PAUL FORT.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1461, 8 June 1912, Page 9

PAUL FORT.

To trnnslalo single-handed on enliro voluiuo of verso by three dozen foreign posts is no mean achievement (savs tho New York /'Post"). Jcthro Bitheil has done that in his "Contemporary ,French Poetry," mid lias provided in addition an excellent biographical and critical commentary replete with information that is hardly accessible, elsewhere in such convenient form. As an example of Mr. Bithell's renderings from the French wo may quote two little poems by Paul Fort, undoubtedly of an original talent:— A BALLAD OF THE FIELDS. The devil's ruby eyes peer all night long, A-hunting mice to spit upon his little t prong. He kills three huiidraL-thousand in his , wrath, And throws them in the village pond, and lights his prong, and stirs the broth. .Which he will mako those lovers swallow, who ■ . . . ■Think kissing and caressing is the . only ■■• thing they'have to do. And when they votnit on the pond tteir hearts, lie stirs Tho gravy with his little fork, and turns tho hearts to porringers, And hangs them on his long, green-tail To make ;i din, a din all night long : . in the gale. . BEFORE. HER WEDDING DAY. This maiden' sho ris dead, is dead before "li-or. weddiiig day! .' They lay her in her shroudi her shroud as . while as flowering. May. They bear her. to. tho earth, • tho earth, : while'yet the dawn is gray. They lay her all alone, alone down in the chilly clay. They come back merrily, merrily a-singing all the way. "Wo tuo shall havo our (urn, our turn," a-singing glad and gay. This maiden she is dead, is dead before her weddiug day. 'They go to till, tho fields, the fields as they do every day. After this we may turn to Mr. Bithell's little sketch of the author:—

Paul Fort was a boy of eighteen, an "ephebo audacieux," when, in 1600, ho founded tho Theatre d'Art, which staged unknown masterpieces (Shelley's "Cenci," Marlowe's "Faust," Maeterlinck's "I/'lntrusc," and "Les AvcuglcsJ"- Van Lerberghe's "Les Flaireurs," etc.), and which developed into .the "CEuvre." Three years later ho began to publish his astonishing "ballades," "prose poems," or "rhythmic prose," sometimes rhymed and sometimes not. ■ •■ ■ ■' ■■ " The" "prose poem," at its worst, is easy to write. Like the hexameter which tho railway companies publish: "Passengers are requested to keep their feet off tho cushions," it may be written unawares, hi witness whereof the following (not au advertisement here) ' from the "Daily Mail": "Tho calendar assures us Cuts is May. A month, so far, of ills and chills and grievous treachery; a- month whoso lesson plainly reads 'Beware.' "Let Wolsey. help you—Wolsey underwear ... - ' "Wo all know how a cliill begins; who can predict its end? "Wear wool,next to your skin—humanity itself can find naughtelse so good, and Wolsey Underwear is Wool. "So wear it; wear it as you value health . . . wear Wolsey night and day." This metrical composition Ims all the elements of a good "prose poem." It lias assonances.: May—beware;good—wool; one "rime richo": (Be)ware-(Uiider),vcar; and n sufficient rhyme: (be) gins—skin. It is quite evident that Paul Fort turns out his "ballades" as easily as au organgrinder turns, out his tunes. I'ho terrible amount lie has written proves his facility. But any other person would find it very difficult to write.such poems; he would need Paul Fort's undoubted genius to begin with. . . The vci'ie never stumbles. Critics nave su<">ested that it is so smooth becauso if. is regular, and that, in short, Paul Fort is a°wolf in sheep's clothing, or a Parnassian masquerading as a "vcrs-libriste." There is. in fact, nothing very irregular except Iho continuous typographical arran"ement; divide the lines in the usual mann«r of verse (as n translator may be permitted to do with bis translations), and there will bo nothing io make a conservative's hair stand on end.