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ROMANCE OF THE RABBIT

By

FRANCIS JAMMES

Authorized Translation from the French by Gladys Edgerton

1920

INTRODUCTION

The simple and bucolic art of Francis Jammes has grown to maturity inthe solitude of the little town of Orthez at the foot of the Pyrenees,far from the clamor and complexities of literary Paris. In the prefaceto an early work of his he has given the key of his artistic faith:"My God, You have called me among men. Behold I am here. I suffer andI love. I have spoken with the voice which you have given me. I havewritten with the words which You have taught my mother and my fatherand which they transmitted to me. I am passing along the road like aladen ass of which the children make mock and which lowers the head. Ishall go where You wish, when You wish."

And this is the way he has gone without faltering or ever turningaside to become identified with this school or that. It is this simplefaith which has given to Francis Jammes his distinction and uniquenessamong the poets of contemporary France, and won for him the admirationof all classes. There is probably no other French poet who can evokeso perfectly the spirit of the landscape of rural France. He delightsto commune with the wild flowers, the crystal spring, and the friendlyfire. Through his eyes we see the country of the singing harvest wherethe poplars sway beside the ditches and the fall of the looms of theweavers fills the silence. The poet apprehends in things a soul whichothers cannot perceive.

His gift of sympathy with the poor and the simple is infinite. Heis full of pity and tenderness and enfolds in his heart and in hispoetry, saint and sinner, man and beast, all that which is animateand inanimate. He is passionately religious with a profound and humblefaith, but it has nothing in common with the sumptuous and decorativeneo-catholicism of men like Huysmans or Paul Claudel. Rather one mustseek his origins in the child-like faith of Saint Francis of Assisiand the lyrical metaphysics of Pascal.

Those of a higher sophistication and a greater worldliness may smileat the artlessness, and, if one will, naivété of a man like Jammes. Itis true that his art is limited, and that if one reads too much at onetime there is a note of monotony and a certain paucity of phrase, butwho is the writer of whom this is not equally true? The quality ofbeauty, sincerity, and a large serenity are in his work, and howgrateful are these permanencies amid the shrilling noises of thecountless conflicting creeds and dogmas, and amid the poses andvanities which so fill the world of contemporary literature and art!

As far as the record goes the outward life of Francis Jammes has beenuneventful. In a remarkable poem, "A Francis Jammes," his friend andfellow-poet, Charles Guérin, has drawn an unforgetable picture of thisChristian Virgil in his village home. The ivy clings about his houselike a beard, and before it is a shadowy fire, ever young and fresh,like the poet's heart, in spite of wind and winters and sorrows. Thelow walls of the court are gilded with moss. From the window one seesthe cottages and fields, the horizon and the snows.

Jammes was born at Tournay in the department of Hautes Pyrénées onDecember 2, 1863, and spent most of his life in this region. He waseducated at Pau and Bordeaux, and later spent a short time in a lawoffice. Early in the nineties he wrote his first volumes, slenderplaquettes<