“’Tis with me as the wild brook
By summer-rains swelled,
Which carries rocks, tree-trunks,
All headlong impelled.
’Tis with me as the tempest
Which knows not its mind,
But something must shatter,
Such might is behind!
’Tis with me as the gold sun
Whose beams are so bland;
Full fain I’d kiss Heaven,
And ocean, and land.
’Tis with me as with sweet songs
Which soft music spread,
And bring living echoes
From rocks that were dead.
’Tis with me as with high God
Who pardons above;
All life is so lovely,
I am love-sick for Love!”
--_Translated by Sir Edwin Arnold._
Dämona, the enchantress, is gifted with a beauty which kills and
destroys. A youth beholds her suddenly as she appears on a lonely
height, and falls desperately in love with her. Lightning flashes from
her shining golden hair, but the idea of being loved by an innocent
being charms her fancy. The hunter has tracked her to her winter palace
of ice by the sea. She is overcome by his passionate love for her, and
sinks into his arms. At that moment the icy building gives way and
falls to pieces, and they are buried in the deep.
In “Jehovah” Carmen Sylva has endeavoured to represent the doubt, Does
God exist or not? which is for ever struggling in the mind of man.
Ahasuerus desires to trace all things to their origin. He regards
eternal life as a curse. His vocation is accomplished if he can attain
to knowledge.
“Show me the God who all has made,
And Him will I adore;
Show me the God who guides the sun,
And Him will I adore;
Show Him whose voice sounds like the storm,
Who mows the trees as they were grass,
And Him will I adore.”
He seeks God in art, in his own restless activity, in the passion of
love, in the desire of possession, &c. But everywhere the answer comes,
“God is not here.” At last he realises God in the eternal laws of
nature. Then death comes and releases the believer.
“Jehovah” was translated into French verse in 1887 by Hélène Vacaresco,
a youthful poetess.
“The Pilgrimage of Sorrow,” a cycle of fairy tales, also appeared
in 1882. The poetic fancy of Carmen Sylva has here treated the
question, “Whence and for what reason do sorrow and suffering come?”
symbolically, and placed it in fairy tales. “To live is to suffer,
but two faithful comforters remain at your side during the fight and
help you to endure. They are termed Patience and Labour.” This is
the leading idea of this poem. The royal lady possesses a wonderful
power of representing the deepest feelings of the heart, which only
those can do who have gone through all phases of suffering. She has a
fellow-feeling for all who strive and struggle, and can realise and
deeply sympathise with the sufferings of humanity.
When Queen Elizabeth began to write the “Fairy Tales of the Pelesch,”
she wrote the following poem in her journal:--
“On every wave, in every flower
A shining fairy tale I see;
I gather them from stream and bower,
And tell them as they’re told to me.
From mossy banks and woodlands glancing,
They come like visions golden bright;
On every spray I watch them dancing,
And hear their whispers soft and light.
They come like sunbeams many-tinted,
But with what radiance, glowing, fair,
They’re on my memory imprinted
I never can in words declare.”
These “Fairy Tales” were published in 1883, entitled “From Carmen
Sylva’s Kingdom,” and were given to the school children as a prize book
in their Roumanian translation.
In the introduction the authoress addresses the people of her Roumanian
kingdom in her character of mother of her country, and says to her
children--
“Where crags the ancient forest crown,
Where mountain streams dance wild adown,
And countless blossoms spread,
And odours sweet are shed;
There lies the land--all glad and green--
Where I am Queen!
Where all that in old legends lies
Is read enshrined in tender eyes
Deep with the blue of truth,
And bright with loving youth;
There, soft as spring, that land is seen
Where I rule, Queen.
All the world over, in deep grove
Wherever ring bird-songs of love,
Where gathering mists veil all,
And splashes the waterfall,
’Mid those waved boughs my ways have been,
There I am Queen!
From shooting leaf and budding flower,
From each new beam of heavenly power,
In growing and beholding,
In being and enfolding,
The realm grows--(Children! when was such wealth seen?)
Where I am Queen!”
--_Translated by Sir Edwin Arnold._
“Through the Centuries” is the name of the second volume of “From
Carmen Sylva’s Kingdom” (1887). They are fairy tales and ballads told
in prose, and taken from the Roumanian national poetry. “They are
history, legends, ballads, and novels (but all true ones) together,”
writes the Queen. “It begins with the fall of Decebal, and ends with
the taking of Widdin.”
Heroes and heroic deeds are here brought before us in disconnected
tales. We read of the fall of the Datian Prince Decebal, of times when
the Roman influence was also felt in Roumania, which still lives among
the Roumanian people in songs and traditions. We gaze into the Middle
Ages and hear of Stephen the Great, as well as the Legend of Manole,
the architect of the Cathedral of Curtea de Arges, which is told with
such marvellous simplicity, and others. We meet with figures of heroic
women, such as the Mother of Stephen the Great, Decebal’s daughter,
Andrada, Fausta, Neaga. The ballads also describe later episodes,
which, being on elevating or touching subjects, have been taken up by
the people.
“When I let all my characters die,” writes the Queen, “I am only like
nature, in which everything ends with death. There is nothing in this
world which has any other ending than death. It is such a peaceful
feeling when they have ceased to struggle, and the poor soul is at
rest. Decebal’s end is as historically true as most histories.
“The third volume will contain legends of birds or flowers, amongst
which ‘Jochen Spatz’ belongs to Roumania. I was asked to write a page
in the album which is dedicated to the memory of Fritz Reuter, and sent
this fairy tale of the people.”
Later the royal lady composed a highly poetical libretto for the opera.
It treats of an episode in the life of the Roumanian people, and is
called Neaga. The Swedish composer Hallström has set it to music. The
subject of the poem, “A Prayer,” was also taken from life, having
occurred to a priest.
The Queen writes French poetry with ease. In the spring of 1883
the “Félibres,” an alliance of authors and learned men in the South
of France which had in view the resuscitation of Provence and its
poetry, induced the Queen to answer in the same strain. The royal pair
were spending a few weeks at Sestri Ponente at that time. Thither
the Félibres de Lar sent her Majesty a sonnet in the old language of
Provence, containing the poetic invitation to visit them in the sunny
land of the Troubadours. Without much reflection Queen Elizabeth
answered them in the following poem, which we give here as a proof of
the wide range of her talent:--