Songs of Autumn

Soon we will plunge into cold darkness;
Farewell, vivid brightness of our too short summers!
I can already hear falling with funereal shocks
The wood resounding on the pavement of the courtyards.
All winter will return to my being: anger,
Hatred, chills, horror, hard and forced labor,
And, like the sun in its polar hell,
My heart will be nothing more than a red and icy block.
I listen quivering to each log that falls
The scaffold we build has no more muted echo.
My mind is like the falling tower
Under the blows of the indefatigable and heavy battering ram.
It seems to me, lulled by this monotonous shock,
Let a coffin be nailed in great haste somewhere.
For who? - Yesterday was summer; here comes autumn!
This mysterious noise sounds like a departure.

I love the greenish light of your long eyes,
Sweet beauty, but everything today is bitter to me, And nothing, neither your love, nor the boudoir, nor the hearth,
Don't beat me to the sun shining on the sea.
And yet love me, tender heart! be a mother,
Even for an ingrate, even for a wicked one;
Lover or sister, be the ephemeral sweetness
Of a glorious autumn or of a setting sun.
Short task! The grave awaits; she is greedy!
Ah! leave me, my forehead resting on your knees,
To taste, regretting the white and torrid summer,
Of the late season the yellow and sweet ray!