Le lac [English translation]

And so! Pushed constantly toward new coasts,

Swept away into eternal night, with no return,

Can we never on the ocean of ages

Throw down an anchor for a single day ?

O lake! The year has scarcely ended its course,

And near the beloved waters she should have seen again,

Look! I've come alone to sit on this stone

Where you saw her sitting!

You groaned like this under these deep rocks,

Like this, you broke on their torn flanks,

Like this, the wind threw the foam from your waves

Onto her feet that I adored.

~ ~

One evening, do you remember? We were floating in silence;

There was nothing to hear from afar, on the waves, under the sky,

But the sound of rowers rhythmically beating

Against your harmonious waves.

Suddenly, in unearthly accents

Echoes fell from the enchanted shore;

The water listened, and the voice that is dear to me

Let fall these words:

"O time! Suspend your flight, and you, happy hours,

Suspend your race:

Let us savour the fleeting delights

Of our fairest days!

"There are enough unfortunates here below who implore you,

To rush, rush for them;

Take with their days the cares that devour them,

Forget the fortunate.

"But I ask in vain for a few more moments,

Time escapes me and flees;

I say to this night: Be slower; and dawn

Comes to melt the night.

"Let us love then, let us love! In the flying hour,

Hurry, let us revel!

Man has no harbour, Time has no shore;

It flows, and we pass on!"

~ ~

Envious Time, can it be that these euphoric moments,

Where love pours happiness on us in long surges,

Fly away from us at the same speed

As do unhappy days?

What! Can't we at least hold on to the traces?

What! Gone forever? What! Completely lost!

The Time that gave them, the Time that erased them,

Will never return them to us!

~ ~

Eternity, nothingness, past, dark chasms,

What do you do with the days that you engulf?

Speak: will you give back those sublime ecstasies

That you snatch from us?

O lake! Silent rocks! Caves! Dark forest!

You, whom Time spares or can make young again,

Keep of that night, keep, beautiful nature

At least the memory!

~ ~

May it be in your rest, may it be in your storms,

Beautiful lake, and in the look of your smiling shores,

And in these black pines, and in these wild rocks

That lean over your waters.

May it be in the soft wind that shivers and passes,

In the sounds of your banks, and by your banks repeated,

In the star with a silver brow that whitens your surface

Of limpid clearness.

May the wind that groans, the reed that sighs,

May the soft scent of your fragrant air,

May everything that can be heard, seen or breathed

All say: they have loved!