Classic Poem

Le tailleur et la Fee.

Here in Paris, in seventeen hundred and eighty —
Where want is so rife, and where gold is so weighty —
At a tailor's, my grandfather old and forlorn,
Just hear what occurred to me then newly born
In my cradle with flowers unadorned, not a sign
Announced that an Orpheus' fame should be mine:
But my grandfather, hasting my tears to allay,
In the arms of a Fairy surprised me one day;
And this Fairy was singing her gayest of airs,
As she hushed up the ory of my earliest cares

So the good old man says to her, anxious in mind,
" For this infant, I pray you, what fate is designed? "
" With my wand, " she replies, " I his destiny mark:
He shall serve at an inn, be a printer, a clerk;
And I add to my presage a thunderbolt hurled
On thy son, that should hurry him out of the world;
But God has his eye on him, willing to save —
With a song the bird flies, other tempests to brave "
And the Fairy was singing her gayest of airs,
As she hushed up the cry of my earliest cares

" All the Pleasures, those Sylphs in whom youth takes delight,
Shall awaken his lyre in the dead of the night:
In the cot of the poor he shall bid them be gay —
From the palace of wealth driving ennui away
But his language is sad! what sad cause can there be?
Glory, Liberty, all, swallowed up shall he see;
Then return into port to tell over the tale
Of the wreck, as a fisherman scared by the gale "
And the Fairy was singing her gayest of airs,
As she hushed up the cry of my earliest cares

" What! have I, " the old tailor exclaimed with a groan,
" From my daughter received a song-maker alone?
Better daily and nightly the needle to ply,
Than amidst empty sounds, feeble echo, to die! "
" Thou art wrong, " cries the Fairy, " such fears to express;
Splendid talents achieve not so great a success:
For his light-hearted songs shall to Frenchmen be dear,
And shall serve the poor exile in sorrow to cheer! "
And the Fairy was singing her gayest of airs,
As she hushed up the cry of my earliest cares

I was yesterday weak and morose, my good friends,
When, behold! the kind Fairy her look on me bends:
And she carelessly pulls off the leaves of a rose,
As she cries, " How, already, old age on thee grows!
But at times the mirage in the desert appears;
And just so in old hearts gleam the joys of old years:
Now to honor thy fête thy good friends are in train —
Go, with them live another age over again! "
And the Fairy then sang me her gayest of airs,
Chasing off, as of yore, all my troublesome cares.