by Various
Agonise l’Agneau déchiré par la haine,
Celui-là qui donnait son âme et sa maison.
Jésus bêle un pardon suprême en la tempête
Où ses os tracassés crissent comme un essieu,
Cependant que le sang qui pleure de sa tête
Emperle de corail sa souffrance de Dieu.
Golgotha
The sky wrapped in the darkness of its saddest apparel crouches low over the universal drama of the peak. The violent triangle of the guards’ weapon at the end of its wooden shaft looks like a viper’s tongue.
Among nails, between two wolves with human faces, quivering like a haunch of venison the Lamb is in his agony lacerated by hatred, the one who gave his soul and his house.
Jesus bleats out an ultimate word of forgiveness into the storm in which his bones in turmoil grate like an axle, while the blood that weeps from his head crowns with coral pearls his Divine suffering.
Dans le ravin, Judas, crapaud drapé de toiles,
Balance ses remords sous un arbre indulgent,
– Et l’on dit que là-haut sont mortes les étoiles
Pour ne plus ressembler à des pièces d’argent.
In the gully, Judas, a toad draped in linen, rocks his remorse beneath an indulgent tree – And it is said that die stars above died to resemble pieces of silver no longer.
Alouettes
Les coups de ciseaux gravissent l’air.
Déjà le crêpe de mystère que jetèrent les fantômes du vêpre sur la chair fraîche de la vie, déjà le crêpe de ténèbres est entamé sur la campagne et sur la ville.
Les coups de ciseaux gravissent l’air.
Ouïs-tu pas la cloche tendre du bon Dieu courtiser de son tisonnier de bruit les yeux, ces belles-de-jour, les yeux blottis dessous les cendres de la nuit?
Larks
Scissor cuts ascend the air.
Already the mourning veil of mystery cast by the vesper spectres over the fresh flesh of life, already the mourning veil of darkness is pierced above the country and the town.
Scissor cuts ascend the air.
Do you not hear the tender bell of the good Lord wooing the eyes with its poker of sound, those convolvuli, the eyes huddled under the ashes of the night?
Les coups de ciseaux gravissent l’air.
Surgis donc du somme où comme morts nous sommes, ô Mienne, et pavoise ta fenêtre avec les lis, la pêche et les framboises de ton être.
Les coups de ciseaux gravissent l’air.
Viens-t’en sur la colline où les moulins nolisent leurs ailes de lin, viens-t’en sur la colline de laquelle on voit jaillir des houilles éternelles le diamant divin de la vaste alliance du ciel.
Les coups de ciseaux gravissent l’air.
Du faîte emparfumé de thym, lavande, romarin, nous assisterons, moi la caresse, toi la fleur, à la claire et sombre fête des heures sur l’horloge où loge lc destin, et nous regarderons là-bas passer le sourire du monde avec son ombre longue de douleur.
Les coups de ciseaux gravissent l’air.
Scissor cuts ascend the air.
Rise up then from the slumber where we are as if dead, O my Love, and deck your window with the lilies, the peach and the raspberries of your being.
Scissor cuts ascend the air.
Come away to the hillside where the mills are freighting their flaxen sails, come away to the hillside whose eternal coals spurt forth before our eyes the divine diamond of the vast weddingring of the sky.
Scissor cuts ascend the air.
From the summit scented with thyme, with lavender, with rosemary, we will be present, I the caress, you the flower, at the bright and dark festival of the hours on the clock where destiny lives, and there we will watch as the smile of the world passes with its long shadow of grief.
Scissor cuts ascend the air.
La Carafe d’eau pure
A Jules Renard
Sur la table d’un bouge noir où l’on va boire du vin rouge.
Tout est sombre et turpitude entre ces quatre murs.
La mamelle de cristal, seule, affirme la merveille de son eau candide.
A-t-elle absorbé la lumière plénière de céans qu’elle brille ainsi, comme tombée de l’annulaire d’un archange?
The Carafe of pure water
for Jules Renard
On the table of a black den where men go to drink red wine.
All is dark and depravity between those four walls. The crystal breast, alone, asserts the marvel of its innocent water. Has it absorbed the entire light within this place for it to shine as it does, as if fallen from the ring-finger of an archangel?
Dès le seuil de la sentine sa vue m’a suggéré le sac d’argent sage que lègue à sa louche filleule une ingénue marraine ayant cousu toute la vie.
Voici que s’évoque une Phryné d’innocence, jaillie d’un puits afin d’aveugler les Buveurs de sa franchise.
En effet j’observe que la crapule appréhende la vierge…
Il se fait comme une crainte d’elle…
Les ronces des prunelles glissent en tangentes sournoises sur sa panse…
Le crabe des mains, soucieuses d’amender leur gêne, va cueillir les flacons couleurs de sang…
Mais la Carafe, aucun ne la butine.
Quelle est donc sa farouche vertu?
From the threshold of the place of iniquity the sight of it suggested to me the prudent bag of silver bequeathed to her degenerate goddaughter by an artless godmother after a lifetime of sewing. And now a Phryne1 of innocence is evoked, springing forth from a well to blind the Drinkers with her candour. Indeed I observe that the vile rabble are fearful of the virgin… A certain dread of her arises… The brambles of eyeballs insinuate themselves slyly and tangentially over her stomach… The hand crab, anxious to correct their discomfort, goes gathering blood-coloured flasks…
But no one plunders the Carafe.
What then is its reticent virtue?
Viendrait-elle, cette eau, des yeux de vos victimes, Buveurs, et redoutez-vous que s’y reflètent vos remords, ou bien ne voulez-vous que soient éteints les brasiers vils de vos tempes canailles?
Et je crus voir leur Conscience sur la table du bouge noir où l’on va boire du vin rouge!
Could it come, this water, from the eyes of your victims, Drinkers, and do you fear in it the reflection of your remorse, or is it that you do not want the foul burning coals of your riff-raff temples to be extinguished?
And I seemed to see their Conscience on the table of the black den where men go to drink red wine!
A Renewal of Lyricism
French poetry at the turn of the century reacted in a number of ways against the aesthetic refinements of Symbolism. The most radical and far-reaching changes were initiated by the poets of the city-based Cubist and Modernist movements (see page 511), but another tendency also deserves some recognition. The works which follow by Toulet, Jammes and Fort are part of a widespread desire to restore to French verse an element of spontaneous and unaffected lyricism. This involves a renewal of contact with the organic world, a sensitivity to the natural rhythms of human life, an awareness of the experience, culture and traditional wisdom of ordinary people. In Parisian circles such poets were often belittled for their alleged provincialism and unsophistication, but they struck a chord with a substantial section of the reading public, and indeed the work of that most Parisian of ladies, Anna de Noailles, shares many of their characteristics.
Paul-Jean Toulet
(1867–1920)
Toulet was probably the most talented and durable member of a group known as the Fantaisistes, that included Francis Carco, Franc-Nohain, Jehan Rictus, Tristan Derème and Jean Pellerin. These poets, whose influence is discernible in Jacob and Apollinaire, were determined (as was Jammes) to reintroduce simple popular lyricism into French verse. They renewed the traditions of ballad, fable, humour, satire, sentiment, eroticism, and the witty use of the vernacular. Tending towards an understated and elegiac tone, they di
luted rhyme in favour of assonance.
Toulet himself was a rather self-destructive dandy. His origins were in south-western France, but after travelling in Africa and the Far East he became known in Parisian literary circles, and ‘burned himself out’ rapidly on alcohol, drugs and nocturnal living, chronicling this existence in novels and journalism. He was a poet of great if slightly precious technical skill, and a lively blend of traditional lyricism and modern irony characterizes his work. His principal work is contained in Contrerimes, published after his death. The ‘contrerime’ is an original form, composed of two or three quatrains with lines of 8 and 6 syllables (or occasionally 6 and 4) in rhyming combination. This economical structure has both strength and nonchalance, and Toulet has the capacity to expand a fleeting experience into a complexity and depth that satisfy both intuition and intellect. Other poems are classified as ‘chansons’ and ‘coples’.
Contrerimes
XL
L’immortelle et l’œillet de mer
Qui pousse dans le sable,
La pervenche trop périssable,
Ou ce fenouil amer
Qui craquait sous la dent des chèvres,
Ne vous en souvient-il,
Ni de la brise au sel subtil
Qui nous brÛlait aux lèvres?
Counter-Rhymes
XL
The immortelle and the sea pink that grows in the sand, the all too fragile periwinkle, or that bitter fennel
Crackling between the goats’ teeth, have you no memory of them, nor of the keen salt breeze that burned our lips?
XLV
Molle rive dont le dessin
Est d’un bras qui se plie,
Colline de brume embellie
Comme se voile un sein,
Filaos au chantant ramage–
Que je meure et, demain,
Vous ne serez plus, si ma main
N’a fixé votre image.
LXIII
Toute allégresse a son défaut
Et se brise elle-même.
Si vous voulez que je vous aime,
Ne riez pas trop haut.
C’est à voix basse qu’on enchante
Sous la cendre d’hiver
Ce cœur, pareil au feu couvert,
Qui se consume et chante.
XLV
Soft shore whose contour is that of a bending arm, hillside adorned with haze as a breast is veiled,
Casuarina trees with your singing boughs – I may die and, tomorrow, you will be no more, if my hand has not made fast your image.
LXIII
Every surge of joy has its flaw and shatters of its own accord. If you would have me love you, do not laugh too loudly.
It is in hushed tones beneath the winter ashes that this heart is captivated, this heart like a blanketed fire which smoulders and sings.
LXX
La vie est plus vaine une image
Que l’ombre sur le mur.
Pourtant l’hiéroglyphe obscur
Qu’y trace ton passage
M’enchante, et ton rire pareil
Au vif éclat des armes;
Et jusqu’à ces menteuses larmes
Qui miraient le soleil.
Mourir non plus n’est ombre vaine.
La nuit, quand tu as peur,
N’écoute pas battre ton cœur:
C’est une étrange peine.
LXX
Life is an image hollower than the shadow on the wall. Yet the mysterious hieroglyph inscribed there as you pass
Enthralls me, and your laughter like the vivid lustre of weapons; and even those deceitful tears that mirrored the sun.
Nor is dying a hollow shadow. At night, when you are afraid, do not listen to your beating heart: it is a strange affliction.
Chanson: Le Temps d’Adonis
Dans la saison qu’Adonis fut blessé,
Mon cœur aussi de l’atteinte soudaine
D’un regard lancé.
Hors de l’abyme où le temps nous entraîne,
T’évoquerai-je, ô belle, en vain – ô vaines
Ombres, souvenirs.
Ah! dans mes bras qui pleurais demi-nue,
Certe serais encore, à revenir.
Ah! la bienvenue.
Song: The Time of Adonis
In the season when Adonis was wounded, my heart likewise by the sudden assault of a projected glance.
Out of the abyss into which time drags us, shall I recall you, O my beauty, in vain – O empty shadows, memories.
Ah! who wept half-naked in my arms, would surely still be, returning, ah! so welcome.
Cople CVII
C’est Dimanche aujourd’hui. L’air est couleur du miel.
Le rire d’un enfant perce la cour aride:
On dirait un glaîeul élancé vers le ciel.
Un orgue au loin se tait. L’heure est plate et sans ride.
Copla1 CVII
It is Sunday today. The air is honey-coloured, a child’s laughter pierces the sterile courtyard: as if it were a gladiolus launched towards the sky. A distant organ ceases. The hour is smooth, with no ripple.
Francis Jammes
(1868–1938)
Jammes was essentially a pastoral poet of the Pyrenees region, and received inadequate recognition in Paris. With his intimate Catholicism, his love of familiar natural things and contempt for artifice and intellectualism, and his direct, strong and supple style, he brought a breath of fresh air and popular appeal into French poetry after the elitist, esoteric and stylized experiments of Symbolism. This impulse was known at the time as ‘le Jammisme’.
Receptive to all natural stimuli, perceiving God in plants and animals without the verbosity of the Romantic pantheists, he is sincere to a disconcerting degree. But his unpretentiousness should not be confused with naîvety, for there is wit and refinement in his apparent primitivism, something of Chagall and Douanier Rousseau, a charming ‘gaucherie’ that is at least partly deliberate.
It is sometimes argued that he courts bathos too closely, but that is a matter of taste.
Perhaps the best volumes in a prolific output are: Vers 1892–93–94, La Naissance du poète 1897, De l’Angélus de l’aube à l’Angélus du soir 1898, Le Deuil des primevères 1901, Tristesses 1905, Clairières dans le Ciel 1906, Poèmes mesurés 1908, Rayons de miel 1908, La Vierge et les sonnets 1919, Livres des quatrains 1922–23–24-25, Diane 1928, Alouette 1935, etc.
J’aime dans les temps…
J’aime dans les temps Clara d’Ellébeuse,
l’écolière des anciens pensionnats,
qui allait, les soirs chauds, sous les tilleuls
lire les magazines d’autrefois.
Je n’aime qu’elle, et je sens sur mon cœur
la lumière bleue de sa gorge blanche.
Où est-elle! Où était donc ce bonheur?
Dans sa chambre claire il entrait des branches.
Elle n’est peut-être pas encore morte
– ou peut-être que nous l’étions tous deux.
La grande cour avait des feuilles mortes
dans le vent froid des fins d’Étés très vieux.
I love in times gone by…
I love in times gone by Clara d’Ellébeuse, the girl at old private boarding schools, who used to walk beneath the linden trees, on warm evenings, to read the magazines of bygone days.
I love only her, and I feel on my heart the blue light of her white breasts. Where is she? So where was that happiness? Into her bright room branches came.
Perhaps she is not yet dead – or perhaps we both were dead. The big yard had dead leaves in the cold wind of Summers’ endings long ago.
Te souviens-tu de ces plumes de paon,
dans un grand vase, auprès de coquillages?…
on apprenait qu’on avait fait naufrage,
on appelait Terre-Neuve: le Banc.
Viens, viens, ma chère Clara d’Ellébeuse:
aimons-nous encore si tu existes.
Le vieux jardin a de
vieilles tulipes.
Viens toute nue, ô Clara d’Ellébeuse.
Do you remember those peacock feathers, in a tall vase, beside shells?… we learned that there had been a shipwreck, we called Newfoundland: the Banks.
Come, come, my precious Clara d’Ellébeuse: let us love still if you exist. The old garden has old tulips. Come quite naked, O Clara d’Ellébeuse.
Prière pour aller au Paradis avec les ânes
Lorsqu’il faudra aller vers vous, ô mon Dieu, faites
que ce soit par un jour où la campagne en fête
poudroiera. Je désire, ainsi que je fis ici-bas,
choisir un chemin pour aller, comme il me plaira,
au Paradis, où sont en plein jour les étoiles.
Je prendrai mon bâton et sur la grande route
j’irai, et je dirai aux ânes, mes amis:
Je suis Francis Jammes et je vais au Paradis,
car il n’y a pas d’enfer au pays du Bon Dieu.
Je leur dirai: Venez, doux amis du ciel bleu,
pauvres bêtes chéries qui, d’un brusque mouvement d’oreille,
chassez les mouches plates, les coups et les abeilles…