Page 429 - les-miserables

As we stroll the faubourgs through.

‘Dear Holy Virgin, beside my stove I have set a cradle
with ribbons decked. God may give me his loveliest star; I
prefer the child thou hast granted me. ‘Madame, what shall
I do with this linen fine?’—‘Make of it clothes for thy new-
born babe.’

“Roses are pink and corn-flowers are blue,
I love my love, and corn-flowers are blue.

‘‘Wash this linen.’—‘Where?’—‘In the stream. Make of it,
soiling not, spoiling not, a petticoat fair with its bodice fine,
which I will embroider and fill with flowers.’—‘Madame, the
child is no longer here; what is to be done?’—‘Then make of
it a winding-sheet in which to bury me.’

“Lovely things we will buy
As we stroll the faubourgs through,
Roses are pink, corn-flowers are blue,
I love my love, corn-flowers are blue.’

This song was an old cradle romance with which she had,
in former days, lulled her little Cosette to sleep, and which
had never recurred to her mind in all the five years during
which she had been parted from her child. She sang it in
so sad a voice, and to so sweet an air, that it was enough to
make any one, even a nun, weep. The sister, accustomed as
she was to austerities, felt a tear spring to her eyes.

429