is the aesthetics of de Montesquiou, but the bauble is no more than an amusing fragile thing to be placed under a glass case or closet,—yes, preferably in a closet. Then, disburdened of all this grotto work, all this lacquer, all this delicate paste, and as he himself wittily says, all these "shelves of infusoria," the poet's museum would become an agreeable gallery, where one would pleasantly muse before the many metamorphoses of a soul anxious to give a new nuance-laden grace to beauty. With the half of the Hortensias bleus one could make a book, still quite thick, which would be almost entirely composed of fine or proud or delicate poetry. The author of Ancilla, of Mortuis ignotis, and of Tables vives would appear what he truly is, excluding all travesty,—a good poet.
Here is a part of the Tables vives, whose title is obscure, but whose verses have beautiful clarity, despite the too familiar sound of some too Parnassian rimes and some verbal incertitudes:
... Apprenez à l'enfant à prier les flots bleus,
Car c'est le ciel d'en bas dont la nue est l'écume,
Le reflet du soleil qui sur la mer s'allume
Est plus doux à fixer pour nos yeux nébuleux.
Apprenez à l'enfant à prier le ciel pur,
C'est l'océan d'en haut dont la vague est nuage.
L'ombre d'une tempête abondante en naufrage
Pour nos coeurs est moins triste à suivre dans l'azur.
Apprenez à l'enfant à prier toutes choses:
L'abeille de l'esprit compose un miel de jour
Sur les vivants ave du rosaire des roses,
Chapelet de parfums aux dizaines d'amour....
[(Tr. 56)]
In short, de Montesquiou exists: blue hortensia, green rose or white peony, he is of those flowers one curiously gazes upon in a bed of flowers, whose name one asks and whose memory one cherishes.
[GUSTAVE KAHN]
Domaine De Fée, a Song of Songs recited by one lone voice, very charming and very amorous, in a Verlainian setting,—O eternal Verlaine!
O bel avril épanoui,
Qu'importe ta chanson franche,
Tes lilas blancs, tes aubépines et l'or fleuri
De ton soleil par les branches,
Si loin de moi la bien-aimée
Dans les brumes du nord est restée.
[(Tr. 57)]
That is the tone. It is very simple, very delicate, very pure and sometimes biblical: