To the end of the trail / Richard Hovey [electronic text]

IV

(The following ten songs have been collected from notebooks, and found to be so much liked by lovers of Maeterlinck that it seems best to include them here.)

SONGS FROM THE FRENCH OF MAETERLINCK

I.
[Elle l'enchaîna dans une grotte]

SHE fettered her in a cavern dour, She set a mark upon the door, The maid forgot the light of day And the key fell into the sea.

She waited all the summer days, She waited seven years or more. Each year a passer passed the door.

She waited all the winter days, And as she waited her golden hair Remembered how the light was fair.

It sought it out, it found it out, It glided out between the stones And lighted all the rocks about.

A passer passed again one night, He did not understand the light And dared not draw near where it shone.

He thought it was a symbol fey, He thought it was a golden rain, He thought it was an angel's play, He turned away and passed again.

II.
[Et s'il revenait un jour]

AND if some day he come back, What should he be told? —— Tell him he was waited for Till my heart was cold.…

And if he ask me yet again, Not recognizing me? — — Speak him fair and sisterly; His heart breaks, maybe.…

And if he asks me where you are, What shall I reply? — — Give him my golden ring; Make no reply.…

And if he ask me why the hall Is left desolate? — Show him the unlit lamp And the open gate.…

And if he should ask me, then, How you fell asleep? — — Tell him that I smiled, for fear Lest he should weep.…

III.
[Ils ont tué trois petites filles]

THEY have killed three little girls, to see What there was in their little hearts.

The first heart was full of happiness: And three years where'er its blood had flowed, Three serpents hissed along the road.

The second heart was full of gentleness: And three years where'er the blood had flowed, Three lambs bleated in the road.

The third heart was full of wretchedness: And three years where'er the blood had flowed, Three archangels watched beside the road.

IV.
[Les filles aux yeux bandés]

THE maids with banded eyes (Take off the golden bands) The maids with banded eyes Seek out their destinies.

The eyes are wide at noon (Guard well the golden bands) The eyes are wide at noon Ah! Palace of the plains…

They greeted life with mirth (Put back the golden bands) They greeted life with mirth And never ventured forth…

V.
[Les trois sœurs aveugles]

THE three blind sisters (Hope we as of old) The three blind sisters With their lamps of gold…

Climbed the tower-stair (They and you and we) Climbed the tower-stair And seven days waited there.…

"Oh," the first one said (Hope we as of old) "Oh," the first one said, "Is it the lamp that sighs?"…

"Oh," the second said (They and you and we) "Oh," the second said, "'Tis the King draws near."…

"No," the holiest said (Hope we as of old) "No," the holiest said, "The lights are all dead."…

VI
[On est venu dire]

SOMEONE came to say (Child, I am afraid) Someone came to say He would go away.…

With my lamp alight (Child, I am afraid) With my lamp alight I went through the night.…

And at the first door (Child, I am afraid) And at the first door The flame shook with fright.…

At the second door (Child, I am afraid) At the second door The flame spoke outright.…

And at the third door (Child, I am afraid) And at the third door The light burned no more.…

VII.
[Les sept filles d'Orlamonde]

THE seven daughters of Orlamonde, When the Fairy was no more, The seven daughters of Orlamonde Went seeking for the door.…

They lit their seven lamps and sought; Up the tower went they; They opened thrice two hundred doors, But nowhere found the day.…

They came unto the sounding vaults That lead down to the sea; And there above a bolted door They found a golden key.

They saw the ocean through the chinks, They feared they should have died; And beat against the bolted door But dared not fling it wide.…

VIII.
[Quand il est sorti]

WHEN he had gone (I heard the door) When he had gone She had smiled…

But when he returned (I heard the lamp) But when he returned Another was there…

And I have seen Death (I heard his soul) And I have seen Death Who waits once more…

IX.
[Vous avez allumé les lampes]

WHY have you lighted all the links — I see the sun in the garden! — Why have you lighted all the links? I see the sunlight through the chinks! Open the doors to the garden!

— The keys that ope the doors are lost, And we must wait, and we must wait; The three keys fell from the tower wall And we must wait and we must wait And we must wait till the morrows.

The morrows will open wide the doors, The forest hides the locks, The forest burns about our walls. It is the light of the autumn leaves That shines on the sills of the doors —

— The morrows weary on the way; The morrows fear — they fear as well. The morrows will not come this way; The morrows die — they die as well, And we as well shall die.…

X.
[J'ai cherché trente ans, mes sœurs]

THIRTY years I sought, my sisters, For his hiding place, — Thirty years I walked, my sisters, And I found no trace…

Thirty years I walked, my sisters, Far as my feet may bear… He is everywhere, my sisters, Yet exists nowhere…

Bitter is the hour, O my sisters, I have missed the goal. The evening dies, too, my sisters, I am sick in my soul…

You are but sixteen, O my sisters, Go far from this place. Take up my burden, my sisters, And seek ever his face.

TRANSLATIONS FROM STEPHANE MALLARMÉ

I.
SIGH

(From the French of Mallarmé.)

MY soul toward thy forehead, O calm sister, where An autumn of strewn freckles dreams in the still air, And toward the wandering heaven of thine angel eye Mounts as, in some sad garden where the last leaves die,

Still faithful, a white fountain sighs toward the blue —Toward the softened, pallid, pure October blue That glasses i' the great bowls its languor without end, — And lets the yellow sun o'er waters where the wind Drives tawny throes of leaves that veer and cleave a cold Furrow, in one long ray drag out its sobbing gold.

GIVERNY, August, 1897.

II.
THE FLOWERS

(From the French of Mallarmé.)

FROM the golden avalanches of the ancient Blue, In the first day, and from the stars' eternal snow Thou didst detach of yore great calices to strew Upon the earth, still young and virgin yet of woe;

The tawny gladiolus, with the slim necked swans; The laurel, sacred flower the souls of exiles wear, Vermilion as the seraph's toe whose pureness there Reddens in heaven with the blush of trampled dawns;

The hyacinth, the myrtle worshipped for its hues, And, like the flesh of woman, cruel-sweet, the rose, Herodias in bloom of the fair garden-close, She whom a dew of fierce and glowing blood bedews;

And thou didst make the lilies with their sobbing white That, rolling Over seas of sighs it grazes on, Through the blue incense of horizons of pale light Mounts upward dreamily toward the weeping moon.

Hosanna on the sistrum and where the censer swings! Our Lady, hosanna from the garden where we wait! And let the echo die in heavenly evenings, Looks that are ecstasies, haloes that scintillate!

III.
THE WINDOWS

(From the French of Mallarmé.)

TIRED of the gloomy ward and the rank smell That rises in the curtain's banal white Toward the great Christ that wearies of the wall, The sick man slyly lifts himself upright

And drags his old limbs, less to warm his sores Than see the sunlight on the stones and glue The white hairs and the bones of his thin face Against the windows the sweet sun burns through;

And his lips, feverish, hungry for the sky, — As once they breathed in their delight of old, Flesh virginal and of long since! —now grease With a long bitter kiss the panes' warm gold.

Drunken, he lives — forgets the dreaded priests, The draughts, the clock, the bed where he must die, The cough; and when the evening bleeds i' the tiles, In the horizon, gorged with light, his eye

Sees golden galleys, beautiful as swans, Sleep on a river of purple and perfumes, Cradling the tawny lightning of their lines In a large idlesse laden with old dooms.

So, seized with loathing for hard-hearted man Who wallows in his belly's food and runs Headstrong to seek that filth, to offer it To her that gives suck to his little ones,

I flee, and clutch at every casement whence One turns his back on life and, benedight, Within those panes washed with eternal dews, Gold with the chaste dawn of the Infinite,

Glass me, and see the angel! die, and would fain — Be the glass Art, or light of occult powers!—Would rise and take my dream for diadem To the prime heaven that beauty blossoms in —

But, alas, Down-Here is master; even in this Safe shelter haunts me, makes me sick to die, And the foul vomit of the silly swine Still makes me hold my nose before the sky.

Is there a way, my soul that knows the gall, To smash the glass insulted by the Lie, And to escape with my two plumeless wings, At risk of falling through eternity?

TRANSLATIONS FROM PAUL VERLAINE

THE FAUN

(From the French of Verlaine.)

AN old terra-cotta Faun Grins in the middle of the green, Boding, no doubt, some ill to blast The moments that with steps serene

Have led me on, and led thee on, Pilgrims of melancholy mien, Up to this hour whose flying past Twirls to the sound of the tambourine.

WOLFVILLE, 1896.