On se cherche, on se poursuit,
On sent croître
Ton aube, amour, dans la nuit
Du vieux cloître.
On s'en va se becquetant,
On s'adore,
On s'embrasse à chaque instant,
Puis encore,
Sous les piliers, les arceaux,
Et les marbres.
C'est l'histoire des oiseaux
Dans les arbres.
The inexhaustible exuberance of fancies lavished on the study of the natural church, built by the hawthorn and the nettle in the depth of the living wood, with foliage and wind and flowers, leaves the reader not unfit for such reading actually dazzled with delight: In a far different key, the Souvenir des vieilles guerres is one of Hugo's most pathetic and characteristic studies of homely and heroic life. The dialogue which follows, between the irony of scepticism and the enthusiasm of reason, on the progressive ascension of mankind, is at once sublime and subdued in the fervent tranquillity of its final tone: and the next poem, on the so-called 'great age' and its dwarf of a Cæsar with the sun for a periwig, has in it a whole volume of history and of satire condensed into nine stanzas of four lines of five syllables apiece.
LE GRAND SIÈCLE
Ce siècle a la forme
D'un monstrueux char.
Sa croissance énorme
Sous un nain césar.
