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“Oh! why travel?” you said. It is that the soul\r\nTakes on long weariness both everywhere and always;\r\nIt is that there is a desire, burning like a flame,\r\nWhich, our loves extinguished, survives our loves!\r\nIt is that one is ill here! ? Like the swallows,\r\nA vague instinct to go devours us to death;\r\nIt is that in our hearts, my God! you have placed wings.\r\nThat is why I want to leave!\r\n\r\nIt is that the heart neighs at the thought of voyages,\r\nStronger than the steed that saddled awaits us;\r\nIt is that in the name of the most distant shores\r\nThere are matchless charms for the one who hears it;\r\n\r\nIrresistible call, ranz des vaches for the soul\r\nThat seeks its lost country? in the future;\r\nIt is proud as a bugle, sweet as a woman’s song.\r\nThat is why I want to leave!\r\n\r\nIt is that you, poor child, and so young and so beautiful,\r\nWho lived near us and lay upon our hearts,\r\nYou have not known how to tame that rebellious force\r\nWhich cast us toward you to push us elsewhere!\r\nYou have no more mystery at the bottom of your smile,\r\nWe know it too well ever to return;\r\nThe chain of kisses breaks, ? love expires…\r\nThat is why I want to leave!\r\n\r\nIn vain, all in tears, the woman who loves us\r\nWould come to our shoulder to fasten our cloaks,\r\nWe would remain frozen at that supreme moment;\r\nHaving flowed too much for us, tears are no longer beautiful.\r\nWe would no longer hear that voice which repeats:\r\n”Oh! why travel?” in a tender sigh,\r\nAnd we would say farewell without turning our head.\r\nThat is why I want to leave!\r\n\r\nOh! do not accuse me; accuse nature,\r\nAccuse God rather, ? but do not accuse me!\r\nIs it my fault, mine, if in the obscure life\r\nMy eyes thirst for day, my feet thirst for steps?\r\nIf I could not remain to languish on your couch,\r\nIf your arms stifled me without making me die,\r\nIf I needed more air than can fit in your mouth…\r\nThat is why I want to leave!\r\n\r\nWhy could you not suffice for my thought\r\nAnd your eyes be no more than my only horizons?\r\nWhy not hide my rested head\r\nUnder the pure gold shelters of your long blond hair?\r\nLike the young wife asleep at dawn,\r\nThe flower of love, like her, in the evening will reopen…\r\nBut if love is no more, why still of the soul?\r\nThat is why I want to leave!\r\nYou do not know it, this weary life,\r\nTired of hanging from the mast, avid for hurricane.\r\nYou, you always remain, on your elbow leaning,\r\nWatching yours stagnate like a beautiful pond.\r\n\r\nRemain there! My love was the shadow of a cloud\r\nOn the pond; ? the sun will come back to tremble there!\r\nYou will not keep a trace of my passing…\r\nThat is why I want to leave!\r\n\r\nO cup of vermeil where I drew life,\r\nI do not carry you away in my frozen breast!\r\nStay behind me, stay half full,\r\nOffering to the future and debris of the past.\r\nI can drink now, without its costing me too much,\r\nA brew less sweet and less quick to run dry,\r\nIn the hollow of my hands, from the ditches of the road…\r\nThat is why I want to leave!\r\n\r\nBut, if it is to offend you to leave, oh! forgive;\r\nAlthough of these sorrows of which you had no share,\r\nNothing, alas! (and yet formerly you were good!)\r\nCould redeem the crime of departure.\r\nWhy should I associate you with my sad voyage?\r\nWhen you could, would you dare to come?\r\nDarker than Lara, I shall have no page…\r\nThat is why I want to leave!\r\n\r\nAnd what matters a pardon! ? Innocent or guilty,\r\nOne is never faithful or forsworn by half;\r\nThe heart, without being hard, remains unshakable,\r\nAnd oblivion is worth more to it than vain pity.\r\nAh! oblivion! what rest when our soul is weary!\r\nFall asleep in its arms, without dreaming or suffering…\r\nI want nothing from you… not even a thought!\r\nThat is why I want to leave!\r\n\r\nFor there is, you know it, O abandoned woman,\r\nA traveler older, more pitiless than I,\r\nAnd it is not a day, some months, a year,\r\nBut it is all that he must take, from others as from you!\r\nLike ears of gold cut by an avid arm,\r\nHe takes beauty, happiness, and even memory,\r\nMakes his sheaf and goes from the field he leaves arid…\r\nThat is why I want to leave!\r\n\r\nYes! leave before him, leave before he comes!\r\nLeave you still beautiful beneath your shed tears,\r\nNot seek your hand that grows cold in mine,\r\nAnd, beneath a tarnished brow, your eyes, lost stars!\r\n\r\nIf one had only respect for her who was beautiful\r\nOne would spare oneself from seeing her fade,\r\nSince God does not will that she be immortal!\r\nThat is why I want to leave!
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-why-travel-jules-barbey-d-aurevilly/