Poetry of Revolution: Romanticism and National Projects

between one poet and his muse. The poet addresses this “ville de poète où la brise est si douce!”

that he associates with many joyful memories from the past. He recalls the beauty of the city’s

bay in northwestern Haiti and the time he spent there when he was young and in love. Whereas

nature and romance originally defined his poetry, Durand’s refrain contrasts this poetic past with

the muteness of the present:

Faut-il que ce beau temps qui me rendait poète

Ne soit plus, ô cité! qu’un lointain souvenir,

Et qu’aujourd’hui, ma lyre à ce point soit muette,

Qu’avant de commencer mes vers doivent finir! (9-12)

This transition from personal to political themes and from lyric to epic modes of poetry

initially leads to silence. In another phase of the poem, poetry undergoes a transition as

inspiration extends to include the nation’s history:

Adieu, beau pont de pierre et tes eaux si limpides!

Adieu! mon luth, pour vous, n’a plus que des soupirs.

Je chante maintenant la gloire de nos pères

Le joug de l’étranger par leurs fers abattu. (23-26)

In time, however, this topic is also abandoned. The poet and his muse decide to leave

undisturbed the events of Haiti’s revolution to return once again to nature, youth, and love. Like

“La voix de la patrie,” the poem is composed of varying verse, breaks in stanzas, and vacillating

sentiments of both the poet and his muse. Changes in temporality, as shown by verb tenses and

historical references, also allows the poet to move in and out of the recent personal past, the

distant colonial past, and the present. One of the last movements of the poem brings the solemn

recognition that both personal happiness and national victories belong to another time. The

poet, returning to Romanticism’s notion of lyric poetry, believes poetry must now reflect and

even be enriched by such grief:

--Nul n’est poète sans un pleur.

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