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No one for you. All are agreed. This one,
Named Gladstone, says to your executioners: thank you!
That other, named Grant, reviles you, and that other,
Named Bancroft, insults you; here it’s an apostle,
There it’s a soldier, there it’s a judge, a tribune,
A priest, one from the North, the other from the South; not one
Whom your blood, poured in great floods, does not satisfy;
Not one who does not spit in your face upon your cross.
Alas! what have you done to the nations? You came
Toward those who wept, with these divine words:
Joy and Peace! – You cried: – Hope! Gladness!
Be powerful, America, and you be free, O Greece!
Italy was great; she must still be so.
I will it! – You gave to the latter your gold;
To the former your blood, to all the light.
You defended the rights of men, accustomed
To all devotions and all duties.
As the ox returns full from the watering places,
Men have returned step by step to the stable,
Sated with you, formidable great sister,
With you who protected, with you who fought.
Ah! to show oneself ungrateful is to prove oneself small.
No matter! not one of them knows you. Their crowd
Hooted you, in this hour when your greatness collapses,
Laughing at each hammer blow that fell
On you, naked and bleeding and nailed to the gibbet.
Their pity pities your sons whom bitter fortune
Condemns to the shame of acknowledging you as mother.
You cannot die, that is the regret one has.
You bow in the night your brow that shone;
The eagle of darkness is there eating your liver;
It’s a race to deny the vanquished; and the joy
Of plundering kings, like the bandits of Les Adrets,
Charms Europe and pleases the world… – Ah! I wish,
I wish I were not French so I could say
That I choose you, France, and that, in your martyrdom,
I proclaim you, you whom the vulture gnaws,
My homeland and my glory and my only love!
Victor Hugo
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-to-france-victor-hugo/