Insult Not The Fallen

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Title:     Insult Not The Fallen
Author: Victor Hugo [More Titles by Hugo]

("Oh! n'insultez jamais une femme qui tombe.")

[XIV., Sept. 6, 1835.]

I tell you, hush! no word of sneering scorn--
True, fallen; but God knows how deep her sorrow.
Poor girl! too many like her only born
To love one day--to sin--and die the morrow.
What know you of her struggles or her grief?
Or what wild storms of want and woe and pain
Tore down her soul from honor? As a leaf
From autumn branches, or a drop of rain
That hung in frailest splendor from a bough--
Bright, glistening in the sunlight of God's day--
So had she clung to virtue once. But now--
See Heaven's clear pearl polluted with earth's clay!
The sin is yours--with your accursed gold--
Man's wealth is master--woman's soul the slave!
Some purest water still the mire may hold.
Is there no hope for her--no power to save?
Yea, once again to draw up from the clay
The fallen raindrop, till it shine above,
Or save a fallen soul, needs but one ray
Of Heaven's sunshine, or of human love.

 

Translated by W.C.K. WILDE.

[The end]
Victor Hugo's poem: Insult Not The Fallen

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