The Spring (Leconte de Lisle)

The Spring. A live spring sparkles in the bosky gloom,     Hidden from the noonday glare; The green reeds bend above its banks and there     Blue-bells and violets bloom. No kids that batten on the bitter herb,     On slopes of the near hill, Nor shepherd's song, nor flute-note sweet and shrill,     Its crystal source disturb. Hard by, the dark oaks weave a peaceful screen     Whose shade the wild-bee loves, And nestled in dense leaves the murmuring doves     Their ruffled plumage preen. The lazy stags in mossy thickets browse     And sniff the lingering dew; Beneath cool leaves, that let the sunlight through,     The languorous Sylvans drowse. White Nais, near the sacred spring that drips,     Closing her lids awhile, Dreams as she slumbers, and a radiant smile     Floats on her purple lips. No eye, kindling with love's desire, has scanned     Beneath those lucent veils The nymph whose snowy limbs and hair that trails     Gleam on the silvery sand. None gazed on the soft cheek, suffused with youth,     The splendid bosom's swerve, The ivory neck, the shoulder's delicate curve,     White arms and innocent mouth. But now the lecherous Faun, that haunts the grove,     Spies from his leafy trench Those supple flanks, kissed by the oozy drench     As with a kiss of love; Then laughs, as when the Satyr's wanton imps     A wood-nymph's bower assail, And, waking with the sound the virgin pale     Flies like the lightning-glimpse. Even as the Naiad, haunting the clear stream,     Slumbers in woods obscure, Fly from the impious look and laugh impure     O Beauty, the soul's dream! 1852, transl. 1895

Note

• The Spring (« La Source ») from « Poèmes antiques» (1852) Transl. by William John Robertson (1895). Leconte de Lisle strove after an ideal perfection of form. The spirit of that almost flawless work of his, is of intellectual emotion rather than of passion; but in colour, and splendour of imagery, no romanticist can surpass him. He is of the great minds who create, calm and serene. He is often classed with the two great master-spirits of modern German and French literature; but, while he has neither the lyric rush nor epic sweep of Victor Hugo, nor the philosophical modernity and innate human sentiment of Goethe, he is much more akin to the latter than to the former. For the rest, to quote Mr Robertson, "he gives the noblest expression to human revolt and desire, to ideal dreams, and to the pure and sometimes pathetic love of external nature."

From « A CENTURY OF FRENCH VERSE »: Brief biographical and critical notices of thirty-three French poets of the nineteenth ceîitury with expérimental translations from their poems. William John Robertson LONDON: A. D. INNES & CO. BEDFORD STREET. 1895- Edinburgh : T. and A. Constable, Printers lo Her Majesty.