L'oiseau vole vers l'astre; et la grotte plaintive

Gronde. La fleur se tresse aux gemmes sur nos mâts!
Ma bien-aimée, abandonnons la sombre rive,
Voguons chercher la vague même où tu m'aimas !

Épuise aussi ma lèvre où ruisselle la sève

De toute fleur, et dors sur mon nocturne sein :
Voici l'éternité des astres qui se lève,

O roi sauvage, égale aux astres tes desseins.

Nous ressusciterons dans le charme de l'heure
Que tu m'as ménagée au bercement des nuits.
Tu passes sur ta barque et ta lueur demeure

Au front des peuples! Te penchant au bleu des puits,
Poète, en tes seaux d'or, tu puises la sagesse !"
Je répondis; Les hameaux verts sont assoupis,
De la treille jaillit la grappe avec largesse,
Aux gorges la lavande effeuille ses épis!"

Pensive, elle chanta: "Du vieux feu de la terre,
Je t'aime! Oh! par les fleurs des jasmins! baise aussi
Mes seins frais, jusqu'à la jeune heure solitaire
Où le disque d'or neuf du soleil s'épaissit !”

And it is all very young, you say; shining rhetoric and ringing cymbals - merely youth and youth's fervor and fluency? I shall not disagree with you, but even for the feu d'artifice of youth

there is room in literature. Were it not that Signoret were young his books would not interest me very much. I should have glanced them over in the mood of Heine's hero who cried (thrice), "Tirily, tirily, tirily," and, having tirilied, spun round on his heel and went his way. But youth

From this sketch of the new poetry in France I have omitted many poets-Saint-Pol-Roux-le-Magnifique; Pierre Quillard of the violet moons and brief roses; Hérold, who loves jewelled queens and faded saints in free verse; Tailhade, the rhetor; Bataille and Charbonnel, the monk; Fontainas and many others—not because they have not written beautiful poems, but solely because it was my purpose to select certain typical poets. It would be impossible, however, to omit Albert Samain, who represents the Verlainian spirit in literature. His early work is Parnassian. One might say of itfor it is pleasant, now and then, to drive three adjectives tandem that it is grandiloquent, beautiful, empty. His later work, however, is very simple. It is sincere. It is exquisitely delicate, full of hints and veiled suggestions. And, above all, it has that haunting, indecisive music of which Verlaine was the impeccable master. In these, his latter, better

days Samain has taken Verlaine's advice and wrung the neck of eloquence," and he has become a poet truly Verlainian. He has described his poetic creed in these verses, wherein he dreams :

De vers blonds où le sens fluide se délie
Comme sous l'eau la chevelure d'Ophélie,

De vers silencieux, et sans rythme et sans trame,
Où la rime sans bruit glisse comme une rame,

De vers d'une ancienne étoffe exténuée,
Impalpable comme le son et la nuée,

De vers de soirs d'automne ensorcelant les heures
Au rite féminin des syllabes mineures,

De vers de soirs d'amours énervés de verveine,
Où l'âme sente, exquise, une caresse à peine.

Notwithstanding his deep influence on contemporary poetry, Verlaine left few disciples. It is not unpleasant to see the old mastery waken again in such a sonnet as this:

Lentement, doucement, de peur qu'elle se brise,
Prendre une âme; écouter ses plus secrets aveux,
En silence, comme on caresse des cheveux;
Atteindre à la douceur fluide de la brise;

Dans l'ombre, un soir d'orage, où la chair s'électrise,
Promener des doigts d'or sur le clavier nerveux ;
Baisser l'éclat des voix; calmer l'ardeur des feux;
Exalter la couleur rose à la couleur grise.

Essayer des accords de mots mystérieux

Doux comme le baiser de la paupière aux yeux;

Faire ondoyer des chairs d'or pâle dans des brumes,

Et, dans l'âme que gonfle un immense soupir,
Laisser, en s'en allant, comme le souvenir

D'un grand cygne de neige aux longues, longues plumes.

The Paganism of Pierre

Louys

O you remember the notable discussion in
Voltaire's novel?

Dv

"What was this world made for anyway?" Candide asks bitterly, and out of the depth of wisdom Martin replies: "Pour nous faire enrager."

Life is at once too dirty and too sad. Even war can hardly make it splendid. More than one young thinker for after all only young men have that fresh view of life which is thought- has been of Martin's way of thinking. Life is not pretty. In certain ages it has seemed especially sullied and sinister. "Soldiers! let us fight, conquer and die for the safety of our railway systems!" does not strenuously appeal to the young imagination. At such times the mind turns back, lightly as a bird, to the old ideals- quite as sterile, perhaps, quite as sad and dirty, it may be, as the ideals of to-day, but beautiful because they are alien and afar and impossible. Always there have been those for whom Greece was an ivory tower. Pierre Louys is not the first young man to whom Greek life was a mirage; but in this century he was the first who set