AN INSPIRED TRANSLATOR
Casements. Fifty Poems by fifty French Poets (1820-1920). Selected and translated by Richard Cloudealey Savage. (Dent.
Wrrt[ what foreboding does the critic pick up a book of verse translations from foreign poets. If poetic genius is rare, a mere talent for poetic translation is even more rare. There are but a handful in English letters who possess it, Chapman, Shelley, Fitzgerald, and, had he cared for the work, Matthew Arnold.. We ought, perhaps, to include Shelton, because of his renderings of the poems in Don Quixote. Cary, too, by the occasional incandescense of sheer industry, deserves a place.
As for the rest, we think of the abysmal ineptitudes, the ungainly postures, the abrupt bathos, which are their usual characteristics. Think how Heine and Pushkin have been buried alive in our literature by the black-gloved hands of their translators. Both these poets have an English trait in their genius, and should be known and loved in this country.
The task of verse translation is, in fact, so difficult that the best men at the trade have given up the effort and contented themselves with the useful prose fruits of mere adequacy and literalness. The complex demand for faithfulness to their' author's general mood, the conveying of his detailed living images and magic phrases without killing them, the retaining of the original verse forms and rhythms—all this has been too much for them.
Yet here is an unknown venturer who braves all these difficidtiei, and who succeeds. It is an extraordinary achieve- ment, and shows a quality of industry and passion in the author which merits recognition. With few exceptions these verses are full of beauty and sincerity, and come on the heart like music, with that indefinable power, the hall-mark of genuine art, which escapes the rules of criticism. Here, for example, is a specimen of the author's control of stanza-form and his perfect setting of the idea within that definite shape and length. It is from a poem called " The Spinning Wheel," by Lya Berger :- " The Spinning Wheel sleeps not in dust ; It has become the loom of Fate.. Our destinies in holy trust
It guards for us the while we wait ; And on that day that shall be ours The twilight's toil to God shall,soar From distaffs stalwart as of yore, When oriflammes our fathers bore In glory glow on Strasbourg's towers.
There is one poem by Henri Cazalis, called " Spring Morning," which tells how the poet walked by the sea shore one morning, when the earth and skies were crystalline with spring sunshine, and the rapturous sea birds
" dropped sheer from heaven's dome Into the surf that laughed in peals of foam."
Hut, alas! the poet, wandering on into the town behind, en- countered a blind child, ragged and sore, whose mother lay dying in the lazar-house. Hear hOW our author translates the poet's revulsion of terror, without spoiling that intense moment :— " I thought of the blind Chance that governs birth, The fathers' sins that brand the babes of earth And of the nameless horrors of life's dread, The myriad chastisements unmerited - And by that waif whose. blindness seared my sight I wished no more to see the waves' delight Nor glory of the earth or heaven above Lest I beheld them empty of God's love."
There are many other poems which might be_quotcd, notably " The Plums," " Careasonne," and " Buddha's Swallow," but we have sampled enough to prove how uncommonly good the book is. A s,vord should also' be said for its format. Its type and binding are distinctive even amongst the present- day excellence of publishers.
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