HUGO, Victor (1802-1885)

Autograph poem signed « V.H. »
N.d.n.p, 1 page oblong in-4, brown ink
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“The poet, inspired when the earth ignores…”

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HUGO, Victor (1802-1885)

Autograph poem signed « V.H. »
N.d.n.p, 1 page oblong in-4, brown ink
Some spots

Beautiful last stanza from the poem À mes Odes, masterpiece of lyric poetry


« Le poète, inspiré lorsque la terre ignore
Ressemble à ces grands monts que la naissante aurore
Dore avant tous à son réveil

Et qui, longtems vainqueurs de l’ombre
Gardent jusque dans la nuit sombre
Le dernier rayon du soleil »


Odes et Ballades, published in 1828, is the collection of Victor Hugo’s early poems from 1822 to 1827. The sizain that Hugo takes up here comes from the poem À mes Odes (premiere of the book II of the Odes), with a very slight variant and singularly more beautiful than the original version. On the second verse, the poet replaces the word “new” with “emerging.”
This heterometric combination reveals two Alexandrins in rhymes followed and then four octosyllables in kissed rhymes, giving it a dynamism echoed on the whole poem. It should be noted that the collection Odes et Ballades, which not only revealed Hugo’s very early talent, won him several prestigious awards including the Lys d’or.