by Brett Rutherford
Adapted from Victor Hugo, l’Année Terrible, “July 1871”
[Poem XI]
1
This, from all that has gone before,
from the dark abyss where Fate itself
seems destined to go to die, the Furies,
hatred incarnate that howls from the graves,
this, my people, is what emerges at last:
a glimmer of clarity and certitude.
Progress, and brotherhood, and faith!
A clarion voice amid my solitude
affirms it, so let the crowd acclaim
our struggle’s coda with a loud cry.
The let hamlet, relieved and joyful
whisper it up to the great Paris,
and may the Louvre, a-tremble
pass the word to every cottage.
This dawning hour is as clear
as the night was dark,
and from the fierce black sky we hear
the sound of something magnificent
giving itself great birth above us.
Even in our present shadow, we hear
the rustling of titanic wings above us,
and I, in these pages so full of shock
and horror, of mourning and battle,
of fears that will not let one sleep —
hear me, if anguish’s clamor
broke out in spite of me,
if I let fall too many words
of our own suffering,
if I negated hope, I disavow myself!
I erase my obscure sobbing
which I would rather have lost
than uttered. Words I crossed out
and never published, o so many!
I strive to be, above all this
the navigator serene, the one
who fears no shock
as the deep waves batter him.
Yet I admit my doubts, the fear
that some hideous hand might hold
the past in talon clutches
and refuse to let it go.
What did I fear the most?
That crime would seize justice
in stranglehold, that some
grim shadow would smother
the star we needed most
to aim toward the solstice,
that kings with whips
would drive before them
conscience made blind
and progress lamed.
If all the human spirit’s pillars
(like law and honor, Jesus
and Voltaire, reason and virtue)
remained complicit in silence,
if Truth would put its finger
to its lips in cowardice,
this century would pass away
and never pay its debt to the past.
The ship of the world
would tilt and sink,
and we would witness
the slow
devouring,
eternal and implacable,
into uncountable layers
of shadow upon shadow,
the slow disappearance
of all thinkers, one by one!
With shaking pen, I pause.
My voice cries, “No!”
You will remain, O France,
the vanguard, the first.
Do they think they can kill the light?
A vulture attacks the sun, and what
does the sun bleed? More light!
It can only shed more of itself.
What fool would think to hurt the sun?
All Hell, if it tries,
will only bring forth waves of dawn
from every gaping wound it make.
Thus France goes forth,
her spear at her side,
and where she smites
the trembling kings
will see the bursting-out of Freedom.
II
Is this a collapse around us?
No, it is a genesis.
O Paris, what does it matter to you,
bright, burning furnace, well of flame,
that a thick fog passes by,
that it comes sideways at you
as the blowing of one more wind,
a fray as meaningless
as a medieval joust?
Some puffing away at a bellows-forge,
what does that matter
when so many storms already torment you?
O proud volcano, already full
of explosions, noises, storms and thunder,
tremors that make the whole earth tremble,
the metals’ melting-pot, the hearth
at which souls set themselves on fire,
do you think God’s breath is punishing you?
Do you fear this is the end for you?
No! Wrath from on high
only rekindles your fire.
Your deep swell boils over.
Fusion, not fission, for the world!
Paris is like the sea, a force
that cannot stop itself. Its work
is never finished. God might as well
tell the pounding tides
“That’s quite enough!”
as put a hold on Paris.
Sometimes a man,
who leans toward your ringing hearth
thinks he sees hellfire instead
of the rosy hue of dawn.
We trust you: you know what kind of fire
it takes to build and transform!
City, whoever irritates you
can only make you foam.
The stones they hurl
down into the seeming abyss
yield up from you a spit of sparks.
Kings come with feeble hands
to cut and thrust at you.
With hammer-blows of beaten iron,
lit up with lightning at the Cyclops’ forge,
you laugh at their blows
and cover them with stars.
O Destiny! With ease you tear those webs
set out to catch you, those gleaming traps
sepulchral spiders build by night
dotting the dawns in morning dew.
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