Oh! these hours of afternoon girt with roses that twine around time, and rest against his benumbed flanks with cheeks aflower and aflame!
And nothing, nothing is better than to feel thus, still happy and serene, after how many years? But if our destiny had been quite different, and we had both been called upon to suffer--even then!--oh! I should have been happy to live and die, without complaining, in my stubborn love.
Roses of June, you the fairest with your hearts transfixed by the sun; violent and tranquil roses, like a delicate flock of birds settled on the branches;
Roses of June and July, upright and new, mouths and kisses that suddenly move or grow still with the coming and going of the wind, caress of shadow and gold on the restless garden;
Roses of mute ardour and gentle will, roses of voluptuousness in your mossy sheaths, you who spend the days of high summer loving each other in the brightness;
Fresh, glowing, magnificent roses, all our roses, oh! that, like you, our manifold desires, in our dear weariness or trembling pleasure, might love and exalt each other and rest!
If other flowers adorn the house and the splendour of the countryside, the pure ponds shine still in the grass with the great eyes of water of their mobile face.
Who can say from what far-off and unknown distances so many new birds have come with sun on their wings?
In the garden, April has given way to July, and the blue tints to the great carnation tints; space is warm and the wind frail; a thousand insects glisten joyously in the air; and summer passes in her robe of diamonds and sparks.
The darkness is lustral and the dawn iridescent. From the lofty branch whence a bird flies, the dew-drops fall.
A lucid and frail purity adorns a morning so bright that prisms seem to gleam in the air. A spring babbles; a noise of wings is heard.
Oh! how beautiful are your eyes at that first hour when our silver ponds shimmer in the light and reflect the day that is rising. Your forehead is radiant and your blood beats.
Intense and wholesome life in all its divine strength enters your bosom so completely, like a driving happiness, that to contain its anguish and its fury, your hands suddenly take mine, and press them almost fearfully against your heart.