Lot n° 475

SWINBURNE ALGERNON (1837-1909) — To Victor Hugo, poème autographe signé en anglais, [1876] ; 14 vers sur une page in-4, ratures et corrections.

Estimation : 2 000 - 3 000 €
Adjudication : Invendu
Description
Émouvant poème sur les trois enfants disparus de Victor Hugo, qui avait perdu successivement Léopoldine (1843), Charles (1871) et François-Victor (1873).
Les éditions des œuvres de Swinburne datent ce texte du 3 janvier 1876.

«He had no children, who for love of men,
Being God, endure of gods such things as thou,
Father; nor on his thunder-beaten brow
Fell such a woe as bows thine head again
Twice bowed before, though godlike, in man's ken:
And seen too high for any stroke to bow
Save this of some strange god's that bends it now
The third time with such weight as bruised it then.
Fain would grief speak, fain utter for love's sake
Some word: but comfort who might bid thee take?
What god in your own tongue shall talk with thee?
Showing how all souls that look upon the sun
Shall be for thee one spirit & thy son,
And thy soul's child the soul of man to be?»
Algernon Swinburn, poète, dramaturge et critique anglais fut un grand admirateur de l'œuvre de Victor Hugo ainsi que de celle de Sade et Baudelaire.

— PROVENANCE Bibliothèque de Louis Barthou, t. II, 1935, n° 1046-52.
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