Raymond de la Tailhède thus exalts Moréas:
Tout un silence d'or vibrant s'est abattu,
Près des sources que des satyres ont troublées,
Claire merveille éclose au profond des vallées,
Si l'oiselet chanteur du bocage s'est tu.
Oubli de flûte, heures de rêves sans alarmes,
Où tu as su trouver pour ton sang amoureux
La douceur d'habiter un séjour odoreux
De roses dont les dieux sylvains te font des armes
Là tu vas composant ces beaux livres, honneur
Du langage français et de la noble Athènes.
(Tr. 48)
These verses are romances, that is, of a poet to whom the romantic
period is but a witch's night where unreal sonorous gnomes stir, of a
poet (this one has talent) who concentrates his efforts to imitate the
Greeks of the Anthology through Ronsard, and to steal from Ronsard the
secret of his laborious phrase, his botanical epithets, and his sickly
rhythm. As for what is exquisite in Ronsard, since that little has
passed into tradition and memory, the Romantic school had to neglect it
on pain of quickly losing what alone constitutes its originality. There
is I know not what of provincialism, of steps against life's current,
of the loiterer, in this care for imitation and restoration. Somewhere
Moréas sings praise
De ce Sophocle, honneur de la Ferté-Milon,
(Tr. 40)
and it is just that: the Romantic school always has the air of coming
from Ferté-Milon.
But Jean Moréas, who has met his friends on the road, started from
somewhere farther away, introduces himself more proudly.
Arrived in Paris like any other Wallachian or Eastern student, and
already full of love for the French language, Moréas betook himself
to the school of the old poets and frequented the society of Jacot de
Forest and Benoit de Sainte-Maure. He wished to take the road to which
every clever youth should vow himself who is ambitious to become a good
harper; he swore to accomplish the complete pilgrimage: At this hour,
having set out from the _Chanson de Saint-Léger_, he has, it is said,
reached the seventeenth century, and this in less than ten years. It
is not as discouraging as one supposes. And now that texts are more
familiar, the road shortens: from now on less halts. Moréas will camp
under the old Hugo oak, and, if he perseveres, we shall see him achieve
the aim of his voyage, which doubtless is to catch up with himself.
Then, casting aside the staff, often changed and cut from such diverse
copses, he will lean on his own genius and we will be able to judge
him, if that be our whim, with a certain security.
All that today can be said is that Moréas passionately loves the French
language and poetry, and that the two proud-hearted sisters have smiled
upon him more than once, satisfied to see near their steps a pilgrim so
patient, a cavalier armed with such good-will.
Cavalcando l'altrjer per un cammino,
Pensoso dell andar che mi sgradia,
Trovai Amor in mezzo della via
In abito legger di pellegrino.
(Tr. 50)
Thus Moréas goes, quite attentive, quite in love, and in the light robe
of a pilgrim. When he called one of his poems _le Pèlerin passionné_,
he gave an excellent idea and a very sane symbolism of himself, his
role and his playings among us.
There are fine things in that _Pèlerin_, and also in _les Syrtes_;
there are admirable and delicious touches and which (for my part) I
shall always joyfully reread, in _les Cantilènes,_ but inasmuch as
Moréas, having changed his manner, repudiates these primitive works,
I shall not insist. There remains _Ériphyle_, a delicate collection
formed of a poem of four "sylvae", all in the taste of the Renaissance
and destined to be the book of examples where the young "Romans",
spurred on by the somewhat intemperate invectives of Charles Maurras,
must study the classic art of composing facile verses laboriously. Here
is a page:
Astre brillant, Phébé aux ailes étendues,
O flamme de la nuit qui croîs et diminues,
Favorise la route et les sombres forêts
Où mon ami errant porte ses pas discrets!
Dans la grotte au vain bruit dont l'entrée est tout lierre,
Sur la roche pointue aux chèvres familière,
Sur le lac, sur l'étang, sur leurs tranquilles eaux,
Sur les bords émaillés où plaignent les roseaux.
Dans le cristal rompu des ruisselets obliques,
Il aime à voir trembler tes feux mélancoliques.
* * * * *
Phébé, ô Cynthia, dès sa saison première,
Mon ami fut épris de ta belle lumière;
Dans leur cercle observant tes visages divers,
Sous ta douce influence il composait ses vers.
Par dessus Nice, Eryx, Seyre et la sablonneuse
Ioclos, le Tmolus et la grande Epidaure,
Et la verte Cydon, sa piété honore
Ce rocher de Latmos où tu fus amoureuse.
(Tr. 51)
Moréas, like his Phoebe, has tried to put on many diverse countenances
and even to cover his face with masks. We always recognize him from his
brothers: he is a poet.