A Sheaf Gleaned in French Fields/Sonnet (Émile Deschamps)
SONNET.
When Time, the changer of all men and things,
On this bright spot shall cast the shroud of years,
When all these oaks and firs he now reveres
He shall hurl down, to bloom no more in springs,
Shall History mount on its exultant wings,
Amid the chaos that transforms and sears,
To paint the past,—the wood that now appears,
The hunt,—the picnic,—and the pomp of kings?
I know not;—but my verse shall strive to say
To men unborn, that here at Mortfontaine
Two months she past, which vanished like a day;
Flowers in her presence bloomed as after rain,
Birds sang, deer sported; hence to poets, aye
The place is dear, and lovers that complain.