The Poetry Corner

Epitaph.

By Victor-Marie Hugo

("Il vivait, il jouait.") [Bk. III. xv., May, 1843.] He lived and ever played, the tender smiling thing. What need, O Earth, to have plucked this flower from blossoming? Hadst thou not then the birds with rainbow-colors bright, The stars and the great woods, the wan wave, the blue sky? What need to have rapt this child from her thou hadst placed him by - Beneath those other flowers to have hid this flower from sight? Because of this one child thou hast no more of might, O star-girt Earth, his death yields thee not higher delight! But, ah! the mother's heart with woe for ever wild, This heart whose sovran bliss brought forth so bitter birth - This world as vast as thou, even thou, O sorrowless Earth, Is desolate and void because of this one child! NELSON K. TYERMAN.