He endeavoured to express himself in the most characteristic and poetical style, as evidence of the vitality of his native Gascon.

He compared it to a widowed mother who dies, and also to a mother who does not die, but continues young, lovely, and alert, even to the last.

Dumon had published his protest on the 28th of August, 1837, and a few days later, on the 2nd of September, Jasmin replied in the following poem:-- "There's not a deeper grief to man Than when his mother, faint with years, Decrepit, old, and weak and wan, Beyond the leech's art appears; When by her couch her son may stay, And press her hand, and watch her eyes, And feel, though she revives to-day, Perchance his hope to-morrow dies.
It is not thus, believe me, sir, With this enchantress--she will call Our second mother: Frenchmen err, Who, cent'ries since, proclaimed her fall! Our mother-tongue--all melody-- While music lives can never die.
Yes! she still lives, her words still ring; Her children yet her carols sing; And thousand years may roll away Before her magic notes decay.
The people love their ancient songs, and will While yet a people, love and keep them still: These lays are as their mother; they recall Fond thoughts of mother, sister, friends, and all The many little things that please the heart, The dreams, the hopes, from which we cannot part.
These songs are as sweet waters, where we find Health in the sparkling wave that nerves the mind.
In ev'ry home, at ev'ry cottage door, By ev'ry fireside, when our toil is o'er, These songs are round us--near our cradles sigh, And to the grave attend us when we die.
Oh, think, cold critics! 'twill be late and long, Ere time shall sweep away this flood of song! There are who bid this music sound no more, And you can hear them, nor defend--deplore! You, who were born where its first daisies grew, Have fed upon its honey, sipp'd its dew, Slept in its arms, and wakened to its kiss, Danced to its sounds, and warbled to its tone-- You can forsake it in an hour like this! Yes, weary of its age, renounce--disown-- And blame one minstrel who is true--alone!"{1} This is but a paraphrase of Jasmin's poem, which, as we have already said, cannot be verbally translated into any other language.

Even the last editor of Jasmin's poems--Boyer d'Agen--does not translate them into French poetry, but into French prose.

Much of the aroma of poetry evaporates in converting poetical thoughts from one language into another.
Jasmin, in one part of his poem, compares the ancient patois to one of the grand old elms in the Promenade de Gravier, which, having in a storm had some of its branches torn away, was ordered by the local authorities to be rooted up.