Imperial
Revels--_H.
Hugo - Poems
?
The Project Gutenberg EBook of Poems, by Victor Hugo
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Title: Poems
Author: Victor Hugo
Release Date: August, 2005 [EBook #8775]
This file was first posted on August 12, 2003
Last Updated: May 5, 2013
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS ***
Produced by Stan Goodman and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
POEMS
By Victor Hugo
1888
[Transcription note: One poem uses an a with a macron over it, this
has been rendered as a, which is not used in this text for any other
purpose. ]
CONTENTS.
Memoir of Victor Marie Hugo
EARLY POEMS.
Moses on the Nile--_Dublin University Magazine_
Envy and Avarice--_American Keepsake_
ODES. --1818-28.
King Louis XVII--_Dublin University Magazine_
The Feast of Freedom--_"Father Prout" (F. S. Mahony)_
Genius--_Mrs. Torre Hulme_
The Girl of Otaheite--_Clement Scott_
Nero's Incendiary Song--_H. J. Williams_
Regret--_Fraser's Magazine_
The Morning of Life
Beloved Name--_Caroline Bowles (Mrs. Southey)_
The Portrait of a Child--_Dublin University Magazine_
BALLADES. --1823-28.
The Grandmother--_"Father Prout" (F. S. Mahony)_
The Giant in Glee--_Foreign Quart. Rev. (adapted)_
The Cymbaleer's Bride--_"Father Prout" (F. S. Mahony)_
Battle of the Norsemen and the Gaels
Madelaine
The Fay and the Peri--_Asiatic Journal_
LES ORIENTALES. --1829
The Scourge of Heaven--_I. N. Fazakerley_
Pirates' Song
The Turkish Captive--_W. D. , Tait's Edisiburgh Mag. _
Moonlight on the Bosphorus--_John L. O'Sullivan_
The Veil--_"Father Prout" (F. S. Mahony)_
The Favorite Sultana
The Pasha and the Dervish
The Lost Battle--_W. D. , Bentley's Miscel_. , 1839
The Greek Boy
Zara, the Bather--_John L. O'Sullivan_
Expectation--_John L. O'Sullivan _
The Lover's Wish--_V. , Eton Observer_
The Sacking of the City--_John L. O'Sullivan_
Noormahal the Fair
The Djinns--_John L. O'Sullivan_
The Obdurate Beauty--_John L. O'Sullivan_
Don Rodrigo
Cornflowers--_H. L. Williams_
Mazeppa--_H. L. Williams_
The Danube in Wrath--_Fraser's Magazine_
Old Ocean--_R. C. Ellwood_
My Napoleon--_H. L. Williams_
LES FEUILLES D'AUTOMNE. --1831.
The Patience of the People--_G. W. M. Reynolds_
Dictated before the Rhone Glacier--_Author of "Critical Essays"_
The Poet's Love for Liveliness--_Fraser's Magazine_
Infantile Influence--_Henry Highton, M. A. _
The Watching Angel--_Foreign Quarterly Review_
Sunset--_Toru Dutt_
The Universal Prayer--_Henry Highton, M. A. _
The Universal Prayer--_C. , Tait's Magazine_
LES CHANTS DU CREPUSCULE. --1849.
Prelude to "The Songs of Twilight"--_G. W. M. Reynolds_
The Land of Fable--_G. W. M. Rrynolds_
The Three Glorious Days--_Elizabeth Collins_
Tribute to the Vanquished--_Fraser's Magazine_
Angel or Demon--_Fraser's Magazine_
The Eruption of Vesuvius--_Fraser's Magazine_
Marriage and Feasts--_G. W. M. Reynolds_
The Morrow of Grandeur--_Fraser's Magazine_
The Eaglet Mourned--_Fraser's Magazine_
Invocation--_G. W. M. Reynolds_
Outside the Ball-room--_G. W. M. Reynolds_
Prayer for France--_J. S. Macrae_
To Canaris, the Greek Patriot--_G. W. M. Reynolds_
Poland--_G. W. M. Reynolds_
Insult not the Fallen--_W. C. K. Wilde_
Morning--_W. M. Hardinge_
Song of Love--_Toru Dutt_
Sweet Charmer--_H. B. Farnie_
More Strong than Time--_A. Lang_
Roses and Butterflies--_W. C. Westbrook_
A Simile--_Fanny Kemble-Butler_
The Poet to his Wife
LES VOIX INTERIEURES. --1840.
The Blinded Bourbons--_Fraser's Magazine_
To Albert Durer--_Mrs. Newton Crosland_
To his Muse--_Fraser's Magazine_
The Cow--_Toru Dutt_
Mothers--_Dublin University Magazine_
To some Birds Flown away--_Mrs. Newton Crosland_
My Thoughts of Ye--_Dublin University Magazine_
The Beacon in the Storm
Love's Treacherous Pool
The Rose and the Grave--_A. Lang_
LES RAYONS ET LES OMBRES. --1840.
Holyrood Palace--_Fraser's Magazine_
The Humble Home--_Author of "Critical Essays"_
The Eighteenth Century--_Author of "Critical Essays"_
Still be a Child--_Dublin University Magazine_
The Pool and the Soul--_R. F. Hodgson_
Ye Mariners who Spread your Sails--_Author of "Critical Essays"_
On a Flemish Window-Pane--_Fraser's Magazine_
The Preceptor--_E. E. Frewer_
Gastibelza--_H. L. Williams_
Guitar Song--_Evelyn Jerrold_
Come when I Sleep--_Wm. W. Tomlinson_
Early Love Revisited--_Author of "Critical Essays"_
Sweet Memory of Love--_Author of "Critical Essays"_
The Marble Faun--_William Young_
A Love for Winged Things
Baby's Seaside Grave
LES CHATIMENTS. --1853.
Indignation!
Imperial Revels--_H. L. W. _
Poor Little Children
Apostrophe to Nature
Napoleon "The Little"
Fact or Fable--_H. L. W. _
A Lament--_Edwin Arnold, C. S. I. _
No Assassination
The Despatch of the Doom
The Seaman's Song
The Retreat from Moscow--_Toru Dutt_
The Ocean's Song--_Toru Dutt_
The Trumpets of the Mind--_Toru Dutt_
After the Coup d'Etat--_Toru Dutt_
Patria
The Universal Republic
LES CONTEMPLATIONS. --1830-56.
The Vale to You, to Me the Heights--_H. L. W_
Childhood--_Nelson R. Tyerman_
Satire on the Earth
How Butterflies are Born--_A. Lang_
Have You Nothing to Say for Yourself? --_C. H. Kenny_
Inscription for a Crucifix
Death, in Life
The Dying Child to its Mother--_Bp. Alexander_
Epitaph--_Nelson R. Tyerman_
St. John--_Nelson R. Tyerman_
The Poet's Simple Faith--_Prof. E. Dowden_
I am Content
LA LEGENDE DES SIECLES.
Cain--_Dublin University Magazine_
Boaz Asleep--_Bp. Alexander_
Song of the German Lanzknecht--_H. L. W. _
King Canute--_R. Garnett_
King Canute--_Dublin University Magazine_
The Boy-King's Prayer--_Dublin University Magazine_
Eviradnus--_Mrs. Newton Crosland_
The Soudan, the Sphinxes, the Cup, the Lamp--_Bp. Alexander_
A Queen Five Summers Old--_Bp. Alexander_
Sea Adventurers' Song
The Swiss Mercenaries--_Bp. Alexander_
The Cup on the Battle-Field--_Toru Dutt_
How Good are the Poor--_Bp. Alexander_
LA VOIX DE GUERNESEY.
Mentana--_Edwin Arnold, C. S. I. _
LES CHANSONS DES RUES ET DES BOIS.
Love of the Woodland
Shooting Stars
L'ANNEE TERRIBLE.
To Little Jeanne--_Marwaod Tucker_
To a Sick Child during the Siege of Paris--_Lucy H. Hooper_
The Carrier Pigeon
Toys and Tragedy
Mourning--_Marwood Tucker_
The Lesson of the Patriot Dead--_H. L. W. _
The Boy on the Barricade--_H. L. W. _
To His Orphan Grandchildren--_Marwood Tucker_
To the Cannon "Victor Hugo"
L'ART D'ETRE GRANDPERE.
The Children of the Poor--_Dublin University Magazine_
The Epic of the Lion--_Edwin Arnold, C. S. I. _
LES QUATRE VENTS DE L'ESPRIT.
On Hearing the Princess Royal Sing--_Nelson R. Tyerman_
My Happiest Dream
An Old-Time Lay
Jersey
Then, most, I Smile
The Exile's Desire
The Refugee's Haven
VARIOUS PIECES.
To the Napoleon Column--_Author of "Critical Essays"_
Charity--_Dublin University Magazine_
Sweet Sister--_Mrs. B. Somers_
The Pity of the Angels
The Sower--_Toru Dutt_
Oh, Why not be Happy? --_Leopold Wray_
Freedom and the World
Serenade--_Henry F. Chorley_
An Autumnal Simile
To Cruel Ocean
Esmeralda in Prison
Lover's Song--_Ernest Oswald Coe_
A Fleeting Glimpse of a Village--_Fraser's Magazine_
Lord Rochester's Song
The Beggar's Quatrain--_H. L. C. , London Society_
The Quiet Rural Church
A Storm Simile
DRAMATIC PIECES.
The Father's Curse--_Fredk. L. Slous_
Paternal Love--_Fanny Kemble-Butler_
The Degenerate Gallants--_Lord F. Leveson Gower_
The Old and the Young Bridegroom--_Charles Sherry_
The Spanish Lady's Love--_C. Moir_
The Lover's Sacrifice--_Lord F. Leveson Gower_
The Old Man's Love--_C. Moir_
The Roll of the De Silva Race--_Lord F. Leveson Gower_
The Lover's Colloquy--_Lord F. Leveson Gower_
Cromwell and the Crown--_Leitch Ritchie_
Milton's Appeal to Cromwell
First Love--_Fanny Kemble-Butler_
The First Black Flag--_Democratic Review_
The Son in Old Age--_Foreign Quarterly Review_
The Emperor's Return--_Athenaum_
Victor in Poesy, Victor in Romance,
Cloud-weaver of phantasmal hopes and fears,
French of the French, and Lord of human tears;
Child-lover; Bard whose fame-lit laurels glance
Darkening the wreaths of all that would advance,
Beyond our strait, their claim to be thy peers;
Weird Titan by thy winter weight of years
As yet unbroken, Stormy voice of France!
TENNYSON.
MEMOIR OF VICTOR MARIE HUGO.
Towards the close of the First French Revolution, Joseph Leopold Sigisbert
Hugo, son of a joiner at Nancy, and an officer risen from the ranks in the
Republican army, married Sophie Trebuchet, daughter of a Nantes fitter-out
of privateers, a Vendean royalist and devotee.
Victor Marie Hugo, their second son, was born on the 26th of February,
1802, at Besancon, France. Though a weakling, he was carried, with his
boy-brothers, in the train of their father through the south of France,
in pursuit of Fra Diavolo, the Italian brigand, and finally into Spain.
Colonel Hugo had become General, and there, besides being governor over
three provinces, was Lord High Steward at King Joseph's court, where his
eldest son Abel was installed as page. The other two were educated for
similar posts among hostile young Spaniards under stern priestly tutors
in the Nobles' College at Madrid, a palace become a monastery. Upon the
English advance to free Spain of the invaders, the general and Abel
remained at bay, whilst the mother and children hastened to Paris.
Again, in a house once a convent, Victor and his brother Eugene were taught
by priests until, by the accident of their roof sheltering a comrade of
their father's, a change of tutor was afforded them. This was General
Lahorie, a man of superior education, main supporter of Malet in his daring
plot to take the government into the Republicans' hands during the absence
of Napoleon I. in Russia. Lahorie read old French and Latin with Victor
till the police scented him out and led him to execution, October, 1812.
School claimed the young Hugos after this tragical episode, where they
were oddities among the humdrum tradesmen's sons. Victor, thoughtful and
taciturn, rhymed profusely in tragedies, "printing" in his books,
"Chateaubriand or nothing! " and engaging his more animated brother to
flourish the Cid's sword and roar the tyrant's speeches.
In 1814, both suffered a sympathetic anxiety as their father held out at
Thionville against the Allies, finally repulsing them by a sortie.
Imperial Revels--_H. L. W. _
Poor Little Children
Apostrophe to Nature
Napoleon "The Little"
Fact or Fable--_H. L. W. _
A Lament--_Edwin Arnold, C. S. I. _
No Assassination
The Despatch of the Doom
The Seaman's Song
The Retreat from Moscow--_Toru Dutt_
The Ocean's Song--_Toru Dutt_
The Trumpets of the Mind--_Toru Dutt_
After the Coup d'Etat--_Toru Dutt_
Patria
The Universal Republic
LES CONTEMPLATIONS. --1830-56.
The Vale to You, to Me the Heights--_H. L. W_
Childhood--_Nelson R. Tyerman_
Satire on the Earth
How Butterflies are Born--_A. Lang_
Have You Nothing to Say for Yourself? --_C. H. Kenny_
Inscription for a Crucifix
Death, in Life
The Dying Child to its Mother--_Bp. Alexander_
Epitaph--_Nelson R. Tyerman_
St. John--_Nelson R. Tyerman_
The Poet's Simple Faith--_Prof. E. Dowden_
I am Content
LA LEGENDE DES SIECLES.
Cain--_Dublin University Magazine_
Boaz Asleep--_Bp. Alexander_
Song of the German Lanzknecht--_H. L. W. _
King Canute--_R. Garnett_
King Canute--_Dublin University Magazine_
The Boy-King's Prayer--_Dublin University Magazine_
Eviradnus--_Mrs. Newton Crosland_
The Soudan, the Sphinxes, the Cup, the Lamp--_Bp. Alexander_
A Queen Five Summers Old--_Bp. Alexander_
Sea Adventurers' Song
The Swiss Mercenaries--_Bp. Alexander_
The Cup on the Battle-Field--_Toru Dutt_
How Good are the Poor--_Bp. Alexander_
LA VOIX DE GUERNESEY.
Mentana--_Edwin Arnold, C. S. I. _
LES CHANSONS DES RUES ET DES BOIS.
Love of the Woodland
Shooting Stars
L'ANNEE TERRIBLE.
To Little Jeanne--_Marwaod Tucker_
To a Sick Child during the Siege of Paris--_Lucy H. Hooper_
The Carrier Pigeon
Toys and Tragedy
Mourning--_Marwood Tucker_
The Lesson of the Patriot Dead--_H. L. W. _
The Boy on the Barricade--_H. L. W. _
To His Orphan Grandchildren--_Marwood Tucker_
To the Cannon "Victor Hugo"
L'ART D'ETRE GRANDPERE.
The Children of the Poor--_Dublin University Magazine_
The Epic of the Lion--_Edwin Arnold, C. S. I. _
LES QUATRE VENTS DE L'ESPRIT.
On Hearing the Princess Royal Sing--_Nelson R. Tyerman_
My Happiest Dream
An Old-Time Lay
Jersey
Then, most, I Smile
The Exile's Desire
The Refugee's Haven
VARIOUS PIECES.
To the Napoleon Column--_Author of "Critical Essays"_
Charity--_Dublin University Magazine_
Sweet Sister--_Mrs. B. Somers_
The Pity of the Angels
The Sower--_Toru Dutt_
Oh, Why not be Happy? --_Leopold Wray_
Freedom and the World
Serenade--_Henry F. Chorley_
An Autumnal Simile
To Cruel Ocean
Esmeralda in Prison
Lover's Song--_Ernest Oswald Coe_
A Fleeting Glimpse of a Village--_Fraser's Magazine_
Lord Rochester's Song
The Beggar's Quatrain--_H. L. C. , London Society_
The Quiet Rural Church
A Storm Simile
DRAMATIC PIECES.
The Father's Curse--_Fredk. L. Slous_
Paternal Love--_Fanny Kemble-Butler_
The Degenerate Gallants--_Lord F. Leveson Gower_
The Old and the Young Bridegroom--_Charles Sherry_
The Spanish Lady's Love--_C. Moir_
The Lover's Sacrifice--_Lord F. Leveson Gower_
The Old Man's Love--_C. Moir_
The Roll of the De Silva Race--_Lord F. Leveson Gower_
The Lover's Colloquy--_Lord F. Leveson Gower_
Cromwell and the Crown--_Leitch Ritchie_
Milton's Appeal to Cromwell
First Love--_Fanny Kemble-Butler_
The First Black Flag--_Democratic Review_
The Son in Old Age--_Foreign Quarterly Review_
The Emperor's Return--_Athenaum_
Victor in Poesy, Victor in Romance,
Cloud-weaver of phantasmal hopes and fears,
French of the French, and Lord of human tears;
Child-lover; Bard whose fame-lit laurels glance
Darkening the wreaths of all that would advance,
Beyond our strait, their claim to be thy peers;
Weird Titan by thy winter weight of years
As yet unbroken, Stormy voice of France!
TENNYSON.
MEMOIR OF VICTOR MARIE HUGO.
Towards the close of the First French Revolution, Joseph Leopold Sigisbert
Hugo, son of a joiner at Nancy, and an officer risen from the ranks in the
Republican army, married Sophie Trebuchet, daughter of a Nantes fitter-out
of privateers, a Vendean royalist and devotee.
Victor Marie Hugo, their second son, was born on the 26th of February,
1802, at Besancon, France. Though a weakling, he was carried, with his
boy-brothers, in the train of their father through the south of France,
in pursuit of Fra Diavolo, the Italian brigand, and finally into Spain.
Colonel Hugo had become General, and there, besides being governor over
three provinces, was Lord High Steward at King Joseph's court, where his
eldest son Abel was installed as page. The other two were educated for
similar posts among hostile young Spaniards under stern priestly tutors
in the Nobles' College at Madrid, a palace become a monastery. Upon the
English advance to free Spain of the invaders, the general and Abel
remained at bay, whilst the mother and children hastened to Paris.
Again, in a house once a convent, Victor and his brother Eugene were taught
by priests until, by the accident of their roof sheltering a comrade of
their father's, a change of tutor was afforded them. This was General
Lahorie, a man of superior education, main supporter of Malet in his daring
plot to take the government into the Republicans' hands during the absence
of Napoleon I. in Russia. Lahorie read old French and Latin with Victor
till the police scented him out and led him to execution, October, 1812.
School claimed the young Hugos after this tragical episode, where they
were oddities among the humdrum tradesmen's sons. Victor, thoughtful and
taciturn, rhymed profusely in tragedies, "printing" in his books,
"Chateaubriand or nothing! " and engaging his more animated brother to
flourish the Cid's sword and roar the tyrant's speeches.
In 1814, both suffered a sympathetic anxiety as their father held out at
Thionville against the Allies, finally repulsing them by a sortie. This was
pure loyalty to the fallen Bonaparte, for Hugo had lost his all in Spain,
his very savings having been sunk in real estate, through King Joseph's
insistence on his adherents investing to prove they had "come to stay. "
The Bourbons enthroned anew, General Hugo received, less for his neutrality
than thanks to his wife's piety and loyalty, confirmation of his title
and rank, and, moreover, a fieldmarshalship. Abel was accepted as a page,
too, but there was no money awarded the ex-Bonapartist--money being what
the Eaglet at Reichstadt most required for an attempt at his father's
throne--and the poor officer was left in seclusion to write consolingly
about his campaigns and "Defences of Fortified Towns. "
Decidedly the pen had superseded the sword, for Victor and Eugene were
scribbling away in ephemeral political sheets as apprenticeship to
founding a periodical of their own.
Victor's poetry became remarkable in _La Muse Francaise_ and _Le
Conservateur Litteraire_, the odes being permeated with Legitimist and
anti-revolutionary sentiments delightful to the taste of Madam Hugo, member
as she was of the courtly Order of the Royal Lily.
In 1817, the French Academy honorably mentioned Victor's "Odes on the
Advantages of Study," with a misgiving that some elder hand was masked
under the line ascribing "scant fifteen years" to the author. At the
Toulouse Floral Games he won prizes two years successively. His critical
judgment was sound as well, for he had divined the powers of Lamartine.
His "Odes," collected in a volume, gave his ever-active mother her
opportunity at Court. Louis XVIII. granted the boy-poet a pension of
1,500 francs.
It was the windfall for which the youth had been waiting to enable him to
gratify his first love. In his childhood, his father and one M. Foucher,
head of a War Office Department, had jokingly betrothed a son of the one
to a daughter of the other. Abel had loftier views than alliance with a
civil servant's child; Eugene was in love elsewhere; but Victor had fallen
enamored with Adele Foucher. It is true, when poverty beclouded the Hugos,
the Fouchers had shrunk into their mantle of dignity, and the girl had
been strictly forbidden to correspond with her child-sweetheart.
He, finding letters barred out, wrote a love story ("Hans of Iceland") in
two weeks, where were recited his hopes, fears, and constancy, and this
book she could read.
It pleased the public no less, and its sale, together with that of the
"Odes" and a West Indian romance, "Buck Jargal," together with a royal
pension, emboldened the poet to renew his love-suit. To refuse the
recipient of court funds was not possible to a public functionary.
M. Foucher consented to the betrothal in the summer of 1821.
So encloistered had Mdlle. Adele been, her reading "Hans" the exceptional
intrusion, that she only learnt on meeting her affianced that he was
mourning his mother. In October, 1822, they were wed, the bride nineteen,
the bridegroom but one year the elder. The dinner was marred by the
sinister disaster of Eugene Hugo going mad. (He died in an asylum five
years later. ) The author terminated his wedding year with the "Ode to
Louis XVIII. ," read to a society after the President of the Academy had
introduced him as "the most promising of our young lyrists. "
In spite of new poems revealing a Napoleonic bias, Victor was invited to
see Charles X. consecrated at Rheims, 29th of May, 1825, and was entered
on the roll of the Legion of Honor repaying the favors with the verses
expected. But though a son was born to him he was not restored to
Conservatism; with his mother's death all that had vanished. His tragedy
of "Cromwell" broke lances upon Royalists and upholders of the still
reigning style of tragedy. The second collection of "Odes" preluding it,
showed the spirit of the son of Napoleon's general, rather than of the
Bourbonist field-marshal. On the occasion, too, of the Duke of Tarento
being announced at the Austrian Ambassador's ball, February, 1827, as
plain "Marshal Macdonald," Victor became the mouthpiece of indignant
Bonapartists in his "Ode to the Napoleon Column" in the Place Vendome.
His "Orientales," though written in a Parisian suburb by one who had not
travelled, appealed for Grecian liberty, and depicted sultans and pashas
as tyrants, many a line being deemed applicable to personages nearer the
Seine than Stamboul.
"Cromwell" was not actable, and "Amy Robsart," in collaboration with his
brother-in-law, Foucher, miserably failed, notwithstanding a finale
"superior to Scott's 'Kenilworth. '" In one twelvemonth, there was this
failure to record, the death of his father from apoplexy at his eldest
son's marriage, and the birth of a second son to Victor towards the close.
Still imprudent, the young father again irritated the court with satire in
"Marion Delorme" and "Hernani," two plays immediately suppressed by the
Censure, all the more active as the Revolution of July, 1830, was surely
seething up to the edge of the crater.
(At this juncture, the poet Chateaubriand, fading star to our rising sun,
yielded up to him formally "his place at the poets' table. ")
In the summer of 1831, a civil ceremony was performed over the insurgents
killed in the previous year, and Hugo was constituted poet-laureate of the
Revolution by having his hymn sung in the Pantheon over the biers.
Under Louis Philippe, "Marion Delorme" could be played, but livelier
attention was turned to "Notre Dame de Paris," the historical romance in
which Hugo vied with Sir Walter. It was to have been followed by others,
but the publisher unfortunately secured a contract to monopolize all the
new novelist's prose fictions for a term of years, and the author revenged
himself by publishing poems and plays alone. Hence "Notre Dame" long stood
unique: it was translated in all languages, and plays and operas were
founded on it. Heine professed to see in the prominence of the hunchback
a personal appeal of the author, who was slightly deformed by one shoulder
being a trifle higher than the other; this malicious suggestion reposed
also on the fact that the _quasi_-hero of "Le Roi s'Amuse" (1832, a
tragedy suppressed after one representation, for its reflections on
royalty), was also a contorted piece of humanity. This play was followed
by "Lucrezia Borgia," "Marie Tudor," and "Angelo," written in a singular
poetic prose. Spite of bald translations, their action was sufficiently
dramatic to make them successes, and even still enduring on our stage. They
have all been arranged as operas, whilst Hugo himself, to oblige the father
of Louise Bertin, a magazine publisher of note, wrote "Esmeralda" for her
music in 1835.
Thus, at 1837, when he was promoted to an officership in the Legion of
Honor, it was acknowledged his due as a laborious worker in all fields of
literature, however contestable the merits and tendencies of his essays.
In 1839, the Academy, having rejected him several times, elected him among
the Forty Immortals. In the previous year had been successfully acted "Ruy
Blas," for which play he had gone to Spanish sources; with and after the
then imperative Rhine tour, came an unendurable "trilogy," the "Burgraves,"
played one long, long night in 1843. A real tragedy was to mark that year:
his daughter Leopoldine being drowned in the Seine with her husband, who
would not save himself when he found that her death-grasp on the sinking
boat was not to be loosed.
For distraction, Hugo plunged into politics. A peer in 1845, he sat between
Marshal Soult and Pontecoulant, the regicide-judge of Louis XVI. His maiden
speech bore upon artistic copyright; but he rapidly became a power in much
graver matters.
As fate would have it, his speech on the Bonapartes induced King Louis
Philippe to allow Prince Louis Napoleon Bonaparte to return, and, there
being no gratitude in politics, the emancipated outlaw rose as a rival
candidate for the Presidency, for which Hugo had nominated himself in his
newspaper the _Evenement_. The story of the _Coup d'Etat_ is well known;
for the Republican's side, read Hugo's own "History of a Crime. " Hugo,
proscribed, betook himself to Brussels, London, and the Channel Islands,
waiting to "return with right when the usurper should be expelled. "
Meanwhile, he satirized the Third Napoleon and his congeners with ceaseless
shafts, the principal being the famous "Napoleon the Little," based on the
analogical reasoning that as the earth has moons, the lion the jackal, man
himself his simian double, a minor Napoleon was inevitable as a standard
of estimation, the grain by which a pyramid is measured. These flings were
collected in "Les Chatiments," a volume preceded by "Les Contemplations"
(mostly written in the '40's), and followed by "Les Chansons des Rues et
des Bois. "
The baffled publisher's close-time having expired, or, at least, his heirs
being satisfied, three novels appeared, long heralded: in 1862, "Les
Miserables" (Ye Wretched), wherein the author figures as Marius and his
father as the Bonapartist officer: in 1866, "Les Travailleurs de la Mer"
(Toilers of the Sea), its scene among the Channel Islands; and, in 1868,
"L'Homme Qui Rit" (The Man who Grins), unfortunately laid in a fanciful
England evolved from recondite reading through foreign spectacles. Whilst
writing the final chapters, Hugo's wife died; and, as he had refused the
Amnesty, he could only escort her remains to the Belgian frontier, August,
1868. All this while, in his Paris daily newspaper, _Le Rappei_
(adorned with cuts of a Revolutionary drummer beating "to arms! "), he and
his sons and son-in-law's family were reiterating blows at the throne.
When it came down in 1870, and the Republic was proclaimed, Hugo hastened
to Paris.
His poems, written during the War and Siege, collected under the title of
"L'Annee Terrible" (The Terrible Year, 1870-71), betray the long-tried
exile, "almost alone in his gloom," after the death of his son Charles and
his child. Fleeing to Brussels after the Commune, he nevertheless was so
aggressive in sheltering and aiding its fugitives, that he was banished the
kingdom, lest there should be a renewal of an assault on his house by the
mob, supposed by his adherents to be, not "the honest Belgians," but the
refugee Bonapartists and Royalists, who had not cared to fight for France
in France endangered. Resting in Luxemburg, he prepared "L'Annee Terrible"
for the press, and thence returned to Paris, vainly to plead with President
Thiers for the captured Communists' lives, and vainly, too, proposing
himself for election to the new House.
In 1872, his novel of "'93" pleased the general public here, mainly by
the adventures of three charming little children during the prevalence of
an internecine war. These phases of a bounteously paternal mood reappeared
in "L'Art d'etre Grandpere," published in 1877, when he had become a
life-senator.
"Hernani" was in the regular "stock" of the Theatre Francais, "Rigoletto"
(Le Roi s'Amuse) always at the Italian opera-house, while the same subject,
under the title of "The Fool's Revenge," held, as it still holds, a high
position on the Anglo-American stage. Finally, the poetic romance of
"Torquemada," for over thirty years promised, came forth in 1882, to prove
that the wizard-wand had not lost its cunning.
After dolor, fetes were come: on one birthday they crown his bust in the
chief theatre; on another, all notable Paris parades under his window,
where he sits with his grandchildren at his knee, in the shadow of the
Triumphal Arch of Napoleon's Star. It is given to few men thus to see
their own apotheosis.
Whilst he was dying, in May, 1885, Paris was but the first mourner for all
France; and the magnificent funeral pageant which conducted the pauper's
coffin, antithetically enshrining the remains considered worthy of the
highest possible reverence and honors, from the Champs Elysees to the
Pantheon, was the more memorable from all that was foremost in French art
and letters having marched in the train, and laid a leaf or flower in the
tomb of the protege of Chateaubriand, the brother-in-arms of Dumas, the
inspirer of Mars, Dorval, Le-maitre, Rachel, and Bernhardt, and, above all,
the Nemesis of the Third Empire.
EARLY POEMS.
MOSES ON THE NILE.
_("Mes soeurs, l'onde est plus fraiche. ")_
[TO THE FLORAL GAMES, Toulouse, Feb. 10, 1820. ]
"Sisters! the wave is freshest in the ray
Of the young morning; the reapers are asleep;
The river bank is lonely: come away!
The early murmurs of old Memphis creep
Faint on my ear; and here unseen we stray,--
Deep in the covert of the grove withdrawn,
Save by the dewy eye-glance of the dawn.
"Within my father's palace, fair to see,
Shine all the Arts, but oh! this river side,
Pranked with gay flowers, is dearer far to me
Than gold and porphyry vases bright and wide;
How glad in heaven the song-bird carols free!
Sweeter these zephyrs float than all the showers
Of costly odors in our royal bowers.
"The sky is pure, the sparkling stream is clear:
Unloose your zones, my maidens! and fling down
To float awhile upon these bushes near
Your blue transparent robes: take off my crown,
And take away my jealous veil; for here
To-day we shall be joyous while we lave
Our limbs amid the murmur of the wave.
"Hasten; but through the fleecy mists of morn,
What do I see? Look ye along the stream!
Nay, timid maidens--we must not return!
Coursing along the current, it would seem
An ancient palm-tree to the deep sea borne,
That from the distant wilderness proceeds,
Downwards, to view our wondrous Pyramids.
"But stay! if I may surely trust mine eye,--
It is the bark of Hermes, or the shell
Of Iris, wafted gently to the sighs
Of the light breeze along the rippling swell;
But no: it is a skiff where sweetly lies
An infant slumbering, and his peaceful rest
Looks as if pillowed on his mother's breast.
"He sleeps--oh, see! his little floating bed
Swims on the mighty river's fickle flow,
A white dove's nest; and there at hazard led
By the faint winds, and wandering to and fro,
The cot comes down; beneath his quiet head
The gulfs are moving, and each threatening wave
Appears to rock the child upon a grave.
"He wakes--ah, maids of Memphis! haste, oh, haste!
He cries! alas! --What mother could confide
Her offspring to the wild and watery waste?
He stretches out his arms, the rippling tide
Murmurs around him, where all rudely placed,
He rests but with a few frail reeds beneath,
Between such helpless innocence and death.
"Oh! take him up! Perchance he is of those
Dark sons of Israel whom my sire proscribes;
Ah! cruel was the mandate that arose
Against most guiltless of the stranger tribes!
Poor child! my heart is yearning for his woes,
I would I were his mother; but I'll give
If not his birth, at least the claim to live. "
Thus Iphis spoke; the royal hope and pride
Of a great monarch; while her damsels nigh,
Wandered along the Nile's meandering side;
And these diminished beauties, standing by
The trembling mother; watching with eyes wide
Their graceful mistress, admired her as stood,
More lovely than the genius of the flood!
The waters broken by her delicate feet
Receive the eager wader, as alone
By gentlest pity led, she strives to meet
The wakened babe; and, see, the prize is won!
She holds the weeping burden with a sweet
And virgin glow of pride upon her brow,
That knew no flush save modesty's till now.
Opening with cautious hands the reedy couch,
She brought the rescued infant slowly out
Beyond the humid sands; at her approach
Her curious maidens hurried round about
To kiss the new-born brow with gentlest touch;
Greeting the child with smiles, and bending nigh
Their faces o'er his large, astonished eye!
Haste thou who, from afar, in doubt and fear,
Dost watch, with straining eyes, the fated boy--
The loved of heaven! come like a stranger near,
And clasp young Moses with maternal joy;
Nor fear the speechless transport and the tear
Will e'er betray thy fond and hidden claim,
For Iphis knows not yet a mother's name!
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
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Title: Poems
Author: Victor Hugo
Release Date: August, 2005 [EBook #8775]
This file was first posted on August 12, 2003
Last Updated: May 5, 2013
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS ***
Produced by Stan Goodman and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
POEMS
By Victor Hugo
1888
[Transcription note: One poem uses an a with a macron over it, this
has been rendered as a, which is not used in this text for any other
purpose. ]
CONTENTS.
Memoir of Victor Marie Hugo
EARLY POEMS.
Moses on the Nile--_Dublin University Magazine_
Envy and Avarice--_American Keepsake_
ODES. --1818-28.
King Louis XVII--_Dublin University Magazine_
The Feast of Freedom--_"Father Prout" (F. S. Mahony)_
Genius--_Mrs. Torre Hulme_
The Girl of Otaheite--_Clement Scott_
Nero's Incendiary Song--_H. J. Williams_
Regret--_Fraser's Magazine_
The Morning of Life
Beloved Name--_Caroline Bowles (Mrs. Southey)_
The Portrait of a Child--_Dublin University Magazine_
BALLADES. --1823-28.
The Grandmother--_"Father Prout" (F. S. Mahony)_
The Giant in Glee--_Foreign Quart. Rev. (adapted)_
The Cymbaleer's Bride--_"Father Prout" (F. S. Mahony)_
Battle of the Norsemen and the Gaels
Madelaine
The Fay and the Peri--_Asiatic Journal_
LES ORIENTALES. --1829
The Scourge of Heaven--_I. N. Fazakerley_
Pirates' Song
The Turkish Captive--_W. D. , Tait's Edisiburgh Mag. _
Moonlight on the Bosphorus--_John L. O'Sullivan_
The Veil--_"Father Prout" (F. S. Mahony)_
The Favorite Sultana
The Pasha and the Dervish
The Lost Battle--_W. D. , Bentley's Miscel_. , 1839
The Greek Boy
Zara, the Bather--_John L. O'Sullivan_
Expectation--_John L. O'Sullivan _
The Lover's Wish--_V. , Eton Observer_
The Sacking of the City--_John L. O'Sullivan_
Noormahal the Fair
The Djinns--_John L. O'Sullivan_
The Obdurate Beauty--_John L. O'Sullivan_
Don Rodrigo
Cornflowers--_H. L. Williams_
Mazeppa--_H. L. Williams_
The Danube in Wrath--_Fraser's Magazine_
Old Ocean--_R. C. Ellwood_
My Napoleon--_H. L. Williams_
LES FEUILLES D'AUTOMNE. --1831.
The Patience of the People--_G. W. M. Reynolds_
Dictated before the Rhone Glacier--_Author of "Critical Essays"_
The Poet's Love for Liveliness--_Fraser's Magazine_
Infantile Influence--_Henry Highton, M. A. _
The Watching Angel--_Foreign Quarterly Review_
Sunset--_Toru Dutt_
The Universal Prayer--_Henry Highton, M. A. _
The Universal Prayer--_C. , Tait's Magazine_
LES CHANTS DU CREPUSCULE. --1849.
Prelude to "The Songs of Twilight"--_G. W. M. Reynolds_
The Land of Fable--_G. W. M. Rrynolds_
The Three Glorious Days--_Elizabeth Collins_
Tribute to the Vanquished--_Fraser's Magazine_
Angel or Demon--_Fraser's Magazine_
The Eruption of Vesuvius--_Fraser's Magazine_
Marriage and Feasts--_G. W. M. Reynolds_
The Morrow of Grandeur--_Fraser's Magazine_
The Eaglet Mourned--_Fraser's Magazine_
Invocation--_G. W. M. Reynolds_
Outside the Ball-room--_G. W. M. Reynolds_
Prayer for France--_J. S. Macrae_
To Canaris, the Greek Patriot--_G. W. M. Reynolds_
Poland--_G. W. M. Reynolds_
Insult not the Fallen--_W. C. K. Wilde_
Morning--_W. M. Hardinge_
Song of Love--_Toru Dutt_
Sweet Charmer--_H. B. Farnie_
More Strong than Time--_A. Lang_
Roses and Butterflies--_W. C. Westbrook_
A Simile--_Fanny Kemble-Butler_
The Poet to his Wife
LES VOIX INTERIEURES. --1840.
The Blinded Bourbons--_Fraser's Magazine_
To Albert Durer--_Mrs. Newton Crosland_
To his Muse--_Fraser's Magazine_
The Cow--_Toru Dutt_
Mothers--_Dublin University Magazine_
To some Birds Flown away--_Mrs. Newton Crosland_
My Thoughts of Ye--_Dublin University Magazine_
The Beacon in the Storm
Love's Treacherous Pool
The Rose and the Grave--_A. Lang_
LES RAYONS ET LES OMBRES. --1840.
Holyrood Palace--_Fraser's Magazine_
The Humble Home--_Author of "Critical Essays"_
The Eighteenth Century--_Author of "Critical Essays"_
Still be a Child--_Dublin University Magazine_
The Pool and the Soul--_R. F. Hodgson_
Ye Mariners who Spread your Sails--_Author of "Critical Essays"_
On a Flemish Window-Pane--_Fraser's Magazine_
The Preceptor--_E. E. Frewer_
Gastibelza--_H. L. Williams_
Guitar Song--_Evelyn Jerrold_
Come when I Sleep--_Wm. W. Tomlinson_
Early Love Revisited--_Author of "Critical Essays"_
Sweet Memory of Love--_Author of "Critical Essays"_
The Marble Faun--_William Young_
A Love for Winged Things
Baby's Seaside Grave
LES CHATIMENTS. --1853.
Indignation!
Imperial Revels--_H. L. W. _
Poor Little Children
Apostrophe to Nature
Napoleon "The Little"
Fact or Fable--_H. L. W. _
A Lament--_Edwin Arnold, C. S. I. _
No Assassination
The Despatch of the Doom
The Seaman's Song
The Retreat from Moscow--_Toru Dutt_
The Ocean's Song--_Toru Dutt_
The Trumpets of the Mind--_Toru Dutt_
After the Coup d'Etat--_Toru Dutt_
Patria
The Universal Republic
LES CONTEMPLATIONS. --1830-56.
The Vale to You, to Me the Heights--_H. L. W_
Childhood--_Nelson R. Tyerman_
Satire on the Earth
How Butterflies are Born--_A. Lang_
Have You Nothing to Say for Yourself? --_C. H. Kenny_
Inscription for a Crucifix
Death, in Life
The Dying Child to its Mother--_Bp. Alexander_
Epitaph--_Nelson R. Tyerman_
St. John--_Nelson R. Tyerman_
The Poet's Simple Faith--_Prof. E. Dowden_
I am Content
LA LEGENDE DES SIECLES.
Cain--_Dublin University Magazine_
Boaz Asleep--_Bp. Alexander_
Song of the German Lanzknecht--_H. L. W. _
King Canute--_R. Garnett_
King Canute--_Dublin University Magazine_
The Boy-King's Prayer--_Dublin University Magazine_
Eviradnus--_Mrs. Newton Crosland_
The Soudan, the Sphinxes, the Cup, the Lamp--_Bp. Alexander_
A Queen Five Summers Old--_Bp. Alexander_
Sea Adventurers' Song
The Swiss Mercenaries--_Bp. Alexander_
The Cup on the Battle-Field--_Toru Dutt_
How Good are the Poor--_Bp. Alexander_
LA VOIX DE GUERNESEY.
Mentana--_Edwin Arnold, C. S. I. _
LES CHANSONS DES RUES ET DES BOIS.
Love of the Woodland
Shooting Stars
L'ANNEE TERRIBLE.
To Little Jeanne--_Marwaod Tucker_
To a Sick Child during the Siege of Paris--_Lucy H. Hooper_
The Carrier Pigeon
Toys and Tragedy
Mourning--_Marwood Tucker_
The Lesson of the Patriot Dead--_H. L. W. _
The Boy on the Barricade--_H. L. W. _
To His Orphan Grandchildren--_Marwood Tucker_
To the Cannon "Victor Hugo"
L'ART D'ETRE GRANDPERE.
The Children of the Poor--_Dublin University Magazine_
The Epic of the Lion--_Edwin Arnold, C. S. I. _
LES QUATRE VENTS DE L'ESPRIT.
On Hearing the Princess Royal Sing--_Nelson R. Tyerman_
My Happiest Dream
An Old-Time Lay
Jersey
Then, most, I Smile
The Exile's Desire
The Refugee's Haven
VARIOUS PIECES.
To the Napoleon Column--_Author of "Critical Essays"_
Charity--_Dublin University Magazine_
Sweet Sister--_Mrs. B. Somers_
The Pity of the Angels
The Sower--_Toru Dutt_
Oh, Why not be Happy? --_Leopold Wray_
Freedom and the World
Serenade--_Henry F. Chorley_
An Autumnal Simile
To Cruel Ocean
Esmeralda in Prison
Lover's Song--_Ernest Oswald Coe_
A Fleeting Glimpse of a Village--_Fraser's Magazine_
Lord Rochester's Song
The Beggar's Quatrain--_H. L. C. , London Society_
The Quiet Rural Church
A Storm Simile
DRAMATIC PIECES.
The Father's Curse--_Fredk. L. Slous_
Paternal Love--_Fanny Kemble-Butler_
The Degenerate Gallants--_Lord F. Leveson Gower_
The Old and the Young Bridegroom--_Charles Sherry_
The Spanish Lady's Love--_C. Moir_
The Lover's Sacrifice--_Lord F. Leveson Gower_
The Old Man's Love--_C. Moir_
The Roll of the De Silva Race--_Lord F. Leveson Gower_
The Lover's Colloquy--_Lord F. Leveson Gower_
Cromwell and the Crown--_Leitch Ritchie_
Milton's Appeal to Cromwell
First Love--_Fanny Kemble-Butler_
The First Black Flag--_Democratic Review_
The Son in Old Age--_Foreign Quarterly Review_
The Emperor's Return--_Athenaum_
Victor in Poesy, Victor in Romance,
Cloud-weaver of phantasmal hopes and fears,
French of the French, and Lord of human tears;
Child-lover; Bard whose fame-lit laurels glance
Darkening the wreaths of all that would advance,
Beyond our strait, their claim to be thy peers;
Weird Titan by thy winter weight of years
As yet unbroken, Stormy voice of France!
TENNYSON.
MEMOIR OF VICTOR MARIE HUGO.
Towards the close of the First French Revolution, Joseph Leopold Sigisbert
Hugo, son of a joiner at Nancy, and an officer risen from the ranks in the
Republican army, married Sophie Trebuchet, daughter of a Nantes fitter-out
of privateers, a Vendean royalist and devotee.
Victor Marie Hugo, their second son, was born on the 26th of February,
1802, at Besancon, France. Though a weakling, he was carried, with his
boy-brothers, in the train of their father through the south of France,
in pursuit of Fra Diavolo, the Italian brigand, and finally into Spain.
Colonel Hugo had become General, and there, besides being governor over
three provinces, was Lord High Steward at King Joseph's court, where his
eldest son Abel was installed as page. The other two were educated for
similar posts among hostile young Spaniards under stern priestly tutors
in the Nobles' College at Madrid, a palace become a monastery. Upon the
English advance to free Spain of the invaders, the general and Abel
remained at bay, whilst the mother and children hastened to Paris.
Again, in a house once a convent, Victor and his brother Eugene were taught
by priests until, by the accident of their roof sheltering a comrade of
their father's, a change of tutor was afforded them. This was General
Lahorie, a man of superior education, main supporter of Malet in his daring
plot to take the government into the Republicans' hands during the absence
of Napoleon I. in Russia. Lahorie read old French and Latin with Victor
till the police scented him out and led him to execution, October, 1812.
School claimed the young Hugos after this tragical episode, where they
were oddities among the humdrum tradesmen's sons. Victor, thoughtful and
taciturn, rhymed profusely in tragedies, "printing" in his books,
"Chateaubriand or nothing! " and engaging his more animated brother to
flourish the Cid's sword and roar the tyrant's speeches.
In 1814, both suffered a sympathetic anxiety as their father held out at
Thionville against the Allies, finally repulsing them by a sortie.
Imperial Revels--_H. L. W. _
Poor Little Children
Apostrophe to Nature
Napoleon "The Little"
Fact or Fable--_H. L. W. _
A Lament--_Edwin Arnold, C. S. I. _
No Assassination
The Despatch of the Doom
The Seaman's Song
The Retreat from Moscow--_Toru Dutt_
The Ocean's Song--_Toru Dutt_
The Trumpets of the Mind--_Toru Dutt_
After the Coup d'Etat--_Toru Dutt_
Patria
The Universal Republic
LES CONTEMPLATIONS. --1830-56.
The Vale to You, to Me the Heights--_H. L. W_
Childhood--_Nelson R. Tyerman_
Satire on the Earth
How Butterflies are Born--_A. Lang_
Have You Nothing to Say for Yourself? --_C. H. Kenny_
Inscription for a Crucifix
Death, in Life
The Dying Child to its Mother--_Bp. Alexander_
Epitaph--_Nelson R. Tyerman_
St. John--_Nelson R. Tyerman_
The Poet's Simple Faith--_Prof. E. Dowden_
I am Content
LA LEGENDE DES SIECLES.
Cain--_Dublin University Magazine_
Boaz Asleep--_Bp. Alexander_
Song of the German Lanzknecht--_H. L. W. _
King Canute--_R. Garnett_
King Canute--_Dublin University Magazine_
The Boy-King's Prayer--_Dublin University Magazine_
Eviradnus--_Mrs. Newton Crosland_
The Soudan, the Sphinxes, the Cup, the Lamp--_Bp. Alexander_
A Queen Five Summers Old--_Bp. Alexander_
Sea Adventurers' Song
The Swiss Mercenaries--_Bp. Alexander_
The Cup on the Battle-Field--_Toru Dutt_
How Good are the Poor--_Bp. Alexander_
LA VOIX DE GUERNESEY.
Mentana--_Edwin Arnold, C. S. I. _
LES CHANSONS DES RUES ET DES BOIS.
Love of the Woodland
Shooting Stars
L'ANNEE TERRIBLE.
To Little Jeanne--_Marwaod Tucker_
To a Sick Child during the Siege of Paris--_Lucy H. Hooper_
The Carrier Pigeon
Toys and Tragedy
Mourning--_Marwood Tucker_
The Lesson of the Patriot Dead--_H. L. W. _
The Boy on the Barricade--_H. L. W. _
To His Orphan Grandchildren--_Marwood Tucker_
To the Cannon "Victor Hugo"
L'ART D'ETRE GRANDPERE.
The Children of the Poor--_Dublin University Magazine_
The Epic of the Lion--_Edwin Arnold, C. S. I. _
LES QUATRE VENTS DE L'ESPRIT.
On Hearing the Princess Royal Sing--_Nelson R. Tyerman_
My Happiest Dream
An Old-Time Lay
Jersey
Then, most, I Smile
The Exile's Desire
The Refugee's Haven
VARIOUS PIECES.
To the Napoleon Column--_Author of "Critical Essays"_
Charity--_Dublin University Magazine_
Sweet Sister--_Mrs. B. Somers_
The Pity of the Angels
The Sower--_Toru Dutt_
Oh, Why not be Happy? --_Leopold Wray_
Freedom and the World
Serenade--_Henry F. Chorley_
An Autumnal Simile
To Cruel Ocean
Esmeralda in Prison
Lover's Song--_Ernest Oswald Coe_
A Fleeting Glimpse of a Village--_Fraser's Magazine_
Lord Rochester's Song
The Beggar's Quatrain--_H. L. C. , London Society_
The Quiet Rural Church
A Storm Simile
DRAMATIC PIECES.
The Father's Curse--_Fredk. L. Slous_
Paternal Love--_Fanny Kemble-Butler_
The Degenerate Gallants--_Lord F. Leveson Gower_
The Old and the Young Bridegroom--_Charles Sherry_
The Spanish Lady's Love--_C. Moir_
The Lover's Sacrifice--_Lord F. Leveson Gower_
The Old Man's Love--_C. Moir_
The Roll of the De Silva Race--_Lord F. Leveson Gower_
The Lover's Colloquy--_Lord F. Leveson Gower_
Cromwell and the Crown--_Leitch Ritchie_
Milton's Appeal to Cromwell
First Love--_Fanny Kemble-Butler_
The First Black Flag--_Democratic Review_
The Son in Old Age--_Foreign Quarterly Review_
The Emperor's Return--_Athenaum_
Victor in Poesy, Victor in Romance,
Cloud-weaver of phantasmal hopes and fears,
French of the French, and Lord of human tears;
Child-lover; Bard whose fame-lit laurels glance
Darkening the wreaths of all that would advance,
Beyond our strait, their claim to be thy peers;
Weird Titan by thy winter weight of years
As yet unbroken, Stormy voice of France!
TENNYSON.
MEMOIR OF VICTOR MARIE HUGO.
Towards the close of the First French Revolution, Joseph Leopold Sigisbert
Hugo, son of a joiner at Nancy, and an officer risen from the ranks in the
Republican army, married Sophie Trebuchet, daughter of a Nantes fitter-out
of privateers, a Vendean royalist and devotee.
Victor Marie Hugo, their second son, was born on the 26th of February,
1802, at Besancon, France. Though a weakling, he was carried, with his
boy-brothers, in the train of their father through the south of France,
in pursuit of Fra Diavolo, the Italian brigand, and finally into Spain.
Colonel Hugo had become General, and there, besides being governor over
three provinces, was Lord High Steward at King Joseph's court, where his
eldest son Abel was installed as page. The other two were educated for
similar posts among hostile young Spaniards under stern priestly tutors
in the Nobles' College at Madrid, a palace become a monastery. Upon the
English advance to free Spain of the invaders, the general and Abel
remained at bay, whilst the mother and children hastened to Paris.
Again, in a house once a convent, Victor and his brother Eugene were taught
by priests until, by the accident of their roof sheltering a comrade of
their father's, a change of tutor was afforded them. This was General
Lahorie, a man of superior education, main supporter of Malet in his daring
plot to take the government into the Republicans' hands during the absence
of Napoleon I. in Russia. Lahorie read old French and Latin with Victor
till the police scented him out and led him to execution, October, 1812.
School claimed the young Hugos after this tragical episode, where they
were oddities among the humdrum tradesmen's sons. Victor, thoughtful and
taciturn, rhymed profusely in tragedies, "printing" in his books,
"Chateaubriand or nothing! " and engaging his more animated brother to
flourish the Cid's sword and roar the tyrant's speeches.
In 1814, both suffered a sympathetic anxiety as their father held out at
Thionville against the Allies, finally repulsing them by a sortie. This was
pure loyalty to the fallen Bonaparte, for Hugo had lost his all in Spain,
his very savings having been sunk in real estate, through King Joseph's
insistence on his adherents investing to prove they had "come to stay. "
The Bourbons enthroned anew, General Hugo received, less for his neutrality
than thanks to his wife's piety and loyalty, confirmation of his title
and rank, and, moreover, a fieldmarshalship. Abel was accepted as a page,
too, but there was no money awarded the ex-Bonapartist--money being what
the Eaglet at Reichstadt most required for an attempt at his father's
throne--and the poor officer was left in seclusion to write consolingly
about his campaigns and "Defences of Fortified Towns. "
Decidedly the pen had superseded the sword, for Victor and Eugene were
scribbling away in ephemeral political sheets as apprenticeship to
founding a periodical of their own.
Victor's poetry became remarkable in _La Muse Francaise_ and _Le
Conservateur Litteraire_, the odes being permeated with Legitimist and
anti-revolutionary sentiments delightful to the taste of Madam Hugo, member
as she was of the courtly Order of the Royal Lily.
In 1817, the French Academy honorably mentioned Victor's "Odes on the
Advantages of Study," with a misgiving that some elder hand was masked
under the line ascribing "scant fifteen years" to the author. At the
Toulouse Floral Games he won prizes two years successively. His critical
judgment was sound as well, for he had divined the powers of Lamartine.
His "Odes," collected in a volume, gave his ever-active mother her
opportunity at Court. Louis XVIII. granted the boy-poet a pension of
1,500 francs.
It was the windfall for which the youth had been waiting to enable him to
gratify his first love. In his childhood, his father and one M. Foucher,
head of a War Office Department, had jokingly betrothed a son of the one
to a daughter of the other. Abel had loftier views than alliance with a
civil servant's child; Eugene was in love elsewhere; but Victor had fallen
enamored with Adele Foucher. It is true, when poverty beclouded the Hugos,
the Fouchers had shrunk into their mantle of dignity, and the girl had
been strictly forbidden to correspond with her child-sweetheart.
He, finding letters barred out, wrote a love story ("Hans of Iceland") in
two weeks, where were recited his hopes, fears, and constancy, and this
book she could read.
It pleased the public no less, and its sale, together with that of the
"Odes" and a West Indian romance, "Buck Jargal," together with a royal
pension, emboldened the poet to renew his love-suit. To refuse the
recipient of court funds was not possible to a public functionary.
M. Foucher consented to the betrothal in the summer of 1821.
So encloistered had Mdlle. Adele been, her reading "Hans" the exceptional
intrusion, that she only learnt on meeting her affianced that he was
mourning his mother. In October, 1822, they were wed, the bride nineteen,
the bridegroom but one year the elder. The dinner was marred by the
sinister disaster of Eugene Hugo going mad. (He died in an asylum five
years later. ) The author terminated his wedding year with the "Ode to
Louis XVIII. ," read to a society after the President of the Academy had
introduced him as "the most promising of our young lyrists. "
In spite of new poems revealing a Napoleonic bias, Victor was invited to
see Charles X. consecrated at Rheims, 29th of May, 1825, and was entered
on the roll of the Legion of Honor repaying the favors with the verses
expected. But though a son was born to him he was not restored to
Conservatism; with his mother's death all that had vanished. His tragedy
of "Cromwell" broke lances upon Royalists and upholders of the still
reigning style of tragedy. The second collection of "Odes" preluding it,
showed the spirit of the son of Napoleon's general, rather than of the
Bourbonist field-marshal. On the occasion, too, of the Duke of Tarento
being announced at the Austrian Ambassador's ball, February, 1827, as
plain "Marshal Macdonald," Victor became the mouthpiece of indignant
Bonapartists in his "Ode to the Napoleon Column" in the Place Vendome.
His "Orientales," though written in a Parisian suburb by one who had not
travelled, appealed for Grecian liberty, and depicted sultans and pashas
as tyrants, many a line being deemed applicable to personages nearer the
Seine than Stamboul.
"Cromwell" was not actable, and "Amy Robsart," in collaboration with his
brother-in-law, Foucher, miserably failed, notwithstanding a finale
"superior to Scott's 'Kenilworth. '" In one twelvemonth, there was this
failure to record, the death of his father from apoplexy at his eldest
son's marriage, and the birth of a second son to Victor towards the close.
Still imprudent, the young father again irritated the court with satire in
"Marion Delorme" and "Hernani," two plays immediately suppressed by the
Censure, all the more active as the Revolution of July, 1830, was surely
seething up to the edge of the crater.
(At this juncture, the poet Chateaubriand, fading star to our rising sun,
yielded up to him formally "his place at the poets' table. ")
In the summer of 1831, a civil ceremony was performed over the insurgents
killed in the previous year, and Hugo was constituted poet-laureate of the
Revolution by having his hymn sung in the Pantheon over the biers.
Under Louis Philippe, "Marion Delorme" could be played, but livelier
attention was turned to "Notre Dame de Paris," the historical romance in
which Hugo vied with Sir Walter. It was to have been followed by others,
but the publisher unfortunately secured a contract to monopolize all the
new novelist's prose fictions for a term of years, and the author revenged
himself by publishing poems and plays alone. Hence "Notre Dame" long stood
unique: it was translated in all languages, and plays and operas were
founded on it. Heine professed to see in the prominence of the hunchback
a personal appeal of the author, who was slightly deformed by one shoulder
being a trifle higher than the other; this malicious suggestion reposed
also on the fact that the _quasi_-hero of "Le Roi s'Amuse" (1832, a
tragedy suppressed after one representation, for its reflections on
royalty), was also a contorted piece of humanity. This play was followed
by "Lucrezia Borgia," "Marie Tudor," and "Angelo," written in a singular
poetic prose. Spite of bald translations, their action was sufficiently
dramatic to make them successes, and even still enduring on our stage. They
have all been arranged as operas, whilst Hugo himself, to oblige the father
of Louise Bertin, a magazine publisher of note, wrote "Esmeralda" for her
music in 1835.
Thus, at 1837, when he was promoted to an officership in the Legion of
Honor, it was acknowledged his due as a laborious worker in all fields of
literature, however contestable the merits and tendencies of his essays.
In 1839, the Academy, having rejected him several times, elected him among
the Forty Immortals. In the previous year had been successfully acted "Ruy
Blas," for which play he had gone to Spanish sources; with and after the
then imperative Rhine tour, came an unendurable "trilogy," the "Burgraves,"
played one long, long night in 1843. A real tragedy was to mark that year:
his daughter Leopoldine being drowned in the Seine with her husband, who
would not save himself when he found that her death-grasp on the sinking
boat was not to be loosed.
For distraction, Hugo plunged into politics. A peer in 1845, he sat between
Marshal Soult and Pontecoulant, the regicide-judge of Louis XVI. His maiden
speech bore upon artistic copyright; but he rapidly became a power in much
graver matters.
As fate would have it, his speech on the Bonapartes induced King Louis
Philippe to allow Prince Louis Napoleon Bonaparte to return, and, there
being no gratitude in politics, the emancipated outlaw rose as a rival
candidate for the Presidency, for which Hugo had nominated himself in his
newspaper the _Evenement_. The story of the _Coup d'Etat_ is well known;
for the Republican's side, read Hugo's own "History of a Crime. " Hugo,
proscribed, betook himself to Brussels, London, and the Channel Islands,
waiting to "return with right when the usurper should be expelled. "
Meanwhile, he satirized the Third Napoleon and his congeners with ceaseless
shafts, the principal being the famous "Napoleon the Little," based on the
analogical reasoning that as the earth has moons, the lion the jackal, man
himself his simian double, a minor Napoleon was inevitable as a standard
of estimation, the grain by which a pyramid is measured. These flings were
collected in "Les Chatiments," a volume preceded by "Les Contemplations"
(mostly written in the '40's), and followed by "Les Chansons des Rues et
des Bois. "
The baffled publisher's close-time having expired, or, at least, his heirs
being satisfied, three novels appeared, long heralded: in 1862, "Les
Miserables" (Ye Wretched), wherein the author figures as Marius and his
father as the Bonapartist officer: in 1866, "Les Travailleurs de la Mer"
(Toilers of the Sea), its scene among the Channel Islands; and, in 1868,
"L'Homme Qui Rit" (The Man who Grins), unfortunately laid in a fanciful
England evolved from recondite reading through foreign spectacles. Whilst
writing the final chapters, Hugo's wife died; and, as he had refused the
Amnesty, he could only escort her remains to the Belgian frontier, August,
1868. All this while, in his Paris daily newspaper, _Le Rappei_
(adorned with cuts of a Revolutionary drummer beating "to arms! "), he and
his sons and son-in-law's family were reiterating blows at the throne.
When it came down in 1870, and the Republic was proclaimed, Hugo hastened
to Paris.
His poems, written during the War and Siege, collected under the title of
"L'Annee Terrible" (The Terrible Year, 1870-71), betray the long-tried
exile, "almost alone in his gloom," after the death of his son Charles and
his child. Fleeing to Brussels after the Commune, he nevertheless was so
aggressive in sheltering and aiding its fugitives, that he was banished the
kingdom, lest there should be a renewal of an assault on his house by the
mob, supposed by his adherents to be, not "the honest Belgians," but the
refugee Bonapartists and Royalists, who had not cared to fight for France
in France endangered. Resting in Luxemburg, he prepared "L'Annee Terrible"
for the press, and thence returned to Paris, vainly to plead with President
Thiers for the captured Communists' lives, and vainly, too, proposing
himself for election to the new House.
In 1872, his novel of "'93" pleased the general public here, mainly by
the adventures of three charming little children during the prevalence of
an internecine war. These phases of a bounteously paternal mood reappeared
in "L'Art d'etre Grandpere," published in 1877, when he had become a
life-senator.
"Hernani" was in the regular "stock" of the Theatre Francais, "Rigoletto"
(Le Roi s'Amuse) always at the Italian opera-house, while the same subject,
under the title of "The Fool's Revenge," held, as it still holds, a high
position on the Anglo-American stage. Finally, the poetic romance of
"Torquemada," for over thirty years promised, came forth in 1882, to prove
that the wizard-wand had not lost its cunning.
After dolor, fetes were come: on one birthday they crown his bust in the
chief theatre; on another, all notable Paris parades under his window,
where he sits with his grandchildren at his knee, in the shadow of the
Triumphal Arch of Napoleon's Star. It is given to few men thus to see
their own apotheosis.
Whilst he was dying, in May, 1885, Paris was but the first mourner for all
France; and the magnificent funeral pageant which conducted the pauper's
coffin, antithetically enshrining the remains considered worthy of the
highest possible reverence and honors, from the Champs Elysees to the
Pantheon, was the more memorable from all that was foremost in French art
and letters having marched in the train, and laid a leaf or flower in the
tomb of the protege of Chateaubriand, the brother-in-arms of Dumas, the
inspirer of Mars, Dorval, Le-maitre, Rachel, and Bernhardt, and, above all,
the Nemesis of the Third Empire.
EARLY POEMS.
MOSES ON THE NILE.
_("Mes soeurs, l'onde est plus fraiche. ")_
[TO THE FLORAL GAMES, Toulouse, Feb. 10, 1820. ]
"Sisters! the wave is freshest in the ray
Of the young morning; the reapers are asleep;
The river bank is lonely: come away!
The early murmurs of old Memphis creep
Faint on my ear; and here unseen we stray,--
Deep in the covert of the grove withdrawn,
Save by the dewy eye-glance of the dawn.
"Within my father's palace, fair to see,
Shine all the Arts, but oh! this river side,
Pranked with gay flowers, is dearer far to me
Than gold and porphyry vases bright and wide;
How glad in heaven the song-bird carols free!
Sweeter these zephyrs float than all the showers
Of costly odors in our royal bowers.
"The sky is pure, the sparkling stream is clear:
Unloose your zones, my maidens! and fling down
To float awhile upon these bushes near
Your blue transparent robes: take off my crown,
And take away my jealous veil; for here
To-day we shall be joyous while we lave
Our limbs amid the murmur of the wave.
"Hasten; but through the fleecy mists of morn,
What do I see? Look ye along the stream!
Nay, timid maidens--we must not return!
Coursing along the current, it would seem
An ancient palm-tree to the deep sea borne,
That from the distant wilderness proceeds,
Downwards, to view our wondrous Pyramids.
"But stay! if I may surely trust mine eye,--
It is the bark of Hermes, or the shell
Of Iris, wafted gently to the sighs
Of the light breeze along the rippling swell;
But no: it is a skiff where sweetly lies
An infant slumbering, and his peaceful rest
Looks as if pillowed on his mother's breast.
"He sleeps--oh, see! his little floating bed
Swims on the mighty river's fickle flow,
A white dove's nest; and there at hazard led
By the faint winds, and wandering to and fro,
The cot comes down; beneath his quiet head
The gulfs are moving, and each threatening wave
Appears to rock the child upon a grave.
"He wakes--ah, maids of Memphis! haste, oh, haste!
He cries! alas! --What mother could confide
Her offspring to the wild and watery waste?
He stretches out his arms, the rippling tide
Murmurs around him, where all rudely placed,
He rests but with a few frail reeds beneath,
Between such helpless innocence and death.
"Oh! take him up! Perchance he is of those
Dark sons of Israel whom my sire proscribes;
Ah! cruel was the mandate that arose
Against most guiltless of the stranger tribes!
Poor child! my heart is yearning for his woes,
I would I were his mother; but I'll give
If not his birth, at least the claim to live. "
Thus Iphis spoke; the royal hope and pride
Of a great monarch; while her damsels nigh,
Wandered along the Nile's meandering side;
And these diminished beauties, standing by
The trembling mother; watching with eyes wide
Their graceful mistress, admired her as stood,
More lovely than the genius of the flood!
The waters broken by her delicate feet
Receive the eager wader, as alone
By gentlest pity led, she strives to meet
The wakened babe; and, see, the prize is won!
She holds the weeping burden with a sweet
And virgin glow of pride upon her brow,
That knew no flush save modesty's till now.
Opening with cautious hands the reedy couch,
She brought the rescued infant slowly out
Beyond the humid sands; at her approach
Her curious maidens hurried round about
To kiss the new-born brow with gentlest touch;
Greeting the child with smiles, and bending nigh
Their faces o'er his large, astonished eye!
Haste thou who, from afar, in doubt and fear,
Dost watch, with straining eyes, the fated boy--
The loved of heaven! come like a stranger near,
And clasp young Moses with maternal joy;
Nor fear the speechless transport and the tear
Will e'er betray thy fond and hidden claim,
For Iphis knows not yet a mother's name!
