French Poetry

The Emperor's Return
by Victor Hugo (1802-1885)
[from Poems in three volumes by Victor Hugo, Vol. 1 (Boston, n.d.)]
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SIRE, to thy capital thou shalt come back,
Without the battle's tocsin and wild stir;
Beneath the arch, drawn by eight steeds coal black,
Dressed like an emperor.

Thro' this same portal, God accompanying,
Sire, thou shalt come upon the car of state;
Like Charlemagne, a high ensainted king,
Like Caesar, wondrous great.

On thy gold sceptre, to be vanquish'd never,
Thy crimson beaked bird shall shine anon;
Upon thy mantle all thy bees a-shiver
Shall twinkle in the sun.

Paris shall light up all her high and hundred
Towr's; shall speak out with all her tones sublime;
Bells, clarions, rolling drums shall all be thunder'd
In music at a time.

A mighty people, pale, with steps that falter,
Shall come to thee, by one attraction drawn,
Awe-stricken as a priest before the altar,
Glad as a child at dawn, --

A people who would lay all laws e'er sung
Or storied at thy feet; aye floating on,
Intoxicate, from Bonaparte the young
To old Napoleon.

Then a new army, burning for the advance,
In exploit terrible, round thy car shall cry
Amain, "Vive l'Empereur!" and "Vive la France!"
And seeing thee pass by,

Chief of the mighty empire, down shall fall
People and troops; but thou before their view
Shalt not be able to stoop down at all
With, "I am pleased with you."

An acclamation, tender, lofty, sweet,
A heart-song high as ecstasy can bear it,
Shall fill, O captain mine! the city's street,
But thou shalt never hear it.

Stern grenadiers, the veterans we admire,
Mute thy steed's steps shall kis; albeit
A sight pathetic, beautiful, yet, sire,
Your Majesty shall not see it.

While round thy form gigantic, like a friend,
France and the world awake in shadows deep,
Here in thy Paris ever, world without end,
Thou shalt lie fast asleep;

Ay, fast asleep with that same sullen slumber,
Those fadeless dreams, that on his stone chair fix
The Barbarossa, sitting out that number
Of centuries now six.

Thy sword beside thee, and thine eyelids close,
Thy hand yet moved by Bertrand's kiss, -- the last;
Upon the bed whence sleeper never rose,
Thou shalt be stretched full fast, --

Like to those soldiers marching bolt upright
So often after thee to field or town,
Who by the wind of battle touch'd one night
Suddenly laid them down;

Like sleepers, not like those whose race is run,
With grave, proud attitude of armed men,
But them that voice of dawn, the morning gun,
Shall never wake again;

Yea, so much like, that seeing thee all ice,
Like a mute god permitting adoration,
They who came smiling, love-drunk, in a trice
Shall raise a lamentation.

Sire, at that moment thou, for kingdom meet,
Shall have all beating hearts to be thine own.
Nations shall make thy phantom take a seat,
A universal throne.

Poets select, upon their knees in dust,
Shall hail thee far diviner than of old,
And gild thine altar, stain'd by hands unjust,
With a sublimer gold.

The clouds shall pass away from thy great glory;
Nothing to trouble it for aye shall come;
It shall expand itself o'er all our story
Like a vast azure dome.

Yea, thou shalt be to all a presence solemn,
Both good and great, -- to France an exile high
And calm; a brass Colossus on thy column
To every stranger's eye.

But thou, the while the sacred pomp shall lead
A cortége such as time hath never heard,
So that all eyes shall seem to see indeed
A vanished world upstirr'd;

The while they hear, hard by the wondrous dome
Where shadows keep the great names that men mark
In Paris still, the old guns growling home
Their master with a bark;

The while thy name without a peer shall soar,
Illustrious, beautiful to Heav'n, ah! thou
Shalt in the darkness feel for evermore
The grave-worm on thy brow.