Temps jaloux, se peut-il que ces moments d’ivresse,
où l’amour à longs flots nous verse le bonheur,
s’envolent loin de nous de la même vitesse
que les jours de malheur?

Eh quoi! n’en pourrons-nous fixer au moins la trace?
Quoi! passés pour jamais? quoi ! tout entiers perdus?
Ce temps qui les donna, ce temps qui les efface,
ne nous les rendra plus?

Éternité, néant, passé, sombres abîmes,
que faites-vous des jours que vous engloutissez?
Parlez : nous rendrez-vous ces extases sublimes
que vous nous ravissez?

Ô lac! rochers muets! grottes! forêt obscure!
Vous, que le temps épargne ou qu’il peut rajeunir,
gardez de cette nuit, gardez, belle nature,
au moins le souvenir!

Qu’il soit dans ton repos, qu’il soit dans tes orages,
beau lac, et dans l’aspect de tes riants coteaux,
et dans ces noirs sapins, et dans ces rocs sauvages
qui pendent sur tes eaux.

Qu’il soit dans le zéphyr qui frémit et qui passe,
dans les bruits de tes bords par tes bords répétés,
dans l’astre au front d’argent qui blanchit ta surface
de ses molles clartés.

Que le vent qui gémit, le roseau qui soupire
que les parfums légers de ton air embaumé,
que tout ce qu’on entend, l’on voit ou l’on respire,
tout dise: Ils ont aimé!

The Lake
Alphonse de Lamartine

And so! pushed constantly toward new coasts,
swept away into eternal night, with no return,
Can we never on the ocean of the ages
Throw down an anchor for a single day ?

O lake! the year has scarcely ended its course,
and near the beloved waters she should have seen again,
Look! I've come alone to sit on this stone
Where you saw her sitting!

You  groaned like this under these deep rocks,
Like this, you broke on their torn flanks,
Like this, the wind threw the foam from your waves
Onto her adored feet.

One evening, do you remember? We were floating in silence;
There was nothing to hear from afar, on the waves, under the sky,
but the sound of rowers beating rhythmically
against your harmonious waves.

Suddenly, in unearthly accents
echoes fell from the enchanted shore;
the water listened, and the voice that is dear to me
let fall these words:

"O time! Suspend your flight, and you, happy hours,
Suspend your race:
Let us savour the fleeting delights
of our fairest days!

"There are enough unfortunates here below who implore you,
to rush, rush for them;
Take with their days the cares that devour them,
Forget the fortunate.

"But I ask in vain for a few more moments,
Time escapes me and flees;
I say to this night: Be slower; and dawn
comes to melt the night.

"Let us love then, let us love! In the flying hour,
Hurry, let us revel"
Man has no harbour, Time has no shore;
It flows, and we pass on!"

Envious Time, can it be that these euphoric moments,
where love pours happiness on us in long surges,
Fly away from us at the same speed
as the unhappy days?

What! Can't we at least hold on to the traces?
What! gone forever? What! completely lost!
The Time that gave them, the Time that erased them,
will never give them back to us!

Eternity, nothingness, past, dark chasms,
what do you do with the days that you engulf?
Speak: will you give back those sublime ecstasies
that you snatch from us?

O lake! silent rocks! caves! dark forest!
You whom Time spares or can make young again,
Keep of that night, keep, beautiful nature
at least the memory!

May it be in your rest, may it be in your storms,
Beautiful lake, and in the look of your smiling shores,
and in these black pines, and in these wild rocks
That lean over your waters.

May it be in the soft wind that shivers and passes,
in the sounds of your banks, and by your banks repeated,
in the star with a silver brow that whitens your surface
of limpid clearness.

May the wind that groans, the reed that sighs,
May the soft scent of your fragrant air,
May everything that can be heard, seen or breathed
All say: they have loved!

Translation: © David Paley

Der See
Alphonse de Lamartine