A Hundred Thousand Men, Poem by Victor Hugo

Poem by Victor Hugo Themes Death, Religion, WarPeriod 19th century

A hundred thousand men, riddled with shells and grapeshot,
A hundred thousand men, lying on a battlefield,
Fallen for their country, made greater by their death,
As one falls at Fleurus, as one falls at Lodi,
A hundred thousand ardent soldiers, heroes and not victims,
Dead in a whirlwind of sublime events,
From which takes flight proud and white liberty,
Are a lesser misfortune for society,
Are for humanity, which is founded on truth,
A calamity less high and less deep,
A blow less lamentable and less unfortunate
Than an innocent, — a single innocent condemned, —
Whose blood, streaming under an infamous blade,
Smokes between the paving stones of the Place de Grève,
Than a just man assassinated in the forest of laws,
And whose soul has the right to go tell God: See!

March 24, 1870.

Victor Hugo

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

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