Chant d'amour (VI), Poem by Alphonse De Lamartine

Poem by Alphonse De Lamartine Collection New Poetic MeditationsPeriod 19th century

One day, jealous time, with icy breath,
Will wither your colors like a faded flower
On these grassy beds;
And its hand will blight upon your charming lips
Those swift kisses, alas! of which you deprive me
In their fresh season.

But when your eyes, veiled in a cloud of tears,
For these vanished days that robbed you of your charms
Weep for their harshness;
When in your memory, in the water of the shore
You seek in vain your ravishing image,
Look into my heart!

There your beauty blooms for countless centuries;
There your sweet memory watches forever in the shadow
Of my fidelity,
Like a golden lamp whose trembling light
A holy virgin shields with her hand
As she crosses the sanctuary.

And when death comes, followed by another love,
To extinguish with a smile, of our double life,
The one and the other flame,
May it lay my couch beside your own,
And may your faithful hand still embrace mine
In the bed of the tomb.

Or rather, may we pass over this earth,
As in autumn one sees a solitary pair
Of loving swans
Depart, embracing, from the nest that gathers them,
And toward the sweet climes they seek together
Fly off two by two.

Alphonse de Lamartine

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