At the Window, During the Night, poem by Victor Hugo

Poem by Victor Hugo Collection Les contemplationsThemes NaturePeriod 19th century

The stars, dots of gold, pierce the black branches;
The oily and heavy swell breaks up its ripples
On the paled ocean;
The clouds look like birds taking flight;
At moments the wind speaks, and says disconnected words,
Like a sleeping man.

Everything goes away. Nature is the poorly closed urn.
The storm is foam and the flame is smoke.
Nothing is, outside the moment,
Man has nothing that he takes, and holds, and keeps.
He falls hour by hour, and, a ruin, he watches
The world, a collapse.

Is the star the fixed point in this moving problem?
This sky that we see, was it always the same?
Will it always be?
Does man have eternal lights on his forehead?
And will he always see the same sentinels
Rise to the same towers? […]

Victor Hugo

Translation generated by Poésies 123 with assistance from the deepseek-chat artificial-intelligence model.

Text published on Poésies 123: https://www.poesies123.com/en/poem-at-the-window-during-the-night-victor-hugo/