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Is it April? On the hillside
A coaxing voice sings like a nightingale,
From dawn to evening.
Is it the song of the linnet?
Is it a flute? Is it the note
Of the blackbird?
Despite the drizzle and the hail,
The virtuoso with the frail voice
Sings on and on;
In a thousand tones he begins again
The melancholy romance
Of his loves.
The singer, back from the Floridas,
Of the clear azure of torrid skies
Remembering,
In the arms of the weeping beeches
Tells his regrets and his alarms
To all who come.
Surprised in his flight by the snow,
He still dreads the procession
Of the black autumn winds;
And his touching vocalise
Sighs and chatters, weeps and sings
At the same time.
Fly away, clouds, sleet showers,
Hail, mists, harsh frosts,
Boreal wind!
Fly away! Nature implores you,
Late and languishing dawn
Of Floreal.
With a sky of amethyst blue,
With the vague and sad charm
Of deserted woods,
A new rhythm harmonizes.
Sweet nightingale, your exquisite lament
Charms the airs!
Sometimes, with his clearest voice,
The bird, whose song quickens,
Lets fall a trill:
In this vivid burst of joy,
It is you he recalls and urges,
Beautiful days of April.
Already hills and valleys
Have seen melt in the sunshine
Snow and icicles;
And, when noon blazes, there rises
Scents of gum and sap
In the bushes.
What breath has put these soft tints
On the tips of the shivering shoots?
What sylph paints
With this charming Veronese green
The young buds of the larch
And of the fir?
Under the warmed breaths
That bring us these puffs
Of moist and gentle air,
It seems to us that everything is reborn.
We feel like a flood of youth
Flowing within us.
Everything was dead in the tall woods;
Now, suddenly, full are the hedges,
Full the furrows,
With sun, with birds, with breezes,
Full the sky, full the gray forests,
Full the valleys.
It is no longer a timid voice
That preludes in the humid air,
Under the thickets;
It is a universal aubade;
One would say the azure streams
With twittering.
Before this renewal of things,
I dream of rosy idylls;
I see you again,
First season, beautiful years,
Crowned with dream flowers,
As in times past.
And, while in the clearings
Whisper the springtime voices,
I too hear
The bruised soul singing like a nightingale,
The so sweet tender voice
Of my springs.
Charles-Nérée Beauchemin
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-the-boreal-april-charles-neree-beauchemin/