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At higher rungs upon the ladder of being
In brighter traits Jehovah is about to appear,
The night that veiled him here dissolves away!
See in the pure rays of the love about to be born
The maiden blossoming!
She does not yet dazzle
The fascinated eye she holds suspended,
One sees that she herself is unaware
Of the delight she sheds;
Like, in her virginal flower,
To the pure and morning hour
That follows shadow and that day follows,
Doubly beautiful to the eyelid,
Both with the splendors of light
And with the mysteries of night!
Her light brow rises and hovers
On a supple neck, slender and tall,
As on the diaphanous wave
A swan softly cradled;
Beneath the vault barely traced
Of this temple where her soul dwells,
One sees the eyebrow faintly sketched,
Wavy arc of gold or ebony
That a breath fears to efface,
Or the brush to retouch!
There two sparks leap forth
That veil and cover at every instant,
Like a bird that beats its wings,
The eyelid with quivering lash!
On the transparent nostril
The veins where the blood winds
Interlace as if by design,
And from her breathing lip
Spreads with her smile
The fragrant breath of her breast!
As a melodious genius
From scattered sounds makes concerts,
A sympathetic harmony
Accords among themselves these various traits;
From this accord, charm of charms,
In laughter or in tears
Are born grace and beauty;
Beauty, supreme mystery
That reveals itself
Only through desire and delight!
On her features whose soft oval
Bounds the gracious whole,
The colors that the cloud displays
Blend to charm the eyes;
To the purple that tints her cheek,
One would say the dawn plays there,
Or that she has fixed forever,
At the moment that sees it bloom,
A gliding ray of the dawn
On a marble with divine contours!
Her hair that spills over
At the will of the wind takes flight,
Glides in waves down to her hip,
And there tapers into fringes of gold;
Around the white neck it embraces,
Like a necklace it entwines itself,
Descends, winds, and comes to roll
On a breast where two sources
From which human life
In streams of love must flow, barely swell!
Noble and light, she frolics,
And the grass that her steps tread
Under the weight of her alabaster foot
Bends and does not break!
Her waist sways as she walks
Like the skiff that dances
When the sail rounds out
Beneath its mast cradled by the dawn,
Balances its still empty flank
On the wave that rebounds!
Her soul is nothing but tenderness,
Her body but harmonious contour,
Her whole being that the eye caresses
Is but a presentiment of love!
She pities all that sighs,
She loves the air she breathes,
Dreams or weeps, or sings apart,
And, without knowing what it implores
Of a delight she does not know,
She blushes under a gaze!
But already her beauty, more mature,
Flowers in her fifteenth summer;
In her eyes all nature
Is but innocence and delight!
By the fires of brilliant stars,
To the soft sound of streaming waters,
Her thought wanders with love;
And all the flowers of the meadows
Come, withered between her fingers,
To dry upon her heart one by one!
The bird, wild to all others,
Comes to nest beneath her windows,
Or, charmed by its servitude,
Perches on her shoulders;
She feeds the turtledoves,
Over the white satin of their wings
She runs her caressing fingers,
Or, in an amorous whim,
She loves that their neck trembles
Under her resounding kisses!
She appears, and all sighs,
All is troubled without her gaze;
Her beauty spreads a delirium
That gives intoxication to the old man!
And as one sees the humble dust
Swirl in the light
That fascinates it unbeknownst to it!
Wherever this beautiful brow shines,
A breath of love surrounds
Her through whom man is conceived!
A man! a son, a king of all nature!
Insect born of mud and who lives on light!
Who occupies but a point, who has but two instants,
But who by thought is master of the Infinite,
And, endlessly pushing back the bounds of his being,
Extends through all space and lives in all times!
He is born, and with a glance he takes possession of the world,
Each of his needs subdues an element,
For him the ear of wheat sprouts, for him the wave pours forth,
And fire, son of the day, descends from the firmament!
The instinct of his weakness is his omnipotence;
For him even the insect is an object of fear,
But the scepter of the globe belongs to intelligence;
Man unites with man, and the earth has its king!
He looks, and the day paints itself in his eyelid;
He thinks, and the universe appears within his soul!
He speaks, and his accent, like another light,
Goes into another’s soul to paint itself trait for trait!
He gives himself senses that nature forgot,
Puts a bridle on the wave in the capricious wind,
Hurls death at the target his calculation measures,
Probes with a crystal the abysses of the skies!
He writes, and the winds carry off his thought
That goes into all the skies to live and converse!
And his invisible soul, traced in living lines,
Listens to the past speaking to the future!
He founds cities, immortal families;
And to sustain them he raises laws,
Which, eternal columns of these monuments,
Share among themselves the weight of the social temple!
After having conquered nature, he sighs;
For a nobler prize his life has fought;
And his heart still empty, disdaining his empire,
To equal the gods invented virtue!
He offers with a smile his life in sacrifice,
He trusts in the God his eye does not see;
Guilty, he has remorse that avenges justice,
Virtuous, a voice that applauds him in a low tone!
Greater than his destiny, greater than nature,
His satisfied needs are not enough for him,
His soul has destinies that no eye can measure,
And gazes reaching farther than death!
He needs hope, and empire and glory,
The future to his name, altars to his faith,
Gods to implore, truths to believe,
Heavens and hells, and immortal days!
But time all at once fails his worn-out life,
The shortened horizon lowers before him,
He feels his days run dry like an exhausted wave,
And his last sun has shone!
Look at him die!… Seated on the shore
That the wave comes to beat where his ship must depart,
The pilot who knows the goal of his voyage
With a more reassured heart does not wait for the zephyr!
One would say that his eye, lit by hope,
Sees immortality shining on the other shore,
Beyond the tomb his virtue goes before him,
And, certain of the awakening, as the day fades, he falls asleep!
And the stars no longer have light pure enough,
And the Infinite no longer has a dwelling vast enough,
And the divine centuries no longer have a course long enough
For the soul of him who was but dust
And who had but a day!
There is that instinct that announces him
Higher than dawn and night.
There is the eternal answer
To the doubt that reproduces itself!
From the great book of nature,
If the letter, obscure to your eyes,
Does not betray him everywhere,
Ah! man is the supreme book:
In the very fibers of his heart
Read, mortals: There is a God!
Alphonse de Lamartine
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-humanity-sequel-to-jehovah-alphonse-de-lamartine/