Marie Dauguet: 'Le moulin'

 

In the previous Dauguet poem, she mentions 'Moulin Greget'. In this poem, we have 'Moulin des Oiseaux'. She was born in La Chadeau, in the municipality of d'Aillevillers, south of the first mill. Her parents moved to Le Beuchot, which is just to the south-west of Fontaine-les-Luxeuil. We are on the border between the Vosges and Haute Saône areas of France, west of Colmar.

Le moulin

 

Le vieux moulin velu, baigné de lune rose,

S'endort. Entre ses murs, aucun choc de blutoir

Et l'immobile roue dans sa fosse repose.

 

Les peupliers jaseurs ont cessé de mouvoir,

Comme paralysés par quelle étrange hypnose?

Leur cime qu'une orfraie a choisi pour juchoir.

 

Comme il se tait mon cœur! Un grand silence fuse

Du canal sommeilleux et de sa fixité;

A peine un soupir trouble aux mousses de l'écluse;

Un crapeau languissant éteint son cri flûté.

 

Mais l'orfraie, tout à coup, dans cette nuit d'été,

Et près de l'eau rosie comme une plaie contuse,

Où le reflet du bois noirâtrement infuse,

Jusqu'aux astres répand son sanglot exalté.

 

10 Août 1906

Moulin des oiseaux

 

 

The watermill

 

The ancient blurry mill, bathed in the moon’s pink light,

Now sleeps. Inside its walls, no sifters clatter still

And in its pit its inert wheel rests day and night.

 

The prattling poplar trees no longer toss and lurch –

As if quite paralysed by some hypnotic will?

Their crowns a white-tailed eagle has as chosen perch.

 

How quiet my heart has grown! Vast silence seems to block

The somnolent canal where echoes choke and die;

There’s scarce a sigh disturbs the mosses of the lock;

A languid toad brings to an end its flute-like cry.

 

Suddenly, though, the eagle in this summer night –

Down by rose-tinted water like some violet bruise

Which the reflected woods now blackishly infuse –

Up to the stars lets out its sob of sheer delight.

 

10 August 1906

Moulin des oiseaux