An 89-year-old Guernsey woman was “shocked” to discover a nearly 200-year-old lost poem written in the island’s native language – Guernésiais.

Marie Martell discovered the poem by Denys Corbet’s as part of research into her family tree. It was dedicated to her great-grandfather, Eugene Digard.

Mrs Martell said the discovery was “a shock, really”.

She explained she didn’t realise the significance of the poem until long after she’d done her family tree as ”you haven’t really got time to soak up all the documents when you’re in the middle of your research”.

Corbet, who was born 200 years ago last month, is considered to be one of the top Guernésiais poets according to Dinah Bott of the Priaulx Library. He wrote partly to preserve the language and his work now forms an important archive for its preservation.

“He considered that there may never be another who could write in Guernsey French the same way, because it was dying out, so he wrote all about Guernsey,” Mrs Bott said.

As well as his poetry, Corbet was the editor of Le Bailliage – a French language newspaper aimed at growers that also published articles in Guernésiais.

Corbet wrote the unnamed rhyme to thank Mr Digard – a publisher and typesetter who moved to Guernsey from his native St Malo – for publishing his first poem.

Now the poem has been translated by Guernésiais expert Yan Marquis and added to a display at Priaulx Library celebrating the 200th anniversary of Corbet’s birth.

I wish him today
Success all the way,
And honours, monies,
Exempt of worries
That almost always,
Like monsters ablaze
Enjoy chasing these:
But, one just needs, jeez
To be people rich,
Like a fat pork flitch,
For knowing the pain,
And bearing disdain,
Of all the lame foes:
Ah! if my regrets, woes
Were by funds measured,
Or my path honoured,
I would try I guess,
Than I do, much less,
But though their number
Makes life quite sombre,
There are some scareder
Than
Your friend
The Rhymester

By Denys Corbet (Translation by Yan Marquis)

The exhibition also contains other books and poems by Corbet, including the first recorded mention of mermaids in Guernsey folklore – The Mermaids of Petit Bôt.

Mrs Bott said: “We’ve got to make people aware of how important Corbet’s poetry – and the native language – is to the island, and its beauty, history, heritage, and our culture.”

The untranslated poem is in its original Guernsey French is:

J’li souhaite aniet
L’succès l’pus compllet,
Et d’s-hounneur, des doublles,
Exempts d’s-amas d’troublles
Qui quâsi terjous,
Coum autant d’barbous
S’écante’ à les sière:
Mais, dame, i n’est qu’faire
D’êter des richards,
Gras coum autànt d’lards,
Pour aver d’la païne,
Et subir la haïne
De tous les rienvauts:
Ah! s’mes r’grets, mes maux
M’suraient d’par ma bourse,
Ou l’s-hounneurs d’ma course,
J’cré qu’j’en éprouv’rais, Adref moins qu’je’n’fais,
Mais biau qu’leus grànd nombre
Fait qu’la vie est sombre,
Ll’a qu’en a pus d’peux,
Que
T’n-ami
Le Rimeux