Marie Dauguet: 'La vieille forge'

 

The old forge

 

On the canal that’s half-asleep

Lie rose-pink leaves upon its stream

And gently through their cloth will seep –

Absorbed as in a languid dream –

The water autumn mist now whirls

And slows down to more sluggish swirls.

 

The ancient forge between two locks

Reflects obscurely the dark blocks

Of roofs and walls pitch-black in hue

Whose lowest part scrub hides from view,

Of sheds where huddled hammers gleam

Like crouching sphinxes broad of beam,

Shade-covered.  – Days of long ago

Have bent the bearded gables low,

And cracked stone thresholds. Now quite dead,

The water bathes steps no feet tread

As soundlessly it laps and leaves,

And life stagnates, its strength recedes

Where the steep valley’s hollow lies.

 

Raising their coiled tops to the skies

Of paling azure, pine trees here

Intertwine;

From woods quite near,

As evening comes, a bitterness 

Slides from each steaming branch afresh

Where shreds of silence dangle low.

 

What peace the lost glen in dusk’s glow

Seems to exhale! The forge – in pliers

Fashioned of nettles and thick briars

That choke each muffled echo’s blow –

Rests in a past without reprieve,

Reflected in the swollen stream

Where water midst the rose-pink leaves

Now dozes in warm autumn’s dream.

 

20 September 1903