(“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 […]

(“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 […]

(“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 […]

Inscription for a Crucifix[1] (“Vous qui pleurez, venez a 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.]

(“Si vous n’avez rien a 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 […]

(“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 […]

(“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 […]

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 […]

(“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 […]

(“Lorsque avec ses enfants Cain se fut 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 […]

(“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 […]

(“Sonnex, clarions!”) [Bk. VI. vii.] Flourish the trumpet! and rattle the drum! The Reiters are mounted! the Reiters will come! When our bullets cease singing And long swords cease ringing On backplates of fearsomest foes in full flight, We’ll dig up their dollars To string for girls’ collars– They’ll jingle around them before it is […]

(“Booz s’etait couche.”) [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 […]

(“Le cheval galopait toujours.”) [Bk. XV. ii. 10.] The good steed flew o’er river and o’er plain, Till far away,–no need of spur or rein. The child, half rapture, half solicitude, Looks back anon, in fear to be pursued; Shakes lest some raging brother of his sire Leap from those rocks that o’er the path […]

(“Un jour, Kanut mourut.”) [Bk. X. i.] King Canute died.[1] Encoffined he was laid. Of Aarhuus came the Bishop prayers to say, And sang a hymn upon his tomb, and held That Canute was a saint–Canute the Great, That from his memory breathed celestial perfume, And that they saw him, they the priests, in glory, […]

THE KNIGHT ERRANT. (“Qu’est-ce que Sigismond et Ladislas ont dit.”) [Bk. XV. iii. 1.] I. THE ADVENTURER SETS OUT. What was it Sigismond and Ladislaeus said? I know not if the rock, or tree o’erhead, Had heard their speech;–but when the two spoke low, Among the trees, a shudder seemed to go Through all their […]

(“Elle est toute petite.”) [Bk. XXVI.] She is so little–in her hands a rose: A stern duenna watches where she goes, What sees Old Spain’s Infanta–the clear shine Of waters shadowed by the birch and pine. What lies before? A swan with silver wing, The wave that murmurs to the branch’s swing, Or the deep […]

(“Zim-Zizimi, Soudan d’Egypte.”) [Bk. XVI. i.] Zim Zizimi–(of the Soudan of burnt Egypt, The Commander of Believers, a Bashaw Whose very robes were from Asia’s greatest stript, More powerful than any lion with resistless paw) A master weighed on by his immense splendor– Once had a dream when he was at his evening feast, When […]

(“Lorsque le regiment des hallebardiers.”) [Bk. XXXI.] When the regiment of Halberdiers Is proudly marching by, The eagle of the mountain screams From out his stormy sky; Who speaketh to the precipice, And to the chasm sheer; Who hovers o’er the thrones of kings, And bids the caitiffs fear. King of the peak and glacier, […]

(“En partant du Golfe d’Otrante.”) [Bk. XXVIII.] We told thirty when we started From port so taut and fine, But soon our crew were parted, Till now we number nine. Tom Robbins, English, tall and straight, Left us at Aetna light; He left us to investigate What made the mountain bright; “I mean to ask […]