A Sheaf Gleaned in French Fields/The Tears of Racine (Sainte-Beuve)
THE TEARS OF RACINE.
When Jean Racine the poet grand,
Loving and true, a child of light,
Had veiled his lyre, grown mute, to stand
For ever out of human sight,
Though earth he had renounced and fame,
He felt at times song's sacred flame
Within his heart burn bright and clear,
And then before the Saviour's feet,
He burst in prayers confused and sweet,
Prayers always sealed with many a tear.
Just as the pure heart of a maid
In secret often overflows,
At each domestic cloud or shade,
At each small joy his tears arose.
To see his eldest daughter weep,
To see fair children round him leap,
And deck his rooms with flowers and leaves,
To feel a father's tender cares
'Mid chat of books or state affairs
With Rollin, in the winter eves.
Or if in the loved native place,
The cradle of his touching dreams,
He strayed in fields, until in face
Port-Royal rose 'mid rainbow gleams;
If he beheld its cloisters cool,
Its long wall and its lonely pool,
As weeps an exiled man he wept.
To weep was sweet! What blessed rain
For Champmeslé and La Fontaine
He shed each year, the day they slept.
But never gentler tears were seen
To flow in love from any lid,
Than his when brows of fair sixteen
Beneath the shrouding veils were hid,
And when the girls with solemn vows,
Acknowledging the Lord as Spouse,
Trod on their festal garlands gay,
And giving up their beauty's crown,
Their long hair, erst let loosely down,
With tears, from parents passed away.
He also had to pay his debt,
And to the temple bring his lamb:
Upon his youngest's brow was set
The seal of Him who said, I Am.
The wedding-ring her finger graced,
Pale, pale, before the altar placed,
Her Lord Divine she longed to see:
While heedless of the pomp and crowd,
Incense, and organ swelling loud,
The father sobbed on bended knee.
Sobs, sighs, that soon to tear-showers led,
As gentle as those tear-showers sweet
That Mary Magdalene shed
Upon her blessed Sav1our's feet;
As precious as the perfume rare
Lazarus' sister with her hair
Long-flowing softly wiped away;
Tear-showers abundant as were thine,
Best loved Apostle called divine,
Before thy hallelujah-day.
Dumb prayers from a heart that throbs!
Holy desires that upward mount!
'What lute shall interpret these sobs
And sighs and tears that none can count!
Who shall the mystery explain
Of this vexed heart that strove in vain
To hush itself, yet had no tone
Articulate? Ah, who shall tell
What winds of autumn in the dell
Among the naked branches moan?
It was an offering with a cry
Like Abraham's—a yearning strong!
It was a struggle last and high
For her whom he had nourished long.
It was a retrospective glance
Upon his past life's vast expanse—
A sinner rescued from the fire!
One cry unto the Judge sublime
That for this victim every crime
Might be effaced, and quenched all ire.
It was a dream of innocence,
And this the thought that made him sob,
He might have stayed here, and from hence
Heard the world's pulses far off throb.
Port-Royal might have been his home:
In its calm vale how sweet to roam
It would have been, amidst its woods
Of chestnuts with their shadows deep,
And muse, and pray, and wake, and sleep,
In its vast parlours' solitudes.
And oh! If with his eyes still wet,
Snatching his slumbering lute again,
He has not unto music set
What then he felt of bitterest pain;
As poet, if he has not sung
The holocaust his tears that wrung;
The Master who by name can call
His sheep, hath less not understood
The minstrel's wise and silent mood;
O mortals, blame him not at all.
The Lord unto whose holy throne
Our prayers ascend, sends He tear-showers
To sparkle on the lids alone,
Like dew upon the opening flowers?
No! Nor His breath to cause unrest,
And agitate the human breast,
Wild music from its chords to draw;
His dews awake to life from death,
Ardent, immense, His circling breath
Labours the frost in us to thaw.
What matters song with harp and voice,
What matters if we tread where trod
The saints, and in the dance rejoice
Before the holy Ark of God,
If soon, too soon, at ease the soul
Cast off her widow's weeds and dole,
And dissipate what she should feel
Continually; and what she pays,
Poor guilty thing, in thanks and praise,
From her repentance rashly steal!