The Political Prisoner

Victor Hugo

Paths that from trees dark shadows borrow!
Green vale and wood and pebbled shore!
Wherefore this silence and this sorrow?
A step that came here, comes no more.

Closed window, sign of some disaster!
Garden, where never flowers are seen!
And grey old house—where is the master?
Long in his home he has not been.

Mastiff, keep watch. O stranger, rather
On desolation look thou here.
Child, why weepest thou? For my father.
And thou, O Woman? For my dear.

Where is he gone? He left no traces.
Whence come ye, waves that thunder loud?
We come from earth’s dark cruel places.
And what bear ye? A hammock-shroud.