The Butterfly
by: Alphonse de Lamartine (1790-1869)
translated from the French byGeoffrey Barto

To be born with the spring, and with the roses die,
On the wing of the breeze swim through the sky so pure,
Balanced on the breast of flowers barely closed,
Drinking in their perfumes, the light and the blue sky,
Shaking off, still so young, the dust upon its wings,
Flying off like a breath to the eternal vault,
This is the butterfly’s enchanted destiny!
It’s like the desire that is never addressed,
And left unsatisfied, should it brush against anything,
Returns in the end to the sky, seeking its sensual pleasure.

Hello, and welcome back to Poetry Wednesday 10/07/09. You can sign in today and take the tour thru Thursday, so take your time.

 I’ll be your hostess again this week. My sister, Sans Souci, has been very busy helping our mom get adjusted to her new assisted living residence, but she will check in.

Before we get started, please make sure that your post has a link to get back to this page to make it easier to take the tour:

1) Copy and paste the following link that I have provided for you from this page to somewhere on your poetry post.

Link back to the Poetry Wednesday tour on Laurita’s page

2) Leave the link of your poetry post in the comments section below. This is the link guests will click on to read your poem.

Left: Portrait of Alphonse Lamartine
by Henri Decaine, Musee de Macon

Alphonse Marie Louis de Prat de Lamartine (21 October 1790 – 28 February 1869) was a Frenchwriter, poet and politician.

Born in Mâcon, Burgundy into French provincial nobility, he spent his youth at the family property at Milly-Lamartine.

He is famous for his partly autobiographicalpoem, “Le Lac” (“The Lake”), which describes in retrospect the fervent love shared by a couple from the point of view of the bereaved man. Lamartine was masterly in his use of French poetic forms. He was one of very few French literary figures to combine his writing with a political career. Raised a devout Catholic, Lamartine became a pantheist, writing Jocelyn and La Chute d’un ange. He wrote Histoire des Girondins in 1847 in praise of the Girondists.

He worked for the French embassy in Italy from 1825 to 1828. In 1829, he was elected a member of the Académie française. He was elected a ‘député’ in 1833, and was briefly in charge of government during the turbulence of 1848. He was Minister of Foreign Affairs from 24 February 1848 to 11 May 1848. Due to his great age, Jacques-Charles Dupont de l’Eure, Chairman of the Provisional Government, effectively delegated much of his duties to Lamartine. He was then a member of the Executive Commission, the political body which served as France’s joint Head of State.

During his term as a politician in the Second Republic of France, he led efforts that eventually led to the abolition of slavery and the death penalty, as well as the enshrinement of the right to work and the short-lived national workshop programs. A political idealist who supported democracy and pacifism, his moderate stance on most issues caused his followers to desert him. He was an unsuccessful candidate to the presidential election of 10 December 1848. He subsequently retired from politics and dedicated himself to literature.

He ended his life in poverty, publishing monthly installments of the Cours familier de littérature to support himself. He died in Paris.

He is considered to be the first French romantic poet (though Charles-Julien Lioult de Chênedollé was working on similar innovations at the same time), and was acknowledged by Paul Verlaine and the Symbolists as an important influence.