To My Daughter Adèle, Poem by Victor Hugo

Poem by Victor Hugo Themes Childhood, DeathPeriod 19th century

As a child, you slept near me, rosy and fresh,
Like a little Jesus asleep in his manger;
Your pure sleep was so calm and so charming
That you did not hear the bird singing in the shadow;
I, pensive, breathed in all the somber sweetness
Of the mysterious firmament.

And I listened to the angels flying over your head;
And I watched you sleeping; and on your swaddling clothes
I scattered jasmine and carnations without a sound;
And I prayed, watching over your closed eyelids;
And my eyes grew moist with tears, thinking of the things
That await us in the night.

One day my turn will come to sleep; and my bed,
Made of shadow, will be so bleak and so forbidding
That I too will not hear the bird singing;
And the night will be black; then, O my dove,
Tears, prayer and flowers, you will render to my tomb
What I did for your cradle.

Victor Hugo

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Text published on Poésies 123: https://www.poesies123.com/en/poem-to-my-daughter-adele-victor-hugo/