Each month on this blog I share an English translation of a poem by nineteenth-century French poet Leconte de Lisle. His poetry was a great source of inspiration for the descriptions and imagery in my writing, colourful and visual and vivid as it is.  The poem I am sharing with you today is entitled ‘La panthère noire’ (The Black Panther), and it is one of my favourites.

Leconte de Lisle was one of the esteemed French writers whose works I studied at school – a French convent school. At the age of eleven I was asked to recite this poem at the end-of-year assembly. Even to this day, I can hear myself carefully enunciate each perfect word and feel myself swept away in the lulling rhythm to a faraway, exotic world. With such poems forming the basis of my literature education, it is no wonder I grew up to have a passion for travelling.

In poems such as this one, I love de Lisle’s appeal to each of the senses, which allows us to experience his words at every level. Consider:

• Sight: a pink glow; sparkling blue summit; the thick grass steams in the morning sun
• Smell: a wave of strong sweet odours/Full of feverishness and delight; The blithe greenery…Perfumes the ground at each of her steps
• Touch: the butterflies and the buff-coloured bees/ Vie with her lithe back, brushing it in their flight
• Taste: the lychee-trees with their crimson fruit, and from the cinnamon-trees
• Hearing: the woken bamboos where the wind beats its wings; Fresh sounds arise in their thousands

I also admire his original, inventive imagery – creating descriptions that are unusual and invite consideration, like fiery drops, the gleaming bones, crimson cactus, the necklace of the night, virgin forests, buff-coloured bees, the air scorches and the measureless light.

Have you ever been in an amazing setting and wished you could somehow capture your reaction, your awe at the beauty surrounding you, the humbling power of nature? In this poem, which presents a snapshot of a wild and beautiful world, Leconte de Lisle successfully infuses that feeling into words. He was, in the true sense of the word, a visionary, and he sets an example to all writers in how best to convey ‘the essence of place’.

The Black Panther

A pink glow spreads across the cloudbanks;

The horizon is turned jagged, towards the east, by a quick flash of lightning;

And the necklace of the night, like unthreaded pearls,

Is shed down, and falls into the sea.

A whole sweep of the sky arrays itself in gentle flames

Which fasten upon its sparkling blue summit.

A flank trails down and turns to red the sheets

Of rain in fiery drops.

From the woken bamboos where the wind beats its wings,

From the lychee-trees with their crimson fruit, and from the cinnamon-trees

The dew twinkles like showers of sparks;

Fresh sounds arise in their thousands.

And from the heights and woods, from the flowers, from the thick mosses,

In the mild and delicate air, suddenly opening out,

There swells a wave of strong sweet odours,

Full of feverishness and delight.

Through the paths lost in the bottom of the virgin forests,

Where the thick grass steams in the morning sun,

Along the streams of running water hemmed in by their steep banks,

Under green vaults of rattan-palms,

The queen of Java, the black huntress,

At dawn, comes back to her lair where her cubs,

Amidst the gleaming bones whimper in anguish,

One cowering under another.

Wary, with eyes as sharp as arrows,

She slinks forward, scanning the shadow of the heavy branches.

A few spots of blood, scattered, and all of them fresh,

Stain her velvet coat.

She is dragging behind her a remnant of her game,

A piece of the fine stag which she ate in the night;

And on the sprouting moss a frightful trail

Red, and still warm, follows her.

Round-about, the butterflies and the buff-coloured bees

Vie with her lithe back, brushing it in their flight;

The blithe greenery, out of its thousand baskets,

Perfumes the ground at each of her steps.

The python from the midst of the crimson cactus,

Uncoils its scales, and, an inquisitive witness,

Raising its flat head above the thicket,

Watches from afar as she goes by.

Under the tall fern she silently creeps,

Slipping between the mossy trunks she disappears.

The sounds die away, the air scorches, and the measureless light

Lulls the sky and forest to sleep.

La panthère noire

Une rose lueur s’épand par les nuées;

L’horizon se dentelle, à l’Est, d’un vif éclair;

Et le collier nocturne, en perles dénouées,

S’égrène et tombe dans la mer.

Toute une part du ciel se vêt de molles flammes

Qu’il agrafe à son faîte étincelant et bleu.

Un pan traîne et rougit l’émeraude des lames

D’une pluie aux gouttes de feu.

Des bambous éveillés où le vent bat des ailes,

Des letchis au fruit pourpre et des cannelliers

Pétille la rosée en gerbes d’étincelles,

Montent des bruits frais, par milliers.

Et des monts et des bois, des fleurs, des hautes mousses,

Dans l’air tiède et subtil, brusquement dilaté,

S’épanouit un flot d’odeurs fortes et douces,

Plein de fièvre et de volupté.

Par les sentiers perdus au creux des forêts vierges

Où l’herbe épaisse fume au soleil du matin;

Le long des cours d’eau vive encaissés dans leurs berges,

Sous de verts arceaux de rotin;

La reine de Java, la noire chasseresse,

Avec l’aube, revient au gîte où ses petits

Parmi les os luisants miaulent de détresse,

Les uns sous les autres blottis.

Inquiète, les yeux aigus comme des flèches,

Elle ondule, épiant l’ombre des rameaux lourds.

Quelques taches de sang, éparses, toutes fraîches,

Mouillent sa robe de velours.

Elle traîne après elle un reste de sa chasse,

Un quartier du beau cerf qu’elle a mangé la nuit;

Et sur la mousse en fleur une effroyable trace

Rouge, et chaude encore, la suit.

Autour, les papillons et les fauves abeilles

Effleurent à l’envi son dos souple du vol;

Les feuillages joyeux, de leurs mille corbeilles;

Sur ses pas parfument le sol.

Le python, du milieu d’un cactus écarlate,

Déroule son écaille, et, curieux témoin,

Par-dessus les buissons dressant sa tête plate,

La regarde passer de loin.

Sous la haute fougère elle glisse en silence,

Parmi les troncs moussus s’enfonce et disparaît.

Les bruits cessent, l’air brûle, et la lumière immense

Endort le ciel et la forêt.

With my heartfelt thanks to John Harding for his wonderful translation.

If you would like to know more about this French poet, take a look at this article about the centenary of his birthday: http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/57444/.