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TWO MYSTIC POEMS IN MODERN FRENCH Here is the first poem, I give only the text, followed by an explanatory paraphrase. (I) Chanson Des Étages Il fait jour chez la reine. C'est la nuit près du roi. Déjà chante la reine. A peine dort le roi. Les ombres qui l'enchaînent, Une à une, il les voit. Le regard de la reine Ne s'y attache pas. Le destin qui les mène, Dont frissonne le roi, Ne trouble point la reine. Brillent la mer au bas, Et, rythme de ses veines, Celle qui la brûla, Sæur de la vague même. Ô minutes sereines, Vous n'êtes plus au roi! Page-62 Le souvenir d'un chêne Sur son front de souci Pose une tache claire. C'est dans une autre vie, Quand s'éveillait la reine Contre le cæur du roi. Ah! ferme ton palais Ou monte en ses étages, Timide souverain. Tu comprendras pourquoi Sur un rocher sauvage Le reine appuie son sein. Tu comprendras pourquoi, Et t'en consoleras. RENÉ CHAR (from POETRY, Volume 104, No. 5, August 1964) Explanatory Paraphrase The queen upstairs is the higher consciousness. The king downstairs is the egoistic being in the lower consciousness. While it is dawn and daylight with the queen, it is night with the king—he is just entering into sleep. The king sees dark shadows closing him in, binding him down —bonds of ignorance imprisoning him in the ordinary life and consciousness. The queen, the higher power, is free of all that. Page-63 Both are being led towards a high divine destiny. But the ego-being is frightened, while the higher consciousness has no worry. And yet the lower consciousness is aflame; for its veins are flowing with a secret fire which its own sister has kindled in it. Ignorance harbours within its bosom a secret knowledge that is a reflection of the higher consciousness. There are tranquil moments in the lower eternity that come from on high, from the queen. They do not belong to the king. At such moments a memory comes of a divine tree, the tree of immortal life, and imprints a white seal upon the king's tormented brow. The king feels it is another life, feels the queen awake by his side. To have the queen always by his side the king must close the doors and windows of the lower storey of his palace and climb the stairs upward. The king must shed all fear. There will be no palace to live in but a bare rock upon which he will find the queen lying down. The king will understand that the higher consciousness must come down and touch and kiss the bleak earth-consciousness. The spirit must embrace the cold bare earth. Then only the human soul, the king free of his ego, will attain peace and felicity. Here is the second poem. I follow the same principle— I do not give a translation but, as I said, an explanatory paraphrase, and I conclude by a short comment. Page-64 (2) POÈMES (Extraits) Tes soleils sont de houx, de gui. Jamais perdu, jamais saisi Qui est en moi, qui n'y est plus! L'eau va et vient sous les talus. Je ne vois pas ce que je vois —Ta nuit de tilleul et de noix. Je vois ce que je ne vois pas —Tes mains sont dans les résédas! Oreille ouverte, oreille close J'entends les lacs aux lauriers-roses: Ton nom de silence et de sel. Mais je n'entends pas les pétrels!
(2) Mes lièvres, dans l'herbe obscure, quelqu'un les traque. Un chien frais, un épervier pur sur ma proie. C'est cache sans abri que ces fourrés, ces cistes. Des menhirs de verre emmurent mes îles. Page-65 Ô lumière aiguë! Je m'enracile— m'exile. Le seul feu que je fuis m'a déjà consumé. Mon sang est pris. Mon sang ne se soumet Aux signes sur la proie, mais n'est vivant que mort. Ne plus tenter de voir, d'entendre, d'ouvrir l'or: La ténèbre d'enfance est mangée de merveilles! (3) Ce sang perdu comme un pas N'a densité que d'en bas. — Des basses eaux, de la cendre Où l'arme aussi doit descendre. Les statues marchent, s'attardent Dans une mort tiède et fade. J'ai mon amour ennemi. Ses sables m'ont endormi. Qui charmera d'un chevreuil Les longues salles de deuil? Ma bouche bourbeuse, vide Crie par morsure d'acide Page-66 Sur le silence aggravé. Un feu survient du névé. Jean-Claude Renard (From POETRY, Volume 104, No. 5, August 1964) Explanatory Paraphrase All the suns of the higher consciousness are hidden here in the heart of leaves and flowers—the tiniest beauties, the floating fragrances of nature. That I never lose, yet never catch, it remains within my heart and yet it is not there. The stream flows and passes through, under the embankment. It is the hidden Reality that plays hide and seek with us. I do not see with the outer eye what I see with the inner eye. For the outer eye moves in a darkness made by the wooded growths of the earth. I see with the inner eye what I do not see with the outer eye. The luminous hand of the higher consciousness moves about in the midst of the thorns of life. With the inner ear open, with the outer ear closed I hear the tranquil waters, bordered with laurels and roses, move somewhere within. That is a sea of silence and of salt, but the cry of the wild storm-bird is not there. In the dark woodlands of our nature animals rush about. Someone is chasing them. A hound of heaven, a falcon of the sky is after its prey. There are hidden bushes, grottoes, Page-67 secret holes and comers that shelter my favourite animals. But to the secret luminous eye the solid walls of the shelter are transparent, are seen through. I follow the Light that pierces me. I uproot myself from my home. I seek to fly from that Fire but I am already burnt up. My blood is now captured. It is the willing prey, the victim of its hunter. It is living only because it is dead. There is now no endeavour to seek and to hear, to run after the golden treasure, for now it is a child's consciousness made of a darkness, a forgetfulness crowded with marvels. The earthly blood that loses its way is heavy because it treads here below. Here there are stagnant waters, dead ashes. The arm from on high must extend here too. Here all forms are walking statues. They delay and delay in a death that is yet warm—only lukewarm—but lifeless. The earthly love I bear is my enemy. Its fire ends in dust and I go to sleep into the unconsciousness. My home here is a mourning hall; how can it be changed into a hall of beauty and living and moving shapes? Yes, my mouth is empty and full of dust, yes, it cries bitten by a corrosive acid thrown upon an increasing silence. It is a fire that comes from the chill snowy heights. A Note The relation between the Higher and the Lower, between the other world and this, the interaction between the two is all that mysticism means. The relation is spoken Page-68 of sometimes as that of enmity and sometimes as that of friendliness. Ordinarily the two are incompatibles, enemies, as is quite natural. At times however, when the individual is ripe for the turnover, the two collaborate. The lower consciousness aspires for the higher and the higher comes down and enters into the lower to purify and change it. Various figures and images depict the nature and relation of the two. The lower is darkness and the night, the higher is light and the day. Sometimes it is the opposite: the lower is the day (ordinary common light), the higher is dark night (because unknown and unfamiliar or because of the very dazzle of its light). The lower is imaged at times as a woodland, a shelter for wild growths and roving animals. The higher is the hunter, with his hounds chasing the creatures of the lower domain. Also the higher is the serene infinite sky, the lower the raging sea below. Otherwise, again, the higher is the vast sea, tranquil or quietly rippling above and the lower is the solid material universe. The higher is the delightful sun, the lower is the muddy slimy earth of the bed of stones and rocks. The consummation, the dénouement is the interlocking between the two and a final coalescence in which the higher penetrates into the lower and the lower is sublimated into the higher and the two form one integral undivided reality. Page-69 |