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I am no longer a child: too slow for my desire,
Already seventeen springs have passed in my life:
I possess a lyre, and yet my hands
Have long drawn from it only uncertain sounds.
Oh! when will the day come when, free from its chain,
My heart will no longer see glory, its love,
Appear uncertain in the dreams of night,
Only to flee like a shadow at the first fires of day.
I was still very young when France, cast down,
Saw her laurels covered with her own blood;
Twice had her hero’s weary and vanquished hand
Broken the scepter while trying to seize it.
Those woes are already far off: yet, under chains,
We long wept our outraged honor;
The mark has remained, and in our plains one sees
Blood that still smokes… and that is not avenged!
These tableaux of splendor, these sublime memories,
I have seen fatal days roll away their debris,
In their bloody course drag victims along,
And flood my country with foreign waves.
I remained mute; for the voice of a genius
Had not yet inspired concerts in me;
My soul did not know the harmony of the lyre,
Nor its pleasures so sweet, nor its bitter sorrows.
Do not reproach my songs, my tears,
For descending too late upon frozen debris,
For bringing hearts back to illustrious alarms,
And for calling back days almost erased;
For the source of tears in me is not dried up,
For my first chord was owed to the fatherland;
Happy if I could express through my verses
The pride that animates me when I think of its glories,
The pleasure I feel when singing its victories,
The sorrow I experience when weeping its reverses!
Yes, I love my country: from my tenderest childhood,
I already cherished the splendor of France;
I admired the supports of our victorious eagles;
From afar I applauded their brilliant march,
And my voice spelled out the triumphant page
That recounted their exploits to my fellow citizens.
But soon, eagle, empire, all was seen to disappear!
Those times live no longer except in memory;
History alone, one day, too faintly perhaps,
Will tell the wonder of it to centuries to come.
It is then that one will see in its bloody lines
The deeds of the valiant awaken radiant…
Then tableaux of death will follow them, and our sons,
Seeing so many laurels withered by slaves,
Will ask how all these degraded arms
Could, in a single day, subdue hearts so brave?
Oh! if the lyre still has new accents,
If its manly harmony belongs to history,
Let us consecrate its sounds to celebrating glory,
To lamenting the fate fatal to our heroes!
May they live again in it, and, if the greedy earth
Gave only a livid bed to their bodies,
Let us raise a trophy where tombs are lacking!
Yes, despite the sorrow its memory inspires,
And despite all the ills with which its heart was filled,
That time alone can still animate a lyre;
The eagle was overturned, but not debased;
Then, if it fell victim to jealous fate,
The brave equaled his death to victory,
When, struck down from on high, suspended over the abyss,
His dead brow bowed… and did not lower itself!
Since nothing great passes or prepares,
Since glory has given way to darker days,
Who could henceforth inspire the poet
And lend him songs worthy of future times?
All has changed since then, O unfortunate France!
Your pride is gone, your courage cast down!
The abandoned life of your ancient warriors
Wears out without combats and languishes without virtue!
Over your unhappy fate one sighs in vain.
Your children are blamed for their tears,
And the pale torch that leads to honors
Is lit at that pyre where the fatherland expires.
Oh! if the timid verses issued from my pen,
Or if the expression I traced while trembling,
Dared, independent, to answer my thought,
And throb with the fire I felt within me…
How proud I would be to unmask the crime,
By which the colossal power grows each day,
And, avenging the outraged and victimized fatherland,
To confront our Sejans on their triumphal chariot!…
But they say that soon, at their stifled voice,
My weak muse, alas! will be extinguished forever,
And that my broken lute will swell the trophy
Raised by baseness to the idols of courts…
May it before that day still animate itself under my fingers!
May it go, quivering with a more sublime chord,
To warm for an instant in the hearts of the French
That voice of honor too long asleep,
Which, docile to the vows of an enemy league,
Interest or fear would like to stifle there!
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-prologue-des-elegies-nationales-gerard-de-nerval/