The fog is cold and the copse is gray ;
The steers as they move to the water, low ;
The moon from the black clouds taking way,
A light affright seems to come and go.
Je ne sais plus quand, je ne sais plus où,
Maître Yvon soufflait dans son biniou.
The traveller trudges, the earth is brown.
A shadow chases, a shade leads on.
Light where the sun climbs, white where it goes down.
Moonlight yonder, and hither the dawn.
The sitting sorceress mutters her spell,
To the roof the spider his web binds up;
Glow sprites flash and shake in the fires of the dell
Like pistils of gold in a tulip’s cup.
Up over the sea come the night-fogs white;
Shipwreck is dogging a shivering mast.
Says the wind, “ To-morrow ” the wave, “'To-night ;”
Despairing voices flutter past.
The coach sets out from Avranche for Fougère ;
Its whip in the dusk makes a lightning-flash.
This is the moment when floating in air,
The gloom gathers vast round the murmurs that clash.
In each forest-vista a tire glows.
A graveyard is seen on the mountain-height;
Where does God find all the gloom that He throws
O’er the broken heart and the falling night ?
Silver flakes tremble along the sands ;
The chalky cliff with gold is lined ;
The shepherd the flight of monstrous bands
Of devils follows athwart, the wind.
Each chimney dons a hodden plume ;
With his faggot the woodman hastes to house ;
You hear o'er the rush of the rivulet’s flume
The shiver and moan of the wind-swayed, boughs.
Gaunt wolves, morose, howl in hungry dreams ;
The river races, the clouds have fled ;
Behind the pane the lamp-light gleams
On a little child with a flaxen head.
Je ne sais plus quand, je ne sais plus où,
Maître Yvon soufflait dans son biniou.
…
Peut-être, là-haut, il est, dans l’Ignoré,
Un dieu supérieur aux dieux que nous rêvâmes,
Capable de donner des astres à des âmes.
