“Aubanel—­and you will say as I do, when you have read his book—­is a wild pomegranate-tree.  The Provencal public, whom his first poems had pleased so much, was beginning to say,—­’But what is our Aubanel doing, that we no longer hear him sing?’”

Then follows an exposition of the hopeless passion of the poet,—­how he took for motto,

  “Quau canto,
  Soun mau encanto.”

Hence the three books of poems now before us,—­“The Book of Love,” “Twilight,” and “The Book of Death.”  “The Book of Love,” “a thing excessively rare,” as we are told in the Preface, “but this one written in good faith,” opens with a couplet that is a key to the whole volume:—­

  “I am sick at heart,
  And will not be cured.”

We subjoin a literal translation of the eleventh song, line for line:—­

De-la-man-d’eila de la mar, Dins mis ouro de pantaiage, Souventi-fes ieu fau un viage, Ieu fau souvent un viage amar, De-la-man-d’eila, de la mar.” etc., etc.

  “Far away, beyond the seas,
  In my hours of reverie,
  Oftentimes I make a voyage,
  I often make a bitter voyage,
  Far away, beyond the seas.

  “Yonder far, towards the Dardanelles,
  With the ships I glide away,
  Whose long masts pierce the sky;
  Towards my loved one do I go,
  Yonder far, towards the Dardanelles.

  “With the great white clouds sailing on,
  Driven by the wind, their master-shepherd,
  The great clouds which before the stars
  Pass onwards like white flocks,
  With the clouds I go sailing on.

  “With the swallows I take my flight,
  The swallows returning to the sun;
  Towards fair days do they go, quick, quick;
  And I, quick, quick, towards my love,
  With the swallows take my flight.

  “Oh, I am very sick for home,
  Sick for the home that my love haunts! 
  Far from that foreign country,
  As the bird far from its nest,
  I am very sick for home.

  “From wave to wave, o’er the bitter waters,
  Like a corse thrown to the seas,
  In dreams am I borne onward
  To the feet of her that’s dear,
  From wave to wave, o’er the bitter waters.

  “On the shores I am there, dead! 
  My love in her arms supports me;
  Speechless she gazes and weeps,
  Lays her hand upon my heart,
  And suddenly I live again!

  “Then I clasp her, then I fold her
  In my arms:  ’I have suffered enough! 
  Stay, stay!  I will not die!’
  And as a drowning one I seize her,
  And fold her in my arms.

  “Far away, beyond the seas,
  In my hours of reverie,
  Oftentimes I make a voyage,
  I often make a bitter voyage,
  Far away, beyond the seas.”

As may easily be seen, Aubanel writes not, like Roumanille, for his own people alone.  His Muse is more ambitious, and seeks to interest by appealing to the sentiments in a language polished with all the art of its sister, the French.  There are innumerable exquisite passages scattered through the work, which make us ready to believe in the figurative comparison of the prefacer, when he tells us that “the coral-grains of the ‘Opened Pomegranate’ will become in Provence the chaplet of lovers.”