It is impossible to leave the poet of gaiety and good-humour in the mood of the prisoner in besieged Paris. His "Trente Six Ballades Joyeuses" make a far more pleasant subject for a last word. There is scarcely a more delightful little volume in the French language than this collection of verses in the most difficult of forms, which pour forth, with absolute ease and fluency, notes of mirth, banter, joy in the spring, in letters, art, and good-fellowship.
"L'oiselet retourne aux forets;Je suis un poete lyrique," -he cries, with a note like a bird's song. Among the thirty-six every one will have his favourites. We venture to translate the "Ballad de Banville":
"AUX ENFANTS PERDUS"I know Cythera long is desolate;I know the winds have stripped the garden green.
Alas, my friends! beneath the fierce sun's weight A barren reef lies where Love's flowers have been, Nor ever lover on that coast is seen!
So be it, for we seek a fabled shore, To lull our vague desires with mystic lore, To wander where Love's labyrinths, beguile;There let us land, there dream for evermore:
'It may be we shall touch the happy isle.'
"The sea may be our sepulchre. If Fate, If tempests wreak their wrath on us, serene We watch the bolt of Heaven, and scorn the hate Of angry gods that smite us in their spleen.
Perchance the jealous mists are but the screen That veils the fairy coast we would explore.
Come, though the sea be vexed, and breakers roar, Come, for the breath of this old world is vile, Haste we, and toil, and faint not at the oar;'It may be we shall touch the happy isle.'
"Grey serpents trail in temples desecrate Where Cypris smiled, the golden maid, the queen, And ruined is the palace of our state;But happy loves flit round the mast, and keen The shrill wind sings the silken cords between.
Heroes are we, with wearied hearts and sore, Whose flower is faded and whose locks are hoar.
Haste, ye light skiffs, where myrtle thickets smile;Love's panthers sleep 'mid roses, as of yore:
'It may be we shall touch the happy isle.'
ENVOI.
"Sad eyes! the blue sea laughs, as heretofore.
All, singing birds, your happy music pour;Ah, poets, leave the sordid earth awhile;Flit to these ancient gods we still adore:
'It may be we shall touch the happy isle.'"
Alas! the mists that veil the shore of our Cythera are not the summer haze of Watteau, but the smoke and steam of a commercial time.
It is as a lyric poet that we have studied M. De Banville. "Je ne m'entends qu'e la meurique," he says in his ballad on himself; but he can write prose when he pleases.
It is in his drama of Gringoire acted at the Theatre Francais, and familiar in the version of Messrs. Pollock and Besant, that M. De Banville's prose shows to the best advantage. Louis XI. is supping with his bourgeois friends and with the terrible Olivier le Daim.
Two beautiful girls are of the company, friends of Pierre Gringoire, the strolling poet. Presently Gringoire himself appears. He is dying of hunger; he does not recognise the king, and he is promised a good supper if he will recite the new satirical "Ballade des Pendus," which he has made at the monarch's expense. Hunger overcomes his timidity, and, addressing himself especially to the king, he enters on this goodly matter:
"Where wide the forest boughs are spread, Where Flora wakes with sylph and fay, Are crowns and garlands of men dead, All golden in the morning gay;Within this ancient garden grey Are clusters such as no mail knows, Where Moor and Soldan bear the sway:
This is King Louis' orchard close!
"These wretched folk wave overhead, With such strange thoughts as none may say;A moment still, then sudden sped, They swing in a ring and waste away.
The morning smites them with her ray;They toss with every breeze that blows, They dance where fires of dawning play:
This is King Louis' orchard close!
"All hanged and dead, they've summoned (With Hell to aid, that hears them pray)New legions of an army dread, Now down the blue sky flames the day;The dew dies off; the foul array Of obscene ravens gathers and goes, With wings that flap and beaks that flay:
This is King Louis' orchard close!
ENVOI.
"Prince, where leaves murmur of the May, A tree of bitter clusters grows;The bodies of men dead are they!
This is King Louis' orchard close!
Poor Gringoire has no sooner committed himself, than he is made to recognise the terrible king. He pleads that, if he must join the ghastly army of the dead, he ought, at least, to be allowed to finish his supper. This the king grants, and in the end, after Gringoire has won the heart of the heroine, he receives his life and a fair bride with a full dowry.
