;)
"I know them all by name as if they were my children..."
Monday, July 5, 2010 at 12:04
The splendid Dr Gilleland at Laudator Temporis Acti has published a post written by Eric Thomson about Chateaubriand and his trees. (Dr Gilleland is interested in trees, fascinated by their life in art, and is researching the history of arboricide; I believe he may be working on a book.) LTA is one of the few blogs that I never miss reading.
Our René wrote a series of poems he published under the title Tableaux de la Nature, the first of which is La Forêt.
Forêt silencieuse, aimable solitude,
Que j'aime à parcourir votre ombrage ignoré !
Dans vos sombres détours, en rêvant égaré,
J'éprouve un sentiment libre d'inquiétude !
Prestiges de mon cœur ! je crois voir s'exhaler
Des arbres, des gazons une douce tristesse :
Cette onde que j'entends murmure avec mollesse,
Et dans le fond des bois semble encor m'appeler.
Oh ! que ne puis-je, heureux, passer ma vie entière
Ici, loin des humains !... Au bruit de ces ruisseaux,
Sur un tapis de fleurs, sur l'herbe printanière,
Qu'ignoré je sommeille à l'ombre des ormeaux !
Tout parle, tout me plaît sous ces voûtes tranquilles ;
Ces genêts, ornements d'un sauvage réduit,
Ce chèvrefeuille atteint d'un vent léger qui fuit,
Balancent tour à tour leurs guirlandes mobiles.
Forêts, dans vos abris gardez mes vœux offerts !
A quel amant jamais serez-vous aussi chères ?
D'autres vous rediront des amours étrangères ;
Moi de vos charmes seuls j'entretiens les déserts.
He writes in the preface (quoting from himself, in his avertissement to the 1829 Oeuvres complètes):
... For a long time, before descending to prose, I had made verses. M. de Fontanes [in Wikipedia here--MP] observed my renunciation of the Muses with a certain regret: myself, I left them only so that I could more quickly say the truths that I believed needed saying....
(The preface is in fact a short discussion of a writer's quandary when he is gifted with the genius of both poetry and prose.) I think that the wiser choice was taken. 'On your shadowed paths, in dreaming lost,/ I own liberty at last unbound!'; it is a pleasant enough poem, after all.
Reader Comments (4)
Hi Marc, I just looking in to say hello. Thank you for the visit I just replied to you on my blog and it occurred to me that I could greet you at your place as well.
teresa
and sorry for off topic posting. To understand the poem my French doesn't suffice. But you have a lot of interesting blog entries here.
My understanding of French suffices for this poem e.g. but isn't thorough enough to enable me to put it into good English, alas, not without the investment of too many hours. Thanks for your comments (and 'off topic' is of no concern to me; I use this as 'notes to and for myself'-- as do others with their blogs-- and am always happy 'to converse' about this or that).
thanks for your kind reply on my blog, I just wrote you an email because today the comment function of my blog is not functioning properly.
best regards
teresa