Le feu du prisonnier.

The prisoner's fire! what solace it bestows
When Winter's evening, long and dreary, comes:
Then a good Genius with me warms his toes,
Gossips, or rhymes, or some old ditty hums
Here on the hearth, where living embers lie,
Woods — waves — a world at once — he bids appear:
Quick with the smoke away my troubles fly;
Stay, stay, good Genius, to divert me here!

Young, he would bid me dream, or smile, or weep —
Gladdening mine age with sports and boyish glee.
His finger points, and on the stormy deep
A ship, three-masted, in the coals I see.
Full soon — for swift the vessel cleaves her way —
Her crew shall hail the Spring where skies are clear:
I only, chained upon the shore, must stay;
Stay, stay, good Genius, to divert me here!

What now? an eagle, that above the world
Measures the sun's height, as he soars afar?
No, a balloon — I see the flag unfurled,
And there the pilot in his tiny car
If pity's touch that daring heart can move,
For us, pent up in walls, he'll drop a tear!
How pure the air is that he breathes above!
Stay, stay, good Genius, to divert me here!

Glacier and torrent, valley, lake, and herd —
Lo, the Swiss landscape in its beauty glows!
I should have fled — I saw the tempest stirred —
Where Freedom deigned to offer me repose!
I might have crossed the mountains' giant crest,
Where Fancy yet our ancient flag will rear;
But torn from France, my heart had found no rest;
Stay, stay, good Genius, to divert me here!

Still on my desert the mirage again!
Genius, amid those woodlands let us stray:
With voice subdued, friends whisper me in vain,
" Be wise, and kneel; thy chains will fall away "
Thou, who canst brave the watchful jailer's eye,
And make me young despite my fiftieth year,
Quick, to the hearth again thy wand apply!
Stay, stay, good Genius, to divert me here!