But the soldier or the sailor after long years of service gets leave to return to his home on a furlough or a discharge. Sometimes he is welcomed by his aged parents or his faithful wife, who recognize him with joyful surprise, in spite of his rags and wounds; and sometimes he finds that his long absence has wrought fatal changes, that his parents are dead, or his wife, deceived by false news of his death, has married again. Incidents of this latter kind are familiar in folk-song, but there is none where the story is more simply and dramatically told, or where the conduct of the unfortunate husband shows such pathetic refinement of feeling, than in La Femme du Marin, which is one of the best-known and popular of the old songs of Poitou. The air is charmingly soft and melancholy, and the words display a skill in melody which the most accomplished poet might envy. A more felicitous verse can hardly be found in the whole annals of folk-song than this:—
Quand le marin revient de guerre,
Tout doux.
Quand le marin revient de guerre,
Tout doux.
Tout mal chaussé, tout mal vetu,
Pauvre marin du reviens tu?
Tout doux.
It is hardly necessary to apologize for the imperfection of an attempt to render such a flower of poetry into another language.