O AMIABLE solitude, | |
| Sojourn of silence and of peace! | |
| Asylum where forever cease | |
| All tumult and inquietude! | |
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| I, who have chanted many a time | 5 |
| To tender accents of my lyre | |
| All that one suffers from the fire | |
| Of love and beauty in its prime,— | |
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| Shall I, whose gratitude requites | |
| All blessing I from thee receive,— | 10 |
| Shall I, unsung, in silence leave | |
| Thy benefactions and delights? | |
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| Thou bringest back my youthful dream; | |
| Calmest my agitated breast, | |
| And of my idleness and rest | 15 |
| Makest a happiness extreme. | |
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| Amid these hamlets and these woods | |
| Again do I begin to live, | |
| And to the winds all memory give | |
| Of sorrows and solicitudes. * * * * * | 20 |
| What smiling pictures and serene | |
| Each day reveals to sight and sense, | |
| Of treasures with which Providence | |
| Embellishes this rural scene! | |
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| How sweet it is in yonder glade | 25 |
| To see, when noonday burns the plain, | |
| The flocks around the shepherd swain | |
| Reposing in the elm-tree’s shade! | |
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| To hear at eve our flageolets | |
| Answered by all the hills around, | 30 |
| And all the villages resound | |
| With hautbois and with canzonets! | |
| |
| Alas! these peaceful days, perforce, | |
| With too great swiftness onward press; | |
| My indolence and idleness | 35 |
| Are powerless to suspend their course. | |
| |
| Old age comes stealing on apace; | |
| And cruel Death shall soon or late | |
| Execute the decree of fate | |
| That gives me to him without grace. | 40 |
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| O Fontenay! forever dear! | |
| Where first I saw the light of day, | |
| I soon from life shall steal away | |
| To sleep with my forefathers here. | |
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| Ye Muses, that have nourished me | 45 |
| In this delightful spot of earth; | |
| Beautiful trees, that saw my birth, | |
| Erelong ye too my death shall see! | |
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| Meanwhile let me in patience wait | |
| Beneath thy shadowy woods, nor grieve | 50 |
| That I so soon their shade must leave | |
| For that dark manor desolate, | |
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| Whither not one shall follow me | |
| Of all these trees that my own hand | |
| Hath planted, and for pastime planned, | 55 |
| Saving alone the cypress-tree! | |
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