To chance

To chance an epic, but quite finished now,
All the acts are prisoners
Slavish with ancestral beards
And the customary words
Hold only in their memory.

To chance all that burns, all that gnaws,
All that uses, all that bites, all that kills,
All that shines every day
It is the pact of man and gold,
It is a glance tied to earth.

To chance a deliverance
To chance the shooting star
And the eternal sky of my head
Opens wider to its sun,
To the eternity of chance.

 

Paul Eluard