Un soir, tu t’envolas comme l’oiseau de mer
Dont le coup d’aile altier nargue le gouffre amer :
Et moi, debout sur la colline,
Murmurant à la brise un chant d’Hiawatha,
Longtemps je regardai le flot qui t’emporta,
O doux chantre d’Evangeline !
Comme on voit l’astre d’or, plongeant an sein des eaux,
Laisser derrière lui de lumineux réseaux...
The winds have talked with him confidingly;
The trees have whispered to him; and the night
Hath held him gently as a mother might,
And taught him all sad tones of melody;
The mountains have bowed to him; and the sea,
In clamorous waves, and murmurs exquisite,
Hath told him all her sorrow and delight,—
Her legends fair,—her darkest mystery...
On His Birthday, 27th February, 1867
I NEED not praise the sweetness of his song,
Where limpid verse to limpid verse succeeds
Smooth as our Charles, when, fearing lest he wrong
The new moon’s mirrored skiff, he slides along,
Full without noise, and whispers in his reeds.
With loving breath of all the winds his name
Is blown about...
In Memoriam
Nec turpem senectam
Degere, nec cithara carentem.
“NOT to be tuneless in old age!”
Ah! surely blest his pilgrimage,
Who, in his winter’s snow,
Still sings with note as sweet and clear
As in the morning of the year
When the first violets blow!
Blest!—but more blest, whom summer’s heat,
Whom...
