Maurice Maeterlinck

“ Of a princess locked in a tower on a day of rejoicing,
Of men sailing all the week on the stagnant waters of a canal.
Have pity on those that come creeping forth
like convalescents at harvest-tide!
Have pity on those that have the air of children
who have lost their way at supper-time!
Have pity on the glances of the wounded man at the surgeon,
Like tents stricken by a hurricane!
Have pity on the glances of the virgin tempted!
(Rivers of milk are flowing away in the darkness;
And the swans have died in the midst of serpents!) ”

“ A group of sick folk halted amid the meadows,
An odour of ether abroad on the sunny air!
My God, my God, when shall we feel the rain,
And the snow, and the wind, in this close house of glass?
PRAYER
O Pity me that wander hence
To haunt the threshold of intent
My soul is pale with impotence,
Colourless and indolent.
A soul for action all too weak,
Pallid with tears, it vainly heeds
The weary hands that idly seek
To grapple with abortive deeds. ”

“ One peculiarity of Maeterlinck's which may at first confuse the English reader is only a simple convention. All poetry is full of similes; the simile confuses no one. If a poet tells us that his heart is like a singing-bird we do not seriously suppose him to mean that his heart has feathers and two legs; but merely that it possesses some other essential quality of a singing-bird. Now Maeterlinck constantly, in his verse, uses what is merely a modification of the simile, which has precisely the same significance, but which takes the form of a positive assertion of identity. ”

“ Their kiss on blind eyes chiller than the snow,
Henceforth absorbed in their magnificent dream.
Drowsy as hounds deep in the grass they seem;
They watch the grey flocks on the sky-line pass,
Browsing on moonlight scattered o'er the grass,
By skies as vague as their own life caressed.
They see, unvexed by envy or unrest,
The roses of joy that open on every hand,
The long green peace they cannot understand.
THE WEARY HUNTING
My soul is sick, in an evil mood ”

“ Let fall Thy leaves upon the snow,
Let fall Thy rain upon the fire.
The sun upon my pillow plays,
The self-same hours they sound again,
And always falls my questing gaze
On dying men that harvest grain.
My hands they pluck the withered grass,
Mine eyes with sleep are all undone,
Are sick folk in a springless pass,
Or flowers of darkness in the sun.
When will my dreams unchanging know
The rain, and when the meadows brown
Along the far horizon, lo,
The lambs are herded toward the town. ”

“ And the vegetation of the tropics in a cavern of ice!
Listen! They are opening the locks,
And the ocean steamers are churning the waters of the canal!
But see, the Sister of Charity is making up the fire!
All the lovely green rushes of the banks are in flames!
And a boat full of wounded men is tossing in the moonlight!
All the king's daughters are out in a boat in the storm!
And the princesses are dying in a field of hemlock!
Oh, do not unfasten the windows!
Listen—the ocean steamers are still hooting on the horizon!
They are poisoning someone in a garden! ”

“ He is a rash man, therefore, who will attempt to elucidate another's symbolism. However, I have already been rash, in venturing to translate, not a few selected lyrics, but an entire volume of verse from cover to cover, than which there is no more appalling task in literature. But I am not, therefore, disposed to court disaster by attempting any detailed or positive explanation. I could indeed have asked M. Maeterlinck for such; but at the moment of writing his country is being crucified by the powers of darkness, and he has other and sterner matters to think of. ”

“ Once in a generation an author surpasses the bounds of nationality. Of such cosmopolitan artists Maurice Maeterlinck is perhaps the most shining example. Twenty years ago I was vainly endeavouring to interest English publishers in his plays. To-day I am asked to produce a version of one of his earlier and less familiar works, because the time is approaching for that monument to his fame which so few writers enjoy in their lifetime—namely, the complete edition. He is not a Belgian writer merely or chiefly; above all he is an English, an American author. ”

“ It is safe to assert that the writer of these poems had read his Verlaine, his Rimbaud, his Mallarmé, and his Baudelaire, and of English-speaking poets Emerson, Poe, perhaps Rossetti, and above all Whitman. But he is no disciple; and his essential originality, and the keynote of his aesthetics, is a system of symbolism.
Now here at once we are on dangerous ground. When a poet makes use of a symbol it is because that symbol enables him to say something that he cannot say so well, or so beautifully, or perhaps at all, in plain language. ”

“ But musical as Maeterlinck's verses are, and rich in sheer beauty, we are very seldom in doubt as to what the poet says, however little we may in some cases understand what he means. His statements are concrete and lucid; it is the inner meaning, the soul of his verse, that sometimes threatens to elude us. Had this volume been cast upon the late Victorian world this preface would perhaps have been longer. But I cannot believe that these poems will present any difficulties to a generation which has degustated such phenomena as Cubism and its kindred manifestations. ”

“ I do not think we shall go far wrong in supposing the hot-house, the bell-glass, the diving-bell, the hospital, to typify the isolation and insulation caused by a false civilization and an unreal religion, so productive of hypocrisy, fear, and confusion that each man is a prisoner within himself, unable to reach his fellow. ”

“ And the inmates of the hot-house—the strange growths, the fantastic visions, the violent antitheses and incongruities—these, we may take it, are the morbidities fostered by a life which protects us and them from the agencies by which Nature makes her own children perfect in strength and beauty and service. That is my reading of it; the reader is perfectly free to differ from me, and will lose little by so doing if I have succeeded in preserving a tithe of the original beauty of the verse. ”

“ And those that will never be, and yet exist!
There are those that seem to visit the poor on a Sabbath;
There are some like sick folk who are houseless,
There are some like lambs in a meadow full of bleaching linen ”

“ The light of the dying leafage pours
Blazing bright beneath the doors.
The days to be already ail,
The days to be they fear and fail,
The days to be will never come;
For day by day will die as we,
Die as we in this our tomb. ”

“ This change I have sometimes made; and in one case I have, in order to avoid a verbal obscurity, extended the line to ten syllables. Apart from these exceptions all the poems in this volume are translated into their original metres, and it has always been my first object to produce a literal, almost a word for word, translation. Whatever the faults of my version, it is strictly faithful. If I am deemed to have also preserved something of the beauty of the original I shall feel more than rewarded for a task that has presented many difficulties. ”

“ Many poets of the late nineteenth century were, without being symbolists, affected by the Symbolist movement—a movement very loosely named, since the actual symbolists connected with it could be counted on the fingers of one hand. ”

“ The poems contained in this volume form part of a movement long defunct—the Belgian Symbolist movement, an offshoot of that Belgian renascence which produced so remarkable a body of great and noble poetry. I cannot say, however, that perusal of the other poets of the period will assist the reader to appreciate the volume in hand. Eekhoud, Elskamp, Gilkin, Rodenbach, Verhaeren—none of these wrote verse which could possibly be confounded with that of Maeterlinck; twenty years ago the latter was no less original than he is to-day. ”

“ His readers in England and the United States far outnumber those who read the original French. His books are published in England and America almost as soon as they appear in France and Belgium, and in at least one case the English publication was the earlier. More and more do his lovers demand every word that his pen has formed. Sooner or later, therefore, it was inevitable that these "Poems" should appear in translation. ”

“ THE HOSPITAL
NIGHT PRAYER
WINTRY DESIRES
LISTLESSNESS
AMEN
THE DIVING BELL
AQUARIUM
THE BURNING-GLASS
REFLECTIONS
VISIONS
PRAYER
GLANCES
VIGIL
AFTERNOON
THE SOUL
INTENTIONS
CONTACTS
NIGHT
FIFTEEN SONGS
The right to reproduce these poems or to set them to music is reserved by the translator, and application must be made to him or to Mr J. B. Pinker of Talbot House, Arundel Street.
"AND IN HIS HAND A GLASS WHICH SHOWS US MANY MORE"
SHAKESPEARE
"ET TORPENTI MULTA RELINQUITUR MISERIA"
"DE IMITATIONE"
HOT-HOUSES
THE HOT-HOUSE
O Hot-house deep in the forest's heart! ”