The Arcades Project - Operi

Steam-Last word of him who died on the CrossP' Maxime Du Camp? Les
Chants modernes (Paris, 1855), p. 260 ["La Vapeur"].
[Y5,4]
In La Vapeur," part 3, Du Camp celebrates steam, chloroform, electricity, gas,
photography. Maxime Du Camp, Les Chants modemes (Paris, 1855), pp. 265-
272. " La Faulx" celebrates the reaper. [Y5,5]
The first two stanzas, and the fourth, from "La Bobine" :
Neal' the cascading river­
Each of its breakwaters
A swirling relay station-
In the midst of green meadows,
And the flowering alfalfa,
They have raised up my palace-
My palace of a thousand windows,
My palace of rustic vines
Which climb to the rooftops,
My palace where, without repose,
The nimble wheel booms out its song,
The wheel of rackety voice!
Like those vigilant elves of Norway
Who waltz across the snows
To escape the sprite that stalks them,
I turn, I turn, I turn!
Through the hours of day, nevel' resting,
I turn, and I turn through the night!
Maxime Du Camp, Les Chants modernes (Paris, 1855), pp. 285-286. [Y5,6]
'La Locomotive": "One day I shall be named a saint." Maxime Du Camp, Les
Chants modernes (Paris, 1855), p. 301. This poem, like others, from the cycle
"'Chants de la matiere." [Y5,7]
{,The press, that immense and sacred locomotive of progress." Victor Hugo,
speech at the banquet of September 16, 1862, organized by the publishers of L.es
Miserables in Brussels, Cited in Georges Batault, Le Pontife de la demagogie:
Victor Hugo (Paris, 1934), p. 131. [Y5,8]
It is a century that does us honor,
The century of inventions;
Unfortunately, it is also
The century of revolutions,
Clairville and Jules Cordier? Le Palais de Cristal, on Les Pu,risiens a
Londres, Theatre de la Porte Saint-Martin, May 26, 1851 (Paris, 1851), p. 31.
[Y5a,1]