Poems, Victor Hugo [highly recommended books TXT] 📗

placed, For throne, on vassal Europe based,

That column’s lofty height— Pillar, in whose dread majesty, In double immortality,

Glory and bronze unite! Aye, when he built it that, some day, Discord or war their course might stay,

Or here might break their car; And in our streets to put to shame Pigmies that bear the hero’s name

Of Greek and Roman war. It was a glorious sight; the world His hosts had trod, with flags unfurled,

In veteran array; Kings fled before him, forced to yield, He, conqueror on each battlefield,

Their cannon bore away. Then, with his victors back he came; All France with booty teemed, her name

Was writ on sculptured stone; And Paris cried with joy, as when The parent bird comes home again

To th’ eaglets left alone. Into the furnace flame, so fast, Were heaps of war-won metal cast,

The future monument! His thought had formed the giant mould, And piles of brass in the fire he rolled,

From hostile cannon rent. When to the battlefield he came, He grasped the guns spite tongues of flame,

And bore the spoil away. This bronze to France’s Rome he brought, And to the founder said, “Is aught

Wanting for our array?” And when, beneath a radiant sun, That man, his noble purpose done,

With calm and tranquil mien, Disclosed to view this glorious fane, And did with peaceful hand contain

The warlike eagle’s sheen. Round thee, when hundred thousands placed, As some great Roman’s triumph graced,

The little Romans all; We boys hung on the procession’s flanks, Seeking some father in thy ranks,

And loud thy praise did call. Who that surveyed thee, when that day Thou deemed that future glory ray

Would here be ever bright; Feared that, ere long, all France thy grave From pettifoggers vain would crave

Beneath that column’s height?

Author of “Critical Essays.”

 

CHARITY.

(“Je suis la Charité.”)

[February, 1837.]

 

“Lo! I am Charity,” she cries,

“Who waketh up before the day; While yet asleep all nature lies,

God bids me rise and go my way.”

How fair her glorious features shine,

Whereon the hand of God hath set An angel’s attributes divine,

With all a woman’s sweetness met.

Above the old man’s couch of woe

She bows her forehead, pure and even. There’s nothing fairer here below,

There’s nothing grander up in heaven,

Than when caressingly she stands

(The cold hearts wakening ‘gain their beat), And holds within her holy hands

The little children’s naked feet.

To every den of want and toil

She goes, and leaves the poorest fed; Leaves wine and bread, and genial oil,

And hopes that blossom in her tread,

And fire, too, beautiful bright fire,

That mocks the glowing dawn begun, Where, having set the blind old sire,

He dreams he’s sitting in the sun.

Then, over all the earth she runs,

And seeks, in the cold mists of life, Those poor forsaken little ones

Who droop and weary in the strife.

Ah, most her heart is stirred for them,

Whose foreheads, wrapped in mists obscure, Still wear a triple diadem—

The young, the innocent, the poor.

And they are better far than we,

And she bestows a worthier meed; For, with the loaf of charity,

She gives the kiss that children need.

She gives, and while they wondering eat

The tear-steeped bread by love supplied, She stretches round them in the street

Her arm that passers push aside.

If, with raised head and step alert,

She sees the rich man stalking by, She touches his embroidered skirt,

And gently shows them where they lie.

She begs for them of careless crowd,

Of earnest brows and narrow hearts, That when it hears her cry aloud,

Turns like the ebb-tide and departs.

O miserable he who sings

Some strain impure, whose numbers fall Along the cruel wind that brings

Death to some child beneath his wall.

O strange and sad and fatal thing,

When, in the rich man’s gorgeous hall, The huge fire on the hearth doth fling

A light on some great festival,

To see the drunkard smile in state,

In purple wrapt, with myrtle crowned, While Jesus lieth at the gate

With only rags to wrap him round.

Dublin University Magazine

 

SWEET SISTER.

(“Vous qui ne savez pas combien l’enfance est belle.”)

 

Sweet sister, if you knew, like me, The charms of guileless infancy, No more you’d envy riper years, Or smiles, more bitter than your tears.

But childhood passes in an hour, As perfume from a faded flower; The joyous voice of early glee Flies, like the Halcyon, o’er the sea.

Enjoy your morn of early Spring; Soon time maturer thoughts must bring; Those hours, like flowers that interclimb, Should not be withered ere their time.

Too soon you’ll weep, as we do now, O’er faithless friend, or broken vow, And hopeless sorrows, which our pride In pleasure’s whirl would vainly hide.

Laugh on! unconscious of thy doom, All innocence and opening bloom; Laugh on! while yet thine azure eye Mirrors the peace that reigns on high.

MRS. B. SOMERS.

 

THE PITY OF THE ANGELS.

(“Un Ange vit un jour.”)

[LA PITIÉ SUPREME VIII., 1881.]

 

When an angel of kindness

Saw, doomed to the dark, Men framed in his likeness,

He sought for a spark— Stray gem of God’s glory

That shines so serene—

And, falling like lark, To brighten our story,

Pure Pity was seen.

 

THE SOWER.

 

Sitting in a porchway cool,

Fades the ruddy sunlight fast, Twilight hastens on to rule—

Working hours are wellnigh past

Shadows shoot across the lands;

But one sower lingers still, Old, in rags, he patient stands,—

Looking on, I feel a thrill.

Black and high his silhouette

Dominates the furrows deep! Now to sow the task is set,

Soon shall come a time to reap.

Marches he along the plain,

To and fro, and scatters wide From his hands the precious grain;

Moody, I, to see him stride.

Darkness deepens. Gone the light.

Now his gestures to mine eyes Are august; and strange—his height

Seems to touch the starry skies.

TORU DUTT.

 

OH, WHY NOT BE HAPPY?[1]

(“A quoi bon entendre les oiseaux?”)

[RUY BLAS, Act II.]

 

Oh, why not be happy this bright summer day, ‘Mid perfume of roses and newly-mown hay? Great Nature is smiling—the birds in the air Sing love-lays together, and all is most fair.

Then why not be happy

This bright summer day,

‘Mid perfume of roses

And newly-mown hay?

The streamlets they wander through meadows so fleet, Their music enticing fond lovers to meet; The violets are blooming and nestling their heads In richest profusion on moss-coated beds.

Then why not be happy

This bright summer day,

When Nature is fairest

And all is so gay?

LEOPOLD WRAY.

[Footnote 1: Music composed by Elizabeth Philip.]

 

FREEDOM AND THE WORLD.

[Inscription under a Statue of the Virgin and Child, at Guernsey.—The poet sees in the emblem a modern Atlas, i.e., Freedom supporting the World.]

(“Le peuple est petit.”)

 

Weak is the People—but will grow beyond all other— Within thy holy arms, thou fruitful victor-mother! O Liberty, whose conquering flag is never furled— Thou bearest Him in whom is centred all the World.

 

SERENADE.

(“Quand tu chantes.”)

 

When the voice of thy lute at the eve

Charmeth the ear, In the hour of enchantment believe

What I murmur near. That the tune can the Age of Gold

With its magic restore. Play on, play on, my fair one,

Play on for evermore.

When thy laugh like the song of the dawn

Riseth so gay That the shadows of Night are withdrawn

And melt away, I remember my years of care

And misgiving no more. Laugh on, laugh on, my fair one,

Laugh on for evermore.

When thy sleep like the moonlight above

Lulling the sea, Doth enwind thee in visions of love,

Perchance, of me! I can watch so in dream that enthralled me,

Never before! Sleep on, sleep on, my fair one!

Sleep on for evermore.

HENRY F. CHORLEY.

 

AN AUTUMNAL SIMILE.

(“Les feuilles qui gisaient.”)

 

The leaves that in the lonely walks were spread, Starting from off the ground beneath the tread,

Coursed o’er the garden-plain; Thus, sometimes, ‘mid the soul’s deep sorrowings, Our soul a moment mounts on wounded wings,

Then, swiftly, falls again.

 

TO CRUEL OCEAN.

 

Where are the hapless shipmen?—disappeared,

Gone down, where witness none, save Night, hath been, Ye deep, deep waves, of kneeling mothers feared,

What dismal tales know ye of things unseen?

Tales that ye tell your whispering selves between

The while in clouds to the flood-tide ye pour;

And this it is that gives you, as I ween,

Those mournful voices, mournful evermore,

When ye come in at eve to us who dwell on shore.

 

ESMERALDA IN PRISON.

(“Phoebus, n’est-il sur la terre?”)

[OPERA OF “ESMERALDA,” ACT IV., 1836.]

 

Phoebus, is there not this side the grave,

Power to save Those who’re loving? Magic balm That will restore to me my former calm? Is there nothing tearful eye Can e’er dry, or hush the sigh? I pray Heaven day and night, As I lay me down in fright, To retake my life, or give All again for which I’d live! Phoebus, hasten from the shining sphere

To me here! Hither hasten, bring me Death; then Love May let our spirits rise, ever-linked, above!

 

LOVER’S SONG.

(“Mon âme à ton coeur s’est donnée.”)

[ANGELO, Act II., May, 1835.]

 

My soul unto thy heart is given,

In mystic fold do they entwine, So bound in one that, were they riven,

Apart my soul would life resign. Thou art my song and I the lyre; Thou art the breeze and I the brier; The altar I, and thou the fire;

Mine the deep love, the beauty thine! As fleets away the rapid hour

While weeping—may

My sorrowing lay Touch thee, sweet flower.

ERNEST OSWALD COE.

 

A FLEETING GLIMPSE OF A VILLAGE.

(“Tout vit! et se pose avec grâce.”)

 

How graceful the picture! the life, the repose!

The sunbeam that plays on the porchstone wide; And the shadow that fleets o’er the stream that flows,

And the soft blue sky with the hill’s green side.

Fraser’s Magazine.

 

LORD ROCHESTER’S SONG.

(“Un soldat au dur visage.”)

[CROMWELL, ACT I.]

 

“Hold, little blue-eyed page!”

So cried the watchers surly, Stern to his pretty rage

And golden hair so curly— “Methinks your satin cloak

Masks something bulky under; I take this as no joke—

Oh, thief with stolen plunder!”

“I am of high repute,

And famed among the truthful: This silver-handled lute

Is meet for one still youthful Who goes to keep a tryst

With her who is his dearest. I charge you to desist;

My cause is of the clearest.”

But guardsmen are so sharp,

Their eyes are as the lynx’s: “That’s neither lute nor harp—

Your mark is not the minxes. Your loving we dispute—

That string of steel so cruel For music does not suit—

You go to fight a duel!”

 

THE BEGGAR’S QUATRAIN.

(“Aveugle comme Homère.”)

[Improvised at the Café de Paris.]

 

Blind, as was Homer; as Belisarius, blind,

But one weak child to guide his vision dim. The hand which dealt him bread, in pity kind—

He’ll never see; God sees it, though, for him.

H.L.C., “London Society.”

 

THE QUIET RURAL CHURCH.

 

It was a humble church, with arches low,

The church we entered there, Where many a weary soul since long ago

Had past with plaint or prayer.

Mournful and still it was at day’s decline,

The day we entered there; As in a loveless heart, at the lone shrine,

The fires extinguished were.

Scarcely was heard to float some gentlest sound,

Scarcely some low breathed