De le voir qui s’en va!

  At Villequier

  Now that the monuments of Paris and its streets,

  Its fog and its buildings, are far from my eyes;

  And now that I am under the branches of trees,

  And can dream of the landscape’s beauty, and the sky’s;

  Now that, victorious and pale, I feel my grief

  About to depart,

  And I sense the peace and the vastness of nature

  Entering my heart;

  Now that I am able, sitting on this shore

  And moved by this dazzling but calm horizon,

  To examine the truths inside me once more

  And look at the flowers, the grass, and the sun;

  Now that, my God! I feel this dark quiet

  Knowing I can never

  See again the stone in the shadow of which

  She will sleep forever;

  Now that I am softened by these divine scenes,

  Plains, rocks, valleys, woods, streams – blue and silvery,

  And sensing my smallness and seeing your works

  I feel my mind healing in this immensity;

  I come to you, oh Lord, in whom I must believe,

  Carrying a token

  Of your glory in all the pieces of my heart

  You have torn and broken;

  I come to you, Lord! confessing that you

  Are good, mild, gentle, merciful, indulgent,

  And I admit that you alone know what you do,

  And we are all rushes that shake in the wind;

  I grant that the tomb sealing death from the air

  Opens the firmament,

  And what we consider down here as the end

  Is the beginning there;

  I admit, on my knees, it is you I should trust,

  That you alone possess the real, the infinite;

  I admit it was good, I admit it was just

  That my heart bled because you wanted it!

  I no longer resist anything that occurs

  Because of your will, to me.

  We roll from grief to grief, and drift from shore to shore

  Toward your eternity.

  We never see more than one side of things;

  The other is sunk in dark mysteries.

  We submit to the yoke without knowing the cause

  And everything is brief and futile, and flees.

  You always make solitude follow our steps

  No matter where we go.

  You never wanted us to have certitude

  Or joy here below!

  Whatever we have is soon taken away.

  Nothing is given us forever from above

  Such that we can make a dwelling here and say:

  ‘This is my home, and my land, and my love.’

  We won’t see for long whatever we see

  And time will not relent.

  Since that’s how things are and how they must be;

  I consent, God, I consent!

  The world is dark, Lord, and your harmony

  Is composed as much of tears as it is of song.

  Man is an atom in this infinity

  Where the good men ascend and the wicked ones fall.

  I know you have many other things to do

  Besides pitying us,

  And that a dead child, a mother’s distress

  Isn’t much to you.

  I know that fruit falls when winds shake the bough,

  That birds lose their feathers and flowers their scent,

  That nature’s a vast wheel that doesn’t move

  Without crushing some one in its descent;

  That the months and the days, ocean waves, teary eyes,

  Pass by here below,

  That the grass has to grow and children die:

  I know, my God, I know!

  Far beyond the sphere of clouds, in your heaven,

  In the depths of this dormant and slumbering blue,

  Perhaps you effect unimaginable things

  Which our grief, like an element, enters into.

  Perhaps there is something you plan that depends

  On beings as sweet as these

  That have gone away, carried off by the winds

  Of sinister events.

  Our fates are subject to the most stringent laws

  Which nothing can disturb and nothing make mild.

  Reversals aren’t allowed, or clemencies that would

  Upset the balance, tranquil spirit, uncaused cause!

  I implore you, my God, to look at my soul

  As well as consider how,

  Humbly, like a child, and gently, like a woman,

  I come to praise you now.

  Consider furthermore how I have, since the dawn,

  Worked, wresded, thought, walked, and struggled to explain

  All of creation to men who weren’t aware,

  Bringing things to light and goodness in your name;

  How, confronting hate and anger, I’ve fulfilled

  My duty here below;

  That I could not have known that this would happen,

  That I could not have known

  That you would allow your triumphant arm

  To fall on a head that did not expect the wound,

  Or that you, who see how little joy I have,

  Would take my child away from me so soon!

  That I might have blasphemed, bent under the blow,

  Or wallowed in self-pity,

  Throwing curses at you like a child who throws

  A stone into the sea!

  Consider, my God, that we doubt when we suffer,

  That eyes can go blind from crying in despair,

  That anyone who sinks into griefs blackest pit,

  Can’t pray because he can’t see you from there;

  That it’s not possible for those who can’t see

  Past their affliction

  To maintain, in their souls, that dark serenity

  Of the stars and the sun!

  Now I, who once was as weak as a mother,

  Kneel at your heaven to bless you, not curse:

  For I feel illumined in my bitter sorrow

  By a better look cast over your universe.

  Oh Lord, only those whose minds are abused

  Would murmur, or deny.

  I don’t curse you now; I no longer accuse;

  But please, Lord, let me cry!

  Alas! Allow the tears to flow from my eyes

  Since you have made it so we can’t keep them clear.

  Let me lean over the cold, senseless stone

  And say to my child, ‘Can you feel that I’m here?’

  Let me talk to her, bent over her remains

  In night’s tranquillity,

  As if, awake or stirring in her endless night,

  She were listening to me!

  Turning an envious eye to the past,

  Though nothing can console me, come what may,

  I’m always looking at that moment of my life

  When I saw her open her wings and fly away!

  And I will see this moment until the day I die,

  The moment (useless remorse!)

  When I cried, ‘The girl I had a minute ago,

  What, I have her no more?’

  Don’t be angry if I seem to be so blind,

  My God! The wound has been bleeding so long!

  The pain in my soul is every bit as strong,

  My heart submits now, but it isn’t resigned.

  Don’t be angry! Those whom sorrows rack

  Are apt to cry and complain;

  We find it difficult to pull our souls back

  From such an ancient pain.

  Oh Lord, how necessary children are for us!

  And when, one of life’s grey mornings, one sees

  Amid sorrow, suffering, pain, and ominous

  Shadows that are spreading over our destinies,

  A child appear, whose head is dear and blessed,

  A little joyous creature,

  So beautiful we thought we saw clouds in heaven

  Opening to greet her;

  When, for sixteen years, one has seen

  This other self, growing in grace, become whole,

  When one discovers that the child one loves

  Is the sun of one’s life and the fire of one’s soul,

  That it is the one enduring happiness

  Of all we dream down here –

  Consider how sad a thing it is for us

  To watch it disappear!

  Mors

  Je vis cette faucheuse. Elle était dans son champ.

  Elle allait à grands pas moissonnant et fauchant,

  Noir squelette laissant passer le crépuscule.

  Dans l’ombre où l’on dirait que tout tremble et recule,

  L’homme suivait des yeux les lueurs de la faulx.

  Et les triomphateurs sous les arcs triomphaux

  Tombaient; elle changeait en désert Babylone,

  Le trône en échafaud et l’échafaud en trône,

  Les roses en fumier, les enfants en oiseaux,

  L’or en cendre, et les yeux des mères en ruisseaux.

  Et les femmes criaient: – Rends-nous ce petit être.

  Pour le faire mourir, pourquoi l’avoir fait naître? –

  Ce n’était qu’un sanglot sur terre, en haut, en bas;

  Des mains aux doigts osseux sortaient des noirs grabats;

  Un vent froid bruissait dans les linceuls sans nombre;

  Les peuples éperdus semblaient sous la faulx sombre

  Un troupeau frissonnant qui dans l’ombre s’enfuit;

  Tout était sous ses pieds deuil, épouvante et nuit.

  Derrière elle, le front baigné de douces flammes,

  Un ange souriant portait la gerbe d’âmes.

  Mors

  I have seen that reaper. She was out in her field,

  Mowing down and harvesting. Everything would yield

  To her, black skeleton whom the twilight passed through.

  In that gloom from which one draws back, or struggles to,

  Men watched the glintings of her scythe – for she marches.

  And conquerors, under their triumphal arches,

  Fell down. She was changing Babylon into groans,

  Thrones into scaffolds, and scaffolds into thrones,

  Roses into dung heaps, and children into dreams,

  Gold into ash, and eyes of mothers into streams.

  Then a woman cried: ‘Give us back our little one!

  To make him die an infant, why give life to our son?’

  The sob went up, below, but it remained earth-bound.

  Hands with bony fingers reached up from underground.

  An icy wind whistled through the shrouds and made them writhe.

  The shivering people underneath the deadly scythe

  Were like a flock fleeing in the dark without relief.

  Her feet trampled everything: horror, night, and grief.

  Behind her, smiling, bathed in flames like mild coals,

  An angel was carrying a sheaf of new souls.

  Le Mendiant

  Un pauvre homme passait dans le givre et le vent.

  Je cognai sur ma vitre; il s’arrêta devant

  Ma porte, que j’ouvris d’une façon civile.

  Les ânes revenaient du marché de la ville,

  Portant les paysans accroupis sur leurs bâts.

  C’était le vieux qui vit dans une niche au bas

  De la montée, et rêve, attendant, solitaire,

  Un rayon du ciel triste, un liard de la terre,

  Tendant les mains pour l’homme et les joignant pour Dieu.

  Je lui criai: «Venez vous réchauffer un peu.

  »Comment vous nommez-vous?» Il me dit: «Je me nomme

  »Le pauvre.» Je lui pris la main: «Entrez, brave homme.»

  Et je lui fis donner une jatte de lait.

  Le viellard grelottait de froid; il me parlait,

  Et je lui répondais, pensif et sans l’entendre.

  «Vos habits sont mouillés,» dis-je, «il faut les étendre

  »Devant la cheminée.» Il s’approcha du feu.

  Son manteau, tout mangé de vers, et jadis bleu,

  Étalé largement sur la chaude fournaise,

  Piqué de mille trous par la lueur de braise,

  Couvrait l’âtre, et semblait un ciel noir étoilé.

  Et, pendant qu’il séchait ce haillon désolé

  D’où ruisselait la pluie et l’eau des fondrières,

  Je songeais que cet homme était plein de prières,

  Et je regardais, sourd à ce que nous disions,

  Sa bure où je voyais des constellations.

  The Beggar

  A poor man passed by in the wind and the frost.

  I rapped on my window; he stopped and looked lost

  In front of the door I opened, then turned around.

  The mules were coming back from the market in town,

  With peasants on their saddles and bought goods in tow.

  The man, I knew, lived in that hut just below

  The hill, and, ageing, dreamed of things that had the worth

  Of sun from sad heavens, or pennies from the earth –

  He joined his hands for God and opened them for men.

  I shouted: ‘Come in here and warm yourself my friend.’

  ‘What’s your name?’ I asked him. He answered, ‘There are some

  Who call me the poor one.’ I said: ‘Enter, brave homme.’

  I made him take a bowl of hot milk and some tea.

  The man was shivering with cold; he talked to me

  And I answered back without listening to him.

  ‘Your clothes are drenched,’ I said, ‘you should really spread them

  In front of the chimney.’ He went up to the fire.

  His coat, completely eaten by worms, was like wire,

  A blue cloth now faded, which – pinpricked with holes

  Suddenly appearing in the light of the coals –

  Covered the hearth, resembling a starry sky.

  The moment he spread his tattered coat out to dry

  From which I saw puddle water drip here and there,

  I thought to myself, ‘This man is full of prayer,’

  And stared, deaf to words and lost in meditations,

  At his sackcloth in which I saw constellations.

  Paroles sur la dune

  Maintenant que mon temps décroit comme un flambeau,

  Que mes tâches sont terminées;

  Maintenant que voici que je touche au tombeau

  Par les deuils et par les années,

  Et qu’au fond de ce ciel que mon essor rêva,

  Je vois fuir, vers l’ombre entraînées,

  Comme le tourbillon du passé qui s’en va,

  Tant de belles heures sonnées;

  Maintenant que je dis: – Un jour, nous triomphons;

  Le lendemain, tout est mensonge! –

  Je suis triste, et je marche au bord des flots profonds,

  Courbé comme celui qui songe.

  Je regarde, au-dessus du mont et du vallon,

  Et des mes sans fin remuées,

  S’envoler, sous le bec du vautour aquilon,

  Toute la toison des nuées;

  J’entends le vent dans l’air, la mer sur le récif,

  L’homme liant la gerbe mûre;

  J’écoute et je confronte en mon esprit pensif

  Ce qui parle à ce qui murmure;

  Et je reste parfois couché sans me lever

  Sur l’herbe rare de la dune,

  Jusqu’à l’heure où l’on voit apparaître et rêver

  Les yeux sinistres de la lune.

  Elle monte, elle jette un long rayon dormant

  À l’espace, au mystère, au gouffre;

  Et nous nous regardons tous les deux fixement,

  Elle qui brille et moi qui souffre.

  Où donc s’en sont allés mes jours évanouis?

  Est-il quelqu’un qui me connaisse?

  Ai-je encor quelque chose en mes yeux éblouis,

  De la clarté de ma jeunesse?

  Tout s’est-il envolé? Je suis seul, je suis las;

  J’appelle sans qu’on me réponde;

  O vents! ô flots! ne suis-je aussi qu’un souffle, hélas!

  Hélas! ne suis-je aussi qu’une onde?

  Ne verrai-je plus rien tout ce que j’aimais?

  Au dedans de moi le soir tombe.

  O terre, dont la brume efface les sommets,

  Suis-je le spectre, et toi la tombe?

  Ai-je donc vidé tout, vie, amour, joie, espoir?

  J’attends, je demande, j’implore;

  Je penche tout à tout mes urnes pour avoir

  De chacune une goutte encore!

  Comme le souvenir est voisin du remord!

  Comme à pleurer tout nous ramène!

  Et que je te sens froide en te touchant, ô mort,

  Noir verrou de la porte humaine!

  Et je pense, écoutant gémir le vent amer,

  Et l’onde aux plis infranchissables;

  L’été rit, et l’on voit sur le bord de la mer

  Fleurir le chardon bleu des sables.

  Words on the Dunes

  Now that time is growing short like a torch

  And I’ve no duties in arrears,

  And now that I am already touching the tomb

  With all my mourning and my years;

  Now that I can see, soaring through the heavens’ depths

  Toward which my soul desired to fly,

  The departing and dwindling whirlwind of the past,

  Its loveliest hours, go by;

  Now that I can say: ‘One day we are triumphant;

  The next day everything’s a lie!’

  I walk along this shore that bears the breakers’ brunt

  Like a dreamer, wondering why.

  I look and I see, above the valley and the cliff

  And the countless waves the wind crowds,

  Scattering under the storm’s vulture beak,

  All of the fleeces of the clouds;

  I hear the air’s winds, and water on the rocks,

  A man tying sheaves with a string;

  I listen, and confront, in my meditative soul,

  What speaks to what’s murmuring.

  And I remain there, stretched out on my back

  In the scattered grass of the dune,

  Till the hour when one sees, dreaming in the black,

  The sinister eyes of the moon.

  She rises and throws out a long, sleeping ray

  Into space, the abyss, mystery;