Sunday 6 December 2020

Marie Dauguet (1860-1942): 'Les foins'



Les foins

 

La tiède lune au bord du ciel monte et sourit.

Vois sur les foins coupés trembler son halo gris;

La nature s’emplit comme une basilique

Du silence embaumé des soirs mélancoliques.

 

Au chemin de la vie et voilant sa laideur

L’oubli s’étend ainsi que la rosée en pleurs.

L’oubli divin s’étend somme l’herbe fleurie,

Déployée en nuage aux pentes des prairies.

 

Il semble que s’efface et meurt l’humanité,

Tant le souffle qui sort des lèvres de l’été

Et qui si doucement rôde aussi sur nos lèvres

De tout mesquin désir nous libère et nous sèvre.

 

La lune à travers l’ombre, et tel un oiseau blanc,

Suspend toujours plus clair son essor transparent

Et son calme plumage en neige diaphane

Se mêle au flot bleui de l’herbe qui se fane.

 

Parmi l’odeur des foins, avec des mots secrets

Sourdement murmurés, courent les ruisseaux frais

Où la lune attirée et mystique se penche,

Frôlant à leur miroir errant son aile blanche.

 

 

The hayfields

 

The tepid moon at heaven’s rim ascends and smiles.

See its grey halo trembling on mown hay in piles;

Like a basilica all nature is suffused

With mournful evenings’ scented silence undiffused.

 

And at the path of life, its plainness hid from view

Oblivion extends as does the tearful dew,

Oblivion divine extends like flowering grass

Spread out on meadow slopes like clouds that slowly pass.

 

It seems as if humanity grows blurred and dies,

As breath exhaled from summers lips at its demise

And which so softly lurks around our lips anew,

Free of all mean desire, which frees and weans us too.

 

The moon seen through the shade, and like a bird full white

Suspends its brightening, transparent upward flight

And all of its calm plumage in translucent snow

Blends with the bluish flowing of the grass below.

 

Among the hay’s sweet scent, with secret words at play

And mutely murmured, fresh streams course and wend their way

Where the attracted, mystic moon in downward swing

At their far-straying mirror skims its silver wing.

 

3 comments:

John Irons said...

The edition I have found has 'Vois', not 'Voit' in line 2, but it seems very unlikely to me that the poem addresses practically all the poem to a reader, using the imperative. The poem reads like a description.

John Irons said...

poem addresses > poet addresses

John Irons said...

https://mariedauguet.blog4ever.com/les-foins

here line 2 also has 'Vois'. i will change the translation to agree with this.