Destiny, Poem by Charles Cros

To Leconte de Lisle

What is the goal of so much sorrow?
We live feverish, breathless,
Without enjoying the flowers in spring,
Or the calm of nights.

Why these painful preparations,
These labors that cold doubt
Pierces, where we find terror?
Only to die afterward?

But no. Eternal beauty
Is the attracting torch
Toward which the living butterfly
Finds itself carried.

But often the golden butterfly
Meets death at the clear torch,
Thus in more than one tomb
Truth sleeps.

Do those who follow find again
These thoughts extinguished at the cradle?
What stream repeats from stream
The subtle rhythms?

Charles Cros

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