Français
Español
Italiano
Deutsch
Português
Here is June. The sparrow mocks
The lovers in the fields;
The wall nightingale
Sings in its stony nest.
The grasses and the branches,
Full of sighs and barks,
Make charming repetitions
In the depths of the woods.
The thrush and the turtle dove
Prolong, in the deaf nests,
The ravishing quarrel
Of kisses and of loves.
Under the arbors of the plain,
In the grotto where the osier turns green,
Virgil intoxicates Silenus,
And Rabelais Grandgousier.
O Virgil, pour me a drink!
Pour me a drink, O Rabelais!
The forest is a glory;
The cavern is a palace!
There is no lake nor island
That does not take us in its lime,
That does not improvise an idyll,
Or that does not sing a duet.
For love hunts in the groves,
And love fishes in the streams,
For the beauties are the cages
Whose birds are our hearts.
From the spring, its basin,
The flower, making its mirror,
Says: “Good morning,” to the warbler,
And says to the owl: “Good evening.”
The roof hopes for the sheaf,
Bread first and thatch after;
The ox’s rump in the grass
Looks like a mount in the forests.
The pond laughs at the widgeon,
The meadow laughs at the oriole,
While the hollow rut
Growls at the heavy chariot.
Gold blooms into wallflower;
The ancient fabulous zephyr
Blows with its swollen cheek
At the bottom of the blue clouds.
Jersey, on the docile wave,
Drapes itself in a beautiful pure sky,
And puts on airs of Sicily
In a great rag of azure.
Everywhere the eclogue is written:
Even in cold Albion,
The air is full of Theocritus,
The wind knows Bion by heart,
And repeats, melancholic,
The song that was hummed
By Moschus, bucolic cricket
Of the chimney Etna.
Winter coughs, old consumptive,
And goes away; the mist melts;
The waves make the music
Of the verses that the trees make.
All somber nature
Pours a mysterious day;
The soul that dreams has more shadow
And the flower has more love.
The grass bursts into daisies;
The perfumes, thought mute,
Tell the secret sorrows
Of the bindweeds to the cornflowers.
The little white wings
On the waters and the furrows
Fall in avalanches;
It snows butterflies.
And on the sea, which reflects
The dawn with an enamel smile,
The violet heather
Puts a cape on the old mount;
So that it may, to the abyss
That it contains and blesses,
Say its sublime mass
Under its granite miter.
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-at-granville-in-1836-victor-hugo/