Do not let it serve some impious
purpose!
19th Century French Poetry
You insult our gods,
Fall, white wraiths, from your burning skies:
- She, saint of the abyss, holier to my eyes!
Note: The Rose tremiere is the hollyhock. St Gudula was a Brabant saint (late 7th-early 8th century), patroness of Brussels. A demon wishing to interrupt her prayers extinguished the light she carried, but divine power rekindled it. The flower-like fungus once called 'tremella deliquescens' (Dacrymyces deliquescens), is known as 'Sinte Goulds lampken' (St. Gudula's lantern).
Golden Lines
Well, then! All is sentient!
Pythagoras
Free-thinker, Man, do you think you alone
Think, while life explodes everywhere?
Your freedom employs the powers you own,
But world is absent from all your affairs.
Respect an active spirit in the creature:
Each flower is a soul open to Nature;
In metal a mystery of love is sleeping;
'All is sentient! ' Has power over your being.
Fear the gaze in the blind wall that watches:
There is a verb attached to matter itself. . .
Do not let it serve some impious purpose!
Often a hidden god inhabits obscure being;
And like an eye, born, covered by its eyelids,
Pure spirit grows beneath the surface of stones!
Alfred de Musset (1810-1857)
Alfred de Musset
'Alfred de Musset'
Four men in the life of George Sand. Jules Sandeau. Chopin. Prosper Merimee. Alfred de Musset, 1904-7
The New York Public Library: Digital Collections
Song
I said to my heart, my feeble heart:
It's enough surely to love one's mistress?
And don't you see that changeableness,
Is to lose time's joy in heart's yearning?
My heart replied: It's never enough,
It's never enough to love one's mistress;
And don't you see that changeableness
Makes past delights dearer and sweeter?
I said to my heart, my feeble heart;
Haven't we had enough of sadness?
And don't you see that changeableness
Is to find new grief with every footstep?
My heart replied: It's never enough
We'll never have had enough of sadness:
And don't you see that changeableness
Makes past pain dearer to us, and sweeter?
Barbarina's Song
Going to the wars, Knight, so fair
What will you there
So far from home?
Don't you see that night is deep,
The world brings care
To those who roam?
You who believe love left behind
Flees the mind,
Alas, alas!
Seekers of fame, your living name,
Your smoke and flame
Will swiftly pass.
Fall, white wraiths, from your burning skies:
- She, saint of the abyss, holier to my eyes!
Note: The Rose tremiere is the hollyhock. St Gudula was a Brabant saint (late 7th-early 8th century), patroness of Brussels. A demon wishing to interrupt her prayers extinguished the light she carried, but divine power rekindled it. The flower-like fungus once called 'tremella deliquescens' (Dacrymyces deliquescens), is known as 'Sinte Goulds lampken' (St. Gudula's lantern).
Golden Lines
Well, then! All is sentient!
Pythagoras
Free-thinker, Man, do you think you alone
Think, while life explodes everywhere?
Your freedom employs the powers you own,
But world is absent from all your affairs.
Respect an active spirit in the creature:
Each flower is a soul open to Nature;
In metal a mystery of love is sleeping;
'All is sentient! ' Has power over your being.
Fear the gaze in the blind wall that watches:
There is a verb attached to matter itself. . .
Do not let it serve some impious purpose!
Often a hidden god inhabits obscure being;
And like an eye, born, covered by its eyelids,
Pure spirit grows beneath the surface of stones!
Alfred de Musset (1810-1857)
Alfred de Musset
'Alfred de Musset'
Four men in the life of George Sand. Jules Sandeau. Chopin. Prosper Merimee. Alfred de Musset, 1904-7
The New York Public Library: Digital Collections
Song
I said to my heart, my feeble heart:
It's enough surely to love one's mistress?
And don't you see that changeableness,
Is to lose time's joy in heart's yearning?
My heart replied: It's never enough,
It's never enough to love one's mistress;
And don't you see that changeableness
Makes past delights dearer and sweeter?
I said to my heart, my feeble heart;
Haven't we had enough of sadness?
And don't you see that changeableness
Is to find new grief with every footstep?
My heart replied: It's never enough
We'll never have had enough of sadness:
And don't you see that changeableness
Makes past pain dearer to us, and sweeter?
Barbarina's Song
Going to the wars, Knight, so fair
What will you there
So far from home?
Don't you see that night is deep,
The world brings care
To those who roam?
You who believe love left behind
Flees the mind,
Alas, alas!
Seekers of fame, your living name,
Your smoke and flame
Will swiftly pass.
