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… Here is the rustic bench where my father sat,
The room where his manly, stern voice resounded,
When the shepherds, seated on their overturned plowshares,
Counted for him the furrows traced in each hour,
Or, still thrilling with the scenes of his glory,
He told us the history of the scaffold of kings,
And, full of the great battle he had fought,
By recounting his life he taught virtue!
Here is the empty place where my mother at every hour
At the slightest sigh would come out of her dwelling,
And, making us carry either wool or bread,
Clothed poverty or fed hunger;
Here are the thatched roofs where her attentive hand
Poured on the wound either honey or oil,
Opened near the bedside of dying old men
That book where hope is permitted to the dying,
Gathered their sighs on their oppressed mouths,
Turned their last thought toward God,
And holding by the hand the youngest of us,
To the widow, to the child, who fell to their knees,
She said, wiping the tears from their eyelids:
I give you a little gold, give them back your prayers!
Here is the threshold, in the shade, where her foot rocked us,
The branch of the fig tree that her hand lowered,
Here is the narrow path where, when the sonorous bronze
In the distant temple vibrated with the dawn,
We climbed in her footsteps to the altar of the Lord
To offer two pure incenses, innocence and happiness!
It is here that her pious and solemn voice
Explained to us a God whom we felt within her,
And showing us the ear of grain enclosed in its germ,
The cluster distilling its fragrant drink,
The heifer turning the sap of plants into pure milk,
The rock that opens to gushing springs,
The wool of the sheep stolen from the branches
Serving to line the soft nests of birds,
And the sun exact to its twelve dwellings,
Sharing among climates the seasons and the hours,
And those stars of the nights that God alone can count,
Worlds where thought dares scarcely ascend,
Taught us faith through gratitude,
And made our simple childhood admire
How the star and the insect invisible to our eyes
Had, like us, their father in the heavens!
These heaths, these fields, these vines, these meadows,
All have their memories and their cherished shadows.
There, my sisters frolicked, and the wind in their games
Followed them playing with their blond hair!
There, guiding the shepherds to the tops of the hills,
I lit bonfires of dead wood and thorns,
And my eyes, suspended on the flames of the hearth,
Passed hour after hour watching them waver.
There, against the fury of the swift north wind
The cavernous willow lent us its hollow trunk,
And I listened to the whistling in its dead foliage
Of breezes whose harmony my soul has retained.
Here is the poplar that, leaning over the abyss,
In the season of nests rocked us on its summit,
The stream in the meadows whose sleeping waters
Slowly submerged our reed boats,
The oak, the rock, the monotonous mill,
And the wall in the sun where, in autumn days,
I came on the stone, seated near the old men,
To follow the dying day with my last glances!
Everything is still standing; everything is reborn in its place:
Of our steps on the sand one still follows the trace;
Nothing is missing from these places but a heart to enjoy them,
But, alas! the hour declines and is about to vanish.
Life has scattered, like the ear of grain on the threshing floor,
Far from the paternal field, the children and the mother,
And this cherished hearth resembles the deserted nests
From which the swallow has fled during long winters!
Already the grass that grows on the ancient flagstones
Effaces around the walls the domestic paths
And the ivy, floating like a cloak of mourning,
Half covers the door and creeps on the threshold;
Soon perhaps…! avert, O my God! this omen!
Soon a stranger, unknown to the village,
Will come, gold in hand, to take possession of these places
Where the shadow of our ancestors still dwells for us,
And from where our memories of cradles and tombs
Will flee at his voice, like a nest of doves
Whose tree the axe has felled in the forests,
And who no longer know where to settle afterward! …
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-milly-or-the-native-land-ii-alphonse-de-lamartine/