Observations placeholder

Le Cure de village

Ses longs cheveux sont blancs.  Humble et plein de doucer
Il vit sa vie etroite au milieu de ses freres
Les paysans, courbés aux durs travaux agraires
Peu lui suffit; pour gouvernante, il a sa soeur

Sa paroisse, a l’abri du Vice envahisseur
Dans l’amour du terroir et l’horreur des libraires
Sous ses yeux paternals croit, loin des vents contraires
Il n’a rien du prophete.  Il n’a rien du penseur

Mais son oeil de viellard, qui sourit et pardonne
Dit une ame candide, aime, et que rien n’etonne;
Et pour ce villageois j'éprouve un respect tel

Que mon Coeur se rechauffe a sa rude parle
Et que je pense voir, lorsqu’il monte a ‘l’autel
Autour de son front blanc frissonner l’aureole

The Village Priest

His long hair is white. Humble and full of mildness
He lives his narrow life among his brothers
The peasants, bent by hard farm work
Very little is enough for him; for housekeeper, he has his sister

His parish, is sheltered from invading Vice
By his love of the countryside and a horror of booksellers,
Before his paternal eyes of belief, away from opposing winds
He has nothing of the prophet. He has nothing of the thinker

But under this old man’s eye, who smiles and pardons,
Lives a candid soul, loving, whom nothing astonishes;
And for this villager I feel such great respect

That my heart warms to his unsophisticated language
And I think I see, when I ascend to the altar
Around his white forehead a shimmer of a halo