variety and originality, indeed, often rising to a
degree of excellence most difficult to comprehend
as the work of one totally ignorant of all
scientific rules. And the new voice thus speaking
speedily found an echo among nearly all
classes of society, descending from the drawing-
rooms to the streets.

Thus Dupont continued to labour in his calling,
gathering fresh strength, seeking inspiration
in natural scenery, his love for which breaks out
at all times, even amid the sterner accents of
patriotic and political denunciation—philosophising,
in a word, thinking, and putting his
thoughts into strong, true, and eloquent
language.

In 1846, Dupont composed a song, The Song
of the Working Men, of which I shall presently
give a translation; however feebly it may
represent the verve of the original, it is yet, I
think, nearly as faithful and literal a rendering
of its force as can be produced.

The Song of the Working Men forms a sort of
epoch in the history of Dupont's genius. Here
mind and heart and virile indignation assert
themselves in tones hitherto unuttered. The poet
himself was half uneasy at the echoes of his own
voice, and in his uncertainty kept back the song
for a while, and consulted some of his friends
ere deciding to publish it. One of these, M.
Charles Baudelaire, from whose brief notice of
the life and works of Dupont some of the facts
here recorded are gathered, thus relates the
impression caused by the first hearing, from
Dupont's lips, of Le Chant des Ouvriers:

"When I heard this admirable cry of suffering
and melancholy, I was dazzled and affected.
For so many years we had waited for some
poetry that was strong and true! It is
impossible, to whatever party we may belong, in
whatever prejudices we may have been brought up,
not to be touched by the spectacle of a sickly
multitude, breathing the dust of the workshops,
swallowing cotton, becoming actually impregnated
with white lead, mercury, and all the
poisons necessary for the creation of the
wonders they execute; sleeping amid vermin, buried
in quarters where the greatest and the humblest
virtues lodge side by side with the most hardened
vices, and the offscourings of the hulks" (bagne);
"of that suffering, languishing multitude to whom
the earth owes her wonders, who feel

                     ——the vermilion blood
       Through their veins impetuous flow;

who cast long and saddened looks on the
sunshine and shade of broad parks, and who, for
sufficient consolation and encouragement, shout
their saving refrain, 'Aimons-nous!' Let us
love."

Thenceforward, Dupont's poetry continued
chiefly to pursue the new course it had struck
out. He wrote earnestly, passionately, feelingly
though perhaps at times somewhat one-sidedly
of the rights, the wrongs, the sufferings, the
temptations of the working classes, bringing to
bear on all a hopeful, loving philosophy which
makes his songs find an echo wherever they are
heard in France.

The revolution of 1848 gave new vigour and
new voice to Dupont, and all the hopes, interests,
and prospects it awakened were sung by him
with a passion and energy that are yet tempered
by the tender and pastoral character of his
earlier muse. At all times his intense love of
nature breaks forth, and he always seems to
view it with a sort of tender, mysterious melancholy:
the waving boughs of the thick forest,
its whispering shades, the murmur of hidden
streams, the pale beauties of the most
ephemeral and fragile flowers, all the more mystic
and essentially poetical views of natural scenery
and objects are what seem especially to address
themselves to his feelings. Listen to the vague,
dreamy, half-supernatural tone that breathes
through

                        LA BLONDE.*
*The Fair Woman

   Dream of a landscape pale,
      With heather and birches light,
   Whose silvery leaves on the passing wind
      Float like foam on the surges white:
   And beneath their flickering shade,
      A graceful form behold,
   More fair and slight than the birches white,
      The virgin with locks of gold.
                 Day and night, all pale and fair,
                     She roams the woodland bowers,
                 Child beloved of the earth and sky,
                     Sister of stars and flowers.

   All gaze as she passes by,
      All praise her near and far,
   Break the guitar and the sounding lyre,
      The wild woods her minstrels are!
   The beast from its den looks forth,
      The birds from their downy nests,
   And river and lake for her sweet sake,
      As mirrors spread forth their breasts.
                 Day and night, all pale and fair, &c.

   They say that with the stars
      She communes when the night wind blows,
   Some whisper a tale of mysterious love,
      But her lover no one knows.
   Oh it is not beneath the boughs
      Of the fir-trees and birchen groves,
   Their feathery shade was never made
      To shelter her earthly loves!
                 Day and night, all pale and fair, &c.

   She loves 'neath the mystic shade
      Of the heavens' golden palms,
   Far from the mortal world her soul
      Dissolves in the voice of psalms!
   Angel! a woman thou art,
      Ere called to thy home above,
   Among mankind one soul thou couldst find
      To love thee and merit thy love.
                 Day and night, all pale and fair, &c.

But before long the government found that
Pierre Dupont's songs were of a character far
too revolutionary to be uttered in the ears of a
republic constituted under the existing and only
possible and perfect form, and under a princely
president who, a few months later, accomplished
the coup d'etat of the second of December, and
Dupont was warned that he must moderate his
tone, or take the consequences.

As, however, the warning produced but little                      .