James Owens

A Translation from the French of “The Unhappy Ones” by Louise Ackermann

The trump has sounded. In each gaping tomb

The faded corpses' hearts have suddenly leapt.

They rise, fast emptying the graves whose gloom

And quiet have sheltered their dust as it slept.

But some of the dead hold still to that charnel place;

They've heard, but neither the blast of divine breath

Nor the angel urging them home to holy grace

Persuades them from their earth.

“What? Live again? See sky and sun again,

Those witnesses of unforgotten grief,

Who smiled upon our sorrows and our pain

And offered no relief?

“No! Rather Night, the dark, Night everlasting!

Old Chaos's daughter, shield us beneath your wing,

And Death, sister of Sleep, who grants childlike rest,

Do not deliver us, but let us cling,

Held close, against your breast.

“That hour when you, Death, came we forever bless.

How sweet to our brow was your healing kiss!

Both life and the void had been equally barred,

But sympathetic arms opened for us;

Our only friend appeared.

“Wind-beaten and gasping, ill with every harm,

We had a long voyage to where you were.

Hope herself, at the worst hour of the storm,

Turned and left us there.

“We met only despair and doubt, astray

Where an uncaring world's waves surged and tossed;

Where others lingered, enchanted on their way,

We wandered, weeping and lost.

“Youth passed us by, empty-handed, no first,

Festive joys for us, for us no smile of greeting.

The springs of love retreated from our thirst,

As if springtime water failed, desired but fleeting.

Along our burning paths, no bloom ever woke.

And if, to ease our steps, some cherished thing

Offered support en route, how soon it broke

Beneath our touch; our hearts' lonesome need

Transformed every staff to a collapsing reed.

A sightless hand pushed always, relentless,

Toward the pit that Fate had dug for us.

Ever at our sides marched inflexible Sorrow,

Like a hangman fearing to see us escape.

Each place that could feel felt a wound gape,

And blind Chance knew where to aim a blow.

“Perhaps we have a right to heaven's pleasures?

But no, Hell can offer us little to dread,

For our sins have not merited our tortures:

If we have fallen short, we have already paid.

Lord, we renounce even our last ambition

Of seeing the glories of your holy reign.

We must refuse to seek your consolation,

And want no reward for earthly pain.

“We know that you can give wings to souls

That bent beneath a weight too heavy to bear,

Raise them to you, released from mortal coils—

You can, at will, in grace and loving care.

You could install even us in the first round

Of those at your feet, the choirs that sound your praise,

Dress us in your transfiguring glory, crowned

By angels at your command, beneath your gaze.

You could pierce us with new vitality,

Restore to us the lost desire for life...

Yes, but that undying thorn of Memory

That wounds our hearts, will you remove that grief?

“If the sacred order of cherubim should greet

Us as your elect, open the gates in their keeping,

We would cry out in a voice thick with weeping:

'We—elect? Happy? These eyes explain our plight:

Tears flow there, bitter tears; unnumbered they fall.

No matter what you may do, this thick, dark pall

Hides heaven from our sight.'

“Why would you, against its will, revive this dust?

What have we been to you? What would you gain?

Your gifts no longer seem welcome or just,

After a lifetime of pain.

“You bore down too hard in your cruel rage,

And now our suffering has vanquished Faith.

Eternal power, let us sleep an endless age.

Let us forget that we ever drew breath.”

James Owens's poems and translations appear widely in literary journals, including recent or upcoming publications in Poetry Ireland Review, Christianity & Literature, and The Classical Outlook. He earned an MFA at the University of Alabama and lives in a small town in northern Ontario.