Original text - Engels - Le Gibet is a picture of desolation and misery....

Le Gibet is a picture of desolation and misery. It is a musical landscape of the singular, breath-taking image of a lonely corpse “reddened by the setting sun.” Bertrand’s poem is a series of contemplations of this image, all made with gloomy, hopeless resignation. Unlike Ondine, there is no story being
told. Instead, the poem consists of five gruesome questions and a horrific answer. Le Gibet opens with a picture of a man who is “the hanged one,” yet who is still alive and “utters a sigh.”