Selected French Poems
Of the 19th Century
Translated by A. S. Kline © 2007 All Rights Reserved
This work may be freely reproduced, stored, and transmitted, electronically or otherwise, for any non-commercial purpose.
Contents
Ave,
Dea; moriturus te salutat
El Desdichado (The Disinherited)
Guillaume
Apollinaire (1880-1918)
The moon was serene and played on the waves –
The window still open, free to the breeze,
The Sultana gazes, and the sea that heaves
Down there dark isles with silver laves.
The lute escapes from her vibrant fingers.
She listens…A soft sound strikes soft echoes.
A Turkish trader from
Up from the isles of
Or cormorants plunging one by one, cutting
The flood, pearls flying from their wings?
Or a Djinn above in a thin voice piping,
Hurling high towers in the sea as he spins?
Who stirs the waves by the women’s seraglio?
Not the cormorant, cradled there on the sea,
Not stones from the walls, or the rhythmic beat
Of a trader’s oars thrashing the waves below.
But heaving sacks, from which sobs break free.
See them, sounding the flood that floats them on,
Moving their sides like human forms…
The moon was serene and played on the sea.
Since I have touched my lips to your brimming cup,
Since I have bowed my pale brow in your hands,
Since I have sometime breathed the sweet breath
Of your soul, a perfume buried in shadow lands;
Since it was granted to me to hear you utter
Words in which the mysterious heart sighs,
Since I have seen smiles, since I have seen tears
Your mouth on my mouth, your eyes on my eyes;
Since I have seen over my enraptured head
A light from your star shine, ah, ever veiled!
Since I have seen falling to my life’s flood
The leaf of a rose snatched from out your days,
Now at last I can say to the fleeting years:
– Pass by! Pass by, forever! No more age!
Away with you and all your withered flowers,
I have a flower in my soul no one can take!
Your wings, brushing it, spill never a drop
From the glass I fill, from which my thirst I quench.
My soul possesses more fire than you have ashes!
My heart more love than your forgetfulness!
In pleasant evening’s fresh-clear darkness,
One seems a swan, the other a dove,
Both joyous, both lovely, O sweetness!
See, the elder and younger move
At the garden’s edge, and beside them
White carnations with long frail stems,
Stirred by the wind, in a marble urn,
Lean, watching them, live and motionless,
And, trembling with shade there, seem to be
Butterflies caught in flight, frozen ecstasy.
Her feet were bare she’d undone her hair,
Sitting, fair, by the bowing reeds;
I who went by, thought a fairy was there,
And I said: Will you walk in the meads?
She looked at me with a haughty look
That beauty retains when we conquer,
And I said: Will you? It’s the month of love,
Will a walk in the woods be your answer?
She dried her feet on the riverside grass;
She looked at me once again,
And the playful beauty then took thought.
Oh the birds that sang deep in the day!
The water caressed the shore so gently!
That joyous sweet girl, fearful and wild,
Among the green rushes she came to me,
Her hair in her eyes, and through it a smile.
Tomorrow, at dawn, when the fields whiten
I’ll set out. I know you are waiting for me.
I’ll travel the forest; I’ll travel the mountain,
I can’t stay away any longer, you see.
I’ll stride out with only my thought in sight,
Seeing nothing beyond, without hearing a sound,
Alone and unknown, back bowed, folded hands,
Sad, since daylight to me will seem night.
I’ll not witness evening’s golden cascade,
Nor the distant sails sinking down to Harfleur,
And when I arrive, I shall place on your grave,
A sprig of green holly, and heather in flower.
(Hail, Goddess; he who
is about to die salutes you)
To Judith Gautier
Death and beauty are two things profound,
So of dark and azure, that one might say that
They were two sisters terrible and fecund
Possessing the one enigma, the one secret.
O women, voices, gazes, black hair, blonde tresses,
Blaze out, I die! Own to light, love, attraction,
O pearls the sea mingles with its great masses,
O gleaming birds of the forest’s sombre ocean!
Judith, our fates are closer to one another’s
Than one might think, seeing my face and yours:
The whole divine abyss is present in your eyes,
And I feel the starry gulf within my soul;
We are both neighbours of the silent skies.
Madame, since you’re beautiful, and I’m old.
In summer, when day has fled, when covered with flowers
The distant plain sheds sweet intoxication;
Eyes closed, and ears half-open to muted hours,
We lie only half-asleep in transparent slumber.
The stars seem purer the shade is more delightful;
A hazy half-light colours the dome on high;
And dawn, pale and tender, awaiting her moment,
Seems to wander about all night in the deeps of the sky.
Friend, poet spirit, you have fled our night,
You left our noise, to penetrate the light;
Now your name will shine on pure summits.
I who knew you young and beautiful, I
Who loved you, I who in our great flights,
Distraught, took comfort from your loyal spirit.
I, white with the years that snow down on my head,
Remembering times past, I dream, instead,
Of those young days that saw our dawn,
The struggle, the loud arena, the storm,
The new art offered to the mob’s screaming,
And hear, yes, that vast sublime blast fading.
Son of ancient
Fierce your respect for the dead, full of hope;
You never shut your eyes to the future.
Theban mage, druid by the dark menhir,
Flamen by
Fitting angelic arrow to godlike bow,
Viewing the haunts of Roland, Achilles,
Powerful mysterious smith, you’d know
How to twine sun-rays to a single flame;
In your soul the sunset met the day;
Yesterday tomorrow in your fertile brain;
You crowned the old art father of the new;
You understood that when an unknown soul
Speaks to a nation, lightning in the clouds,
We must open our hearts, accept, love aloud;
Calm you scorned the vile attempts of those
Who dribbled Shakespeare, drooled Aeschylus;
You knew this age had its own air to breathe,
That art progresses by self-transformation,
Beauty’s adorned by melding with greatness.
And you were heard to utter cries of joy,
When Drama gripped
When spring chased ancient winter away,
When the wondrous star of new ideals,
Suddenly glittered in the burning sky,
And the Hippogriff stole Pegasus’ place.
On the tomb’s severe sill I greet you,
You knew the beautiful, go find the true.
Climb the harsh stair. From the black steps’ height,
The arches of the dark bridge loom in sight;
Go! Die! The last step’s the final hour.
Fly, Eagle, see the gulfs that you desired;
You’ll view the absolute, real, sublime.
You’ll feel the ominous wind on high
Know the vertigo of eternal wonder.
From heaven’s top you’ll see your
From truth’s tall summit Man’s unreality,
Even Job’s, and Homer’s, and you’ll view,
Soul, from God’s height, Jehovah too.
Spirit, soar! Hover higher on open wings!
When the living leave us, moved, I gaze,
For to enter death, is entering the temple;
And when a man dies, and goes his way,
I see my own ascent, clear, like crystal.
Friend, I feel fate’s dark plenitude;
I have begun my death with solitude,
I see my own deep vaguely starlit night.
This is the hour when I too take flight.
My long thread trembles almost at the knife;
The breeze, that takes you, lifts me up alive,
And I’ll follow those I loved, I the exile.
Their gaze draws me into infinite space.
I hasten there. Don’t close the sombre gate.
Pass on; for it’s the law; none can deny;
All leans; and this great age with all its light
Slides to the vast shadow where, pale, we flee.
Oh! The oaks they fell for Hercules’ pyre,
What a harsh roar they make this night of fire!
Death’s steeds neigh joyfully: the bright day flies;
Our great century that tamed the hostile winds
Expires….their brother and their peer, O Gautier,
You join Dumas, Lamartine, Musset.
The ancient sea that made men young is dry,
Youth has no fountain, now there’s no more
And the grim reaper with his pointed scythe
Steps forward, thoughtfully, to clear the field;
My turn arrives; night fills my troubled eye,
That from doves’ flights, alas, reads coming days,
Weeps over cradles, smiles to see new graves.
Beautiful spouse
I love your tears!
They’re the dew
Befitting flowers.
Beautiful things
Have but one spring
With roses let’s sow
Time’s footprints!
Blonde or brunette
Must we select?
Pleasure is
The god of this world.
I am the darkness – the widower – the un-consoled,
The prince of
My sole star is dead – and my constellated lute
Bears the black sun of Melancholy.
You who consoled me in funereal night,
Bring me Posilipo, the
The flower that pleased my grieving heart,
And the trellis where the vine entwines the rose.
Am I Phoebus or Love?...Biron or Lusignan?
My brow’s still red from the queen’s kiss;
I dreamed in the grotto where Sirens swim…
And twice victorious crossed Acheron:
Plucking from Orpheus’ lyre one by one
The saintly sighs and the faerie cries.
Note: The Spanish title was the motto adopted by the
disinherited Ivanhoe in Scott’s novel. The Hill of Posilipo is situated to the
west of the city of
Myrtho, I think of you divine enchantress,
And of proud Posilipo, lit with a thousand fires,
Of your brow flooded with Eastern light,
And the black grapes twined in your golden hair.
It was in your cup I drank intoxication,
When they saw me praying at Iacchus’ feet,
And from your laughing eyes’ secret lightening,
For the Muses made me one of the sons of
I know why the volcano erupts once more…
You stirred it with agile foot, but yesterday,
And suddenly ash drowned the horizon’s circle.
Since a
Eternally, beneath Virgil’s laurel spray,
The pale hydrangea is wed to the green myrtle.
Note: Myrtho a shining mask of Venus
Trembling Kneph, the god, shook the starry ways:
Isis, the mother, then raised herself from her bed,
Made, to her savage spouse, a sign of hatred,
In her green eyes shone the passion of elder days.
‘Do you see him, she cried, the old lecher dies;
Through his mouth the frosts of earth take flight;
Bind his lame feet, destroy his squinting sight,
He’s the god of craters, king of the winter’s ice!
The new spirit summons, the eagle is done,
Cybele’s robe for him do I now put on…
The beloved son of Hermes and Osiris!’
The goddess fled away on her golden shell,
Her adored image returning to us on the swell,
And the sky shone beneath the scarf of Iris.
Note: This poem is a consequence of the two previous
poems. Kneph, is Amon-Ra the great god of
Do you know it, Daphne, that ballad of old,
At the sycamore-foot, or beneath the white laurels,
Under myrtle or olive or trembling willows,
That song of love that resounds forever?...
Do you know it, the
And the lemons, bitter, marked by your teeth,
And the grotto fatal to imprudent guests,
Where the vanquished dragon’s ancient seed sleeps?...
Those gods you endlessly weep will return!
Time bring back the order of classic days;
Earth has shuddered with prophetic breath…
Yet the sibyl with Latinate face still sleeps
Under the arch of
- And the austere portico nothing disturbs.
Note: There are references to a visit to the
The thirteenth returns…She’s forever the first;
And always the sole one – or the sole instant;
For are you queen, O you, the first or the last?
Are you king, you the sole or the last lover?...
Love him who loved you from cradle to bier;
She I alone loved still loves me tenderly:
She is death – or the dead one…O joy! O torment!
The rose she holds is the Rose trémiere.
Neapolitan saint with your hands full of fire,
Rose with violet heart, Saint Gudula’s flower:
Have you found your cross in the desert of heaven?
White roses: fall! You insult our gods,
Fall, white wraiths, from your burning skies:
- She, saint of the abyss, holier to my eyes!
Note: The Rose
trémiere is the hollyhock. St Gudula was a
Well,
then! All is sentient!
Pythagoras
Free-thinker, Man, do you think you alone
Think, while life explodes everywhere?
Your freedom employs the powers you own,
But world is absent from all your affairs.
Respect an active spirit in the creature:
Each flower is a soul open to Nature;
In metal a mystery of love is sleeping;
‘All is sentient!’ Has power over your being.
Fear the gaze in the blind wall that watches:
There is a verb attached to matter itself…
Do not let it serve some impious purpose!
Often a hidden god inhabits obscure being;
And like an eye, born, covered by its eyelids,
Pure spirit grows beneath the surface of stones!