Victor Hugo: leading voice of the Romantic movement in France

• June Nights
• In summer, when day has fled, the plain covered with flowers
• Pours out far away an intoxicating scent;
• Eyes shut, ears half open to noises,
• We only half sleep in a transparent slumber.

• The stars are purer, the shade seems pleasanter;
• A hazy half-day colors the eternal dome;
• And the sweet pale dawn awaiting her hour
• Seems to wander all night at the bottom of the sky. 

• If My Verses Had Wings
• Songs as sweet as summer brings,
• To your flowery lawn should fly
• If my verses had the wings—
• Wings of birds that haunt the sky. 

• Like the spark that upward springs,
• They would seek your smiling hearth,
• If my verses had the wings—
• Wings such as a spirit hath. 

• Near you, close as ivy clings,
• They would dwell by night and day
• If my verses had the wings—
• Wings like love to speed the way. 

• A Fleeting Glimpse of a Village
• How graceful the picture! the life, the repose!
• The sunbeam that plays on the porch stone wide;
• And the shadow that fleets o’er the stream that flows,
• And the soft blue sky with the hill’s green side.

Victor Hugo (1802-1885) was a French poet, novelist and playwright, and one of the leading voices of the Romantic movement in France. Like Shakespeare and Goethe, Hugo’s work transcends time and tongue – his novels alone have earned him a place of distinction beside these two poets. While most of the world knows him as the author of Les Miserables (1862) and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (1831), within his own country, Hugo was best known during his lifetime for his poetry.