To a Young Woman

Poem by Victor Hugo Collection Les Rayons et les OmbresPeriod 19th century

XXVIII

You see, a perfume awakens thought.
Fold back, fair child caressed by the dawn,
This winged fan, purple, gold and vermilion,
That trembles in your hands like a great butterfly,
And then listen to me. — God makes the scent of roses
As he makes an abyss, with as many things.
This one, which is dying on your charming breast,
Would not have that perfume that rises gently
Like a divine incense toward your pure beauty,
If its stem, amid water, air and greenery,
Taking in creation its share of everything,
Had not deeply plunged by some end,
Poor and fragile flower, gaping to all the winds,
Into the mysterious breast of the giant earth.
There, by a slow labor that God alone knows,
Freshness of the running stream, whiteness of the dawning day,
Breath of all that flows, or grows, or drags along,
The spirit of all that lives in the subterranean night,
Smoke, wave, vapor, from far as from near,
— Not without making with all secret exchanges, —
It has stolen everything: its calm from the dark cavern,
From the diamond its flame, from the forest its shadow,
And perhaps, who knows? on the wing of morning
Some ineffable breath from the distant ocean!
And living alembic that God himself forms,
Where the earth, enormous vessel, filters and spreads,
With the woods, the fields, the clouds, the waters,
And the air all steeped in the songs of birds,
The root, humble, obscure, resigned to its labor,
For the superb flower bathed by the sun,
Has, keeping nothing back, made this perfume so sweet,

Which comes so softly from nature to you,
Which charms you, and mingles with your spirit, madam,
For the soul of a flower speaks to the heart of a woman.

One more word, and then I leave you to dream.
So that, reaching the goal where all must rise,
Each thing here below may take on a supreme charm,
So that the flower may be fragrant and the virgin may love,
So that, drawing life from the great common center,
The corolla may have a soul and the woman a perfume,
Under the sun that shines, under the love that fascinates,
It is needful, flower of beauty, to hold by the root,
The one to the ideal world, the other to the real world,
Roses to the earth and women to heaven.
May 16, 1837.

Victor Hugo

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