The Awakening in a Carriage

Poem by Gérard De Nerval Period 19th century

This is what I saw: The trees along my way
Fled in confusion, like an army in rout,
And beneath me, as if stirred by the rising winds,
The ground rolled in waves of soil and cobblestones!

Church towers led across the green plains
Their hamlets of plaster houses, covered
In tiles, which trotted along like flocks
Of white sheep, marked with red on their backs!

And the drunken mountains tottered, – the river
Like a boa snake, over the entire valley
Stretched out, darted forth to entwine them…
– I was in the post chaise, just waking up!

Gérard de Nerval

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-awakening-in-a-carriage-gerard-de-nerval/