"The sky is pure, the sparkling stream is clear:
Unloose your zones, my maidens!
Unloose your zones, my maidens!
Victor Hugo - Poems
Finally, the poetic romance of
"Torquemada," for over thirty years promised, came forth in 1882, to prove
that the wizard-wand had not lost its cunning.
After dolor, fetes were come: on one birthday they crown his bust in the
chief theatre; on another, all notable Paris parades under his window,
where he sits with his grandchildren at his knee, in the shadow of the
Triumphal Arch of Napoleon's Star. It is given to few men thus to see
their own apotheosis.
Whilst he was dying, in May, 1885, Paris was but the first mourner for all
France; and the magnificent funeral pageant which conducted the pauper's
coffin, antithetically enshrining the remains considered worthy of the
highest possible reverence and honors, from the Champs Elysees to the
Pantheon, was the more memorable from all that was foremost in French art
and letters having marched in the train, and laid a leaf or flower in the
tomb of the protege of Chateaubriand, the brother-in-arms of Dumas, the
inspirer of Mars, Dorval, Le-maitre, Rachel, and Bernhardt, and, above all,
the Nemesis of the Third Empire.
EARLY POEMS.
MOSES ON THE NILE.
_("Mes soeurs, l'onde est plus fraiche. ")_
[TO THE FLORAL GAMES, Toulouse, Feb. 10, 1820. ]
"Sisters! the wave is freshest in the ray
Of the young morning; the reapers are asleep;
The river bank is lonely: come away!
The early murmurs of old Memphis creep
Faint on my ear; and here unseen we stray,--
Deep in the covert of the grove withdrawn,
Save by the dewy eye-glance of the dawn.
"Within my father's palace, fair to see,
Shine all the Arts, but oh! this river side,
Pranked with gay flowers, is dearer far to me
Than gold and porphyry vases bright and wide;
How glad in heaven the song-bird carols free!
Sweeter these zephyrs float than all the showers
Of costly odors in our royal bowers.
"The sky is pure, the sparkling stream is clear:
Unloose your zones, my maidens! and fling down
To float awhile upon these bushes near
Your blue transparent robes: take off my crown,
And take away my jealous veil; for here
To-day we shall be joyous while we lave
Our limbs amid the murmur of the wave.
"Hasten; but through the fleecy mists of morn,
What do I see? Look ye along the stream!
Nay, timid maidens--we must not return!
Coursing along the current, it would seem
An ancient palm-tree to the deep sea borne,
That from the distant wilderness proceeds,
Downwards, to view our wondrous Pyramids.
"But stay! if I may surely trust mine eye,--
It is the bark of Hermes, or the shell
Of Iris, wafted gently to the sighs
Of the light breeze along the rippling swell;
But no: it is a skiff where sweetly lies
An infant slumbering, and his peaceful rest
Looks as if pillowed on his mother's breast.
"He sleeps--oh, see! his little floating bed
Swims on the mighty river's fickle flow,
A white dove's nest; and there at hazard led
By the faint winds, and wandering to and fro,
The cot comes down; beneath his quiet head
The gulfs are moving, and each threatening wave
Appears to rock the child upon a grave.
"He wakes--ah, maids of Memphis! haste, oh, haste!
He cries! alas! --What mother could confide
Her offspring to the wild and watery waste?
He stretches out his arms, the rippling tide
Murmurs around him, where all rudely placed,
He rests but with a few frail reeds beneath,
Between such helpless innocence and death.
"Torquemada," for over thirty years promised, came forth in 1882, to prove
that the wizard-wand had not lost its cunning.
After dolor, fetes were come: on one birthday they crown his bust in the
chief theatre; on another, all notable Paris parades under his window,
where he sits with his grandchildren at his knee, in the shadow of the
Triumphal Arch of Napoleon's Star. It is given to few men thus to see
their own apotheosis.
Whilst he was dying, in May, 1885, Paris was but the first mourner for all
France; and the magnificent funeral pageant which conducted the pauper's
coffin, antithetically enshrining the remains considered worthy of the
highest possible reverence and honors, from the Champs Elysees to the
Pantheon, was the more memorable from all that was foremost in French art
and letters having marched in the train, and laid a leaf or flower in the
tomb of the protege of Chateaubriand, the brother-in-arms of Dumas, the
inspirer of Mars, Dorval, Le-maitre, Rachel, and Bernhardt, and, above all,
the Nemesis of the Third Empire.
EARLY POEMS.
MOSES ON THE NILE.
_("Mes soeurs, l'onde est plus fraiche. ")_
[TO THE FLORAL GAMES, Toulouse, Feb. 10, 1820. ]
"Sisters! the wave is freshest in the ray
Of the young morning; the reapers are asleep;
The river bank is lonely: come away!
The early murmurs of old Memphis creep
Faint on my ear; and here unseen we stray,--
Deep in the covert of the grove withdrawn,
Save by the dewy eye-glance of the dawn.
"Within my father's palace, fair to see,
Shine all the Arts, but oh! this river side,
Pranked with gay flowers, is dearer far to me
Than gold and porphyry vases bright and wide;
How glad in heaven the song-bird carols free!
Sweeter these zephyrs float than all the showers
Of costly odors in our royal bowers.
"The sky is pure, the sparkling stream is clear:
Unloose your zones, my maidens! and fling down
To float awhile upon these bushes near
Your blue transparent robes: take off my crown,
And take away my jealous veil; for here
To-day we shall be joyous while we lave
Our limbs amid the murmur of the wave.
"Hasten; but through the fleecy mists of morn,
What do I see? Look ye along the stream!
Nay, timid maidens--we must not return!
Coursing along the current, it would seem
An ancient palm-tree to the deep sea borne,
That from the distant wilderness proceeds,
Downwards, to view our wondrous Pyramids.
"But stay! if I may surely trust mine eye,--
It is the bark of Hermes, or the shell
Of Iris, wafted gently to the sighs
Of the light breeze along the rippling swell;
But no: it is a skiff where sweetly lies
An infant slumbering, and his peaceful rest
Looks as if pillowed on his mother's breast.
"He sleeps--oh, see! his little floating bed
Swims on the mighty river's fickle flow,
A white dove's nest; and there at hazard led
By the faint winds, and wandering to and fro,
The cot comes down; beneath his quiet head
The gulfs are moving, and each threatening wave
Appears to rock the child upon a grave.
"He wakes--ah, maids of Memphis! haste, oh, haste!
He cries! alas! --What mother could confide
Her offspring to the wild and watery waste?
He stretches out his arms, the rippling tide
Murmurs around him, where all rudely placed,
He rests but with a few frail reeds beneath,
Between such helpless innocence and death.
