The Ancestor

Poem by Guy De Maupassant Period 19th century

The ancestor lay dying, cold and rigid.
He was ninety years old.
The whiteness of his livid brow
Seemed white upon his white sheets.
He half-opened his great pale eye,
And then he spoke in a voice
Distant and vague as a death rattle,
Or as a breath deep in the woods.

Is it a memory, is it a dream?
In the clear mornings of bright sun
The tree fermented with sap,
My heart beat with crimson blood.
Is it a memory, is it a dream?
How sweet and brief life is!
I remember, I remember
The days gone by, the days of old!
I was young! I remember!

Is it a memory, is it a dream?
The wave feels a shiver run
At every breeze that rises;
My breast trembled at every desire.
Is it a memory, is it a dream,
This burning breath that lifts us?
I remember, I remember!
Strength and youth! O joyful goods!
Love! Love! I remember!

Is it a memory, is it a dream?
My chest is full of the sound
That the waves make on the shore,
My thought hesitates and flees from me.
Is it a memory, is it a dream
That I begin or that I finish?
I remember, I remember!
They will lay me beside my own;
Death! Death! I remember!

Guy de Maupassant

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