| |
Anonymous translation
HERE, in God’s house of the open dome, | |
| Vigil is kept by the pilgrim-breeze; | |
| Here, from its sun-illumined tome, | |
| Labor intones its litanies. | |
| For discipline, here is the chastening rain; | 5 |
| For burden, the fruit of the bending tree; | |
| The thorn of the rose for a pleasant pain; | |
| And palm for a costless victory. | |
| O, if my vow but bound to these, | |
| ’T were long ere this laggard step grew slack. | 10 |
| O that the wilful world would please | |
| To leave me my flocks, my birds and bees, | |
| My ivied stall and my hours of ease, | |
| And my little abbey of Carennac! | |
| |
| Far from the city’s guarded gate, | 15 |
| Free from the crush of its silken crowds, | |
| I see the sun in his purple state, | |
| And the changing face of the courtier-clouds. | |
| My thoughts are mine when my task is sped; | |
| My head aches not, and my heart is full; | 20 |
| And the laurels that cumber my careless tread | |
| Are the only ones that I choose to pull. | |
| Away from my friends, I love them best; | |
| Away from my books, no lore I lack: | |
| Here, no longer a flying guest, | 25 |
| With wavering foot that finds no rest, | |
| Truth comes home to this lonely breast | |
| In this little abbey of Carennac. | |
| |
| Thus, half hid from the smile of Spring | |
| Under the bough of a blossomed tree, | 30 |
| My single wish is the grace to sing | |
| The praise of a spot where a bard should be. | |
| Sounding clear as the forest call, | |
| Wakening man in the monarch’s breast, | |
| Many-voiced as the waters fall,— | 35 |
| Speaking to every soul’s unrest, | |
| My song should seize with a minstrel sway | |
| Yon green twin-isles and their busy bac, | |
| The hamlet white and the convent gray, | |
| And the lodge for the wanderer on his way, | 40 |
| And thus to my France in my little lay | |
| Give my little abbey of Carennac. | |
| |
| To journey again o’er the hard highway; | |
| To enter a garrulous, troublous train; | |
| Uncalled to come, and unbid obey: | 45 |
| To feign it pleasure, and feel it pain. | |
| To float,—a straw on an idle stream; | |
| To glitter,—a mote by the sunbeam sought; | |
| To walk,—a shade in a waking dream; | |
| To strive for nothings where all is naught. | 50 |
| An iron tongue to summon away, | |
| And a rope of sand to hold me back, | |
| Are the call to go, and the will to stay,— | |
| Clamorous Duty and still Delay: | |
| O gilded gloom! O green and gay | 55 |
| Of my little abbey of Carennac! | |
| |
| Fields that teem with the fruits of peace, | |
| Let your reapers reap and your binders bind! | |
| I cannot flee for a fond caprice | |
| You stony spot to my hand assigned. | 60 |
| To me are numbered the seeds that grow; | |
| Not mine the loss of the perished grain, | |
| If working I watch for the time to sow, | |
| And waiting pray for the sun and rain. | |
| My day to God and the king I lend: | 65 |
| The wish of my heart will bring me back | |
| A few last, lightsome hours to spend, | |
| And to pass with my lifelong looked-for friend, | |
| Through a quiet night and a perfect end, | |
| From my little abbey of Carennac. | 70 |
| |
