Remembrance

Two young ones they are: sister and brother, Together on a summer night with one another, They enter the hut. And the night advances With slow step, without idle chances, Behind them, vaporous and slight Like a mysterious shadow of the night. Already the bird sleeps in the wood, And the north wind keeps a quiet mood; All was dreaming in sweet mystery. And softly the sister says to her brother thee: I am afraid; do you hear, my brother, A bell weeping far off, then, brother? It is a doleful knell for the dead, For a dead one, then. Unafraid, instead, Sister, let us stay, it is a soul That leaves the Earth and that with calm and whole Claims a prayer that it may pay In the eternal beyond its place to stay. Let us go, sister, to pray in the church Of gray and dusty flagstone, let it be the search, The place where, in mourning, one day, Behind the coffin where she lay, The poor mother we beheld then there. Let us go also to pray, sister fair; Blessings we shall have on the morrow. Let us go now, let us go! – Then the pair, in sorrow, With eyes in tears, thereafter, so, Gave each other their hands and, with tender glow, Thus take, then, soon the way that led Both of them to the old church ahead. A second time the bell sounds its harp-tone And offers them the sad farewell, alone, Of the dead one in search of his God, The bell ceasing its lament so broad; Mute with fear and in dejection deep The two children walk along to keep Their gaze on the heavens, they have hopes. Then, near the church, almost at its slopes, A woman they saw seated there In the shadow of the sad pilaster bare That helps the holy font to rise. With bare feet, veiled face before their eyes, Pale, mad and disheveled in her plight, She exclaimed aloud: O my God of might! You who are adored here, in the skies, In all time, on all the Earth that lies, And, in heaven, a poor mother is shut away Trembling at the feet of your altar to pray, Before your singular love so true, Before you, may affliction dare to, Lament itself to be standing then. Lord! I had no more than one son, of men, One only; of a rosy hue and a gleam Like a white ray that colors a dream, A morning of fresh dawn so fair. The tender blue of his eyes there Recalled the blue of your heavens above, And on his mouth a sweet smile of love Shone forth just as if it were To say: Do not weep in your home there; It is God who comes to send me to you. See, the storm, mother, has ceased its rue; Wait! the sky has cleared and stayed; And I waited. But, my infant, you swayed, You deceived yourself, inconstant one. The wind's breath over the strand undone Destroys all and faints away, Save the reeds that, leaving, they Go weeping at the foot of the waters' spray. And when death knocks at the door Of a home, it enters and then transports more, With itself everything! And for a fort It leaves only the atrocious mark of mourning's report. I knew, then, that a beautiful dream Of a morning ends sad it would seem, In the evening here; that the night, meanwhile, Envies the holy brilliance of the sun's smile Which pales its shadow's hue, Casting a veil over all the meadow through To darken its thousand splendors bright, Closing splendors to the sight. Yes, I knew it; the mother, however, Is ignorant of all; and there comes never To her what she hopes, believing in all; Good for her son, above all that may befall. A whole life of happiness in store, Could I not without madness, once more, One day have felicity?

And other is, Lord, your will to be! May it be done, thus I sigh, Alone, in this humble and atrocious retreat nearby, Where I already saw my spouse die, Where, colorless in the thorny wild and dry, I received from a father his farewell, Where you take from the mother her own to dwell, Her last dreams of hope so fond Before the executioner of a child beyond. Death, that watches the victim with care With a cruel smile of joy laid bare, Lord! I implore of you the hand That strikes my own, one day, then, to withstand, From the mother herself not to spare The reclaiming of her son to the earth there. And the bell tolls for the last time, At these words the voice speaks in rhyme Of the son's soul upon the earth Consolation to the poor mother of worth It holds, in saying to her: In the heavens I am! When the pair of siblings left the calm Old church at once at the entrance way, They see the woman still seated and stay. Jean.