The spring has swept the ice from all my frozen rivers
My young sap trembles at the first caresses along the tender bark.
But see how in the midst of July I am blinder than the Arctic winter!
My wings beat and break against the barriers of heaven
No ray pierces the deaf vault of my bitterness.
What sign is there to find? What key to strike?
And how can god be reached by hurling javelins?
Royal Summer of the distant South, you will come too late, in a hateful September!
In what book can I find the thrill of your reverberation?
And on the pages of what book, on what impossible lips taste your delirious love?
The impatient fit leaves me. Oh! the dull beat of the rain on the leaves!
Just play me your ‘Solitude’, Duke, till I cry myself to sleep.