Unfortunately, Jules Verne’s nephew, Gaston, was mentally ill. In 1866, Gaston tried to murder Verne, leaving his uncle lame for life. While recuperating, Verne wrote a sonnet in praise of morphine. I don’t blame him.

A LA MORPHINE

 Prends, s’il le faut, docteur, les ailes de Mercure
Pour m’apporter plus tôt ton baume précieux!
Le moment est venu de faire la piqûre
Qui, de ce lit d’enfer, m’enlève vers les cieux.

Merci, docteur, merci! qu’importe si la cure
Maintenant se prolonge en des jours ennuyeux!
Le divin baume est là, si divin qu’Epicure
Aurait dû l’inventer pour l’usage des Dieux!

Je le sens qui circule en moi, qui me pénètre!
De l’esprit et du corps ineffable bien-être,
C’est le calme absolu dans la sérénité.

Ah! perce-moi cent fois de ton aiguille fine
Et je te bénirai cent fois, Sainte Morphine,
Dont Esculape eût fait une Divinité.

Verne’s ardent admirer, Raymond Roussel, also rhymed “piqûre” and “Epicure” (in both Nouvelles Impressions d’Afrique and Les Noces). Did he know Verne’s sonnet?

For my translation,  I kept Verne’s rhyme scheme, although with only masculine rhymes; and followed the usual practice of rendering alexandrines as iambic pentameter.

TO MORPHINE

Take if you must, physician, Hermes’ wing
To hasten to me your narcotic prize!
The time has come to tender me that sting
That floats my hellish sick-bed to the skies.

I thank you, doctor! Though my treatment bring
Long days I’d find oppressive otherwise,
Your precious balm is there, a fitting thing
For Gods, which Epicurus might devise!

I feel it circulate, it penetrates
My soul and body, calm now permeates
Me: this is blessed rest, unqualified.

Ah! Needle me a hundred times, and, yes,
A hundred times, Saint Morphine, I will bless
You, whom Asclepius would have deified.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)