Pretty Women, Poem by Victor Hugo

Poem by Victor Hugo Collection The Four Winds of the SpiritThemes PoliticsPeriod 19th century

On their account they make sonnets, sometimes passable;
They kiss that hand they deign to extend to you;
You follow them to church, you admire them in the woods;
You become Damis again, you become Clitandre again;

The ball is their triumph, and their favor is sought;
You dance, you laugh, you chat, and you can hear,
While waltzing, amid the lutes and oboes,
Those beauties chirping in their tenderest voice:

— Force is everything; war is holy; the scaffold
Is good; there must not be too much light; we must
Build more prisons and build fewer schools;

If Paris stirs, the forts must be full of cannons. —
And those doves say such words to you
As would make the bones of the dead move with horror.

(July 1870)

Victor Hugo

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

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