SULLY-PRUDHOMME

(RENÉ FRANÇOIS ARMAND PRUDHOMME)

(1839-)

BY FIRMIN ROZ

ULLY-PRUDHOMME, born in Paris, May 16th, 1839, is the poet who best represents the last third of the century. But he represents it as a poet; that is, in beauty and in nobleness, in its most intimate aspirations, in its purest sorrows, in its most beautiful impulses.

The spirit so freely poured out in romantic lyricism seemed, after an enchanted rest in the picturesque poetry

SULLY-PRUDHOMME

of Théophile Gautier and the fancy of Théodore de Banville, to reawaken and come to itself again. After the period during which it found the fullest expression, and that during which it had seemed to forget its own existence, behold it meditating in the midst of tumult, and seeking illumination to guide its way henceforth more prudently. Leconte de Lisle examines the history of the beliefs of humanity, and sets forth the different forms of the Divine dream and of the conception of life, in the 'Poèmes Antiques (1853) and the "Poèmes Barbares' (1859); which made him, in the absence of Victor Hugo, then in exile, the acknowledged master of French poetry. Around him are grouped the poets who were soon to take the name of "Parnassians," after the publication of their verses by the publisher Lemerre in the collection 'Parnasse Contemporain' (1866). Sully-Prudhomme, younger by twenty years, came by another way. A very tender sensibility was united in him to very serious reflection. His education had favored these natural tendencies. Reared by a mother in mourning, who was never consoled for the death of an adored husband, for whom she had waited ten years, and whom she lost after four years of marriage, the child had been placed in school very young, and had already suffered from "the first loneliness." Later, preparation for the École Polytechnique had developed in him a taste XXIV-889

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for the sciences, and had revealed to him the secrets of their exact methods. A malady of the eyes obliged him to abandon his studies just as they were about to be crowned with success. But his mind retained their impress. The deepest feeling and the most scrupulous thinking henceforth shared his inspiration; or to express it better, mingled in and imbued an original poetry which is both analytic and living, scholarly and emotional. Now sentiment dominates, illuminated by a ray of careful thought (see 'L'Agonie,' which we cite); now it is the idea developed, but colored, warmed, penetrated, by feeling. Such are the delightful collections of the first fifteen years: 'Stances et Poèmes' (1865), Les Épreuves' (The Tests: 1866), 'Les Solitudes (1869), 'Les Vrais Tendresses' (The True Affections: 1875). But the philosophical thinking of Sully-Prudhomme did not find. satisfaction in the close analyses or penetrating intuitions which these poems translated. The conflict of reason and the heart, which is the drama of our time, tortured the poet. He resolved to consecrate to it his dearest vigils. From this noble effort two grand philosophical poems resulted: 'La Justice' and 'Le Bonheur' (1888). Doubtless philosophic poetry already existed in our literature: 'Jocelyn' and the 'Chute d'un Ange,' some parts of the Contemplation,› 'Eloa,' 'Moïse,' and 'Les Destinées,' are masterpieces. But SullyPrudhomme has done something different. For imaginative dreams of philosophy he has substituted methodical investigation; slow, prudent, but always anxious, and hence worthy of poetry. And his ambition has been precisely to reconcile poetry with scientific research. In order to adapt himself to the difficulties of this task,"to demand from the strongest and most exact of poets the secret of subjecting the verse to the idea," — he began by translating verse by verse, with rigorous exactness and without altering its strong beauty, the first book of Lucretius. Then he began upon his great poem, 'La Justice.' This poem, very symmetrical in composition, comprises eleven "vigils," preceded by a prologue and followed by an epilogue. After seeking justice in the universe without finding it, the poet discovers it at last in the heart of man, which is its inviolable and sacred temple. The first six vigils form the first part of the volume Silence au Coeur' (Heart, Be Silent); the last five are grouped in a second part entitled 'Appel au Cour' (Appeal to the Heart). Each vigil is a dialogue between "The Seeker," who pitilessly analyzes every idea or every fact in a sonnet, and "A Voice," which consoles and reassures him by revealing the divine aspect of all things.

'Le Bonheur (Happiness) is a symbolic epic. Faustus and Stella, set free from earth, seek the happiness which they had vainly pursued here below. Neither emotional "Intoxication" nor ་ Thought" can realize this ideal so imperiously claimed by all hearts. The third

part, 'Le Suprême Essor' (The Supreme Flight), shows us that sacrifice alone can elevate us to a true felicity.

Doubtless there are laborious verses in these two long-winded works, in which Sully-Prudhomme has attempted the difficult reconciliation of pure thought with poetry. But there are incomparable beauties, truly new. Never has philosophic poetry been more rigorous, while retaining more of beauty; never has the fusion been so close between the thought, the sentiment, and the image.

Sully-Prudhomme has published in prose a remarkable study in æsthetics, 'L'Expression dans les Beaux-Arts' (Expression in the Fine Arts: 1884); Réflexions sur l'Art des Vers' (Reflections on the Art of Versification: 1892); and a philosophical volume (1895) on the nature, the limitations, and the extent of our learning, 'Que Sais-je ?' (What Do I Know?) His translation of the first book of Lucretius contains a long preface "Upon the state and the future of philosophy."

THESE

TO THE READER

HESE flowers I gathered by the highway side,
Where good and evil fate has cast my days:

I dare not give them to you loosely tied;

I'll twine them in a wreath-to win more praise.

Still fresh, the rose is weeping tear on tear;
The pansy lifts her eye of purple hue;

Then the calm lilies, dreamers of the mere,

And budding corn;-and there my life lies too.

And thine too, reader,-is't not even so?
One fate is always ours in joy or woe,-

To weep love's tears, and think, but never know,

How we have lost in dreaming spring's best day.
Then comes the hour when we would rise from play,
And plant some seed before we pass away.

ON

UNKNOWN FRIENDS

NE line may, like a friend who knows us well,
Re-ope the wound whose smart is not forgot;
The word that doth another's sufferings tell

May drop like tears on our own anguished spot, Where heart misjudged awaits its soothing spell.

My verse, perchance, may reach you and restore,
With lightning flash, the sleeping grief of old;
Or by that one true word-long waited for—
The sudden name of all you feel unfold,
Nor tell the eyes from whom I learnt my lore.

A

THE MISSAL

MISSAL of the first King Francis's reign,
Rusted by years, with many a yellow stain,
And blazons worn, by pious fingers prest, —
Within whose leaves, enshrined in silver rare
By some old goldsmith's art in glory drest,
Speaking his boldness and his loving care,
This faded flower found rest.

How very old it is! you plainly mark
Upon the page its sap in tracery dark.

"Perhaps three hundred years?" What need be said?

It has but lost one shade of crimson dye;

Before its death it might have seen that flown: Needs naught save wing of wandering butterfly To touch the bloom-'tis gone.

It has not lost one fibre from its heart,

Nor seen one jewel from its crown depart;

The page still wrinkles where the dew once dried,
When that last morn was sad with other weeping;
Death would not kill,-only to kiss it tried,
In loving guise above its brightness creeping,
Nor blighted as it died.

A sweet but mournful scent is o'er me stealing,
As when with memory wakes long-buried feeling;
That scent from the closed casket slow ascending

Tells of long years o'er that strange herbal sped.

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Our bygone things have still some perfume blending,
And our lost loves are paths, where roses' bloom,
Sweet e'en in death, is shed.

At eve, when faint and sombre grows the air,
Perchance a lambent heart may flicker there,

Seeking an entrance to the book to find;
And when the Angelus strikes on the sky,
Praying some hand may that one page unbind,
Where all his love and homage lie,—

The flower that told his mind.

Take comfort, knight, who rode to Pavia's plain
But ne'er returned to woo your love again;

Or you, young page, whose heart rose up on high
To Mary and thy dame in mingled prayer!

This flower which died beneath some unknown eye
Three hundred years ago,- you placed it there,
And there it still shall lie.

LA CHARPIE

SOMBRE night, a starless sky!

Jeanne sits, her heart with weeping sore,

The cloth unwinding patiently

For soldiers wounded in the war.

Her lover to the war is gone;

His kiss yet fresh - 'twas but to-day:

Her brothers too! She sits alone:

They marched with him this morn away.

Now booms more closely on her ears

The cannon's summons, stern and loud, "Surrender! Famine!" Then she hears Her City's "No" in answer proud.

Her holy task at last is o'er;

Has it not brought her spirit rest?
When suddenly her humble door

By timid hand is softly pressed.

A stranger girl is standing there
Within the door, her eyes as blue