Réveiller l’harmonie et l’encens de nos monts,
Qu’au bruit de la fanfare et de l’artillerie
Le peuple saluera le jour de la Patrie,
Suspendez vos plaisirs, recueillez votre cœur,
Songez à nos héros, songez à l’Empereur. (4-10)The military fanfare vocabulary throughout the poem and especially in this first stanzaindeed suggests that this poem was written for national celebration. In this way, it seems very
much in line with much of the commissioned poetry in Haiti prior to and during this time.
Unlike what one might expect, however, from partisan poetry, the poem is not celebrating the
achievements and greatness of the current leader. Boyer, for example, and his successful
negotiating of French recognition of Haitian independence are never mentioned. Rather, the key
to self discovery is located in a national, even if somewhat imagined, ideal past. The
“tomorrow” then is less literal and refers instead to a future time which will rejoin these past
accomplishments. The prefix “re” in words like “réveiller” and “reluira” suggests a repeating, a
renewal of actions and states which have already come to pass. The ideas of discovery and
awakening not only imply taking up a previous activity, a passing to action after a period of
inaction, but also convey a sense of making known or exposing what has been hidden from
view. In this way, the implication becomes that something located in the past and projected into
the future is missing, perhaps deliberately so, in the present time. The article in L’Union which
precedes Nau’s poems indicates that its editors were celebrating not so much French recognition
per se, but rather Haiti’s renewed and self-appointed mission to both reclaim national identity
and advance African causes. An anonymous editor writes:
Notre attention est plus particulièrement dirigée chez nous; car par le cours
naturel des choses, Haïti devrait être à la tête de la civilisation africaine et devrait
prendre l’initiative, et en tout ce qui concerne l’avancement de la race à laquelle