He was very poor, compared with Victor Hugo; and he had to make his living by writing for newspapers, so that he had no time to become the great poet that nature intended him to be.
However, he did find time to produce one volume of highly finished poetry, which is probably the most perfect verse of the nineteenth century, if not the most perfect verse ever made by a French poet; I mean the "Emaux et Camees." But the little poem which I am going to read to you is not from the "Emaux et Camees." Souffle, bise! Tombe a flots, pluie! Dans mon palais tout noir de suie, Je ris de la pluie et du vent; En attendant que l'hiver fuie, Je reste au coin du feu, revant.
C'est moi qui suis l'esprit de l'atre! Le gaz, de sa langue bleuatre, Leche plus doucement le bois; La fumee en filet d'albatre, Monte et se contourne a ma voix.
La bouilloire rit et babille; La flamme aux pieds d'argent sautille En accompagnant ma chanson; La buche de duvet s'habille; La seve bout dans le tison.
* * * * * Pendant la nuit et la journee Je chante sous la cheminee; Dans mon langage de grillon J'ai, des rebuts de son ainee, Souvent console Cendrillon.
* * * * * Quel plaisir?
Prolonger sa veille, Regarder la flamme vermeille Prenant a deux bras le tison, A tous les bruits preter l'oreille, Entendre vivre la maison.
Tapi dans sa niche bien chaude, Sentir l'hiver qui pleure et rode, Tout bleme, et le nez violet, Tachant de s'introduire en fraude Par quelque fente du volet! This poem is especially picturesque, and is intended to give us the comfortable sensations of a winter night by the fire, and the amusement of watching the wood burn and of hearing the kettle boiling.

You will find that the French has a particular quality of lucid expression; it is full of clearness and colour.
"Blow on, cold wind! pour down, O rain.

I, in my soot-black palace, laugh at both rain and wind; and while waiting for winter to pass I remain in my corner by the fire dreaming.
"It is I that am really the spirit of the hearth! The gaseous flame licks the wood more softly with its bluish tongue when it hears me; and the smoke rises up like an alabaster thread, and curls itself about (or twists) at the sound of my voice.
"The kettle chuckles and chatters; the golden-footed flame leaps, dancing to the accompaniment of my song (or in accompaniment to my song); the great log covers itself with down, the sap boils in the wooden embers ("duvet," meaning "down," refers to the soft fluffy white ash that forms upon the surface of burning wood).
"All night and all day I sing below the chimney.

Often in my cricket-language, I have consoled Cinderella for the snubs of her elder sister.
"Ah, what pleasure to sit up at night, and watch the crimson flames embracing the wood (or hugging the wood) with both arms at once, and to listen to all the sounds and to hear the life of the house! "Nestling in one's good warm nook, how pleasant to hear Winter, who weeps and prowls round about the house outside, all wan and blue-nosed with cold, trying to smuggle itself inside some chink in the shutter!" Of course this does not give us much about the insect itself, which remains invisible in the poem, just as it really remains invisible in the house where the voice is heard.

Rather does the poem express the feelings of the person who hears the cricket.
When we come to the subject of grasshoppers, I think that the French poets have done much better than the English.