Great Age and Young Age Mingled, Poem by Victor Hugo

Poem by Victor Hugo Themes ChildhoodPeriod 19th century

My soul is made such that never idea,
Nor man, whoever they be, have intimidated it;
Always my heart, which has neither Bible nor Koran,
Disdained the sophist and defied the tyrant;
I am without dread being without covetousness;
Fear does not extinguish me and honor alone kindles me;
I have the haughty and heavy ankylosis of the rock;
It is very difficult to make me walk
By desire forward or by fear backward;
I resist force and yield to prayer,
But the goods of this world have little effect on me;
And I declare, friends, that I am satisfied,
That my supreme ambition is fulfilled,
That I recognize myself paid in this life,
And that the clement gods have fulfilled all my wishes.
As long as on this earth, where truly I want
Neither Olympian pedestal, nor Trajan’s column,
No one will take from me Jeanne’s smile.

Victor Hugo

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-great-age-and-young-age-mingled-victor-hugo/