Lines by Jasmin
addressed to m. dumon, deputy, who had condemned our old language.
There’s not a deeper grief to man
Than when his mother, faint with years,
Decrepit, old, and weak, and wan,
Beyond the leech’s art appears;
When by her couch her son may stay,
And press her hand and watch her eyes,
And feel, though she revive to-day,
Perchance his hope to-morrow dies.
It is not thus, believe me, sir,
With this enchantress—she we call
Our second mother: Frenchmen err,
Who, cent’ries since, proclaim’d her fall!
Our mother-tongue—all melody—
While music lives, can never die.
Yes!—she still lives, her words still ring;
Her children yet her carols sing:
And thousand years may roll away,
Before her magic notes decay.
The people love their ancient songs, and will,
While yet a people, love and keep them still:
These lays are as their mother; they recal,
Fond thoughts of mother, sister, friends, and all
The many little things that please the heart—
The dreams, the hopes, from which we cannot part:
These songs are as sweet waters, where we find,
Health in the sparkling wave that nerves the mind.
In ev’ry home, at ev’ry cottage door,
By ev’ry fireside, when our toil is o’er,
These songs are round us, near our cradles sigh,
And to the grave attend us when we die.
Oh! think, cold critics! ’twill be late and long,
Ere time shall sweep away this flood of song!
There are who bid this music sound no more,
And you can hear them, nor defend—deplore!
You, who were born where its first daisies grew,
Have fed upon its honey, sipp’d its dew,
Slept in its arms and wakened to its kiss,
Danced to its sounds, and warbled to its tone—
You can forsake it in an hour like this!
—Yes, weary of its age, renounce—disown—
And blame one minstrel who is true—alone!
For me, truth to my eyes made all things plain;
At Paris, the great fount, I did not find
The waters pure, and to my stream again
I come, with saddened and with sobered mind;
And since, no more enchanted, now I rate
The little country far above the great.
For you—who seem her sorrows to deplore,
You, seated high in power, the first among,
Beware! nor make her cause of grief the more;
Believe her mis’ry, nor condemn her tongue.
Methinks you injure where you seek to heal,
If you deprive her of that only weal.
We love, alas! to sing in our distress;
It seems the bitterness of woe is less;
But if we may not in our language mourn,
What will the polish’d give us in return?
Fine sentences, but all for us unmeet—
Words full of grace, even such as courtiers greet:
A deck’d-out Miss, too delicate and nice
To walk in fields, too tender and precise
To sing the chorus of the poor, or come
When Labour lays him down fatigued at home.
To cover rags with gilded robes were vain—
The rents of poverty would show too plain.
How would this dainty dame, with haughty brow,
Shrink at a load, and shudder at a plough!
Sulky, and piqued, and silent would she stand
As the tired peasant urged his team along:
No word of kind encouragement at hand,
For flocks no welcome, and for herds no song!
Yet we will learn, and you shall teach—
Our people shall have double speech:
One to be homely, one polite,
As you have robes for diff’rent wear,
But this is all:—’tis just and right,
And more our children will not bear.
Lest we a troop of buzzards own,
Where nightingales once sang alone.
There may be some, who, vain and proud,
May ape the manners of the crowd,
Lisp French, and lame it at each word,
And jest and gibe to all afford:—
But we, as in long ages past,
Will still be poets to the last!
Hark! and list the bridal song,
As they lead the bride along:
“Hear, gentle bride! your mother’s sighs,21
And you would hence away!—
Weep, weep, for tears become those eyes.”
——“I cannot weep—to-day.”
Hark! the farmer in the mead
Bids the shepherd swain take heed:
“Come, your lambs together fold,
Haste, my sons! your toil is o’er:
For the morning bow has told
That the ox should work no more.”
Hark! the cooper in the shade
Sings to the sound his hammer made:
“Strike, comrades, strike! prepare the cask,
’Tis lusty May that fills the flask:
Strike, comrades! summer suns that shine
Fill the cellars full of wine.”
Verse is, with us, a charm divine,
Our people, loving verse, will still,
Unknowing of their art, entwine
Garlands of poesy at will.
Their simple language suits them best:
Then let them keep it and be blest.
But let wise critics build a wall
Between the nurse’s cherish’d voice,
And the fond ear her words enthral,
And say their idol is her choice:
Yes!—let our fingers feel the rule,
The angry chiding of the school;
True to our nurse, in good or ill,
We are not French, but Gascon still.
’Tis said that age new feeling brings,
Our youth returns as we grow old;
And that we love again the things,
Which in our memory had grown cold.
If this be true, the time will come
When to our ancient tongue, once more,
You will return, as to a home,
And thank us that we kept the store.
Remember thou the tale they tell,
Of Lacuée and Lacepède,22
When age crept on, who loved to dwell,
On words that once their music made:
And, in the midst of grandeur, hung,
Delighted, on their parent tongue.
This, will you do: and it may be,
When, weary of the world’s deceit,
Some summer-day we yet may see
Your coming in our meadows sweet;
Where, midst the flowers, the finch’s lay
Shall welcome you with music gay.
While you shall bid our antique tongue
Some word devise, or air supply,
Like those that charm’d your youth so long
And lent a spell to memory!
Bethink you how we stray’d alone,
Beneath those elms in Agen grown,
That each an arch above us throws,
Like giants, hand-in-hand, in rows.
A storm once struck a fav’rite tree,
It trembled, shook, and bent its boughs,—
The vista is no longer free:
Our governor no pause allows.
“Bring hither hatchet, axe, and spade,
The tree must straight be prostrate laid!”
But vainly strength and art were tried,
The stately tree all force defied.
Well might the elm resist and foil their might,
For though his branches were decay’d to sight,
As many as his leaves the roots spread round,
And in the firm set earth they slept profound!
Since then, more full, more green, more gay,
His crests amidst the breezes play:
And birds of ev’ry note and hue
Come trooping to his shade in Spring,
Each Summer they their lays renew,
And while the year endures they sing.
And thus it is, believe me, sir,
With this enchantress—she we call
Our second mother; Frenchmen err,
Who, cent’ries since, proclaim’d her fall.
No: she still lives, her words still ring;
Her children yet her carols sing,
And thousand years may roll away
Before her magic notes decay.