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Black Republic of Letters

"Leçon des Choses" (Poem)

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"Leçon des Choses" (Poem) Translation: I said to the flower: Why bother to grow?
What's the point in donning your fragile corolla?
Of gold and velvet? The batting of a wing
To often suffices to disfigure it,
Under the drops of morning, you are barely born
When evening comes to see you wither.

I said to the bird: Why bother to sing?
The secular wood, today's sceptic,
Is himself deaf to your music;
No one has time to listen to you anymore,
Only close to you, the perfidious bird-catcher,
Is happy to head this song that guides him.

I said to the star: Why bother to shine?
The sky where your radiant eye is lit,
Nevertheless wears its coat of fog.
As for mankind, in vain you hope to keep him awake,
Children of progress and of science,
We no longer have faith in your influence.

I said to my heart: Why bother to love?
Declarations and promises, and sighs and flames,
They are packaged words that please women,
Of the age when the heart hopes to form,
People let themselves be taken by these refrains,
But how they die from them, eternal loves!...

I thought I had convinced them;
But since then, flowers have not ceased to bloom.
Under the fresh thicket, the bird still sings;
The same glimmer comes down to the firmament;
And, no longer tasting my moral erudition,
My heart still beats with the same ardour.

Georges Sylvain