LA TOMBE DIT A LA EOSE

VicTOB Hugo, the most dlstingulshed literary Frenchman of the nineteenth century, was born at Besançon in 1802. HIs life was most eventful, eighteen years being spent In exile In the Islands of Jersey and Guernsey. On his death in 1885, his remains were buried with great pomp and ceremony in the crypt of the Panthéon. Although he excelled as a dramatist and novelist, his famé will be longest remembered as a poet. His lofty imagination was equalled by the vigour of his thought and his brilliant mastery of language.

La tombe dit à la rose :

— Des pleuTs dont l'aube t'arrose

Que fais-tu, fleur des amours ?

La rose dit à la tombe;

— Que fais-tu de ce qui tombe

Dans ton gouffre ouv«>rt toujours?

La rose dit: — Tombeau sombre, De ces pleurs je fais dans l'ombre TJn parfum d'ambre et de miel.

La tombe dit : — Fleur plaintive, De chaque âme qui m'arrive Je fais un ange du ciel.

-From, "les Voix Intérieures'' (1837)

By permission of M. Gustave Simon, Paris.