And this is the way he has gone without faltering or ever turning
aside to become identified with this school or that. It is this simple
faith which has given to Francis Jammes his distinction and uniqueness
among the poets of contemporary France, and won for him the admiration
of all classes. There is probably no other French poet who can evoke
so perfectly the spirit of the landscape of rural France. He delights
to commune with the wild flowers, the crystal spring, and the friendly
fire. Through his eyes we see the country of the singing harvest where
the poplars sway beside the ditches and the fall of the looms of the
weavers fills the silence. The poet apprehends in things a soul which
others cannot perceive.

His gift of sympathy with the poor and the simple is infinite. He
is full of pity and tenderness and enfolds in his heart and in his
poetry, saint and sinner, man and beast, all that which is animate
and inanimate. He is passionately religious with a profound and humble
faith, but it has nothing in common with the sumptuous and decorative
neo-catholicism of men like Huysmans or Paul Claudel. Rather one must
seek his origins in the child-like faith of Saint Francis of Assisi
and the lyrical metaphysics of Pascal.

Those of a higher sophistication and a greater worldliness may smile
at the artlessness, and, if one will, naivété of a man like Jammes. It
is true that his art is limited, and that if one reads too much at one
time there is a note of monotony and a certain paucity of phrase, but
who is the writer of whom this is not equally true? The quality of
beauty, sincerity, and a large serenity are in his work, and how
grateful are these permanencies amid the shrilling noises of the
countless conflicting creeds and dogmas, and amid the poses and
vanities which so fill the world of contemporary literature and art!