armand sully prudhomme

english translation

The Rendezvous

original French poem

Le Rendez-vous

Il est tard. L’astronome aux vielles obstinées,
Sur sa tour, dans le ciel où meurt le dernier bruit,
Cherche des îles d’or, et le front dans la nuit,
Regard à l’infini blanchir des matinées.

Les mondes fuient pareils à des graines vannées;
L’épais fourmillement des nébuleuses luit;
Mais, attentif à l’astre échevelé qu’il suit,
Il le somme et lui dit: “Reviens dans mille années.”

Et l’astre reviendra. D’un pas ni d’un instant
Il ne saurait frauder la science éternelle;
Des hommes passeront, l’humanité l’attend;

D’un œil changeant, mais sûr, elle fait sentinelle;
Et fût-elle abolie au temps de son retour,
Seule, la Vérité veillerait sur la tour.

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Armand Sully Prudhomme (1839 – 1907) was a student of law and philosophy who worked for years in the office of a Parisian notary after vision problems prevented a career in engineering. His writing efforts, encouraged by Leconte de Lisle, extended the Parnassian style, which objected to both Symbolism and free verse and hoped to restore the classical standards of elegance, calm and impersonality. Despite the small quantity of his verse and essays, Prudhomme was awarded the first Nobel Prize for literature, in 1901.

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Diane Furtney

Diane Furtney, after her Tulsa upbringing and with a psychology degree from Vassar College, worked a year in Israel (1967), then took an assortment of jobs, sometimes in clinical psychology, in several US cities. Besides nonfiction ghostwriting, she has authored two prizewinning poetry chapbooks (Destination Rooms and It Was a Game) and two comic mystery novels (pseudonym D.J.H. Jones).