C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
Ode to the Lake of B——
By Alphonse de Lamartine (1790–1869)
T
Still borne along, to winds and waves a prey,
Can we not, on life’s sea without a shore,
Cast anchor for a day?
And near thy waves she longed once more to see,
Behold I sit alone upon this stone,
Where once she sat with me.
The creviced rocks, where they their death did meet;
And flecks of foam from off thy billows blew
Over my dear one’s feet.
That night? When under all the starry sky
Was heard alone the beat of oars that fall
In cadenced harmony.
Accents unknown to earth melodious break;
And with these mournful words, a voice most dear
Charms all the listening lake:—
Pause on your rapid ways!
Let us enjoy the springtime of our powers,
The fairest of all days!
Urge on the lingering suns,
Take with their days the canker and the blight;
Forget the happy ones!
Time slips away and flies.
I say to night, Pass slowly! and the dawn
Breaks on my startled eyes.
Enjoy life while we may;
Man has no port, nor has time any shore;
It flees, we pass away!”
Half-uttered phrases tremble on the air;
And in that ecstasy our spirits rise
Up to a world more fair.
Our senses lie, weighed down with all love’s store;
Our hearts are beating, and our clinging lips
Murmur, “Forevermore!”
When love all happiness upon us showers,
Vanish away as swiftly in their flight
As our unhappy hours?
What have you done with all you’ve made your prey?
Answer us! will you render back at last
What you have snatched away?
You that time spares, or knows how to renew,—
Keep of this night, set in this lovely scene,
At least a memory true!
O lake! and where thy smiling waters lave
The sunny shore, or where the dark fir grows,
And hangs above the wave.
In thy shores’ song, by thy shores echoed still;
In the pale star whose silvery radiance shone
Above thy wooded hill!
And perfumes that on balmy breezes moved,
With all we hear, we see, we breathe, alike
May say, “They loved!”