Contents.
List of Illustrations
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THE BOOK OF THE HOMELESS
THE BOOK OF THE

HOMELESS
(Le Livre des Sans-Foyer)



EDITED BY

EDITH WHARTON



New York & London

MDCCCCXVI
  
  



THE



BOOK OF THE HOMELESS
(LE LIVRE DES SANS-FOYER)



EDITED BY EDITH WHARTON


.    .

.


Original Articles in Verse and Prose

Illustrations reproduced from Original Paintings & Drawings






THE BOOK IS SOLD

FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE AMERICAN HOSTELS FOR REFUGEES

(WITH THE FOYER FRANCO-BELGE)

AND OF THE CHILDREN OF FLANDERS RESCUE COMMITTEE



NEW YORK

CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS

MDCCCCXVI

 





COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS



D. B. UPDIKE, THE MERRYMOUNT PRESS, BOSTON, U. S. A.

  

LETTRE DU GÉNÉRAL JOFFRE

République Française

Armées de l’Est

Le Commandant en Chef



Au Grand Quartier Général, le 18 Août, 1915


Les Etats-Unis d’Amérique n’ont pas oublié que la première page de
l’Histoire de leur indépendance a été écrite avec un peu de sang
français.
Par leur inépuisable générosité et leur grande sympathie, ils apportent
aujourd’hui à la France, qui combat pour sa liberté, l’aide la plus
précieuse et le plus puissant réconfort.

J. Joffre


LETTER FROM GENERAL JOFFRE

[TRANSLATION]


Headquarters of the Commander-in-chief

of the Armies of the French Republic



August 18ᵗʰ 1915


The United States of America have never forgotten that the first page
of the history of their independence was partly written in French
blood.
Inexhaustibly generous and profoundly sympathetic, these same United
States now bring aid and solace to France in the hour of her struggle
for liberty.

J. Joffre


INTRODUCTION

It is not only a pleasure but a duty to write the introduction which
Mrs. Wharton requests for “The Book of the Homeless.” At the outset of
this war I said that hideous though the atrocities had been and dreadful
though the suffering, yet we must not believe that these atrocities and
this suffering paralleled the dreadful condition that had obtained in
European warfare during, for example, the seventeenth century. It is
lamentable to have to confess that I was probably in error. The fate
that has befallen Belgium is as terrible as any that befell the
countries of Middle Europe during the Thirty Years’ War and the wars of
the following half-century. There is no higher duty than to care for the
refugees and above all the child refugees who have fled from Belgium.
This book is being sold for the benefit of the American Hostels for
Refugees and for the benefit of The Children of Flanders Relief
Committee, founded in Paris by Mrs. Wharton in November, 1914, and
enlarged by her in April, 1915, and chiefly maintained hitherto by
American subscriptions. My daughter, who in November and December last
was in Paris with her husband, Dr. Derby, in connection with the
American Ambulance, has told me much about the harrowing tragedies of
the poor souls who were driven from their country and on the verge of
starvation, without food or shelter, without hope, and with the members
of the family all separated from one another, none knowing where the
others were to be found, and who had drifted into Paris and into other
parts of France and across the Channel to England as a result of Belgium
being trampled into bloody mire. In April last the Belgian Government
asked Mrs. Wharton to take charge of some six hundred and fifty children
and a number of helpless old men and women from the ruined towns and
farms of Flanders. This is the effort which has now turned into The
Children of Flanders Rescue Committee.
I appeal to the American people to picture to themselves the plight of
these poor creatures and to endeavor in practical fashion to secure that
they shall be saved from further avoidable suffering. Nothing that our
people can do will remedy the frightful wrong that has been committed on
these families. Nothing that can now be done by the civilized world,
even if the neutral nations of the civilized world should at last wake
up to the performance of the duty they have so shamefully failed to
perform, can undo the dreadful wrong of which these unhappy children,
these old men and women, have been the victims. All that can be done
surely should be done to ease their suffering. The part that America has
played in this great tragedy is not an exalted part; and there is all
the more reason why Americans should hold up the hands of those of their
number who, like Mrs. Wharton, are endeavoring to some extent to remedy
the national shortcomings. We owe to Mrs. Wharton all the assistance we
can give. We owe this assistance to the good name of America, and above
all for the cause of humanity we owe it to the children, the women and
the old men who have suffered such dreadful wrong for absolutely no
fault of theirs.

Theodore Roosevelt


TABLE OF CONTENTS

CONTRIBUTIONS OF WRITERS AND MUSICIANS

 
PAGE
MAURICE BARRÈS
Les Frères
59
Translation: The Brothers
61
SARAH BERNHARDT
Une Promesse
64
Translation: A Promise
64
LAURENCE BINYON
The Orphans of Flanders. Poem
3
PAUL BOURGET
Après un An
65
Translation: One Year Later
67
RUPERT BROOKE
The Dance. A Song
4
PAUL CLAUDEL
Le Précieux Sang. Poem
5
Translation: The Precious Blood
6
JEAN COCTEAU
La Mort des Jeunes Gens de la Divine Hellade. Fragment. Poem
9
Translation: How the Young Men died in Hellas. A Fragment
11
JOSEPH CONRAD
Poland Revisited
71
VINCENT D’INDY
Musical Score: La légende de Saint Christophe (Acte I, Sc. III)
55
ELEONORA DUSE
Libertà nella Vita
98
Translation: The Right to Liberty
98
JOHN GALSWORTHY
Harvest
99
EDMUND GOSSE
The Arrogance and Servility of Germany
101
ROBERT GRANT
A Message. Poem
14
THOMAS HARDY
Cry of the Homeless. Poem
16
PAUL HERVIEU
Science et Conscience
105
Translation: Science and Conscience
106
WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS
The Little Children. Poem
17
GÉNÉRAL HUMBERT
Les Arabes avaient Raison
109
Translation: An Heroic Stand
111
HENRY JAMES
The Long Wards
115
FRANCIS JAMMES
Epitaphe. Poem
18
Translation: An Epitaph
19
GÉNÉRAL JOFFRE
Lettre du Général Joffre
vii
Translation: Letter from General Joffre
viii
MAURICE MAETERLINCK
Notre Héritage
127
Translation: Our Inheritance
127
EDWARD SANDFORD MARTIN
We Who Sit Afar Off
129
ALICE MEYNELL
In Sleep. Poem
20
PAUL ELMER MORE
A Moment of Tragic Purgation
133
COMTESSE DE NOAILLES
Nos Morts. Poem
21
Translation: Our Dead
21
JOSEPHINE PRESTON PEABODY
Two Songs of a Year: 1914-1915
I. Children’s Kisses
23
II. The Sans-Foyer
25
LILLA CABOT PERRY
Rain in Belgium. Poem
26
AGNES REPPLIER
The Russian Bogyman
139
HENRI DE RÉGNIER
L’Exilé. Poem
27
Translation: The Exile
28
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
Introduction
ix
EDMOND ROSTAND
Horreur et Beauté. Poem
30
Translation: Horror and Beauty
30
GEORGE SANTAYANA
The Undergraduate Killed in Battle. Poem
32
IGOR STRAVINSKY
Musical Score: Souvenir d’une marche boche
49
ANDRÉ SUARÈS
Chant des Galloises
143
Translation: Song of the Welsh Women
147
EDITH M. THOMAS
The Children and the Flag. Poem
33
HERBERT TRENCH
The Troubler of Telaro. Poem
34
ÉMILE VERHAEREN
Le Printemps de 1915. Poem
37
Translation: The New Spring
38
MRS. HUMPHRY WARD (Mary A. Ward)
Wordsworth’s Valley in War-time
151
BARRETT WENDELL
1915. Poem
40
EDITH WHARTON
Preface
xix
The Tryst. Poem
41
MARGARET L. WOODS
Finisterre. Poem
43
W. B. YEATS
A Reason for Keeping Silent. Poem
45

.    .

.
The French poems, except M. Rostand’s Sonnet
 are translated by Mrs.
Wharton

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

CONTRIBUTIONS OF ARTISTS

 
FOLLOWING PAGE
LÉON BAKST

Portrait of Jean Cocteau. From an unpublished crayon sketch 
8

Ménade. From a water-colour sketch
126
MAX BEERBOHM

A Gracious Act. (Caricature.) From a water-colour sketch
104
JACQUES-ÉMILE BLANCHE

Portrait of Thomas Hardy. From a photograph of the painting
16

Portrait of George Moore. From a photograph of the painting
138

Portrait of Igor Stravinsky. From a study in oils
46
EDWIN HOWLAND BLASHFIELD

A Woman’s Head. From the original drawing
142
LÉON BONNAT

Pegasus. From a pencil and pen-and-ink sketch
70
P. A. J. DAGNAN-BOUVERET

Brittany Woman. From a drawing in coloured crayons
42
WALTER GAY

Interior. From an original water-colour sketch
32
J. L. GÉRÔME

Turkish Soldier. From the original pencil drawing made in 1857
108
CHARLES DANA GIBSON

“The Girl he left behind Him.” From a pen-and-ink sketch
26
ÉMILE-RENÉ MÉNARD

Nude Figure. From a sketch in coloured crayon
150
CLAUDE MONET

Landscape. From an early coloured pastel
22

Boats on a Beach. From an early crayon drawing
100
PIERRE-AUGUSTE RÉNOIR

Portrait of his Son, wounded in the War. From a charcoal sketch
64
AUGUSTE RODIN

Two Women. From an original water-colour sketch
98
THÉO VAN RYSSELBERGHE

Portrait of André Gide. From a pencil drawing
4

Portrait of Émile Verhaeren. From a pencil drawing
36

Portrait of Vincent d’Indy. From a photograph of the painting
57
JOHN SINGER SARGENT, R.A.

Portrait of Henry James. From a photograph of the painting
114

Two Heads. From a pencil drawing
132


PREFACE

I

THE HOSTELS
Last year, among the waifs swept to Paris by the great torrent of the
flight from the North, there came to the American Hostels a little
acrobat from a strolling circus. He was not much more than a boy, and he
had never before been separated from his family or from his circus. All
his people were mummers or contortionists, and he himself was a mere
mote of the lime-light, knowing life only in terms of the tent and the
platform, the big drum, the dancing dogs, the tight-rope and the
spangles.
In the sad preoccupied Paris of last winter it was not easy to find a
corner for this little figure. But the lad could not be left in the
streets, and after a while he was placed as page in a big hotel. He was
given good pay, and put into a good livery, and told to be a good boy.
He tried ... he really tried ... but the life was too lonely. Nobody
knew anything about the only things he knew, or was particularly
interested in the programme of the last performance the company had
given at Liège or Maubeuge. The little acrobat could not understand. He
told his friends at the Hostels how lonely and puzzled he was, and they
tried to help him. But he couldn’t sleep at night, because he was used
to being up till nearly daylight; and one night he went up to the attic
of the hotel, broke open several trunks full of valuables stored there
by rich lodgers, and made off with some of the contents. He was caught,
of course, and the things he had stolen were produced in court. They
were the spangled dresses belonging to a Turkish family, and the
embroidered coats of a lady’s lap-dog....
I have told this poor little story to illustrate a fact which, as time
passes, is beginning to be lost sight of: the fact that we workers
among the refugees are trying, first and foremost, to help a homesick
people. We are not preparing for their new life an army of voluntary
colonists; we are seeking to console for the ruin of their old life a
throng of bewildered fugitives. It is our business not only to feed and
clothe and keep alive these people, but to reassure and guide them. And
that has been, for the last year, the task of the American Hostels for
Refugees.
The work was started in November, 1914, and since that time we have
assisted some 9,300 refugees, given more than 235,000 meals, and
distributed 48,333 garments.
But this is only the elementary part of our work. We have done many more
difficult things. Our employment agency has found work for over 3,500
men. Our work-rooms occupy about 120 women, and while they sew, their
babies are kept busy and happy in a cheerful day-nursery, and the older
children are taught in a separate class.
The British Young Women’s Christian Association of Paris has shown its
interest in our work by supplying us with teachers for the grown-up
students who realize the importance of learning English as a part of
their business equipment; and these classes are eagerly followed.
Lastly, we have a free clinic where 3,500 sick people have received
medical advice, and a dispensary where 4,500 have been given first aid
and nursing care; and during the summer we sent many delicate children
to the seaside in the care of various Vacation Colonies.
This is but the briefest sketch of our complicated task; a task
undertaken a year ago by a small group of French and American friends
moved to pity by the thousands of fugitives wandering through the
streets of Paris and sleeping on straw in the railway-stations.
We thought then that the burden we were assuming would not have to be
borne for more than three or four months, and we were confident of
receiving the necessary financial help. We were not mistaken; and
America has kept the American Hostels alive for a year. But we are now
entering on our second year, with a larger number to care for, and a
more delicate task to perform. The longer the exile of these poor people
lasts, the more carefully and discriminatingly must we deal with them.
They are not all King Alberts and Queen Elisabeths, as some idealists
apparently expected them to be. Some are hard to help, others
unappreciative of what is done for them. But many, many more are
grateful, appreciative, and eager to help us to help them. And of all of
them we must say, as Henri de Régnier says for us in the poem written
for this Book:


He who, flying from the fate of slaves


With brow indignant and with empty hand,


Has left his house, his country and his graves,


Comes like a Pilgrim from a Holy Land.


Receive him thus, if in his blood there be


One drop of Belgium’s immortality.




II

THE CHILDREN
One day last August the members of the “Children of Flanders Rescue
Committee” were waiting at the door of the Villa Béthanie, a large
seminary near Paris which had been put at the disposal of the committee
for the use of the refugee children.
The house stands in a park with fine old trees and a wide view over the
lovely rolling country to the northwest of Paris. The day was beautiful,
the borders of the drive were glowing with roses, the lawns were
fragrant with miniature hay-cocks, and the flower-beds about the court
had been edged with garlands of little Belgian flags.
Suddenly we heard a noise of motor-horns, and the gates of the park were
thrown open. Down toward us, between the rose-borders, a procession was
beginning to pour: first a band of crippled and infirm old men, then a
dozen Sisters of Charity in their white caps, and lastly about ninety
small boys, each with his little bundle on his back.
They were a lamentable collection of human beings, in pitiful contrast
to the summer day and the bright flowers. The old men, for the most
part, were too tired and dazed to know where they were, or what was
happening to them, and the Sisters were crying from fatigue and
homesickness. The boys looked grave too, but suddenly they caught sight
of the flowers, the hay-cocks, and the wide house-front with all its
windows smiling in the sun. They took a long look and then, of their own
accord, without a hint from their elders, they all broke out together
into the Belgian national hymn. The sound of that chorus repaid the
friends who were waiting to welcome them for a good deal of worry and
hard work.
 
The flight from western Flanders began last April, when Ypres,
Poperinghe, and all the open towns of uninvaded Belgium were swept by a
senseless and savage bombardment. Even then it took a long time to
induce the inhabitants to give up the ruins of their homes; and before
going away themselves they sent their children.
Train-load after train-load of Flemish children poured into Paris last
spring. They were gathered in from the ruins, from the trenches, from
the hospices where the Sisters of Charity had been caring for them, and
where, in many cases, they had been huddled in with the soldiers
quartered in the same buildings. Before each convoy started, a young
lady with fair hair and very blue eyes walked through the train,
distributing chocolate and sandwiches to the children and speaking to
each of them in turn, very kindly; and all but the very littlest
children understood that this lady was their Queen....
The Belgian government, knowing that I had been working for the
refugees, asked me to take charge of sixty little girls, and of the
Sisters accompanying them. We found a house, fitted it up, begged for
money and clothes, and started The Children of Flanders Rescue
Committee. Now, after six months, we have five houses, and are caring
for nearly 900 people, among whom are about 200 infirm old men and women
whom the Sisters had to bring because there was no one left to look
after them in the bombarded towns.
Every war-work, if it has any vitality in it, is bound to increase in
this way, and is almost certain to find the help it needs to keep it
growing. We have always been so confident of this that we have tried to
do for our Children of Flanders what the Hostels have done for the
grown-up refugees: not only to feed and clothe and shelter, but also to
train and develop them. Some of the Sisters are skilled lace-makers; and
we have founded lace-schools in three of our houses. There is a dearth
of lace at present, owing to the ruin of the industry in Belgium and
Northern France, and our little lace-makers have already received large
orders for Valenciennes and other laces. The smallest children are kept
busy in classes of the “Montessori” type, provided by the generosity of
an American friend, and the boys, out of school-hours, are taught
gardening and a little carpentry. We hope later to have the means to
enlarge this attempt at industrial training.
This is what we are doing for the Children of Flanders; but, above and
beyond all, we are caring for their health and their physical
development. The present hope of France and Belgium is in its children,
and in the hygienic education of those who have them in charge; and we
have taught the good Sisters many things they did not know before
concerning the physical care of the children. The results have been
better than we could have hoped; and those who saw the arrival of the
piteous waifs a few months ago would scarcely recognize them in the
round and rosy children playing in the gardens of our Houses.
III

THE BOOK
I said just now that when we founded our two refugee charities we were
confident of getting money enough to carry them on. So we were; and so
we had a right to be; for at the end of the first twelvemonth we are
still alive and solvent.
But we never dreamed, at the start, that the work would last longer than
a year, or that its demands would be so complex and increasing. And when
we saw before us the certainty of having to carry this poor burden of
humanity for another twelve months, we began to wonder how we should get
the help to do it.
Then the thought of this Book occurred to me. I appealed to my friends
who write and paint and compose, and they to other friends of theirs,
writers, painters, composers, statesmen and dramatic artists; and so the
Book gradually built itself up, page by page and picture by picture.
You will see from the names of the builders what a gallant piece of
architecture it is, what delightful pictures hang on its walls, and what
noble music echoes through them. But what I should have liked to show is
the readiness, the kindliness, the eagerness, with which all the
collaborators, from first to last, have lent a hand to the building.
Perhaps you will guess it for yourselves when you read their names and
see the beauty and variety of what they have given. So I efface myself
from the threshold and ask you to walk in.

Edith Wharton


Paris, November, 1915

Gifts of money for the American Hostels for Refugees, and the Children
of Flanders Rescue Committee should be addressed to Mrs. Wharton, 53 rue
de Varenne, Paris, or to Henry W. Munroe, Treasurer, care of Mrs.
Cadwalader Jones, 21 East Eleventh Street, New York.
Gifts in kind should be forwarded to the American War Relief Clearing
House, 5 rue François Iᵉʳ, Paris (with Mrs. Wharton’s name in the
left-hand corner), via the American offices of the Clearing House, 15
Broad Street, New York.





 CONTRIBUTORS OF POETRY AND MUSIC



LAURENCE BINYON
RUPERT BROOKE
PAUL CLAUDEL
JEAN COCTEAU
ROBERT GRANT
THOMAS HARDY
W. D. HOWELLS
FRANCIS JAMMES
ALICE MEYNELL
COMTESSE DE NOAILLES
JOSEPHINE PRESTON PEABODY
LILLA CABOT PERRY
HENRI DE RÉGNIER
EDMOND ROSTAND
GEORGE SANTAYANA
EDITH M. THOMAS
HERBERT TRENCH
ÉMILE VERHAEREN
BARRETT WENDELL
EDITH WHARTON
MARGARET L. WOODS
W. B. YEATS
.    .

.
IGOR STRAVINSKY
VINCENT D’INDY





THE ORPHANS OF FLANDERS



Where is the land that fathered, nourished, poured


The sap of a strong race into your veins,—


Land of wide tilth, of farms and granaries stored,


And old towers chiming over peaceful plains?



It is become a vision, barred away


Like light in cloud, a memory, a belief.


On those lost plains the Glory of yesterday


Builds her dark towers for the bells of Grief.



It is become a splendour-circled name


For all the world. A torch against the skies


Burns from that blood-spot, the unpardoned shame


Of them that conquered: but your homeless eyes



See rather some brown pond by a white wall,


Red cattle crowding in the rutty lane,


Some garden where the hollyhocks were tall


In the Augusts that shall never be again.



There your thoughts cling as the long-thrusting root


Clings in the ground; your orphaned hearts are there.


O mates of sunburnt earth, your love is mute


But strong like thirst and deeper than despair.



You have endured what pity can but grope


To feel; into that darkness enters none.


We have but hands to help: yours is the hope


Whose silent courage rises with the sun.


Laurence Binyon




THE DANCE



A SONG



As the Wind and as the Wind


In a corner of the way,


Goes stepping, stands twirling,


Invisibly, comes whirling,


Bows before and skips behind


In a grave, an endless play—



So my Heart and so my Heart


Following where your feet have gone,


Stirs dust of old dreams there;


He turns a toe; he gleams there,


Treading you a dance apart.


But you see not. You pass on.


Rupert Brooke







THÉO VAN RYSSELBERGHE
PORTRAIT OF ANDRÉ GIDE
FROM A PENCIL DRAWING


PAUL CLAUDEL



LE PRÉCIEUX SANG



—Seigneur, qui pour un verre d’eau nous avez promis la mer illimitée,


Qui sait si vous n’avez pas soif aussi?


Et que ce sang qui est tout ce que nous avons soit propre à vous désaltérer,


C’est vrai, puisque vous l’avez dit!


Si vraiment il y a une source en nous, eh bien, c’est ce que nous allons voir!


Si ce vin a quelque vertu


Et si notre sang est rouge, comme vous le dites, comment le savoir


Autrement que quand il est répandu?


Si notre sang est vraiment précieux, comme vous le dites, si vraiment il est comme de l’or,


S’il sert, pourquoi le garder?


Et sans savoir ce qu’on peut acheter avec, pourquoi le réserver comme un trésor,


Mon Dieu, quand vous nous le demandez?


Nos péchés sont grands, nous le savons, et qu’il faut absolument faire pénitence,


Mais il est difficile pour un homme de pleurer.


Voici notre sang au lieu de larmes que nous avons répandu pour la France:


Faites-en ce que vous voudrez.


Prenez-le, nous vous le donnons, tirez-en vous-même usage et bénéfice,


Nous ne vous faisons point de demande


Mais si vous avez besoin de notre amour autant que nous avons besoin de votre justice,


Alors c’est que votre soif est grande!


P. Claudel




Juillet 1915
THE PRECIOUS BLOOD

[TRANSLATION]



Oh, what if Thou, that for a cup of water promisest


The illimitable sea,


Thou, Lord, dost also thirst?


Hast Thou not said, our blood shall quench Thee best


And first


Of any drink there be?



If then there be such virtue in it, Lord,


Ah, let us prove it now!


And, save by seeing it at Thy footstool poured,


How, Lord—oh, how?



If it indeed be precious and like gold,


As Thou hast taught,


Why hoard it? There’s no wealth in gems unsold,


Nor joy in gems unbought.



Our sins are great, we know it; and we know


We must redeem our guilt;


Even so.



But tears are difficult for a man to shed,


And here is our blood poured out for France instead,


To do with as Thou wilt!



Take it, O Lord! And make it Thine indeed,


Void of all lien and fee.


Nought else we ask of Thee;


But if Thou needst our Love as we Thy Justice need,


Great must Thine hunger be!


Paul Claudel







LÉON BAKST
PORTRAIT OF JEAN COCTEAU
FROM AN UNPUBLISHED CRAYON SKETCH


LA MORT DES JEUNES GENS DE LA DIVINE HELLADE



FRAGMENT



Antigone criant et marchant au supplice


N’avait pas de la mort leur sublime respect;


Ce n’était pas pour eux une funeste paix,


C’était un ordre auquel il faut qu’on obéisse.



Ils ne subissaient pas l’offense qu’il fît beau


Que le soleil mûrît les grappes de glycine;


Ils étaient souriant en face du tombeau,


Les rossignols élus que la rose assassine.



Ils ne regrettaient pas les tendres soirs futurs,


Les conversations sur les places d’Athènes,


Où, le col altéré de poussière et d’azur,


Pallas, comme un pigeon, pleure au bord des fontaines.



Ils ne regrettaient pas les gradins découverts


Où le public trépigne, insiste,


Pour regarder, avant qu’ils montent sur la piste,


Les cochers bleus riant avec les cochers verts.



Ils ne regrettaient pas ce loisir disparate


D’une ville qui semble un sordide palais,


Où l’on se réunit pour entendre Socrate


Et pour jouer aux osselets.



Ils étaient éblouis de tumulte et de risque,


Mais, si la fourbe mort les désignait soudain,


Ils laissaient sans gémir sur l’herbe du jardin


Les livres et le disque.



Ce n’était pas pour eux l’insupportable affront,


Ils se couchaient sans choc, sans lutte, sans tapage,


Comme on voit, ayant bien remué sous le front,


Un vers définitif s’étendre sur la page.



Ils étaient résignés, vêtus, rigides, prêts


Pour cette expérience étrange,


Comme Hyacinthe en fleur indolemment se change


Et comme Cyparis se transforme en cyprès.



Ils ne regrettaient rien de vivre en Ionie,


D’être libres, d’avoir des mères et des sœurs,


Et de sentir ce lourd sommeil envahisseur


Après une courte insomnie.



Ils rentraient au séjour qui n’a plus de saison,


Où notre faible orgueil se refuse à descendre,


Sachant que l’urne étroite où gît un peu de cendre


Sera tout le jardin et toute la maison.



Jadis j’ai vu mourir des frères de mon âge,


J’ai vu monter en eux l’indicible torpeur.


Ils avaient tous si mal! Ils avaient tous si peur!


Ils se prenaient la tête avec des mains en nage.



Ils ne pouvaient pas croire, ayant si soif, si faim,


Un tel désir de tout avec un cœur si jeune,


A ce désert sans source, à cet immense jeûne,


A ce terme confus qui n’a jamais de fin.



Ils n’attendaient plus rien de la tendresse humaine


Et cherchaient à chasser d’un effort douloureux


L’Ange noir qui se couche à plat ventre sur eux


Et qui les considère avant qu’il les emmène.


Jean Cocteau




HOW THE YOUNG MEN DIED IN HELLAS

A FRAGMENT

[TRANSLATION]



Antigone went wailing to the dust.


She reverenced not the face of Death like these


To whom it came as no enfeebling peace


But a command relentless and august.



These grieved not at the beauty of the morn,


Nor that the sun was on the ripening flower;


Smiling they faced the sacrificial hour,


Blithe nightingales against the fatal thorn.



They grieved not that their feet no more should rove


The Athenian porticoes in twilight leisure,


Where Pallas, drunk with summer’s gold and azure,


Brooded above the fountains like a dove.



They grieved not for the theatre’s high-banked tiers,


Where restlessly the noisy crowd leans over,


With laughter and with jostling, to discover


The blue and green of chaffing charioteers.



Nor for the fluted shafts, the carven stones


Of that sole city, bright above the seas,


Where young men met to talk with Socrates


Or toss the ivory bones.



Their eyes were lit with tumult and with risk,


But when they felt Death touch their hands and pass


They followed, dropping on the garden grass


The parchment and the disk.



It seemed no wrong to them that they must go.


They laid their lives down as the poet lays


On the white page the poem that shall praise


His memory when the hand that wrote is low.



Erect they stood and, festally arrayed,


Serenely waited the transforming hour,


Softly as Hyacinth slid from youth to flower,


Or the shade of Cyparis to a cypress shade.



They wept not for the lost Ionian days,


Nor liberty, nor household love and laughter,


Nor the long leaden slumber that comes after


Life’s little wakefulness.



Fearless they sought the land no sunsets see,


Whence our weak pride shrinks back, and would return,


Knowing a pinch of ashes in an urn


Henceforth our garden and our house shall be.



Young men, my brothers, you whose morning skies


I have seen the deathly lassitude invade,


Oh, how you suffered! How you were afraid!


What death-damp hands you locked about your eyes!



You, so insatiably athirst to spend


The young desires in your hearts abloom,


How could you think the desert was your doom,


The waterless fountain and the endless end?



You yearned not for the face of love, grown dim,


But only fought your anguished bones to wrest


From the Black Angel crouched upon your breast,


Who scanned you ere he led you down with him.


Jean Cocteau




A MESSAGE



This is our gift to the Homeless.


What shall it bear from me


Safe in a land that prospers


Girded by leagues of sea?—


Tear moistened words of pity,


Bountiful sympathy.



Clearly we see the picture,


Horror has fixed our eyes.


Fighting to guard its hearthstones


A nation mangled lies.


Fire has charred its beauty,


Murder has stilled its cries;



And truths we love and cherish


Hang in the trembling scale.


If you win, we win by proxy,


If you fail, we are doomed to fail.


The world is beset by a monster,


Yet we watch to see who shall prevail.



Our souls are racked and quickened,


But prudence counsels no.


So we lavish our gold and pity


And wait to see how it will go,—


This pivotal war of the ages


With its heartrending ebb and flow.



For ever there comes the moment


When destiny bids “choose.”


By the edge of the sword men perish,


By selfishness all they lose.


So Belgium stands transfigured


As the one who did not refuse.


Robert Grant




CRY OF THE HOMELESS



Instigator of the ruin—


Whichsoever thou mayst be


Of the mastering minds of Europe


That contrived our misery—


Hear the wormwood-worded greeting


From each city, shore, and lea


Of thy victims:


“Enemy, all hail to thee!”



Yea: “All hail!” we grimly shout thee


That wast author, fount, and head


Of these wounds, whoever proven


When our times are throughly read.


“May thy dearest ones be blighted


And forsaken,” be it said


By thy victims,


“And thy children beg their bread!”



Nay: too much the malediction.—


Rather let this thing befall


In the unfurling of the future,


On the night when comes thy call:


That compassion dew thy pillow


And absorb thy senses all


For thy victims,


Till death dark thee with his pall.


Thomas Hardy




August, 1915



JACQUES-ÉMILE BLANCHE
PORTRAIT OF THOMAS HARDY
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH OF THE ORIGINAL PAINTING


THE LITTLE CHILDREN



“Suffer little children to come unto me,”


Christ said, and answering with infernal glee,


“Take them!” the arch-fiend scoffed, and from the tottering walls


Of their wrecked homes, and from the cattle’s stalls,


And the dogs’ kennels, and the cold


Of the waste fields, and from the hapless hold


Of their dead mothers’ arms, famished and bare,


And maimed by shot and shell,


The master-spirit of hell


Caught them up, and through the shuddering air


Of the hope-forsaken world


The little ones he hurled,


Mocking that Pity in his pitiless might—


The Anti-Christ of Schrecklickeit.


W. D. Howells




ÉPITAPHE



Ci-gît un tel, mort pour la France et qui, vivant,


Poussait sa voiturette à travers les villages


Pour vendre un peu de fil, de sel ou de fromage,


Sous les portails d’azur aux feuillages mouvants.



Il a gagné son pain comme au Commandement


Que donne aux hommes Dieu dans le beau Livre sage.


Puis, un jour, sur sa tête a crevé le nuage


Que lance l’orageux canon de l’Allemand.



Ce héros, dans l’éclair qui délivra son âme,


Aura vu tout en noir ses enfants et sa femme


Contemplants anxieux son pauvre gagne-pain:



Ce chariot plus beau que n’est celui de l’Ourse


Et qu’il a fait rouler pendant la dure course


Qui sur terre commence un céleste destin.


Francis Jammes




Orthez, 29 Juillet 1915

AN EPITAPH

[TRANSLATION]



Here such an one lies dead for France. His trade


To push a barrow stocked with thread, cheese, salt


From town to town, under the azure vault,


Through endless corridors of rustling shade.


True to the sacred law of toil, he made


His humble living as the Book commands,


Till suddenly there burst upon his lands


The thunder of the German cannonade.



Poor hero! In the flash that smote him dead


He saw his wife and children all in black


Weeping about the cart that earned their bread—


The cart that, by his passionate impulse sped


On immortality’s celestial track,


Shone brighter than the Wain above his head.


Francis Jammes




IN SLEEP



I dreamt (no “dream” awake—a dream indeed)


A wrathful man was talking in the Park:


“Where are the Higher Powers who know our need,


Yet leave us in the dark?



“There are no Higher Powers; there is no heart


In God, no love”—his oratory here,


Taking the paupers’ and the cripples’ part,


Was broken by a tear.



And next it seemed that One who did invent


Compassion, who alone created pity,


Walked, as though called, and hastened as He went


Out from the muttering city;



Threaded the little crowd, trod the brown grass,


Bent o’er the speaker close, saw the tear rise,


And saw Himself, as one looks in a glass,


In those impassioned eyes.


Alice Meynell




NOS MORTS



Astres qui regardez les mondes où nous sommes,


Pure armée au repos dans la hauteur des cieux,


Campement éternel, léger, silencieux,


Que pensez-vous de voir s’anéantir les hommes?


A n’être pas sublime aucun ne condescend,


Comme un cri vers la nue on voit jaillir leur sang


Qui sur nos cœurs contrits lentement se rabaisse.


—Morts divins, portez-nous un plausible secours!


Notre douleur n’est pas la sœur de votre ivresse.


Vous mourez! Concevez que c’est un poids trop lourd


Pour ceux qui dans leur grave et brûlante tristesse


Ont toujours confondu la Vie avec l’Amour.


Comtesse de Noailles




OUR DEAD

[TRANSLATION]



Stars that behold our world upon its way,


Pure legions camped upon the plains of night,


Mute watchful hosts of heaven, what must you say


When men destroy each other in their might?


Upon their deadly race each runner starts,


Nor one but will his brothers all outrun!


Ah, see their blood jet upward to the sun


Like living fountains refluent on our hearts!


O dead divinely for so great a faith,


Help us, whose agony is but begun,


For bitterly we yield you up to death,


We who had dreamed that Life and Love were one.


Comtesse de Noailles







CLAUDE MONET
LANDSCAPE
FROM AN EARLY COLOURED PASTEL


TWO SONGS OF A YEAR

1914-1915

I

CHILDREN’S KISSES


So; it is nightfall then.


The valley flush


That beckoned home the way for herds and men


Is hardly spent:


Down the bright pathway winds, through veils of hush


And wonderment.


Unuttered yet the chime


That tells of folding-time;


Hardly the sun has set;—


The trees are sweetly troubled with bright words


From new-alighted birds.


And yet, ...


Here, round my neck, are come to cling and twine,


The arms, the folding arms, close, close and fain,


All mine!—


I pleaded to, in vain,


I reached for, only to their dimpled scorning,


Down the blue halls of morning;—


Where all things else could lure them on and on,


Now here, now gone,


From bush to bush, from beckoning bough to bough,


With bird-calls of Come Hither!—



Ah, but now ...


Now it is dusk.—And from his heaven of mirth,


A wilding skylark sudden dropt to earth


Along the last low sunbeam yellow-moted,—


Athrob with joy,—


There pushes here, a little golden Boy,


Still gazing with great eyes:


And wonder-wise,


All fragrancy, all valor silver-throated,


My daughterling, my swan,


My Alison.



Closer than homing lambs against the bars


At folding-time, that crowd, all mother-warm,


They crowd, they cling, they wreathe;—


And thick as sparkles of the thronging stars,


Their kisses swarm.



O Rose of Being at whose heart I breathe,


Fold over, hold me fast


In the dim Eden of a blinding kiss.


And lightning heart’s desire, be still at last.


Heart can no more,—


Life can no more


Than this.




II

THE SANS-FOYER


Love, that Love cannot share,—


Now turn to air!


And fade to ashes, O my daily bread,


Save only if you may


Bless you, to be the stay


Of the uncomforted.



Behold, you far-off lights,—


From smoke-veiled heights,


If there be dwelling in our wilderness!


For Love the refugee,


No stronghold can there be,—


No shelter more, while these go shelterless.



Love hath no home, beside


His own two arms spread wide;—


The only home, among all walls that are:


So there may come to cling,


Some yet forlorner thing


Feeling its way, along this blackened star.


Josephine Preston Peabody




RAIN IN BELGIUM



The heavy rain falls down, falls down,


On city streets whence all have fled,


Where tottering ruins skyward frown


Above the staring silent dead.


Here shall ye raise your Kaiser’s throne,


Stained with the blood for freedom shed.



Here where men choked for breath in vain


Who in fair fight had all withstood,


Here on this poison-haunted plain,


Made rich with babes’ and women’s blood,


Here shall ye plant your German grain,


Here shall ye reap your children’s food.



The harvest ripens—Reaper come!


Bring children singing Songs of Hate


Taught by the mother in the home—


Fit comrade she for such a mate.


Soon shall ye reap what ye have sown;


God’s mills grind thoroughly though late.



The heavy rain beats down, beats down;


I hear in it the tramp of Fate!


Lilla Cabot Perry







CHARLES DANA GIBSON
“THE GIRL HE LEFT BEHIND HIM”
FROM A PEN-AND-INK SKETCH


L’EXILÉ



“O deuil de ne pouvoir emporter sur la mer


Dans l’écume salée et dans le vent amer,


L’épi de son labeur et le fruit de sa treille,


Ni la rose que l’aurore fait plus vermeille


Ni rien de tout de ce qui, selon chaque saison,


Pare divinement le seuil de la maison!


Mais, puisque mon foyer n’est plus qu’un peu de cendre,


Et que, dans mon jardin, je ne dois plus entendre


Sur les arbres chanter les oiseaux du printemps;


Que nul ne reviendra de tous ceux que j’attends,


S’abriter sous le toit où nichaient les colombes,


Adieu donc, doux pays où nous avions nos tombes,


Où nous devions, à l’heure où se ferment les yeux,


Nous endormir auprès du sommeil des aïeux!


Nous partons. Ne nous pleurez pas, tendres fontaines,


Terre que nous quittons pour des terres lointaines,


O toi que le brutal talon du conquérant


A foulée et qu’au loin, de sa lueur de sang,


Empourpre la bataille et rougit l’incendie!


Qu’un barbare vainqueur nous chasse et qu’il châtie


En nous le saint amour que nous avons pour toi,


C’est bien. La force pour un jour, prime le droit,


Mais l’exil qu’on subit pour ta cause, Justice,


Laisse au destin vengeur le temps qu’il s’accomplisse.


Nous reviendrons. Et soit que nous passions la mer


Parmi l’embrun cinglant et dans le vent amer,


Soit que le sort cruel rudement nous disperse,


Troupeau errant, sous la rafale ou sous l’averse,


Ne nous plains pas, cher hôte, en nous tendant la main,


Car n’est-il pas pour toi un étranger divin


Celui qui, le front haut et les yeux pleins de flamme,


A quitté sa maison pour fuir un joug infâme


Et dont le fier genou n’a pas voulu ployer


Et qui, pauvre, exilé, sans pain et sans foyer,


Sent monter, de son cœur à sa face pâlie,


Ce même sang sacré que saigne la Patrie.


Henri de Régnier


de l’Académie Française




THE EXILE

[TRANSLATION]



Bitter our fate, that may not bear away


On the harsh winds and through the alien spray


Sheaves of our fields and fruit from the warm wall,


The rose that reddens at the morning’s call,


Nor aught of all wherewith the turning year


Our doorway garlanded, from green to sere....


But since the ash is cold upon the hearth,


And dumb the birds in garden and in garth,


Since none shall come again, of all our loves,


Back to this roof that crooned with nesting doves,


Now let us bid farewell to all our dead,


And that dear corner of earth where they are laid,


And where in turn it had been good to lay


Our kindred heads on the appointed day.



Weep not, O springs and fountains, that we go,


And thou, dear earth, the earth our footsteps know,


Weep not, thou desecrated, shamed and rent,


Consumed with fire and with blood-shed spent.


Small strength have they that hunt us from thy fold


To loosen love’s indissoluble hold,


And brighter than the flames about thy pyre


Our exiled faith shall spring for thee, and higher.


We shall return. Let Time reverse the glass.


Homeless and scattered from thy face we pass,


Through rain and tempest flying from our doors,


On seas unfriendly swept to stranger shores.


But, O you friends unknown that wait us there,


We ask no pity, though your bread we share.


For he who, flying from the fate of slaves


With brow indignant and with empty hand,


Has left his house, his country and his graves,


Comes like a Pilgrim from a Holy Land.


Receive him thus, if in his blood there be


One drop of Belgium’s immortality.


Henri de Régnier


de l’Académie Française




HORREUR ET BEAUTÉ



Sabreur de mains d’enfants qui demandaient du pain,


Brûleur de basilique et de bibliothèque,


Geste obscène, œil sanglant, front d’anthropopithèque,


L’homme ne s’est jamais plus hideusement peint.



Mais Roncevaux n’a rien de plus beau, sous son Pin,


Rien de plus pur, sous son Laurier, la fable Grecque,


Que ce jeune Monarque et son vieil Archevêque:


C’est Achille et Nestor, c’est Roland et Turpin.



Roi, d’un juste reflux puissions-nous voir la vague!


Et toi, puisque ta main éleva dans sa bague


Le seul reflet de ciel qui bénit cet Enfer,



Que la pourpre sur toi soit plus cardinalice,


Prêtre! et que de la Croix qui n’était pas de Fer


Un Christ plus abondant coule dans ton calice!


Edmond Rostand




HORROR AND BEAUTY

[TRANSLATION]



Gashed hands of children who cry out for bread—


While as the flames from sacred places rise


The Blonde Beast, hideous, with blood-shot eyes


And obscene gesture mutilates the dead—



But neither Roncesvalles where Roland bled


With Turpin, nor Greek deeds of high emprise


Can to a pitch of purer beauty rise


Than the Young King, the Priest, unconqueréd.



Oh King, soon all thy foes may’st thou repel!


And thou, High-Priest, from whose ring, raised to men,


Shone the one gleam of Heaven in that Hell,



May thy empurpled vestments so avail


That from the Cross—not made of Iron then—


A richer Christ glow in thy holy grail.


Edmond Rostand




Translated by Walter V. R. Berry

THE UNDERGRADUATE KILLED IN BATTLE



Sweet as the lawn beneath his sandalled tread


Or the scarce rippled stream beneath his oar,


For its still, channelled current constant more,


His life was, and the few blithe words he said.



One or two poets read he, and reread;


One or two friends in boyish ardour wore


Next to his heart, incurious of the lore


Dodonian woods might murmur o’er his head.



Ah, demons of the whirlwind, have a care


What, trumpeting your triumphs, ye undo!


The earth once won, begins your long despair


That never, never is his bliss for you.


He breathed betimes this clement island air


And in unwitting lordship saw the blue.


George Santayana




Oxford, August, 1915



WALTER GAY
INTERIOR
FROM AN ORIGINAL WATER-COLOUR SKETCH


 EDITH M. THOMAS

THE CHILDREN AND THE FLAG



The little children in my country kiss the American flag.


MADAME VANDERVELDE






What of those children over the sea


That are beating about the world’s rough ways,


Like the tender blossoms from off a tree


That a sudden gale in Spring betrays?


The children? Oh, let them look for the sign


Of a wave-borne flag, thou land of mine!



On the old gray sea its course it holds,


Life for the famished is in its gift....


And the children are crowding to kiss its folds,


While the tears of their mothers fall free and swift.—


And what of the flag their lips have pressed?


Oh, guard it for ever—That flag is blest.


Edith M. Thomas




THE TROUBLER OF TELARO

1


Warm vines bloom now along thy rampart steeps


Thy shelves of olives, undercliffs of azure,


And like a lizard of the red rock sleeps


The wrinkled Tuscan sea, panting for pleasure.


Nets, too, festooned about thine elfin port,


Telaro, in the Etrurian mountain’s side,


Heavings of golden luggers scarce distort


The image of thy belfry where they ride.


But thee, Telaro, on a night long gone


That grey and holy tower upon the mole


Suddenly summoned, while yet lightnings shone


And hard gale lingered, with a ceaseless toll


That choked, with its disastrous monotone,


All the narrow channels of the hamlet’s soul.




2


For what despair, fire, shipwreck, treachery?


Was it for threat that from the macchia sprang


For Genoa’s feud, the oppressor’s piracy,


Or the Falcon of Sarzana that it rang?


Was the boat-guild’s silver plundered? Blood should pay.


Hardwon the footing of the fishers’ clan


The sea-cloud-watchers.—Loud above the spray


The maddening iron cry, the appeal of man,


Washed through the torchless midnight on and on.


Are not enough the jeopardies of day?


Riot arose—fear’s Self began the fray:


But the tower proved empty. By the lightning’s ray


They found no human ringer in the room....


The bell-rope quivered out in the sea-spume....




3


A creature fierce, soft, witless of itself,


A morbid mouth, circled by writhing arms,


By its own grasp entangled on that shelf,


Had dragged the rope and spread the death-alarms;


Insensitive, light-forgotten, up from slime,


From shelter betwixt rocks, issuing for prey


Disguised, had used man’s language of dismay.


The spawn of perished times had late in time


Emerged, and griefs upon man’s grief imposed


Incalculable.



But the fishers closed


The blind mouth, and cut off the suckers cold.


Two thousand fathoms the disturber rolled


From trough to trough into the gulf Tyrrhene;


And fear sank with it back into its night obscene.


Herbert Trench







THÉO VAN RYSSELBERGHE
PORTRAIT OF ÉMILE VERHAEREN
FROM A PENCIL DRAWING


 ÉMILE VERHAEREN

LE PRINTEMPS DE 1915



Tu me disais de ta voix douce,


Tu me disais en insistant:


—Y a-t-il encore un Printemps


Et les feuilles repoussent-elles?



La guerre accapare le ciel


Les eaux, les monts, les bois, la terre:


Où sont les fleurs couleur de miel


Pour les abeilles volontaires?



Où sont les pousses des roncerois


Et les boutons des anémones?


Où sont les flûtes dans les bois


Des oiseaux sombres aux becs jaunes?



—Hélas! plus n’est de floraison


Que celle des feux dans l’espace:


Bouquet de rage et de menace


S’éparpillant sur l’horizon.



Plus n’est, hélas! de splendeur rouge


Que celle, hélas! des boulets fous


Éclaboussant de larges coups


Clochers, hameaux, fermes et bouges.



C’est le printemps de ce temps-ci:


Le vent répand de plaine en plaine,


Là-bas, ces feuillaisons de haine;


C’est la terreur de ce temps-ci.


Émile Verhaeren




Saint-Cloud, le 31 Juillet 1915
THE NEW SPRING

[TRANSLATION]



Sadly your dear voice said:


“Is the old spring-time dead,


And shall we never see


New leaves upon the tree?



“Shall the black wings of war


Blot out sun, moon and star,


And never a bud unfold


To the bee its secret gold?



“Where are the wind-flowers streaked,


And the wayward bramble shoots,


And the black-birds yellow-beaked


With a note like woodland flutes?”



No flower shall bloom this year


But the wild flame of fear


Wreathing the evil night


With burst of deadly light.



No splendour of petals red


But that which the cannon shed,


Raining their death-bloom down


On farm and tower and town.



This is the scarlet doom


By the wild sea-winds hurled


Over a land of gloom,


Over a grave-strewn world.


Émile Verhaeren




1915


Though desolation stain their foiled advance,


In ashen ruins hearth-stones linger whole:


Do what they may, they cannot master France;


Do what they can, they cannot quell the soul.


Barrett Wendell




 EDITH WHARTON

THE TRYST



I said to the woman: Whence do you come,


With your bundle in your hand?


She said: In the North I made my home,


Where slow streams fatten the fruitful loam,


And the endless wheat-fields run like foam


To the edge of the endless sand.



I said: What look have your houses there,


And the rivers that glass your sky?


Do the steeples that call your people to prayer


Lift fretted fronts to the silver air,


And the stones of your streets, are they washed and fair


When the Sunday folk go by?



My house is ill to find, she said,


For it has no roof but the sky;


The tongue is torn from the steeple-head,


The streets are foul with the slime of the dead,


And all the rivers run poison-red


With the bodies drifting by.



I said: Is there none to come at your call


In all this throng astray?


They shot my husband against a wall,


And my child (she said), too little to crawl,


Held up its hands to catch the ball


When the gun-muzzle turned its way.



I said: There are countries far from here


Where the friendly church-bells call,


And fields where the rivers run cool and clear,


And streets where the weary may walk without fear,


And a quiet bed, with a green tree near,


To sleep at the end of it all.



She answered: Your land is too remote,


And what if I chanced to roam


When the bells fly back to the steeples’ throat,


And the sky with banners is all afloat,


And the streets of my city rock like a boat


With the tramp of her men come home?



I shall crouch by the door till the bolt is down,


And then go in to my dead.


Where my husband fell I will put a stone,


And mother a child instead of my own,


And stand and laugh on my bare hearth-stone


When the King rides by, she said.


Edith Wharton




Paris, August 27th, 1915



P. A. J. DAGNAN-BOUVERET
BRITTANY WOMAN
FROM A DRAWING IN COLOURED CRAYONS


 MARGARET L. WOODS

FINISTERRE



O that on some forsaken strand,


Lone ending of a lonely land,


On such an eve we two were lying,


To hear the quiet water sighing


And feel the coolness of the sand.



A red and broken moon would grow


Out of the dusk and even so


As here to-night the street she faces,


Between the half-distinguished spaces


Of sea and sky would burn and go.



The moon would go and overhead,


Like tapers lighted o’er the dead,


Star after silver star would glimmer,


The lonely night grow calmer, dimmer,


The quiet sea sink in its bed.



We, at the end of Time and Fate,


Might unconcerned with love or hate


As the sea’s voices, talk together,


Wherefore we went apart and whither,


And all the exiled years relate.



Thus were life’s grey chance-’ravelled sleave’


Outspread, we something might perceive


Which never would to chance surrender,


But through the tangled woof its slender


Golden, elusive pattern weave.



Then while the great stars larger shone


Leaned on the sea, and drew thereon


Faint paths of light, across them faring


Might steal the ship that comes for bearing


Sore-wounded souls to Avalon.


Margaret L. Woods




 W. B. YEATS

A REASON FOR KEEPING SILENT


I think it better that at times like these


We poets keep our mouths shut, for in truth


We have no gift to set a statesman right;


He’s had enough of meddling who can please


A young girl in the indolence of her youth


Or an old man upon a winter’s night.


W. B. Yeats







JACQUES-ÉMILE BLANCHE
PORTRAIT OF IGOR STRAVINSKY
FROM A STUDY IN OILS



MUSICAL SCORE
IGOR STRAVINSKY
SOUVENIR D’UNE MARCHE BOCHE

























THÉO VAN RYSSELBERGHE
PORTRAIT OF VINCENT D’INDY
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH OF THE ORIGINAL PAINTING



MUSICAL SCORE
VINCENT D’INDY
LA LÉGENDE DE SAINT CHRISTOPHE
PAGE OF SCORE OF UNPUBLISHED OPERA
[ACTE I, SCÈNE III]









CONTRIBUTORS OF PROSE


MAURICE BARRÈS
SARAH BERNHARDT
PAUL BOURGET
JOSEPH CONRAD
ELEONORA DUSE
JOHN GALSWORTHY
EDMUND GOSSE
PAUL HERVIEU
GÉNÉRAL HUMBERT
HENRY JAMES
MAURICE MAETERLINCK
EDWARD SANDFORD MARTIN
PAUL ELMER MORE
AGNES REPPLIER
ANDRÉ SAURÈS
MRS. HUMPHRY WARD


LES FRÈRES

Je n’aime pas raconter cette histoire, dit le Général, parce que à
chaque fois, c’est bête, je pleure. Mais elle fait aimer la France....
Il s’agit de deux enfants admirablement doués, pleins de cœur et
d’esprit et qu’aimaient tous ceux qui les rencontraient. Je les avais
connus tout petits. Quand la guerre éclata, le plus jeune, François,
venait d’être admis à Saint-Cyr. Il n’eut pas le temps d’y entrer et
avec toute la promotion il fut d’emblée nommé sous-lieutenant. Vous
pensez s’il rayonnait de joie! Dix-neuf ans l’épaulette et les
batailles! Son aîné Jacques, un garçon de vingt ans, tout à fait
remarquable de science et d’éloquence, travaillait encore à la Faculté
de Droit dont il était lauréat. Lui aussi il partit comme
sous-lieutenant.
Les deux frères se retrouvèrent dans la même brigade de “la division de
fer,” le plus jeune au 26ᵉ de ligne et l’aîné au 27ᵉ. Ils cantonnaient
dans un village dévasté et chaque jour joyeusement se retrouvaient,
plaisant à tous et gagnant par leur jeunesse et leur amitié une sorte de
popularité auprès des soldats.
Bientôt on apprit que le régiment du Saint-Cyrien allait avoir à marcher
et que ce serait chaud. En cachette Jacques s’en alla demander au
colonel la permission de prendre la place de son petit François qu’il
trouvait trop peu préparé pour une action qui s’annonçait rude.
Le colonel reconnut la générosité de cette demande mais coupa court en
disant:
—On ne peut pas faire passer un officier d’un corps à un autre corps.
Le jour fixé pour l’attaque arriva. La première compagnie à laquelle
appartenait François fut envoyé en tirailleurs. Elle fut fauchée. Une
autre suivit. Et puis une autre encore. Leurs ailes durent se replier en
laissant sur le terrain leurs morts et une partie de leurs blessés. Le
petit sous-lieutenant n’était pas de ceux qui revinrent.
Le surlendemain nous reprîmes l’offensive. L’aîné en enlevant avec son
régiment les tranchées allemandes, passa auprès du corps de son petit
François tout criblé de balles. Un peu plus loin il reçut une blessure à
l’épaule.
Son capitaine lui ordonna d’aller se faire panser. Il refusa, continua
et fut blessé d’une balle dans la tête.
Les corps furent ramassés et ramenés dans les ruines du village. Les
sapeurs du 26ᵉ dirent alors:
—On n’enterrera pas ce bon petit sous-lieutenant sans un cercueil. Nous
allons lui en faire un.
Ils se mirent à scier et à clouer.
Ceux du 27ᵉ dirent alors:
—Il ne faut pas traiter différemment les deux frères. Nous allons, nous
aussi, faire un cercueil pour notre lieutenant.
Au soir, on se préparait à les enterrer côte à côte quand une vieille
femme éleva la voix.
C’était une vieille si pauvre qu’elle avait obstinément refusé
d’abandonner le village. “J’aime mieux mourir ici,” avait-elle dit. On
l’avait laissée. Elle gîtait misérablement dans sa cabane sur la paille
et n’avait pas d’autre nourriture que celle que lui donnaient les
soldats. Quand elle vit les deux jeunes cadavres et les préparatifs,
elle dit:
—Attendez un instant avant de les enfermer. Je vais chercher quelque
chose.
Elle alla fouiller la paille sur laquelle elle couchait et en tira le
drap qu’elle gardait pour sa sépulture. Et revenant:
—On n’enfermera pas, dit-elle, ces beaux garçons le visage contre les
planches. Je veux les ensevelir.
Elle coupa la toile en deux et les mit chacun dans son suaire, puis elle
leur posa un baiser sur le front, en disant chaque fois:
—Pour la mère, mon cher enfant.
. . .
Nous nous tûmes quand le Général eut ainsi parlé et il n’était pas le
seul à avoir des larmes dans les yeux. Une prière d’amour se formait
dans nos cœurs pour la France.

Maurice Barrès

de l’Académie Française


1915
THE BROTHERS

[TRANSLATION]

I’m not fond of telling this story, said the General, because each time,
like the old fool I am, it brings tears to my eyes ... but the best of
France is in it.
It’s about two boys, astonishingly gifted, full of heart and brains,
that nobody could meet without liking. I knew them when they were tiny
little fellows. At the time war broke out, the younger one, François,
had just passed his examinations for St. Cyr. He had no time to enter;
he was rushed along in the wholesale promotion and made second
lieutenant then and there. Fancy what it meant to him—epaulettes and
battles at nineteen! His elder brother, Jacques, a boy of twenty,—a
really remarkable fellow in his studies, was hard at work in the Law
School, where he had taken honors. He went off to the front as second
lieutenant, too.
The two brothers were thrown together for the first time in the same
brigade of the “iron division,” as it was called—the younger in the
26th of the line, the other in the 27th. They were quartered in a ruined
village, and each day they met, making themselves liked everywhere and
enjoying a great popularity with the soldiers on account of their youth
and friendliness.
It soon got round that the St. Cyr boy’s regiment was going to get some
hot fighting. Jacques said nothing, but he went to his colonel and asked
for permission to take the place of his brother, whom he considered too
little prepared for what promised to be a violent engagement.
The colonel recognized the generosity of this request, but he cut the
young man short.
“An officer can’t be transferred from his own corps to another,” he
said.
The day fixed for the attack came. The first company—François’
company—was sent ahead to skirmish. It was simply mowed down. Another
followed, and then another. They finally had to fall back, leaving their
dead and part of the wounded on the field. The little second lieutenant
was not among those who returned.
Two days later our men took the offensive again. The elder brother,
storming the German trenches with his regiment, passed close by the body
of his little François as it lay there all shot to pieces. A bit farther
on, a bullet caught him in the shoulder.
His captain ordered him back to have the wound dressed; he refused, kept
on, and was hit full in the forehead.
The bodies were taken up and carried back to the ruins of the village.
The sappers of the 26th said:
“He was a fine fellow, that little second lieutenant. He shan’t go
underground without a coffin, at any rate. Let’s make one for him.”
And they began sawing and hammering.
Then the men of the 27th put their heads together and said:
“There must be no difference between the two brothers. We might as well
make a coffin for our lieutenant, too.”
By nightfall, when they were ready to bury the brothers side by side, an
old woman spoke up. She was a wretched old creature, so poor and broken
that she stubbornly refused to leave the village. “I’ve lived here, I’ll
die here,” she kept on saying. She lay huddled up on some straw in her
little hovel, and her only food was the leavings of the soldiers. When
she saw the bodies of the two lads and understood what was going on, she
said:
“Wait a minute before you nail the covers on. I’m going to fetch
something.”
She hobbled away, fumbled around in the straw she slept on, and pulled
out a piece of cloth that she was keeping for her shroud.
“They shan’t nail those boys up with their faces against the boards. I
want to shroud them,” she said.
She cut the shroud in two and wrapped each in a half of it. Then she
kissed each one of them on the forehead, saying,
“That’s for your mother, dearie.”
. . .
No one spoke when the General ended. And he was not the only one to have
wet eyes. In each of our hearts there was a prayer for France.

Maurice Barrès

de l’Académie Française


1915

UNE PROMESSE

Séchez vos larmes, Enfants des Flandres!
Car les canons, les mitrailleuses, les fusils, les sabres et les bras
n’arrêteront leur élan que lorsque l’ennemi vaincu vous rendra vos
foyers!
Et ces foyers; nous, les femmes de France, d’Angleterre, de Russie et
d’Italie, nous les ensoleillerons. Sarah Bernhardt
1915
A PROMISE

[TRANSLATION]

Children of Flanders, dry your tears!
For all the mighty machinery of war, and the stout hearts of brave men,
shall strive together till the vanquished foe has given you back your
homes!
And to those homes made desolate, we, the women of France, of England,
of Russia and of Italy, will bring again happiness and sunlight!

Sarah Bernhardt





PIERRE-AUGUSTE RÉNOIR
PORTRAIT OF HIS SON, WOUNDED IN THE WAR
FROM A CHARCOAL SKETCH


 PAUL BOURGET

APRÈS UN AN

Je me trouvais, au début de ce mois d’août 1915, voyager en automobile
dans une des provinces du centre de la France, que j’avais traversée de
même, juste une année auparavant, quand la mobilisation commençante
remplissait les routes de camions, de canons, de troupes en marche. Une
année! Que de morts depuis! Mais la résolution demeure la même qu’à
cette époque où le Pays tout entier n’eut qu’un mot d’ordre: y aller.
Non. Rien n’a changé de cette volonté de bataille. J’entre dans un
hôtel, pour y déjeuner. La patronne, que je connais pour m’arrêter là
chaque fois que je passe par la petite ville, est entièrement vêtue de
noir. Elle a perdu son frère en Alsace. Son mari est dans un dépôt à la
veille de partir au front. “Faites-vous des affaires?” lui
demandé-je.—“Pas beaucoup. Personne ne circule, et tous les mobilisés
s’en vont. La caserne se vide. Encore ce matin—”—“C’est bien long,”
lui dis-je, pour la tenter.—“Oui, monsieur,” répond-elle, “mais
puisqu’il faut çà—” Et elle recommence d’écrire ses menus, sans une
plainte. Dans la salle à manger, deux servantes, dont une aussi tout en
noir. Je la questionne. Son mari a été tué sur l’Yser. Son visage est
très triste. Mais pas une récrimination non plus. Elle est comme sa
maîtresse. Elle accepte “puisqu’il faut ça.” Un sous-officier ouvre la
porte. Il est suivi d’une femme en grand deuil, d’un enfant et d’un
homme âgé.—Sa femme, son fils et son père, ai-je su depuis. Je le vois
de profil, et j’observe dans son regard une fixité qui m’étonne. Il
refuse une place dans le fond, et marche vers la fenêtre: “J’ai besoin
d’avoir plus de jour maintenant,” répète-t-il, d’un accent singulier. A
peine est-il assis avec sa famille, qu’un des convives de la table
d’hôte, en train de déjeuner, se lève, et vient le saluer avec une
exclamation de surprise. “Vous ici! Vous êtes donc debout? D’ailleurs,
vous avez très belle mine.”—“Oui,” dit le sous-officier, “çà n’empêche
pas qu’il est en verre—” Et il montre son œil droit. En quelques mots,
très simplement, il raconte qu’une balle lui a enlevé cet œil droit en
Argonne. “C’est dommage,” continue-t-il, “on était si bien, si contents
de n’être plus dans l’eau et dans la boue.” Et l’autre de s’écrier:
“Vous êtes tous comme çà, dans l’armée, si braves, si modestes! Nous
autres, les vieux, nous n’avons été que de la Saint-Jean à côté de vous.
70, qu’est-ce que c’était? Rien du tout. Mais çà finira autrement.”—“Il
le faut,” dit le sous-officier, “et pour nous, et pour ces pauvres
Belges à qui nous devons d’avoir eu du temps. Oui,” insiste-t-il, en
posant sa main sur la tête de son enfant, “pour ceux-là aussi il le
faut.”—“Qui est ce monsieur?” dis-je à la servante.—“Ce
sous-officier?” répond-elle, “un négociant de Paris. Le frère de sa dame
a été tué.” Je regarde manger ces gens, si éprouvés. Ils sont bien
sérieux, bien accablés, mais si dignes. Les mots que ce borgne héroïque
a prononcés, cet “il le faut” donne à tous leurs gestes une émouvante
gravité.
Je reprends ma route, et je le retrouve cet “il le faut” du sergent, ce
“puisqu’il faut çà” de l’hôtelière, comme écrit dans tous les aspects de
cet horizon. C’est le moment de la moisson. Des femmes y travaillent,
des garçonnets, des petites filles. La suppléance du mari, du père, du
frère absents, s’est faite simplement, sans qu’il y ait eu besoin
d’aucun appel, d’aucun décret. Sur deux charrettes que je croise, une
est menée par une femme. Des femmes conduisent les troupeaux. Des femmes
étaient derrière les guichets de la Banque où je suis descendu chercher
de la monnaie, dans la petite ville. Un de mes amis, qui a de gros
intérêts dans le midi, me racontait que son homme d’affaires est aux
Dardanelles: “Sa femme gère mes propriétés à sa place. Elle est
étonnante d’intelligence et de bravoure.” Oui, c’est toujours ce même
tranquille stoïcisme, cette totale absence de plainte. Un bataillon de
territoriaux défile. Ils ne sont plus jeunes. Leur existence était
établie. Elle est bouleversée. Ils subissent l’épreuve sans un murmure
et marquent le pas sur la route brûlée de soleil avec une énergie qui
révèle, chez eux aussi, le sentiment de la nécessité. C’est, pour moi,
le caractère pathétique de cette guerre. Elle a la grandeur auguste des
actions vitales de la nature. Elle est le geste d’un pays qui ne veut
pas mourir, et qui ne mourra pas, ni lui ni cette noble Belgique, dont
parlait le sous-officier, et qui, elle, a prononcé avec autant de
fermeté résolue son “il le faut,” quand l’Allemand l’a provoquée, et
plus pathétiquement encore. Ce n’était pas pour la vie qu’elle allait se
battre, c’était pour l’honneur, pour la probité. Il n’est pas un
Français qui ne le sente, et qui ne confonde sa propre cause avec celle
des admirables sujets de l’admirable Roi Albert.

Paul Bourget

de l’Académie Française


ONE YEAR LATER

[TRANSLATION]

During the first days of August, 1915, I found myself motoring in one of
the central provinces of France. I had crossed the same region in the
same way just a year before, when the beginning of mobilization was
crowding the roads with waggons, with artillery and with marching
troops. Only one year! How many men are dead since! But the high resolve
of the nation is as firm as it was then, when all through the land there
was only one impulse—to go forward. The willingness to fight and to
endure has not grown less.
I went into an hotel for luncheon. I know the woman who keeps it,
because I always stop there when I go through the little town. I found
her dressed in black: she had lost her brother in Alsace. Her husband
was waiting to be sent to the front. I asked her if she were doing any
business. “Not much,” she answered. “Nobody is travelling, and all the
mobilized men are gone. The barracks are empty; why, only this
morning—” “It seems a long time,” I said, to draw her on. “Yes,” she
said, “but since we must ...” and she went back without complaint to the
task of writing her bills of fare. There were two maids in the
dining-room, one of them also in black. I questioned her and learnt that
her husband had been killed on the Yser. Her face was full of sorrow,
but like her mistress she blamed no one, and accepted her loss because
it “must” be so.
Soon a non-commissioned officer came in, followed by a woman in deep
mourning, a little boy, and an elderly man; I learnt afterwards that
they were the sergeant’s wife, his son, and his father. I saw his
profile, and noticed that he seemed to stare fixedly. He declined a
place at the back of the room, and came toward the window. “I need
plenty of light now,” he said in an odd voice. He and his family had
just seated themselves when one of the guests at the long table d’hôte
rose with an exclamation of surprise and came over to him, saying: “Why,
are you out again? How well you look!” “Yes,” said the sergeant; “but
all the same this one is glass,” pointing to his right eye, and in a few
words he told how it had been knocked out by a bullet in the Argonne.
“It was such a pity,” he said, “for we were all so glad when the
fighting began, and we got out of the mud and water in the trenches.”
“You are all just like that in the army!” said his friend, “all so
plucky and so simple! We old fellows were only amateurs compared to you!
What was the war of 1870 to this one? This time there will be a
different ending.” “There must be,” said the sergeant, “not only for us
but for the Belgians, who gained us so much time.” And he repeated,
laying his hand on his boy’s head, “Yes, for these little chaps also it
must be so.”
Presently I found a chance to ask the maid what she knew about the
soldier who had been speaking. “That sergeant? He is a Paris shopkeeper.
His wife’s brother has been killed.” I watched these people at table, so
serious, so sorely tried, but so full of dignity, and the words which
the half-blinded man had pronounced seemed to make even his ordinary
gestures impressive.
All along the road, for the rest of that journey the “it must be” of the
hotel-keeper and the sergeant seemed to be written over the whole
country-side. It was harvest-time, and women, lads and little girls were
working in the fields, replacing absent husbands, fathers and brothers.
They were doing it quite simply, not drawn by any appeal, nor compelled
by any order. Every other cart I met was driven by a woman. Women were
herding the cattle. There was a woman at the cashier’s desk of the bank
in the town where I went to get some money changed.
One of my friends, who has large interests in the south of France, told
me that his man of business was at the Dardanelles. “His wife looks
after my property in his place. She is astonishingly intelligent and
capable.” Everywhere the same tranquil stoicism, the same entire absence
of complaint.
A battalion of territorials marched past. They were not young men. All
of them had had fixed duties and habits which were now broken up. Yet
they submitted without a murmur, marching along the hot and dusty road
with an energy which revealed in them also the same sense of compelling
necessity. That, to my mind, gives to this war its pathetic side. It has
all the imposing grandeur of the vital forces of nature; it is the
heroic movement of a country which defies death, which is not meant to
die. Nor will she allow Belgium to die—the Belgium to whom the sergeant
paid his tribute, and whose “we must” rang out with such poignant
firmness under the German menace. It was not for life alone that Belgium
fought, but for honour and for justice. No Frenchman lives who does not
feel this, and who does not merge his own cause in that of the
indomitable subjects of Belgium’s indomitable King.

Paul Bourget

de l’Académie Française