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The Laurel of La Turbie
You who climb to the sky, upright colossus,
And who place your feet in the hard and cold rock,
O symbol! giant! beautiful tree with smooth leaves!
Laurel, my cowardly desire, and my holy delights!
Ghost that moved Pindar would recognize!
Companion of the ideal lyre! Portrait
Of all that I adore and all that loves me!
Melodious tree, as tall as Phoebus himself!
Dark foliage, alas! my immortal affront!
Never will your black branch cover my brow.
Friend, it is like a vain passer-by that you welcome me!
Barely if, in the shadow a single leaf
That the harsh evening wind tears from you with terror,
Shine, mad chimera, and slide around me. And yet, green laurel, glory of the countryside,
I have not desired, me, neither the sweet companion
Whose glances make us a sky in the house,
Nor the little children with the blond fleece,
Nor the wealth. with fingers perfumed with ambrosia,
And all that with which the jealous spirit is satisfied,
Nor the rest, so dear to gypsies,
And these enchantments without number, and all these goods
That our solitude avidly demands.
Moving tree! Laurel! You know it, I, whose soul
Leapt up to the heavens in an immeasurable flight,
I have known nothing of it, I have desired nothing!
I lived alone, leaning over the physical world,
Always studying the great art, music,
In the cry of purple and in the song of flowers
Where the immense symphony of colors sleeps,
In the waves that the sea throws from its amphorae,
In the swaying of sonorous stars,
In the organ of the great woods lost in the wind!
I put all my pride into becoming a scholar.
Pale and mute, I hear the murmur of roses;
And of all the treasures, and of all the things
That plant in our hearts a murderous regret,
You know it well, I wanted only you, Laurel!
THEODORE DE BANVILLE.
(The Exiles, 1860)
The Laurel Replanted
Weep no more, Mendes, over the death of the Laurel
Which the goldsmith of Rhymes sang!
Men have come, as one comes to pray,
Where this tree raised its proud peaks.
Men have come, priests of Remembrance,
Officer in your memory
O Banville, in the place where we saw you come,
The Laurel is still alive, like your glory.
But it is no longer this tree with its majestic growth
Which stood like a trophy,
Whose branches bent in the breath of the Mistral,
Seeming to exhale a stifled complaint.
It is no longer the giant that your dream knew, And who inspired the poem,
It is a frail shrub, and tiny, and bare,
But for our fervor, Banville, it is the same!
For if the grandfather is dead, he is his grandson
This young shrub that rises
In the identical place where the Other once was,
And, in its green branches, flows the same sap.
And to eternalize your verses with your name,
Better than a monument or a marble,
Or than a Temple of love like the Parthenon,
Men have thought that a Tree was enough!
This Laurel towards which the artist and the dreamer
Reach out a supplicating hand,
This Laurel that conceals a bitter flavor
Symbolizing the adorable and deceptive glory.
The one you sang, the one you wanted
Leaves at your temples,
The one that, these days, too many beings no longer love,
Since, of the sacred fires, all the lamps die!
Here he is before us, image of the Past
Who resurrects and lights up,
And the place is the same where the Master passed...
We come, like him, under the tutelary tree.
The foliage is new, and we feel in them
That our hope palpitates;
Towards the young laurel rise the same wishes
As those who tore from you these beautiful cries of suffering!
Banville, like you, we throw a call
Of love towards the tree that we replant,
For we want to relive the eternal miracle,
To love a sound that cries, a verse that sings;
For we want to rock ourselves again with a long evening
Which on the hill rests,
In the place where you came, we want to sit,
To learn again, through you, the secret of a rose!
And to better stimulate this Virgilian love
We will deceive ourselves with promises...
For the young laurel, replacing the old one,
Destines its branches perhaps to our youth!
And, since like you, Banville, we will live
For the pride of learning, without respite,
Perhaps you will want to fall on our foreheads,
Sprigs of this Laurel which consecrates your dream!...
La Turbie, September 28, 1924. THEO MARTIN.
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