полная версия
Виктор Мари Гюго
Poems
AFTER THE COUP D'ÊTAT
("Devant les trahisons.")
{Bk. VII, xvi., Jersey, Dec. 2, 1852.}
Before foul treachery and heads hung down,
I'll fold my arms, indignant but serene.
Oh! faith in fallen things – be thou my crown,
My force, my joy, my prop on which I lean:
Yes, whilst he's there, or struggle some or fall,
O France, dear France, for whom I weep in vain.
Tomb of my sires, nest of my loves – my all,
I ne'er shall see thee with these eyes again.
I shall not see thy sad, sad sounding shore,
France, save my duty, I shall all forget;
Amongst the true and tried, I'll tug my oar,
And rest proscribed to brand the fawning set.
O bitter exile, hard, without a term,
Thee I accept, nor seek nor care to know
Who have down-truckled 'mid the men deemed firm,
And who have fled that should have fought the foe.
If true a thousand stand, with them I stand;
A hundred? 'tis enough: we'll Sylla brave;
Ten? put my name down foremost in the band;
One? – well, alone – until I find my grave.
TORU DUTT.
PATRIA.{1}
("Là-haut, qui sourit.")
{Bk. VII. vii., September, 1853.}
Who smiles there? Is it
A stray spirit,
Or woman fair?
Sombre yet soft the brow!
Bow, nations, bow;
O soul in air,
Speak – what art thou?
In grief the fair face seems —
What means those sudden gleams?
Our antique pride from dreams
Starts up, and beams
Its conquering glance, —
To make our sad hearts dance,
And wake in woods hushed long
The wild bird's song.
Angel of Day!
Our Hope, Love, Stay,
Thy countenance
Lights land and sea
Eternally,
Thy name is France
Or Verity.
Fair angel in thy glass
When vile things move or pass,
Clouds in the skies amass;
Terrible, alas!
Thy stern commands are then:
"Form your battalions, men,
The flag display!"
And all obey.
Angel of might
Sent kings to smite,
The words in dark skies glance,
"Mené, Mené," hiss
Bolts that never miss!
Thy name is France,
Or Nemesis.
As halcyons in May,
O nations, in his ray
Float and bask for aye,
Nor know decay!
One arm upraised to heaven
Seals the past forgiven;
One holds a sword
To quell hell's horde,
Angel of God!
Thy wings stretch broad
As heaven's expanse!
To shield and free
Humanity!
Thy name is France,
Or Liberty!
{Footnote 1: Written to music by Beethoven.}
THE UNIVERSAL REPUBLIC
("Temps futurs.")
{Part "Lux," Jersey, Dec. 16-20, 1853.}
O vision of the coming time!
When man has 'scaped the trackless slime
And reached the desert spring;
When sands are crossed, the sward invites
The worn to rest 'mid rare delights
And gratefully to sing.
E'en now the eye that's levelled high,
Though dimly, can the hope espy
So solid soon, one day;
For every chain must then be broke,
And hatred none will dare evoke,
And June shall scatter May.
E'en now amid our misery
The germ of Union many see,
And through the hedge of thorn,
Like to a bee that dawn awakes,
On, Progress strides o'er shattered stakes,
With solemn, scathing scorn.
Behold the blackness shrink, and flee!
Behold the world rise up so free
Of coroneted things!
Whilst o'er the distant youthful States,
Like Amazonian bosom-plates,
Spread Freedom's shielding wings.
Ye, liberated lands, we hail!
Your sails are whole despite the gale!
Your masts are firm, and will not fail —
The triumph follows pain!
Hear forges roar! the hammer clanks —
It beats the time to nations' thanks —
At last, a peaceful strain!
'Tis rust, not gore, that gnaws the guns,
And shattered shells are but the runs
Where warring insects cope;
And all the headsman's racks and blades
And pincers, tools of tyrants' aids,
Are buried with the rope.
Upon the sky-line glows i' the dark
The Sun that now is but a spark;
But soon will be unfurled —
The glorious banner of us all,
The flag that rises ne'er to fall,
Republic of the World!
LES CONTEMPLATIONS. – 1830-56.
THE VALE TO YOU, TO ME THE HEIGHTS
A FABLE
{Bk. III. vi., October, 1846.}
A lion camped beside a spring, where came the Bird
Of Jove to drink:
When, haply, sought two kings, without their courtier herd,
The moistened brink,
Beneath the palm —they always tempt pugnacious hands —
Both travel-sore;
But quickly, on the recognition, out flew brands
Straight to each core;
As dying breaths commingle, o'er them rose the call
Of Eagle shrill:
"Yon crownèd couple, who supposed the world too small,
Now one grave fill!
Chiefs blinded by your rage! each bleachèd sapless bone
Becomes a pipe
Through which siroccos whistle, trodden 'mong the stone
By quail and snipe.
Folly's liege-men, what boots such murd'rous raid,
And mortal feud?
I, Eagle, dwell as friend with Leo – none afraid —
In solitude:
At the same pool we bathe and quaff in placid mood.
Kings, he and I;
For I to him leave prairie, desert sands and wood,
And he to me the sky."
H.L.W.
CHILDHOOD
("L'enfant chantait.")
{Bk. I. xxiii., Paris, January, 1835.}
The small child sang; the mother, outstretched on the low bed,
With anguish moaned, – fair Form pain should possess not long;
For, ever nigher, Death hovered around her head:
I hearkened there this moan, and heard even there that song.
The child was but five years, and, close to the lattice, aye
Made a sweet noise with games and with his laughter bright;
And the wan mother, aside this being the livelong day
Carolling joyously, coughed hoarsely all the night.
The mother went to sleep 'mong them that sleep alway;
And the blithe little lad began anew to sing…
Sorrow is like a fruit: God doth not therewith weigh
Earthward the branch strong yet but for the blossoming.
NELSON R. TYERMAN.
SATIRE ON THE EARTH
("Une terre au flanc maigre.")
{Bk. III. xi., October, 1840.}
A clod with rugged, meagre, rust-stained, weather-worried face,
Where care-filled creatures tug and delve to keep a worthless race;
And glean, begrudgedly, by all their unremitting toil,
Sour, scanty bread and fevered water from the ungrateful soil;
Made harder by their gloom than flints that gash their harried hands,
And harder in the things they call their hearts than wolfish bands,
Perpetuating faults, inventing crimes for paltry ends,
And yet, perversest beings! hating Death, their best of friends!
Pride in the powerful no more, no less than in the poor;
Hatred in both their bosoms; love in one, or, wondrous! two!
Fog in the valleys; on the mountains snowfields, ever new,
That only melt to send down waters for the liquid hell,
In which, their strongest sons and fairest daughters vilely fell!
No marvel, Justice, Modesty dwell far apart and high,
Where they can feebly hear, and, rarer, answer victims' cry.
At both extremes, unflinching frost, the centre scorching hot;
Land storms that strip the orchards nude, leave beaten grain to rot;
Oceans that rise with sudden force to wash the bloody land,
Where War, amid sob-drowning cheers, claps weapons in each hand.
And this to those who, luckily, abide afar —
This is, ha! ha! a star!
HOW BUTTERFLIES ARE BORN
("Comme le matin rit sur les roses.")
{Bk. I. xii.}
The dawn is smiling on the dew that covers
The tearful roses – lo, the little lovers —
That kiss the buds and all the flutterings
In jasmine bloom, and privet, of white wings
That go and come, and fly, and peep, and hide
With muffled music, murmured far and wide!
Ah, Springtime, when we think of all the lays
That dreamy lovers send to dreamy Mays,
Of the proud hearts within a billet bound,
Of all the soft silk paper that men wound,
The messages of love that mortals write,
Filled with intoxication of delight,
Written in April, and before the Maytime
Shredded and flown, playthings for the winds' playtime.
We dream that all white butterflies above,
Who seek through clouds or waters souls to love,
And leave their lady mistress to despair,
To flirt with flowers, as tender and more fair,
Are but torn love-letters, that through the skies
Flutter, and float, and change to Butterflies.
A. LANG.
HAVE YOU NOTHING TO SAY FOR YOURSELF?
("Si vous n'avez rien à me dire.")
{Bk. II. iv., May, 18 – .}
Speak, if you love me, gentle maiden!
Or haunt no more my lone retreat.
If not for me thy heart be laden,
Why trouble mine with smiles so sweet?
Ah! tell me why so mute, fair maiden,
Whene'er as thus so oft we meet?
If not for me thy heart be, Aideen,
Why trouble mine with smiles so sweet?
Why, when my hand unconscious pressing,
Still keep untold the maiden dream?
In fancy thou art thus caressing
The while we wander by the stream.
If thou art pained when I am near thee,
Why in my path so often stray?
For in my heart I love yet fear thee,
And fain would fly, yet fondly stay.
C.H. KENNY.
INSCRIPTION FOR A CRUCIFIX.{1}
("Vous qui pleurez, venez à ce Dieu.")
{Bk. III. iv., March, 1842.}
Ye weepers, the Mourner o'er mourners behold!
Ye wounded, come hither – the Healer enfold!
Ye gloomy ones, brighten 'neath smiles quelling care —
Or pass – for this Comfort is found ev'rywhere.
{Footnote 1: Music by Gounod.}
DEATH, IN LIFE
("Ceux-ci partent.")
{Bk. III. v., February, 1843.}
We pass – these sleep
Beneath the shade where deep-leaved boughs
Bend o'er the furrows the Great Reaper ploughs,
And gentle summer winds in many sweep
Whirl in eddying waves
The dead leaves o'er the graves.
And the living sigh:
Forgotten ones, so soon your memories die.
Ye never more may list the wild bird's song,
Or mingle in the crowded city-throng.
Ye must ever dwell in gloom,
'Mid the silence of the tomb.
And the dead reply:
God giveth us His life. Ye die,
Your barren lives are tilled with tears,
For glory, ye are clad with fears.
Oh, living ones! oh, earthly shades!
We live; your beauty clouds and fades.
THE DYING CHILD TO ITS MOTHER
("Oh! vous aurez trop dit.")
{Bk. III. xiv., April, 1843.}
Ah, you said too often to your angel
There are other angels in the sky —
There, where nothing changes, nothing suffers,
Sweet it were to enter in on high.
To that dome on marvellous pilasters,
To that tent roofed o'er with colored bars,
That blue garden full of stars like lilies,
And of lilies beautiful as stars.
And you said it was a place most joyous,
All our poor imaginings above,
With the wingèd cherubim for playmates,
And the good God evermore to love.
Sweet it were to dwell there in all seasons,
Like a taper burning day and night,
Near to the child Jesus and the Virgin,
In that home so beautiful and bright.
But you should have told him, hapless mother,
Told your child so frail and gentle too,
That you were all his in life's beginning,
But that also he belonged to you.
For the mother watches o'er the infant,
He must rise up in her latter days,
She will need the man that was her baby
To stand by her when her strength decays.
Ah, you did not tell enough your darling
That God made us in this lower life,
Woman for the man, and man for woman,
In our pains, our pleasures and our strife.
So that one sad day, O loss, O sorrow!
The sweet creature left you all alone;
'Twas your own hand hung the cage door open,
Mother, and your pretty bird is flown.
BP. ALEXANDER.
EPITAPH
("Il vivait, il jouait.")
{Bk. III. xv., May, 1843.}
He lived and ever played, the tender smiling thing.
What need, O Earth, to have plucked this flower from blossoming?
Hadst thou not then the birds with rainbow-colors bright,
The stars and the great woods, the wan wave, the blue sky?
What need to have rapt this child from her thou hadst placed him by —
Beneath those other flowers to have hid this flower from sight?
Because of this one child thou hast no more of might,
O star-girt Earth, his death yields thee not higher delight!
But, ah! the mother's heart with woe for ever wild,
This heart whose sovran bliss brought forth so bitter birth —
This world as vast as thou, even thou, O sorrowless Earth,
Is desolate and void because of this one child!
NELSON K. TYERMAN.
ST. JOHN
("Un jour, le morne esprit.")
{Bk. VI. vii., Jersey, September, 1855.}
One day, the sombre soul, the Prophet most sublime
At Patmos who aye dreamed,
And tremblingly perused, without the vast of Time,
Words that with hell-fire gleamed,
Said to his eagle: "Bird, spread wings for loftiest flight —
Needs must I see His Face!"
The eagle soared. At length, far beyond day and night,
Lo! the all-sacred Place!
And John beheld the Way whereof no angel knows
The name, nor there hath trod;
And, lo! the Place fulfilled with shadow that aye glows
Because of very God.
NELSON R. TYERMAN.
THE POET'S SIMPLE FAITH
You say, "Where goest thou?" I cannot tell,
And still go on. If but the way be straight,
It cannot go amiss! before me lies
Dawn and the Day; the Night behind me; that
Suffices me; I break the bounds; I see,
And nothing more; believe, and nothing less.
My future is not one of my concerns.
PROF. E. DOWDEN.I AM CONTENT.
("J'habite l'ombre.")
{1855.}
True; I dwell lone,
Upon sea-beaten cape,
Mere raft of stone;
Whence all escape
Save one who shrinks not from the gloom,
And will not take the coward's leap i' the tomb.
My bedroom rocks
With breezes; quakes in storms,
When dangling locks
Of seaweed mock the forms
Of straggling clouds that trail o'erhead
Like tresses from disrupted coffin-lead.
Upon the sky
Crape palls are often nailed
With stars. Mine eye
Has scared the gull that sailed
To blacker depths with shrillest scream,
Still fainter, till like voices in a dream.
My days become
More plaintive, wan, and pale,
While o'er the foam
I see, borne by the gale,
Infinity! in kindness sent —
To find me ever saying: "I'm content!"
LA LÉGENDE DES SIÈCLES.
CAIN
("Lorsque avec ses enfants Cain se fût enfui.")
{Bk. II}
Then, with his children, clothed in skins of brutes,
Dishevelled, livid, rushing through the storm,
Cain fled before Jehovah. As night fell
The dark man reached a mount in a great plain,
And his tired wife and his sons, out of breath,
Said: "Let us lie down on the earth and sleep."
Cain, sleeping not, dreamed at the mountain foot.
Raising his head, in that funereal heaven
He saw an eye, a great eye, in the night
Open, and staring at him in the gloom.
"I am too near," he said, and tremblingly woke up
His sleeping sons again, and his tired wife,
And fled through space and darkness. Thirty days
He went, and thirty nights, nor looked behind;
Pale, silent, watchful, shaking at each sound;
No rest, no sleep, till he attained the strand
Where the sea washes that which since was Asshur.
"Here pause," he said, "for this place is secure;
Here may we rest, for this is the world's end."
And he sat down; when, lo! in the sad sky,
The selfsame Eye on the horizon's verge,
And the wretch shook as in an ague fit.
"Hide me!" he cried; and all his watchful sons,
Their finger on their lip, stared at their sire.
Cain said to Jabal (father of them that dwell
In tents): "Spread here the curtain of thy tent,"
And they spread wide the floating canvas roof,
And made it fast and fixed it down with lead.
"You see naught now," said Zillah then, fair child
The daughter of his eldest, sweet as day.
But Cain replied, "That Eye – I see it still."
And Jubal cried (the father of all those
That handle harp and organ): "I will build
A sanctuary;" and he made a wall of bronze,
And set his sire behind it. But Cain moaned,
"That Eye is glaring at me ever." Henoch cried:
"Then must we make a circle vast of towers,
So terrible that nothing dare draw near;
Build we a city with a citadel;
Build we a city high and close it fast."
Then Tubal Cain (instructor of all them
That work in brass and iron) built a tower —
Enormous, superhuman. While he wrought,
His fiery brothers from the plain around
Hunted the sons of Enoch and of Seth;
They plucked the eyes out of whoever passed,
And hurled at even arrows to the stars.
They set strong granite for the canvas wall,
And every block was clamped with iron chains.
It seemed a city made for hell. Its towers,
With their huge masses made night in the land.
The walls were thick as mountains. On the door
They graved: "Let not God enter here." This done,
And having finished to cement and build
In a stone tower, they set him in the midst.
To him, still dark and haggard, "Oh, my sire,
Is the Eye gone?" quoth Zillah tremblingly.
But Cain replied: "Nay, it is even there."
Then added: "I will live beneath the earth,
As a lone man within his sepulchre.
I will see nothing; will be seen of none."
They digged a trench, and Cain said: "'Tis enow,"
As he went down alone into the vault;
But when he sat, so ghost-like, in his chair,
And they had closed the dungeon o'er his head,
The Eye was in the tomb and fixed on Cain.
Dublin University Magazine
BOAZ ASLEEP
("Booz s'était couché.")
{Bk. II. vi.}
At work within his barn since very early,
Fairly tired out with toiling all the day,
Upon the small bed where he always lay
Boaz was sleeping by his sacks of barley.
Barley and wheat-fields he possessed, and well,
Though rich, loved justice; wherefore all the flood
That turned his mill-wheels was unstained with mud
And in his smithy blazed no fire of hell.
His beard was silver, as in April all
A stream may be; he did not grudge a stook.
When the poor gleaner passed, with kindly look,
Quoth he, "Of purpose let some handfuls fall."
He walked his way of life straight on and plain,
With justice clothed, like linen white and clean,
And ever rustling towards the poor, I ween,
Like public fountains ran his sacks of grain.
Good master, faithful friend, in his estate
Frugal yet generous, beyond the youth
He won regard of woman, for in sooth
The young man may be fair – the old man's great.
Life's primal source, unchangeable and bright,
The old man entereth, the day eterne;
And in the young man's eye a flame may burn,
But in the old man's eye one seeth light.
As Jacob slept, or Judith, so full deep
Slept Boaz 'neath the leaves. Now it betided,
Heaven's gate being partly open, that there glided
A fair dream forth, and hovered o'er his sleep.
And in his dream to heaven, the blue and broad,
Right from his loins an oak tree grew amain.
His race ran up it far, like a long chain;
Below it sung a king, above it died a God.
Whereupon Boaz murmured in his heart,
"The number of my years is past fourscore:
How may this be? I have not any more,
Or son, or wife; yea, she who had her part.
"In this my couch, O Lord! is now in Thine;
And she, half living, I half dead within,
Our beings still commingle and are twin,
It cannot be that I should found a line!
"Youth hath triumphal mornings; its days bound
From night, as from a victory. But such
A trembling as the birch-tree's to the touch
Of winter is an eld, and evening closes round.
"I bow myself to death, as lone to meet
The water bow their fronts athirst." He said.
The cedar feeleth not the rose's head,
Nor he the woman's presence at his feet!
For while he slept, the Moabitess Ruth
Lay at his feet, expectant of his waking.
He knowing not what sweet guile she was making;
She knowing not what God would have in sooth.
Asphodel scents did Gilgal's breezes bring —
Through nuptial shadows, questionless, full fast
The angels sped, for momently there passed
A something blue which seemed to be a wing.
Silent was all in Jezreel and Ur —
The stars were glittering in the heaven's dusk meadows.
Far west among those flowers of the shadows.
The thin clear crescent lustrous over her,
Made Ruth raise question, looking through the bars
Of heaven, with eyes half-oped, what God, what comer
Unto the harvest of the eternal summer,
Had flung his golden hook down on the field of stars.
BP. ALEXANDER.
