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Victor HUGO ! (1802-1885)
At Trees
Trees of the Forest, you know my soul!
At the whim of the envious, the crowd praises and blames;
You know me, you! - you have seen me often,
Alone in your depths, looking and dreaming.
As you know, the stone where a beetle runs,
a humble drop of water from flower to flower fallen,
a cloud, a bird, occupy me all day long.
Contemplation fills my heart with love.
You have seen me a hundred times, in the dark valley,
with these words that the spirit says to nature,
Questioning your exciting branches all down,
And at the same time pursuing at the same time,
Thinking, the forehead down, the eye in the deep grass,
the study of an atom and the study of the world.
Attentive to your noises that all speak a little,
Trees, you saw me fleeing from man and seeking God!
Leaves that twitch at the tips of the branches,
Nests whose wind in the distance sows white feathers,
Clearings, green valleys, dark and sweet deserts,
You know that I am calm and pure like you.
As in heaven your perfumes, my worship of God springs forth,
And I am full of forgetting like you of silence!
The hatred on my name spreads in vain its gall;
Always, - I testify to you, O beloved woods of heaven! -
I have driven away from me all bitter thoughts,
and my heart is as corrupt as my mother did.
Trees of these great woods that always shiver,
I love you, and you, ivy at the threshold of other deaf people,
Ravines where we hear filtering the living springs,
Bushes that birds loot, happy guests!
When I am among you, trees of these great woods,
in everything that surrounds me and hides me at the same time,
in your solitude where I enter into myself,
I feel someone great who listens to me and loves me!
Also, sacred coppice where God Himself appears, Religious
trees, oaks, mosses, forest,
Forest! It is in your shadow and in your mystery,
It is under your august and solitary branch,
that I want to shelter my ignored tomb,
And that I want to sleep when I fall asleep.
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