Chapter II

If it were true that a garden flower or a meadow
tree could keep some memory of lovers of other
times who admired them in their bloom or their
vigour, our love in this hour of long regret
would come and entrust to the rose or erect
in the oak, before the approach of death, its
sweetness or its strength.

Thus it would survive, victor over funereal care,
in the tranquil godship conferred on it by simple
things; it would still enjoy the pure brightness
cast on life by a summer dawn and the soft rain
hanging to the leaves.

And if on a fine evening, out of the depths of
the plain, a couple came along, holding hands,
the oak would stretch out its broad and powerful
shade like a wing over their path, and the rose
would waft them its frail perfume.