Alphonse de LAMARTINE (1790-1869). Autograph poem, À Corinne, Saint-Point July 29, 1829; 5 pages in-4 (2 bifeuillets in quire). Very beautiful, long poem for the young poet Delphine Gay, who was to become Mme de Girardin. Under a carefully crossed-out title, Lamartine inscribed "à Corinne" (in reference to Mme de Staël's heroine); in the upper right-hand corner, he noted: "Harmonie 2ème volume", and on the last page of the notebook: "harmonie inédite du 2e vol. à Corinne", with verse count. At the end of the poem, he inscribed the date "St Point 29 Juillet 1829". The manuscript shows slight variations from the published text. On November 3, 1831, Lamartine authorized Delphine, who had become Mme Émile de Girardin on June 1, to publish these verses; they appeared in Le Voleur of December 15, 1831 under the title: À une sœur en poésie - À Madame de Girardin, and were reprinted in the keepsakes Le Talisman (December 1831) and L'Émeraude (January 1832). Lamartine collected this poem in 1832 in volume IV of his Œuvres (published by Gosselin in October 1832) under the title À Mlle Delphine Gay (and in the note: "Depuis Mme Émile de Girardin"), with the date at the head of the poem, which appears at the end of the manuscript. The poem has 28 quatrains. "He who sees these Alps shining, from where the dawn comes Like an eagle that flies from the mountains, With a glittering wing opens the heavens, and gilds The snows of their foreheads This one, his eye struck by these sublime heights Believes that these icy mounts he admires and flees Are nothing but dreadful deserts, rocks, torrents and abysses, thunderbolts, storms and noise"...