Miss Lowell on French Poets
scholarly way, and they form, I think, the first book on the subject in the English language. It is a curious choice of poets in some respects. I could wish to see it include Jean Moréas; or Fernand Gregh, whose poetry has a subtle and glowing quality; or perhaps others. But it is a very important work. One is spared the tediousness of exploring volume after volume, and is given a generous supply of the best poems of each of the six men, carefully selected by one who is herself a distinguished poet.
The impression left by Émile Verhaeren is one of greatness and charm. His is an austere, yet mobile, mind. Miss Lowell tells us that "the Flemish character is made up of two parts, one composed of violent and brutal animal spirit, the other of strange, unreasoning mysticism." This is why Verhaeren is capable of being sodden with drink, capable too of the highest flights of the soul. He believed in mankind, and his poems express the common passions of the race. Here we have no superficialities, signals of false successes, but a pen dipped in truth. Rhymes?—yes, he used them all the time, even in vers libre. But these French rhymes (or is it that our ears are so attuned to the dailiness of the English?) do not shout at you, "We are rhymes"—they efface themselves. His colors are fiery, furious, his beauties engloomed by factory smoke, but his words are opals with strange, bright flashes. Here is a lovely thing:
Le vent se noue et s'entrelace et sc dénoue,
et puis soudan, s'enfuit jusqu 'aux vergers luisants,
là-bas, où les pommiers, pareils à des paons blancs,
—nacre em soleil—lui font la roue.
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