From A Bibliography of Alexandre Dumas père by Frank Wild Reed: One fourteen-line stanza, of which the eleventh and twelfth lines are repeated three times. The rhyming is a, b, a, b, c, d, c, d, e, f, e, f, f, f.
This poem by Alexandre Dumas was set to music by Édouard Garnier, with a design by Jozel; Paris, firm of J. Benacci-Peschier. 6 Rue Laffitte. It is dedicated to Alfred Hignard. It forms No. 14 of "Larmes et Sourires," 24 pieces of song by Édouard Garnier. It carries the following epigraph from "Les Mémoires d'un Médecin : Joseph Balsamo:"
"La scie mordait les os.—Mais à l'invitation de Balsamo, le malade sourit et commença de chanter mélodieusement, lentement en extase, comme un amant ou comme un poète." ("The saw bit into the bone.—But on Balsamo's invitation the sick man smiled and commenced to sing melodiously, slowly and correctly, like a lover or a poet.")
Turning to the "Mémoires d'un Médecin," Chapter CV., we find the same song, there divided into three four-line stanzas. These are the first twelve lines of the above described piece. In the musical version there has been added to these the following :
"L'Amour !
Après l'absence, l'amour!"
which are in fact but a repetition of the last line of the other version.
