1. To My Daughter

Oh, my child, as you see, I submit.
Do as I do: live apart from mankind;
Happy? Not that: triumph’s not it:
— Resigned! —

Be good, be gentle, pious brow high.
Just as day sets its heaven-flame low,
You, child, in the azure of your eye
Set your soul!

None are happy and none triumphant.
And ‘now’ is, for all, an incomplete touch;
The hour is a shadow, and life, my infant,
Is built of such.

Yes, all men are weary of their lot.
For all to be happy? —a dismal fate!—
All lacking. Alas!—and all we’ve got:
A mere mote.

That mere mote is what, for his chance,
Each seeks and desires all the while:
A word, a name, a bit of gold, a glance,
A smile!

The loveless king lacking happiness;
The vasty desert lacks drops of dew.
Man is a well where the void’s everness
Begins anew.

See those great thinkers gods arise in,
Heroes whose minds have dominated,
Names by which our darkened horizon
Is illuminated!

After having, like a torch’s beam,
Dazzled all, countlessly rayed,
They went away to seek in the tomb
A little shade.

Heaven, which knows we hurt and mourn
Takes pity on our vain clamorous years.
And every morning, it bathes our dawn
With its tears.

God enlightens our wanderings
As to what He is, how we’re inclined;
A law emerges from earthly things,
And from mankind.

You must abide by this one holy law,
Here—a law in reach of every soul:
To hate nothing, my child; to love the all,
Pity the whole!

Paris, October 1842.