Albert Samain
When they know by heart what is pure in Verlaine, the young women of today and tomorrow set out to dream Au Jardin de l’Infante. With all that he owes to the author of Fêtes Galantes (he owes him less than one might suppose), Albert Samain is one of the most original and charming poets, the sweetest and most delicate of poets:
En robe héliotrope, et sa pensée au doigts,
Le rêve passe, la ceinture dénouée,
Frôlant les âmes de sa traîne de nuée,
Au rhytme éteint d’une musique d’autrefois....
(Tr. 19)
One must read the whole little poem which commences thus:
Dans la lente douceur d’un soir des derniers jours....
(Tr. 20)
It is pure and beautiful as any poem in the French language, and its art has the simplicity of works deeply felt and long pondered over. Free verse, new poetry! Here are verses which make us understand the vanity of prosodists and the awkwardness of the too clever players on the zither. A soul is there.
Samain’s sincerity is wonderful. I think he would be ashamed to give variations on sensations unexplored by his experience. Sincerity here does not mean candor, nor simplicity gaucherie. He is sincere, not because he avows all his thoughts, but because he thinks of all his avowals. And he is simple because he has studied his art until he knows its last secrets and effortlessly gives forth these secrets with an unconscious mastery:
Les roses du couchant s’effeuillent sur le fleuve;
Et, dans l’émotion pâle du soir tombant,
S’évoque un parc d’automne où rêve sur un banc
Ma jeunesse déjà grave comme une veuve....
(Tr. 21)
This is, it seems, like a Vigny made tender and consenting to the humility of a melancholy quite simple and stripped of scarves.
He is not only softened. He is tender, and what passion and sensuality, but so delicate!
Tu marchais chaste dans la robe de ton âme,
Que le désir suivait comme un faune dompté,
Je respirais parmi le soir, ô pureté,
Mon rêve enveloppé dans tes voiles de femme.
(Tr. 22)
A delicate sensuality, which is really the impression his verses should give to conform to his poetics, where 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....
(Tr. 23)
But, this poet who would only love nuance, Verlainian nuance, could on some occasions be a violent colorist or a vigorous hewer of marble. This other Samain, older and not less genuine, is revealed in parts of his collection called Evocations. It is a Parnassian Samain, but always personal, even in grandiloquence. The two sonnets entitled Cléopâtre have a beauty not only of expression but of ideas; it is neither pure music nor pure plastic art. The poem is complete and alive, a strange, disconcerting marble; yes, a living marble whose life stirs and fertilizes the very desert sands, around the momentarily enamoured Sphinx.
Such is this poet: powerfully delicious in the art of making all the bells and all the souls vibrate in harmony. All souls are in love with this “child in robes of state.”