Unclasp Them, Your Long Hair

Poem by Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly Collection PoussièresPeriod 19th century

Unclasp them, your long silken hair,
Pass your hands over their tufts of rings,
Which, gathered up, keep one from seeing
Your long dark lashes that make your eyes so fair!
Smooth them well, since all alike
Negligently two falling curls
Roll around your white ears,
As in times past, when you were a child,
When your sixteen years had not yet left you
To go off where all our years go,
Leaving us, in grieving life,
A heart worn out more quickly than the brow!
Ah! it is then that I imagine you
Throwing yourself entirely into the arms of the future,

With no tear in your eyes and nothing in your breast…
Nothing to make you weep or remember!

Ah! from that time show me something
As you do your hair as you did then;
Let me see you thus, let me rest
Upon your sixteen years my tear-moistened eyes…

Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly

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