Romance of the Rabbit

Romance of the Rabbit

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Romance of the Rabbit, by Francis
Jammes, Edited by Gladys Edgerton, Translated by Gladys Edgerton
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: Romance of the Rabbit
Author: Francis Jammes
Release Date: July 14, 2004 [eBook #12909]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROMANCE
OF THE RABBIT***
E-text prepared by Carla Kruger and Project Gutenberg Distributed
Proofreaders

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 in
the solitude of the little town of Orthez at the foot of the Pyrenees, far
from the clamor and complexities of literary Paris. In the preface to 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 and I love.
I have spoken with the voice which you have given me. I have written

with the words which You have taught my mother and my father and
which they transmitted to me. I am passing along the road like a laden
ass of which the children make mock and which lowers the head. I shall
go where You wish, when You wish."
And this is the way he has gone without faltering or ever turning aside
to become identified with this school or that. It is this simple faith
which has given to Francis Jammes his distinction and uniqueness
among the poets of contemporary France, and won for him the
admiration of all classes. There is probably no other French poet who
can evoke so perfectly the spirit of the landscape of rural France. He
delights to commune with the wild flowers, the crystal spring, and the
friendly fire. Through his eyes we see the country of the singing harvest
where the poplars sway beside the ditches and the fall of the looms of
the weavers fills the silence. The poet apprehends in things a soul
which others cannot perceive.
His gift of sympathy with the poor and the simple is infinite. He is full
of pity and tenderness and enfolds in his heart and in his poetry, saint
and sinner, man and beast, all that which is animate and inanimate. He
is passionately religious with a profound and humble faith, but it has
nothing in common with the sumptuous and decorative neo-catholicism
of men like Huysmans or Paul Claudel. Rather one must seek his
origins in the child-like faith of Saint Francis of Assisi and the lyrical
metaphysics of Pascal.
Those of a higher sophistication and a greater worldliness may smile at
the artlessness, and, if one will, naivété of a man like Jammes. It is true
that his art is limited, and that if one reads too much at one time there is
a note of monotony and a certain paucity of phrase, but who is the
writer of whom this is not equally true? The quality of beauty, sincerity,
and a large serenity are in his work, and how grateful are these
permanencies amid the shrilling noises of the countless conflicting
creeds and dogmas, and amid the poses and vanities which so fill the
world of contemporary literature and art!
As far as the record goes the outward life of Francis Jammes has been
uneventful. In a remarkable poem, "A Francis Jammes," his friend and
fellow-poet, Charles Guérin, has drawn an unforgetable picture of this
Christian Virgil in his village home. The ivy clings about his house like
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. The low walls of
the court are gilded with moss. From the window one sees the cottages
and fields, the horizon and the snows.
Jammes was born at Tournay in the department of Hautes Pyrénées on
December 2, 1863, and spent most of his life in this region. He was
educated at Pau and Bordeaux, and later spent a short time in a law
office. Early in the nineties he wrote his first volumes, slender
plaquettes with the brief title "Vers." It is interesting that one of these
was dedicated to that strange English genius, Hubert Crackanthorpe,
the author of "Wreckage" and "Sentimental Studies." This dedication,
and the curious orthography (the book was set up in a provincial
printery) led a reviewer in the Mercure de France into an amusing error,
in that he suggested that