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You have taken pity on his long sorrow!
You give me back the day, God whom love implores!
Already my brow, covered with a soft pallor,
Is colored in his eyes with the hues of life;
Already through all my being a gentle warmth
Circulates with my blood, rises back to my heart—
I am reborn to love once more!
But nature also awakens on this day!
Beneath the gentle May sun we see her reborn;
The birds of Venus around my window
Proclaim the return of the dearest of months!
Guide my first steps through our green countryside!
Lead me, dear Elvire, and support your lover:
I want to see the sun rise slowly,
Hurl its chariot down from the height of our mountains,
Until the hour when it will sink into the wave,
And yield the air to the nocturnal zephyr!
Come! What do you fear for me? The sky is cloudless!
This fairest of our days will pass without storm;
And it is the hour when already on the flowering grass
The peaceful shepherds sleep beside their flocks!
God! how sweet the air is! how pure the light!
You reign as conqueror over all nature,
O sun! and from the heavens, where your chariot is borne,
You pour out life and fertility upon her!
The day when, separating night from light,
The Eternal launched you into your vast course,
The whole universe acknowledged you as king!
And man, adoring you, bowed down before you!
From that day, pursuing your flaming course,
You trace without rest your accustomed road;
The brilliance of your rays has not dimmed,
And beneath the hand of time your brow has not grown pale!
When the morning voice comes to awaken the dawn,
The Indian, prostrate, blesses and adores you!
And I, when noon with its beneficent fires
Revives by degrees my languishing limbs,
It seems to me that a God, in your flaming rays,
Warming my breast, enters into my soul!
And I feel my spirit detached from its chains,
As if the arm of the Most High had touched me!
But does your sublime author forbid belief in him?
Are you not, O sun! a ray of his glory?
When you go measuring the immensity of the heavens,
O sun! are you not a gaze from his eyes?
Ah! if I have sometimes, in days of misfortune,
Blasphemed the sun’s unwelcome light;
If I have cursed the gifts I received from you,
God, who reads hearts, O God! forgive me!
I had not tasted the supreme delight
Of seeing nature again beside what I love,
Of feeling in my heart, under the rays of a fair day,
Both life and love descend at once!
Fool that I was! I did not know the full worth of life!
But this day teaches me, and I glorify you!
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-hymn-to-the-sun-alphonse-de-lamartine-2/