SAISON DES SEMAILLES
Il marche dans la plaine immense, Va, vient, lance la graine au loin, Rouvre sa main, et recommence, Et je médite, obscur te'moin,
Pendant que, déployant ses voiles, 5
L'ombre, où se mêle une rumeur, Semble élargir jusqu'aux étoiles Le geste auguste du semeur.
( Chansons des rues et des bois, 1865)
It is a commonplace of the criticism which is hostile to Hugo to assert that he is an ineffective and self-contradicting thinker, that he makes an insincere parade of a really superficial knowledge, and that he utilizes the mysteries of human life and universal destiny as a thème merely for the exercise of his prodigious powers of imagination. This criticism contains just enough truth to be dangerous. It would be difficult indeed to dérive a cohérent philosophy of life from Hugo's writings. We realize very forcibly that he hâtes certain things and other things admires. But his conclusions as to man's purpose on the earth and the ultimate destiny of the race are either vague or contradictory. From a poet so fertile in imagination in the poetic sensé of that word we cannot expect a précise and logical System. At one time he views life as radically evil. At another time its beauties and its fundamental joy aîone are présent to his mind. Which view is uppermost is a mère matter of the mood of the moment ; and if his pessimism prédominâtes, it would be an easy task to point to poems which foreshadow the fulfîllment of our spiritual desires. The skeptic and the believer are strangely mingled in Hugo. Hence one fertile source of contradiction in his conclusions. Another source may be found in the fact that Hugo was, in habit of thought, a mystic, and the mystic philosophy views contradictions with equanimity as necessary éléments in a higher truth.
Thèse weaknesses in constructive thought are less observable in isolated poems than in Hugo's work viewed in its entirety. The poems hère given are simple in substance, and exhibit chiefly the poet's power of dealing with the thème of human vanities and human glory. From this antithesis he dérives his finest effects.
De todo, nada. De todos, nadie.
Calderon
Que t'importe, mon cœur, ces naissances des rois, Ces victoires qui font éclater à la fois
Cloches et canons en volées, Et louer le Seigneur en pompeux appareil, Et la nuit, dans le ciel des villes en éveil, 5
Monter des gerbes étoilées ?
