From the French. On the Terrace of the Aigalades

By Joseph Méry

FROM this high portal, where upsprings

The rose to touch our hands in play,

We at a glance behold three things,—

The Sea, the Town, and the Highway.

And the Sea says: My shipwrecks fear;

I drown my best friends in the deep;

And those who braved my tempests, here

Among my sea-weeds lie asleep!

The Town says: I am filled and fraught

With tumult and with smoke and care;

My days with toil are overwrought,

And in my nights I gasp for air.

The Highway says: My wheel-tracks guide

To the pale climates of the North;

Where my last milestone stands abide

The people to their death gone forth.

Here in the shade this life of ours,

Full of delicious air, glides by

Amid a multitude of flowers

As countless as the stars on high;

These red-tiled roofs, this fruitful soil,

Bathed with an azure all divine,

Where springs the tree that gives us oil,

The grape that giveth us the wine;

Beneath these mountains stripped of trees,

Whose tops with flowers are covered o’er,

Where springtime of the Hesperides

Begins, but endeth nevermore;

Under these leafy vaults and walls,

That unto gentle sleep persuade;

This rainbow of the waterfalls,

Of mingled mist and sunshine made;

Upon these shores, where all invites,

We live our languid life apart;

This air is that of life’s delights,

The festival of sense and heart;

This limpid space of time prolong,

Forget to-morrow in to-day,

And leave unto the passing throng

The Sea, the Town, and the Highway.