Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
France: Vols. IX–X. 1876–79.
Recollections of Childhood
By Pierre-Jean de Béranger (17801857)O
At more than fifty you again I hail:
Tokens of childhood can our youth restore,
As life feels freshened by spring’s balmy gale.
Hail, kindred, whom my grateful love hath blest:
Thanks to your kindness, in the tempest’s rage,
Poor little bird, ’t was here I found a nest.
Where, whilst his niece in budding beauty grew,
The old schoolmaster o’er us used to reign,
And proudly teach us more than e’er he knew.
Ever, alas! to idle ways I turned;
But when they taught me the great Franklin’s trade,
I deemed that I a sage’s name had earned.
Soil that a morning full of hope makes green:
Thence springs a tree that oft till evening’s close
Yields, as we march, a staff on which to lean.
At more than fifty you again I hail:
Tokens of childhood can our youth restore,
As life feels freshened by spring’s balmy gale.
To me the roar of hostile cannon came.
Here hath my voice, attuned to festal lays,
Been heard full oft to lisp my country’s name.
By dreaming soul, that soared on dove-like wings;
To feel Heaven’s thunderbolt was here my lot,
That made me heed but little that of kings!
’Gainst Fate to arm herself, returning here
To laugh at Glory, wreath of transient smoke,
That to our eyes, like smoke, doth bring the tear.
Objects of love, that time but knitteth stronger,
Yes, yes, my cradle still to me seems sweet,
Though she who rocked it rocks it now no longer.
At more than fifty you again I hail:
Tokens of childhood can our youth restore,
As life feels freshened by spring’s balmy gale.