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The brilliant king of day, setting in his glory,
Slowly descends from his chariot of victory.
The glowing cloud that hides him from our eyes
Keeps in golden furrows his trace in the heavens,
And floods the expanse with a reflection of purple.
Like a golden lamp suspended in the azure,
The moon sways at the edges of the horizon;
Its weakened rays sleep on the grass,
And the veil of night unfolds over the mountains:
This is the hour when nature, gathered for a moment,
Between the falling night and the fleeing day,
Rises to the Creator of day and night,
And seems to offer to God, in its brilliant language,
The magnificent homage of creation.
Behold the immense, universal sacrifice!
The universe is the temple, and the earth is the altar;
The heavens are its dome: and these countless stars,
These half-veiled fires, pale ornament of the shadow,
Sown in order in the vault of azure,
Are the sacred torches lit for this temple:
And these pure clouds that a dying day colors,
And that a light breath, from sunset to dawn,
In the plains of the air, softly folding,
Rolls in purple flakes at the edges of the firmament,
Are the waves of incense that rise and evaporate
Up to the throne of the God whom nature adores.
But this temple is voiceless. Where are the holy concerts?
From where will the hymn to the king of the universe rise?
All is silent: my heart alone speaks in this silence.
The voice of the universe is my intelligence.
On the rays of evening, on the wings of the wind,
It rises to God like a living perfume;
And, giving language to every creature,
Lends my soul to nature to adore him.
Alone, invoking here his paternal gaze,
I fill the desert with the name of the Eternal;
And he who, from the bosom of his infinite glory,
Hears the harmony of the spheres he ordains,
Also hears the voice of my humble reason,
Which contemplates his glory and murmurs his name.
Hail, principle and end of thyself and of the world,
Thou who makest immensity fertile with a glance;
Soul of the universe, God, father, creator,
Under all these diverse names I believe in thee, Lord;
And, without needing to hear thy word,
I read my glorious symbol on the brow of the heavens.
Space reveals thy greatness to my eyes,
The earth thy goodness, the stars thy splendor.
Thou hast produced thyself in thy brilliant work;
The whole universe reflects thy image,
And my soul in turn reflects the universe.
My thought, embracing thy diverse attributes,
Everywhere around itself discovers and adores thee,
Contemplates itself and discovers thee there still
Thus the star of day shines in the heavens,
Reflects itself in the wave and paints itself to my eyes.
It is little to believe in thee, supreme goodness, beauty;
I seek thee everywhere, I aspire to thee, I love thee;
My soul is a ray of light and love
Which, from the divine hearth, detached for a day,
By devouring desires far from thee consumed,
Burns to return to its flaming source.
I breathe, I feel, I think, I love in thee.
This world that hides thee is transparent to me;
It is thee I discover at the bottom of nature,
It is thee I bless in every creature.
To approach thee, I have fled into these deserts;
There, when the dawn, stirring its veil in the air,
Half-opens the horizon that a nascent day colors,
And sows on the mountains the pearls of dawn,
For me it is thy gaze that, from the divine dwelling,
Half-opens upon the world and pours out the day:
When the star at its noon, suspending its course,
Floods me with heat, with life and with light,
In its powerful rays, which revive my senses,
Lord, it is thy virtue, thy breath that I feel;
And when the night, guiding its cortege of stars,
Throws its dark veils over the sleeping world,
Alone, in the heart of the desert and of darkness,
Meditating on the sweet majesty of night,
Enveloped in calm, and shadow, and silence,
My soul, more closely, adores thy presence;
With an inner day I feel myself illuminated,
And I hear a voice that tells me to hope.
Yes, I hope, Lord, in thy magnificence:
Everywhere lavishing existence with full hands,
Thou wilt not have bounded the number of my days
To these days here below, so troubled and so short.
I see thee everywhere preserving and producing;
He who can create disdains to destroy.
Witness of thy power and sure of thy goodness
I await the endless day of immortality.
Death surrounds me in vain with its funeral shadows,
My reason sees the day through these darknesses.
It is the last step that brings me closer to thee,
It is the veil that falls between thy face and me.
Hasten for me, Lord, this moment that I implore;
Or, if, in thy secrets thou still holdest it back,
Hear from the heights of heaven the cry of my needs;
The atom and the universe are the object of thy care,
With the gifts of thy goodness sustain my indigence,
Nourish my body with bread, my soul with hope;
Warm with a glance of thy all-powerful eyes
My spirit eclipsed by the shadow of my senses
And, as the sun draws up the dew,
Into thy bosom, forever, absorb my thought.
Alphonse de Lamartine
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-prayer-alphonse-de-lamartine-2/