MR. STURGE MOORE AND FLAUBERT
(To the Editor of The London Mercury)
Sir,—In the review of Mr. W. K. Seymour's Miscellany of Poetry—1919 (London Mercury, February) the best thing in the book is said to be "a long epistle by Mr. Sturge Moore, which contains pictures as clean-cut and vivid as those which made his Micah so peculiarly rich a poem." This is, of course, a very just remark, but it is a curious thing about Micah that the particular piece of imagery which struck one reader at any rate can be paralleled almost verbatim from Salammbo. I intend no discourtesy to Mr. Sturge Moore when I say that I consider the parallel should have been acknowledged in the text. He has written much about Flaubert and much also about the virtues of joint authorship, and I think nothing but praise for what is apparently a verse translation in Micah would have resulted from the acknowledgment. As the matter stands it seems that an explanation of some sort is wanting, and I suggest that when Micah is published in a collection of Mr. Moore's poetry the point should surely not be overlooked.
The following are the lines referred to:
Salammbo:
"Le toit de la haute maison s'appuie sur de minces colonnettes, rapprochées comme les bâtons d'une claire-voie, et par ces intervalles le maître, étendu sur un long siége, aperçoit toutes ces plaines autour de lui, avec les chasseurs entre les blés, le pressoir où l'on vendange, les bœufs qui battent la paille."
Mr. Sturge Moore:
"The roof of that tall house lightly was raised
On slender colonnettes set nigh as close
As palings. Micah through these intervals
Had oft at leisure from his couch surveyed
The plain stretched round him; slingers in the corn
The wine-press whither they bring in his grapes.
Unmuzzled and well fed, slow oxen trod
The terrace threshing-floor."
Yours, etc.,
H. W. Crundell.