a hired Cissian mourner" can be likened to these brief words that sting like tears of fire? what milder note of the lesser gods of song has in it such penetrative and piercing gentleness as the softened speech of the thunder bearer? Where, among the poets who have never gone up to the prophetic heights or down to the tragic depths of thought and passion, is there one who can put forth when he will verse of such sweet and simple perfection as the great tragic and prophetic poet of our own age? These are some of the first verses inscribed to the baby grandchild whose pretty presence is ever and anon recalled to our mind's eye between the dark acts of the year-long tragedy.
Contente, vous jasez, comme, sous la ramée,
Au fond du nid plus tiède ouvrant de vagues yeux,
Les oiseaux nouveau-nés gazouillent, tout joyeux
De sentir qu'il commence à leur pousser des plumes.
Jeanne, ta bouche est rose; et dans les gros volumes
Dont les images font ta joie, et que je dois,
Pour te plaire, laisser chiffonner par tes doigts,
On trouve de beaux vers, mais pas un qui te vaille
Quand tout ton petit corps en me voyant tressaille;
Les plus fameux auteurs n'ont rien écrit de mieux
Que la pensée éclose à demi dans tes yeux,
Et que ta rêverie obscure, éparse, étrange,
Regardant l'homme avec l'ignorance de l'ange."
As in the look and action of a little child, so in this verse itself there is something of dim and divine pathos, sensible in the very joy of its beauty; something which touches men not too much used to the melting mood with a smiling sense of tears, an inner pang of delight made up of compassion and adoration before that divine
