Hard coin a workman steals us
Out of earth's prisoning
Reveals us

The features of a king.

The very gods are waning:
Lo! still verse royal is
Remaining

Past brazen images.

Be thy work carved on, graved in,
So shall vague dreams sublime

Be saved in

Blocks that outrival Time.

That is an instance where I have felt myself bound to be not only rhythmically but syllabically accurate throughout. If one's ears are not charmed as with Gautier's own music, one sees at least the precise shape and size of the poem, and apprehends its laboured and exquisite finish,' which no other form would quite avail to show.

I have chosen the following translation of Madame de Castellana's Vous et Moi, as a short and facile sample of the typical modern song, to contrast with Gautier's elaboration, and introduce some echo of a special feminine charm :

Your eyes, serene and pure, have deigned to look upon me,
Your hand, a fluttering bird, has lingered in my hands;
And yet the words I would-alas!—have all foregone me,
Because your way and mine lie through such alien lands.

You are the rising sun that fair day follows after,

And I the deep of night, the gloomy clouds and grey:
You are a flow'r, a star, a burst of tuneful laughter,
I am December drear, and you the merry May!

You steep yourself in rays and breathe the breath of roses,
For you are dawn of day and I the twilight set;
Needs must we say farewell, ere time the why discloses,
For you are very Love, and I am Love's regret.

We have reached de Musset at last; for though he should perhaps have preceded Victor Hugo as the past precedes the present, he seems always the youngest of all poets by reason of the pervading air of youth that hangs about his verses, sad or gay. He was spoken of more fitly and fairly as a child (than as a dwarf)-Byron.' I had lief say much about his work, had I space left to speak of him, but he speaks best for himself, so I would refer my readers to the book of Mr. James's that I have already mentioned (in an allusion to Gautier) for an appreciative and sufficient English essay upon his qualities as a poet.

The following impromptu,' made for answer to the question of Louise Bertin, What is poetry?' may serve well enough for

starting-point. Though it has perhaps least of de Musset's felicity of musical expression, its intention is expressive of his own.

To scout mere memories, and bid the thought be holden
Kept balanced ever safe, on some bright centre golden,
Nor once let wander thence, though fierce and quick it seem;
To give eternity to a single moment's dream;

To love the true, the fair, and seek for their fruition,
While hearkening deep at heart the echoes of his vision;
To sing, laugh, weep, alone, without an aim, at chance;
And from a single word, a smile, a sigh, a glance,
To forge his perfect work, most terrible, most tender,
To turn a tear to a pearl of splendour:

Herein is manifest the poet's living fire,

This is the good his goal, his life and his desire.

There could scarcely be better witness of the truth of this-taking the word 'poetry,' of course, in a limited lyrical sense than any one of his own songs, this for instance :—

Warrior fair, to the battle-field going,

What are you doing

So far from me?

Do you not see that the dark night is lonely,
In the world only

Is grief to dree?

You that believe that a love once forsaken

Her flight has taken

From memories,

Heyday! heyday! you that seek where fame's crown is,
Look! your renown is

Like smoke that flies.

Warrior fair, to the battle-field going,

What are you doing

Far from my feet?

I must go weep, whom you told when beguiling,
How that my smiling

Was all too sweet.

Or this, which might be Moore :

When one has lost, by sad annoyance,

One's hope of joyaunce

And one's delight,

The remedy for melancholy

Is music holy

And beauty bright!

More wins and more compels our duty

A face of beauty

Than strong man armed,

And best to song our griefs we render,
Song sweet and tender

Erewhile that charmed!

Or this, which must be Heine :

See, my neighbour's window curtain
Moves as if she lifted it!

And she will, I'm almost certain,
Take the air for a bit.

Now the casement open blowing—
Ah! I feel my breath to catch.
For perhaps she would be knowing
If I am on the watch.

But, alas! 'tis idle dreaming;

For my neighbour loves a lout,

And it is the wind that's seeming

To push the curtain out.

After three songs I cannot give less than two sonnets, in contrasted rhythmical form. I have spoken of both already. The first is the au lecteur of the Premières Poésies:

This book has all my youth inside it;

I made it ere I gave a thought.

That's clear enough, even I descried it,
And might have changed it, had I sought.

But while man changes far and wide, it
Were best, methinks, to alter nought.
Hence the poor bird of passage, brought
To rest at last where God shall guide it!

Whoe'er thou art that readest me,

Read all thou canst read patiently,

And till thou hast read me spare thy curses.

My first songs are a child's, in sooth,

The next but singing of a youth,

The last are scarcely fullgrown verses.

And this next, an early poem too, I have preferred to any I have translated from his later volume as more distinctive of de Musset, here rather as a Parisian than a poet :

How well I love this first keen shivery winter feeling!
The frozen stubble, stiff beneath the sportsman's tread,
The magpie, where o'er fields the garner scent is stealing,
And deep in ancient halls the wakening embers red;
Now is the time for town! Oh, just a year has fled
Since I returned and saw great Louvre her dome revealing,
Queen Paris with her smoke no goodliest charm concealing
(Still rings the drivers' cry, as fast their horses sped).

I loved this ashen time, these passers by the river,
Beneath her thousand lamps, reclined as sovereign ever!
I came to winter back-and back, my life, to thee!

Oh! in thy languorous glance I felt to swoon already ;
I hailed thy very walls. . . For who could tell, my lady,
That in so little while thine heart had changed for me?

I am very sorry to be able to offer no better substitute for Madame' than my lady.' Bad's the best,' and 'my lady,' if a little vulgar, is

at least nearer the mark than my queen.' Apropos of this 'Madame,' one may plead, for a certain sameness of rhyme that must come with English dissyllables, no less an excuse than the sameness of rhyme in French. One is pretty certain to find 'âme' where one sees a line that ends Madame,' and if it is not 'âme' it is flamme.'

I must add one rondeau of de Musset's, though of the Rondeauform itself I need say nothing after Mr. Gosse: this example is fuller of assonance than a rondeau is bound to be, for the refrain is related to the lines (as in another rondeau in the same volume) instead of being wholly independent of them. I have tried to reproduce this assonance in my English version.

There never was, my heart, a sweeter aching

Than thine, when Manon sleeps in mine embrace!
The pillow all her tresses' perfume has;

In her fair breast I hear her heart still waking,
While dreams divert her to and fro that pass.

So sleeps the wild rose in the summer, as
A palace for the bee her petals making :
I rock her, I, methinks a dearer place
There never was!

But the day dawns, and rosy morn, outshaking
Her springtide flowers, enchants the winds. Alas!
With comb in hand, her pearlèd eardrops taking,
Manon forgets me quite before the glass.

Ah! love with no to-morrow and no forsaking
There never was!

It is because he is the poet of youth, I suppose, that one finds oneself smiling over de Musset's sorrows, and growing grave over his laughter: for after it the veil must be lifted up which he never lived to lift, the illusions dispelled which, for his muse at least, were fresh until the end.

I had meant to give the whole of the first scene from his charming comedy A quoi rêvent les jeunes filles? rendered in this tentative fashion, but want of space forbids it, and I am fain to detach some mere lines of the delightful idyll, just for the sake of hazarding the interpolated song, surely the loveliest of all de Musset's singing:

NINON. [Alone, drawing the bolt]

With spurs of silver and a cloak of velvet stuff!

A chain! and then a kiss! A strange adventure rather.

[She lets down her hair.

This headdress suits me ill-my hair's not long enough.
Bah! I had guessed aright!—it doubtless was my father.
Ninette is such a goose !-He saw her passing there.
Yes! 'tis quite clear, his child, what harm in kissing her?
How well my bracelets look! [She undoes them]

Of that young man I'm thinking,

The stranger who comes here to-morrow night to dine,
A husband whom they mean to get us, I opine.
How droll it sounds! I feel even now a sort of shrinking.
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What gown shall I put on? [She goes to bed]

I think a summer dress.

No: winter, for that gives an air that's more befitting—
No: summer, that looks young, and also studied less.
Between us two, no doubt, at table he will be sitting,
My sister please him best ?—bah! always—we shall see! .
So, spurs of silver and a velvet cloak had he!

Heav'ns! for an autumn night this heat is most oppressing.
I must sleep anyway. Did not I hear a sound?

"Tis Flora coming back; no-no one, that's a blessing.
Tra la, tra deri da! What peace in bed is found!
How hideous my aunt looked, in those old tufts of feather,
Last night at supper time! How white it is, my arm!
Tra deri da―moustache!—my eyelids close together-
He strains her to his breast, then flies as in alarm.'

[She drowses. Through the window a guitar is heard and a voice sings.

THE VOICE. Ninon, Ninon, why pass thy life in sorrow?

Fast flies the hour, and day treads hard on day.

A rose to-night, and fallen to-morrow,

How canst thou live that hast no lover? say!

NINON. [Awaking] Is this a dream? methought, outside one sang his lay. THE VOICE (without). Consider thee, thou maiden youthful,

Thine heart beats; thy bright eyes are truthful;

To-day thy springtide is, Ninon, to-morrow frost.

What! thou that hast no star, must thou at sea be tossed?
Journey without a book? go trumpetless to battle?
What! thou that hast no love, of living wilt thou prattle?

I, for a little love, would lay my lifetime down;

Yea, lay down life for nought, were life without love's crown. NINON. NO: I am not deceived-full strangely sounds the singing! And how to account for this ?-the singer knows my name.

Perhaps she too is called 'Ninon' that is his flame.

THE VOICE. What boots it that to-day should end, a new day bringingWhen all the heart is ringing

With life-tide mutual proved?

Blossom and blow, young flowers! If death should spoil your gleaming,
Our life is but a sleep, and love its sweetest dreaming,

And well you shall have lived, if you have lived and loved.

I have scarcely given as yet a fair example of the poet's satire, where it rings real, for, of course, in the mere songs it is playful enough. In the following verses On a Dead Woman we have it perhaps at its strongest :

Yes she was fair, if Night is so-
If Night the dusky chapel keepeth
(Carven of Michel Angelo)

Can be called fair the while she sleepeth;

Yes: she was good, if good be wrought
By hands that give in careless fashion
Without God's seeing or saying aught,
If gold makes alms without compassion;