars are
air,

glowing and

know why

so

falling

many

swallow
tears are glistening in the heavenly vault.
was coming back to her nest; they killed her she
;

fell

(i)

among
lb., p.

thorns; she had in her

107.

bill

an

insect, the

264

supper for her

and her

ones.
Now she lies there, as
that insect to the remote heaven,

little

crucified, holding

up

nestlings,

the

in

shadow, are waiting, and

man too was coming

back to his nest; they killed him; he said: I forgive;
and a cry remained in his staring eyes
he had
two dolls for his little ones.
Now, there, in the
puling lower and lower.

lonely house, they are waiting for him,

motionless, bewildered, points out the

And

remote heaven.

in vain

dolls

he,

the

to

thou, Heaven, from the height

of serene worlds, thou, infinite, everlasting, oh, thou

art flooding with stars, as with tears, this earth, this
'

murky atom of Evil

In The Ring he strikes
!

the keynote of his early

a
poems:
heart-rending pain that pervades his idyllic
candour.
The ring glittered on his hand in the act
'

Dying,

of blessing, far from home.

o
hand, which was flooded

And

my

he raised his

father!

with

hot

my mother kept the ring on her heart.

Then my elder brother had it; o my little father!
The treasure shone like a blessing on his slender
The gold had now a spot of rust, near the
finger.
blood.

setting

of the

gem...

of blood.

spot

And

an

evening did you try to wash it away, o my brother.?*

the ring had dropped in
oh, what a loud weeping
the sea.
And there it lies, on the ground of the
!

heavily

beholds

from the deep heaven a star

sighing sea
That spot
it in the depth of the ocean.

the infinite ocean strives to wash

and

the

infinite

heaven

From

star,
;

which sees

it

speaks of

it,

away; in
it

vain;

to

the

'

ah, in vain

death he draws his highest inspiration the

ancient churchyard, where the dead of his family
;

265

moonlight the cypresses wave their

sleep, while in the

slim blue

shadows over the marble

slabs, or while

howling through the yew-trees and the

rain is slashing the crosses hung with withered
wreaths, inspired him with one of his finest poems,
// Giorno dei Morti. His pensive soul recognises the

the wind

sublime

supreme

is

beauty of sorrow,
nobility

its

a heavenly

purifying power, its

radiance floats round

the familiar visages worn out by the fierce flame of

terrible crisis of despair is evoked
the suffering soul.
Throw away the weapon that
in
Poor Gift (i).

'

has cast a wicked spell upon you.

Hope for the
crows in the
until
the
cock
wait
last time.
Wait,

The cock crows, ghosts are driven

black village.
away, and the cursed witch who appeared to you
shall also fly

Your

away.

dead mother

will

come

she

to you, with a sad face, murmuring prayers

life
she
will pray you to keep this poor gift

once

gave you '.

But a ray of hope breaks through the clouds and
lights

up

his

soul

this

psychological state
'

is

When

well

the
poem
by
(2).
the
and
afterglow was shining, scarlet bright,
the mother said
cypress appeared as of fine gold,
A garden of trees like this one
to her little son
The child sleeps, and dreams
glitters in Heaven
of
of golden boughs,
golden trees and forests of
while the cypress tossed by the wind in the
gold,

exemplified

Fides

the

'.

'

black night weeps in the tempest's blast

(i)

Myricae, p. 95.

(2) lb., p. 55.

'.

266

His

fostered

tendency,

literary

by

deep and

loving study of Greek and Latin poetry, is restrained

by his love of simplicity, directness of form and truth
to

nature,

instead

by

his

interest

of Carducci's

inspiration,

we have

in

human

life

so that,

learned and partly rhetorical

in Pascoli an art based on

spontaneous feeling. Carducci shows

now and

more intimate grasp of

in

nature,

as

the

then a

classical

beauty of the sonnet where he compares the effect

As when the
of Vergil's poetry to a moonlit night.
'

pious moon spreads over the parched fields the icy

coolness of summer nights, the rill murmurs glistening
in the

white sheen between

hidden nightingale
and the traveller

its

narrow banks, the

the vast serenity with melody,

stands still, thinking of the fair

fills

once loved, and forgets his journey,

and
a mother who vainly pined for her dead child turns
her eyes from the grave to the lucent sky and from

tresses he

that diffuse

sense of peace steals

fresh breeze is sighing through

lustre a soothing

into her heart,

and the
such

is your verse to me, o poet

the great trees,
divine '. But, in Carducci, learning led to imitation
nature taught Pascoli otherwise.
;

He aimed

at

reproducing the colours and sounds

of the countryside, and sought to realise his ideal of

a poetry founded on rural scenery and the experiences
these subjects, with which he had
humble lives
a genuine power of sympathy, became highly significant
to him, and he discoursed of them with eloquence,

of

proclaiming in homely themes a grandeur

to the

common

observer.

Thus

the

unknown

teeming earth,

the shepherd watching his sad-eyed herd, the sheep

closely packed together as the storm-cloud creeps up

267

the mountain slope, the slow steady pace of the oxen

as the ploughman turns the furrow, take on a new

majesty; thus simple, lowly things came to be regarded,

through his gift of genuine imagination, as objects

worthy of poetical treatment.

He

agricultural works, the labours

under stern or clement skies.

describes the various

of the

husbandman,

Reading his Poemetti we breathe a free air vast

shadows of clouds sweep over the motionless sea of
we
tilled fields stretching away to the dim horizon
;

wander, in Spring, on paths overhung with bramblerose, or tread, in

Autumn, the steep way leading up

touched with snow beneath lower-

to the hills already

ing skies; we walk among the trees dripping heavily

with damp, on a grey November day, or we watch,
in a summer evening, from the brow of a crag

lengthening shadows creep on the meadows

streaked with flowers as with stripes of coloured light.

the

We

Hear the song of the cuckoo. They had ended

their work of tying up faggots in the vineyard, and
all, old and young, stayed awhile in the sunset light;
'

and white heads and fair and black heads gleamed

under the clouds on fire. They were listening to the
cuckoo, to the two limpid, echoing notes of the Spring
evenings, notes so remote that they seemed unreal,
so near that they seemed to sound in their hearts
These qualities of faithfulness and wide range of
'.

observation

are seen at their

best

when he

selects

for poetical treatment subjects congenial to his temper;

then he translates into words, with graphic and vivify-

ing touch, impressions keenly felt; and the freshness

of the scene he has just left is preserved in his work

with an enduring charm.

His tendency to paint

is

268

by the wish to suggest

description and pathos are blent in
balanced

feeling,

so that

his poetry, per-

ception being here entirely subordinate to emotion.

Very often we get rather a suggestion than a definite
picture; the image comes from within, not from the

mirror of the eye of an impassive observer; therefore

not an objective, but a subjective art. See,
for instance, his picture of a blossoming orchard.

we have
'

Have you

forgotten

those

wonderful

mornings

Peach-trees, plum-trees seemed to our eyes pink and

white clouds. That orchard appeared to us through

the veil of our tears, and kept, mirrored in itself, for

Then came mist and
days, the glow of a sunrise.
rain,

and,

sheltered

our cottage, we listened,

in

through long days, to the grumbling of the fire. The

white and red trees disappeared, molten in the fog;
and in the wan sky there was a sound like an

and it rained and

rained... And afterwards, whither had they gone, the
branches like to filigree-work } All petals were lying
on the ground
and, at dawn, we trod the vain
assiduous

hissing

of

spindles

memories, each impearled with its own tear '.

The blending, of emotion and description appears
with even greater evidence in the evocation of Mar-

The daisies burst out of

garet among the daisies.
a sudden. And lo! one day the lawn is filled up and
'

is starred with them. Who was aware of you,

white flower of Love, closed in the heart > And, all
at once, the black earth has changed colour.
They

the rock

are

thoughts,

once

unknown, now gazing

at

you,

whether you go or stay,

born, in the shade, of the
smile of a star and of a dewdrop. It is winter, and
the rime has scorched all the flowers in the meadows

269

and you are

burnt out the grass
silver
of
the
petals are tinged
tips
your
opening now;
a dead leaf, roving, covers you
with a faint blush
and the

frost has

up
are

and passes away on the wind. You

when life is about to end you do not

for a while
alive

Margaret, her
change with the changing of the sky.
heart absorbed in her dead love, will gather you and
He loves
let you drop from her fingers, thinking
'

you

you not any more

not, loves

'
!

All literary preoccupations have been set aside in

his pictures truth is flashed back directly from reality,
;

not through reminiscences of other writers. His poems

are the outcome of a mind that has fed on natural
beauty, gazing intently at its surroundings, near and
at the subdued chord of pale purple crocuses
far,
and brown sere leaves when the snow melts on the

dank sod breaks into flowers, or

at distant mountains solemn in the evening light, at
floating curtains of mist cleft by vaporous beams,
at clouds that seem to catch the reflected glare of
embers in the afterglow. But natural scenery is here

hill

tops and

the

always intertwined with personal feeling

example of

it

we

find in

a striking

Chrysanthemums

'
.

Where

those violets, those roses } Clouds drift and

the
birds
vanish,
fly afar, dead leaves pass away on
all the lingering
of
tears
in
a
burst
as
rainy squall
are

now

flowers are

now gathered

in the

cemetery.

They have
of a damp

the hues of sunset, and a faint smell, as

And they will deck all the graves of this
night.
churchyard, which is so beautiful to me since one

whom

loved

was

gathered, in Spring,
song,

all

brought here, after she had

on the sunlit slope, humming a

those violets,

all

those roses

'.

270

He

in

finds

nature

symbolical

meaning

the

mistletoe clinging to the apple-tree and slowly drying

up its vital sap is an emblem of the power of evil
that stealthily destroys

of man.

all

qualities in the heart

good

And

you, o tree, were pining away, and

and
and all
beauty
goodness ebbed out of you
the
of
juice
your fruit, the fragrance
your sweet colours,
'

of your blossoms are

of glue '.

now

enclosed in a sickly pearl

When we

turn to the work of his maturity we

a
perceive
striking change in subject and manner; it
coincides with his concern in contemporary events,
in the condition of the Italian people, in the glory

This interest supplied him with

matter, gave argument to his unflagging activity
and urged him to work upon a new line of thought. The
majorityof his later poems betrays this preoccupation of

of Italian interprise.

new

a loftier subject. In the two Odes, or rather

Hymns,

as

them. To the Duke of Abruzzi and To Umberto

he
treats of the heroes who faced obstacles
Cagni,

he

calls

and dangers

in the regions of the

North pole.

'

The

three masts point to the sky, as three cypresses from

the wind
a frozen ocean crushes the hull
a tomb
;

howls through the shrouds, in the night... The boreal

aurora is throbbing on high, green, shading into gold;
it

rises

into

and bursts

mystery

blazing,

And you

as

into
at

flames
silent

it

sinks

beckoning,

and hides
it

returns,

will-o'-the-wisp of an infinite cemetery.

heard the Genius of your race, Italy's

Genius, the sleepless, immortal Michael Angelo digging out of a block of lava some huge Twilight]
you, pioneers in the white porch of the world, you
certainly heard the echoes of his hammer in the

271

heard him toiling in the shimmer

It is the Genius of a noble
of the boreal aurora '.

universal

silence,

endowed with

race,

the

gift

of

self-sacrifice

and

have conquered the realm of Powers

and now they return from the land
hostile to man
covered with ice and everlasting clouds. They drove

these heroes

'

a winged sledge, amid

and

their

little

hoarse

gasping of dogs

company seemed but

a flight of sere
But already their leader

leaves drifting on the blast '.

had asserted their triumph with the simple grandeur
of mythical conquerors. And on the top of the world,
'

where he had won

the frozen

surge

his victory,

of

the

he raised a

sea was the

stela;

stone

of

and
its

There was no chanting of hymns only the

plinth.
dumb constellations were shining above the silent
around the stela, Bootes was slowly
Ausonians
;

turning the wheels of its golden chariot '.

In these later poems he often treats classical themes

and sings the glory of

his native land.

He remembers

that Vergil wrote his poem on the shores of a sea

on which the fateful exiles came to seek the ancient

A lingering star still gleamed

dawn.
'Italy, Italy!' you heard them
blushing
from
the
cry
prow, through the gasps of the panting
sea.
The ships advanced, black on the quivering,
reddening billows; and on the stern of one of them
a tall old man stood holding up a cup of wine in

mother of

his race (i).

'

in the

'

eyes raised to heaven.

Italy ',
and the sea was heaving with an eternal whisper'.

sacrificial

An

(i)

rite,

historical

his

interlude in his

Nuovi Poemetti, Bologna,

work

is

Le Canzoni

Zanichelli, 1918, p. 204.

272

Re Enzio^ a result of a pronounced characteristic

of the Romantic movement: the revival of the chivalry

di

and romance of the medieval world. The same tendency we see in Carducci's Canzone di Legnano^
with perhaps a more direct appeal to patriotic feeling.
In all these three
songs of Pascoli the ancient
'

'

matter

by a genuine
emotion
but by far the most noteworthy of them
for terse vigour of expression and highly imaginative
treatment is La Canzone dell Olifante (i). Re Enzo, a
prisoner in Bologna, hears the Chanson de Roland
subject

likewise

is

vivified

sung by a minstrel beneath the window, and, while

laisses
punctuated by the war-cry
listening to the
Aoi ', he dreams again the old imperial dream.
The sound of Roland's horn has reached Charles
thrice calls the oliphant, and Charlemagne is coming
'

'

'

back with

'

army. In the battle-encrimsoned

dale of Roncesvalles the warriors are lying among
his vast

black boulders, at the foot of black pines.

The glen
the night is clear with
is full of wild rose-bushes
Beside
lilies quiver in the red valley.
moonlight

each dead warrior his sword

is stuck upright in the

and they
the
with
sword
cross-shaped hilt
ground,
is
born
out of
lie supine with crossed arms.
lily

mouth of each dead knight each has a lily, so

And they will
emperor may know him
awake when Charlemagne arrives, and fight again to

the

that the

'.

victory.

From

the

first,

Pascoli

boundless cravings of the

(i)

Poemi

1914, p. 157.

italici e

saw

human

Canzoni di

and recognised

the

soul; they are always

re Enzio, Bologna, Zanichelli,

273

present to his mind, they constantly recur throughout

work. While in such a poem as The two Trees

his

his deepest convictions are only

dimly foreshadowed

and he does not give us the clue

to his inmost thought,

its prolongation being lost in darkness, in the ode To
the comet of Halley he clearly asserts his spiritualism-

Here the

figure of

awaking

in

Dante

us the

is boldly thrown into relief,

consciousness of our supreme

here nature has only a secondary

destinies;

man

signifi-

foremost; and we perceive the eternal

pulsation of the light of Life beneath the gloom and
ruins of the world of Matter.

cance

is

gone astray, perhaps you are seeking a

from the universe O wandering star, do
you remember this dark Earth ? Only eight of your
years have past since you, in a sombre evening, saw
one of our Earth, Dante. He too was wandering,
alone, hopeless, without a goal, an exile from his
native land and from himself
and, on his aimless
journey, he stopped, his ear struck by a melancholy
star

door to

flee

sound, far away.

And

you, comet, then just risen

from the abysses, you were blazing along the horizon.

He was listening to the distant vesper bell, that
seemed to weep. And you touched his brow with your

sinister ray,

you

shall

Earth

'
:

can shatter you. Earth

dissolve as a grey incense cloud, o black

And

Alone

and you said

you. Shadow,

why do you

'

stay

immense space he stood

in the

against you,
o star of death; he, a shepherd of mankind, replied:
I am one who thinks, and my morrow is Eternity
He saw the chasm full of raging winds, the flames
'

'.

and the
great
F.

ice

Olivero.

he heard the endless rumble of the

waters

and he descried the gleaming path

i8

274

stretched between the deep sepulchre and the stars.

He was the pilgrim of Mystery. And you pointed

out to him Death, and he killed the monster in his

powerful

The

clasp.

you were in the

your fiery mane

became wan;
only
you scourged with
reeking like a pyre, you showed
stars

pallid sky that

;

calamities to the Earth. But under your

threat his spirit arose and he ascended, as through
all

crimes,

all

an eternal moonlight in his wide open eyes died the

reflection of the mortal stars, and he saw Eternity *.
;

As

in the

poem which we have been

italici.

is

glorified in a passage of

The Divine Comedy was

in his

considering,

Poemi
and
La Mirabile Visione and Minerva

the figure of Dante

his lifelong study,

exegeses
Oscura (i)
he viewed it from an original standpoint.
Here (2) he shows us the poet in the forest of the

Earthly Paradise.
e

il

With

the song of the

singulto dell'acque andanti e

little

birds

ralmo

odor delle viole e de* ciclami,

accompagnato dal respiro calmo

del mare eterno, su per la pineta
veniva il suono d'un eterno salmo.
Venia Matelda

lieta oprando, lieta

cantando, con sue pause per un fiore^
sempre movendo verso il suo poeta.

Ora

la

selva antica deU'errore

e deU'esilio e d'ogni trista cosa,

splendea di gioia e sorridea d'amore.

(i)

See

also Sotto

il

Velame (1900) and Conferenze

Danteschi (1915).
(2)

Poemi

Italici, p. 64.

Studi

275
DaH'oriente acceso in color rosa,
il bianco velo,

cinta d'ulivo sopra

perennemente a
per
In

lui

trarlo in alto, al

The two

trees,

stormy November

the

scendea

la sposa,

Libano del
poet,

cielo

(i).

dreaming alone

twilight, finds

in a

himself confronted

by the supreme problems of existence a morbid

depression comes over him, and, when his attention
is arrested by two trees rising on the edge of a field,
;

in

the

in

the

of the

evening
glimmer, they become allegorical, awe-inspiring, giving
silence,

strangeness

him suggestions of mystery and terror. They become

of the perennial
symbols of two conflicting ideas
renewal in nature and of final, absolute annihilation.
A disquieting thought weighs on him, as, from his
:

little corner of the earth, he gazes into the abysm

of the starry heavens and considers the whole universe
ruled by a crushing law. He feels a sense of loneliness

like a
and despair in the immensity of the night
tells
the
wind
rumble of mighty wings coming near,
;

him of the

unknown

(i)

play

his

of

elemental

mind soars

in

forces

in

spaces empty of

regions
life,

in

'And with the sob of running waters, the sacred smell

and cyclamens, came through the pine-wood

of violets

the sound
accompanied by the calm breathing of the sea
of an eternal psalm. Matelda came, happy in her work,
joyfully singing, pausing now and then to pluck a flower;
and still she moved towards her poet. Now the ancient forest
of error, of exile, of all sad evil things, shone with joy and

smiled with love.

From

the East kindled into a rose colour,

the Bride, garlanded with olive sprays, upon a white veil,

descended to carry him on high to the Lebanon of Heaven '.

276

the limitless ether, and, shuddering, he catches whispers of remote worlds.

Now, o Wind, you only brush lightly the leaves,

some of them drop one
tear them away
in
some
swarms, like flights of
fly away
by one,
birds; when you toss them fiercely, the sky is filled
'

now you

with their rout, and, on the ground, among the clods,

there is a great rustling, an aimless fluttering of wings.

And now

have

all

dead; you know

down, and the day

fallen

Wind

it.

of

the

Dead!

is

The

In vain
leaves of one of the trees, departing, sing
the gale tears us from the boughs we shall return,
'

'

but the leaves of the

green again, with Spring
shall not come back with the
other tree moan
;

'

We

blooming of the year; we go away, wrapt in oblivion.

The tree is dead.
Life was but a fleeting mirage.

Adieu

for ever, adieu

'
!

The

day

is

dead and the

sad song too is dying away and the sky is glowing

And now both trees have
above the black earth.

in the

The wind

finds

way
hampered by leaves and by stars. And my
a great Shadow, a single tree. It rises out of a veil
of eternal mist, and fills up the infinite, stretching
disappeared

night.

its

soul sees

invisible branches from which hang, on all

the
sides,
worlds; and the branches shimmer with a
continuous quivering, and the leaves tremble, shaken

out

by

its

violent gusts;

and someone drops flickering through

Beneath the glistening crown

the cerulean chasms.

of the Universe,

hear, entranced, a shriek;

a leaf,

perhaps,
swings from a bough of the dead tree
And there is a kind of veiled despair in the contrast
between the life of nature and of man in the words
still

'.

addressed by the waves to the shipwrecked sailor

277

on

dead

lying

the

shore.

After

the

storm,

at

calm, and the waves come and go

they seem to rise behind one
softly whispering
another to better see a corpse lying on the strand
sunrise, the sea

is

'

Who is he } Does he sleep ?

and they speak.
I
don't know; he doesn't stir'. 'We, as humble slaves,
'

move

all

regretful

together, die together, here, with a sweet,

exist for an instant, we are
murmur.

We
We are

never the same.

singing, moaning billows.

is
wave
now
the
up there, singing
sighing
at
wave
is
now
feet.
You
your
laughing
weeping
sleep and you seem to open your arms in a dream.

The

We

'

are waves... coming... going... (i).

Elsewhere, in the symbolic poem Tke Book, he has
represented the inquisitive state of mind which is

who have no steady starting-point

researches and who therefore seek in vain

typical of thinkers
in their

for

frame of the Universe.

in the

harmony

remains hidden from them

The

clouds of doubt.

make up

his

mind, and

Truth

they are blinded by the

scientist cannot or will not
;

this uncertainty seals his lips;

drama is performed in silence. All the

main questions remain unanswered, all the problems,
which can but be solved by Revelation, unsolved.

the interior

Lume non
che non

si

od ombra

Here once more

with

unerring

e,

a difficult

Nuovi Poemetti,

subject is developed
stands open on a

The book

skill.

lectern, in the loft; the

(i)

se non vien dal sereno

turba mai; anzi e tenebra,

della came, o suo veleno.

winds enter through the doors

'

II

Naufrago \

p. 43.

278
ajar,

and

it

seems

as

though someone had come

in

'

a man, unseen, is
and were fingering the leaves
there, turning swiftly the pages from the first to the
;

and now turning them slowly backwards, to find

again the first; and then, in the rage of his fruitless
search, turning them over, twenty, thirty, a hundred
last;

at a time, with impatient

He

hand.

stops

Has he

what he is looking for? Is he reading?

and he turns anew the twisted leaves,
and begins anew to pursue truth. Thus he goes on
from sunset
darting its red beams from black
until
clouds, among wandering mutters of thunder
four^jd

One

at last

instant,

the sacred

night

For

appears with

ever.

And

its

desolate

constel-

feel

him, invisible like

the
amid
voices,
roaming
turning the pages
thought,
of the book of mystery, to and fro, under the stars '.

lations.

Apart from its classical background, the poem The

Voyage (i) is of the same type; Odysseus is a
dreamer and a seeker of the Absolute, and he is
baffled in his attempt; he dies in the pursuit of truth.

last

In spite of his daring, of the eagerness of his search,

of

the riddle
fable

life

remains unsolved.

sketched with

The Homeric

touches, setting into

relief the sombre cast of the Hellenic mind.
Ulysses
is

skilful

returned to Ithaca; but fate urges him to resume

when, after nine years, he goes to his
he
finds
his mariners who all the time had been
ship,
is

his travels

still fresh in their memory are the

waiting for him
wonders of their adventures, all adversities and troubles
are forgotten. As in Dante, as in Tennyson, Odysseus'
;

(i)

Poemi

Conviviali, Bologna, Zanichelli, 1904, p. 51.

279

words make them eager to meet with loftyendurance the perils of a long voyage.
Their soul
and they
assumed the blue hue of the horizon

stirring

'

saw the shadow of the Cyclops and heard the song

of Circe to the mountain one drove
countless as
;

the waves of the

sea

his

sheep

the other wove,

singing, the everlasting web as large as the ocean '.

They sail and see again the islands of the Lotos-

Dead, of the Sun, of the Winds;

eaters, of the

but,

weary of appearances, Ulysses remembers that his

aim is to find truth and that only the Sirens know
the meaning of life. Drifting on a current the vessel
comes to their isle, and two of them are descried in
the flowery
me the real

meadow

in the

midst of the ocean.

Tell

'

essence of my being
cries Odysseus
them
sphinx-like they dumbly stare at him
and the boat breaks on the reefs. The corpse of the
hero is borne to the shore of Calypso's island, and
the goddess weeps over him who had preferred the
to

mystery of human

life

to the gift of love

and eternal

youth.

The same thought

is

echoed

in

Alexandras

(i); as

case of Ulysses, the essential quality of his

character is a longing for the unknown; but, unlike

in the

the king of Ithaca, the Macedonian conqueror does

not die in the attempt. Experience teaches him that
truth lies beyond sense, that finite reality cannot
satisfy the infinite heart of

man. Alexander the Great

has reached the end of the world, the shore of the

Ocean, beyond which the earth vanishes into
'

river

(i)

Poemi

Convivialij p. 173.

28o

the refulgent night of heaven '.

of a fatal journey, beyond death

but this

it;

delusion.

dream

is

is

the end

poet sang to him

and he has done

Nothing and
;

He had

he weeps for
and dream

better stay in his country,

superior to reality.

II

sogno e

rinfinita

ombra

del vero.

he thinks, when a long way lay

was happier
before me, when before me were struggles, doubts,
the darkness of destiny, the unknown. Even at Pella
I was happier, when, in the
long evening, we pursued
'

'

',

the sun, that, through the black forests, always farther

and farther, glowed like a treasure '.
In

The good Message and

in

some poems of

similar character he gives us a series of visions born

of a deep religious mood, conceived in sweet med-

longing for the Eternal. His

no more composed of conflicting elements;

itation, in a passionate

poetry

is

no more lost in a tangle of perplexing thoughts

he is no more content to hint at his ground-ideas,
but sets them clearly before us. With lines of a softer
harmony, with colours grown brighter and purer, he
he

is

paints in the mystic luminousness of the landscape

the Saviour among children, among crowds filled with

an unknown

delight by His words, by the divine

the
countenance,
visage of great sorrow lit by an
interior flame of unquenchable Love.

This

kind

of

poetry

can

be

only

approached

through a process of simplification what it lacks in

no
ornaments, it gains in vitality and dignity
inmust
calm
intrude
in
the
declamatory phrases
;

flections of the poet's voice, in the simplified outlines

of the scene,

we recover something

of the intimacy

28l

which we associate with Primitives in art. Jesus is

sitting at evening on the hillside, where the olivethrow a tracery of quivering shadows on the
a vast
grass, and a vast whisper reaches His ear,
a
lake
as
of
and
He
saw
an
endless
murmuring,
trees

'

throng under the crimson sky, people lying on the

brink of ditches, in furrows, on the roads, scattered

sheep without a shepherd. And He thought of the

immense crop and of the hard work'.
He is pointing

out to His disciples the birds flying about and the

Look at the birds of the sky
flowers of the fields.
'

they have no sickles to

plunder the grapes

my

farm'.

came down

And

my

in

Rabbi:

the

in vain

And

Judas said: 'They

vineyard and the wheat in

reap...'

Ask

'O

you, for

the lark

it

whom

possesses but

earth, but so much in the sky! It soars,

contemplation, in song, up there, alone; and
what is its song.? The honey that is in the flower of

on the

little

lost in

life.

Because

there

is

no

no twig, but brings

plant,

blossoms,
appointed time, near purling
source or on silent pool, on moor or tilled field. And
the oak, that spreads a wide shade, has a tiny blossom,
at the

forth

and the cornflower, that has a slender stem, bears a

and the shaggy thistle is everlasting
larger bloom
and of the hue of the sky. There is no backward
life but flourishes at the proper time
and from the
;

thorny briar comes out the rose

Children are coming to the Saviour; and, as in the
preceding verses, the poet draws his effect from the
'.

their

dark heads.

He

He

pressed to His breast

clasped to His bosom His little

divine answer to Judas.

'

and Judas whispered rapidly: Rabbi, between

feet
your
you hold a thief's son Barabbas is the
'

heirs;

name

of his father,

who

shall die

He, raising His eyes, murmured:

child on His knees'.

'

on the cross'. But

No ', and took the

With fine touches is painted the vision of the dying

And the dead Virgins came,
nun, Sister Virginia (i).
with their lamps of fragrant oil, walking in a file,
clothed, like her, in white lawn, carrying in the pale
*

alabaster cups their sweet lives aglow; and they were

ascending, so that in a short time they were like a

white band floating in the breeze between the earth

and a star. Each of them bore the blood-mark of her

martyrdom on her white stole and she too had it,

heart.
Ursula was the first to reach the star,
and she knocked thrice with the stem of her lily
and on earth Sister Virginia heard three light tappings
at the great gate of Heaven
;

on her

'.

The scenery
the interest

is

a poem in which
of Paulo Ucello (2)
is lit by
centred round St Francis

bathed in
the glow of Verlaine's mystic landscapes
such a white splendour that the shadows themselves
'

are of a rose colour

that here

the

more

breathes

'.

The

from

freshness of inspiration

his

lines

is

very effective,

so that the

poem preserves in its wording

the grace of an archaic style. Paolo Ucello, a Franciscan friar and a painter, is so fond of nature that
and

he adorns the walls of his

cell

in fine perspective, willows

along a brook, cypresses

where yellow hung the

with fields
'

hills

on rocky slopes, orchards

pears on the pear-tree and the heart-shaped leaves

(i)
(2)

Primi Poemetti, Bologna,

Poemi Italici, p. 5.

Zanichelli, 1907, p. 89.

283

He Hkes birds, and,

of the ivy covered the pond '.
as he has no money to buy them, he pictures them
on the wall. But his love is too great; he is tempted
and wishes to possess a real bird. St Francis appears
and reproaches him; at the Saint's words the painted
birds start singing and the song of a nightingale fills
with delight the soul of the old artist.
The living influence of St Francis may be further

by a passage

illustrated

the Saint

tells

poem

where

(i),

Brother Leo the famous words recorded

in the Fioretti

another

in

pero

and founded on St Matthew, V, 10-12.

scrivi,

che se

il

male

al

mondo

meglio assai che farlo;

meglio che dare, e che ti diano; meglio
giacere Abel, che stare in pie' Caino.
E pero scrivi, che non e nel mondo
pregio maggiore, ch'essere dispetti,
e somigliare, in anco noi volere
resta, soffrirlo e

verghe,

beffe, gotate,

airuomo

La Buona

fiele e croce,

in terra ch'era

Dio nei

cieli {2).

Novella bears testimony to the Christian

thought that lies at the root of his best

The Good Message

(i)

(2)

(3) is in

Poemi Italic i, p. 54.

'And therefore write

it

two

parts.

down, that

if

poems.
In the

evil

still

first.

abides

to be
world, it is far better to suffer than to do it
to lie on the ground, with Abel,
stricken than to strike
than to stand, with Cain. And therefore write it down that

in the

is no higher prize in the world than to be despised,

wish also for us gibes, slaps, rods, gall and the cross, to
resemble the Man on earth, who was God in Heaven'.
La Buona Novella ', p. 199.
(3) Poemi Conviviali,

there
to

'

284

In the East, the shepherds

they lead a roaming
and their heart too is wandering, like the stars
life,
and their song, under
are singing in the night
'

'

'

the sky, at the foot of the world, was low, subdued,

nothing more than the chirping of a nestling fallen
on the ground at the foot of its tall cypress '. The
like a

God

'

looking, with stretched arms,

cross ', and says:
slender
white
Rejoice!
high
is descended on earth '. And the shepherds go

Angel appears

to them,

'

and seek
il

pastore

di taciturne costellazioni,

the Shepherd of silent constellations '. Led by the

angel, they enter a hut and ask for the Eternal, the
'

and are told that the Child will die

It is He
on a cross. But the universe answered
In the second part. In the West, Rome lies asleep
after the cruel emotions of the Circus; only one is
a gladiator, of the tribe of the Getae, and
awake
he is dying; they have dragged him mortally wounded
from the arena; and he is thinking of his native land,

Living One,

'

'

'

The Angel
the river Ister, his children, his wife.
comes from the sky of Judea to announce peace
;

Rome

hears him, in temple or palace or

nobody
in the Suburra.
Only the dying gladiator perceives
his words
Peace to men on earth and closes his
in

'

'

eyes in peace.

'

He

again to the dead,

alone

heard

it

and the dead told

but he said
it

to the

it

dead

and you, o seven hills, you did not know what

you well knew, o catacombs
He is master of a supple verse, and rhyme is
scarcely heard in the smooth flow of his lines; even
'.

285
'

he employs a fluent colloquial

language, interspersed with idioms and dialectal wofds.
the

in

'

terza rima

He

prefers the short-lined strophe or the tercet to

sonnet or the quatrain
yet there lingers with
and
him that love of alcaics
sapphics which derives

the

from

Carducci's

somewhat

laborious

imitation

of

His thoughts and images are cona

limpid medium; he is a scrupulous
veyed through
artist in the use of words, happy in the choice of
telling epithets. But his aim in poetry is not confined
classical metres.

within

the

narrow

of

He
thoughts.
clouds weigh

mere

the
formality
vibrant with lofty
'I felt the
says, in The Skylark (\)\
I heard the
on
soul
and
heavily
my
limits

singer's voice must be, above

all,

echo of a clear song, higher than the clouds. O

skylark, you sing where your carolling may be alone
and sincere, where, above the cloud-rack, there is
nothing to steal from you the sunshine. And I wish,
like you, to raise a pure, strong hymn, above sorrow,
higher than destiny, beyond death '.

spiritual radiance

permeates the work of Pascoli

produced by a pure and impassioned appreciation

of life, by sympathy with the humble, by the continual

it is

In the lines entitled

suggestion of the supernatural.
Poesia^ which are a synthesis of his whole work, he

has manifested the ideals by which poetry must be

I am the
inspired in order to fulfil its true purpose.
'

I am the lamp
lamp burning with a sweet glow
hanging from smoky rafters, over women who are
spinning, and I listen to stories told by lips hidden
!

(i)

Canti di Castelvecchio, Bologna, Zanichelli, 1903, p.

8.

286
in darkness, behind the white glimmer of distaffs
I am the
laden with wool.
lamp swinging before a

sweet image of Mary, and

my

ray kindles in the sad

evening shadows the lonely tear on the eyelashes of

I am the
one who is praying.
light shedding its
gleam upon a cradle, the frail bark about to cross

the sea of

life,

deep sepulchres,

the

am

the

lamp

that

gaunt

faces

of old

long lingering smile of fair-haired

visage of your mother '.

illumines, in

men, the
maidens, and the

tfsmm^

^a^ffe/-

O ^ Ar\

'jy^

340