INTRODUCTORY

far as nature has any significance, she affords an optimistic contrast to the world of humanity :

On croit sur la falaise, On croit dans les forêts, Tant on respire à l'aise Et tant rien ne nous pèse, Voir le ciel de plus près !

Là, tout est comme un rêve ; Chaque voix a des mots, Tout parle, un chant s'élève De l'onde sur la grève, De l'air dans les rameaux.

C'est une voix profonde, Un chœur universel, C'est le globe qui gronde, C'est le roulis du monde Sur l'océan du ciel.

C'est l'écho magnifique Des voix de Jéhova, C'est l'hymne séraphique Du monde pacifique Où va ce qui s'en va ;

Où, sourde aux cris de femmes, Aux plaintes, aux sanglots, L'âme se mêle aux âmes, Comme la flamme aux flammes, Comme le flot aux flots.

" Les rêves " ( Odes et ballades, 1S28)

IV. From"Les Feuilles d'Automne"(i83i)to"Les Rayons et les Ombres " (1840). In this period the characteristics above noted persist and are even intensified, and we see some indications of new developments. Nature is still optimistically regarded (" Ce qu'on entend sur la montagne "), but Hugo now infuses more mystery and terror into his descriptions. Nature begins to live for him with an intense life of her own, and Hugo's imagery reflects this belief. Similes are fewer, the bolder method of metaphor is preferred :

Nous voyions les vagues humides Comme des cavales numides Se dresser, hennir, écumer; L'éclair, rougissant chaque lame, Mettait des crinières de flamme A tous ces coursiers de la mer.

" A M. de Lamartine " [Les voix intérieîires, /830)

V. From " Les Contemplations "(i856)to 1885. "Les contemplations" contains poems written as early as 1 833. The poems referred to hère are those which were written after 1840. Hugo's view of life becomes more somber than before, with alternations of Utopian hopefulness. The poem "Sagesse" (1840;, which stands last in "Les rayons et les ombres," shows his mind vacillating in a state between despair and hope. The problem of human destiny profoundly occupies his mind in the latter half of his life. As his visionary faculty develops he seeks to penetrate ever further into the région of mystery. Phantom terrors sometimes possess him with an intensity bordering upon delirium. There enters into his vision an élément of hallucination which stops short of utter madness, thanks only to the vigor of his will, and to the tenacity with which in the wildest flights of his poetic frenzy he clings to the concrète aspects of the world of sensé. jHis philosophy of nature is necessarily infected by his mysticism, and nature becomes the abode of unnamed terrors. „The océan once chanted a hymn of praise. The poet's altered visiorTsees t.reacherv lurking in îts calm. and vindictiveness in ifs sijdrkn ™™th ^JiL not merely^the symbol 01 destruction, it is itself a démon of dpstjpif--»- 'tiveness, tor nature is too liyimra thing in Hugo's mind to he the rnere signature Of moral pôwers.f lt is in this literal sensé that we must now

They are no longer simply a resource of his art, but each metaphor embodies a genuine myth, which the poet believes to be true not as mère symbol, but as fact. Three extracts from the poem " Dieu," written between 1850 and 1860, will illustrate the prevailing temper of Hugo's mind in later years, although poems such as " Les chansons des rues et des bois " represent a relief from the tension of unendurable thought. Le hibou, the gray bird of doubt, flutters through the twilight gloom of chaos, and the words which this phantom bird utters express the doubts which haunted the mind of the poet. The visions of our English mystic Blake are essentially joyous ; a véritable agony is revealed in the somber excursions of Hugo's imagination :

Je regarde le vide et l'éther fixement

Et l'ouragan et l'air et le sourd firmament

Et les contorsions sinistres des nuées.

Mes paupières se sont au gouffre habituées.

Toute l'obscurité du ciel vertigineux

Entre en mon crâne, et tient dans mon œil lumineux.

Je sens frémir sur moi le bord vague du cercle.

L'urne Peut-être ayant l'infini pour couvercle !

J'ai pour spectacle, au fond de ces limbes hagards,

Pour but à mon esprit, pour but à mes regards,

Pour méditation, pour raison, pour démence,