LES
FEUILLES
D'AUTOMNE.
Hugo - Poems
next a captive?
Yea, and caged apart.
No weight of arms enfolded
Can crush the turmoil in that seething heart
Which Nature--not her journeymen--self-moulded.
Let sordid jailers vex their prize;
But only bends that brow to lightning,
As gazing from the seaward rock, his sighs
Cleave through the storm and haste where France looms bright'ning.
Alone, but greater! Broke the sceptre, true!
Yet lingers still some power--
In tears of woe man's metal may renew
The temper of high hour;
For, bating breath, e'er list the kings
The pinions clipped may grow! the Eagle
May burst, in frantic thirst for home, the rings
And rend the Bulldog, Fox, and Bear, and Beagle!
And, lastly, grandest! 'tween dark sea and here
Eternal brightness coming!
The eye so weary's freshened with a tear
As rises distant drumming,
And wailing cheer--they pass the pale
His army mourns though still's the end hid;
And from his war-stained cloak, he answers "Hail! "
And spurns the bed of gloom for throne aye-splendid!
H. L. WILLIAMS.
LES FEUILLES D'AUTOMNE. --1831.
THE PATIENCE OF THE PEOPLE.
_("Il s'est dit tant de fois. ")_
[III. , May, 1830. ]
How often have the people said: "What's power? "
Who reigns soon is dethroned? each fleeting hour
Has onward borne, as in a fevered dream,
Such quick reverses, like a judge supreme--
Austere but just, they contemplate the end
To which the current of events must tend.
Self-confidence has taught them to forbear,
And in the vastness of their strength, they spare.
Armed with impunity, for _one in vain_
Resists a _nation_, they let others reign.
G. W. M. REYNOLDS.
DICTATED BEFORE THE RHONE GLACIER.
No weight of arms enfolded
Can crush the turmoil in that seething heart
Which Nature--not her journeymen--self-moulded.
Let sordid jailers vex their prize;
But only bends that brow to lightning,
As gazing from the seaward rock, his sighs
Cleave through the storm and haste where France looms bright'ning.
Alone, but greater! Broke the sceptre, true!
Yet lingers still some power--
In tears of woe man's metal may renew
The temper of high hour;
For, bating breath, e'er list the kings
The pinions clipped may grow! the Eagle
May burst, in frantic thirst for home, the rings
And rend the Bulldog, Fox, and Bear, and Beagle!
And, lastly, grandest! 'tween dark sea and here
Eternal brightness coming!
The eye so weary's freshened with a tear
As rises distant drumming,
And wailing cheer--they pass the pale
His army mourns though still's the end hid;
And from his war-stained cloak, he answers "Hail! "
And spurns the bed of gloom for throne aye-splendid!
H. L. WILLIAMS.
LES FEUILLES D'AUTOMNE. --1831.
THE PATIENCE OF THE PEOPLE.
_("Il s'est dit tant de fois. ")_
[III. , May, 1830. ]
How often have the people said: "What's power? "
Who reigns soon is dethroned? each fleeting hour
Has onward borne, as in a fevered dream,
Such quick reverses, like a judge supreme--
Austere but just, they contemplate the end
To which the current of events must tend.
Self-confidence has taught them to forbear,
And in the vastness of their strength, they spare.
Armed with impunity, for _one in vain_
Resists a _nation_, they let others reign.
G. W. M. REYNOLDS.
DICTATED BEFORE THE RHONE GLACIER.
