An Unpublished Poem by Thackeray

Two or three days ago I happened to open a box of old papers which had been put away for many years, and from this wooden receptacle issued a burst of voices, of chords reaching from the past into the present, and sounding perhaps more clearly than when they were first struck. How suddenly and vividly, now and again, one realizes that nothing is past! That which is not over rings upon one’s heart as if it came from some grateful certainty of the future. There were letters, reminders, scraps of half a century, and among them a stray page which I had written as a schoolgirl, by my father’s desire. It was a page out of one of the lectures on the English Humorists — one from the lecture on Goldsmith, at the beginning of which my father used to quote Béranger’s charming lines, which, as he says, almost describe the genius and the gentle nature of Goldsmith. It was easy to see why this special page had been preserved, for on the margin, beside the rough straggling efforts of the secretary, in my father’s well-known delicate writing, is a penciled translation evidently jotted down at the moment; as I came upon it, it seemed like a sudden greeting. My impression is that he never read out the English translation here given, but he must have thought of doing so.

A CASTAWAY

A castaway on this great earth,
A sickly child of humble birth
And homely feature,
Before me rushed the swift and strong;
I thought to perish in the throng,
Poor puny creature.
Then crying in my loneliness,
I prayed that Heaven in my distress
Some aid would bring.
And pitying my misery,
My guardian angel said he,
Sing, poet, sing!
Since then my grief is not so sharp,
I know my lot and tune my harp
And chant my ditty,
And kindly voices cheer the bard,
And gentle hearts his song reward
With love and pity.

Ma vocation

Jeté sur cette boule,
Laid, chétif, et souffrant;
Etouffé dans la foule,
Faute d’être assez grand;
Une plainte touchante
De ma bouche sortit;
Le bon Dieu me dit: Chante,
Chante, pauvre petit!

Chanter ou je m’abuse
Est ma tâche ici-bas.
Tous ceux qu’ainsi j’amuse,
Ne m’aimeront-ils pas ?

There is a passage in a lately published memoir of Got, the great French actor, which concerns this particular song among the rest.

On July 20, 1845, Got writes as follows:—

‘I had not seen the good Béranger [le bon Béranger] since last September, at the time when I was engaged by the Comédie Française.

‘This morning, in beautiful weather, I took my place in the Passy accélérée and found myself sitting beside a little old gentleman, who was already established in the far right-hand corner of the omnibus. We were starting, when another gentleman got in and sat down on the opposite seat. The two greeted each other and mutually inquired if they were going to the “ Rue Vineuse.”

‘I then offered my place to the last comer so as to allow the two travelers to talk more conveniently. At the “Barrière des Bonshommes” I got out in order to walk up the hill in advance of the vehicle, and I proceeded straight ahead to pay my visit to Béranger.

‘Madame Judith opened the door, and having made inquiries from her, I was at first afraid I might be in the way, and was proposing to withdraw — knowing how much the old master prizes his solitude—when from the door of his room I heard him calling to me to enter. He received me in the most affectionate way. He was sitting in his armchair, ‘and he went on trimming his beard with scissors as was his wont.

‘ “And the verses, mon cher enfant,” he said,—“is the muse returning to poetry? When are we to have a new drama from you?”

‘“It is only too presumptuous of me to try to play other people’s dramas — Write myself! — no, never again.”

‘“Nonsense! drunkard’s promises” [serment d’ivrogne].

‘“The confessions of an incapable man, a humble follower of poets — yes, a passionate follower of Molière, of Regnard, of you, dear master. . . . Je suis le ver de terre amoureux des etoiles.”’ . . .

‘After a few minutes’ more talk two cards were brought in.

‘“Let them come in,” said Béranger, and I rose to take leave; but with a friendly smile he signed to me to remain.

‘Then entered my two companions from the accélérée, and Béranger warmly shook hands with them.

‘“I come,”said the second, the taller (who was not very tall), “to thank you for the visit you were good enough to pay Madame de Chateaubriand during my absence. On my way I had the good fortune to meet Monsieur de Lamennais.” (You may imagine after this I did not budge — only listened with all my ears.)

‘Literature, politics, fine arts— they talked of everything for half an hour; also of Messieurs de Balzac, Frédéric Soulié, and Alfred de Musset, and of the decorations which had been lately bestowed upon these gentlemen.

‘Chateaubriand asks tentatively, “What do you make of his ‘Ode to the Moon,’ Monsieur de Béranger?”

‘Béranger: “A joke, a quirk.”

‘Then Chateaubriand goes on to reproach Béranger for some of his own lines and for his leaning towards the Bonapartist party: “You wanted them back when you wrote,” he said.

‘“I! good heavens! I wanted nothing. I have only made songs so that they should be sung in France. It was France, not I, who wanted them back.” ’

Monsieur de Chateaubriand proceeded to attack many other things besides, but they have nothing more to do with my little quotation, which was only intended to lead up to ‘Le bon Béranger’s saying, ‘J’ai fait des chansons pour être chantées en France’ — songs destined to be sung again and again, and recited in France, in Germany, in England, and by my father among the rest, for he loved all that was beautiful and unpretending.