"La fleur qui brode un point sur les manteau des plaines,
Les nenuphars penches, et les pales roseaux
Qui disent leur chant sombre au murmure des eaux."
One recognises more sincerity in this hymn to all poets, from Orpheus to
Heine, than in "Les Baisers de Pierre"--a clever imitation of De Musset's
stories in verse. Love of art and of the masters of art, a passion for
the figures of old mythology, which had returned again after their exile
in 1830, gaiety, and a revival of the dexterity of Villon and
Marot,--these things are the characteristics of M. De Banville's genius,
and all these were displayed in "Les Cariatides." Already, too, his
preoccupation with the lighter and more fantastic sort of theatrical
amusements shows itself in lines like these:
"De son lit a baldaquin
Le soleil de son beau globe
Avait l'air d'un arlequin
Etalant sa garde-robe;
"Et sa soeur au front changeant
Mademoiselle la Lune
Avec ses grands yeux d'argent
Regardait la terre brune."
The verse about "the sun in bed," unconsciously Miltonic, is in a vein of
bad taste which has always had seductions for M. De Banville. He mars a
fine later poem on Roncevaux and Roland by a similar absurdity. The
angel Michael is made to stride down the steps of heaven four at a time,
and M. De Banville fancies that this sort of thing is like the simplicity
of the ages of faith.
In "Les Cariatides," especially in the poems styled "En Habit Zinzolin,"
M. De Banville revived old measures--the _rondeau_ and the "poor little
triolet." These are forms of verse which it is easy to write badly, and
hard indeed to write well. They have knocked at the door of the English
muse's garden--a runaway knock. In "Les Cariatides" they took a
subordinate place, and played their pranks in the shadow of the grave
figures of mythology, or at the close of the procession of Dionysus and
his Maenads. De Banville often recalls Keats in his choice of classical
themes. "Les Exiles," a poem of his maturity, is a French "Hyperion."
"Le Triomphe de Bacchus" reminds one of the song of the Bassarids in
"Endymion"--
"So many, and so many, and so gay."
There is a pretty touch of the pedant (who exists, says M. De Banville,
in the heart of the poet) in this verse:
"Il reve a Cama, l'amour aux cinq fleches fleuries,
Qui, lorsque soupire au milieu des roses prairies
La douce Vasanta, parmi les bosquets de santal,
Envoie aux cinq sens les fleches du carquois fatal."
The Bacchus of Titian has none of this Oriental languor, no memories of
perfumed places where "the throne of Indian Cama slowly sails." One
cannot help admiring the fancy which saw the conquering god still steeped
in Asiatic ease, still unawakened to more vigorous passion by the fresh
wind blowing from Thrace. Of all the Olympians, Diana has been most
often hymned by M. De Banville: his imagination is haunted by the figure
of the goddess. Now she is manifest in her Hellenic aspect, as Homer
beheld her, "taking her pastime in the chase of boars and swift deer; and
with her the wild wood-nymphs are sporting the daughters of Zeus; and
Leto is glad at heart, for her child towers over them all, and is easy to
be known where all are fair" (Odyssey, vi.). Again, Artemis appears more
thoughtful, as in the sculpture of Jean Goujon, touched with the sadness
of moonlight. Yet again, she is the weary and exiled spirit that haunts
the forest of Fontainebleau, and is a stranger among the woodland folk,
the _fades_ and nixies. To this goddess, "being triple in her divided
deity," M. De Banville has written his hymn in the characteristic form of
the old French _ballade_. The translator may borrow Chaucer's apology--
"And eke to me it is a grete penaunce,
Syth rhyme in English hath such scarsete
To folowe, word by word, the curiosite
Of _Banville_, flower of them that make in France."
"BALLADE SUR LES HOTES MYSTERIEUX DE LA FORET
"Still sing the mocking fairies, as of old,
Beneath the shade of thorn and holly tree;
The west wind breathes upon them pure and cold,
And still wolves dread Diana roving free,
In secret woodland with her company.
Tis thought the peasants' hovels know her rite
When now the wolds are bathed in silver light,
And first the moonrise breaks the dusky grey,
Then down the dells, with blown soft hair and bright,
And through the dim wood Dian thrids her way.
"With water-weeds twined in their locks of gold
The strange cold forest-fairies dance in glee;
Sylphs over-timorous and over-bold
Haunt the dark hollows where the dwarf may be,
The wild red dwarf, the nixies' enemy;
Then, 'mid their mirth, and laughter, and affright,
The sudden goddess enters, tall and white,
With one long sigh for summers passed away;
The swift feet tear the ivy nets outright,
And through the dim wood Dian thrids her way.
"She gleans her sylvan trophies; down the wold
She hears the sobbing of the stags that flee,
Mixed with the music of the hunting rolled,
But her delight is all in archery,
And nought of ruth and pity wotteth she
More than the hounds that follow on the flight;
The tall nymph draws a golden bow of might,
And thick she rains the gentle shafts that slay,
She tosses loose her locks upon the night,
And Dian through the dim wood thrids her way.