Français
Español
Italiano
Deutsch
Português
Oh! the adored eyes are not those that saw
That they were loved, when one was dying for them low!
The sweetest dreams are not those dreamed
By two beings, heart to heart and arms in arms!
The dearest joys to our sated soul
Are not those we weep for after they have gone;
But the fairest loves that one had in life
From the heart have never come out!
They are there, live there, last there. The years
Fall upon them in vain. We think them disappeared,
Lost, annihilated, in the depths of destinies!…
And Destiny is them, who seemed to be no more!
We have loved ten times since them. Youth
Has flowed, sumptuous and burning, and Time
Brings one winter evening, by the hand, Old Age,
Who takes us, she! by the flanks!
But these flanks struck down that were thought without wound
Have one since they breathe, alas!
From a badly aimed dart, a light scratch,
That never healed, but that did not bleed!
It was nothing… the fold of those first roses
One crushes in spring on the heart, when it boils…
Ah! in that heart how many things have passed!
But this nothing remained… it was everything!
One never spoke of it… Never, never anyone
Knew that under a fold of our hearts was hidden,
Like a cantharid at the bottom of an anemone,
A nameless feeling that nothing could detach from it!
It was not love expressed that ends
In arms one adores and hates by turns.
It was not love, it was only a dream of it…
But it was much better than love!
And under all these loves that flower life,
And under all the joys that can intoxicate it,
We have always found again this madness,
To which the heart has nothing to compare!
And we have undergone everywhere the strange empire
Of this tenacious dream, vague, but victorious,
And even in your arms, Clara, this sweet Vampire
Came to sit upon my heart.
You did not guess what I had in my soul…
You made a crown of your arm for my forehead,
And with your other hand that poured its flame into me
You felt this heart where you were not!
You sought to see yourself there, dear lost girl,
You said: “You are silent, my beloved; what is the matter?…”
I had nothing, Clara, but, my poor adored one,
It is that nothing that I had seen!
It rose straight up, this nothing, in my thought.
It was only a phantom… an uncertain face…
But of the dear memories of our deluded soul
The strongest is always, always the most distant!
Perspective of the ardent heart that devours itself,
The past receding shines more in our eyes…
And the fairest day is only a specter of dawn,
That comes back to prowl in the skies!
And you, you were it, this specter of a dawn,
Whose ray for me never went out!
But you, day of my eyes, my Clara whom I adore,
You did not erase that other whom I loved!
A star hovering over overflowing seas
Mirrors itself in their waves and laughs at their combats…
How many women possessed then do we need
To be worth the one we did not have?…
Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly
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-oh-the-adored-eyes-jules-barbey-d-aurevilly/