Index talk:The Book of the Homeless (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1916).djvu

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THE BOOK OF THE HOMELESS (Le Livre des Sans-Foyer) EDITED BY EDITH WHARTON New York & London MDCCCCXVI

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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

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COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS D. B. UPDIKE, THE MERRYMOUNT PRESS, BOSTON, U.S.A.

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LETTRE DU GÉNÉRAL JOFFRE Armées de l’Est République Française 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

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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

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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

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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

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TABLE OF CONTENTS CONTRIBUTIONS OF WRITERS AND MUSICIANS MAURICE BARRÈS PAGE 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

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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

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  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

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  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

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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

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  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

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS CONTRIBUTIONS OF ARTISTS   LÉON BAKST FOLLOWING PAGE 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

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  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 52   JOHN SINGER SARGENT, R.A. Portrait of Henry James. From a photograph of the painting 114 Two Heads. From a pencil drawing 132

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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 could n'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,

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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 friendsmoved 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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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 1er, Paris (with Mrs. Wharton's name in the left-hand corner), via the American offices of the Clearing House, 15 Broad Street, New York.

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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

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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

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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

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THÉO VAN RYSSELBERGHE PORTRAIT OF ANDRÉ GIDE FROM A PENCIL DRAWING

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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

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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.

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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

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LÉON BAKST PORTRAIT OF JEAN COCTEAU FROM AN UNPUBLISHED CRAYON SKETCH

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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,

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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 lonie. 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.

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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.

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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,

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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

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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.

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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.

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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

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

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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

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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. Orthez, 29 Juillet 1915

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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

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