‘So I am; Truth is my heritage, since I find my security so good! Nothing in Life is comparable to the happiness which I derive from my religion; it is dearer to me than life itself! I was as an orchard harassed by the wind; and now I am an orchard golden with ripe fruit.’
So spake Francis Jammes. I smiled the slight smile of the sceptic. The poet glanced at me with an infinite generosity.
‘I wish you the same happiness!’ he said.
Elie-Joseph Bois, Le Temps.
Nov. 3, 1913.
But this conversion has not greatly changed the nature of the poet. His verse is still fresh with the fragrance of wild thyme newly wet with dew. He continues to sing his happy valley, with the mountain towering up behind, right into the blueness of the sky. Only, in his landscape, he gives more prominence to the village church, garlanded with yellow roses: L’Église habillée de Feuilles.
‘Par cette grande paix que l’homme cherche en soi;
Par les jours finissants aux vieux balcons de bois
Où le cœur noir des géraniums blancs s’attriste;
Par l’obscure douceur des choses villageoises;
Par les pigeons couleur d’arc-en-ciel et d’ardoise;
Par le chien dont la tête humble nous invite
À lui passer la main dessus; par tout cela:
Chapelle, sois bénie à l’ombre de ton bois!’
His verse has still its candour, its ingenuous freshness, its Franciscan simplicity:—
‘Je prendrai mon bâton et sur la grande route
J’irai, et je dirai aux ânes, nos amis:
Je suis Francis Jammes et je vais au Paradis.
Car il n’y a pas d’enfer au pays du Bon Dieu.’
And yet so great a change has necessarily had its repercussion in the very form of the poet’s art: Francis Jammes is no longer a ver-librist. Having accepted a discipline for his soul, he may well admit one for his muse. He would no longer write:—
‘J’avais été assez éprouvé pour connaître
Le bonheur de finir ses jours dans la retraite;’