Jocelyn, September 20, 1793

Poem by Alphonse De Lamartine Period 19th century

I no longer feel the weight of time; the flight of the hour
With an even, gentle wing brushes past me as it flows;
I could wish each evening that the advanced day
Were still but barely begun in the morning;
Or rather, whether the day is born or dies in shadow,
Whether the sky of the valley is radiant or dark,
Whether the lark sings or not at my awakening.
My heart no longer depends on a ray of sunlight,
On the fleeing season, on the passing cloud;
Its happiness is within itself; every hour, every place.
Every season, every sky, are good when one is two;
What does it matter to united hearts what changes around them?
For one another they make their time, their sky, their world;
The hour that flies returns fuller and more fruitful,
Their heart inexhaustible, and to one another open,
Is for them a firmament that is never clouded.
They plunge into it without shadow, they read there without veil.
A new horizon endlessly unveils itself there;
The echo of each friend’s word
Awakens in the other’s breast the same sentiment;
The word by which one reveals his thought
On the other’s lips is already begun;
The gesture aids the word, the eye explains the heart,
The soul flows ever onward and no longer has languor;
Of a new universe the shared impression
Vibrates at once, merges therein, and soon makes but one;
In that other self, where all will resound,
One watches oneself live, one listens to oneself feel;
In letting escape one’s ingenuous thought,
One explains oneself, one creates an unknown tongue;
In hearing the word that one sought within oneself,
One understands oneself, one dreams, one says: it is I!
In its living image one finds one’s emblem,
One admires the world through what one loves;
And life, supported and supporting in turn,
Is a sacred burden that one bears with love!

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-jocelyn-september-20-1793-alphonse-de-lamartine/