My Distant Ancestor

Poem by Charles-Nérée Beauchemin Collection Patrie intimePeriod 19th century

In a maiden’s gentle weather,
On the frail caravel,
My maternal ancestress,
For the other side of the Water,
Put out to sea from Saint-Malo.

Her rosary in her pocket,
A few coins in her satchel,
She arrived, by the coach,
Without adornment and without jewel,
From a small town in Anjou.

Before the altar of the Virgin,
Having burned the candle
That Candlemas sprinkles,
Without her heart failing her,
The countrywoman embarked.

Woman willed by God,
By the King first chosen,
At sunset, she salutes
This distant mystery,
That is no longer earth or sky.

And while her eye plunges
Into the vague azure, she dreams
Of the good friend from Saintonge,
Who, for a century, has awaited
The blonde he loves so much.

From the Angevin homeland,
Where mint and hawthorn
Perfume valley and hill,
The betrothed carries a sprig
Of the loving rosemary.

In a maiden’s gentle weather,
One morning in the chapel,
Under the lace canopy,
At the spouses’ balustrade,
The couple was seen kneeling.

For a hundred and a hundred years,
On the stem of lineages,
To the new branches born,
Flourishes, as on the first day,
Flower of France, flower of love.

O my heart, never forget
The dear bond that binds you,
Over the lovely sea,
To the good lands, to the sweet places,
From which the Ancestors came.

Charles-Nérée Beauchemin

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-my-distant-ancestor-charles-neree-beauchemin/