A Sheaf Gleaned in French Fields/To Little Jeanne (L'Année Terrible, Victor Hugo)
A year old, you were, my dear, yesterday:
Content to yourself you prattle away;
Opening its vague eyes in its sheltered nest,
Thus chirps the bird new-born, by winds carest,
Joyous to feel its plumes commence to grow.
Jeanne, your mouth is a rose-blossom in blow.
In those big books whose pictures are your joy,
Pictures you clutch, and sometimes, too, destroy,
There are sweet verses, but nought to compare
To your little face,—nothing half as fair!
It dimples with smiles like a summer lake
As I approach, my wonted kiss to take:
Poets the greatest have never written aught
As good, as in your eyes the budding thought.
Oh, the reverie there, strange and obscure!
The contemplation, like an angel's pure!
Jeanne, God cannot be far, since you are here.
Ah! You are a year old. It's an age, my dear.
Charmed with all things, you look fitfully grave:
O moment celestial of life!—We rave
About happiness, but happy alone
Are those on whose path no shadow is thrown,
Who, when their parents they hold in their arms,
Hold the whole world and feel sheltered from harms;
Your young soul from Alice your kind mother turns
To Charles your father, and in them discerns
Matter for laughter, for tears and for dreams;
Their love is your all, and it sheds rainbow gleams
O'er your horizon. Your universe, your heaven,
Are in these,—one that rocks you at even,
And one that smiling looks on. At this hour,
The brightest of life, as light to the flower
Is their presence to you. O blessed trust!
In your parents you live, and this is but just.
I stand by, humble grandsire; not to grudge
To be your playmate, your slave, or your drudge;
But content to follow you, and have my part
As one of your toys, somewhere in your heart;
You come and I go; awaiting for night
I hail and worship the dawn of your light.
Your blonde brother George and you are enough
To a heart not seared by the world's contact rough.
I see your glad sports and I wish for no more,
After my numberless trials are o'er,
Than that your shadow should fall on my tomb
While smiling you play 'mid sunshine and bloom.
Ah! Our new innocent guest, you were born
In an hour for France most sad and forlorn,—
Familiar with terrors you played with the asp,
You smiled while Paris was at its last gasp,
You murmured, dear Jeanne, like bees in a wood,
While she girded her arms in wrathful mood;
'Mid clank of the sword and roar of the gun
You woke and slept, as though danger were none;
And when I see you, Jeanne, and when I hear
Your timid accents breaking low, yet clear,
While your hands glide softly over my head,
It seems as if the cloud, charged with tempests dread,
Trembles and flies far off with hollow moan,
And that God sends down from his holy throne
To the Queen of cities, girdled with towers
And ramparts, from which the fierce cannon lowers,
Disabled, and ready to sink like a bark
Under a sea heaving wildly and dark,
Amid clamour, and terror, and outcry wild,
A blessing of Peace, by the hand of a child.