A Sheaf Gleaned in French Fields/Fantasy (Gérard de Nerval)
For other English-language translations of this work, see Fantasy (Nerval).
FANTASY
There is an air for which I'd freely change
All Weber's, Mozart's, and Rossini's spells:
An old, old air, that of some sorrow tells—
Sad, fascinating, endless, weird, and strange,
Each time I hear that air my soul is borne
Back through the vista of two hundred years:
Reigns 'Louis Treize'—and in my sight appears
A hill-side green, where fading sunbeams mourn.
Then suddenly a noble castle towers—
Brick, with stone fretwork, and red glass that glows,
Girt by a park, through which a river flows,
Bent over by innumerable ferns and flowers.
And then a lady at a window high,
Fair, with dark eyes, in which a tear I trace—
Oh, is it in my dreams I've seen that face?
Or have I ever lived in times gone by?