The following post is not really new, rather a translation of the one that preceded it: https://www.lookingtoleeward.se/2021/12/17/poeme-de-la-semaine-17-le-long-du-quai-par-sully-prudhomme/
Along the Quay
Along the quay, the ships that dock
and billow to the silent tide,
pay no heed to the bleary eyed
babes their anxious mothers rock.
And yet the day to bid farewell
must come: mothers are made to cry
and daring children meant to try
the charms that on horizons dwell.
And on that day, when they leave shore
and fly the slowly waning port,
they’ll feel their heavy keels fraught
with all the souls those cradles bore.
Notwithstanding it’s status as the most prestigious literary prize in the world, most of the winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature are or will be unknown to the modern reader. If you do not believe me, look at the list of winners and tell me how many of them you have read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates_in_Literature
In general, this fact is perfectly understandable, for the great majority of writers do not leave works of permanent quality. Nevertheless, there are certain winners who have been unjustly forgotten for a reason much harder to determine.
Alas, poor Sully Prudhomme, the first laureate of the prize in literature! His election was very poorly received at the time, at least outside of France. In Sweden, August Strindberg went as far as commenting that Prudhomme was hardly even a poet.
Is that not too harsh? One can argue in favour of Tolstoy, Ibsen or Hardy and say that they were the better candidates and artists, but to claim that Prudhomme was a bad poet? Never.
I will give these critics of Prudhomme the benefit of the doubt by supposing that they were influenced by the perceived injustice in the decision of the Swedish Academy. Today I hope that these emotions have calmed down and that we can honestly reevaluate his work, for he was a poet of elegance and sensiblity and even if his poems do not adhere to the style of the modern era, one can find in them a quality of permanence and freshness that lasts into our days.
Form
In translation, three quatrains in rhymed iambic tetrameter.
Analysis
The poem is set in a port town. The poet observes ships docked along the quay. Their movement in the undudlation of the sea is paralleled by the hands of women dandling their infants:
Along the quay, the ships that dock
and billow to the silent tide,
pay no heed to the bleary eyed
babes their anxious mothers rock.
The poet foresees the day when these children will leave the nest. Being a port town, many of them are destined to a life at sea:
And yet the day to bid farewell
must come: mothers are made to cry
and daring children meant to try
the charms that on horizons dwell.
And only on that day will those ships ships finally know what has become of those children:
And on that day, when they leave shore
and fly the slowly waning port,
they’ll feel their heavy keels fraught
with all the souls those cradles bore.