Le lac [English translation]

Thus ever drawn toward far shores uncharted,

Into eternal darkness borne away,

May we not ever on Time's sea, unthwarted,

Cast anchor for a day?

O lake! Now hardly by a year grown older,

And nigh the well-known waves her eyes should greet,

Behold! I sit alone on this same boulder

Thou knewest for her seat.

Thus didst thou murmur in thy rocky haven,

Thus didst thou shatter on its stony breast;

Thus fell the wind-flung foam on sands engraven

Where her dear feet had pressed.

~ ~

One eve- remembering thou?- in silence drifting,

'Twixt deep and sky no sound had echo save

Afar the rowers dipping oars and lifting

Over thy waters suave.

When all at once a voice that made earth wonder

From the charmed shore drove all the echoes wide,

And rapt the wave, not fain as I nor fonder,

And with sweet words did chide:

'Stay thou thy flight, O Time! and happy hours

Trail by with laggard feet!

Let all the savour of your delight be ours

Of all our days most sweet!

'Too many grieving souls to thee are praying;

Nay, leave not these immune;

Bear off with thee their sorrows undelaying;

Leave happy souls their boon.

'Nay, but in vain I ask one gracious hour;

Time flies and will not hark.

I bid the night abide and dawn doth shower

His splendour down the dark.

'Ah! let us love, my Love, for Time is heartless,

Be happy while you may!

Man hath no Heaven and Time's coast is chartless.

He speeds; we pass away!'

~ ~

Churl Time, and can it be sweet moments cherished,

Wherein love fills our lives with teeming bliss,

Speed far away and be as swiftly perished

As days when sorrow is?

Nay! Ere we go may we not leave sure traces?

Nay! Passed for ever? Beyond all reprieve?

What Time bestows on us, what Time effaces

He nevermore shall give?

~ ~

O! everlasting night, deep pit unsounded,

What dost thou with engulphéd days untold?

Speak! Wilt thou yield us back the bliss unbounded

Once ravished from our hold?

O! lake, mute rocks, caves, leafy woodland shading,

You whom Time spares or clothes with newer sheen,

Keep of this night, fair Nature, keep unfading

The memory ever green!

In all thy calms and all thy tempests blending,

Fair lake, and in thy forelands' smiling fronts,

In thy dark pines and thy wild cliffs impending

Over thy crystal fonts,

In the winds passing, with a trembling lightness,

Heard in the echoes that thy shores throw far,

Seen in the beams that fall with sheeny whiteness

Wave-borne from the clear star!

Let moaning breezes thro' the rushes gliding,

All perfume stirring thy sweet air above,

All seen or heard or breathéd bear this tiding,

'Hereby they once did love!'

• Artist:Alphonse de Lamartine
• Album:Méditations poétiques (1820)