I've lived long enough now, since in my sorrows
I walk without finding an arm to help me,
since I scarcely laugh at the children around me,
since flowers don't cheer me up any more;
since in the springtime, when God makes nature celebrate,
I witness, joylessly, this splendid love;
since I am at the hour when a man flees the daylight,
alas, and feels the secret sadness of everything;
since the serene hope in my soul is vanquished;
since in this season of perfumes and roses,
O my daughter! I aspire to the shadow where you are resting,
since my heart is dead-- I've lived long enough now.
I have not refused my task on earth.
My furrow? There it is. My sheaf? Here it is.
I have lived smiling, ever kinder,
upstanding, but leaning toward mystery.
I have done what I could; I have served, I have watched by night,
and I have often seen them laughing at my trouble.
I have been amazed to be an object of hatred,
having suffered much and worked much.
In this earthly prison where no wing can spread,
without complaining, bleeding, and falling on my hands,
gloomy, exhausted, mocked by human galley-slaves,
I have carried my link in the eternal chain.
Now, my eyelids are only half-open;
I don't turn around any more when they call me;
I am dazed and listless, like a man
who gets up before dawn and has not slept.
I don't even deign any more, in my somber sloth,
to answer the envious whose mouths hurt me.
O Lord! open the gates of night for me,
so I can go away and vanish!
--Victor Hugo (1802-1885). His beloved daughter Léopoldine had died accidentally, drowned at age 19..
