Poems, Victor Hugo [highly recommended books TXT] 📗

drink each wondrous sight,

Thy lips to taste the kiss.

Oh, God! bless me and mine, and these I love, And e’en my foes that still triumphant prove

Victors by force or guile; A flowerless summer may we never see, Or nest of bird bereft, or hive of bee,

Or home of infant’s smile.

HENRY HIGHTON, M.A.

 

THE WATCHING ANGEL.

(“Dans l’alcôve sombre.”)

[XX., November, 1831.]

 

In the dusky nook,

Near the altar laid, Sleeps the child in shadow

Of his mother’s bed: Softly he reposes, And his lid of roses, Closed to earth, uncloses

On the heaven o’erhead.

Many a dream is with him,

Fresh from fairyland, Spangled o’er with diamonds

Seems the ocean sand; Suns are flaming there, Troops of ladies fair Souls of infants bear

In each charming hand.

Oh, enchanting vision!

Lo, a rill upsprings, And from out its bosom

Comes a voice that sings Lovelier there appear Sire and sisters dear, While his mother near

Plumes her new-born wings.

But a brighter vision

Yet his eyes behold; Roses pied and lilies

Every path enfold; Lakes delicious sleeping, Silver fishes leaping, Through the wavelets creeping

Up to reeds of gold.

Slumber on, sweet infant,

Slumber peacefully Thy young soul yet knows not

What thy lot may be. Like dead weeds that sweep O’er the dol’rous deep, Thou art borne in sleep.

What is all to thee?

Thou canst slumber by the way;

Thou hast learnt to borrow Naught from study, naught from care;

The cold hand of sorrow On thy brow unwrinkled yet, Where young truth and candor sit, Ne’er with rugged nail hath writ

That sad word, “To-morrow!”

Innocent! thou sleepest—

See the angelic band, Who foreknow the trials

That for man are planned; Seeing him unarmed, Unfearing, unalarmed, With their tears have warmed

This unconscious hand.

Still they, hovering o’er him,

Kiss him where he lies, Hark, he sees them weeping,

“Gabriel!” he cries; “Hush!” the angel says, On his lip he lays One finger, one displays

His native skies.

Foreign Quarterly Review

 

SUNSET.

(“Le soleil s’est couché”)

[XXXV. vi., April, 1829.]

 

The sun set this evening in masses of cloud,

The storm comes to-morrow, then calm be the night, Then the Dawn in her chariot refulgent and proud,

Then more nights, and still days, steps of Time in his flight. The days shall pass rapid as swifts on the wing.

O’er the face of the hills, o’er the face of the seas, O’er streamlets of silver, and forests that ring

With a dirge for the dead, chanted low by the breeze; The face of the waters, the brow of the mounts Deep scarred but not shrivelled, and woods tufted green, Their youth shall renew; and the rocks to the founts Shall yield what these yielded to ocean their queen. But day by day bending still lower my head,

Still chilled in the sunlight, soon I shall have cast, At height of the banquet, my lot with the dead,

Unmissed by creation aye joyous and vast.

TORU DUTT.

 

THE UNIVERSAL PRAYER.

(“Ma fille, va prier!”)

[XXXVII., June, 1830.]

 

I.

Come, child, to prayer; the busy day is done,

A golden star gleams through the dusk of night; The hills are trembling in the rising mist,

The rumbling wain looms dim upon the sight; All things wend home to rest; the roadside trees

Shake off their dust, stirred by the evening breeze.

The sparkling stars gush forth in sudden blaze,

As twilight open flings the doors of night; The fringe of carmine narrows in the west,

The rippling waves are tipped with silver light; The bush, the path—all blend in one dull gray; The doubtful traveller gropes his anxious way.

Oh, day! with toil, with wrong, with hatred rife;

Oh, blessed night! with sober calmness sweet, The sad winds moaning through the ruined tower,

The age-worn hind, the sheep’s sad broken bleat— All nature groans opprest with toil and care, And wearied craves for rest, and love, and prayer.

At eve the babes with angels converse hold,

While we to our strange pleasures wend our way, Each with its little face upraised to heaven,

With folded hands, barefoot kneels down to pray, At selfsame hour with selfsame words they call On God, the common Father of them all.

And then they sleep, and golden dreams anon,

Born as the busy day’s last murmurs die, In swarms tumultuous flitting through the gloom

Their breathing lips and golden locks descry. And as the bees o’er bright flowers joyous roam, Around their curtained cradles clustering come.

Oh, prayer of childhood! simple, innocent;

Oh, infant slumbers! peaceful, pure, and light; Oh, happy worship! ever gay with smiles,

Meet prelude to the harmonies of night; As birds beneath the wing enfold their head, Nestled in prayer the infant seeks its bed.

HENRY HIGHTON, M.A.

 

II.

To prayer, my child! and O, be thy first prayer For her who, many nights, with anxious care,

Rocked thy first cradle; who took thy infant soul From heaven and gave it to the world; then rife

With love, still drank herself the gall of life, And left for thy young lips the honeyed bowl.

And then—I need it more—then pray for me! For she is gentle, artless, true like thee;—

She has a guileless heart, brow placid still; Pity she has for all, envy for none; Gentle and wise, she patiently lives on;

And she endures, nor knows who does the ill.

In culling flowers, her novice hand has ne’er Touched e’en the outer rind of vice; no snare

With smiling show has lured her steps aside: On her the past has left no staining mark; Nor knows she aught of those bad thoughts which, dark

Like shade on waters, o’er the spirit glide.

She knows not—nor mayest thou—the miseries In which our spirits mingle: vanities,

Remorse, soul-gnawing cares, Pleasure’s false show: Passions which float upon the heart like foam, Bitter remembrances which o’er us come,

And Shame’s red spot spread sudden o’er the brow.

I know life better! when thou’rt older grown I’ll tell thee—it is needful to be known—

Of the pursuit of wealth—art, power; the cost. That it is folly, nothingness: that shame For glory is oft thrown us in the game

Of Fortune; chances where the soul is lost.

The soul will change. Although of everything The cause and end be clear, yet wildering

We roam through life (of vice and error full). We wander as we go; we feel the load Of doubt; and to the briars upon the road

Man leaves his virtue, as the sheep its wool.

Then go, go pray for me! And as the prayer Gushes in words, be this the form they bear:—

“Lord, Lord, our Father! God, my prayer attend; Pardon! Thou art good! Pardon—Thou art great!” Let them go freely forth, fear not their fate!

Where thy soul sends them, thitherward they tend.

There’s nothing here below which does not find Its tendency. O’er plains the rivers wind,

And reach the sea; the bee, by instinct driven, Finds out the honeyed flowers; the eagle flies To seek the sun; the vulture where death lies;

The swallow to the spring; the prayer to Heaven!

And when thy voice is raised to God for me, I’m like the slave whom in the vale we see

Seated to rest, his heavy load laid by; I feel refreshed—the load of faults and woe Which, groaning, I drag with me as I go,

Thy wingèd prayer bears off rejoicingly!

Pray for thy father! that his dreams be bright With visitings of angel forms of light,

And his soul burn as incense flaming wide, Let thy pure breath all his dark sins efface, So that his heart be like that holy place,

An altar pavement each eve purified!

C., Tait’s Magazine

 

LES CHANTS DU CRÉPUSCULE.—1849.

 

PRELUDE TO “THE SONGS OF TWILIGHT.”

(“De quel non te nommer?”)

[PRELUDE, a, Oct. 20, 1835.]

 

How shall I note thee, line of troubled years,

Which mark existence in our little span? One constant twilight in the heaven appears—

One constant twilight in the mind of man!

Creed, hope, anticipation and despair,

Are but a mingling, as of day and night; The globe, surrounded by deceptive air,

Is all enveloped in the same half-light.

And voice is deadened by the evening breeze,

The shepherd’s song, or maiden’s in her bower, Mix with the rustling of the neighboring trees,

Within whose foliage is lulled the power.

Yet all unites! The winding path that leads

Thro’ fields where verdure meets the trav’ller’s eye. The river’s margin, blurred with wavy reeds,

The muffled anthem, echoing to the sky!

The ivy smothering the armèd tower;

The dying wind that mocks the pilot’s ear; The lordly equipage at midnight hour,

Draws into danger in a fog the peer;

The votaries of Satan or of Jove;

The wretched mendicant absorbed in woe; The din of multitudes that onward move;

The voice of conscience in the heart below;

The waves, which Thou, O Lord, alone canst still;

Th’ elastic air; the streamlet on its way; And all that man projects, or sovereigns will;

Or things inanimate might seem to say;

The strain of gondolier slow streaming by;

The lively barks that o’er the waters bound; The trees that shake their foliage to the sky;

The wailing voice that fills the cots around;

And man, who studies with an aching heart—

For now, when smiles are rarely deemed sincere, In vain the sceptic bids his doubts depart—

Those doubts at length will arguments appear!

Hence, reader, know the subject of my song—

A mystic age, resembling twilight gloom, Wherein we smile at birth, or bear along,

With noiseless steps, a victim to the tomb!

G.W.M. REYNOLDS

 

THE LAND OF FABLE.

(“L’Orient! qu’y voyez-vous, poëtes?”)

[PRELUDE, b.]

 

Now, vot’ries of the Muses, turn your eyes,

Unto the East, and say what there appears! “Alas!” the voice of Poesy replies,

“Mystic’s that light between the hemispheres!”

“Yes, dread’s the mystic light in yonder heaven—

Dull is the gleam behind the distant hill; Like feeble flashes in the welkin driven,

When the far thunder seems as it were still!

“But who can tell if that uncertain glare

Be Phoebus’ self, adorned with glowing vest; Or, if illusions, pregnant in the air,

Have drawn our glances to the radiant west?

“Haply the sunset has deceived the sight—

Perchance ‘tis evening, while we look for morning; Bewildered in the mazes of twilight,

That lucid sunset may appear a dawning!”

G.W.M. REYNOLDS

 

THE THREE GLORIOUS DAYS.

(“Frères, vous avez vos journées.”)

[I., July, 1830.]

 

Youth of France, sons of the bold, Your oak-leaf victor-wreaths behold! Our civic-laurels—honored dead!

So bright your triumphs in life’s morn,

Your maiden-standards hacked and torn, On Austerlitz might lustre shed.

All that your fathers did re-done— A people’s rights all nobly won— Ye tore them living from the shroud!

Three glorious days bright July’s gift,

The Bastiles off our hearts ye lift! Oh! of such deeds be ever proud!

Of patriot sires ye lineage claim, Their souls shone in your eye of flame; Commencing the great work was theirs;

On you the task to finish laid

Your fruitful mother, France, who bade Flow in one day a hundred years.

E’en chilly Albion admires, The grand example Europe fires; America shall clap her hands,

When swiftly o’er the Atlantic wave,

Fame sounds the news of how the brave, In three bright days, have burst their bands!

With tyrant dead your fathers traced A circle wide, with battles graced; Victorious garland, red and vast!

Which blooming out from home did go

To Cadiz, Cairo, Rome, Moscow, From Jemappes to Montmirail passed!

Of warlike Lyceums[1] ye are The favored sons; there, deeds of war Formed e’en your plays, while o’er you shook

The battle-flags in air aloft!

Passing your lines, Napoleon oft