Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 55.djvu/399

Rh In poetry of more pretentious style, and in improvisations also, each stanza contains a key-word or line which becomes the text, so to speak, of the next. As artificial and unnatural as this may seem, it is, nevertheless, an ingenious way of keeping the thread of one's discourse when other inspiration fails. The best results of Malay verse come from it. A beautiful example may be cited from the Asiatic Journal of 1825:

 Cold is the wind, the rain falls fast; I linger, though the hour is past. Why come you not? Whence this delay? Have I offended, say?

My heart is sad and sinking too; O break it not—it loves but you! Come, then, and end this long delay; Why keep you thus away?

The wind is cold, fast falls the rain, Yet weeping, chiding, I remain. You come not still, you still delay— O wherefore can you stay?

Adalbert von Chamisso, the German poet, who has another claim to fame, however—his scientific career was charmingly described in the Popular Science Monthly for December, 1890—includes in his published poems three songs, In Malay Form, for which he doubtless obtained inspiration during his voyage to the far East in 1815 to 1818. They are so faithful in spirit and style to their source that we can not forbear quoting one in translation. It is called The Basketmaker, and is in the form of a dialogue, each stanza having the usual "key" line:

 The shower's gone by, the sun shines bright. The weather vanes now gayly swing; We maidens here in merry plight Quick beg of you a song to sing.

The weather vanes now gayly swing, Through fire-red clouds the sun shines fair; Right gay and quick to you I'll sing A song that's full of dread despair.

Through fire-red clouds the sun shines fair, A bird sings sweet and lures the bride; Pray what concerns your dread despair To maidens fair and dear beside?

A bird sings sweet and lures the bride, A net for fishes there is spread; A maiden fair and dear beside, A sprightly maiden would I wed.