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Duparc - Élégie

Élégie

Duparc (1874)

Oh, ne murmurez pas son nom! Qu'il dorme dans l'ombre,
où froide et sans honneur repose sa dépouille.
Muettes, tristes, glacées, tombent nos larmes,
comme la rosée de la nuit qui sur sa tête humecte le gazon.

Mais la rosée de la nuit, bien qu'elle pleure en silence,
fera briller la verdure sur sa couche,
et nos larmes, en secret répandues,
conserveront sa mémoire fraîche et verte dans nos cœurs.

This French prose translation of Moore's poetic text is perhaps by Duparc himself)

Elegy

 

Oh! Breathe not his name, let it sleep in the shade,
Where cold and unhonour'd his relics are laid.
Sad, silent, and dark, be the tears that we shed,
As the night-dew that falls on the grass o'er his head.

But the night-dew that falls, though in silence it weeps,
Shall brighten with verdure the grave where he sleeps,
And the tear that we shed, though in secret it rolls,
shall long keep his memory green in our souls.

Elegy on the death of Robert Emmet by Thomas Moore

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