Sometimes I Feel Seized with Horror, Poem by Victor Hugo

Poem by Victor Hugo Period 19th century

Sometimes I feel seized with horror for this earth;
My verse seems the open mouth of a crater;
I have the fierce dismay
That the monstrous hurricane gives to the great tree;
My heart catches fire; I feel all that is marble in me
Turning to lava within me;

What! nothing true! the scribe has the trooper for support;
All the robes, judge and virgin, woman and priest,
Lie or will lie;
Dogma drinks blood, the altar blesses crime;
All truths, sad and sublime group,
Have redness on their brow;

The sinister glimmer of kings is over our heads;
The temple is full of hell; the brightness of our feasts
Darkens the blue sky;
The soul has the tilt of a ship that is sinking;
And religions, groping, have in the shadows
Mistaken the demon for God!

Oh! who will give me terrible words?
Oh! I will tear up these charters and these bibles,
These codes, these korans!
I will let out the deep cry of catastrophes;
And I will seize you, sophists, in my stanzas,
In my nails, tyrants.

Thus, quivering, pale, indignant, I seethe;
One knows not what swarm of black eagles whirls
In my blazing sky;
Mourning! war! a fury has hatched in my soul!
What! evil is everywhere! I look at a rose
And I am appeased.

Victor Hugo

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-sometimes-i-feel-seized-with-horror-victor-hugo/