See, I am re-born, without pain or shock, to the daily labour that traces its mark on my road, and instils into my life the will to be a weapon of strength and beauty in the golden grasp of an honoured life.
In the house chosen by our love as its birth-place, with its cherished furniture peopling the shadows and the nooks, where we live together, having as sole witnesses the roses that watch us through the windows,
Certain days stand out of so great a consolation, certain hours of summer so lovely in their silence, that sometimes I stop time that swings with its golden disc in the oaken clock.
Then the hour, the day, the night is so much ours that the happiness that hovers lightly over us hears nothing but the throbbing of your heart and mine that are brought close together by a sudden embrace.
The pleasant task with the window open and the shadow of the green leaves and the passage of the sun on the ruddy paper, maintains the gentle violence of its silence in our good and pensive house.
And the flowers bend nimbly and the large fruits shine from branch to branch, and the blackbirds, the bullfinches and the chaffinches sing and sing, so that my verses may burst forth clear and fresh, pure and true, like their songs, their golden flesh and their scarlet petals.
And I see you pass in the garden, sometimes mingled with the sun and shadow; but your head does not turn, so that the hour in which I work jealousy at these frank and gentle poems may not be disturbed.
In the depth of our love dwells all faith; we bind up a glowing thought together with the least things: the awakening of a bud, the decline of a rose, the flight of a frail and beautiful bird that, by turns, appears or disappears in the shadow or the light.
A nest falling to pieces on the mossy edge of a roof and ravaged by the wind fills the mind with dread. An insect eating the heart of the hollyhocks terrifies: all is fear, all is hope.
Though reason with its sharp and soothing snow may suddenly cool these charming pangs, what matters! Let us accept them without inquiring overmuch into the false, the true, the evil or the good they portend;
Let us be happy that we can be as children, believing in their fatal or triumphant power, and let us guard with closed shutters against too sensible people.