O, Fantine!
A most wretched and miserable soul.
Gone is your youthful beauty,
your hair and your two front teeth,
your health,
and, yes, even your body.
All sold to support your daughter.
O fool!
Your only treasure, Cosette, was in no need of your dirty money.
Desperate and broken,
you lost your mind to preserve an innocent young life.
In giving yourself, your dream lived on.
Your daughter obtained the love which you longed for.
When your life was lost,
you gave what was left for her to live on.
In death your beauty was returned to you.
Your story is immortal,
we shall never forget you.
You are the miserable one,
the one whose dream was striped violently away.
O, Fantine,
may no one live the life you lived again,
but may we dream the dream you dreamed.
note: This poem is part of the July 2013 Writing Challenge. Writing prompt was to write a poem about or inspired by the last book that made me cry.
This elegy is about Fantine, a most miserable character from Victor Hugo's Les Miserables.
