Poems (Hooper)/Lines Written in a Copy of the Divina Commedia
TRANSLATIONS
FROM THE FRENCH.
LINES WRITTEN IN A COPY OF THE DIVINA COMMEDIA.
LINES WRITTEN IN A COPY OF THE DIVINA COMMEDIA.
Un soir, dans le chemin je vis passer un homme.
He passed at twilight hour my steps before,
Draped in the garb the Roman Consuls wore;
Black seemed its folds beneath the twilight skies.
This passer stopped, and fixed on me his eyes:
So bright, so deep, half savage seemed their ray.
He said: "First, in the ages passed away,
I was a mountain towering to the stars;
Then burst my blinded soul its prison bars,
I rose one step on Being's mighty stair.
I was an oak—had altars, priests, and prayer,
And to the winds I made mysterious moan.
A lion next was I, in deserts lone,
Speaking to Night in accents fierce as flame.
I am a man now—Dante is my name."
Victor Hugo.
Draped in the garb the Roman Consuls wore;
Black seemed its folds beneath the twilight skies.
This passer stopped, and fixed on me his eyes:
So bright, so deep, half savage seemed their ray.
He said: "First, in the ages passed away,
I was a mountain towering to the stars;
Then burst my blinded soul its prison bars,
I rose one step on Being's mighty stair.
I was an oak—had altars, priests, and prayer,
And to the winds I made mysterious moan.
A lion next was I, in deserts lone,
Speaking to Night in accents fierce as flame.
I am a man now—Dante is my name."
Victor Hugo.