The Dying Child to Its Mother

Victor Hugo (1802–1885), translated by various hands · 1888

trochaic pentameter · 32 lines · from Poems

Ah, you said too often to your angelThere are other angels in the sky--There, where nothing changes, nothing suffers,Sweet it were to enter in on high.

To that dome on marvellous pilasters,To that tent roofed o'er with colored bars,That blue garden full of stars like lilies,And of lilies beautiful as stars.

And you said it was a place most joyous,All our poor imaginings above,With the wingèd cherubim for playmates,And the good God evermore to love.

Sweet it were to dwell there in all seasons,Like a taper burning day and night,Near to the child Jesus and the Virgin,In that home so beautiful and bright.

But you should have told him, hapless mother,Told your child so frail and gentle too,That you were all his in life's beginning,But that also he belonged to you.

For the mother watches o'er the infant,He must rise up in her latter days,She will need the man that was her babyTo stand by her when her strength decays.

Ah, you did not tell enough your darlingThat God made us in this lower life,Woman for the man, and man for woman,In our pains, our pleasures and our strife.

So that one sad day, O loss, O sorrow!The sweet creature left you all alone;'Twas your own hand hung the cage door open,Mother, and your pretty bird is flown.

Words in this poem

cherubim n.: The Hebrew plural of Cherub.. Cf. Seraphim.
evermore adv.: During eternity; always; forever; for an indefinite period; at all times; -- often used substantively with for.
dwell v. i.: To delay; to linger. [OE. dwellen, dwelien, to err, linger, AS. dwellan to deceive, hinder, delay, dwelian to err; akin to Icel. dvelja to delay, tarry, Sw. dväljas to dwell, Dan. dv]
hapless a.: Without hap or luck; luckless; unfortunate; unlucky; unhappy; as, hapless youth; hapless maid.
strife n.: The act of striving; earnest endeavor. [OF. estrif. See Strive.]
flown a.: Flushed, inflated.

Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.

About this text

The Dying Child to Its Mother is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #8775, the various hands translation; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.

Cite as: Victor Hugo, The Dying Child to Its Mother, in Poems (1888), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #8775, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hugo-poems/the-dying-child-to-its-mother.html, id L26815.

Form and metre

The Dying Child to Its Mother is 32 lines in 8 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is trochaic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 84%).

See other poems in trochaic pentameter.

Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.

Rhyme words, stanza by stanza

The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.

1 -A-A angel · sky^A · suffers · high^A
2 -A-A pilasters · bars^A · lilies · stars^A
3 -A-A joyous · above^A · playmates · love^A
4 -A-A seasons · night^A · virgin · bright^A
5 -A-A mother · too^A · beginning · you^A
6 -A-A infant · days^A · baby · decays^A
7 -A-A darling · life^A · woman · strife^A
8 -AAA sorrow · alone^A · open^A · flown^A

Scansion, line by line

Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against trochaic pentameter. How this is done.

Line	Syl.	Stress
Ah, you said too often to your angel	10	····/˘··/˘
There are other angels in the sky--	9	··/˘/˘···
There, where nothing changes, nothing suffers,	10	··/˘/˘/˘/˘
Sweet it were to enter in on high.	9	····/˘···
To that dome on marvellous pilasters,	10	·······˘/˘
To that tent roofed o'er with colored bars,	10	····˘··/˘·
That blue garden full of stars like lilies,	10	··/˘····/˘
And of lilies beautiful as stars.	9	··/˘/˘˘··
And you said it was a place most joyous,	10	········/˘
All our poor imaginings above,	10	·/˘·˘/˘˘··
With the wingèd cherubim for playmates,	9	···/˘˘·/·
And the good God evermore to love.	9	····/˘···
Sweet it were to dwell there in all seasons,	10	········/˘
Like a taper burning day and night,	9	··/˘/˘···
Near to the child Jesus and the Virgin,	10	····/˘··/˘
In that home so beautiful and bright.	9	····/˘˘··
But you should have told him, hapless mother,	10	······/˘/˘
Told your child so frail and gentle too,	9	······/˘·
That you were all his in life's beginning,	10	·······˘/˘
But that also he belonged to you.	10	··/˘·˘/˘··
For the mother watches o'er the infant,	10	··/˘/˘··/˘
He must rise up in her latter days,	9	······/˘·
She will need the man that was her baby	10	········/˘
To stand by her when her strength decays.	9	·······˘/
Ah, you did not tell enough your darling	10	·····˘/·/˘
That God made us in this lower life,	9	······/˘·
Woman for the man, and man for woman,	10	/˘······/˘
In our pains, our pleasures and our strife.	10	·/·//˘·/˘·
So that one sad day, O loss, O sorrow!	10	········/˘
The sweet creature left you all alone;	9	··/˘···˘/
'Twas your own hand hung the cage door open,	10	········/˘
Mother, and your pretty bird is flown.	9	/˘··/˘···

The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.

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