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(To the Marquis de L.M.F)
Oh! who will carry me to the warm shores,
Where the Arno crowned with its pale shadows,
At the walls of the Medici halted in its course,
Reflects the palace inhabited by a sage,
And seems, to the flattering murmur of its slower wave,
To whisper the great names of Petrarch and Dante?
Or rather, why can I not, at the gentle close of day,
When your brow relieved of the burden of the court,
You go beneath your groves to seek your Egeria,
Follow, dreaming, your steps from meadow to meadow;
To the modest roof embellished by your hands,
Where you hasten to adore silence and oblivion!
I too adore these gods: since wisdom
In the rays of misfortune has matured my youth,
To nourish my reason with immortal fruits alone,
I seek there sighing the shadow of their altars;
And, if there is on the summit of the green hill,
If there is on the slope of the bending hillside,
If there is on the deserted banks of an unknown torrent
Some rustic shelter, surrounded by greenery,
Whose rounded vine on the domestic threshold
Traces in serpentine the flexible portico;
Like the dove wandering on the waters,
Who, from the cedars of Ararat discovering the branches,
Flew to their summit to rest her rose-colored feet,
Suddenly my wandering soul flies there and rests!
So too, while admitted to the councils of kings,
Representing a master honored by his choice,
You hold one of the great threads of the world’s fabric;
I, among the shepherds, seated by the waters,
With a dreaming eye follow the boats on the waves;
I listen to the sighs of the wind in the reeds;
Nonchalantly lying near the bed of fountains,
I follow the shadow that turns around the trunk of oaks,
Or I carve a vain name on the bark of woods,
Or I speak to the echo that answers my voice,
Or in the vague azure contemplating the clouds,
I let my floating images wander like them;
Night falls, and Time, with his dreaded finger,
Marks me one more day that I have not counted!
Only sometimes when my oppressed soul
Feels my thought overflow in numerous rhythms;
At the inspiring breath of evening in the deserts,
My abandoned lyre still exhales verses!
I love to feel these fruits of a riper sap,
Fall, without being picked, at the will of nature,
Like the wild shoot shaken by the winds,
On the withered grass, from its moving branches
Lets fall these fruits that the branch abandons,
And which die at the foot of the tree that gives them!
There was a time, perhaps, when my days better filled,
By glory illuminated, by love embellished,
And fleeing far from me on rapid wings,
Into the night of the past did not fall so empty.
By the doubtful lights of human reason,
Wandering in the heavens on the steps of Plato,
By my own virtue I sought to know
If the soul is indeed a breath of the great being;
If this diverse ray, enclosed in clay,
Must be by death extinguished or rekindled;
If it must after a thousand years revive on earth;
Or if, changing seven times of destinies and spheres,
And rising from star to star to its divine center,
Of a goal that always flees it approaches without end?
If in these changes our memories survive?
If our cares, our loves, if our virtues follow us
If there is a judge seated at the gates of hell,
Who separates forever the just from the wicked?
If there are holy laws that, emanating from heaven,
Prolong the years of mortal empires,
Cast a bridle on the people indocile to their voice,
And place equity under the guard of kings?
Or if from a sleeping god the blind nonchalance
Lets at the will of destiny its balance stumble,
And delivers, turning away his indifferent eyes,
Nature to chance, and the earth to tyrants?
But as from the skies, where its flight unfolds,
The eagle often deceived descends without its prey,
In these vast heights where my eye has been carried
I have discovered nothing but doubt and vanity!
And weary of wandering without end in fields without limit,
To the only day I live, to the only shore I inhabit,
I have henceforth bounded my thought and my cares:
Provided that a hidden god supplies my needs!
Provided that in the arms of a cherished wife
I taste obscurely the sweet fruits of my life!
That the rustic enclosure planted by my fathers
Give me a roof in winter, and shade in summer;
And that my table crowned with happy children
Be peopled each year with one more guest!
Friend! I will no longer ravish so far from me,
In the secrets of God these comments; these whys,
Nor by the laughable effort of my weak genius,
Painfully aid infinite wisdom!
To live is enough for us; a wiser one has said it:
Sufficient unto each day is the care thereof.
Humble, and respecting the mysteries of the holy of holies,
I inherited the innocence and the god of my fathers;
Bowing my head I raise my arms to him,
For the earth adores him and does not understand him:
Like the Halcyon, whether the sea sleeps or roars,
Who in its floating nest falls asleep in peace on the wave,
Resting on God from the care of guiding me
To that invisible port where all must land,
I let my spirit, free from anxiety,
Making of easy happiness its only study,
And lending without pride its sail to all winds,
Eyes turned toward him, follow the course of time.
You, who long beaten by winds and storm,
Enjoying today this cloudless sky,
From the bosom of your repose contemplate with the same eye
Our reverses without disdain, our errors without pride;
Whose easy reason, and chaste without rudeness,
From the sages of your time has taken only wisdom,
And who received from on high this mysterious gift
Of speaking to mortals in the language of the gods;
From these enchanting shores where your voice invites me,
Where flows in pure streams the autumn of your life,
Where waters and flowers, and shade, and friendship,
Usurp half of your nonchalant days,
In these uneven verses that your muse interlaces,
Tell us, as once Horace would have told us,
If man must fight or follow his destiny?
If I have mistaken my goal or my path?
If there is toward wisdom another route to follow?
And if the art of being happy is not all the art of living.
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-philosophy-alphonse-de-lamartine/