Melody

Poem by Gérard De Nerval Period 19th century

(Imitated from Thomas Moore)

When pleasure sparkles in your eyes
Full of sweetness and of hope,
When the charm of existence
Adorns your gracious features, –

How often then I sigh
Thinking that bitter sorrow,
Today far from you, may reach you tomorrow,
And from your lovely mouth wipe away the smile;
For Time, you know it, drags along in its wake
The scattered illusions,
And the cooled eyes, and the ungrateful friends,
And the deceived hopes!

But believe me, my love! all these budding charms
That I contemplate with rapture,
If they should vanish in my caressing arms,
You would still keep my tenderness!
If your attractions were withered,
If you lost your sweet smile,
The grace of your beloved features
And all that in you one admires,
Go, my heart is not uncertain:
Of its sincerity you could expect anything.
And my love, victorious over Time and Destiny,
Would entwine itself around you, more ardent and more tender!

Yes, if all your attractions left you today,
I would grieve for you; but in this faithful heart
I would perhaps find a new sweetness,
And, when far from you the lovers had fled,
Driving away jealousy so fertile in torments,
A livelier ardor would come to animate me.
“”She is then mine alone, I would say, since in the world
There remains only me who can still love her!””

But what do I dare foresee? while youth
Surrounds you with a brilliance, alas! all too fleeting,
You cannot trust in all the tenderness
Of a heart in which time can change nothing.
You will know it better: growing from age to age,
Constant love resembles the sunflower,
Which renders at its decline, in the evening, the same homage
That it had, in the morning, greeted its awakening!

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-melody-gerard-de-nerval/