The Life of Carmen Sylva (Queen of Roumania)Stackelberg, Natalie
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The Life of Carmen Sylva (Queen of Roumania)
Stackelberg, Natalie
Sylva, Carmen, 1843-1916
It shall pour down his side, a ceaseless flood,
In search of the pine for ages;
Time healeth not the gaping wound
Nor the depth of his woe assuages.
And a thousand trees crowd round his crest,
Waving their maiden tresses;
In vain! he careth for none of these,
Still true to his lost caresses.”
We have only been able to give a few leaves from the forest of Carmen
Sylva’s songs. We will now close the picture of the surprising creative
power of our authoress with the last verses of her poem “Carmen.” She
here addresses her readers and says--
“And all which here I have been singing
It is your very own!
From your deep heart its music bringing,
To sad chords of your sorrows ringing,
Winning for you the crown!
Yours were the thoughts for ever ranging,
You made the folk-tales true!
In this earth-day of chance and changing,
Of lives unfolding, deaths estranging,
Look, Soul! there, too, are you!
Perchance, when Death shall bring sad leisure,
And these pale lips are dumb,
Then you my words may better measure,
And in my true love take new pleasure;
Then will my meaning come!”
--_Translated by Sir Edwin Arnold._
In the second edition “My Rest” appeared in small single volumes,
_i.e._--1. “Heights and Depths;” 2. “Worldly Wisdom;” 3. “Mother and
Child;” 4. “Ballads and Romances.”
“My Rhine” was new poetry. Under this title Carmen Sylva brought out
in 1884 a poetical description of the towns and castles of her native
Rhine. Artistic illustrations and etchings of the landscapes adorn each
poem.
“It Knocks.” “Between whiles I have written a little novel of 100
pages,” writes the Queen, “because a poor boy came to beg me to give
his father some editing to do. They were so badly off, he said, and he
wished to surprise his parents with a manuscript of mine. I think it is
the best thing I have written, all the more as it is quite true, and I
have only created the framework. If one is not too discreet, real life
offers more than the creatures of one’s imagination.
“I do not think it makes a difference in the work if the _donnée_ is
true or not. All is true which is true inwardly, for all has happened,
and the novelist has only to disentangle the thread and show why it has
happened. It is tremendously hard work for body and mind.”
“My Book.” An Egyptian picture-book with drawings from Egypt round the
borders, and facsimile poems of Carmen Sylva (1885).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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