Page:Japanese plays and playfellows (1901).djvu/151

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VULGAR SONGS
123

poetry, in the opinion of these judges; on the contrary, they insist that, in their eyes, by discarding the frippery of language, which they rate so highly, the author of it is no poet, but a vulgar writer. And so, in the highest sense of the word, he is. He has touched the heart of the vulgar; he has found a common factor, which will "go" successfully "into" any assemblage of figures. Take, for instance, three capital instances of vulgar songs, which, as it seems to me, comply with the conditions demanded of poetry, that it shall communicate at once a vivid picture and a direct emotion. When Mr. Albert Chevalier sings—

"We've been together naow for forty year,
And it don't seem a dy too much;
There ain't a lydy livin' in the land
As I'd swop for my dear old Dutch,"

the pathos of life-long love is conveyed quite as poignantly, if not so verbosely, as by Goethe in "Hermann and Dorothea." It is not literature, but it is poetry. When Mlle. Yvette Guilbert sings—

"J' termine ma lettre en t'embrassant,
Adieu, mon homme,
Quoique tu ne soy pas caressant
J' t'adore comme
J'adorais l' Bon Dieu comm' Papa,
Quand j'étais p'tite,
Et que j'allais communier à
Ste. Marguerite,"

the pathos of recollected innocence in a prostitute of Montmartre is more intense, because less diffusely obtained, than by Victor Hugo in the case of Fantine. The chanson of Aristide Bruant is not literature, but it is poetry. The highest instance of non-literary poetry is afforded by "The Barrack-room Ballads." It