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To M. A. de V***.
Let us pause on the hillside
At the hour when, dividing the days,
The morning star that declines
Seems to hasten its course!
As it advances in its career,
Weaker, it casts behind
The earthly shadow that follows it,
And of the horizon it colors
One half still sees it,
It is the hour when, beneath the slanting shadow,
The plowman in the valley
Suspends his day for a moment,
And sits at the edge of the furrow!
It is the hour when, near the fountain,
The traveler catches his breath
After his morning’s course
And it is the hour when the thinking soul
That abandons it on its way!
Thus our pale star,
Casting dying gleams
On the noon of our life,
Of our rapid existence
The shadow of approaching death
Already darkens half!
And, near that fatal term,
As at dawn, there remains to us
Only hope and friendship!
Friend whom the same day saw born,
Companion since the cradle,
And whom perhaps the same day
Shall lull to sleep in the same tomb!
Here is the boundary that divides
That the same fate has traced for us!
From this summit that gathers us,
Come, let us cast a glance together
On the future and the past!
Let us review our days, if you dare!
Did ever the hope of sailors
The ship launched to the waves?
Did ever with a lovelier hue
The dawn, smiling, color
The radiant brow of morning?
Did ever, with an eye piercing with audacity,
The eagle embrace more space
Than destiny opened to us?
In vain on the fatal road,
Whose edge the cypresses trace,
A few tombs at intervals
Warned us of death!
These melancholy monuments
Seemed to us, as in ancient days,
A vain ornament of the road!
We sat beneath their shade,
And we dreamed of countless days,
Alas! between yesterday and tomorrow!
How many times, near the shore
Where Nisida sleeps on the seas,
Beauty, credulous or fickle,
Hurried to our sweet concerts!
How many times the wandering boat
Rocked on the transparent wave
Two couples led by Love!
While a friendly goddess
Cast over the sleeping wave
The perfumed veil of nights!
How many times, in the delirium
That followed our feasts,
To the ancient sounds of the lyre,
I evoked divine dreams!
With the perfumes of dying roses,
With the vapors of smoking cups,
They flew to us in turn!
And on their many-hued wings,
In the labyrinths of Love!
But in their imperceptible slope,
The days that followed days
Carried away like running water
Both our dreams and our loves;
Like the fleeting flower
That from the joyful brow of a guest
Falls before the hour of the feast,
That happiness which intoxication gathers,
From our brows falling leaf by leaf,
And now, on that space
That our steps have already left,
Turn back! let us seek the trace
Of love, of voluptuousness!
Treading their faded shores,
Let us go back up the course of years,
While a frozen memory,
Like the softened star of shadows,
Still lights with somber tints
The empty scene of the past!
Here, on the stage of the world,
Your first sun arose!
Look! what deep night
Has replaced that vermilion day!
Everything beneath the skies seemed to smile,
The leaf, the wave, the zephyr
Murmured charming accords!
Listen! the leaf is withered!
And the winds on the dried-up wave
Give forth hollow moans!
That sea with silvered waves,
That only rocks the image
Of the shores repeated in its breast?
A cherished name flies over the wave!…
But not a voice that answers,
Only the wave growling on the reef!
Wretched one! what name you pronounce!
Do you not see among these brambles
This name engraved on a coffin?…
Further on the shore where it spreads
Do you see that palace leaning
And casting a shadow into the waters?
There, under a foreign form,
An angel exiled from its sphere
Inflamed you with a celestial love!
Why tremble? what noise astonishes you?
It is only a shadow that shivers
At the steps of the mortal it loved!
Alas! everywhere you pass again,
It is mourning, emptiness or death,
And nothing has germinated on our traces
But sorrow or remorse!
There is that heart where your tenderness
Sowed fruits that your old age,
Alas! will not harvest:
There, oblivion lost your memory!
There, envy stifled your glory!
There, your virtue made ingrates!
There, the eclipsed illusion
Flees beneath a dark cloud!
Here, hope, wearied,
Folded back its azure wings!
There, beneath the sorrow that freezes it,
Your smile lost its grace,
Your voice forgot its harmonies!
Your exhausted senses complained,
And your blond hair became tinged
With the silver breath of winters!
Thus from foreign shores,
When man, unknown to tyrants,
Toward the dwelling of his fathers
Secretly carries his wandering steps,
The darnel has covered his hills,
His sacred roof hangs in ruins,
In his gardens the water has dried up;
And on the threshold that was his joy,
In the shadow a ferocious dog barks
Against the hands that fed it!
But these senses that grow heavy
And submit to the law of time,
These eyes, this heart that grow tarnished,
This shadow, in short, is not you!
Without regret, to the flood of years,
Give up these faded remains
That the breath of days carries away,
The arid and vagabond leaf
That the wave drags in its course!
It is no longer the time to smile
At these roses of few days!
To mingle with the sounds of the lyre
The tender sighs of loves!
To sow on sterile grounds
These vows, these useless projects,
Carried off by the winds of heaven,
To which time that devours us
Does not give the hour to bloom
During our rapid summers!
Let us lift our eyes to the hill
Where the morning star shines!
Let us greet the divine splendor
That rises in the distance!
This pure and fruitful clarity
To the eyes of the soul lights a world
Where faith mounts without effort!
With a holy hope your heart palpitates;
Friend! to fly there more quickly,
Let us take the wings of death!
In vain, in this arid desert,
Beneath our steps everything has been erased!
Come! where eternity resides,
One finds even the past!
There are our dreams full of charms,
And our farewells steeped in tears,
Our vows and our lost hopes!
There, our youths will bloom again;
And the objects of our sorrows
To our regrets will be returned!
Thus, when the autumn winds
Have swept away the shadow of the woods,
The agile swallow abandons
The summit of the palace of kings!
Following the sun in its course,
It remounts toward the source
From which the star pours days upon us;
And on its steps finds again
Another sky, another dawn,
Another nest for its loves!
This king, whose holy sadness
Immortalized his sorrows,
Thus saw his green youth
Renew itself beneath his tears!
His harp, in the shadow of the tomb,
Sighed like the dove
Beneath the green cypresses of Carmel!
And his heart, lit by a lamp,
Resounded like a sanctuary
Where the eternal hymn echoes!
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-the-past-alphonse-de-lamartine/