To Madame M. N. (I)

Poem by Alfred De Musset Collection New PoemsPeriod 19th century

Sonnet.

When, on a rainy day, a bird of passage
Throws at random a cry into a lost path,
Deep in the flowering woods, in its nest of leaves,
The pensive nightingale has sometimes answered.

Thus was my call heard by your soul,
And you answer me in our dear language.
That sad and gentle charm, so loved by another age,
That pure touch of the heart, you have given back to me.

Was it really you, then? So good and so pretty,
You speak of regrets and of melancholy.
– And I too, perhaps, had a wounded heart.

To love no matter what, is a bit of madness.
Who will bring us back Ophelia’s bouquet
From the unknown shore where the waves have left it?

Alfred De Musset

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

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