A Sheaf Gleaned in French Fields/On the Death of His Daughter (Victor Hugo)
ON THE DEATH OF HIS DAUGHTER.
Oh, I was wild like a madman at first,
Three days I wept bitter tears and accurst;
O those whom God of your hope hath bereft!
Fathers and mothers like me lonely left!
Have ye felt what I felt, and known it all?
And longed to dash your heads on the wall?
Have ye been like me in open revolt,
And defied the Hand that had hurled the bolt?
I could not believe at all in the thing:
I gazed, and I gazed, for a light to spring.
Does God permit such misfortunes, nor care
That our souls be filled with utter despair?
It seemed as the whole were a frightful dream,
She could not have left me thus like a gleam;
Ha! That is her laughter in the next room!
Oh no, she cannot be dead in the tomb.
There shall she enter—come here by this door,
And her step shall be music to me as before.
Oh! How oft have I said,—si1ence,—she speaks,
Hold,—'tis her hand on the key, and it creaks:
Wait—she comes! I must hear—leave me—go out,
For she is in this mansion, somewhere, without doubt.