Sadness

Poem by Alphonse De Lamartine Collection New Poetic MeditationsPeriod 19th century

Lead me back, I said, to the fortunate shore
Where Naples mirrors in a sea of azure
Its palaces, its hills, its cloudless stars,
Where the orange tree blooms beneath a sky forever pure.
Why do you delay? Let us leave! I want to see again
Vesuvius in flames rising from the heart of the waters;
I want from its heights to watch the dawn arise;
I want, guiding the steps of her whom I adore,
To descend, dreaming, from those laughing hills;
Follow me through the windings of this tranquil gulf;
Let us return to those shores so familiar to our steps,
To the gardens of Cinthia, to the tomb of Virgil,
Near the scattered ruins of the temple of Venus:
There, beneath the orange trees, beneath the flowering vine,
Whose flexible tendril weds the myrtle,
And weaves above your head a vault of flowers,
To the sweet sound of the wave or the murmuring wind,
Alone with our love, alone with nature,
Life and light will have more sweetness.

Of my paling days the torch is consumed,
It goes out by degrees at the breath of misfortune,
Or, if it sometimes casts a faint glimmer,
It is when your memory rekindles it in my breast;
I do not know if the gods will finally allow me
To finish here below my painful day.
My horizon is bounded, and my uncertain eye
Dares hardly extend it beyond a year.
But if I must perish in the morning,
If I must, on a land destined for happiness,
Let slip from my hand
This cup that destiny
Seemed to have crowned with roses for me,
I ask the gods only to guide my steps
To the shores that your cherished memory embellishes,
To greet from afar those fortunate climes,
And to die in the places where I tasted life.

Alphonse de Lamartine

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

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