INTRODUCTION.
Forth comes the sylvan song, the woodland’s child!
And had I not been born ’neath forest trees,
I never should have heard such songs as these.
I learned them from the birds, that sang aloft;
And from the greenwood’s murmurs sweet and soft
Up sprang with them the heart within my breast!
Song and the forest lull my soul to rest.”
Carmen Sylva’s volume of beautiful poetry, entitled “My Rest,” begins with the above poem. It explains the poetic reasons for the choice of the name under which the royal writer conceals herself. The title, “My Rest,” has to do with her early surroundings, for it means Monrepos, the beautiful country seat of the Princess of Wied, which is situated on a slope of the Westerwald, and in which the royal lady spent her early years. In these three words, Monrepos, Carmen, and Sylva, lie a part of the life, lie the germ and the motive-power of the poetic genius of Princess Elizabeth of Wied.
On making the acquaintance of so gifted a person as the Queen of Roumania, one involuntarily inquires what antecedents and what experiences have helped to form so distinguished a character. What was the home where she received her first impressions? What were her ancestors? What qualities of heart and mind, what talents has she inherited from them? All that we do and are depends on the impressions which we unconsciously receive. Consequently we can only fully comprehend the development of a character if we have learnt to know the circumstances and the early surroundings amidst which its spiritual and intellectual powers were gradually formed.