The Penguin Book of French Poetry Read online

  As the Romantic movement developed in the 1830s and 1840s, there was a clear divergence in the ranks of what had always been in any case a loose-knit group of individuals rather than a cohesive school. Some, notably Hugo, Lamartine and Vigny, saw the poet as an integrated element in society, a responsible seer and spokesman for the people, with a role to play in socio-political progress. This reformist yet ‘bourgeois’ conception was rejected with increasing vehemence and contempt by those who were disillusioned with politics and for whom art had become a superior form of existence with no utilitarian application. A first generation of ‘maudits’ (Musset, Nerval, Borel, Forneret, Bertrand) began to scandalize the middle classes by their appearance, their morals, their aesthetics and their despair. Many more visionary outcasts would later follow the anti-social path, compensating for their sense of exile by an increasingly ‘occult’ view of poetic creativity as a magical operation.

  A third attitude, that of pure, sober, undemonstrative dedication to art as both craft and sublime activity, and as the only value worth considering in life, was to be struck by Gautier, by the Parnassians, and by Mallarmé and his disciples. These poets too would have regarded any political ‘engagement’ as a prostitution of their gifts.

  Some poets of the Romantic period for whom there is no room in this anthology, but of interest to students of the movement: Casimir Delavigne, Auguste Barbier, Auguste Brizeux, Félix Arvers, Maurice de Guérin.

  The following group might be called the ‘wild bunch’ of socially rebellious, even rather satanic poets. Their work is uneven, sometimes visionary and ‘automatic’, prompting the interest of the Surrealists nearly a century later: Aloysius Bertrand (a prose poet), Xavier Forneret, Pétrus Borel, Philothée O’Neddy (an anagram of Théophile Dondey), Alphonse Esquiros.

  Alphonse de Lamartine

  (1790–1869)

  Lamartine was born into a Royalist and devout family. A solitary and sensitive youth whose health was poor, he read widely in English, German and classical literature, and was strongly influenced by the writings of Rousseau and Chateaubriand, together with the stimulus given to French Romanticism by the intellectual activity of Madame de Staël. He travelled to Italy (a sine qua non for Romantic poets) in 1811–12, and was an aide to Louis XVIII during the brief Bourbon restoration before Waterloo.

  The major love affair of his life, which gave rise to his finest work, began in 1816 at Aix-les-Bains. His relationship with Madame Julie Charles was brief, idyllic and tragic. She died of tuberculosis in December 1817.

  Finding some consolation in religion and in contemplation of Nature, he composed the Méditations poétiques. Published in 1820, this volume brought him rapid success, especially among young readers who responded to his new personal and spiritual note; but its quality was rarely matched in his later verse, which is more epic and philosophical in character. He moved via diplomacy into politics, and from the Catholic conservatism of his youth to a moderate and reformist Republican stance characterized by consistent idealism. He was a député from 1833, and headed the government briefly during the turbulent events of 1848, but lost popular support and ended his life in poverty, something of a literary hack.

  His elegiac Méditations, with their aspiration to eternity and their atmosphere of muted grief, suggest a strong intuitive relationship with Nature and with God. While the poet-craftsman still works in an essentially classical mode of versification, the sensitive soul finds a new musical expression of its longings and its pain. Memory is associated evocatively with place, in the creation of a ‘paysage intérieur’ through soft alliteration, mellow fluidity of vowel sounds, and gentle variations on a semi-soporific Alexandrine rhythm. Though it is possible to view him as a transitional figure, Lamartine’s place as the first Romantic poet in France seems assured by a sustained tone of unaffected pathos, by harmony of form and content, and by his thematic emphases on love and loss and on the natural as a mirror of the divine. The influence of his musicality was later to be acknowledged by Verlaine and the Symbolists.

  Le Lac

  Ainsi, toujours poussés vers de nouveaux rivages,

  Dans la nuit éternelle emportés sans retour,

  Ne pourrons-nous jamais sur l’océan des âges

  Jeter l’ancre un seul jour?

  O lac! l’année à peine a fini sa carrière,

  Et près des flots chéris qu’elle devait revoir

  Regarde! je viens seul m’asseoir sur cette pierre

  Où tu la vis s’asseoir!

  Tu mugissais ainsi sous ces roches profondes;

  Ainsi tu te brisais sur leurs flancs déchirés:

  Ainsi le vent jetait l’écume de tes ondes

  Sur ses pieds adorés.

  Un soir, t’en souvient-il? nous voguions en silence;

  On n’entendait au loin, sur l’onde et sous les cieux,

  Que le bruit des rameurs qui frappaient en cadence

  Tes flots harmonieux.

  The Lake

  And so, driven on ceaselessly towards new shores, carried beyond return into eternal darkness, shall we never cast anchor for a single day in the ocean of time?

  O lake! the year has scarce run its course, and by the cherished waves that she was meant to see again, see now! I come alone to sit upon this stone where you saw her sit!

  Then as now you moaned beneath these plunging rocks; you broke against their jagged flanks; the wind sprayed the foam of your waves on her beloved feet.

  One evening, do you remember? we were sailing in silence, hearing over the waters and beneath the heavens only the distant rhythmic beat of oarsmen on your harmonious waves.

  Tout à coup des accents inconnus à la terre

  Du rivage charmé frappèrent les échos;

  Le flot fut attentif, et la voix qui m’est chère

  Laissa tomber ces mots:

  “O temps, suspends ton vol! et vous, heures propices,

  Suspendez votre cours!

  Laissez-nous savourer les rapides délices

  Des plus beaux de nos jours!

  “Assez de malheureux ici-bas vous implorent:

  Coulez, coulez pour eux;

  Prenez avec leurs jours les soins qui les dévorent;

  Oubliez les heureux.

  “Mais je demande en vain quelques moments encore,

  Le temps m’échappe et fuit;

  Je dis à cette nuit: “Sois plus lente”; et l’aurore

  Va dissiper la nuit.

  Suddenly a voice, its strains unknown on earth, struck echoes from the enchanted shore; the waters listened, and that precious voice let fall these words:

  ‘O timc, suspend your flight! and you, fortunate hours, stay your journey! Let us savour the fleeting delights of the finest of our days!

  Enough unhappy beings here below invoke you: flow on, flow on for them; remove their consuming cares as you take away their days; forget the happy ones.

  But I ask in vain for a few moments more, time escapes me and slips away; I say to this night: “Pass more slowly”; and dawn will soon dissolve the night.

  “Aimons donc, aimons donc! de l’heure fugitive,

  Hâtons-nous, jouissons!

  L’homme n’a point de port, le temps n’a point de rive;

  Il coule, et nous passons!”

  Temps jaloux, se peut-il que ces moments d’ivresse,

  Où l’amour à longs flots nous verse le bonheur,

  S’envolent loin de nous de la même vitesse

  Que les jours de malheur?

  Hé quoi! n’en pourrons-nous fixer au moins la trace?

  Quoi! passés pour jamais? quoi! tout entiers perdus?

  Ce temps qui les donna, ce temps qui les efface,

  Ne nous les rendra plus?

  Étemité, néant, passé, sombres abîmes,

  Que faites-vous des jours que vous engloutissez?

  Parlez: nous rendrez-vous ces extases sublimes

  Que vous nous ravissez?

  Let us love then, let us love! be q
uick to enjoy the fleeting hour! Mankind has no harbour, time has no shore; it flows, and we pass on!’

  Jealous time, can it be that these intoxicating moments, when love pours happiness into us in long draughts, fly far from us as swiftly as days of misery?

  What! can we not grasp and hold at least their impression? What! gone for ever? What! entirely lost? Will time that gave them, time that effaces them, never give them back to us?

  Eternity, nothingness, past, dark chasms, what do you do with the days that you engulf? Speak: will you give back those sublime ecstasies that you steal from us?

  O lac! rochers muets! grottes! forêt obscure!

  Vous que le temps épargne ou qu’il peut rajeunir,

  Gardez de cette nuit, gardez, belle nature,

  Au moins le souvenir!

  Qu’il soit dans ton repos, qu’il soit dans tes orages,

  Beau lac, et dans l’aspect de tes riants coteaux,

  Et dans ces noirs sapins, et dans ces rocs sauvages

  Qui pendent sur tes eaux!

  Qu’il soit dans le zéphyr qui frémit et qui passe,

  Dans les bruits de tes bords par tes bords répétés,

  Dans l’astre au front d’argent qui blanchit ta surface

  De ses molles clartés!

  Que le vent qui gémit, le roseau qui soupire,

  Que les parfums légers de ton air embaumé,

  Que tout ce qu’on entend, l’on voit ou l’on respire,

  Tout dise: “Ils ont aimé!”

  O lake! wordless rocks! caves! dark forest! You who are untouched or made young again by time, cherish, fair nature, cherish at least the memory of that night!

  Let it be in your calmness, let it be in your storms, lovely lake, and in the face of your laughing hillsides, and in these black pines, and in these wild rocks that overhang your waters!

  Let it be in the zephyr which trembles and passes on, in the sounds of your shores which your shores re-echo, in the silver-browed star which whitens your surface with its soft glimmer!

  Let the moaning wind, the sighing reed, the gentle scents of your fragrant air, let all that is heard, seen or breathed, let all say: ‘They loved!’

  Le Vallon

  Mon cœur, lassé de tout, même de l’espérance,

  N’ira plus de ses voeux importuner le sort;

  Prêtez-moi seulement, vallon de mon enfance,

  Un asile d’un jour pour attendre la mort.

  Voici l’étroit sentier de l’obscure vallée:

  Du flanc de ces coteaux pendent des bois épais,

  Qui, courbant sur mon front leur ombre entremêlêe,

  Me couvrent tout entier de silence et de paix.

  Là, deux ruisseaux cachés sous des ponts de verdure

  Tracent en serpentant les contours du vallon;

  Ils mêlent un moment leur onde et leur murmure,

  Et non loin de leur source ils se perdent sans nom.

  The Vale

  My heart, weary of all things, even of hope, will trouble fate no more with its wishes; grant me only, vale of my childhood, refuge for one day to wait for death.

  Here is the narrow path through the dark valley: from these hillsides hang dense woodlands which, bending over my brow their shade of blended colours, cloak me entirely in silence and peace.

  There, two streams, hidden under bridges of greenery, wind as they trace the contours of the valley; they mingle for a moment their waters and their murmur, and not far from their source they are lost without name.

  La source de mes jours comme eux s’est écoulée;

  Elle a passé sans bruit, sans nom et sans retour:

  Mais leur onde est limpide, et mon âme troublée

  N’aura pas réfléchi les clartés d’un beau jour.

  La fraîcheur de leurs lits, l’ombre qui les couronne,

  M’enchaînent tout le jour sur les bords des ruisseaux;

  Comme un enfant bercé par un chant monotone,

  Mon âme s’assoupit au murmure des eaux.

  Ah! c’est là qu’entouré d’un rempart de verdure,

  D’un horizon borné qui suffit à mes yeux,

  J’aime à fixer mes pas, et, seul dans la nature,

  A n’entendre que l’onde, à ne voir que les cieux.

  J’ai trop vu, trop senti, trop aimé dans ma vie;

  Je viens chercher vivant le calme du Léthé.

  Beaux lieux, soyez pour moi ces bords où l’on oublie:

  L’oubli seul désormais est ma félicité.

  The source of my days has passed away like them; it has passed without sound, without name, with no return: but their waters are limpid, and my clouded soul will never have reflected the clear light of a beautiful day.

  The freshness of their beds, the shade which wreathes them, hold me all day long on the banks of the streams; like a child rocked by an unchanging song, my soul is lulled by the waters’ murmur.

  Ah! there, surrounded by a rampart of greenery, by a limited horizon, enough for my eyes, I love to direct my steps, and, alone in nature, to hear only the waters, to see only the skies.

  I have seen too much, felt too much, loved too much in my life; I come to seek, still living, the calm of Lethe. Lovely place, be for me those banks of oblivion: to forget is my only happiness now.

  Mon coeur est en repos, mon âme est en silence;

  Le bruit lointain du monde expire en arrivant,

  Comme un son éloigné qu’affaiblit la distance,

  A l’oreille incertaine apporté par le vent.

  D’ici je vois la vie, à travers un nuage,

  S’évanouir pour moi dans l’ombre du passé;

  L’amour seul est resté, comme une grande image

  Survit seul au réveil dans un songe effacé.

  Repose-toi, mon âme, en ce dernier asile,

  Ainsi qu’un voyageur qui, le coeur plein d’espoir,

  S’assied, avant d’entrer, aux portes de la ville,

  Et respire un moment l’air embaumé du soir.

  Comme lui, de nos pieds secouons la poussière;

  L’homme par ce chemin ne repasse jamais:

  Comme lui, respirons au bout de la carrière

  Ce calme avant-coureur de l’éternelle paix.

  My heart is at peace, my soul is quiet; the distant noise of the world dies away as it reaches me, like a faraway sound weakened by distance, carried by the wind to an uncertain ear.

  From here I see life, through a cloud, fading into the shadows of the past; love alone remains, as one great image alone survives our waking from a vanished dream.

  Rest, my soul, in this last refuge, as a traveller, his heart full of hope, sits before entering the gates of the city, and breathes for a moment the scented air of evening.

  Like him, let us shake the dust from our feet; man never passes this way again: like him, let us breathe at the end of life’s course this calm that heralds eternal peace.

  Tes jours, sombres et courts comme les jours d’automne,

  Déclinent comme l’ombre au penchant des coteaux;

  L’amitié te trahit, la pitié t’abandonne,

  Et, seule, tu descends le sentier des tombeaux.

  Mais la nature est là qui t’invite et qui t’aime;

  Plonge-toi dans son sein qu’elle t’ouvre toujours:

  Quand tout change pour toi, la nature est la même,

  Et le même soleil se lève sur tes jours.

  De lumière et d’ombrage elle t’entoure encore:

  Détache ton amour des faux biens que tu perds;

  Adore ici l’écho qu’adorait Pythagore,

  Prête avec lui l’oreille aux célestes concerts.

  Suis le jour dans le ciel, suis l’ombre sur la terre;

  Dans les plaines de l’air vole avec l’aquilon;

  Avec le doux rayon de l’astre du mystère

  Glisse à travers les bois dans l’ombre du vallon.

  Your days, dark and brief like the days of autumn, are waning like the
shadow on the hillsides; friendship betrays you, pity abandons you, and you descend alone the pathway to the graves.

  But nature is there, inviting you, loving you; plunge into her ever-open bosom: when for you all is changing, nature stays the same, and the same sun rises on your days.

  With light and shade she surrounds you still: unbind your love from the false possessions you are losing; worship here the echo that Pythagoras worshipped, give ear with him to the heavenly harmonies.

  Follow the daylight in the sky, follow the darkness on the earth; fly with the north wind in the plains of the air; with the soft beam of the star of mystery slip through the woods in the shade of the valley.

  Dieu, pour le concevoir, a fait l’intelligence:

  Sous la nature enfin découvre son auteur!

  Une voix à l’esprit parle dans son silence:

  Qui n’a pas entendu cette voix dans son cœur?

  God made intelligence to conceive it: discover at last within nature her creator! A voice in the silence speaks to the spirit: who has not heard this voice in his heart?

  Marceline Desbordes-Valmore

  (1786–1859)

  From a life of emotional torment and financial struggle Marceline Desbordes-Valmore distilled a poetry of remarkable lyrical force. Disappointed in her marriage to a mediocre actor, she drew emotional nourishment from a secret affair (probably with Henri de Latouche, a minor poet).

  Her poems of love, motherhood, friendship, faith and loss were admired by more famous contemporaries, and later by Verlaine and the Symbolists who valued in her verse a delicate musicality of sound and rhythm, a freshness of imagery and an absence of rhetoric. Not highly educated, she wrote with a compulsive spontaneity: ‘The music revolved in my afflicted mind, and a steady beat structured my ideas independently of reflection.’