Le Lac (poem)

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Le Lac (The Lake) is a French lyric poem by Alphonse de Lamartine, published in 1820. It consists of sixteen four-line stanzas and is one of the best-known works of French Romanticism. The poem uses memories of a past love and the setting of Lac du Bourget to explore time, memory, and the wish to pause happiness before it slips away. Lamartine was inspired by Julie Charles, whom he admired; after she died of tuberculosis, he returned alone to the lake, turning that moment into the poem’s central mood.

The poem was greeted with great acclaim and helped establish Lamartine as a leading Romantic poet. It is often compared with Victor Hugo’s Tristesse d’Olympio and Alfred de Musset’s Souvenir. Le Lac has been set to music by composers such as François Niedermeyer and, more recently, David Matthews; a 2019 performance by the Orchestra of the Swan, with soprano April Fredrick conducted by Kenneth Woods, premiered one of these musical settings.

Themes in the work include the passage of time, the impermanence of joy, and the longing to keep memories alive. Nature—the lake, rocks, woods, and winds—serves as a witness to the speaker’s feelings, and the poem’s refrain-like lines convey a wish to slow time so that love can endure.