Hugo, Victor, 1802-1885 -- Criticism and interpretation
last poem of the fourth book, is perhaps the very finest and most
perfect example of imaginative and tragic satire that exists: if this
rank be due to a poem at once the most vivid in presentation, the most
sublime in scorn, the most intense and absolute in condensed expression
of abhorrence and in assured expression of belief.
But in the fifth of these seven caskets of chiseled gold and tempered
steel there is a pearl of greater price than in any of the four yet
opened. The song dated from sea, which takes farewell of all good things
and all gladness left behind--of house and home, of the flowers and the
sky, of the betrothed bride with her maiden brow--the song which has in
its burden tile heavy plashing sound of the wave following on the wave
that swells and breaks against the bulwarks--the song of darkening
waters and darkened lives has in it a magic, for my own ear at least,
incomparable in the whole wide world of human song. Even to the greatest
poets of all time such a godsend as this--such a breath of instant
inspiration--can come but rarely and seem given as by miracle. "There is
sorrow on the sea," as the prophet said of old; but when was there
sorrow on sea or land which found such piercing and such perfect
utterance as this?
Adieu, patrie!
L'onde est en furie.
Adieu, patrie,
Azur!
Adieu, maison, treille au fruit mûr
Adieu, les fleurs d'or du vieux mur!
Adieu, patrie!
Ciel, forêt, prairie!
Adieu, patrie,
Azur!
Adieu, patrie!
L'onde est en furie.
Adieu, patrie,
Azur!
Adieu, fiancée au front pur.
Le ciel est noir, le vent est dur.
Adieu, patrie!
Lise, Anna, Marie!
Adieu, patrie.
Azur!
Adieu, patrie!
L'onde est en furie.
Adieu, patrie,
Azur!
Notre œil, que voile un deuil futur.
Va du flot sombre au sort obscur.
Adieu, patrie!
Pour toi mon cœur prie.
Adieu, patrie,
Azur!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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