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From so many days of mourning, of fear and of hope,
From so many efforts lost, from so many evils suffered,
Are you at last weary of them, poor land of France,
And will the eternal inconstancy of your old children
One day leave calm to the universe?
Do you understand your destinies and do you know your history?
For half a century have you counted your steps?
Is it enough of greatness, of misery and of glory,
And, if not out of pity, for your own memory,
Will you not stop, at least from weariness?
Do you no longer remember those times of terror
When the tocsin of eighty-nine resounded?
Was it not yesterday, and the bloody source
Where Paris baptized its newborn liberty,
Do you not still feel it flowing from your breast?
Has he sated your vagabond pride,
Has he satisfied your inclination for combat,
That audacious man who crossed the world,
Like the plowman who crosses his field,
Armed with the iron plowshare that tears and makes fertile?
If you then needed warlike spectacles,
Is it enough to have seen Europe devastated,
From Memphis to Moscow the earth disputed,
And the foreigner twice seated at our hearths,
Shaking from his feet the bloodstained snow?
If today you need new elements,
Is it enough for you to have torn to shreds
All that bears a name, glory, philosophy,
Religion, love, liberty, tyranny,
To have rummaged everywhere, even into the tombs?
Is it enough for you of vain theories,
Monstrous sophisms with which we have been lulled,
Republican specters risen from past times,
Abuse of all rights, shameful reveries
Of delirious assassins or senseless children?
Is it enough for you to have, in fifty years,
Seen Robespierre fall and Bonaparte pass,
Charles X depart into exile with white hair,
To have imitated London, Athens, Rome and Sparta;
And to be finally French, is it not soon time?
If that is not enough, take your sword and your lance.
Awaken your soldiers, raise your scaffolds;
To war! and let the century begin again tomorrow,
So that one day at least murder and license
Replete with our blood, may leave us rest!
But, if God has not made suffering useless,
If from the evils here below some good can come,
If the storm appeased makes the sky more tranquil,
If it is true that falling on fertile ground
The tears of the past fertilize the future;
Then learn to profit from your experience,
You whom a young queen, in her touching farewells,
Once called the pleasant land of France!
Know yourself then, dare then to be happy,
Dare then frankly to bless Providence!
Let whoever wishes say that your great heart is failing,
That peace weakens you, that your forces are exhausted:
Those who believe it least are those who say it to you.
They know you standing, firm, and ready for battle;
And, unable to break your strength, they divide it.
Let them agitate, those people of passion,
Parodies of our old modern orators;
Let them display their cold comedies,
And, with both arms crossed, preach action to you.
Their only truth is their ambition.
What do words matter to you, adjusted phrases?
Have you sold your wheat, your cattle and your wine?
Are you free? Are the laws respected?
Do you fear to see your field pillaged by your neighbor?
Does the master have his roof, and the worker his bread?
If we have that, the rest is little.
More is needed, however; through our ramparts
The glances of a jealous universe penetrate.
Paris fills the world, and, when it rests,
So that its glory may watch, it needs the arts.
Where were they seen to flourish better than in the century we are in?
When were more hands seen at work?
When were we ever more free to think?
In vain one tries to deny things and men:
We will have a page to leave to our sons.
The noise of our cannons resounds today;
Let Europe listen to it, it must know it!
France, among us a child has just been born,
And, if my weak voice is heard here,
It is before his cradle that I speak to you thus.
His courageous ancestor is that popular king
Whom we have seen for eight years, without fear and without anger,
As a bold pilot showing us the way.
His father is near the throne, a sword in hand;
All the unfortunate know who his mother is.
It is only one more son that heaven has given you,
France, open your arms to him without fear, without flattery;
Gently lift your bruised breast,
And shed with a smile, old motherland,
A drop of milk for the newborn child.
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-on-the-birth-of-the-count-of-paris-alfred-de-musset/