Selected Poems (Penguin Classics) Read online

  I see only in the mind’s eye that camp of shacks, those piles of roughed-out capitals and sections of columns, the weeds, the great blocks turning green in the water of the puddles, and, reflected in the windows, the nameless jumble.

  That was the site of a menagerie; there I saw, one morning, at the hour when under the cold, clear sky work is stirring, when the dustcarts send up a dark hurricane into the silent air,

  A swan that had escaped from its cage, and, rubbing its webbed feet on the dry pavement, was dragging its white plumage on the rough ground. Near a dry gutter the creature, opening its beak,

  Was nervously bathing its wings in the dust, and saying, its heart full of its beautiful native lake, ‘Water, when will you rain down? When will you thunder, o lightning?’ I see the poor wretch, strange and ineluctable myth,

  Sometimes reach towards the sky, like Ovid’s man, towards the ironic, cruelly blue sky, stretching its greedy head on its convulsive neck, as if it were reproaching God.

  II

  Paris changes! But nothing in my melancholy has moved! New palaces, scaffolding, blocks, old, settled districts, everything for me becomes an allegory, and my dear memories are heavier than boulders.

  So in front of this same Louvre an image oppresses me: I think of my great swan, with his mad gestures, like an exile, ridiculous and sublime, and consumed by an unrelenting desire, and then of you,

  Andromache, fallen from the arms of a mighty spouse, now wretched cattle under the hand of proud Pyrrhus, bowed in a trance next to an empty tomb, widow of Hector, alas, and wife to Helenus.

  I think of the negress, wasted and consumptive, trampling in the mud and looking with wild eyes for the missing coconut palms of proud Africa behind the immense wall of the fog;

  Of whoever has lost what can never be found again, never! Of those whose drink is tears, who suck at sorrow like a kindly she-wolf! Of thin orphans withering like flowers!

  And in the forest where my spirit wanders and is lost, an old Memory sounds its horn at full blast. I think of sailors, forgotten on some island, of captives, of the defeated… of many others yet.

  54 (XC) Les Sept Vieillards

  A Victor Hugo

  Fourmillante cité, cité pleine de rêves,

  Où le spectre en plein jour raccroche le passant!

  Les mystères partout coulent comme des sèves

  Dans les canaux étroits du colosse puissant.

  Un matin, cependant que dans la triste rue

  Les maisons, dont la brume allongeait la hauteur,

  Simulaient les deux quais d’une rivière accrue,

  Et que, décor semblable à l’âme de l’acteur,

  Un brouillard sale et jaune inondait tout l’espace,

  Je suivais, roidissant mes nerfs comme un héros

  Et discutant avec mon âme déjà lasse,

  Le faubourg secoué par les lourds tombereaux.

  Tout à coup, un vieillard dont les guenilles jaunes

  Imitaient la couleur de ce ciel pluvieux,

  Et dont l’aspect aurait fait pleuvoir les aumônes,

  Sans la méchanceté qui luisait dans ses yeux,

  M’apparut. On eût dit sa prunelle trempée

  Dans le fiel; son regard aiguisait les frimas,

  Et sa barbe à longs poils, roide comme une épée,

  Se projetait, pareille à celle de Judas.

  Il n’était pas voûté, mais cassé, son échine

  Faisant avec sa jambe un parfait angle droit,

  Si bien que son bâton, parachevant sa mine,

  Lui donnait la tournure et le pas maladroit

  D’un quadrupède infirme ou d’un juif à trois pattes.

  Dans la neige et la boue il allait s’empêtrant,

  Comme s’il écrasait des morts sous ses savates,

  Hostile à l’univers plutôt qu’indifférent.

  Son pareil le suivait: barbe, œil, dos, bâton, loques,

  Nul trait ne distinguait, du même enfer venu,

  Ce jumeau centenaire, et ces spectres baroques

  Marchaient du même pas vers un but inconnu.

  A quel complot infâme étais-je donc en butte,

  Ou quel méchant hasard ainsi m’humiliait?

  Car je comptai sept fois, de minute en minute,

  Ce sinistre vieillard qui se multipliait!

  Que celui-là qui rit de mon inquiétude,

  Et qui n’est pas saisi d’un frisson fraternel,

  Songe bien que malgré tant de décrépitude

  Ces sept monstres hideux avaient l’air éternel!

  Aurais-je, sans mourir, contemplé le huitième,

  Sosie inexorable, ironique et fatal,

  Dégoûtant Phénix, fils et père de lui-même?

  – Mais je tournai le dos au cortège infernal.

  Exaspéré comme un ivrogne qui voit double,

  Je rentrai, je fermai ma porte, épouvanté,

  Malade et morfondu, l’esprit fiévreux et trouble,

  Blessé par le mystère et par l’absurdité!

  Vainement ma raison voulait prendre la barre;

  La tempête en jouant déroutait ses efforts,

  Et mon âme dansait, dansait vieille gabarre

  Sans mâts, sur une mer monstrueuse et sans bords!

  * * *

  The Seven Old Men

  Swarming city, city full of dreams, where ghosts in broad daylight catch the walker’s sleeve. Mysteries everywhere run like sap through the narrow channels of the powerful colossus.

  One morning, while in the dull street the houses, their height accentuated by the mist, seemed like the two banks of a river in spate, and, scenery well suited to the soul of the actor,

  A dirty yellow fog flooded all around, I was following, stiffening my sinews like a hero and arguing with my already weary soul, the path of the heavy tumbrils as they shook the old district.

  Suddenly, an old man whose yellow rags matched the colour of the rainy sky, and whose appearance would have made alms rain upon him, were it not for the malevolence that gleamed in his eyes,

  Appeared to me. You would have thought his pupils had been dipped in gall; his look sharpened the frost; and his beard with its long hairs, stiff as a sword, stuck out like Judas’s.

  He was not just stooped, but bent double, his spine making a perfect right angle with his legs, so that his stick, completing his appearance, gave him the shape and the clumsy gait

  Of an injured quadruped or a three-legged Jew. On he came, his feet sticking in the snow and mud, as if he were crushing dead men under his old shoes, hostile to the universe rather than indifferent.

  Another like him was following him: beard, eye, back, stick, rags, nothing distinguished his centenarian twin, come from the same hell, and these outlandish ghosts were walking at the same pace towards an unknown goal.

  Of what vile plot was I the victim, or what wicked chance was humiliating me in this way? For I counted seven times, from minute to minute, that sinister old man who was replicating himself!

  Let anyone who laughs at my anxiety, and who is not seized by a sympathetic shudder, reflect that in spite of their extreme decrepitude, those seven hideous monsters had a look of eternity about them!

  Would I have been able to see, and live, the eighth inexorable double, ironic and inescapable, disgusting Phoenix, son and father to himself? – But I turned my back on the hellish procession.

  Infuriated, like a drunkard seeing double, I went home and closed my door, terrified, ill and chilled to the bone, my spirit feverish and troubled, wounded by mystery and absurdity.

  In vain my reason tried to take the helm, the tempest played with it and foiled all its efforts, and my soul tossed, tossed, an old, dismasted lighter, on a monstrous, shoreless sea!

  55 (XCI) Les Petites Vieilles

  A Victor Hugo

  I

  Dans les plis sinueux des vieilles capitales,

  Où tout, même l’horreur, tourne aux enchantements,

  Je g
uette, obéissant à mes humeurs fatales,

  Des êtres singuliers, décrépits et charmants.

  Ces monstres disloqués furent jadis des femmes,

  Eponine ou Laïs! Monstres brisés, bossus

  Ou tordus, aimons-les! ce sont encor des âmes.

  Sous des jupons troués et sous de froids tissus

  Ils rampent, flagellés par les bises iniques,

  Frémissant au fracas roulant des omnibus,

  Et serrant sur leur flanc, ainsi que des reliques,

  Un petit sac brodé de fleurs ou de rébus;

  Ils trottent, tout pareils à des marionnettes;

  Se traînent, comme font les animaux blessés,

  Ou dansent, sans vouloir danser, pauvres sonnettes

  Où se pend un Démon sans pitié! Tout cassés

  Qu’ils sont, ils ont des yeux perçants comme une vrille,

  Luisants comme ces trous où l’eau dort dans la nuit;

  Ils ont les yeux divins de la petite fille

  Qui s’étonne et qui rit à tout ce qui reluit.

  – Avez-vous observé que maints cercueils de vieilles

  Sont presque aussi petits que celui d’un enfant?

  La Mort savante met dans ces bières pareilles

  Un symbole d’un goût bizarre et captivant,

  Et lorsque j’entrevois un fantôme débile

  Traversant de Paris le fourmillant tableau,

  Il me semble toujours que cet être fragile

  S’en va tout doucement vers un nouveau berceau;

  A moins que, méditant sur la géométrie,

  Je ne cherche, à l’aspect de ces membres discords,

  Combien de fois il faut que l’ouvrier varie

  La forme de la boîte où l’on met tous ces corps.

  – Ces yeux sont des puits faits d’un million de larmes,

  Des creusets qu’un métal refroidi pailleta…

  Ces yeux mystérieux ont d’invincibles charmes

  Pour celui que l’austère Infortune allaita!

  II

  De Frascati défunt Vestale enamourée;

  Prêtresse de Thalie, hélas! dont le souffleur

  Enterré sait le nom; célèbre evaporée

  Que Tivoli jadis ombragea dans sa fleur,

  Toutes m’enivrent; mais parmi ces êtres frêles

  Il en est qui, faisant de la douleur un miel,

  Ont dit au Dévouement qui leur prêtait ses ailes:

  Hippogriffe puissant, mène-moi jusqu’au ciel!

  L’une, par sa patrie au malheur exercée,

  L’autre, que son époux surchargea de douleurs,

  L’autre, par son enfant Madone transpercée,

  Toutes auraient pu faire un fleuve avec leurs pleurs!

  III

  Ah! que j’en ai suivi de ces petites vieilles!

  Une, entre autres, à l’heure. où le soleil tombant

  Ensanglante le ciel de blessures vermeilles,

  Pensive, s’asseyait à l’écart sur un banc,

  Pour entendre un de ces concerts, riches de cuivre,

  Dont les soldats parfois inondent nos jardins,

  Et qui, dans ces soirs d’or où l’on se sent revivre,

  Versent quelque héroïsme au cœur des citadins.

  Celle-là, droite encor, fière et sentant la règle,

  Humait avidement ce chant vif et guerrier;

  Son œil parfois s’ouvrait comme l’œil d’un vieil aigle;

  Son front de marbre avait l’air fait pour le laurier!

  IV

  Telles vous cheminez, stoïques et sans plaintes,

  A travers le chaos des vivantes cités,

  Mères au cœur saignant, courtisanes ou saintes,

  Dont autrefois les noms par tous étaient cités.

  Vous qui fûtes la grâce ou qui fûtes la gloire,

  Nul ne vous reconnaît! un ivrogne incivil

  Vous insulte en passant d’un amour dérisoire;

  Sur vos talons gambade un enfant lâche et vil.

  Honteuses d’exister, ombres ratatinées,

  Peureuses, le dos bas, vous côtoyez les murs;

  Et nul ne vous salue, étranges destinées!

  Débris d’humanité pour l’éternité mûrs!

  Mais moi, moi qui de loin tendrement vous surveille,

  L’œil inquiet, fixé sur vos pas incertains,

  Tout comme si j’étais votre père, ô merveille!

  Je goûte à votre insu des plaisirs clandestins:

  Je vois s’épanouir vos passions novices;

  Sombres ou lumineux, je vis vos jours perdus;

  Mon cœur multiplié jouit de tous vos vices!

  Mon âme resplendit de toutes vos vertus!

  Ruines! ma famille! ô cerveaux congénères!

  Je vous fais chaque soir un solennel adieu!

  Où serez-vous demain, Eves octogénaires,

  Sur qui pèse la griffe effroyable de Dieu?

  * * *

  Little Old Ladies

  I

  In the sinuous folds of old capital cities, where everything, even horror, turns to magic, I am constantly on the watch, driven by my ineluctable whims, for certain singular beings, decrepit and delightful.

  These disjointed monsters were once women, Eponina or Lais! Monsters though they be, broken, hunchbacked or twisted, let us love them! They are still souls. Under holed petticoats and under cold, thin stuffs

  They crawl, whipped by the cruel winds, trembling at the loud rumble of the omnibuses, and clutching to their sides, like relics, a little purse embroidered with flowers or ciphers;

  They trot along, just like marionettes; drag themselves like wounded animals, or dance without wanting to dance, poor bells on whose rope a pitiless demon hangs! All broken

  As they are, they have eyes as sharp as gimlets, shining like those holes where water sleeps at night; they have the godlike eyes of the baby girl, surprised and laughing at anything that glitters.

  – Have you ever noticed that many old women’s coffins are almost as small as a child’s? Death in its wisdom makes of these similar biers a symbol in bizarre and captivating taste.

  And when I see a frail ghost crossing Paris’s swarming scene, I always think that the fragile being is going away quietly towards a new cradle;

  Unless, my mind turning towards geometry, I ponder instead, looking at these ill-assorted limbs, how many times the workman must have to vary the shape of the box where all these bodies are put. –

  Those eyes are wells made of a million tears, crucibles where metal now cold once sparkled… Those mysterious eyes have an irresistible charm for one whom stern Misfortune suckled!

  II

  The Vestal in love with long-dead Frascatis; the priestess of Thalia, whose name the prompter, now buried, knows; the fashionable feather-brain whom Tivoli’s shades knew in her springtime;

  They all intoxicate me; but among these frail beings there are some who, turning sorrow into honey, said to the Self-sacrifice that lent them its wings, ‘Mighty Hippogriff, carry me to heaven!’

  One, trained by her country in suffering, another, whom her husband overloaded with sorrows, another, a Madonna pierced through by her child, all of them could have made a river with their tears!

  III

  I have followed so many of those little old ladies! One, among others, at the time when the setting sun makes the sky bloody with rosy wounds, would pensively sit apart on the edge of the crowd, on a bench,

  To hear one of those concerts, rich in brass, with which the soldiers sometimes flood our parks, and which, in those golden evenings when one feels oneself come back to life, instil some heroism into the hearts of city-dwellers.

  The old lady, still upright and conscious of proper bearing, was eagerly sniffing up that lively, warlike melody. Her eye sometimes opened like the eye of an old eagle; her marble brow seemed made for a laurel wreath!

  IV

  So you make your way, stoical and without complaint, through
the chaos of living cities, mothers with bleeding hearts, courtesans or saints, whose names once were known to all.

  You who were grace and you who were glory, no one recognizes you! A rude drunkard insults you as you pass with a jeering offer of love; at your heels prances a cowardly, cruel child.

  Ashamed to exist, shrivelled shadows, frightened, your backs bent, you keep to the wall; and no one greets you, strange destinies! Ruins of humanity, ripe for the next world!

  But I, I who watch you tenderly from a distance, keeping a worried eye on your uncertain steps, as if I were your father, how astonishing! I enjoy secret pleasures without your knowledge.

  I see your earliest passions unfold; I live your lost days, dark or filled with light; my heart, taking on multiple identities, enjoys all your vices! My soul shines forth with all your virtues!

  Ruins! my family! o fellow brains! I say a solemn adieu to you every evening! Where will you be tomorrow, octogenarian Eves, over whom hangs the terrible claw of God?

  56 (XCIV) Le Squelette Laboureur

  I

  Dans les planches d’anatomie

  Qui traînent sur ces quais poudreux

  Où maint livre cadavéreux

  Dort comme une antique momie,

  Dessins auxquels la gravité