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To my mother.
The wounded woman lies against a cushion
Soaked with the blood of the wound
She bears below her breast.
How white she is! The doctor
Has not a single reassuring word.
Those who love her say: “Tonight,
Will she be alive or dead?”
The poor, whose hope she is,
Peer through the crack of the door.
O France, thus your joyful days
Had fled into the deep night.
Thus we believed your eyes
Forever closed to the world.
The wounded woman is saved and sleeps
In her white bed, grown so thin.
She has brushed close to death;
She is forbidden to speak loudly,
They even fear that she may laugh.
But outside a tepid wind
Already greens the dark treetops.
How bored she is, at noon,
With her herbal teas and diets!
O France, thus your joyful days
Had fled into the deep night;
But dawn is reborn and your eyes
Have half-opened upon the world.
The wounded woman at last this morning
Eluded her nurse.
She sets off with an uncertain step.
She wanted to smell the thyme
On this path she climbs.
Her arms are no longer so frail.
She is stronger. “Oh! the meadow!”
She picks and puts cornflowers
In her hair. She is healed!
O France, thus your joyful days
Had fled into the deep night.
But here is the sun! Your eyes
Remain wide open upon the world.
Charles Cros
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-wounded-woman-charles-cros/