To ****

Poem by Victor Hugo Period 19th century

I said to myself: — Is this man a mountebank?
Should he not be pitied? Is it a sense he lacks?
Does he not understand, then? Is he blind from birth?
A stutterer? A deaf man? Whence comes it that this sad, obstinate one
Ignores all genius and all glory, and crawls,
Trying to extinguish the star and blow out the lamp,
And tears, disparages, insults, wounds, harms,
And on every light goes slobbering with night? —

Now I have seen you up close, O wretch;
I have seen your eye, your back, your spine, your loins,
Your flat skull, your odious belly; and with his finger
Asmodeus has lifted the ceiling of your roof;
I have seen you drag yourself, drunk and sad; and, fierce,
Tear off, playing, the wings of a fly.
I have seen your laughter, alas! I have not seen your tears.
I have seen you hate the dawn, and walk on flowers,
And ceaselessly crush life in your path;
And beat children, and spit in the face
Of that girl to whom you give fifteen sous;
I have seen your clothes dissolved in filth;
I have seen your heart without God, your room without a basin;
I have seen you grow angry at the song of a warbler,
Always wrinkling your brow, always clenching your fist;
And I understood why you did not understand.

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-star-victor-hugo/