A Sheaf Gleaned in French Fields/The Dawn (Les Châtiments, Victor Hugo)
A Sudden shudder sweeps across the plain
Still dark. It is the morning hour again,
The hour when loved Pythagoras to muse,
And Hesiod thoughtful walked on glittering dews,
The hour when, tired of watching through the night
The sombre heavens and each mysterious light,
The herdsmen of Chaldea felt a chill,
That horror of deep darkness, and that thrill,
That comes o'er watchers when their forces fail.
Down there, the fall of water in the vale
Seems wrinkled in a thousand folds, and shines
Like a rich satin garment. O'er the pines
Upon the sad horizon gleams the Morn,
Whose teeth the pearls, whose lips the roses scorn,
An Eastern beauty—Ruth amid the corn.
The oxen dream and bellow; bullfinch, thrush,
And whistling jay awake in every bush;
And from the wood in wild confusion blent
Resound the chirp and hum from throats long pent;
The sheep display their fleece across the fence,
Not white as snow, but of a gold intense;
And the young girl upon her bed of down,
Fresh as a rose, black-eyed, in shadow brown,
With shoulders white emerging from her gown,
But half awake—thrusts out a foot that tries
To find the Chinese slipper ere she rise.
Praise be to God! After the sullen night
Always arrives the day, the welcome light
Eternal. On the mount wave heath and broom,
Nature superb and tranquil dons her bloom,
The light awakes the brood, the young ones cry,
The cottage lifts its smoke-wreath to the sky,
Arrows of gold their way through forests force;
Sooner than stop the sun upon its course,
One might reform the mean ignoble ways
Of those that rule us in these evil days,
To honour turn, to public good incline,
The soul of minister and base divine,
And mighty Cæsar reeling from his wine.