Alfred de Musset HOME

Alfred de Musset

Selected poems

I love the first shiver of winter

I love the first shiver of winter! That day
When the stubble resists the hunter’s foot,
When magpies settle on fields fragrant with hay,
And deep in the old chateau, the hearth is lit.
That’s the city time. I remember last year,
I came back and saw the good Louvre and its dome,
Paris and its smoke—that whole realm so dear.
(I can still hear the postilions shouting, “We’re home!”)
I loved the gray weather, the strollers, the Seine
Under a thousand lanterns, sovereign!
I’d see winter, and you, my love, you!
Madame, I’d steep my soul in your glances,
But did I even realize the chances
That soon your heart would change for me too?

To Saint-Beuve

Friend, you have spoken well: in us, such as we are,
There frequently exists a certain flower
That blossoms, fades and from the heart its leaves are
shed.
'In three quarters of mankind, you must understand,
A poet has died young who is outlived by the man.'
Well said, my friend - and a little too well said.
You didn't pay attention, lining out your thought,
That your pen made poetry then and there, unsought.
In his own tongue you took Apollo's name in vain.
I betray you to your injured Muse: Read again,
And remember that in all of us frequently there keeps
A poet young and vibrant, who is not dead, but sleeps.

Ballad to the Moon

It was, in the dark night,
On the yellowed steeple,
The moon, the moon
Like a dot on an i.
Moon, what dark spirit
Walks at the end of a leash
Through the gloom,
Your face and your profile?
Are you the one-eyed heavens’ single eye?
Which bigoted cherub
Peers at us
Beneath your pale mask?
Are you merely a ball?
A big fat daddy-long-legs
That rolls, that rolls
Without legs and arms?

Venice

In Venice of the red walls,
Not a ship stirs at all,
Not a fisherman afloat,
No lanterned boat.
Seated alone on the strand,
The great lion stirs to stand,
And stretches out his paw
With its bronze claw.
Around him groups of crafts,
Sailing vessels and rafts,
Like herons in the dark
Rest in an arc,
In the smoky lagoon they sleep,
While in fog turning deep,
The wind gently whips
The flags of the ships.
The moon—which hides its eyes
Behind patchwork skies
With their star-flecked clouds—
Now half veiled.
Leaving Santa Croce Church
The abbess with a lurch
Reaches up to drape
Her surplice in her cape.
Transference
And the ancient palaces,
And the porticos so serious,
The stairways carved in white
For all the knights,
And the bridges and the squares,
And the statues’ mournful stares,
And the ribboned seas
Trembling in the breeze,
All are silent, except the guards
With their long halberds,
Who patrol crenellations
Of arsenal stations.
—Now more than one will wait
Beneath the moon’s porcelain plate.
She listens with one ear—
Is her dandy near?
Getting ready for the ball,
She arranges her shawl,
In the mirror at her task,
Dons her black mask.
On her perfumed divan,
La Vanina bedecked for her man,
Snoozes close to her lover,
Tugging the cover.
And Narcissa, the wild,
In her gondola has piled
A feast to help forget
Till moon and sun have met.
And who, here in Italy,
Is not without some folly?
Who doesn’t keep for love’s blaze
All the best days?
Let’s let the horloge
Near the palace of the old doge
Keep track during his nights
Of ennui that bites.
Let’s count, my beauty, instead,
On your rebel lips of red
All the kisses given…
Or forgiven.
It’s your charms we should count,
Mark sweet tears as they mount—
The real price of these nights
And their delights!