My Grandmother, Poem by Gérard De Nerval

Poem by Gérard De Nerval Period 19th century

It has been three years since my grandmother died,
The good woman — and when they buried her,
Relatives, friends, everyone wept
With a sorrow quite true and quite bitter.

I alone wandered through the house, surprised
More than grieved; and, as I stood near
Her coffin — someone reproached me
For watching this without tears and without cries.

Noisy grief passes away quite quickly:
In three years, other emotions,
Fortunes, misfortunes — revolutions —
Have within these walls wiped out her memory.

I alone still think of her, and often weep;
For three years, gathering strength with time,
Like a name carved into bark,
Her memory digs itself deeper still!

Gérard de Nerval

Translation generated by Poésies 123 with assistance from the deepseek-chat artificial-intelligence model.

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