Miss Louisa Stuart Costello,when making her pilgrimage in the South of France,relates that,in the course of her journey,"A friend repeated to me two charming ballads picked up in Languedoc,where there is a variety in the patois.I cannot resist giving them here,that my readers may compare the difference of dialect.I wrote them clown,however,merely by ear,and am not aware that they have ever been printed.
The mixture of French,Spanish,and Italian is very curious."[7]
As the words of Jasmin's romance were written down by Miss Costello from memory,they are not quite accurate;but her translation into English sufficiently renders the poet's meaning.The following is the first verse of Jasmin's poem in Gascon--"Deja la ney encrumis la naturo,Tout es tranquille et tout cargo lou dol;Dins lou clouche la brezago murmuro,Et lou tuquet succedo al rossignol:
Del mal,helas!bebi jusq'a la ligo,Moun co gemis sans espouer de gari;Plus de bounhur,ey perdut moun amigo,Me cal mouri!me cal mouri!"Which Miss Costello thus translates into English:
"Already sullen night comes sadly on,And nature's form is clothed with mournful weeds;Around the tower is heard the breeze's moan,And to the nightingale the bat succeeds.
Oh!I have drained the cup of misery,My fainting heart has now no hope in store.
Ah!wretched me!what have I but to die?
For I have lost my love for evermore!"
There are four verses in the poem,but the second verse may also be given "Fair,tender Phoebe,hasten on thy course,My woes revive while I behold thee shine,For of my hope thou art no more the source,And of my happiness no more the sign.
Oh!I have drained the cup of misery,My fainting heart has now no bliss in store.
Ah!wretched me!what have I but to die?
Since I have lost my love for evermore!"
The whole of the poem was afterwards translated into modem French,and,though somewhat artificial,it became as popular in the north as in the south.
Jasmin's success in his native town,and his growing popularity,encouraged him to proceed with the making of verses.His poems were occasionally inserted in the local journals;but the editors did not approve of his use of the expiring Gascon dialect.They were of opinion that his works might be better appreciated if they appeared in modern French.Gascon was to a large extent a foreign language,and greatly interfered with Jasmin's national reputation as a poet.
Nevertheless he held on his way,and continued to write his verses in Gascon.They contained many personal lyrics,tributes,dedications,hymns for festivals,and impromptus,scarcely worthy of being collected and printed.Jasmin said of the last deion of verse:"One can only pay a poetical debt by means of impromptus,and though they may be good money of the heart,they are almost always bad money of the head."Jasmin's next poem was The Charivari (Lou Charibari),also written in Gascon.It was composed in 1825,when he was twenty-seven years old;and dedicated to M.Duprount,the Advocate,who was himself a poetaster.The dedication contained some fine passages of genuine beauty and graceful versification.
It was in some respects an imitation of the Lutrin of Boileau.
It was very different from the doggerel in which he had taken part with his humpbacked father so long ago.Then he had blown the cow-horn,now he spoke with the tongue of a trumpet.
The hero of Jasmin's Charivari was one Aduber,an old widower,who dreamt of remarrying.It reminded one of the strains of Beranger;in other passages of the mock-heroic poem of Boileau.
