Alfred de Musset - Souvenir versuri traducere în engleză

Recollection

I hoped I would cry, but thought I would suffer
daring see you again, forever sacred place,
you the dearest of tombs, yet most ignored among
those where memories rest!
 
What would then cause you dread among this forlorn place,
why would you offer me your friendly helping hands
while such a sweet habit, and such an ancient one,
would lead me on the way?
 
Here they are, these hillsides, this blossoming heather
and these silvery steps on the silent sand stretch,
these paths of love rustling with sweet talks where her arm
would wrap around my waist.
 
Here they are, these fir trees and their dark verdant green,
this deep vale that would wind its unhurried way through,
all these wilderness friends whose ancient whispering
nurtured my brightest days.
 
Here they are, these bushes where the whole of my youth
chirrups in my footsteps as would a flock of birds.
Lovely places, nice desert through which my lover went,
weren't you expecting me?
 
Ah please, let them flow, for they are dear to me
these tears overflowing from a still wounded heart!
Rather than wiping them, let this veil of the past
flutter on my eyelids!
 
I have not come here to cast a useless regret
to the echoes of woods that witnessed my bliss.
Proud stand these woodlands in the quiet of their beauty,
proud also stands my heart.
 
Let that one indulge in the bitterest laments
as he kneels in prayer by the grave of a friend.
This place is filled with breaths, cemetery flowers
would not grow around here.
 
Behold the moon that rises through these shadowy boughs.
While your gaze still shivers, ye fair queen of the nights,
you already break clear from the dark horizon
and emerge in full bloom.
 
So emerge from the soil, still wet from the rain,
under your radiant light all the scents of the day.
Just as pristine and quiet emerges my former love
from my mellowed soul.
 
What has become of all the sorrows of my life?
All that has turned me old is so far away now,
and just letting my eye behold this friendly vale
makes me a child again.
 
O great power of time! And ye the fickle years!
You take away our tears, our cries and our regrets,
and yey you pity us, and so will never step
o'er our wilted blooms.
 
Bless you with all my heart, o kindness of solace.
Never could I expect so much pain could be felt
from such a wound, and yet feeling its scar
is such a sweet delight.
 
far be it from me to harbour the common shroud
of vulgar sufferings and frivolous musings
that would be draped over their long extinguished love
by those who never loved!
 
Dante, why did you say that the worst misery
is a bright memory in the days of sorrow?
What grief would make you write so bitter a saying,
such an affront to grief?
 
As night falls, does it make the light any less real?
And shall we forget it as it cannot be seen?
Were these words yours, o great immortally sad soul,
were these words truly yours?
 
Surely, by the pure torch whose splendor lights my steps
this famed blasphemy cannot come from your heart
A happy memory might well be on this earth
truer than happiness.
 
So the unfortunate who discovers a spark
amidst the searing ash where all his trouble lie,
grabs hold of this ember and casts bedazzled stares
over the searing flames,
 
into this long lost past as his soul is drowning,
on this broken mirror as he dreams and sheds tears,
you tell him that he's wrong and that his feeble joy
is but a dire torment!
 
And it's to , your angel of glory
you had to give the task to deliver the line,
the very one who would interrupt her telling
with an eternal kiss!
 
What is, fair God, the gist of the whole human thought
and who could ever love the very truth itself
if neither joy nor grief, however true and sure
undoubted by any man?
 
What kind of life lead you, ye peculiar creatures?
You laugh and sing and walk in wide and bold strides.
heaven and his beauties, the world and all its filth
both leave you undisturbed.
 
And yet, when fate happens to lead you back towards
some random monument of a forsaken love,
this mere pebble stops you, and this petty stumble
will stir sadness in you.
 
You will then exclaim that life is but a dream,
and twist your arm as if emerging from slumber
and feel strong discontent at the brevity
of such a joyful lie.
 
Poor creature ! This moment when your numbed soul
shook free of the chains it drags down below,
this fleeting moment was all your life.
Don't go forgetting it!
 
Regret the torpor that pins you to the ground,
your wading1 in filth and blood,
you hopeless nights and lightless days:
there lies nothingness!
 
But what do you recall from your cold doctrines?
What are they asking the Heavens, these fickle regrets
that you sow over your own ruins
with each step of time?
 
Surely everything dies, this world is a vast dream,
and the little happiness that comes along the way
is like a reed that the wind snatches off our hand
no sooner than we grabbed it.
 
Indeed, the first kisses and vows
two mortal beings shared on earth
must have occured near a wind-stripped tree
on a rock crumbled to dust.
 
They called their ephemeral joy as a witness,
a constantly overcast and ever changing sky,
and nameless stars constantly devoured
by their own light.
 
All was dying around them, the bird in the foliage,
the flower in their hands, the insect under their feet,
the dried-up spring where the reflection
of their forgotten features flickered.
 
And, as they linked clay hands over all this rubble,
dazed by the lightings of a moment of pleasure,
they though they would escape this immobile being
that watches all things die!
 
Fools! says the sage. Happy, says the poet.
Your heart must harbour a sad love indeed
if the sound of the stream troubles and worries you
and the wind frightens you.
 
I've seen fall under the sun many things
beside leaves off branches and scum off water,
many things drift away beside the scent of roses
and the song of birds.
 
My eyes have beheld sights more funeral
than Juliet lying dead inside her grave,
more dreadful than the toast Romeo made
to the angel of darkness.
 
I saw my only one, dearest forever more,
who had become herself a bleached sepulchre,
a living tomb where hovered the dust
of our cherished departed,
 
the dust of our poor love that we had so gently
cradled over our hearts in the dead of night!
More than a life had vanished there, alas!
A whole word had disappeared!
 
Indeed, I saw her, still young and fair, even fairer,
I daresay, and her eyes shone like before.
Her lips parted, and there2 was a smile,
and there was a voice
 
yet no longer that voice, that sweet language,
these beloved stares united with mine.
My heart still filled with her wandered over her face
and could not find her.
 
And yet I could have walked toward her then,
wrapped my arms around this empty and cold bosom,
and cried out 'what did you do, unfateful,
what did you do with the past?'
 
But it seemed to me an unknown woman
had taken by accident this voice and these eyes.
And I let this cold statue walk on by
as I stared at the sky.
 
Well, it was no doubt a terribly pathetic,
this joyful farewell of an inanimate being.
So what? Doesit matter? O nature, o mother!
Did it lessen my love in any way?3
 
Thunder might strike me for all I care,
this memory cannot possibly be torn off me!
I cling to it like the seaman
broken by the storm.
 
I don't want to know whether the fields blossom
nor what will become of the human mockery,
nor whether these vast skies will light up tomorrow
the very thing they bury.
 
I just say to myself: 'at this time, in this place,
once, I was loved, I loved, she was pretty.'
I bury this treasure in my immortal soul,
and I carry it with me to God !
 

• 1. or maybe 'hustling and bustling'. I'm not quite sure I get the original idea
• 2. lit. 'it was'
• 3. lit. 'have I loved less because of it?'

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