My Prisons, Poem by Alfred de Musset

They say: “” Sad as the door
Of a prison. “”
And I believe, the devil take me!
That they are right.

First, as far as I’m concerned,
My feeling
Is that it’s better to mount one’s guard,
Decidedly.

I have been, for a week,
In a dungeon,
And I notice with difficulty
That it is very hot.

I go to sulk at the window,
While smoking;
The sun begins to appear
Very gently.

It is a beautiful prospect,
Early in the morning,
Than people doing the laundry
In the distance.

To distract oneself, if one yawns,
One perceives
First a long wall,
Then a long roof.

Those to whom this tranquil stay
Is unknown
Ignore the effect of a tile
On a bare wall.

I would never have believed myself,
Without having seen it,
What this supreme spectacle
Has of the unexpected.

Yet the rays of autumn
Still cast
On this flat and monotonous roof
A network of gold.

And these dungeons have nothing sad,
Far from it:
Painter or poet, each artist
Puts in his own.

With drawings, with caricatures
They are covered.
Here and there some writings
Seem like verses.

Each draws a reverie
From his cap:
This one, the Virgin Mary,
The other, a sonnet.

There, it’s Magdalene in painting,
Barefoot, reading;
Venus laughs under the cover,
At the foot of the bed.

Further on, it’s Faith, Hope,
Charity,
Great sketches made to the utmost,
Not without beauty.

An Andalusian quite lively,
With a cute neck,
Is in a corner looking at you
With a grumpy air.

The one who made, I presume,
This medallion,
Had a nice little bit of pen
On his pencil.

Christ looks at Louis-Philippe
With a surprised air;
A good man smokes his pipe
On the paneling.

Then comes a landscape
Very complicated
Where one sees that a very wise gentleman
Applied himself.

Shall I say what odalisques
The painters make,
At their very great perils and risks,
Up to the ceiling?

All these erased letters
Nevertheless speak;
They have lived, these thoughts,
Were it but an instant.

How many people, captives for an hour,
Sad or not,
Have to this poor dwelling
Left their name!

On this old bed where I rhyme
These lost verses,
On this bolster where I yawn
With outstretched arms,

How many others have laid their head,
How many have laid
A poor body, an honest heart
And without friends!

What is it then? dreaming emptily
Against a bar,
I feel something damp
On the tile.

What then does this tear mean
That falls thus,
And flows from my eyes, without charm
And without care?

Is it that I love my mistress?
No, by my faith!
Her widowhood does not interest her
Any more than me.

Is it that I am going to write a drama?
By all the gods!
Song for song, a woman
Is still worth more.

Would I feel some ingenuous
Velleity
To love this beautiful unknown,
Liberty?

They say, when this great phantom
Is bolted,
It looks sad as a volume
Out of place.

Is it that I would have some debt?
But, thank God!
I am in a safe place: no one is arrested
Here.

However this tear flows,
And I see it
Shining as it trembles and rolls
Between my fingers.

It is right, it wants to say:
Poor little one,
Without your knowledge your heart breathes
And warns you

That the little blood that animates it
Is your only good,
That all the rest is for rhyme
And says nothing.

But no being is solitary,
Even in thinking,
And God did not make to please you
This little blood.

When you mock your misery
With a mocking air,
Your friends, your sister and your mother
Are in your heart.

This pale and weak spark
That lives in you,
It walks, it is immortal,
And follows its law.

To transmit it, one must oneself
Receive it,
And one thinks of all that one loves
Without knowing it.

Alfred De Musset

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-my-prisons-alfred-de-musset/