Chapter I

Step by step, day by day, age has come and placed
his hands upon the bare forehead of our love, and
has looked upon it with his dimmer eyes.

And in the fair garden shrivelled by July, the
flowers, the groves and the living leaves have
let fall something of their fervid strength on
to the pale pond and the gentle paths. Here and
there, the sun, harsh and envious, marks a hard
shadow around his light.

And yet the hollyhocks still persist in their
growth towards their final splendour, and the
seasons weigh upon our life in vain; more than
ever, all the roots of our two hearts plunge
unsatiated into happiness, and clutch, and sink
deeper.

Oh! these hours of afternoon girt with roses that
twine around time, and rest against his benumbed
flanks with cheeks aflower and aflame!

And nothing, nothing is better than to feel thus,
still happy and serene, after how many years?
But if our destiny had been quite different, and
we had both been called upon to suffer--even
then!--oh! I should have been happy to live and
die, without complaining, in my stubborn love.

II

Roses of June, you the fairest with your hearts
transfixed by the sun; violent and tranquil
roses, like a delicate flock of birds settled on
the branches;

Roses of June and July, upright and new, mouths
and kisses that suddenly move or grow still with
the coming and going of the wind, caress of
shadow and gold on the restless garden;

Roses of mute ardour and gentle will, roses of
voluptuousness in your mossy sheaths, you who
spend the days of high summer loving each other
in the brightness;

Fresh, glowing, magnificent roses, all our roses,
oh! that, like you, our manifold desires, in our
dear weariness or trembling pleasure, might love
and exalt each other and rest!

III

If other flowers adorn the house and the
splendour of the countryside, the pure ponds
shine still in the grass with the great eyes of
water of their mobile face.

Who can say from what far-off and unknown
distances so many new birds have come with sun on
their wings?

In the garden, April has given way to July, and
the blue tints to the great carnation tints;
space is warm and the wind frail; a thousand
insects glisten joyously in the air; and summer
passes in her robe of diamonds and sparks.

IV

The darkness is lustral and the dawn iridescent.
From the lofty branch whence a bird flies, the
dew-drops fall.

A lucid and frail purity adorns a morning so
bright that prisms seem to gleam in the air. A
spring babbles; a noise of wings is heard.

Oh! how beautiful are your eyes at that first
hour when our silver ponds shimmer in the light
and reflect the day that is rising. Your forehead
is radiant and your blood beats.

Intense and wholesome life in all its divine
strength enters your bosom so completely, like a
driving happiness, that to contain its anguish
and its fury, your hands suddenly take mine, and
press them almost fearfully against your heart.

V

I bring you this evening, as an offering, my joy
at having plunged my body into the silk and gold
of the frank and joyous wind and the gorgeous
sun; my feet are bright with having walked among
the grasses; my hands sweet with having touched
the heart of flowers; my eyes shining at having
felt the tears suddenly well up and spring into
them before the earth in festival and its eternal
strength.

Space has carried me away drunken and fervent
and sobbing in its arms of moving brightness;
and I have passed I know not where, far away in
the distance, with pent-up cries set free by my
footsteps.

I bring you life and the beauty of the plains
breathe them on me in a good, frank breath; the
marjoram has caressed my fingers, and the air and
its light and its perfumes are in my flesh.