Poems by Victor Hugo (mobi ebook reader txt) š
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Thy lips to taste the kiss.
Oh, God! bless me and mine, and these I love, And eāen 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 infantās smile.
HENRY HIGHTON, M.A.
THE WATCHING ANGEL.
(āDans lāalcĆ“ve sombre.ā)
[XX., November, 1831.]
In the dusky nook,
Near the altar laid, Sleeps the child in shadow
Of his motherās bed: Softly he reposes, And his lid of roses, Closed to earth, uncloses
On the heaven oāerhead.
Many a dream is with him,
Fresh from fairyland, Spangled oāer 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 Oāer the dolārous 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, Neāer with rugged nail hath writ
That sad word, āTo-morrow!ā
Innocent! thou sleepestā
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 oāer him,
Kiss him where he lies, Hark, he sees them weeping,
āGabriel!ā he cries; āHush!ā the angel says, On his lip he lays One finger, one displays
His native skies.
Foreign Quarterly Review
SUNSET.
(āLe soleil sāest couchĆ©ā)
[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.
Oāer the face of the hills, oāer the face of the seas, Oāer 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.
(āMa fille, va prier!ā)
[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 pathāall 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 sheepās sad broken bleatā 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 dayās last murmurs die, In swarms tumultuous flitting through the gloom
Their breathing lips and golden locks descry. And as the bees oāer 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 thenāI need it moreāthen pray for me! For she is gentle, artless, true like thee;ā
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 neāer Touched eāen 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, oāer the spirit glide.
She knows notānor mayest thouāthe miseries In which our spirits mingle: vanities,
Remorse, soul-gnawing cares, Pleasureās false show: Passions which float upon the heart like foam, Bitter remembrances which oāer us come,
And Shameās red spot spread sudden oāer the brow.
I know life better! when thouārt older grown Iāll tell theeāit is needful to be knownā
Of the pursuit of wealthāart, 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:ā
āLord, Lord, our Father! God, my prayer attend; Pardon! Thou art good! PardonāThou art great!ā Let them go freely forth, fear not their fate!
Where thy soul sends them, thitherward they tend.
Thereās nothing here below which does not find Its tendency. Oāer 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, Iām like the slave whom in the vale we see
Seated to rest, his heavy load laid by; I feel refreshedāthe load of faults and woe Which, groaning, I drag with me as I go,
Thy wingĆØd 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., Taitās Magazine
LES CHANTS DU CRĆPUSCULE.ā1849.
PRELUDE TO āTHE SONGS OF TWILIGHT.ā
(āDe quel non te nommer?ā)
[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 appearsā
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 shepherdās song, or maidenās 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
Throā fields where verdure meets the travāllerās eye. The riverās margin, blurred with wavy reeds,
The muffled anthem, echoing to the sky!
The ivy smothering the armĆØd tower;
The dying wind that mocks the pilotās 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;
Thā 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 oāer 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 heartā
For now, when smiles are rarely deemed sincere, In vain the sceptic bids his doubts departā
Those doubts at length will arguments appear!
Hence, reader, know the subject of my songā
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.
(āLāOrient! quāy voyez-vous, poĆ«tes?ā)
[PRELUDE, b.]
Now, votāries of the Muses, turn your eyes,
Unto the East, and say what there appears! āAlas!ā the voice of Poesy replies,
āMysticās that light between the hemispheres!ā
āYes, dreadās the mystic light in yonder heavenā
Dull is the gleam behind the distant hill; Like feeble flashes in the welkin driven,
When the far thunder seems as it were still!
āBut who can tell if that uncertain glare
Be Phoebusā self, adorned with glowing vest; Or, if illusions, pregnant in the air,
Have drawn our glances to the radiant west?
āHaply the sunset has deceived the sightā
Perchance ātis evening, while we look for morning; Bewildered in the mazes of twilight,
That lucid sunset may appear a dawning!ā
G.W.M. REYNOLDS
THE THREE GLORIOUS DAYS.
(āFrĆØres, vous avez vos journĆ©es.ā)
[I., July, 1830.]
Youth of France, sons of the bold, Your oak-leaf victor-wreaths behold! Our civic-laurelsāhonored dead!
So bright your triumphs in lifeās morn,
Your maiden-standards hacked and torn, On Austerlitz might lustre shed.
All that your fathers did re-doneā A peopleās rights all nobly wonā Ye tore them living from the shroud!
Three glorious days bright Julyās 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.
Eāen chilly Albion admires, The grand example Europe fires; America shall clap her hands,
When swiftly oāer 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 eāen your plays, while oāer you shook
The battle-flags in air aloft!
Passing your lines, Napoleon oft
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