To a Finished Man, Poem by Victor Hugo

Poem by Victor Hugo Period 19th century

You knew full well that one day you must fall at last,
But you imagined neither Sejanus nor Rufinus.
You thought yourself of those whom public hatred
Strikes furtively with a blow of oblique lightning;
You had fancied that you would be overthrown
Without being hurt, gently, in secret,
With precaution, without noise, at nightfall,
And begging a friend to tell you the thing,
As one sets a precious vase upon the ground;
You had made for yourself in advance, far off, under fair skies,
In your palace, prouder than the Villa Farnese,
A voluptuous bed to fall at your ease.
Not at all. It was at high noon that the people thundered.
The horizon was blue, the lightning furrowed it.
The thunder, in broad daylight, in the midst of the crowd,
Fell upon your brow like a collapsing ceiling,
And those who saw you reduced to dust in a moment
Were terrified by that crushing.
And the wise said, looking at you on the ground,
That the times are bad, that power is corrupted
When a beggar, a scoundrel, a knave, a rogue,
Made to crawl so low, can fall from so high.

August 7, 1849.

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-to-a-finished-man-victor-hugo/