“La souffrance est une lourde charrue, conduite par une main de fer. Plus le sol est ingrat et rebelle, plus elle le déchire, plus il est riche, plus elle s’enfonce.”
“La nuit tout est de feu, les étoiles, les pensées et les larmes.”
On an occasion in Bucharest during which there was a display of fireworks, this aphorism suddenly appeared in letters of flame, to the great surprise of the Queen.
In years of deep sorrow the first chapters of “The Pilgrimage of Sorrow,” “Sappho,” “Hammerstein,” “Over the Waters,” and “Shipwreck” appeared. The four last mentioned poems were published together, and called “Storms.” Carmen Sylva dedicates this work “To the unseen heroism of women,” with the following poem—
“Unto you—who have courage and patience for woe,
Whose souls by earth’s fire are annealed;
Whose hearts the fierce furnace of passion aglow
Hath sanctified, purified, steeled.
Unto you—who in tempest of misery caught
Lift heads with an unabashed daring;
Unto you, who in solemn sereness of thought
The burdens of life are bearing!
Unto you—who like sunbeams, that palpitate, bring
Brightness and warmth—and those only!
Chief givers of grace and of gladdening
To the earth, else so frozen and lonely.
Unto you—who with brave lips set firm in a smile
Over mountains of trouble have wended;
Who, cheered by no clarions of glory erewhile,
Have in glorious battles contended.
Battles, where no hand the bright laurel twines,
But where tears fall, bitter and hidden—
To you—to the undeclared heroines,
This ‘Book of the Women’ is bidden.”
—Translated by Sir Edwin Arnold.