Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, REPOSE OF THE SOUL IN THE WOOD OF L'HAUTIL: THE MARRIAGE OF THE OISE, by PAUL FORT


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

REPOSE OF THE SOUL IN THE WOOD OF L'HAUTIL: THE MARRIAGE OF THE OISE, by                    
First Line: Here, where are grouped fin-d'oise, maurecourt, andresy, conflans
Last Line: O poesy, o poesy, o poesy! . . .
Subject(s): Death; Fate; Marriage; Dead, The; Destiny; Weddings; Husbands; Wives


Here, where are grouped Fin-d 'Oise, Maurecourt, Andresy, Conflans-Sainte-
Honorine -- what mellow names are they! paean of chiming bells for a wedding one
would say . . . O poesy, O poesy, O poesy! . . .

here, under the blue eyes of these four villages, the radiant Seine made one
with the lovely Oise one sees. Good. Mount upon the bridge that rocks suspended
there. Embrace your well-beloved, and now gaze otherwhere.

Feminine is the Oise and masculine the Seine. My eyes are witnesses, besides the
proof is plain that for their journeying o'er many a greensward wide the Seine
presents his arm to his too-youthful bride.

O vaporous marriage seen from the bridge suspended there, for all an amorous
hour beneath my eyes I had this vision, you appeared one of those nuptials glad
where 'neath a single veil unite the happy pair,

the bridal veil, ohe! Still better. At the call of the image, on I run with
fancy uncontrolled. I saw them, 'neath the palms of poplars bright with gold,
rush to embrace as 'twere Virginia and her Paul.

Paul and Virginia wed? Indeed, I tell you true. One bore a cap bedecked with a
French flag (I attest that so it seemed to me that peaceful barge at rest),
t'other a chain of ships, scintillant with the dew.

How pure they were! . . . No doubt before this wooing sweet the Oise had some
affairs, the Seine at times did stray. 'Tis no concern of mine. Friends, I've a
mind discreet. Besides what man would mar the raptures of this day!

The rattle of a helm turns yonder. Ah, it is a pretty toy, in sooth, the future
babe to dower, the heir who will arrive honourably in his hour. He shall be
called the Eure, born 'mid the cabbages.

A joyful wedding-dance the rout around you draws, Seine, lordly male, and you,
little gosling, little Oise, the banks, the hills, the vines amid the vaporous
air dance, and upon my arm dances my sweetheart fair.

Taratata! And now, to the trumpet's martial blare, to leap into the barques the
wedding-guests prepare. Let all these joyous scamps be piloted by me. Charming
couple, you must run to met your destiny.

"O joy! Then we must run! -- Ocean your Fate will be. -- Then we must run, alas?
-- And it is death, the sea. -- Sombre reflection. -- No. At one end you will
die . . . at the other even now the marriage draweth night."

And I should like to know how -- lovers ever fond -- in the multitude of streams
that mingle in the sky, you can again retrieve your droplets blue and blonde, to
go and hide yourselves in Earth's profundity,

and rise and join again where all delights the eye -- here, where are grouped
Fin-d 'Oise, Maurecourt, Andresy, Conflans-Sainte-Honorine -- What mellow names
are they! paean of chiming bells for a wedding one would say . . .

O poesy, O poesy, O poesy! . . .





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