The danger of free verse is that it remains amorphous, that its rhythm,
too little accentuated, gives it some of the characteristics of prose.
The finest verse truly remains, it seems to me, the verse formed of a
regular number of full or accented syllables and in which the position
of the accents is evident and not left to the choice of the reader or
declaimer; not only poets read verse, and it is imprudent to place
reliance on the chance of interpretations. One rightly supposes that I
would not amuse myself by quoting such verses as seemed to me wretched;
and above all I would not go to seek them in the poems of Herold, to
whom the preference would be unmerited. Not that Herold possesses the
gift of rhythm to a high point, but he has it sufficiently to give his
poetry the grace of a living thing, sweetly and languidly living. He is
a poet of gentleness; his poetry is blond, with pearls in its blond,
pure hair, and necklaces and rings, elegant, fine gems, on neck and
fingers. This word is the beloved word of the poet; his heroines are
flowered with gems as much as his gardens are flowered with lillies.
La blonde, la blanche, la belle Dames des Lys.
(Tr. 29)
He loved her, but what others, what queens and saints! Reader of
forgotten books, he finds precious legends there which he transposes to
short poems, often of a sonnet's length. He alone knows these queens,
Marozie, Anfelize, Bazine, Paryze, Orable or Aelis, and those saints,
Nonita, Bertilla, Richardis--Gemma! She is the first he has thought of;
her he gives the most attractive place in the stained glass window,
happy again to write that word whose charm he feels.
Herold is one of the most objective of the new poets; he hardly tells
of himself; he requires themes that are foreign to his life, and he
even chooses those that seem foreign to his beliefs: his queens are
not less charming for that, nor his saints less pure. One finds these
panels and church windows in the collection entitled _Chevaleries
sentimentales,_ the most important and most characteristic of his
works. It is a truly pleasant reading and one passes sweet hours among
those ladies, lilies, gems, and autumn roses.
Les roses d'automne s'étiolent,
Les roses qui fleurissaient les tombes;
Lentement s'effeuillent les corolles
Et le sol froid est jonché de pétales qui tombent.
(Tr. 30)
Has not this a quite gentle melancholy? And this:
Il y a des maisons qui pleurent sur le port,
Il y a des glas qui sonnent dans les clochers,
Où tintent des cloches vagues:
Vers quels fleuves de mort
Les vierges ont-elles marché,
Les vierges qui avaient aux doigts de blondes bagues?
(Tr. 31)
Thus, without forcing his talent to an impassioned expression of life,
an effort at which he doubtless would be unskillful, without laying
claim to gifts he lacks, Herold has created for his pleasure a poetry
of grace, purety, tenderness and sweetness.
If we demanded everything of the same poet, who would answer? The
essential thing is to have a garden, to work there with the spade and
sow seeds; the flowers that will shoot forth, carnations, peonies or
violets, will have their value and their charm, according to the hour
and the season.