the Dialogue de Zélanae,
Bonjour mynher, bonjour myffrau,
[(Tr. 62)]
as pretty and sweet as some old almanac print. Here, in the middle tone, is a truly faultless lied:
L'heure du nuage blanc s'est fondue sur la plaine
En reflets de sang, en flocons de laine,
O bruyères roses, ô ciel couleur de sang.
L'heure du nuage d'or a pâli sur la plaine,
Et tombent des voiles lents et longs de blanche laine
O bruyères mauves—ô ciel couleur de sang.
L'heure du nuage d'or a crevé sur la plaine,
Les roseaux chantaient doux sous le vent de haine,
O bruyères rouges—ô ciel couleur de sang.
L'heure du nuage d'or a passé sur la plaine
Ephémèrement: sa splendeur est lointaine,
O bruyère d'or—ô ciel couleur de sang.
[(Tr. 63)]
Words, words! Doubtless, but well selected and artistically blended. Kahn is before everything else an artist: sometimes he is more.
[PAUL VERLAINE]
Gaston Boissier, in crowning (touching custom) a fifty-year-old poet, congratulated him for never having innovated, for having expressed ordinary ideas in a facile style, for having scrupulously conformed to the traditional laws of French poetics.
Might not a history of our literature be written by neglecting the innovators? Ronsard would be replaced by Ponthus de Thyard, Corneille by his brother, Racine by Campistron, Lamartine by de Laprade, Victor Hugo by Ponsard, and Verlaine by Aicard; it would be more encouraging, more academic and perhaps more fashionable, for genius in France always seems slightly ridiculous.