Autumn, a Season and an Harmonie

CROWN'D with the sickle and the wheaten sheaf,
While Autumn, nodding o'er the yellow plain,
Comes jovial on

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broad and brown, below,
Extensive harvests hang the heavy head.

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till the ruffled air
Falls from its poise, and gives the breeze to blow.
Rent is the fleecy mantle of the sky;
The clouds fly different; and the sudden sun
By its effulgent glide gilds the' illumined field,
And black by fits the shadows sweep along

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[Illustration: Autumn (1573) by Giuseppe Arcimboldo,
In the Musée du Louvre; via Wikimedia Commons]


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These are thy blessings, Industry! rough power!

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Hence from the busy, joy-resounding fields,
In cheerful error, let us tread the maze
Of Autumn unconfined

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Obedient to the breeze and beating ray,
From the deep-loaded bough a mellow shower
Incessant melts away. The juicy pear
Lies in a soft profusion scatter'd round.

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A various spirit, fresh, delicious, keen,
Dwells in their gelid pores; and, active, points
The piercing cider for the thirsty tongue.

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[. . .] from Silurian vats, high-sparkling wines
Foam in transparent floods; some strong, to cheer
The wintry revels of the labouring hind,
And tasteful some, to cool the summer hours.

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Here, as I steal along the sunny wall,
Where Autumn basks, with fruit empurpled deep,
My pleasing theme continual prompts my thought:
Presents the downy peach; the shining plum;
The ruddy, fragrant nectarine; and dark,
Beneath his ample leaf, the luscious fig.


James Thomson (1700-1748), Scottish poet and dramatist
Excerpts from "Autumn" (1730) in The Seasons (1730)
[Ed. 1844, available at Google Books]

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BEHOLD the coming of the times when, quivering on its stalk, every flower looses vapours much like a censer; the sounds and perfumes swirl in the evening air — a melancholy waltz and langorous vertiginousness! Every flower looses vapours much like a censer; the violin trembles like a heart afflicted; a melancholy waltz and langorous vertiginousness! and the sky is sad and beautiful like a great resting-ground. The violin trembles like a heart afflicted, a tender heart which hates the vast and blackened void; the sky is sad and beautiful like a great resting-ground, the sun is drowning in its congealing blood. A tender heart, which hates the vast and blackened void, gathers every remnant of the luminous past! — the sun is drowning in its congealing blood . . . your memory glows in me like a communion holder.

My very liberal translation into English prose of:

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Illustration: Monstrance, Photographed by Broederhugo (2004)
(Licenced under CC-BY-SA 3.0 and 1.0.
Via Wikimedia Commons)

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L'Harmonie du Soir

Voici venir les temps où vibrant sur sa tige
Chaque fleur s'évapore ainsi qu'un encensoir;
Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l'air du soir;
Valse mélancolique et langoureux vertige!

Chaque fleur s'évapore ainsi qu'un encensoir;
Le violon frémit comme un cœur qu'on afflige;
Valse mélancolique et langoureux vertige!
Le ciel est triste et beau comme un grand reposoir.

Le violon frémit comme un cœur qu'on afflige,
Un cœur tendre qui hait le néant vaste et noir!
Le ciel est triste et beau comme un grand reposoir;
Le soleil s'est noyé dans son sang qui se fige.

Un cœur tendre qui hait le néant vaste et noir,
Du passé lumineux recueille tout vestige!
Le soleil s'est noyé dans son sang qui se fige,
Ton souvenir en moi luit comme un ostensoir!


Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867), French poet
"Harmonie du Soir" in Fleurs du Mal (1857)
Second (1858) edition, at the French National Library's website Gallica

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Translation glossary:

Ostensoir = monstrance (= "communion holder," which is less obscure and doesn't resemble the word "monster," but still sounds indubitably awkward)
Se figer = to congeal (= "thickening," which is less whiffy of refrigerators and gelatine)
Reposoir = a side altar or altar used for street processions, or a room where corpses are kept in a hospital (= "resting-ground"; there is no direct translation so I followed the etymology of the word — "se reposer" = "to rest" or "to lie down." A reposoir — banc-reposoir — can also be a bench with a ledge on top, which was once built so that peasants could put up their burdens and sit for a while by the wayside.)
Tournent = turn (= "swirl," which gives the action more momentum)
Vertige = dizziness, giddiness, vertigo (= "vertiginousness," which is admittedly terrible, but "dizziness" or "giddiness" sound too silly and "vertigo" too much like starchy medical terminology; and "nausea" or "seasickness" are unfortunately not quite in keeping)
N.B.: I translated the poem into prose because I'd rather not mess up the rhythm and rhyme on top of everything else, which was a clear and present danger this time.

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THIS is the first time I have skimmed through Thomson's "Autumn," but scraps of his poetry do show up once in a while and he is even referred to in Northanger Abbey. (One of the quotations which edifies the heroine's youthful mind is, "It is a delightful task / To teach the young idea how to shoot." — I presume "shoot" refers in this case to the growing of a plant and not to the banging of a rifle.)

His ideas of nature are not mine and his patronizing, limpish, self-inserting and desperately idealizing approach resembles everything that gets my goat with Rousseau; but I like his most detailed and unhackneyed and stirring descriptive passages; and I like the way he ties in nature to the progress of humanity at large and even formulates a modern-sounding screed against hunting for 'pleasure.' Besides he provides some insight, interesting from my history-obsessive's perspective, into the day-to-day affairs of his contemporaries. A certain online encyclopaedia states that it was an inspiration for Haydn's Seasons; and I imagine passages from it would accompany a hearing of Vivaldi's well, too, though Thomson is emphatically British.

"L'HARMONIE DU SOIR" was one of the poems my sister and I read with Marie. It is likely much anthologized, but if so it is a pretty good specimen of ubiquity; skimming through Fleurs du Mal as I just did ad hoc, it also seems one of the best and least egotistical or consciously shocking! verses. My favourite lines are "Un cœur tendre qui hait le néant vaste et noir," which has stuck with me the most; "Le violon frémit comme un cœur qu'on afflige"; and the closing "Ton souvenir en moi luit comme un ostensoir!" It does not depict autumn as such; but since the decline of day is so often considered as a metonymy for autumn, and the sunsets here in Berlin have lately been vivid, it feels timely.