We present this work in honor of the 225th anniversary of the poet’s death.

 

“The corn in peace fills out its golden ear;
Through the long summer days, the flowers without a fear
Drink in the strength of the noon.
And I, a flower like them, as young, as fair, as pure,
Though at the present hour some trouble I endure,
I would not die so soon!

“No, let the stoic heart call upon Death as kind!
For me, I weep and hope; before the bitter wind
I bend like some lithe palm.
If there be long, sad days, others are bright and fleet;
Alas! what honeyed draught holds nothing but the sweet?
What sea is ever calm?

“And still within my breast nestles illusion bright;
In vain these prison walls shut out the noonday light;
Fair Hope has lent me wings.
So from the fowler’s net, again set free to fly,
More swift, more joyous, through the summer sky,
Philomel soars and sings.

“Is it my lot to die? In peace I lay me down,
In peace awake again, a peace nor care doth drown,
Nor fell remorse destroy.
My welcome shines from every morning face,
And to these downcast souls my presence in this place
Almost restores their joy.

“The voyage of life is but begun for me,
And of the landmarks I must pass, I see
So few behind me stand.
At life’s long banquet, now before me set,
My lips have hardly touched the cup as yet
Still brimming in my hand.

“I only know the spring; I would see autumn brown;
Like the bright sun, that all the seasons crown,
I would round out my year.
A tender flower, the sunny garden’s boast,
I have but seen the fires of morning’s host;
Would eve might find me here!

“O Death, canst thou not wait? Depart from me, and go
To comfort those sad hearts whom pale despair, and woe,
And shame, perchance have wrung.
For me the woods still offer verdant ways,
The Loves their kisses, and the Muses praise:
I would not die so young!”

Thus, captive too, and sad, my lyre none the less
Woke at the plant of one who breathed its own distress,
Youth in a prison cell;
And throwing off the yoke that weighed upon me too,
I strove in all the sweet and tender words I knew
Her gentle grief to tell.

Melodious witness of my captive days,
These rhymes shall make some lover of my lays
Seek the maid I have sung.
Grace sits upon her brow, and all shall share,
Who see her charms, her grief and her despair:
They too “must die so young”!

We present this work in honor of Bastille Day.

 

O France, although you sleep
We call you, we the forbidden!
The shadows have ears,
And the depths have cries.

Bitter, glory-less despotism
Over a discouraged people
Closes a black thick grate
Of error and prejudice;

It locks up the loyal swarm
Of firm thinkers, of heroes,
But the Idea with the flap of a wing
Will part the heavy bars,

And, as in ninety-one,
Will retake sovereign flight,
For breaking apart a cage of bronze
Is easy for bronze bird.

Darkness covers the world,
But the Idea illuminates and shines;
With its white brightness it floods
The dark blues of the night.

It is the solitary lantern,
The providential ray;
It is the lamp of the earth
That cannot help but light the sky.

It calms the suffering soul,
Guides life, puts the dead to rest;
It shows the mean the gulf,
It shows the just the way.

In seeing in the dark mist
The Idea, love of sad eyes,
Rise calm, serene and pure,
On the mysterious horizon,

Fanaticism and hatred
Roar before each threshhold,
As obscene hounds howl
When appears the moon in mourning.

Oh! Think of the mighty Idea,
Nations! its superhuman brow
Has upon it, from now on, the light
That will show the way to tomorrow!