After the Franco-Prussian War, which was a great strain upon the physical and spiritual endurance of the poet, Sully-Prudhomme wrote _Impressions_ that awakened political discussion and revealed his pervasive idealism. _Essays upon the Fine Arts_, _The Art of Versification_ and _Le testament poétique_ were expressions of his poetic studies and theories. On the other hand, _Que sais-je?_ which appeared in 1895 was another index to his scientific inquiries into natural science, philosophy, and metaphysics. A commentator upon these queries, well entitled _What Do I Know?_, has said that his last words might be summarized as “peut-être.” Doubts, yet never bitterness of despair, characterize his speculative poetry. Four years after he received the Nobel prize and two years before his death, at the age of sixty-six, he wrote _La vraie religion selon Pascal_, a last record of his profound search for spiritual values in life and literature. Several of the shorter poems by Sully-Prudhomme, chosen from the five volumes of his verse, have been translated into English by such poets as Arthur O’Shaughnessy, E. and R. Prothero, and Dorothy Frances Guiney. These metrical interpretations are found in anthologies of French poetry by H. Carrington and Albert Boni. The latter has included a few of the most representative and musical of Sully-Prudhomme’s poems in _The Modern Book of French Verse_. A wistful love poem is here entitled “A Supplication,” translated by I. O. L.:[13] Oh! did you know how the tears apace Fall by a lonely heart, alas! I think that before my dwelling place Sometimes you did pass. And did you know of the hopes that arise In wearied soul from a pure young glance, Maybe to my window you’d lift your eyes As if by chance.... * * * * * But if you knew of the love that enwraps My soul for you, and holds it fast, Quite simple over my threshold, perhaps, You’d step at last. More typical of this scientist-poet is the verse-picture entitled “The Appointment,” translated by Arthur O’Shaughnessy.[14] ’Tis late; the astronomer in his lonely height, Exploring all the dark, descries afar Orbs that like distant isles of splendor are, And mornings whitening in the infinite. Like winnowed grain the worlds go by in flight, Or swarm in glistening spaces nebular; He summons one disheveled wandering star,-- Return ten centuries hence on such a night. The star will come. It dare not by one hour Cheat Science, or falsify her calculation; Men will have passed, but watchful in the tower Man shall remain in sleepless contemplation; And should all men have perished there in turn, Truth in their place would watch that star’s return.