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On a reef beaten by the plaintive wave,
The boatman from afar sees whitening on the shore
A tomb near the edge deposited by the waves;
Time has not yet darkened the narrow stone,
And under the green fabric of bramble and ivy
One can make out… a broken scepter!
Here lies… not a name!… ask the earth!
That name? It is inscribed in bloody characters
From the banks of the Tanais to the summit of Cedar,
On bronze and marble, and on the breast of the brave,
And even in the heart of those herds of slaves
He trampled trembling beneath his chariot.
Since those two great names that one century announces to the next,
Never has a name that here below every tongue pronounces
On the wing of lightning flown so far.
Never has the foot of any mortal that a breath effaces
Imprinted on the earth a stronger trace,
And that foot has stopped there!…
He is there!… under three steps a child measures him!
His shadow does not even make a light murmur!
The foot of an enemy treads his coffin in peace!
On that thunderstruck brow the gnat buzzes,
And his shadow hears only the monotonous sound
Of a wave against a reef!
Fear nothing, however, shadow still restless,
That I might come to outrage your mute majesty.
No. The lyre has never insulted tombs.
Death has always been the refuge of glory.
Nothing should pursue a memory to this point.
Nothing!… except the truth!
Your tomb and your cradle are covered with a cloud,
But like lightning you came out of a storm!
You struck the world with thunder before having a name!
Like that Nile whose fertile waves Memphis drinks
Before being named makes its waters boil
In the solitudes of Memnon.
The gods had fallen, the thrones were empty;
Victory took you on its rapid wings
From a people of Brutus glory made you king!
That century, whose foam carried away in its course
Mores, kings, gods… driven back toward its source,
Recoiled a step before you!
You fought error without looking at the number;
Like proud Jacob you wrestled against a shadow!
The phantom collapsed under the weight of a mortal!
And, sublime profaner of all its great names,
You played with them, as the hand of crime
With the vessels of the altar.
Thus, in the fits of an impotent delirium
When an aged century tears itself with its own hands
By throwing into its irons a cry of liberty,
A hero suddenly rises from the dust,
Strikes it with his scepter… it awakens, and the dream
Falls before the truth!
Ah! if returning that scepter to its legitimate hands,
Placing on your shield royal victims,
Your hands had washed the affront from the holy bands!
Soldier avenger of kings, greater than those kings themselves,
With what divine perfume, with what pure diadem
History would have crowned your brow!
Glory! honor! liberty! these words that man adores,
Resounded for you like the sonorous brass
Whose stupid echo repeats the sound afar:
Of that language in vain your struck ear
Comprehended here below only the cry of the sword,
And the manly accord of the bugle!
Proud, and disdaining what the earth admires,
You asked nothing of the world but empire!
You marched!… every obstacle was your enemy!
Your will flew like that swift arrow
That goes to strike the target where the gaze guides it,
Even through a friendly heart!
Never, to clear your royal sadness,
Did the cup of feasts pour intoxication for you;
Your eyes loved to become drunk on another purple!
Like a soldier standing who watches under arms,
You saw the smile or tears of beauty,
Without smiling and without sighing!
You loved only the noise of iron, the cry of alarms!
The resplendent brightness of dawn on your weapons!
And your hand flattered only your light steed,
When the undulating waves of its pale mane
Furrowed like a wind the bloody dust,
And its feet broke steel!
You grew without pleasure, you fell without murmur!
Nothing human beat under your thick armor:
Without hatred and without love, you lived to think:
Like the eagle reigning in a solitary sky,
You had only a gaze to measure the earth,
And talons to embrace it!
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To leap in a single bound onto the chariot of victory,
To strike the universe with thunder from the splendors of one’s glory,
To tread with the same foot tribunes and kings;
To forge a yoke tempered in love and hatred,
And to make shudder under the bridle that chains it
A people escaped from its laws!
To be of an entire century the thought and the life,
To blunt the dagger, to discourage envy;
To shake, to steady the uncertain universe,
By the sinister clarity of your thundering lightning
Twenty times against the gods to play the fate of the world,
What a dream! and it was your destiny!…
You fell however from that sublime height!
On that desert rock cast by the tempest,
You saw your enemies tear your cloak!
And fate, that sole god your audacity adored,
As a last favor granted you this space
Between the throne and the tomb!
Oh! who would have given me to sound your thought there,
When the memory of your past greatness
Came, like remorse, to assail you far from the noise!
And when, arms crossed on your broad chest,
On your bare and bald brow, which thought inclines,
Horror passed like the night!
Like a shepherd standing on the deep bank
Sees his shadow from afar lengthen on the wave
And follow the stormy river’s floating course;
So from the desert summit of your supreme greatness,
In the shadow of the past seeking yourself,
You recalled your former days!
They passed before you like sublime waves
Whose eye sees the peaks sparkle on the seas,
Your ear listened to their harmonious sound!
And, with a reflection of glory lighting your face,
Each wave brought you a brilliant image
That you followed long with your eyes!
There, on a trembling bridge you defied the lightning!
There, from the sacred desert you awakened the dust!
Your steed shuddered in the waters of the Jordan!
There, your steps lowered a steep peak!
There, you changed an invincible sword into a scepter!
Here… But what sudden terror?
Why do you turn away your bewildered eyelid?
Whence comes this pallor spread over your brow?
What have you suddenly seen in the horror of the past?
Is it the smoking ruin of a city?
Or some plain foaming with human blood?
But glory has erased everything.
Glory erases everything!… everything except crime!
But its finger was showing me the body of a victim;
A young man! a hero, drenched in pure blood!
The wave that carried him passed, passed, ceaselessly;
And always in passing the avenging wave
Threw him the name of Condé!…
As if to erase a livid stain,
One saw his rapid hand pass over his brow;
But the trace of blood under his finger was reborn!
And, like a seal struck by a supreme hand,
The ineffaceable drop, like a diadem,
Crowned him with his crime!
It is for that, tyrant! that your tarnished glory
Will make one doubt your genius because of your crime!
May a trace of blood follow your chariot everywhere!
And may your name, toy of an eternal storm,
Be tossed by the future from age to age
Between Marius and Caesar!
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You died however the death of the common man,
As a reaper goes to seek his wages,
And sleeps on his sickle before being paid!
You girded your sword on your thigh as you died,
And you went to demand reward or justice
From the god who had sent you!
They say that in the last days of his long agony,
Before eternity alone with his genius,
His gaze toward the sky appeared to rise!
The redeeming sign touched his fierce brow!…
And one even heard begin on his mouth
A name!… that he did not dare finish!
Finish it… It is the god who reigns and who crowns!
It is the god who punishes! it is the god who pardons!
For heroes and for us he has different weights!
Speak to him without fear! he alone can understand you!
The slave and the tyrant both have an account to render,
One for the scepter, the other for the chains!
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His coffin is closed! God has judged him! Silence!
His crime and his exploits weigh in the balance:
Let no weak mortal’s hand touch them more!
Who can fathom, Lord, your infinite clemency?
And you, scourges of God! who knows if genius
Is not one of your virtues?…
Alphonse de Lamartine
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-bonaparte-alphonse-de-lamartine/