Love's Treacherous Pool

("Jeune fille, l'amour c'est un miroir.")

[XXVI., February, 1835.]


Young maiden, true love is a pool all mirroring clear,
Where coquettish girls come to linger in long delight,
For it banishes afar from the face all the clouds that besmear
The soul truly bright;
But tempts you to ruffle its surface; drawing your foot
To subtilest sinking! and farther and farther the brink
That vainly you snatch - for repentance, 'tis weed without root, -
And struggling, you sink!

Victor-Marie Hugo

Victor-Marie Hugo was a French poet, novelist, and dramatist of the Romantic movement. He is considered one of the greatest French writers, with works such as "Les Misérables" and "The Hunchback of Notre-Dame." His literary works often explore themes of justice, love, and human rights. In addition to his literary achievements, he was also a politician and human rights activist. Hugo's influence extends beyond literature into politics and society.

Victor-Marie Hugo

To Cruel Ocean.

Victor-Marie Hugo, Simple Poetry

The Boy On The Barricade.

Victor-Marie Hugo, Simple Poetry

The Watching Angel.

Victor-Marie Hugo, Simple Poetry

Outside The Ball-Room.

Victor-Marie Hugo, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Early Love Revisited.

("O douleur! j'ai voulu savoir.")

[XXXIV. i., October, 183-.]


I have wished in the grief of my heart to know
If the vase yet treasured that nectar so clear,
And to see what this beautiful valley could show
Of all that was once to my soul most dear.
In how short a span doth all Nature change,
How quickly she smoothes with her hand serene -
And how rarely she snaps, in her ceaseless range,
The links that bound our hearts to the scene.

Our beautiful bowers are all laid waste;
The fir is felled that our names once bore;
Our rows of roses, by urchins' haste,
Are destroyed where they leap the barrier o'er.
The fount is walled in where, at noonday pride,
She so gayly drank, from the wood descending;
In her fairy hand was transformed the...

Victor-Marie Hugo

The Pool And The Soul.

("Comme dans les étangs.")

[X., May, 1839.]


As in some stagnant pool by forest-side,
In human souls two things are oft descried;
The sky, - which tints the surface of the pool
With all its rays, and all its shadows cool;
The basin next, - where gloomy, dark and deep,
Through slime and mud black reptiles vaguely creep.

R.F. HODGSON

Victor-Marie Hugo

Song Of Love.

("S'il est un charmant gazon.")

[XXII, Feb. 18, 1834.]


If there be a velvet sward
By dewdrops pearly drest,
Where through all seasons fairies guard
Flowers by bees carest,
Where one may gather, day and night,
Roses, honeysuckle, lily white,
I fain would make of it a site
For thy foot to rest.

If there be a loving heart
Where Honor rules the breast,
Loyal and true in every part,
That changes ne'er molest,
Eager to run its noble race,
Intent to do some work of grace,
I fain would make of it a place
For thy brow to rest.

And if there be of love a dream
Rose-scented as the west,
Which shows, each time it comes, a gleam, -
A something sweet and blest, -
A dream of which heaven is the pole,
A dr...

Victor-Marie Hugo

The Lover's Wish.

("Si j'étais la feuille.")

[XXII., September, 1828.]


Oh! were I the leaf that the wind of the West,
His course through the forest uncaring;
To sleep on the gale or the wave's placid breast
In a pendulous cradle is bearing.

All fresh with the morn's balmy kiss would I haste,
As the dewdrops upon me were glancing;
When Aurora sets out on the roseate waste,
And round her the breezes are dancing.

On the pinions of air I would fly, I would rush
Thro' the glens and the valleys to quiver;
Past the mountain ravine, past the grove's dreamy hush,
And the murmuring fall of the river.

By the darkening hollow and bramble-bush lane,
To catch the sweet breath of the roses;
Past the land would I speed, where the sand-driven plain

Victor-Marie Hugo

Hugo's "Pool In The Forest"

How calm, how beauteous and how cool--
How like a sister to the skies,
Appears the broad, transparent pool
That in this quiet forest lies.
The sunshine ripples on its face,
And from the world around, above,
It hath caught down the nameless grace
Of such reflections as we love.

But deep below its surface crawl
The reptile horrors of the night--
The dragons, lizards, serpents--all
The hideous brood that hate the light;
Through poison fern and slimy weed
And under ragged, jagged stones
They scuttle, or, in ghoulish greed,
They lap a dead man's bleaching bones.

And as, O pool, thou dost cajole
With seemings that beguile us well,
So doeth many a human soul
That teemeth with the lusts of hell.

Eugene Field

The Turkish Captive.

("Si je n'était captive.")

[IX., July, 1828.]


Oh! were I not a captive,
I should love this fair countree;
Those fields with maize abounding,
This ever-plaintive sea:
I'd love those stars unnumbered,
If, passing in the shade,
Beneath our walls I saw not
The spahi's sparkling blade.

I am no Tartar maiden
That a blackamoor of price
Should tune my lute and hold to me
My glass of sherbet-ice.
Far from these haunts of vices,
In my dear countree, we
With sweethearts in the even
May chat and wander free.

But still I love this climate,
Where never wintry breeze
Invades, with chilly murmur,
These open lattices;
Where rain is warm in summer,
And the insect glossy green,
Most like a living emeral...

Victor-Marie Hugo