14. In Granville, 1836

So: it’s June. Sparrows rail
At lovers in the fields;
The wall-dwelt nightingale
Sings, stone nest concealed.

The branches and the grasses,
Dog- and sigh- filled,
Repeat their suave choruses
In depths of the wood.

The thrush and the turtledove
Prolong, on nest-soft branch,
The sweet quarrel of love
Of kisses and romance.

Beneath the plain’s fine fences,
Caves, green willows sway,
Vergil intoxicates Silenus,
Rabelais, Grandgousier.

O Vergil—fine wine: pour me!
O Rabelais! Fill the glass.
The forest is a glory;
The cavern a palace!

There’s no lake, isle in-middle
Where birdlime doesn’t snare us,
Where we don’t sing an idyll,
Where a duet doesn’t pair us.

For love hunts in boscages,
Love fishes in the streams;
And fair maidens are the cages
Our hearts the birds within.

From the spring within its basin
Water mirrors flower,
Bids “Good morning” as the jay sings,
“Good evening” to the owl.

The roof awaits its thatch mats—
Bread first, next sheafs for good;
The ox’s flank amongst the grass
Seems a mountain in the wood.

The pond laughs at the sea-ducks,
Field laughs at oriole,
While the deep-set grounded ruts
Groan as great wagons roll.

From a wallflower gold peeks;
Zephyr, old-myth-proud,
Blows with puffed-out cheeks
Deep inside blue cloud.

Jersey upon the docile swell,
Draped in skies so pure,
Adopts a Sicilian veil
And a vast cloak of azure.

Everywhere eclogues are writ—as
Far off as cold Albion
The air’s filled with Theocritus,
The wind recalling Bion;

Repeating the melancholic,
Song once hummed forth
By Moschus—that grig bucolic,
Upon Etna’s hearth.

Winter, old man, coughs, sick:
The mist dissolves; he goes;
The lapping waves provide the music
For verses trees compose.

All of sombre nature is displayed,
Pours forth mysterious glow;
The dreaming soul holds more shade,
And the flower holds more love.

The grass bursts into daisies;
Scents—deemed mute—and powers
The secret sorrow’s phrases
Bindweeds to cornflowers.

Myriad tiny white wings branch
Upon the water’s furrow
Descending in an avalanche;
Its butterflies pour snow.

And on the sea, reflecting together
Dawn’s enamel smile,
The purple-violet heather
Capes ancient mountain-isle,

And addressing the abyss
Holding, blessing brighter—
Intones its sublime mass
Beneath its granite mitre.

Granville, June 1836.