The Sower.

Sitting in a porchway cool,
Fades the ruddy sunlight fast,
Twilight hastens on to rule -
Working hours are wellnigh past

Shadows shoot across the lands;
But one sower lingers still,
Old, in rags, he patient stands, -
Looking on, I feel a thrill.

Black and high his silhouette
Dominates the furrows deep!
Now to sow the task is set,
Soon shall come a time to reap.

Marches he along the plain,
To and fro, and scatters wide
From his hands the precious grain;
Moody, I, to see him stride.

Darkness deepens. Gone the light.
Now his gestures to mine eyes
Are august; and strange - his height
Seems to touch the starry skies.

TORU DUTT.

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

Sweet Sister.

Victor-Marie Hugo, Simple Poetry

Insult Not The Fallen.

Victor-Marie Hugo, Simple Poetry

Holyrood Palace.

Victor-Marie Hugo, Simple Poetry

The Danube In Wrath.

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.

Sunset.

("Le soleil s'est couché")

[XXXV. vi., April, 1829.]


The sun set this evening in masses of cloud,
The storm comes to-morrow, then calm be the night,
Then the Dawn in her chariot refulgent and proud,
Then more nights, and still days, steps of Time in his flight.
The days shall pass rapid as swifts on the wing.
O'er the face of the hills, o'er the face of the seas,
O'er streamlets of silver, and forests that ring
With a dirge for the dead, chanted low by the breeze;
The face of the waters, the brow of the mounts
Deep scarred but not shrivelled, and woods tufted green,
Their youth shall renew; and the rocks to the founts
Shall yield what these yielded to ocean their queen.
But day by day bending still lower my head,
Still chilled in the sunlig...

Victor-Marie Hugo

A Sower

With sanguine looks
    And rolling walk
Among the rooks
    He loved to stalk,

While on the land
    With gusty laugh
From a full hand
    He scattered chaff.

Now that within
    His spirit sleeps
A harvest thin
    The sickle reaps;

But the dumb fields
    Desire his tread,
And no earth yields
    A wheat more red.

Henry John Newbolt

Mourning.

("Charle! ô mon fils!")

[March, 1871.]


Charles, Charles, my son! hast thou, then, quitted me?
Must all fade, naught endure?
Hast vanished in that radiance, clear for thee,
But still for us obscure?

My sunset lingers, boy, thy morn declines!
Sweet mutual love we've known;
For man, alas! plans, dreams, and smiling twines
With others' souls his own.

He cries, "This has no end!" pursues his way:
He soon is downward bound:
He lives, he suffers; in his grasp one day
Mere dust and ashes found.

I've wandered twenty years, in distant lands,
With sore heart forced to stay:
Why fell the blow Fate only understands!
God took my home away.

To-day one daughter and one son remain
Of all my goodly show:
Welln...

Victor-Marie Hugo

The Cow.

("Devant la blanche ferme.")

[XV., May, 1837.]


Before the farm where, o'er the porch, festoon
Wild creepers red, and gaffer sits at noon,
Whilst strutting fowl display their varied crests,
And the old watchdog slumberously rests,
They half-attentive to the clarion of their king,
Resplendent in the sunshine op'ning wing -
There stood a cow, with neck-bell jingling light,
Superb, enormous, dappled red and white -
Soft, gentle, patient as a hind unto its young,
Letting the children swarm until they hung
Around her, under - rustics with their teeth
Whiter than marble their ripe lips beneath,
And bushy hair fresh and more brown
Than mossy walls at old gates of a town,
Calling to one another with loud cries
For younger imps to be in at ...

Victor-Marie Hugo

To His Orphan Grandchildren.

("O Charles, je te sens près de moi.")

[July, 1871.]


I feel thy presence, Charles. Sweet martyr! down
    In earth, where men decay,
I search, and see from cracks which rend thy tomb,
    Burst out pale morning's ray.

Close linked are bier and cradle: here the dead,
    To charm us, live again:
Kneeling, I mourn, when on my threshold sounds
    Two little children's strain.

George, Jeanne, sing on! George, Jeanne, unconscious play!
    Your father's form recall,
Now darkened by his sombre shade, now gilt
    By beams that wandering fall.

Oh, knowledge! what thy use? did we not know
    Death holds no more the dead;
But Heaven, where, hand in hand, angel and star
    Smile at the grave we dread?

A Heave...

Victor-Marie Hugo

A Basket Of Flowers - From Dawn To Dusk

Dawn

On skies still and starlit
White lustres take hold,
And grey flushes scarlet,
And red flashes gold.
And sun-glories cover
The rose shed above her,
Like lover and lover
They flame and unfold.

-    -    -    -    -

Still bloom in the garden
Green grass-plot, fresh lawn,
Though pasture lands harden
And drought fissures yawn.
While leaves not a few fall,
Let rose leaves for you fall,
Leaves pearl-strung with dew-fall,
And gold shot with dawn.

Does the grass-plot remember
The fall of your feet
In autumns red ember,
When drought leagues with heat,
When the last of the roses
Despairingly closes
In the lull that reposes
Ere storm winds wax fleet?

Loves melodies languish
...

Adam Lindsay Gordon