To Little Jeanne.

Poem by Victor Hugo Collection The Terrible YearThemes LifePeriod 19th century

So you turned one year old yesterday, my beloved.
Content, you babble, as, beneath the leafy boughs,
At the back of the warmer nest, opening vague eyes,
The newly hatched birds chirp, all joyful
To feel that feathers are beginning to grow on them.
Jeanne, your mouth is pink; and in the thick volumes
Whose pictures bring you joy, and which I must,
To please you, let your fingers crumple,
One finds beautiful verses; but not one that equals you
When your whole little body trembles at seeing me;
The most famous authors have written nothing better
Than the thought half-opened in your eyes,
And than your obscure, scattered, strange reverie,
Looking at man with the ignorance of an angel.
Jeanne, God is not far since you are here.

Ah! you are one year old, that is an age!
You are at moments grave, though delighted;
You are at the celestial moment of life
Where man has no shadow, where in his open arms,
When he holds his parents, the child holds the universe;
Your young soul lives, dreams, laughs, weeps, hopes
From Alice your mother to Charles your father;
The whole horizon that your mind can contain
Goes from her who rocks you to him who smiles at you;
These two beings for you at this first hour
Are all the caress and all the light; The two of them, they alone, O Jeanne; and it is right; and I am,
And I exist, humble grandfather, because I follow you;
And you come, and I go; and I adore,
Having a right only to night, your right to dawn.
Your blond brother George and you, you suffice
For my soul, and I see your games, and that is enough;
And I want, after my countless trials,
Only a tomb on which will be outlined the shadow
Of your cradles gilded by the rising sun.

Ah! innocent newcomer, and dreaming,
You chose a singular hour to be born;
You are, Jeanne, familiar with terrors;
You smile before a whole world at bay;
You make your bee noise in the woods,
O Jeanne, and you mingle your charming murmur
With great Paris making its great armor ring.
Ah! when I hear you, Jeanne, and when I see you
Sing, and, speaking to me with your humble voice,
Hold out your sweet hands above our heads,
It seems to me that the shadow where storms grumble
Trembles and moves away with dull roarings,
And that God gives to the city of a hundred towers
Stranded like a sinking ship,
To the enormous cannons guarding the dark rampart,
To the universe that tilts and Paris defends,
His blessing through a little child.

Victor Hugo

Translation generated by Poésies 123 with assistance from the deepseek-chat artificial-intelligence model.

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