Books and Habits, from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn Part 13

Ou, pres de ruisseaux muscules Gazouillants comme des oiseaux, Se poursuivent les libellules, Ces fleurs vivantes des roseaux.

Enfant, n'es tu pas l'une d'elles Qui me poursuit pour consoler?

Vainement tu caches tes ailes; Tu marches, mais tu sais voler.

Pet.i.te fee au bleu corsage, Que j'ai connu des mon berceau, En revoyant ton doux visage, Je pense aux joncs de mon ruisseau!

Veux-tu qu'en amoureux fideles Nous revenions dans ces pres verts?

Libellule, reprends tes ailes; Moi, je brulerai tous mes vers!

Et nous irons, sous la lumiere, D'un ciel plus frais et plus leger Chacun dans sa forme premiere, Moi courir, et toi voltiger.

"Suddenly a strange fancy changes for me the scene and the scenery; and my mind wanders far away over great meadows of azure and gold.

"Where, hard by tiny streams that murmur with a sound like voices of little birds, the dragon-flies, those living flowers of the reeds, chase each other at play.

"Child, art thou not one of those dragon-flies, following after me to console me? Ah, it is in vain that thou tryest to hide thy wings; thou dost walk, indeed, but well thou knowest how to fly!

"O little fairy with the blue corsage whom I knew even from the time I was a baby in the cradle; seeing again thy sweet face, I think of the rushes that border the little stream of my native village!

"Dost thou not wish that even now as faithful lovers we return to those green fields? O dragon-fly, take thy wings again, and I--I will burn all my poetry,

"And we shall go back, under the light of the sky more fresh and pure than this, each of us in the original form--I to run about, and thou to hover in the air as of yore."

The sight of a child's face has revived for the poet very suddenly and vividly, the recollection of the village home, the green fields of childhood, the little stream where he used to play with the same little girl, sometimes running after the dragon-fly. And now the queer fancy comes to him that she herself is so like a dragon-fly--so light, graceful, spiritual! Perhaps really she is a dragon-fly following him into the great city, where he struggles to live as a poet, just in order to console him.

She hides her wings, but that is only to prevent other people knowing. Why not return once more to the home of childhood, back to the green fields and the sun? "Little dragon-fly," he says to her, "let us go back! do you return to your beautiful summer shape, be a dragon-fly again, expand your wings of gauze; and I shall stop trying to write poetry. I shall burn my verses; I shall go back to the streams where we played as children; I shall run about again with the joy of a child, and with you beautifully flitting hither and thither as a dragon-fly."

Victor Hugo also has a little poem about a dragon-fly, symbolic only, but quite pretty. It is ent.i.tled "La Demoiselle"; and the other poem was ent.i.tled, as you remember, "Ma Libellule." Both words mean a dragon-fly, but not the same kind of dragon-fly. The French word "demoiselle," which might be adequately rendered into j.a.panese by the term _ojosan_, refers only to those exquisitely slender, graceful, slow-flitting dragon-flies known to the scientist by the name of Calopteryx. Of course you know the difference by sight, and the reason of the French name will be poetically apparent to you.

Quand la demoiselle doree S'envole au depart des hivers, Souvent sa robe diapree, Souvent son aile est dechiree Aux mille dards des buissons verts.

Ainsi, jeunesse vive et frele, Qui, t'egarant de tous cotes, Voles ou ton instinct t'appele, Souvent tu dechires ton aile Aux epines des voluptes.

"When, at the departure of winter, the gilded dragon-fly begins to soar, often her many-coloured robe, often her wing, is torn by the thousand thorns of the verdant shrubs.

"Even so, O frail and joyous Youth, who, wandering hither and thither, in every direction, flyest wherever thy instinct calls thee--even so thou dost often tear thy wings upon the thorns of pleasure."

You must understand that pleasure is compared to a rose-bush, whose beautiful and fragrant flowers attract the insects, but whose thorns are dangerous to the visitors. However, Victor Hugo does not use the word for rose-bush, for obvious reasons; nor does he qualify the plants which are said to tear the wings of the dragon-fly. I need hardly tell you that the comparison would not hold good in reference to the attraction of flowers, because dragon-flies do not care in the least about flowers, and if they happen to tear their wings among thorn bushes, it is much more likely to be in their attempt to capture and devour other insects. The merit of the poem is chiefly in its music and colour; as natural history it would not bear criticism. The most beautiful modern French poem about insects, beautiful because of its cla.s.sical perfection, is I think a sonnet by Heredia, ent.i.tled "epigramme Funeraire"--that is to say, "Inscription for a Tombstone." This is an exact imitation of Greek sentiment and expression, carefully studied after the poets of the anthology. Several such Greek poems are extant, recounting how children mourned for pet insects which had died in spite of all their care. The most celebrated one among these I quoted in a former lecture--the poem about the little Greek girl Myro who made a tomb for her gra.s.shopper and cried over it. Heredia has very well copied the Greek feeling in this fine sonnet:

Ici git, Etranger, la verte sauterelle Que durant deux saisons nourrit la jeune h.e.l.le, Et dont l'aile vibrant sous le pied dentele.

Bruissait dans le pin, le cytise, ou l'airelle.

Elle s'est tue, helas! la lyre naturelle, La muse des guerets, des sillons et du ble; De peur que son leger sommeil ne soit trouble, Ah, pa.s.se vite, ami, ne pese point sur elle.

C'est la. Blanche, au milieu d'une touffe de thym, Sa pierre funeraire est fraichement posee.

Que d'hommes n'ont pas eu ce supreme destin!

Des larmes d'un enfant la tombe est arrosee, Et l'Aurore pieuse y fait chaque matin Une libation de gouttes de rosee.

"Stranger, here reposes the green gra.s.shopper that the young girl h.e.l.le cared for during two seasons,--the gra.s.shopper whose wings, vibrating under the strokes of its serrated feet, used to resound in the pine, the trefoil and the whortleberry.

"She is silent now, alas! that natural lyre, muse of the unsown fields, of the furrows, and of the wheat. Lest her light sleep should be disturbed, ah! pa.s.s quickly, friend! do not be heavy upon her.

"It is there. All white, in the midst of a tuft of thyme, her funeral monument is placed, in cool shadow; how many men have not been able to have this supremely happy end!

"By the tears of a child the insect's tomb is watered; and the pious G.o.ddess of dawn each morning there makes a libation of drops of dew."

This reads very imperfectly in a hasty translation; the original charm is due to the perfect art of the form. But the whole thing, as I have said before, is really Greek, and based upon a close study of several little Greek poems on the same kind of subject. Little Greek girls thousands of years ago used to keep singing insects as pets, every day feeding them with slices of leek and with fresh water, putting in their little cages sprigs of the plants which they liked. The sorrow of the child for the inevitable death of her insect pets at the approach of winter, seems to have inspired many Greek poets. With all tenderness, the child would make a small grave for the insect, bury it solemnly, and put a little white stone above the place to imitate a grave-stone. But of course she would want an inscription for this tombstone--perhaps would ask some of her grown-up friends to compose one for her. Sometimes the grown-up friend might be a poet, in which case he would compose an epitaph for all time.

I suppose you perceive that the solemnity of this imitation of the Greek poems on the subject is only a tender mockery, a playful sympathy with the real grief of the child. The expression, "pa.s.s, friend," is often found in Greek funeral inscriptions together with the injunction to tread lightly upon the dust of the dead. There is one French word to which I will call attention,--the word "guerets." We have no English equivalent for this term, said to be a corruption of the Latin word "veractum," and meaning fields which have been ploughed but not sown.

Not to dwell longer upon the phase of art indicated by this poem, I may turn to the subject of crickets. There are many French poems about crickets. One by Lamartine is known to almost every French child.

Grillon solitaire, Ici comme moi, Voix qui sors de terre, Ah! reveille-toi!

J'attise la flamme, C'est pour t'egayer; Mais il manque une ame, Une ame au foyer.

Grillon solitaire, Voix qui sors de terre, Ah! reveille-toi Pour moi.

Quand j'etais pet.i.te Comme ce berceau, Et que Marguerite Filait son fuseau, Quand le vent d'automne Faisait tout gemir, Ton cri monotone M'aidait a dormir.

Grillon solitaire, Voix qui sors de terre, Ah! reveille-toi Pour moi.

Seize fois l'annee A compte mes jours; Dans la cheminee Tu niches toujours.

Je t'ecoute encore Aux froides saisons.

Souvenir sonore Des vieilles maisons.

Grillon solitaire, Voix qui sors de terre, Ah! reveille-toi Pour moi.

It is a young girl who thus addresses the cricket of the hearth, the house cricket. It is very common in country houses in Europe. This is what she says:

"Little solitary cricket, all alone here just like myself, little voice that comes up out of the ground, ah, awake for my sake! I am stirring up the fires, that is just to make you comfortable; but there lacks a presence by the hearth; a soul to keep me company.

"When I was a very little girl, as little as that cradle in the corner of the room, then, while Margaret our servant sat there spinning, and while the autumn wind made everything moan outside, your monotonous cry used to help me to fall asleep.

"Solitary cricket, voice that issues from the ground, awaken, for my sake.

"Now I am sixteen years of age and you are still nestling in the chimneys as of old. I can hear you still in the cold season,--like a sound--memory,--a sonorous memory of old houses.

"Solitary cricket, voice that issues from the ground, awaken, O awaken for my sake."

I do not think this pretty little song needs any explanation; I would only call your attention to the natural truth of the fancy and the feeling.

Sitting alone by the fire in the night, the maiden wants to hear the cricket sing, because it makes her think of her childhood, and she finds happiness in remembering it.

So far as mere art goes, the poem of Gautier on the cricket is very much finer than the poem of Lamartine, though not so natural and pleasing. But as Gautier was the greatest master of French verse in the nineteenth century, not excepting Victor Hugo, I think that one example of his poetry on insects may be of interest. He was very poor, compared with Victor Hugo; and he had to make his living by writing for newspapers, so that he had no time to become the great poet that nature intended him to be.

However, he did find time to produce one volume of highly finished poetry, which is probably the most perfect verse of the nineteenth century, if not the most perfect verse ever made by a French poet; I mean the "Emaux et Camees." But the little poem which I am going to read to you is not from the "Emaux et Camees."

Souffle, bise! Tombe a flots, pluie!

Dans mon palais tout noir de suie, Je ris de la pluie et du vent; En attendant que l'hiver fuie, Je reste au coin du feu, revant.