Part 2

--Seigneur, qui pour un verre d’eau nous avez promis la mer illimitée, Qui sait si vous n’avez pas soif aussi? Et que ce sang qui est tout ce que nous avons soit propre à vous désaltérer, C’est vrai, puisque vous l’avez dit! Si vraiment il y a une source en nous, eh bien, c’est ce que nous allons voir! Si ce vin a quelque vertu Et si notre sang est rouge, comme vous le dites, comment le savoir Autrement que quand il est répandu? Si notre sang est vraiment précieux, comme vous le dites, si vraiment il est comme de l’or, S’il sert, pourquoi le garder? Et sans savoir ce qu’on peut acheter avec, pourquoi le réserver comme un trésor, Mon Dieu, quand vous nous le demandez? Nos péchés sont grands, nous le savons, et qu’il faut absolument faire pénitence, Mais il est difficile pour un homme de pleurer. Voici notre sang au lieu de larmes que nous avons répandu pour la France: Faites-en ce que vous voudrez. Prenez-le, nous vous le donnons, tirez-en vous-même usage et bénéfice, Nous ne vous faisons point de demande Mais si vous avez besoin de notre amour autant que nous avons besoin de votre justice, Alors c’est que votre soif est grande! P. CLAUDEL

_Juillet 1915_

THE PRECIOUS BLOOD

[TRANSLATION]

Oh, what if Thou, that for a cup of water promisest The illimitable sea, Thou, Lord, dost also thirst? Hast Thou not said, our blood shall quench Thee best And first Of any drink there be?

If then there be such virtue in it, Lord, Ah, let us prove it now! And, save by seeing it at Thy footstool poured, How, Lord--oh, how?

If it indeed be precious and like gold, As Thou hast taught, Why hoard it? There’s no wealth in gems unsold, Nor joy in gems unbought.

Our sins are great, we know it; and we know We must redeem our guilt; Even so.

But tears are difficult for a man to shed, And here is our blood poured out for France instead, To do with as Thou wilt!

Take it, O Lord! And make it Thine indeed, Void of all lien and fee. Nought else we ask of Thee; But if Thou needst our Love as we Thy Justice need, Great must Thine hunger be! PAUL CLAUDEL

[Illustration: _LÉON BAKST_

PORTRAIT OF JEAN COCTEAU

FROM AN UNPUBLISHED CRAYON SKETCH]

LA MORT DES JEUNES GENS DE LA DIVINE HELLADE

FRAGMENT

Antigone criant et marchant au supplice N’avait pas de la mort leur sublime respect; Ce n’était pas pour eux une funeste paix, C’était un ordre auquel il faut qu’on obéisse.

Ils ne subissaient pas l’offense qu’il fît beau Que le soleil mûrît les grappes de glycine; Ils étaient souriant en face du tombeau, Les rossignols élus que la rose assassine.

Ils ne regrettaient pas les tendres soirs futurs, Les conversations sur les places d’Athènes, Où, le col altéré de poussière et d’azur, Pallas, comme un pigeon, pleure au bord des fontaines.

Ils ne regrettaient pas les gradins découverts Où le public trépigne, insiste, Pour regarder, avant qu’ils montent sur la piste, Les cochers bleus riant avec les cochers verts.

Ils ne regrettaient pas ce loisir disparate D’une ville qui semble un sordide palais, Où l’on se réunit pour entendre Socrate Et pour jouer aux osselets.

Ils étaient éblouis de tumulte et de risque, Mais, si la fourbe mort les désignait soudain, Ils laissaient sans gémir sur l’herbe du jardin Les livres et le disque.

Ce n’était pas pour eux l’insupportable affront, Ils se couchaient sans choc, sans lutte, sans tapage, Comme on voit, ayant bien remué sous le front, Un vers définitif s’étendre sur la page.

Ils étaient résignés, vêtus, rigides, prêts Pour cette expérience étrange, Comme Hyacinthe en fleur indolemment se change Et comme Cyparis se transforme en cyprès.

Ils ne regrettaient rien de vivre en Ionie, D’être libres, d’avoir des mères et des sœurs, Et de sentir ce lourd sommeil envahisseur Après une courte insomnie.

Ils rentraient au séjour qui n’a plus de saison, Où notre faible orgueil se refuse à descendre, Sachant que l’urne étroite où gît un peu de cendre Sera tout le jardin et toute la maison.

Jadis j’ai vu mourir des frères de mon âge, J’ai vu monter en eux l’indicible torpeur. Ils avaient tous si mal! Ils avaient tous si peur! Ils se prenaient la tête avec des mains en nage.

Ils ne pouvaient pas croire, ayant si soif, si faim, Un tel désir de tout avec un cœur si jeune, A ce désert sans source, à cet immense jeûne, A ce terme confus qui n’a jamais de fin.

Ils n’attendaient plus rien de la tendresse humaine Et cherchaient à chasser d’un effort douloureux L’Ange noir qui se couche à plat ventre sur eux Et qui les considère avant qu’il les emmène. JEAN COCTEAU

HOW THE YOUNG MEN DIED IN HELLAS

A FRAGMENT

[TRANSLATION]

Antigone went wailing to the dust. She reverenced not the face of Death like these To whom it came as no enfeebling peace But a command relentless and august.

These grieved not at the beauty of the morn, Nor that the sun was on the ripening flower; Smiling they faced the sacrificial hour, Blithe nightingales against the fatal thorn.

They grieved not that their feet no more should rove The Athenian porticoes in twilight leisure, Where Pallas, drunk with summer’s gold and azure, Brooded above the fountains like a dove.

They grieved not for the theatre’s high-banked tiers, Where restlessly the noisy crowd leans over, With laughter and with jostling, to discover The blue and green of chaffing charioteers.

Nor for the fluted shafts, the carven stones Of that sole city, bright above the seas, Where young men met to talk with Socrates Or toss the ivory bones.

Their eyes were lit with tumult and with risk, But when they felt Death touch their hands and pass They followed, dropping on the garden grass The parchment and the disk.

It seemed no wrong to them that they must go. They laid their lives down as the poet lays On the white page the poem that shall praise His memory when the hand that wrote is low.

Erect they stood and, festally arrayed, Serenely waited the transforming hour, Softly as Hyacinth slid from youth to flower, Or the shade of Cyparis to a cypress shade.

They wept not for the lost Ionian days, Nor liberty, nor household love and laughter, Nor the long leaden slumber that comes after Life’s little wakefulness.

Fearless they sought the land no sunsets see, Whence our weak pride shrinks back, and would return, Knowing a pinch of ashes in an urn Henceforth our garden and our house shall be.

Young men, my brothers, you whose morning skies I have seen the deathly lassitude invade, Oh, how you suffered! How you were afraid! What death-damp hands you locked about your eyes!

You, so insatiably athirst to spend The young desires in your hearts abloom, How could you think the desert was your doom, The waterless fountain and the endless end?

You yearned not for the face of love, grown dim, But only fought your anguished bones to wrest From the Black Angel crouched upon your breast, Who scanned you ere he led you down with him. JEAN COCTEAU

A MESSAGE

This is our gift to the Homeless. What shall it bear from me Safe in a land that prospers Girded by leagues of sea?-- Tear moistened words of pity, Bountiful sympathy.

Clearly we see the picture, Horror has fixed our eyes. Fighting to guard its hearthstones A nation mangled lies. Fire has charred its beauty, Murder has stilled its cries;

And truths we love and cherish Hang in the trembling scale. If you win, we win by proxy, If you fail, we are doomed to fail. The world is beset by a monster, Yet we watch to see who shall prevail.

Our souls are racked and quickened, But prudence counsels no. So we lavish our gold and pity And wait to see how it will go,-- This pivotal war of the ages With its heartrending ebb and flow.

For ever there comes the moment When destiny bids “choose.” By the edge of the sword men perish, By selfishness all they lose. So Belgium stands transfigured As the one who did not refuse. ROBERT GRANT

CRY OF THE HOMELESS

Instigator of the ruin-- Whichsoever thou mayst be Of the mastering minds of Europe That contrived our misery-- Hear the wormwood-worded greeting From each city, shore, and lea Of thy victims: “Enemy, all hail to thee!”

Yea: “All hail!” we grimly shout thee That wast author, fount, and head Of these wounds, whoever proven When our times are throughly read. “May thy dearest ones be blighted And forsaken,” be it said By thy victims, “And thy children beg their bread!”

Nay: too much the malediction.-- Rather let this thing befall In the unfurling of the future, On the night when comes thy call: That compassion dew thy pillow And absorb thy senses all For thy victims, Till death dark thee with his pall. THOMAS HARDY

_August, 1915_

[Illustration: _JACQUES-ÉMILE BLANCHE_

PORTRAIT OF THOMAS HARDY

FROM A PHOTOGRAPH OF THE ORIGINAL PAINTING]

THE LITTLE CHILDREN

“Suffer little children to come unto me,” Christ said, and answering with infernal glee, “Take them!” the arch-fiend scoffed, and from the tottering walls Of their wrecked homes, and from the cattle’s stalls, And the dogs’ kennels, and the cold Of the waste fields, and from the hapless hold Of their dead mothers’ arms, famished and bare, And maimed by shot and shell, The master-spirit of hell Caught them up, and through the shuddering air Of the hope-forsaken world The little ones he hurled, Mocking that Pity in his pitiless might-- The Anti-Christ of Schrecklickeit. W. D. HOWELLS

ÉPITAPHE

Ci-gît un tel, mort pour la France et qui, vivant, Poussait sa voiturette à travers les villages Pour vendre un peu de fil, de sel ou de fromage, Sous les portails d’azur aux feuillages mouvants.

Il a gagné son pain comme au Commandement Que donne aux hommes Dieu dans le beau Livre sage. Puis, un jour, sur sa tête a crevé le nuage Que lance l’orageux canon de l’Allemand.

Ce héros, dans l’éclair qui délivra son âme, Aura vu tout en noir ses enfants et sa femme Contemplants anxieux son pauvre gagne-pain:

Ce chariot plus beau que n’est celui de l’Ourse Et qu’il a fait rouler pendant la dure course Qui sur terre commence un céleste destin. FRANCIS JAMMES

_Orthez, 29 Juillet 1915_

AN EPITAPH

[TRANSLATION]

Here such an one lies dead for France. His trade To push a barrow stocked with thread, cheese, salt From town to town, under the azure vault, Through endless corridors of rustling shade. True to the sacred law of toil, he made His humble living as the Book commands, Till suddenly there burst upon his lands The thunder of the German cannonade.

Poor hero! In the flash that smote him dead He saw his wife and children all in black Weeping about the cart that earned their bread-- The cart that, by his passionate impulse sped On immortality’s celestial track, Shone brighter than the Wain above his head. FRANCIS JAMMES

IN SLEEP

I dreamt (no “dream” awake--a dream indeed) A wrathful man was talking in the Park: “Where are the Higher Powers who know our need, Yet leave us in the dark?

“There are no Higher Powers; there is no heart In God, no love”--his oratory here, Taking the paupers’ and the cripples’ part, Was broken by a tear.

And next it seemed that One who did invent Compassion, who alone created pity, Walked, as though called, and hastened as He went Out from the muttering city;

Threaded the little crowd, trod the brown grass, Bent o’er the speaker close, saw the tear rise, And saw Himself, as one looks in a glass, In those impassioned eyes. ALICE MEYNELL

NOS MORTS

Astres qui regardez les mondes où nous sommes, Pure armée au repos dans la hauteur des cieux, Campement éternel, léger, silencieux, Que pensez-vous de voir s’anéantir les hommes? A n’être pas sublime aucun ne condescend, Comme un cri vers la nue on voit jaillir leur sang Qui sur nos cœurs contrits lentement se rabaisse. --Morts divins, portez-nous un plausible secours! Notre douleur n’est pas la sœur de votre ivresse. Vous mourez! Concevez que c’est un poids trop lourd Pour ceux qui dans leur grave et brûlante tristesse Ont toujours confondu la Vie avec l’Amour. COMTESSE DE NOAILLES

OUR DEAD

[TRANSLATION]

Stars that behold our world upon its way, Pure legions camped upon the plains of night, Mute watchful hosts of heaven, what must you say When men destroy each other in their might? Upon their deadly race each runner starts, Nor one but will his brothers all outrun! Ah, see their blood jet upward to the sun Like living fountains refluent on our hearts! O dead divinely for so great a faith, Help us, whose agony is but begun, For bitterly we yield you up to death, We who had dreamed that Life and Love were one. COMTESSE DE NOAILLES

[Illustration: _CLAUDE MONET_

LANDSCAPE

FROM AN EARLY COLOURED PASTEL]

TWO SONGS OF A YEAR

1914-1915

I

CHILDREN’S KISSES

So; it is nightfall then. The valley flush That beckoned home the way for herds and men Is hardly spent: Down the bright pathway winds, through veils of hush And wonderment. Unuttered yet the chime That tells of folding-time; Hardly the sun has set;-- The trees are sweetly troubled with bright words From new-alighted birds. And yet, ... Here, round my neck, are come to cling and twine, The arms, the folding arms, close, close and fain, All mine!-- I pleaded to, in vain, I reached for, only to their dimpled scorning, Down the blue halls of morning;-- Where all things else could lure them on and on, Now here, now gone, From bush to bush, from beckoning bough to bough, With bird-calls of _Come Hither!_--

Ah, but now ... Now it is dusk.--And from his heaven of mirth, A wilding skylark sudden dropt to earth Along the last low sunbeam yellow-moted,-- Athrob with joy,-- There pushes here, a little golden Boy, Still gazing with great eyes: And wonder-wise, All fragrancy, all valor silver-throated, My daughterling, my swan, My Alison.

Closer than homing lambs against the bars At folding-time, that crowd, all mother-warm, They crowd, they cling, they wreathe;-- And thick as sparkles of the thronging stars, Their kisses swarm.

O Rose of Being at whose heart I breathe, Fold over, hold me fast In the dim Eden of a blinding kiss. And lightning heart’s desire, be still at last. Heart can no more,-- Life can no more Than this.

II

THE SANS-FOYER

Love, that Love cannot share,-- Now turn to air! And fade to ashes, O my daily bread, Save only if you may Bless you, to be the stay Of the uncomforted.

Behold, you far-off lights,-- From smoke-veiled heights, If there be dwelling in our wilderness! For Love the refugee, No stronghold can there be,-- No shelter more, while these go shelterless.

Love hath no home, beside His own two arms spread wide;-- The only home, among all walls that are: So there may come to cling, Some yet forlorner thing Feeling its way, along this blackened star. JOSEPHINE PRESTON PEABODY

RAIN IN BELGIUM

The heavy rain falls down, falls down, On city streets whence all have fled, Where tottering ruins skyward frown Above the staring silent dead. Here shall ye raise your Kaiser’s throne, Stained with the blood for freedom shed.

Here where men choked for breath in vain Who in fair fight had all withstood, Here on this poison-haunted plain, Made rich with babes’ and women’s blood, Here shall ye plant your German grain, Here shall ye reap your children’s food.

The harvest ripens--Reaper come! Bring children singing Songs of Hate Taught by the mother in the home-- Fit comrade she for such a mate. Soon shall ye reap what ye have sown; God’s mills grind thoroughly though late.

The heavy rain beats down, beats down; I hear in it the tramp of Fate! LILLA CABOT PERRY

[Illustration: _CHARLES DANA GIBSON_

“THE GIRL HE LEFT BEHIND HIM”

FROM A PEN-AND-INK SKETCH]

L’EXILÉ

“O deuil de ne pouvoir emporter sur la mer Dans l’écume salée et dans le vent amer, L’épi de son labeur et le fruit de sa treille, Ni la rose que l’aurore fait plus vermeille Ni rien de tout de ce qui, selon chaque saison, Pare divinement le seuil de la maison! Mais, puisque mon foyer n’est plus qu’un peu de cendre, Et que, dans mon jardin, je ne dois plus entendre Sur les arbres chanter les oiseaux du printemps; Que nul ne reviendra de tous ceux que j’attends, S’abriter sous le toit où nichaient les colombes, Adieu donc, doux pays où nous avions nos tombes, Où nous devions, à l’heure où se ferment les yeux, Nous endormir auprès du sommeil des aïeux! Nous partons. Ne nous pleurez pas, tendres fontaines, Terre que nous quittons pour des terres lointaines, O toi que le brutal talon du conquérant A foulée et qu’au loin, de sa lueur de sang, Empourpre la bataille et rougit l’incendie! Qu’un barbare vainqueur nous chasse et qu’il châtie En nous le saint amour que nous avons pour toi, C’est bien. La force pour un jour, prime le droit, Mais l’exil qu’on subit pour ta cause, Justice, Laisse au destin vengeur le temps qu’il s’accomplisse. Nous reviendrons. Et soit que nous passions la mer Parmi l’embrun cinglant et dans le vent amer, Soit que le sort cruel rudement nous disperse, Troupeau errant, sous la rafale ou sous l’averse, Ne nous plains pas, cher hôte, en nous tendant la main, Car n’est-il pas pour toi un étranger divin Celui qui, le front haut et les yeux pleins de flamme, A quitté sa maison pour fuir un joug infâme Et dont le fier genou n’a pas voulu ployer Et qui, pauvre, exilé, sans pain et sans foyer, Sent monter, de son cœur à sa face pâlie, Ce même sang sacré que saigne la Patrie. HENRI DE RÉGNIER _de l’Académie Française_

THE EXILE

[TRANSLATION]

Bitter our fate, that may not bear away On the harsh winds and through the alien spray Sheaves of our fields and fruit from the warm wall, The rose that reddens at the morning’s call, Nor aught of all wherewith the turning year Our doorway garlanded, from green to sere.... But since the ash is cold upon the hearth, And dumb the birds in garden and in garth, Since none shall come again, of all our loves, Back to this roof that crooned with nesting doves, Now let us bid farewell to all our dead, And that dear corner of earth where they are laid, And where in turn it had been good to lay Our kindred heads on the appointed day.

Weep not, O springs and fountains, that we go, And thou, dear earth, the earth our footsteps know, Weep not, thou desecrated, shamed and rent, Consumed with fire and with blood-shed spent. Small strength have they that hunt us from thy fold To loosen love’s indissoluble hold, And brighter than the flames about thy pyre Our exiled faith shall spring for thee, and higher. We shall return. Let Time reverse the glass. Homeless and scattered from thy face we pass, Through rain and tempest flying from our doors, On seas unfriendly swept to stranger shores. But, O you friends unknown that wait us there, We ask no pity, though your bread we share. For he who, flying from the fate of slaves With brow indignant and with empty hand, Has left his house, his country and his graves, Comes like a Pilgrim from a Holy Land. Receive him thus, if in his blood there be One drop of Belgium’s immortality. HENRI DE RÉGNIER _de l’Académie Française_

HORREUR ET BEAUTÉ

Sabreur de mains d’enfants qui demandaient du pain, Brûleur de basilique et de bibliothèque, Geste obscène, œil sanglant, front d’anthropopithèque, L’homme ne s’est jamais plus hideusement peint.

Mais Roncevaux n’a rien de plus beau, sous son Pin, Rien de plus pur, sous son Laurier, la fable Grecque, Que ce jeune Monarque et son vieil Archevêque: C’est Achille et Nestor, c’est Roland et Turpin.

Roi, d’un juste reflux puissions-nous voir la vague! Et toi, puisque ta main éleva dans sa bague Le seul reflet de ciel qui bénit cet Enfer,

Que la pourpre sur toi soit plus cardinalice, Prêtre! et que de la Croix qui n’était pas de Fer Un Christ plus abondant coule dans ton calice! EDMOND ROSTAND

HORROR AND BEAUTY

[TRANSLATION]

Gashed hands of children who cry out for bread-- While as the flames from sacred places rise The Blonde Beast, hideous, with blood-shot eyes And obscene gesture mutilates the dead--

But neither Roncesvalles where Roland bled With Turpin, nor Greek deeds of high emprise Can to a pitch of purer beauty rise Than the Young King, the Priest, unconqueréd.

Oh King, soon all thy foes may’st thou repel! And thou, High-Priest, from whose ring, raised to men, Shone the one gleam of Heaven in that Hell,

May thy empurpled vestments so avail That from the Cross--not made of Iron then-- A richer Christ glow in thy holy grail. EDMOND ROSTAND

_Translated by Walter V. R. Berry_

THE UNDERGRADUATE KILLED IN BATTLE

Sweet as the lawn beneath his sandalled tread Or the scarce rippled stream beneath his oar, For its still, channelled current constant more, His life was, and the few blithe words he said.

One or two poets read he, and reread; One or two friends in boyish ardour wore Next to his heart, incurious of the lore Dodonian woods might murmur o’er his head.

Ah, demons of the whirlwind, have a care What, trumpeting your triumphs, ye undo! The earth once won, begins your long despair That never, never is his bliss for you. He breathed betimes this clement island air And in unwitting lordship saw the blue. GEORGE SANTAYANA

_Oxford, August, 1915_

[Illustration: _WALTER GAY_

INTERIOR

FROM AN ORIGINAL WATER-COLOUR SKETCH]

_EDITH M. THOMAS_

THE CHILDREN AND THE FLAG

_The little children in my country kiss the American flag._ MADAME VANDERVELDE

What of those children over the sea That are beating about the world’s rough ways, Like the tender blossoms from off a tree That a sudden gale in Spring betrays? The children? Oh, let them look for the sign Of a wave-borne flag, thou land of mine!

On the old gray sea its course it holds, Life for the famished is in its gift.... And the children are crowding to kiss its folds, While the tears of their mothers fall free and swift.-- And what of the flag their lips have pressed? Oh, guard it for ever--That flag is blest. EDITH M. THOMAS

THE TROUBLER OF TELARO

1

Warm vines bloom now along thy rampart steeps Thy shelves of olives, undercliffs of azure, And like a lizard of the red rock sleeps The wrinkled Tuscan sea, panting for pleasure. Nets, too, festooned about thine elfin port, Telaro, in the Etrurian mountain’s side, Heavings of golden luggers scarce distort The image of thy belfry where they ride. But thee, Telaro, on a night long gone That grey and holy tower upon the mole Suddenly summoned, while yet lightnings shone And hard gale lingered, with a ceaseless toll That choked, with its disastrous monotone, All the narrow channels of the hamlet’s soul.

2