Page:Studyofvictorhug00swin.djvu/142

 Ne frappe pas, tonnerre. Ils sons petits, ceux-ci. La terre est bonne; elle est grave et'sévère aussi; Les roses sont pures comme elle; Quiconque pense, espère et travaille lui plaît; Et l'innocence offerte à tout homme est son lait, Et la justice est sa mamelle.

La terre cache l'or et montre les moissons; Elle met dans le flanc des fuyantes saisons Le germe des saisons prochaines, Dans l'azur les oiseaux qui chuchotent: aimons! Et les sources au fond de l'ombre, et sur les monts L'immense tremblement des chênes.

The loving loveliness of these divine verses is in sharp contrast with the fierce resonance of those in which the sea's defiance is cast as a challenge to the hopes and dreams of mankind:—

Je suis la vaste mêlée, Reptile, étant l'onde, ailée, Étant le vent; Force et fuite, haine et vie, Houle immense, poursuivie Et poursuivant.

The motion of the sea was never till now so perfectly done into words as in these three last lines; but any one to whom the water was as dear or dearer than the land at its loveliest would have found a delight as of love no less conceivable than a passion as of hatred in the more visible and active life of waves, and at least as palpable to the 'shaping spirit of imagination.' It remains true, after all, for the greatest as for the humblest, that—in the words of one of the very few poets whose verses are fit to quote even after a verse of Hugo's—