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How sweet it is, when the evening’s solitary star,
Preceding night’s silent chariot,
Rises slowly in the vault of the heavens,
And shadow and day dispute the earth,
How sweet to carry one’s reverent steps
Into the depths of the valley, toward that rustic temple
Whose moss has covered the modest portico,
But where heaven still speaks to pious hearts!
Hail, consecrated wood! Hail, funereal field,
Humble depositary of the village’s tombs;
I bless in passing your simple monuments.
Woe to him who profanes the dust of the dead!
I have bent the knee before their humble stone,
And the nave has received my resounding steps.
What a night! what silence! in the depths of the sanctuary
One scarcely perceives the trembling light
Of the lamp that burns beside the holy altars.
Alone it still shines, when the universe sleeps:
Consoling emblem of the goodness that watches
To gather here the sighs of mortals.
Let us advance. No sound has struck my ear;
The parvis alone trembles beneath my measured steps;
At last I have crossed the degrees of the sanctuary.
Sacred walls, holy altars! I am alone, and my soul
Can pour out before you its sorrows and its flame,
And confide to heaven unspoken accents,
That it alone will know, that you alone will hear.
But what! I dare approach these altars without fear!
I dare bring, great God, into this august enclosure
A heart still burning with sorrow and love!
And I do not tremble that your holy majesty
Will not avenge the respect owed to its dwelling!
No: I no longer blush at the fire that consumes me:
Love is innocent when virtue lights it.
As pure as the object to whom I have sworn it,
Mine burns my heart, but with a sacred fire;
Constancy honors it and misfortune purifies it.
I have said it to the earth, to all nature;
Before your holy altars I have said it without dread:
I would dare, powerful God, to name her before you.
Yes, despite the terror that your temple inspires in me,
My mouth has murmured softly the name of Elvire;
And this name repeated from tomb to tomb,
Like the plaintive accent of a sighing shadow,
Has disturbed the rest of the funereal enclosure.
Farewell, cold monuments! farewell, holy dwellings!
Twice the nocturnal echo has repeated the hours,
Since before you my tears have flowed:
Heaven has seen these tears, and I go out consoled.
Perhaps at the same instant, on another shore,
Elvire watches thus, alone with my image,
And in an obscure temple, eyes bathed in tears
Comes to the deserted altars to confide her sorrows.
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-temple-alphonse-de-lamartine/