Lie all forgotten in their graves,
Till in my thoughts remain at last
Only thy peace, thy flowers, thy waves.
The lily by thy margin waits; —
The nightingale, the marguerite; 10
In shadow here he meditates
His nest, his love, his music sweet.
Near thee the self-collected soul
Knows naught of error or of crime;
Thy waters, murmuring as they roll, 15
Transform his musings into rhyme.
Ah, when, on bright autumnal eves,
Pursuing still thy course, shall I
List the soft shudder of the leaves,
And hear the lapwing’s plaintive cry? 20
Barréges
By Lefranc de Pompignan
I LEAVE you, ye cold mountain chains,
Dwelling of warriors stark and frore!
You, may these eyes behold no more,
Save on the horizon of our plains.
Vanish, ye frightful, gloomy views! 5
Ye rocks that mount up to the clouds!
Of skies, enwrapped in misty shrouds,
Impracticable avenues!
Ye torrents, that with might and main
Break pathways through the rocky walls, 10
With your terrific waterfalls
Fatigue no more my weary brain!
Arise, ye landscapes full of charms,
Arise, ye pictures of delight!
Ye brooks, that water in your flight 15
The flowers and harvests of our farms!
You I perceive, ye meadows green,
Where the Garonne the lowland fills,
Not far from that long chain of hills,
With intermingled vales between. 20
Yon wreath of smoke, that mounts so high,
Methinks from my own hearth must come;
With speed, to that beloved home,
Fly, ye too lazy coursers, fly!
And bear me thither, where the soul 25
In quiet may itself possess,
Where all things soothe the mind’s distress,
Where all things teach me and console.
Will ever the dear days come back again?
WILL ever the dear days come back again,
Those days of June, when lilacs were in bloom,
And bluebirds sang their sonnets in the gloom
Of leaves that roofed them in from sun or rain?
I know not; but a presence will remain 5
Forever and forever in this room,
Formless, diffused in air; like a perfume, —
A phantom of the heart, and not the brain.
Delicious days! when every spoken word
Was like a footfall nearer and more near, 10
And a mysterious knocking at the gate
Of the heart’s secret places, and we heard
In the sweet tumult of delight and fear
A voice that whispered, “Open, I cannot wait!”
At La Chaudeau
By Xavier Marmier
AT La Chaudeau,— ‘t is long since then:
I was young, — my years twice ten;
All things smiled on the happy boy,
Dreams of love and songs of joy,
Azure of heaven and wave below, 5
At La Chaudeau.
To La Chaudeau I come back old:
My head is gray, my blood is cold;
Seeking along the meadow ooze,
Seeking beside the river Seymouse, 10
The days of my spring-time of long ago
At La Chaudeau.
At La Chaudeau nor heart nor brain
Ever grows old with grief and pain;
A sweet remembrance keeps off age; 15
A tender friendship doth still assuage
The burden of sorrow that one may know
At La Chaudeau.
At La Chaudeau, had fate decreed
To limit the wandering life I lead, 20
Peradventure I still, forsooth,
Should have preserved my fresh green youth
Under the shadows the hill-tops throw
At La Chaudeau.
At La Chaudeau, live on, my friends, 25
Happy to be where God intends;
And sometimes, by the evening fire,
Think of him whose sole desire
Is again to sit in the old château
At La Chaudeau. 30
A Quiet Life
LET him who will, by force or fraud innate,
Of courtly grandeurs gain the slippery height;
I, leaving not the home of my delight,
Far from the world and noise will meditate.
Then, without pomps or perils of the great, 5
I shall behold the day succeed the night;
Behold the alternate seasons take their flight,
And in serene repose old age await.
And so, whenever Death shall come to close
The happy moments that my days compose, 10
I, full of years, shall die, obscure, alone!
How wretched is the man, with honors crowned,
Who, having not the one thing needful found,
Dies, known to all, but to himself unknown.
The Wine of Jurançon
By Charles Coran
LITTLE sweet wine of Jurançon,
You are dear to my memory still!
With mine host and his merry song,
Under the rose-tree I drank my fill.
Twenty years after, passing that way, 5
Under the trellis I found again
Mine host, still sitting there au frais,
And singing still the same refrain.
The Jurançon, so fresh and bold,
Treats me as one it used to know; 10
Souvenirs of the days of old
Already from the bottle flow.
With glass in hand our glances met;
We pledge, we drink. How sour it is!
Never Argenteuil piquette 15
Was to my palate sour as this!
And yet the vintage was good, in sooth;
The self-same juice, the self-same cask!
It was you, O gayety of my youth,
That failed in the autumnal flask! 20
Friar Lubin
(Le Frère Lubin)
By Clement Marot
Mr. Longfellow gave this lyric in his paper on Origin and Progress of the French Language, and afterward printed it in The Poets and Poetry of Europe. In one of the scenes of Michael Angelo, which he appears to have set aside when revising that dramatic poem, he makes Rabelais sing it. The envoy which closes the poem here is omitted in the scene.
TO gallop off to town post-haste,
So oft, the times I cannot tell;
To do vile deed, nor feel disgraced, —
Friar Lubin will do it well.
But a sober life to lead, 5
To honor virtue, and pursue it,
That’s a pious, Christian deed, —
Friar Lubin cannot do it.
To mingle, with a knowing smile,
The goods of others with his own, 10
And leave you without cross or pile,
Friar Lubin stands alone.
To say ‘t is yours is all in vain,
If once he lays his finger to it;
For as to giving back again, 15
Friar Lubin cannot do it.
With flattering words and gentle tone,
To woo and win some guileless maid,
Cunning pander need you none, —
Friar Lubin knows the trade. 20
Loud preacheth he sobriety,
But as for water, doth eschew it;
Your dog may drink it, — but not he;
Friar Lubin cannot do it.
ENVOY
When an evil deed’s to do 25
Friar Lubin is stout and true;
Glimmers a ray of goodness through it,
Fr
iar Lubin cannot do it.
Rondel
By Jean Froissart
LOVE, love, what wilt thou with this heart of mine?
Naught see I fixed or sure in thee!
I do not know thee, — nor what deeds are thine:
Love, love, what wilt thou with this heart of mine?
Naught see I fixed or sure in thee! 5
Shall I be mute, or vows with prayers combine?
Ye who are blessed in loving, tell it me:
Love, love, what wilt thou with this heart of mine?
Naught see I permanent or sure in thee!
My Secret
By Félix Arvers
MY soul its secret has, my life too has its mystery,
A love eternal in a moment’s space conceived;
Hopeless the evil is, I have not told its history,
And she who was the cause nor knew it nor believed.
Alas! I shall have passed close by her unperceived, 5
Forever at her side, and yet forever lonely,
I shall unto the end have made life’s journey, only
Daring to ask for naught, and having naught received.
For her, though God has made her gentle and endearing,
She will go on her way distraught and without hearing 10
These murmurings of love that round her steps ascend,
Piously faithful still unto her austere duty,
Will say, when she shall read these lines full of her beauty,
“Who can this woman be?” and will not comprehend.
From the Italian.
The Celestial Pilot
Purgatorio II. 13–51.
Mr. Longfellow’s biographer, in speaking of the poet’s methods with his college class when engaged upon the study of Dante, says: “The Professor read the book into English to his class, with a running commentary and illustration. For his purpose he had bound an interleaved copy of the author; the blank pages of which he gradually filled with notes and with translations of noteworthy passages. In this way were written those passages from the Divina Commedia which were first printed in the Voices of the Night.”
AND now, behold! as at the approach of morning,
Through the gross vapors, Mars grows fiery red
Down in the west upon the ocean floor,
Appeared to me, — may I again behold it!
A light along the sea, so swiftly coming, 5
Its motion by no flight of wing is equalled.
And when therefrom I had withdrawn a little
Mine eyes, that I might question my conductor,
Again I saw it brighter grown and larger.
Thereafter, on all sides of it, appeared 10
I knew not what of white, and underneath,
Little by little, there came forth another.
My master yet had uttered not a word,
While the first whiteness into wings unfolded;
But, when he clearly recognized the pilot, 15
He cried aloud: “Quick, quick, and bow the knee!
Behold the Angel of God! fold up thy hands!
Henceforward shalt thou see such officers!
See, how he scorns all human arguments,
So that no oar he wants, nor other sail 20
Than his own wings, between so distant shores!
See, how he holds them, pointed straight to heaven,
Fanning the air with the eternal pinions,
That do not moult themselves like mortal hair!”
And then, as nearer and more near us came 25
The Bird of Heaven, more glorious he appeared,
So that the eye could not sustain his presence,
But down I cast it; and he came to shore
With a small vessel, gliding swift and light,
So that the water swallowed naught thereof. 30
Upon the stern stood the Celestial Pilot!
Beatitude seemed written in his face!
And more than a hundred spirits sat within.
“In exitu Israel de Ægypto!”
Thus sang they all together in one voice, 35
With whatso in that Psalm is after written.
Then made he sign of holy rood upon them,
Whereat all cast themselves upon the shore,
And he departed swiftly as he came.
The Terrestrial Paradise
Purgatorio XXVIII. 1–33.
LONGING already to search in and round
The heavenly forest, dense and living-green,
Which tempered to the eyes the new-born day.
Withouten more delay I left the bank,
Crossing the level country slowly, slowly, 5
Over the soil, that everywhere breathed fragrance.
A gently-breathing air, that no mutation
Had in itself, smote me upon the forehead
No heavier blow than of a pleasant breeze,
Whereat the tremulous branches readily 10
Did all of them bow downward towards that side
Where its first shadow casts the Holy Mountain;
Yet not from their upright direction bent
So that the little birds upon their tops
Should cease the practice of their tuneful art; 15
But, with full-throated joy, the hours of prime
Singing received they in the midst of foliage
That made monotonous burden to their rhymes,
Even as from branch to branch it gathering swells,
Through the pine forests on the shore of Chiassi, 20
When Æolus unlooses the Sirocco.
Already my slow steps had led me on
Into the ancient wood so far, that I
Could see no more the place where I had entered.
And lo! my further course cut off a river, 25
Which, tow’rds the left hand, with its little waves,
Bent down the grass, that on its margin sprang.
All waters that on earth most limpid are,
Would seem to have within themselves some mixture,
Compared with that, which nothing doth conceal, 30
Although it moves on with a brown, brown current,
Under the shade perpetual, that never
Ray of the sun lets in, nor of the moon.
Beatrice
Purgatorio XXX. 13–33, 85–99, XXXI. 13–21.
EVEN as the Blessed, at the final summons,
Shall rise up quickened, each one from his grave,
Wearing again the garments of the flesh,
So, upon that celestial chariot,
A hundred rose ad vocem tanti senis, 5
Ministers and messengers of life eternal.
They all were saying, “Benedictus quivenis,”
And scattering flowers above and round about,
“Manibus o date lilia plenis.”
Oft have I seen, at the approach of day, 10
The orient sky all stained with roseate hues,
And the other heaven with light serene adorned,
And the sun’s face uprising, overshadowed,
So that, by temperate influence of vapors,
The eye sustained his aspect for long while; 15
Thus in the bosom of a cloud of flowers,
Which from those hands angelic were thrown up,
And down descended inside and without,
With crown of olive o’er a snow-white veil,
Appeared a lady, under a green mantle, 20
Vested in colors of the living flame.
* * * * *
Even as the snow, among the living rafters
Upon the back of Italy, congeals,
Blown on and beaten by Sclavonian winds,
And then, dissolving, filters through itself, 25
Whene’er the land, that loses shadow, breathes,
Like as a taper melts before a fire,
Even such I was, without a sigh or tear,
Before the song of those who chime forever
After the
chiming of the eternal spheres; 30
But, when I heard in those sweet melodies
Compassion for me, more than had they said,
“Oh wherefore, lady, dost thou thus consume him?”
The ice, that was about my heart congealed,
To air and water changed, and, in my anguish, 35
Through lips and eyes came gushing from my breast.
* * * * *
Confusion and dismay, together mingled,
Forced such a feeble “Yes!” out of my mouth,
To understand it one had need of sight.
Even as a cross-bow breaks, when’t is discharged, 40
Too tensely drawn the bow-string and the bow,
And with less force the arrow hits the mark;
So I gave way beneath this heavy burden,
Gushing forth into bitter tears and sighs,
And the voice, fainting, flagged upon its passage. 45
To Italy
By Vincenzo da Filicaja
ITALY! Italy! thou who’rt doomed to wear
The fatal gift of beauty, and possess
The dower funest of infinite wretchedness
Written upon thy forehead by despair;
Ah! would that thou wert stronger, or less fair, 5
That they might fear thee more, or love thee less,
Who in the splendor of thy loveliness
Seem wasting, yet to mortal combat dare!
Then from the Alps I should not see descending
Such torrents of armed men, nor Gallic horde 10
Drinking the wave of Po, distained with gore,
Nor should I see thee girded with a sword
Not thine, and with the stranger’s arm contending,
Victor or vanquished, slave forevermore.
Seven Sonnets and a Canzone.
I.
The Artist
The following translations are from the poems of Michael Angelo as revised by his nephew, Michael Angelo the Younger, and were made before the publication of the original text by Guasti. H. W. L.
Delphi Complete Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Delphi Poets Series Book 13) Page 144
