Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
France: Vols. IX–X. 1876–79.
Fontenay
By Guillaume Amfrye de Chaulieu (1639–1720)O
Sojourn of silence and of peace!
Asylum where forever cease
All tumult and inquietude!
To tender accents of my lyre
All that one suffers from the fire
Of love and beauty in its prime,—
All blessing I from thee receive,—
Shall I, unsung, in silence leave
Thy benefactions and delights?
Calmest my agitated breast,
And of my idleness and rest
Makest a happiness extreme.
Again do I begin to live,
And to the winds all memory give
Of sorrows and solicitudes.
What smiling pictures and serene
Each day reveals to sight and sense,
Of treasures with which Providence
Embellishes this rural scene!
To see, when noonday burns the plain,
The flocks around the shepherd swain
Reposing in the elm-tree’s shade!
Answered by all the hills around,
And all the villages resound
With hautbois and with canzonets!
With too great swiftness onward press;
My indolence and idleness
Are powerless to suspend their course.
And cruel Death shall soon or late
Execute the decree of fate
That gives me to him without grace.
Where first I saw the light of day,
I soon from life shall steal away
To sleep with my forefathers here.
In this delightful spot of earth;
Beautiful trees, that saw my birth,
Erelong ye too my death shall see!
Beneath thy shadowy woods, nor grieve
That I so soon their shade must leave
For that dark manor desolate,
Of all these trees that my own hand
Hath planted, and for pastime planned,
Saving alone the cypress-tree!