Émile Nelligan, "Nostalgia for Toys"
Feb. 17th, 2003 06:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldMy heart still keeps a sadness graven there,
Affection for that winsome child for whom
Death blew upon his hunting horn of doom
Because she was so lovely, sweet, and fair.
Like a northern prince inside his Kremlin's lair,
Since then I feel walled-in against the world,
And, choked with grief around my heart-strings
curled,
Love no longer swells as in my seventh year.
Whereto has fled that dat of childhood folderols,
When Lucille and I were jumping jacks for fun
In crumpled clothes together on the run?
The little girl has climbed beyond the moon,
And I have lost my pride in dressing dolls . . .
Ah! to pass the gate of twenty years so soon!
- from The Complete Poems of Émile Nelligan, edited and translated by Fred Cogswell, (Montréal: Harvest House, 1983), p 26.
Affection for that winsome child for whom
Death blew upon his hunting horn of doom
Because she was so lovely, sweet, and fair.
Like a northern prince inside his Kremlin's lair,
Since then I feel walled-in against the world,
And, choked with grief around my heart-strings
curled,
Love no longer swells as in my seventh year.
Whereto has fled that dat of childhood folderols,
When Lucille and I were jumping jacks for fun
In crumpled clothes together on the run?
The little girl has climbed beyond the moon,
And I have lost my pride in dressing dolls . . .
Ah! to pass the gate of twenty years so soon!
- from The Complete Poems of Émile Nelligan, edited and translated by Fred Cogswell, (Montréal: Harvest House, 1983), p 26.
