I love all forms of literature, from prose to poem – and one of my favourite poets is the 19th-century writer Leconte De Lisle. His poems are evocative and descriptive, which marries with my own writing style, and because he wrote about exotic locations like Africa, his verses were a great inspiration to me in writing Burning Embers.

Leconte De Lisle is not a well-known poet in the English-speaking world, and thus it is not easy to find his works translated from French. My good friend John Harding kindly agreed to translate some of De Lisle’s poem for me, and today I’m sharing with you one that really brings home the wildness and danger of deepest, darkest Africa.

‘Les Hurleurs’ is a dark poem in many respects, depicting the stark contrast of arid, burning, feverish, hungry Africa with the surge of the black, flooding sea and the empty, starless sky above. I had it in mind when I wrote of foreboding in Burning Embers, the chilling pulse of the African tom-tom drums, the terrifying might of the electrical storm. I think the poem encapsulates both the beauty of the land and its creatures together with the sense of desperation of the animals fighting to survive there – which was very much the case in 1970, when Burning Embers is set, with the tension between those who advocated and practised hunting, and those, like Rafe and Coral, who had empathy and respect for the African wildlife.

The Howlers

The sun had drowned its flames in the floods,

The town was falling asleep at the feet of the misty mountains.

Upon great rocks washed by a cloud of foam

The dark snarling sea spilt its tall billows.

The night redoubled that drawn-out wailing.

No heavenly body shone in the bare expanse;

Only the pallid moon, cleaving the cloud-bank,

Flickered forlornly like a dull lamp.

A silent world, stamped with a mark of wrath,

The shattered remnants of a dead globe randomly scattered,

It cast down from its icy sphere

A deathly reflection on the polar ocean.

Boundless, lying to the north, under the stifling skies,

Africa, sheltering under thick shadow and haze,

Let its lions hunger in the smoking sand,

And lodged its herds of elephants beside the lakes.

But on the arid beach, with its noxious odours,

Amidst the remains of bulls and horses,

Lean dogs, spread about, stretching out their muzzles,

Bewailed their lot, dolefully howling.

With their tails curled under their pulsing bellies,

Their eyes wide, trembling on their feverish legs,

Squatting here and there, all were howling, fixed in place,

And twitching momentarily with quick shudders.

The sea foam stuck to their spines

Long fur, making their backbones stand out;

And when the floods came in bounds to smite them,

Their white teeth champed under their red lips.

Before the gaze of the wandering moon with its ghastly brightness,

What unknown anguish, at the black waves’ edge,

Made a soul in your foul shapes weep?

Why did you groan, terror-stricken apparitions?

I do not know; but, O dogs that howled on the beaches,

After so many suns that will never return,

I can still hear, in the depth of my confused past,

The hopeless cry of your savage pains!

Les Hurleurs

Le soleil dans les flots avait noyé ses flammes,
La ville s’endormait aux pieds des monts brumeux.
Sur de grands rocs lavés d’un nuage écumeux
La mer sombre en grondant versait ses hautes lames.

Je ne sais; mais, ô chiens qui hurliez sur les plages,
Après tant de soleils qui ne reviendront plus,
J’entends toujours, du fond de mon passé confus,
Le cri désespéré de vos douleurs sauvages!