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By Xavier Marmier
AT La Chaudeau,—’t is long since then: | |
| I was young,—my years twice ten; | |
| All things smiled on the happy boy, | |
| Dreams of love and songs of joy, | |
| Azure of heaven and wave below, | 5 |
| At La Chaudeau. | |
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| To La Chaudeau I come back old: | |
| My head is gray, my blood is cold; | |
| Seeking along the meadow ooze, | |
| Seeking beside the river Seymouse, | 10 |
| The days of my spring-time of long ago | |
| At La Chaudeau. | |
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| At La Chaudeau nor heart nor brain | |
| Ever grows old with grief and pain; | |
| A sweet remembrance keeps off age; | 15 |
| A tender friendship doth still assuage | |
| The burden of sorrow that one may know | |
| At La Chaudeau. | |
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| At La Chaudeau, had fate decreed | |
| To limit the wandering life I lead, | 20 |
| Peradventure I still, forsooth, | |
| Should have preserved my fresh green youth | |
| Under the shadows the hill-tops throw | |
| At La Chaudeau. | |
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| At La Chaudeau, live on, my friends, | 25 |
| Happy to be where God intends; | |
| And sometimes, by the evening fire, | |
| Think of him whose sole desire | |
| Is again to sit in the old château | |
| At La Chaudeau. | 30 |
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