To a Poet

Poem by Victor Hugo Collection Les Rayons et les OmbresThemes ArtPeriod 19th century

XXI

To a Poet

Friend, hide your life and pour out your spirit.

A mound, where the grass blooms in varied hues;
Ravines where white goats can be seen climbing;
A valley, sheltered beneath a web of branches
Full of birds’ nests, murmurs, voices,
That a joyful wind stirs, and from which there sometimes falls,
Like a sequin thrown by a distracted hand,
A ray of sunlight into your secret soul;
Some rocks, by God himself skillfully arranged
To make echoes at the bottom of the sleeping wood;
That is what you need for a dwelling, for a home!
It is there, — whether your house sings, loves, laughs or weeps, —
That you must live, bury your roof, bound your days,
Sending a sigh barely to the deaf caves,
Mirroring in your inner and somber thought
The obscure and gentle life and the countless hours,
Kind besides, and turning, without trouble or remorse,
Your heart toward children, your soul toward the dead!
And then, at the same time, at random, through the world,
Following its august and wandering fancy,
Far from you, beyond your vermilion horizon,
Let your poetry go into the full sun!
In the hoarse cities, in the taciturn fields,
Brushed in passing by lips and by urns,
Let it pour forth, crystal never tarnished,
And flee, ever rolling toward God, infinite abyss,
Calm and pure, through the fecundated souls,
An immense current of dreams and ideas,
That gathers in passing, in its solemn flood,
Every water that leaves the earth or descends from the sky!
You, be happy in the shadow. In your unknown life,
In your venerable and sacred tranquillity,
Remain sheltered, mysterious thinker!
And may the traveler, sick and serious,
Be able, if chance brings him to your retreat,
To draw from you peace, discreet hope,
Forgetfulness of fatigue and forgetfulness of danger,
And drink from your limpid spirit, without thinking
That, down there, a whole people drinks from the same waters.

Be small like a spring and be great like a river.

Victor Hugo

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