23. Childhood

The child sang. The mother, exhausted, in bed,
Lay dying, her lovely head bowed. Shadows clung.
Death loomed in the clouds floating over her head;
And I heard that death rattle, hearing that song.

The child, near the window, was five years old;
His laughter and games made a charming racket;
And the mother—as this poor, adorable child
Sang all day—spent all night coughing and hacking.

The mother now sleeps under cloister stone;
And the small child begins once more to choir it… —
Sorrow is a fruit: God does not make it grow
Upon a branch that is too weak to bear it.

Paris, January 1835.