Читать книгу Poems - Victor Hugo, Clara Inés Bravo Villarreal - Страница 43

     Above all others, everywhere I see

       His image cold or burning!

     My brain it thrills, and oftentime sets free

       The thoughts within me yearning.

     My quivering lips pour forth the words

       That cluster in his name of glory —

     The star gigantic with its rays of swords

       Whose gleams irradiate all modern story.

     I see his finger pointing where the shell

       Should fall to slay most rabble,

     And save foul regicides; or strike the knell

       Of weaklings 'mid the tribunes' babble.

     A Consul then, o'er young but proud,

       With midnight poring thinned, and sallow,

     But dreams of Empire pierce the transient cloud,

       And round pale face and lank locks form the halo.

     And soon the Caesar, with an eye a-flame

       Whole nations' contact urging

     To gain his soldiers gold and fame

       Oh, Sun on high emerging,

     Whose dazzling lustre fired the hells

       Embosomed in grim bronze, which, free, arose

     To change five hundred thousand base-born Tells,

       Into his host of half-a-million heroes!

     What! next a captive? Yea, and caged apart.

       No weight of arms enfolded

     Can crush the turmoil in that seething heart

       Which Nature – not her journeymen – self-moulded.

     Let sordid jailers vex their prize;

       But only bends that brow to lightning,

     As gazing from the seaward rock, his sighs