| Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882). Complete Poetical Works. 1893. | | | | Translations | From the French.
To Cardinal Richelieu |
| | By François de Malherbe
THOU mighty Prince of Church and State, | |
| Richelieu! until the hour of death, | |
| Whatever road man chooses, Fate | |
| Still holds him subject to her breath. | |
| Spun of all silks, our days and nights | 5 |
| Have sorrows woven with delights; | |
| And of this intermingled shade | |
| Our various destiny appears, | |
| Even as one sees the course of years | |
| Of summers and of winters made. | 10 |
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| Sometimes the soft, deceitful hours | |
| Let us enjoy the halcyon wave; | |
| Sometimes impending peril lowers | |
| Beyond the seaman’s skill to save. | |
| The Wisdom, infinitely wise, | 15 |
| That gives to human destinies | |
| Their foreordained necessity, | |
| Has made no law more fixed below, | |
| Than the alternate ebb and flow | |
| Of Fortune and Adversity. | 20 | | | |
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