What Death Is

Poem by Victor Hugo Collection Les contemplationsThemes DeathPeriod 19th century

Do not say: to die; say: to be born. Believe.
We see what I see and what you see;
We are the wicked man that I am, that you are;
We rush into pleasures, into whirlwinds, into celebrations;
We try to forget the low, the end, the reef,
The dark equality of evil and the grave;
Though the smallest is worth as much as the most prosperous;
For all men are the sons of the same father;
They are the same tear and come from the same eye.
We live, spending our days filling ourselves with pride;
We walk, we run, we dream, we suffer, we lean, we fall,
We rise. What then is this dawn? It is the tomb.
Where am I? In death. Come! An unknown wind
Throws you to the threshold of the heavens. We tremble; we see ourselves naked,
Impure, hideous, bound by the thousand funeral knots
Of our faults, our shameful ills, our darkness;
And suddenly we hear someone in the infinite
Who sings, and through someone we feel that we are blessed,
Without seeing the hand from which falls upon our wicked soul
The love, and without knowing who the voice is that sings.
We arrive man, mourning, icicle, snow; we feel ourselves
Melt and live; and, filling with ecstasy and azure,
All our being quivers at the strange defeat
Of the monster who becomes in the light an angel.

Victor Hugo

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