The Departure Times From Pier Head, Liverpool

Saint-Pol-Roux, & the lady disciple ...

There were many beautiful things in the archives of Gustave Kahn who were recently dispersed at a sale to which, unfortunately, I could not attend and participate. But, needless to sink into bitterness or sadness provincialist since the 21 letters of Saint-Pol-Roux in his beloved "Liberator of the Word" were preempted by the Library of Brest, where they are now preserved, thus enriching a fund already and called to grow further through acquisition policy very actively led by Nicolas Galaud. For other documents, which could tempt the saint-pol-roussophile do not regret having missed more sales. Because, they reappear one day. Some even already reappear. Look, here's one that goes ... and falls into my net. It a poem: "The eyes of children" and is Jules Méry, dated June 22, 1889, and dedicated to Mrs. Elizabeth Dayre.

Jules Méry is, at that time, a friend of Saint-Pol-Roux. You see them along with Justin Clérice , who will sign the music of their Bride of Salamanca we talked a few weeks, Gabriel Randon too. Jules Méry is, two or three years later, the only disciple of the Magnifica, made by his elder haughtily in the columns of the Echo de Paris Jules Huret officiating. Thus, the present critics who will host his collection, The Sacred Way , published in the Library of Independent Art, with a frontispiece Sérusier. Elizabeth Dayre in late 1889, Elizabeth Kahn will, then less than a decade later, erase, his marital status, the traces of a past love plural, becoming Rachel Kahn. Because Elizabeth was Dayre first time the Pleiades, Mrs. Roux. Not officially, but for friends of the young Marseille, Paul Roux. Then it was the little anthology , deceiving our poet with Darzens, Moreas perhaps Mikhael. I will not discuss the stormy love affair of Elizabeth and Paul Roux Dayre as Jean-Jacques Lefrere already revealed in its many twists Seasons literary Rudolph Darzens and I devote an article, illustrated to unpublished in the next Frisson aesthetic. So that refers to these two sources. So I'll just reproduce the poem (unpublished?) By Jules Méry, curious document that brings together on one sheet the names of the sole disciple of Magnifica and the fickle mistress of the Magnificent .

Children's eyes

Ms. Elizabeth Dayre

When a child with pensive eyes

Play my feet and me looks

With sudden redness,

I shudder without noticing.

Sub transparency

eyes I see the mysteries without number

For those sweet eyes, often joyful, Sometimes

pay glances of "shadow.

Looks like a subtle breath

Fane rose from his mouth

paucity of previously Could

Suspect beyond the savage?

Her smile was so pretty!

he gazed spend Fairies

From their white fingers toward oblivion

And wildly ruffled ?

Was it God that he was smiling?

God he touched the eyelid?

Or if requested innocent?

- For the smile is the prayer ...

His gaze was suddenly tarnished:

It seems that concern

From the elusive infinite

Clot his eyes full of weariness.

wonder he let alone

And I am forced to keep quiet!

Can I at this angel revealing

m'atterre A science?

If the existence of small

Is not nothing but a dream, he must hard:

When the good dreams gone

L The soul is bare and the wind is hard!

Childhood is a flowering
Whose glory is quite brief:
Why is it that the reason
ignited, extinguish the dream?


Children, look no further to see
Another thing that your sweet dreams:
The Truth You Need to Know
never be worth their Lies!

Jules Méry

June 22, 1889