Discovery

Poem by Guy De Maupassant Period 19th century

I was a child. I loved the great battles,
The Knights and their heavy armor,
And all the brave men who fell over there
To redeem the Holy Sepulchre.

Richard the Englishman made my heart beat
And I loved him, when after his conquests
He came back, and his conquering arm
Had cut off a whole necklace of heads.

From a Beauty I took my colors,
A stick was my scimitar;
Then I went off to the war of flowers
And of buds with which I strewed the earth.

I possessed in the free wind of the skies
A bank of moss where my throne was raised;
I scorned ambitious kings,
Of green branches I had made my crown.

I was happy and delighted. But one day
I saw a young companion coming.
I offered my heart, my kingdom and my court,
And the castles I had in Spain.

She sat down under the green chestnut trees;
Now I thought I saw, so beautiful did I find her,
In her blue eyes like another universe,
And I remained quite dreamy beside her.

Why leave my dream and my cheerfulness
In looking at this little blonde girl?
Why was Columbus so tormented
When, in the mist, he glimpsed a world.

Guy de Maupassant

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-discovery-guy-de-maupassant/