“Carmen, the song, Sylva, the forest wild,
Forth comes the sylvan song, the woodland’s child!
And had I not been born ’neath forest trees,
I never should have heard such songs as these.
I learned them from the birds, that sang aloft;
And from the greenwood’s murmurs sweet and soft
Up sprang with them the heart within my breast!
Song and the forest lull my soul to rest.”
Carmen Sylva’s volume of beautiful poetry, entitled “My Rest,” begins
with the above poem. It explains the poetic reasons for the choice of
the name under which the royal writer conceals herself. The title, “My
Rest,” has to do with her early surroundings, for it means Monrepos,
the beautiful country seat of the Princess of Wied, which is situated
on a slope of the Westerwald, and in which the royal lady spent her
early years. In these three words, Monrepos, Carmen, and Sylva, lie
a part of the life, lie the germ and the motive-power of the poetic
genius of Princess Elizabeth of Wied.
On making the acquaintance of so gifted a person as the Queen of
Roumania, one involuntarily inquires what antecedents and what
experiences have helped to form so distinguished a character. What
was the home where she received her first impressions? What were her
ancestors? What qualities of heart and mind, what talents has she
inherited from them? All that we do and are depends on the impressions
which we unconsciously receive. Consequently we can only fully
comprehend the development of a character if we have learnt to know the
circumstances and the early surroundings amidst which its spiritual and
intellectual powers were gradually formed.
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