Seafaring Spring, Poem by Auguste Angellier

The first spring azures
Push back to the distance the foam
Of green waves, long imprisoned
Under the gray mists and fogs;

The gulls, white once more,
Cross one another in the clear sky;
The cliffs, in sharp lines,
Raise again in the air their great wall,

Whose outline, even yesterday,
Almost erased by the clouds,
Floated confusedly around
Their diminished slopes;

The blond dunes reappear;
And even the old distant cape
Our surprised eyes recognize it,
Still dark and almost indistinct.

The sailors leaving the harbor
Turn a more joyful face
Toward their wives who, on the shore,
Shout wishes for a happy voyage;

And, in the glassy flanks of the deep
Entering in luminous shivers,
The sun awakens and fertilizes
The obscure loves of the fish.

Auguste Angellier

Translation generated by Poésies 123 with assistance from the deepseek-chat artificial-intelligence model.

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