Sunbreak

Poem by Victor Hugo Collection Les contemplationsThemes NaturePeriod 19th century

The ocean gleams beneath its vast cloud-bank.
The wave, exhausted by its endless struggle,
Grows drowsy, and, letting the reef take rest,
Makes of the whole shore one immense kiss.
One would say that everywhere, at once, life
Dissolves evil, mourning, winter, night, envy,
And that the dead lying down say to the living standing:
Love! and that a dark soul, blossoming in all things,
Gently moves its mouth toward our lips.
Being, extinguishing in shadow and ecstasy its fevers,
Opening its flanks, its loins, its eyes, its scattered hearts,
In its deep pores receives from every side
The penetration of the sacred sap.
The great peace from above comes like a tide.
The blade of grass quivers in the cracks of the pavement;
And the soul is warm. One feels the nest is brooded.
The infinite seems full of a shiver of leaves.One thinks one is at that hour when the awakened earth
Hears the noise made by the opening of the day,
The first step of wind, of work, of love,
Of man, and the bolt of the sonorous door,
And the neighing of the white dawn horse.
The sparrow with a wingbeat, like a mad sprite,
Comes to tease the monstrous wave that smiles;
The air plays with the fly and the foam with the eagle;
The grave plowman makes his furrows and rules
The page where the poem of wheat will be written;
Fishermen are over there at table under a vine;
The horizon seems a dazzling dream in which swim
The scale of the sea, the feather of the cloud,
For the Ocean is hydra and the cloud is bird.
A glimmer, vague ray, starts from the cradle
That a woman rocks at the threshold of a cottage,
Gilds the fields, the flowers, the wave, and becomes light
On touching a tomb that sleeps near the bell tower.
The day plunges to the blackest of the gulf, and goes to seek
Shadow, and kisses its brow beneath the dark and haggard water.
All is gentle, calm, happy, appeased; God watches.

Victor Hugo

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