a romantic French Canadian

A DREAM OF WATTEAU



By Emile Nelligan


When shepherds in evening’s russet twilight
Lead their great black goats by the flute’s gilded trill
To the home hamlet, from the hillocks,
They return along fields of prickly holly sprigs;


Bohemian schoolboys, souls free of strife,
Laden with nothing for a while and in days without anger,
In a recess from study, to the woods strewn with husks
We go, unbounded, give our ears to the cascade


Of the brook, in the dale along which runs the yelping
Little sheepdog of the easy-going sons of Pan,
Whose wailing whistle summons, far away.


Then, weary, we lie down, shivering to the bone
And, at times, radiant, in our palace of hay,
We lunch on the dawn and dine on the stars.

2007
 
This is my translation from the French.  Emile had an Irish father and a French mother.  Until he was twenty years old, he wrote and spoke wonderful poetry.  From then until his death he existed in mental institutions.
 
"Tragically, but perhaps not surprisingly, this highly intelligent, sensitive and literary young man, torn between two languages, two cultures and two parents, lurched into what may have been schizophrenia (the word was not used at the time). Diagnosed in August 1899, he entered the first of two psychiatric hospitals. He would never be cured.


During his four years as a teenage poet he had produced about 170 poems. He is now discussed, studied, and honoured as the most important poet of Quebec and as one of Canada’s most interesting and significant writers."--http://www.ballinagree.freeservers.com/emilnelligan.html

Look at Emile's young face.  Has there ever been a more romantic visage!

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