Poems in this theme
Beauty
Arthur Rimbaud
Sun And Flesh (Credo In Unam)
Sun And Flesh (Credo In Unam)
Birth of Venus
I
The Sun, the hearth of affection and life,
Pours burning love on the delighted earth,
And when you lie down in the valley, you can smell
How the earth is nubile and very full-blooded;
How its huge breast, heaved up by a soul,
Is, like God, made of love, and, like woman, of flesh,
And that it contains, big with sap and with sunlight,
The vast pullulation of all embryos!
And everything grows, and everything rises!
-O Venus, O Goddess!
I long for the days of antique youth,
Of lascivious satyrs, and animal fauns,
Gods who bit, mad with love, the bark of the boughs,
And among water-lilies kissed the Nymph with fair hair!
I long for the time when the sap of the world,
River water, the rose-coloured blood of green trees
Put into the veins of Pan a whole universe!
When the earth trembled, green,beneath his goat-feet;
When, softly kissing the fair Syrinx, his lips formed
Under heaven the great hymn of love;
When, standing on the plain, he heard round about him
Living Nature answer his call;
When the silent trees cradling the singing bird,
Earth cradling mankind, and the whole blue Ocean,
And all living creatures loved, loved in God!
I long for the time of great Cybele,
Who was said to travel, gigantically lovely,
In a great bronze chariot, through splendid cities;
Her twin breasts poured, through the vast deeps,
The pure streams of infinite life.
Mankind sucked joyfully at her blessed nipple,
Like a small child playing on her knees.
-Because he was strong, Man was gentle and chaste.
Misfortune! Now he says: I understand things,
And goes about with eyes shut and ears closed.
-And again, no more gods! no more gods! Man is King,
Man is God! But the great faith is Love!
Oh! if only man still drew sustenance from your nipple,
Great mother of gods and of men, Cybele;
If only he had not forsaken immortal Astarte
Who long ago, rising in the tremendous brightness
Of blue waters, flower-flesh perfumed by the wave,
Showed her rosy navel, towards which the foam came snowing
And , being a goddess with the great conquering black eyes,
Made the nightingale sing in the woods and love in men's hearts!
The Birth of Venus
II
I believe! I believe in you! divine mother,
Sea-born Aphrodite! - Oh! the path is bitter
Since the other God harnessed us to his cross;
Flesh, Marble, Flower, Venus, in you I believe!
-yes, Man is sad and ugly, sad under the vast sky.
He possesses clothes, because he is no longer chaste,
Because he has defiled his proud, godlike head
And because he has bent, like an idol in the furnace,
His Olympian form towards base slaveries!
Yes, even after death, in the form of pale skeletons
He wishes to live and insult the original beauty!
-And the Idol in whom you placed such maidenhood,
Woman, in whom you rendered our clay divine,
So that Man might bring light into his poor soul
And slowly ascend, in unbounded love,
From the earthly prison to the beauty of day,
Woman no longer knows even how to be a Courtesan!
-It's a fine farce! and the world snickers
At the sweet and sacred name of great Venus!
III
If only the times which have come and gone might come again!
-For Man is finished! Man has played all the parts!
In the broad daylight, wearied with breaking idols
He will revive, free of all his gods,
And, since he is of heaven, he will scan the heavens!
The Ideal, that eternal, invincible thought, which is
All; The living god within his fleshly clay,
Will rise, mount, burn beneath his brow!
An when you see him plumbing the whole horizon,
Despising old yokes, and free from all fear,
You will come and give him holy Redemption!
-Resplendent, radiant, from the bosom of the huge seas
You will rise up and give to the vast Universe
Infinite Love with its eternal smile!
The World will vibrate like an immense lyre
In the trembling of an infinite kiss!
-The World thirsts for love: you will come and slake its thirst.
....................................................
O! Man has raised his free, proud head!
And the sudden blaze of primordial beauty
Makes the god quiver in the altar of the flesh!
Happy in the present good, pale from the ill suffered,
Man wishes to plumb all depths, - and know all things! Thought,
So long a jade, and for so long oppressed,
Springs from his forehead! She will know Why!...
Let her but gallop free, and Man will find Faith!
-Why the blue silence, unfathomable space?
Why the golden stars, teeming like sands?
If one ascended forever, what would one see up there?
Does a sheperd drive this enormous flock
Of worlds on a journey through this horror of space?
And do all these worlds contained in the vast ether,
tremble at the tones of an eternal voice?
-And Man, can he see? can he say: I believe?
Is the langage of thought anymore than a dream?
If man is born so quickly, if life is so short
Whence does he come? Does he sink into the deep Ocean
Of Germs, of Foetuses, of Embryos, to the bottom
of the huge Crucible where Nature the Mother
Will resuscitate him, a living creature,
To love in the rose and to grow in the corn?...
We cannot know! - We are weighed down
With a cloak of ignorance, hemmed in by chimaeras!
Men like apes, dropped from our mothers' wombs,
Our feeble reason hides the infinite from us!
We wish to perceive: - and Doubt punishes us!
Doubt, dismal bird, beat us down with its wing...
-And the horizon rushes away in endless flight!...
.......................................................
The vast heaven is open! the mysteries lie dead
Before erect Man, who folds his strong arms
Among the vast splendour of abundant Nature!
He sings... and the woods sing, the river murmurs
A song full of happiness which rises towards the light!...
-it is Redemption! it is love! it is love!...
IV
O splendour of flesh! O ideal splendour!
O renewal of love, triumphal dawn
When, prostrating the Gods and the Heroes,
White Callipyge and little Eros
Covered with the snow of rose petals, will caress
Women and flowers beneath their lovely outstretched feet!
-O great Ariadne who pour out your tears
On the shore, as you see, out there on the waves,
The sail of Theseus flying white under the sun,
O sweet virgin child whom a night has broken,
Be silent! On his golden chariot studded with black grapes,
Lysios, who has been drawn through Phrygian fields
By lascivious tigers and russet panthers,
Reddens the dark mosses along the blue rivers.
-Zeus, the Bull, cradles on his neck like a child
The nude body of Europa who throws her white arm
Round the God's muscular neck which shivers in the wave.
Slowly he turns his dreamy eye towards her;
She, droops her pale flowerlike cheek
On the brow of Zeus; her eyes are closed; she is dying
In a divine kiss, and the murmuring waters
Strew the flowers of their golden foam on her hair.
-Between the oleander and the gaudy lotus tree
Slips amorously the great dreaming Swan
Enfloding Leda in the whiteness of his wing;
-And while Cypris goes by, strangely beautiful,
And, arching the marvellous curves of her back,
Proudly displays the golden vision of her big breasts
And snowy belly embroidered with black moss,
-Hercules, Tamer of beasts, in his Strength,
Robes his huge body with the lion's skin as with glory
And faces the horizons, his brow terrible and sweet!
Vaguely lit by the summer moon,
Erect, naked, dreaming in her pallor of gold
Streaked by the heavy wave of her long blue hair,
In the shadowy glade whenre stars spring in the moss,
The Dryade gazes up at the silent sky...
-White Selene, timidly, lets her veil float,
Over the feet of beautiful Endymion,
And throws him a kiss in a pale beam...
-The Spring sobs far off in a long ectasy...
Ii is the nymph who dreams with one elbow on her urn,
Of the handsome white stripling her wave has pressed against.
-A soft wind of love has passed in the night,
And in the sacred woods, amid the standing hair of the great trees,
Erect in majesty, the shadowly Marbles,
The Gods, on whose brows the Bullfinch has his nest,
-the Gods listen to Men, and to the infinite World!
Original French
Soleil et Chair
I
Le Soleil, le foyer de tendresse et de vie,
Verse l'amour brûlant à la terre ravie,
Et, quand on est couché sur la vallée, on sent
Que la terre est nubile et déborde de sang ;
Que son immense sein, soulevé par une âme,
Est d'amour comme Dieu, de chair comme la femme,
Et qu'il renferme, gros de sève et de rayons,
Le grand fourmillement de tous les embryons !
Et tout croît, et tout monte !
spacespacespacespacespacespace- O Vénus, ô Déesse !
Je regrette les temps de l'antique jeunesse,
Des satyres lascifs, des faunes animaux,
Dieux qui mordaient d'amour l'écorce des rameaux
Et dans les nénuphars baisaient la Nymphe blonde !
Je regrette les temps où la sève du monde,
L'eau du fleuve, le sang rose des arbres verts
Dans les veines de Pan mettaient un univers !.
Où le sol palpitait, vert, sous ses pieds de chèvre ;
Où, baisant mollement le clair syrinx, sa lèvre
Modulait sous le ciel le grand hymne d'amour ;
Où, debout sur la plaine, il entendait autour
Répondre à son appel la Nature vivante ;
Où les arbres muets, berçant l'oiseau qui chante,
La terre berçant l'homme, et tout l'Océan bleu
Et tous les animaux aimaient, aimaient en Dieu !
Soleil et Chair, Suite
Je regrette les temps de la grande Cybèle
Qu'on disait parcourir, gigantesquement belle,
Sur un grand char d'airain, les splendides cités ;
Son double sein versait dans les immensités
Le pur ruissellement de la vie infinie.
L'Homme suçait, heureux, sa mamelle bénie,
Comme un petit enfant, jouant sur ses genoux.
-Parce qu'il était fort, l'Homme était chaste et doux.
Misère ! Maintenant il dit : Je sais les choses,
Et va, les yeux fermés et les oreille closes.
-Et pourtant, plus de dieux ! plus de dieux ! l'Homme est Roi,
L'Homme est Dieu ! Mais l'Amour, voilà la grande Foi !
Oh ! si l'homme puisait encore à ta mamelle,
Grande mère des dieux et des hommes, Cybèle ;
S'il n'avait pas laissé l'immortelle Astarté
Qui jadis, émergeant dans l'immense clarté
Des flots bleus, fleur de chair que la vague parfume,
Montra son nombril rose où vint neiger l'écume,
Et fit chanter, Déesse aux grands yeux noirs vainqueurs,
Le rossignol aux bois et l'amour dans les coeurs !
II
Je crois en toi ! Je crois en toi ! divine mère,
Aphrodite marine ! - Oh ! la route est amère
Depuis que l'autre Dieu nous attelle à sa croix ;
Chair, Marbre, Fleur, Vénus, c'est en toi que je crois !
-Oui, l'Homme est triste et laid, triste sous le ciel vaste,
Il a des vêtements, parce qu'il n'est plus chaste,
Parce qu'il a sali son fier buste de Dieu,
Et qu'il a rabougri, comme une idole au feu,
Son corps Olympien aux servitudes sales !
Oui, même après la mort, dans les squelettes pâles
Il veut vivre, insultant la première beauté !
-Et l'Idole où tu mis tant de virginité,
Où tu divinisas notre argile, la Femme,
Afin que l'Homme pût éclairer sa pauvre âme
Et monter lentement, dans un immense amour,
De la prison terrestre à la beauté du jour,
La Femme ne sait plus même être Courtisane !
-C'est une bonne farce ! et le monde ricane
Au nom doux et sacré de la grande Vénus !
III
Si les temps revenaient, les temps qui sont venus !
-Car l'Homme a fini ! l'Homme a joué tous les rôles !
Au grand jour, fatigué de briser des idoles
Il ressuscitera, libre de tous ses Dieux,
Et, comme il est du ciel, il scrutera les cieux !
L'idéal, la pensée invincible, éternelle,
Tout ; le dieu qui vit, sous son argile charnelle,
Montera, montera, brûlera sous son front !
Et quand tu le verras sonder tout l'horizon,
Contempteur des vieux jougs, libre de toute crainte,
Tu viendras lui donner la Rédemption sainte !
-Splendide, radieuse, au sein des grandes mers
Tu surgiras, jetant sur le vaste Univers
L'Amour infini dans un infini sourire !
Le Monde vibrera comme une immense lyre
Dans le frémissement d'un immense baiser
-Le Monde a soif d'amour : tu viendras l'apaiser.
IV
O splendeur de la chair ! ô splendeur idéale !
O renouveau d'amour, aurore triomphale
Où, courbant à leurs pieds les Dieux et les Héros,
Kallipyge la blanche et le petit Éros
Effleureront, couverts de la neige des roses,
Les femmes et les fleurs sous leurs beaux pieds écloses !
-O grande Ariadné, qui jette tes sanglots
Sur la rive, en voyant fuir là-bas sur les flots
Blanche sous le soleil, la voile de Thésée,
O douce vierge enfant qu'une nuit a brisée,
Tais-toi ! Sur son char d'or brodé de noirs raisins,
Lysios, promené dans les champs Phrygiens
Par les tigres lascifs et les panthères rousses,
Le long des fleuves bleus rougit les sombres mousses.
-Zeus, Taureau, sur son cou berce comme une enfant
Le corps nu d'Europé, qui jette son bras blanc
Au cou nerveux du Dieu frissonnant dans la vague
Il tourne lentement vers elle son oeil vague ;
Elle, laisse traîner sa pâle joue en fleur
Au front de Zeus ; ses yeux sont fermés ; elle meurt
Dans un divin baiser, et le flot qui murmure
De son écume d'or fleurit sa chevelure.
-Entre le laurier-rose et le lotus jaseur
Glisse amoureusement le grand Cygne rêveur
Embrassant la Léda des blancheurs de son aile ;
-Et tandis que Cypris passe, étrangement belle,
Et, cambrant les rondeurs splendides de ses reins,
Étale fièrement l'or de ses larges seins
Et son ventre neigeux brodé de mousse noire,
-Héraclès, le Dompteur, qui, comme d'une gloire
Fort, ceint son vaste corps de la peau du lion,
S'avance, front terrible et doux, à l'horizon !
Par la lune d'été vaguement éclairée,
Debout, nue, et rêvant dans sa pâleur dorée
Que tache le flot lourd de ses longs cheveux bleus,
Dans la clairière sombre, où la mousse s'étoile,
La Dryade regarde au ciel silencieux....
-La blanche Séléné laisse flotter son voile,
Craintive, sur les pieds du bel Endymion,
Et lui jette un baiser dans un pâle rayon...
-La Source pleure au loin dans une longue extase...
C'est la nymphe qui rêve, un coude sur son vase,
Au beau jeune homme blanc que son onde a pressé.
-Une brise d'amour dans la nuit a passé,
Et, dans les bois sacrés, dans l'horreur des grands arbres,
Majestueusement debout, les sombres Marbres,
Les Dieux, au front desquels le Bouvreuil fait son nid,
-Les Dieux écoutent l'homme et le Monde infini !
Birth of Venus
I
The Sun, the hearth of affection and life,
Pours burning love on the delighted earth,
And when you lie down in the valley, you can smell
How the earth is nubile and very full-blooded;
How its huge breast, heaved up by a soul,
Is, like God, made of love, and, like woman, of flesh,
And that it contains, big with sap and with sunlight,
The vast pullulation of all embryos!
And everything grows, and everything rises!
-O Venus, O Goddess!
I long for the days of antique youth,
Of lascivious satyrs, and animal fauns,
Gods who bit, mad with love, the bark of the boughs,
And among water-lilies kissed the Nymph with fair hair!
I long for the time when the sap of the world,
River water, the rose-coloured blood of green trees
Put into the veins of Pan a whole universe!
When the earth trembled, green,beneath his goat-feet;
When, softly kissing the fair Syrinx, his lips formed
Under heaven the great hymn of love;
When, standing on the plain, he heard round about him
Living Nature answer his call;
When the silent trees cradling the singing bird,
Earth cradling mankind, and the whole blue Ocean,
And all living creatures loved, loved in God!
I long for the time of great Cybele,
Who was said to travel, gigantically lovely,
In a great bronze chariot, through splendid cities;
Her twin breasts poured, through the vast deeps,
The pure streams of infinite life.
Mankind sucked joyfully at her blessed nipple,
Like a small child playing on her knees.
-Because he was strong, Man was gentle and chaste.
Misfortune! Now he says: I understand things,
And goes about with eyes shut and ears closed.
-And again, no more gods! no more gods! Man is King,
Man is God! But the great faith is Love!
Oh! if only man still drew sustenance from your nipple,
Great mother of gods and of men, Cybele;
If only he had not forsaken immortal Astarte
Who long ago, rising in the tremendous brightness
Of blue waters, flower-flesh perfumed by the wave,
Showed her rosy navel, towards which the foam came snowing
And , being a goddess with the great conquering black eyes,
Made the nightingale sing in the woods and love in men's hearts!
The Birth of Venus
II
I believe! I believe in you! divine mother,
Sea-born Aphrodite! - Oh! the path is bitter
Since the other God harnessed us to his cross;
Flesh, Marble, Flower, Venus, in you I believe!
-yes, Man is sad and ugly, sad under the vast sky.
He possesses clothes, because he is no longer chaste,
Because he has defiled his proud, godlike head
And because he has bent, like an idol in the furnace,
His Olympian form towards base slaveries!
Yes, even after death, in the form of pale skeletons
He wishes to live and insult the original beauty!
-And the Idol in whom you placed such maidenhood,
Woman, in whom you rendered our clay divine,
So that Man might bring light into his poor soul
And slowly ascend, in unbounded love,
From the earthly prison to the beauty of day,
Woman no longer knows even how to be a Courtesan!
-It's a fine farce! and the world snickers
At the sweet and sacred name of great Venus!
III
If only the times which have come and gone might come again!
-For Man is finished! Man has played all the parts!
In the broad daylight, wearied with breaking idols
He will revive, free of all his gods,
And, since he is of heaven, he will scan the heavens!
The Ideal, that eternal, invincible thought, which is
All; The living god within his fleshly clay,
Will rise, mount, burn beneath his brow!
An when you see him plumbing the whole horizon,
Despising old yokes, and free from all fear,
You will come and give him holy Redemption!
-Resplendent, radiant, from the bosom of the huge seas
You will rise up and give to the vast Universe
Infinite Love with its eternal smile!
The World will vibrate like an immense lyre
In the trembling of an infinite kiss!
-The World thirsts for love: you will come and slake its thirst.
....................................................
O! Man has raised his free, proud head!
And the sudden blaze of primordial beauty
Makes the god quiver in the altar of the flesh!
Happy in the present good, pale from the ill suffered,
Man wishes to plumb all depths, - and know all things! Thought,
So long a jade, and for so long oppressed,
Springs from his forehead! She will know Why!...
Let her but gallop free, and Man will find Faith!
-Why the blue silence, unfathomable space?
Why the golden stars, teeming like sands?
If one ascended forever, what would one see up there?
Does a sheperd drive this enormous flock
Of worlds on a journey through this horror of space?
And do all these worlds contained in the vast ether,
tremble at the tones of an eternal voice?
-And Man, can he see? can he say: I believe?
Is the langage of thought anymore than a dream?
If man is born so quickly, if life is so short
Whence does he come? Does he sink into the deep Ocean
Of Germs, of Foetuses, of Embryos, to the bottom
of the huge Crucible where Nature the Mother
Will resuscitate him, a living creature,
To love in the rose and to grow in the corn?...
We cannot know! - We are weighed down
With a cloak of ignorance, hemmed in by chimaeras!
Men like apes, dropped from our mothers' wombs,
Our feeble reason hides the infinite from us!
We wish to perceive: - and Doubt punishes us!
Doubt, dismal bird, beat us down with its wing...
-And the horizon rushes away in endless flight!...
.......................................................
The vast heaven is open! the mysteries lie dead
Before erect Man, who folds his strong arms
Among the vast splendour of abundant Nature!
He sings... and the woods sing, the river murmurs
A song full of happiness which rises towards the light!...
-it is Redemption! it is love! it is love!...
IV
O splendour of flesh! O ideal splendour!
O renewal of love, triumphal dawn
When, prostrating the Gods and the Heroes,
White Callipyge and little Eros
Covered with the snow of rose petals, will caress
Women and flowers beneath their lovely outstretched feet!
-O great Ariadne who pour out your tears
On the shore, as you see, out there on the waves,
The sail of Theseus flying white under the sun,
O sweet virgin child whom a night has broken,
Be silent! On his golden chariot studded with black grapes,
Lysios, who has been drawn through Phrygian fields
By lascivious tigers and russet panthers,
Reddens the dark mosses along the blue rivers.
-Zeus, the Bull, cradles on his neck like a child
The nude body of Europa who throws her white arm
Round the God's muscular neck which shivers in the wave.
Slowly he turns his dreamy eye towards her;
She, droops her pale flowerlike cheek
On the brow of Zeus; her eyes are closed; she is dying
In a divine kiss, and the murmuring waters
Strew the flowers of their golden foam on her hair.
-Between the oleander and the gaudy lotus tree
Slips amorously the great dreaming Swan
Enfloding Leda in the whiteness of his wing;
-And while Cypris goes by, strangely beautiful,
And, arching the marvellous curves of her back,
Proudly displays the golden vision of her big breasts
And snowy belly embroidered with black moss,
-Hercules, Tamer of beasts, in his Strength,
Robes his huge body with the lion's skin as with glory
And faces the horizons, his brow terrible and sweet!
Vaguely lit by the summer moon,
Erect, naked, dreaming in her pallor of gold
Streaked by the heavy wave of her long blue hair,
In the shadowy glade whenre stars spring in the moss,
The Dryade gazes up at the silent sky...
-White Selene, timidly, lets her veil float,
Over the feet of beautiful Endymion,
And throws him a kiss in a pale beam...
-The Spring sobs far off in a long ectasy...
Ii is the nymph who dreams with one elbow on her urn,
Of the handsome white stripling her wave has pressed against.
-A soft wind of love has passed in the night,
And in the sacred woods, amid the standing hair of the great trees,
Erect in majesty, the shadowly Marbles,
The Gods, on whose brows the Bullfinch has his nest,
-the Gods listen to Men, and to the infinite World!
Original French
Soleil et Chair
I
Le Soleil, le foyer de tendresse et de vie,
Verse l'amour brûlant à la terre ravie,
Et, quand on est couché sur la vallée, on sent
Que la terre est nubile et déborde de sang ;
Que son immense sein, soulevé par une âme,
Est d'amour comme Dieu, de chair comme la femme,
Et qu'il renferme, gros de sève et de rayons,
Le grand fourmillement de tous les embryons !
Et tout croît, et tout monte !
spacespacespacespacespacespace- O Vénus, ô Déesse !
Je regrette les temps de l'antique jeunesse,
Des satyres lascifs, des faunes animaux,
Dieux qui mordaient d'amour l'écorce des rameaux
Et dans les nénuphars baisaient la Nymphe blonde !
Je regrette les temps où la sève du monde,
L'eau du fleuve, le sang rose des arbres verts
Dans les veines de Pan mettaient un univers !.
Où le sol palpitait, vert, sous ses pieds de chèvre ;
Où, baisant mollement le clair syrinx, sa lèvre
Modulait sous le ciel le grand hymne d'amour ;
Où, debout sur la plaine, il entendait autour
Répondre à son appel la Nature vivante ;
Où les arbres muets, berçant l'oiseau qui chante,
La terre berçant l'homme, et tout l'Océan bleu
Et tous les animaux aimaient, aimaient en Dieu !
Soleil et Chair, Suite
Je regrette les temps de la grande Cybèle
Qu'on disait parcourir, gigantesquement belle,
Sur un grand char d'airain, les splendides cités ;
Son double sein versait dans les immensités
Le pur ruissellement de la vie infinie.
L'Homme suçait, heureux, sa mamelle bénie,
Comme un petit enfant, jouant sur ses genoux.
-Parce qu'il était fort, l'Homme était chaste et doux.
Misère ! Maintenant il dit : Je sais les choses,
Et va, les yeux fermés et les oreille closes.
-Et pourtant, plus de dieux ! plus de dieux ! l'Homme est Roi,
L'Homme est Dieu ! Mais l'Amour, voilà la grande Foi !
Oh ! si l'homme puisait encore à ta mamelle,
Grande mère des dieux et des hommes, Cybèle ;
S'il n'avait pas laissé l'immortelle Astarté
Qui jadis, émergeant dans l'immense clarté
Des flots bleus, fleur de chair que la vague parfume,
Montra son nombril rose où vint neiger l'écume,
Et fit chanter, Déesse aux grands yeux noirs vainqueurs,
Le rossignol aux bois et l'amour dans les coeurs !
II
Je crois en toi ! Je crois en toi ! divine mère,
Aphrodite marine ! - Oh ! la route est amère
Depuis que l'autre Dieu nous attelle à sa croix ;
Chair, Marbre, Fleur, Vénus, c'est en toi que je crois !
-Oui, l'Homme est triste et laid, triste sous le ciel vaste,
Il a des vêtements, parce qu'il n'est plus chaste,
Parce qu'il a sali son fier buste de Dieu,
Et qu'il a rabougri, comme une idole au feu,
Son corps Olympien aux servitudes sales !
Oui, même après la mort, dans les squelettes pâles
Il veut vivre, insultant la première beauté !
-Et l'Idole où tu mis tant de virginité,
Où tu divinisas notre argile, la Femme,
Afin que l'Homme pût éclairer sa pauvre âme
Et monter lentement, dans un immense amour,
De la prison terrestre à la beauté du jour,
La Femme ne sait plus même être Courtisane !
-C'est une bonne farce ! et le monde ricane
Au nom doux et sacré de la grande Vénus !
III
Si les temps revenaient, les temps qui sont venus !
-Car l'Homme a fini ! l'Homme a joué tous les rôles !
Au grand jour, fatigué de briser des idoles
Il ressuscitera, libre de tous ses Dieux,
Et, comme il est du ciel, il scrutera les cieux !
L'idéal, la pensée invincible, éternelle,
Tout ; le dieu qui vit, sous son argile charnelle,
Montera, montera, brûlera sous son front !
Et quand tu le verras sonder tout l'horizon,
Contempteur des vieux jougs, libre de toute crainte,
Tu viendras lui donner la Rédemption sainte !
-Splendide, radieuse, au sein des grandes mers
Tu surgiras, jetant sur le vaste Univers
L'Amour infini dans un infini sourire !
Le Monde vibrera comme une immense lyre
Dans le frémissement d'un immense baiser
-Le Monde a soif d'amour : tu viendras l'apaiser.
IV
O splendeur de la chair ! ô splendeur idéale !
O renouveau d'amour, aurore triomphale
Où, courbant à leurs pieds les Dieux et les Héros,
Kallipyge la blanche et le petit Éros
Effleureront, couverts de la neige des roses,
Les femmes et les fleurs sous leurs beaux pieds écloses !
-O grande Ariadné, qui jette tes sanglots
Sur la rive, en voyant fuir là-bas sur les flots
Blanche sous le soleil, la voile de Thésée,
O douce vierge enfant qu'une nuit a brisée,
Tais-toi ! Sur son char d'or brodé de noirs raisins,
Lysios, promené dans les champs Phrygiens
Par les tigres lascifs et les panthères rousses,
Le long des fleuves bleus rougit les sombres mousses.
-Zeus, Taureau, sur son cou berce comme une enfant
Le corps nu d'Europé, qui jette son bras blanc
Au cou nerveux du Dieu frissonnant dans la vague
Il tourne lentement vers elle son oeil vague ;
Elle, laisse traîner sa pâle joue en fleur
Au front de Zeus ; ses yeux sont fermés ; elle meurt
Dans un divin baiser, et le flot qui murmure
De son écume d'or fleurit sa chevelure.
-Entre le laurier-rose et le lotus jaseur
Glisse amoureusement le grand Cygne rêveur
Embrassant la Léda des blancheurs de son aile ;
-Et tandis que Cypris passe, étrangement belle,
Et, cambrant les rondeurs splendides de ses reins,
Étale fièrement l'or de ses larges seins
Et son ventre neigeux brodé de mousse noire,
-Héraclès, le Dompteur, qui, comme d'une gloire
Fort, ceint son vaste corps de la peau du lion,
S'avance, front terrible et doux, à l'horizon !
Par la lune d'été vaguement éclairée,
Debout, nue, et rêvant dans sa pâleur dorée
Que tache le flot lourd de ses longs cheveux bleus,
Dans la clairière sombre, où la mousse s'étoile,
La Dryade regarde au ciel silencieux....
-La blanche Séléné laisse flotter son voile,
Craintive, sur les pieds du bel Endymion,
Et lui jette un baiser dans un pâle rayon...
-La Source pleure au loin dans une longue extase...
C'est la nymphe qui rêve, un coude sur son vase,
Au beau jeune homme blanc que son onde a pressé.
-Une brise d'amour dans la nuit a passé,
Et, dans les bois sacrés, dans l'horreur des grands arbres,
Majestueusement debout, les sombres Marbres,
Les Dieux, au front desquels le Bouvreuil fait son nid,
-Les Dieux écoutent l'homme et le Monde infini !
1,060
Arthur Rimbaud
Ophelia
Ophelia
I
On the calm black water where the stars are sleeping
White Ophelia floats like a great lily ;
Floats very slowly, lying in her long veils…
-In the far-off woods you can hear them sound the mort.
For more than a thousand years sad Ophelia
Has passed, a white phantom, down the long black river.
For more than a thousand years her sweet madness
Has murmured its ballad to the evening breeze.
The wind kisses her breasts and unfolds in a wreath
Her great veils rising and falling with the waters ;
The shivering willows weep on her shoulder,
The rushes lean over her wide, dreaming brow.
The ruffled water-lilies are sighing around her ;
At times she rouses, in a slumbering alder,
Some nest from which escapes a small rustle of wings ;
-A mysterious anthem falls from the golden stars.
II
O pale Ophelia ! beautiful as snow !
Yes child, you died, carried off by a river !
-It was the winds descending from the great mountains of Norway
That spoke to you in low voices of better freedom.
It was a breath of wind, that, twisting your great hair,
Brought strange rumors to your dreaming mind ;
It was your heart listening to the song of Nature
In the groans of the tree and the sighs of the nights ;
It was the voice of mad seas, the great roar,
That shattered your child's heart, too human and too soft ;
It was a handsome pale knight, a poor madman
Who one April morning sate mute at your knees !
Heaven ! Love ! Freedom ! What a dream, oh poor crazed Girl !
You melted to him as snow does to a fire ;
Your great visions strangled your words
-And fearful Infinity terrified your blue eye !
III
-And the poet says that by starlight
You come seeking, in the night, the flowers that you picked
And that he has seen on the water, lying in her long veils
White Ophelia floating, like a great lily.
Ophélie
I
Sur l'onde calme et noire où dorment les étoiles
La blanche Ophélia flotte comme un grand lys,
Flotte très lentement, couchée en ses longs voiles…
-On entend dans les bois lointains des hallalis.
Voici plus de mille ans que la triste Ophélie
Passe, fantôme blanc, sur le long fleuve noir;
Voici plus de mille ans que sa douce folie
Murmure sa romance à la brise du soir.
Le vent baise ses seins et déploie en corolle
Ses grands voiles bercés mollement par les eaux;
Les saules frissonnants pleurent sur son épaule,
Sur son grand front rêveur s'inclinent les roseaux.
Les nénuphars froissés soupirent autour d'elle;
Elle éveille parfois, dans un aune qui dort,
Quelque nid, d'où s'échappe un petit frisson d'aile:
-Un chant mystérieux tombe des astres d'or.
II
O pâle Ophélia! belle comme la neige!
Oui, tu mourus, enfant, par un fleuve emporté!
-C'est que les vents tombant des grands monts de Norwège
T'avaient parlé tout bas de l'âpre liberté;
C'est qu'un souffle, tordant ta grande chevelure,
A ton esprit rêveur portait d'étranges bruits;
Que ton coeur écoutait le chant de la Nature
Dans les plaintes de l'arbre et les soupirs des nuits;
C'est que la voix des mers folles, immense râle,
Brisait ton sein d'enfant, trop humain et trop doux;
C'est qu'un matin d'avril, un beau cavalier pâle,
Un pauvre fou, s'assit muet à tes genoux!
Ciel! Amour! Liberté! Quel rêve, ô pauvre Folle!
Tu te fondais à lui comme une neige au feu:
Tes grandes visions étranglaient ta parole
-Et l'Infini terrible effara ton oeil bleu!
III
-Et le Poète dit qu'aux rayons des étoiles
Tu viens chercher, la nuit, les fleurs que tu cueillis,
Et qu'il a vu sur l'eau, couchée en ses longs voiles,
La blanche Ophélia flotter, comme un grand lys.
I
On the calm black water where the stars are sleeping
White Ophelia floats like a great lily ;
Floats very slowly, lying in her long veils…
-In the far-off woods you can hear them sound the mort.
For more than a thousand years sad Ophelia
Has passed, a white phantom, down the long black river.
For more than a thousand years her sweet madness
Has murmured its ballad to the evening breeze.
The wind kisses her breasts and unfolds in a wreath
Her great veils rising and falling with the waters ;
The shivering willows weep on her shoulder,
The rushes lean over her wide, dreaming brow.
The ruffled water-lilies are sighing around her ;
At times she rouses, in a slumbering alder,
Some nest from which escapes a small rustle of wings ;
-A mysterious anthem falls from the golden stars.
II
O pale Ophelia ! beautiful as snow !
Yes child, you died, carried off by a river !
-It was the winds descending from the great mountains of Norway
That spoke to you in low voices of better freedom.
It was a breath of wind, that, twisting your great hair,
Brought strange rumors to your dreaming mind ;
It was your heart listening to the song of Nature
In the groans of the tree and the sighs of the nights ;
It was the voice of mad seas, the great roar,
That shattered your child's heart, too human and too soft ;
It was a handsome pale knight, a poor madman
Who one April morning sate mute at your knees !
Heaven ! Love ! Freedom ! What a dream, oh poor crazed Girl !
You melted to him as snow does to a fire ;
Your great visions strangled your words
-And fearful Infinity terrified your blue eye !
III
-And the poet says that by starlight
You come seeking, in the night, the flowers that you picked
And that he has seen on the water, lying in her long veils
White Ophelia floating, like a great lily.
Ophélie
I
Sur l'onde calme et noire où dorment les étoiles
La blanche Ophélia flotte comme un grand lys,
Flotte très lentement, couchée en ses longs voiles…
-On entend dans les bois lointains des hallalis.
Voici plus de mille ans que la triste Ophélie
Passe, fantôme blanc, sur le long fleuve noir;
Voici plus de mille ans que sa douce folie
Murmure sa romance à la brise du soir.
Le vent baise ses seins et déploie en corolle
Ses grands voiles bercés mollement par les eaux;
Les saules frissonnants pleurent sur son épaule,
Sur son grand front rêveur s'inclinent les roseaux.
Les nénuphars froissés soupirent autour d'elle;
Elle éveille parfois, dans un aune qui dort,
Quelque nid, d'où s'échappe un petit frisson d'aile:
-Un chant mystérieux tombe des astres d'or.
II
O pâle Ophélia! belle comme la neige!
Oui, tu mourus, enfant, par un fleuve emporté!
-C'est que les vents tombant des grands monts de Norwège
T'avaient parlé tout bas de l'âpre liberté;
C'est qu'un souffle, tordant ta grande chevelure,
A ton esprit rêveur portait d'étranges bruits;
Que ton coeur écoutait le chant de la Nature
Dans les plaintes de l'arbre et les soupirs des nuits;
C'est que la voix des mers folles, immense râle,
Brisait ton sein d'enfant, trop humain et trop doux;
C'est qu'un matin d'avril, un beau cavalier pâle,
Un pauvre fou, s'assit muet à tes genoux!
Ciel! Amour! Liberté! Quel rêve, ô pauvre Folle!
Tu te fondais à lui comme une neige au feu:
Tes grandes visions étranglaient ta parole
-Et l'Infini terrible effara ton oeil bleu!
III
-Et le Poète dit qu'aux rayons des étoiles
Tu viens chercher, la nuit, les fleurs que tu cueillis,
Et qu'il a vu sur l'eau, couchée en ses longs voiles,
La blanche Ophélia flotter, comme un grand lys.
709
Arthur Rimbaud
Nina's Reply (Les Reparties De Nina)
Nina's Reply (Les Reparties De Nina)
HE - Your breast on my breast,
Eh ? We could go,
With our nostrils full of air,
Into the cool light
Of the blue good morning that bathes you
In the wine of daylight ?…
When the whole shivering wood bleeds,
Dumb with love
From every branch green drops,
Pale buds,
You can feel in things unclosing
The quivering flesh :
You would bury in the lucerne
Your white gown,
Changing to rose-colour in the fresh air the blue tint which encircles
Your great black eyes,
In love with the country,
Scattering everywhere,
Like champagne bubbles,
Your crazy laughter :
breast,
Mingling our voices,
Slowly we'd reach the stream,
Then the great woods !…
Then, like a little ghost,
Your heart fainting,
You'd tell me to carry you,
Your eyes half closed…
I'd carry your quivering body
Along the path :
The bird would sping out his andante :
Hard by the hazeltree…
I'd speak into your mouth ;
And go on, pressing
Your body like a little girl's I was putting to bed,
Drunk with the blood
That runs blue under your white skin
With its tints of rose :
And speaking to you in that frank tongue…
There !… - that you understand…
Our great woods would smell of sap,
And the sunlight
Would dust with fine gold their great
Green and bronze dream.
……………………………………………
In the evening ?… We'd take the white road
Which meanders,
Like a grazing herd,
All over the place
Oh the pleasant orchards with blue grass,
And twisted apple trees !
How you can smell a whole league
Off their strong perfume !
We'd get back to the village
When the sky was half dark ;
And there'd be a smell of milking
In the evening air ;
It would smell of the cowshed, full
Of warm manure,
Filled with the slow rythm of breathing,
And with great backs
Gleaming under some light or other ;
And, right down at the far end,
There'd be a cow dunging proudly
At every step…
-Grandmother's spectacles
And her long nose
Deep in her missal ; the jug of beer
Circled with pewter
Foaming among the big-bowled pipes
Gallantly smoking :
And the frightfull blubber lips
Which, still puffing,
Snatch ham from forks :
So much, and more :
The fire lighting up the bunks
And the cupboards.
The shining fat buttocks
Of the fat baby
On his hands and knees, who nuzzles into the cups,
His white snout
Tickled by a gently
Growling muzzle,
That licks all over the round face
Of the little darling…
Black and haughty on her chair's edge,
A terrifying profile,
And old woman in front of the embers,
Spinning
What sights we shall see, dearest,
In those hovels,
When the bright fire lights up
The grey window panes !…
-And then, small and nestling
Inside the cool
Dark lilacs : the hidden window
Smiling in there…
You'll come, you will come, I love you so !
It will be lovely.
You will come, won't you ? and even…
ELLE : - And what about my office ?
Original French
Les reparties de Nina
LUI - Ta poitrine sur ma poitrine,
Hein ? nous irions,
Ayant de l'air plein la narine,
Aux frais rayons
Du bon matin bleu, qui vous baigne
Du vin de jour ?...
Quand tout le bois frissonnant saigne
Muet d'amour
De chaque branche, gouttes vertes,
Des bourgeons clairs,
On sent dans les choses ouvertes
Frémir des chairs :
Tu plongerais dans la luzerne
Ton blanc peignoir,
Rosant à l'air ce bleu qui cerne
Ton grand oeil noir,
Amoureuse de la campagne,
Semant partout,
Comme une mousse de champagne,
Ton rire fou :
Riant à moi, brutal d'ivresse,
Qui te prendrais
Comme cela, - la belle tresse,
Oh ! - qui boirais
Ton goût de framboise et de fraise,
O chair de fleur !
Riant au vent vif qui te baise
Comme un voleur,
Au rose, églantier qui t'embête
Aimablement :
Riant surtout, ô folle tête,
À ton amant !....
........................................................
-Ta poitrine sur ma poitrine,
Mêlant nos voix,
Lents, nous gagnerions la ravine,
Puis les grands bois !...
Puis, comme une petite morte,
Le coeur pâmé,
Tu me dirais que je te porte,
L'oeil mi-fermé...
Je te porterais, palpitante,
Dans le sentier :
L'oiseau filerait son andante
Au Noisetier...
Je te parlerais dans ta bouche..
J'irais, pressant
Ton corps, comme une enfant qu'on couche,
Ivre du sang
Qui coule, bleu, sous ta peau blanche
Aux tons rosés.
Et te parlant la langue franche - .....
Tiens !... - que tu sais...
Nos grands bois sentiraient la sève,
Et le soleil
Sablerait d'or fin leur grand rêve
Vert et vermeil
........................................................
Le soir ?... Nous reprendrons la route
Blanche qui court
Flânant, comme un troupeau qui broute,
Tout à l'entour
Les bons vergers à l'herbe bleue,
Aux pommiers tors !
Comme on les sent toute une lieue
Leurs parfums forts !
Nous regagnerons le village
Au ciel mi-noir ;
Et ça sentira le laitage
Dans l'air du soir ;
Ca sentira l'étable, pleine
De fumiers chauds,
Pleine d'un lent rythme d'haleine,
Et de grands dos
Blanchissant sous quelque lumière ;
Et, tout là-bas,
Une vache fientera, fière,
À chaque pas...
-Les lunettes de la grand-mère
Et son nez long
Dans son missel ; le pot de bière
Cerclé de plomb,
Moussant entre les larges pipes
Qui, crânement,
Fument : les effroyables lippes
Qui, tout fumant,
Happent le jambon aux fourchettes
Tant, tant et plus :
Le feu qui claire les couchettes
Et les bahuts.
Les fesses luisantes et grasses
D'un gros enfant
Qui fourre, à genoux, dans les tasses,
Son museau blanc
Frôlé par un mufle qui gronde
D'un ton gentil,
Et pourlèche la face ronde
Du cher petit.....
Que de choses verrons-nous, chère,
Dans ces taudis,
Quand la flamme illumine, claire,
Les carreaux gris !...
-Puis, petite et toute nichée,
Dans les lilas
Noirs et frais : la vitre cachée,
Qui rit là-bas....
Tu viendras, tu viendras, je t'aime !
Ce sera beau.
Tu viendras, n'est-ce pas, et même...
Elle - Et mon bureau ?
HE - Your breast on my breast,
Eh ? We could go,
With our nostrils full of air,
Into the cool light
Of the blue good morning that bathes you
In the wine of daylight ?…
When the whole shivering wood bleeds,
Dumb with love
From every branch green drops,
Pale buds,
You can feel in things unclosing
The quivering flesh :
You would bury in the lucerne
Your white gown,
Changing to rose-colour in the fresh air the blue tint which encircles
Your great black eyes,
In love with the country,
Scattering everywhere,
Like champagne bubbles,
Your crazy laughter :
breast,
Mingling our voices,
Slowly we'd reach the stream,
Then the great woods !…
Then, like a little ghost,
Your heart fainting,
You'd tell me to carry you,
Your eyes half closed…
I'd carry your quivering body
Along the path :
The bird would sping out his andante :
Hard by the hazeltree…
I'd speak into your mouth ;
And go on, pressing
Your body like a little girl's I was putting to bed,
Drunk with the blood
That runs blue under your white skin
With its tints of rose :
And speaking to you in that frank tongue…
There !… - that you understand…
Our great woods would smell of sap,
And the sunlight
Would dust with fine gold their great
Green and bronze dream.
……………………………………………
In the evening ?… We'd take the white road
Which meanders,
Like a grazing herd,
All over the place
Oh the pleasant orchards with blue grass,
And twisted apple trees !
How you can smell a whole league
Off their strong perfume !
We'd get back to the village
When the sky was half dark ;
And there'd be a smell of milking
In the evening air ;
It would smell of the cowshed, full
Of warm manure,
Filled with the slow rythm of breathing,
And with great backs
Gleaming under some light or other ;
And, right down at the far end,
There'd be a cow dunging proudly
At every step…
-Grandmother's spectacles
And her long nose
Deep in her missal ; the jug of beer
Circled with pewter
Foaming among the big-bowled pipes
Gallantly smoking :
And the frightfull blubber lips
Which, still puffing,
Snatch ham from forks :
So much, and more :
The fire lighting up the bunks
And the cupboards.
The shining fat buttocks
Of the fat baby
On his hands and knees, who nuzzles into the cups,
His white snout
Tickled by a gently
Growling muzzle,
That licks all over the round face
Of the little darling…
Black and haughty on her chair's edge,
A terrifying profile,
And old woman in front of the embers,
Spinning
What sights we shall see, dearest,
In those hovels,
When the bright fire lights up
The grey window panes !…
-And then, small and nestling
Inside the cool
Dark lilacs : the hidden window
Smiling in there…
You'll come, you will come, I love you so !
It will be lovely.
You will come, won't you ? and even…
ELLE : - And what about my office ?
Original French
Les reparties de Nina
LUI - Ta poitrine sur ma poitrine,
Hein ? nous irions,
Ayant de l'air plein la narine,
Aux frais rayons
Du bon matin bleu, qui vous baigne
Du vin de jour ?...
Quand tout le bois frissonnant saigne
Muet d'amour
De chaque branche, gouttes vertes,
Des bourgeons clairs,
On sent dans les choses ouvertes
Frémir des chairs :
Tu plongerais dans la luzerne
Ton blanc peignoir,
Rosant à l'air ce bleu qui cerne
Ton grand oeil noir,
Amoureuse de la campagne,
Semant partout,
Comme une mousse de champagne,
Ton rire fou :
Riant à moi, brutal d'ivresse,
Qui te prendrais
Comme cela, - la belle tresse,
Oh ! - qui boirais
Ton goût de framboise et de fraise,
O chair de fleur !
Riant au vent vif qui te baise
Comme un voleur,
Au rose, églantier qui t'embête
Aimablement :
Riant surtout, ô folle tête,
À ton amant !....
........................................................
-Ta poitrine sur ma poitrine,
Mêlant nos voix,
Lents, nous gagnerions la ravine,
Puis les grands bois !...
Puis, comme une petite morte,
Le coeur pâmé,
Tu me dirais que je te porte,
L'oeil mi-fermé...
Je te porterais, palpitante,
Dans le sentier :
L'oiseau filerait son andante
Au Noisetier...
Je te parlerais dans ta bouche..
J'irais, pressant
Ton corps, comme une enfant qu'on couche,
Ivre du sang
Qui coule, bleu, sous ta peau blanche
Aux tons rosés.
Et te parlant la langue franche - .....
Tiens !... - que tu sais...
Nos grands bois sentiraient la sève,
Et le soleil
Sablerait d'or fin leur grand rêve
Vert et vermeil
........................................................
Le soir ?... Nous reprendrons la route
Blanche qui court
Flânant, comme un troupeau qui broute,
Tout à l'entour
Les bons vergers à l'herbe bleue,
Aux pommiers tors !
Comme on les sent toute une lieue
Leurs parfums forts !
Nous regagnerons le village
Au ciel mi-noir ;
Et ça sentira le laitage
Dans l'air du soir ;
Ca sentira l'étable, pleine
De fumiers chauds,
Pleine d'un lent rythme d'haleine,
Et de grands dos
Blanchissant sous quelque lumière ;
Et, tout là-bas,
Une vache fientera, fière,
À chaque pas...
-Les lunettes de la grand-mère
Et son nez long
Dans son missel ; le pot de bière
Cerclé de plomb,
Moussant entre les larges pipes
Qui, crânement,
Fument : les effroyables lippes
Qui, tout fumant,
Happent le jambon aux fourchettes
Tant, tant et plus :
Le feu qui claire les couchettes
Et les bahuts.
Les fesses luisantes et grasses
D'un gros enfant
Qui fourre, à genoux, dans les tasses,
Son museau blanc
Frôlé par un mufle qui gronde
D'un ton gentil,
Et pourlèche la face ronde
Du cher petit.....
Que de choses verrons-nous, chère,
Dans ces taudis,
Quand la flamme illumine, claire,
Les carreaux gris !...
-Puis, petite et toute nichée,
Dans les lilas
Noirs et frais : la vitre cachée,
Qui rit là-bas....
Tu viendras, tu viendras, je t'aime !
Ce sera beau.
Tu viendras, n'est-ce pas, et même...
Elle - Et mon bureau ?
1,041
Arthur Rimbaud
Genie
Genie
He is love and the present because he has opened our house
to winter's foam and to the sound of summer,
He who purified all that we drink and tea;
He is the charm of passing places,
the incarnate delight of all things that abide.
He is affection and the future,
the strength and love that we,
standing surrounded by anger and weariness,
See passing in the storm-filled sky and in banners of ecstasy.
He is love, perfect and rediscovered measure,
Reason, marvelous and unforeseen,
Eternity: beloved prime mover of the elements, of destinies.
We all know the terror of his yielding, and of ours:
Oh delight of our well-being, brilliance of our faculties,
selfish affection and passion for him, who loves us forever...
And we remember him, and he goes on his way...
And if Adoration departs, then it sounds, his promise sounds:
'Away with these ages and superstitions,
These couplings, these bodies of old!
All our age has submerged.' He will not go away,
will not come down again from some heave.
He will not fulfill the redemption of women's fury
nor the gaiety of men nor the rest of this sin:
For he is and he is loved, and so it is already done.
Oh, his breathing, the turn of his head when he runs:
Terrible speed of perfection in action and form!
Fecundity of spirit and vastness of the universe! His body!
Release so long desired, The splintering of grace before a new violence!
Oh, the sight, the sight of him!
All ancient genuflections, all sorrows are lifted as he passes.
The light of his day! All moving and sonorous
suffering dissolves in more intense music.
In his step there are vaster migrations than the old invasions were.
Oh, He and we! a pride more benevolent than charities lost.
Oh, world! and the shining song of new sorrows.
He has known us all and has loved us.
Let us discover how, this winter night, to hail him from cape to cape,
from the unquiet pole to the château,
from crowded cities to the empty coast,
from glance to glance, with our strength and our feelings exhausted,
To see him, and to send him once again away...
And beneath the tides and over high deserts of snow
To follow his image, his breathing, his body, the light of his day.
He is love and the present because he has opened our house
to winter's foam and to the sound of summer,
He who purified all that we drink and tea;
He is the charm of passing places,
the incarnate delight of all things that abide.
He is affection and the future,
the strength and love that we,
standing surrounded by anger and weariness,
See passing in the storm-filled sky and in banners of ecstasy.
He is love, perfect and rediscovered measure,
Reason, marvelous and unforeseen,
Eternity: beloved prime mover of the elements, of destinies.
We all know the terror of his yielding, and of ours:
Oh delight of our well-being, brilliance of our faculties,
selfish affection and passion for him, who loves us forever...
And we remember him, and he goes on his way...
And if Adoration departs, then it sounds, his promise sounds:
'Away with these ages and superstitions,
These couplings, these bodies of old!
All our age has submerged.' He will not go away,
will not come down again from some heave.
He will not fulfill the redemption of women's fury
nor the gaiety of men nor the rest of this sin:
For he is and he is loved, and so it is already done.
Oh, his breathing, the turn of his head when he runs:
Terrible speed of perfection in action and form!
Fecundity of spirit and vastness of the universe! His body!
Release so long desired, The splintering of grace before a new violence!
Oh, the sight, the sight of him!
All ancient genuflections, all sorrows are lifted as he passes.
The light of his day! All moving and sonorous
suffering dissolves in more intense music.
In his step there are vaster migrations than the old invasions were.
Oh, He and we! a pride more benevolent than charities lost.
Oh, world! and the shining song of new sorrows.
He has known us all and has loved us.
Let us discover how, this winter night, to hail him from cape to cape,
from the unquiet pole to the château,
from crowded cities to the empty coast,
from glance to glance, with our strength and our feelings exhausted,
To see him, and to send him once again away...
And beneath the tides and over high deserts of snow
To follow his image, his breathing, his body, the light of his day.
719
Arthur Rimbaud
Fairy
Fairy
For Helen, in the virgin shadows and the
impassive radiance in astral silence,
ornamental saps conspired.
Summer's ardour was confided
to silent birds and due indolence
to a priceless mourning boat
through gulfs of dead loves
and fallen perfumes.
-After the moment of the woods women's song
to the rumble of the torrent in the ruin of the wood,
of the tinkle of the cowbells to the echo of the vales,
and the cries of the steppes.
-For Helen's childhood, furs and shadows trembled,
and the breast of the poor and the legends of heaven.
And her eyes and her dance superior
even to the precious radiance,
to cold influences, to the pleasure of the unique
setting and the unique hour.
For Helen, in the virgin shadows and the
impassive radiance in astral silence,
ornamental saps conspired.
Summer's ardour was confided
to silent birds and due indolence
to a priceless mourning boat
through gulfs of dead loves
and fallen perfumes.
-After the moment of the woods women's song
to the rumble of the torrent in the ruin of the wood,
of the tinkle of the cowbells to the echo of the vales,
and the cries of the steppes.
-For Helen's childhood, furs and shadows trembled,
and the breast of the poor and the legends of heaven.
And her eyes and her dance superior
even to the precious radiance,
to cold influences, to the pleasure of the unique
setting and the unique hour.
1,159
Arthur Rimbaud
Dawn
Dawn
I have kissed the summer dawn. Before the palaces, nothing moved. The water lay
dead. Battalions of shadows still kept the forest road.
I walked, walking warm and vital breath, While stones watched, and wings rose
soundlessly.
My first adventure, in a path already gleaming With a clear pale light, Was a flower
who told me its name.
I laughted at the blond Wasserfall That threw its hair across the pines: On the silvered
summit, I came upon the goddess.
Then one by one, I lifted her veils. In the long walk, waving my arms.
Across the meadow, where I betrayed her to the cock. In the heart of town she fled
among the steeples and domes, And I hunted her, scrambling like a beggar on marble
wharves.
Above the road, near a thicket of laurel, I caught her in her gathered veils, And smelled
the scent of her immense body. Dawn and the child fell together at the bottom of the
wood.
When I awoke, it was noon.
I have kissed the summer dawn. Before the palaces, nothing moved. The water lay
dead. Battalions of shadows still kept the forest road.
I walked, walking warm and vital breath, While stones watched, and wings rose
soundlessly.
My first adventure, in a path already gleaming With a clear pale light, Was a flower
who told me its name.
I laughted at the blond Wasserfall That threw its hair across the pines: On the silvered
summit, I came upon the goddess.
Then one by one, I lifted her veils. In the long walk, waving my arms.
Across the meadow, where I betrayed her to the cock. In the heart of town she fled
among the steeples and domes, And I hunted her, scrambling like a beggar on marble
wharves.
Above the road, near a thicket of laurel, I caught her in her gathered veils, And smelled
the scent of her immense body. Dawn and the child fell together at the bottom of the
wood.
When I awoke, it was noon.
1,594
Arthur Rimbaud
Brussels
Brussels
Boulevard du Régent
July Flowerbeds of amaranths right up to
The pleasant palace of Jupiter. -
I know it is Thou, who is this place,
Minglest thine almost Saharan Blue !
Then, since rose and fir-tree of the sun
And tropical creeper have their play enclosed here,
The little widow's cage !...
What, Flocks of birds, o iaio, iaio !... -
Calm houses, old passions !
Summerhouse of the Lady who ran mad for love.
After the buttocks of the rosebushes,
the balcony Of Juliet, shadowy and very low. -
La Juliette, that reminds me of l'Henriette,
A charming railway station,
At the heart of a mountain, as if the bottom of an orchard
Where a thousand blue devils dance in the air !
Green bench where in stormy paradise,
The white Irish girl sings to the guitar.
Then, from the Guianian dining-room,
Chatter of children and of cages.
The duke's window which makes me think
Of the poison of snails and of boxwood
Sleeping down here in the sun.
And then, It is too beautiful ! too ! Let us maintain our silence. -
Boulevard without movement or business,
Dumb, every drama and every comedy,
Unending concentration of scenes,
I know you and I admire you in silence.
*** Is she an Almeh ?...
in the first blue hours
Will she destroy herself like flowers of fire...
In front of the splendid sweep where one may smell
The enormous flowering city's breath !
It's too beautiful ! It's too beautiful ! but it is necessary -
For the Fisherwoman*
and the Corsair's song,
And also because the last masqueraders still believed
In nocturnal festivities on the pure sea !
Boulevard du Régent
July Flowerbeds of amaranths right up to
The pleasant palace of Jupiter. -
I know it is Thou, who is this place,
Minglest thine almost Saharan Blue !
Then, since rose and fir-tree of the sun
And tropical creeper have their play enclosed here,
The little widow's cage !...
What, Flocks of birds, o iaio, iaio !... -
Calm houses, old passions !
Summerhouse of the Lady who ran mad for love.
After the buttocks of the rosebushes,
the balcony Of Juliet, shadowy and very low. -
La Juliette, that reminds me of l'Henriette,
A charming railway station,
At the heart of a mountain, as if the bottom of an orchard
Where a thousand blue devils dance in the air !
Green bench where in stormy paradise,
The white Irish girl sings to the guitar.
Then, from the Guianian dining-room,
Chatter of children and of cages.
The duke's window which makes me think
Of the poison of snails and of boxwood
Sleeping down here in the sun.
And then, It is too beautiful ! too ! Let us maintain our silence. -
Boulevard without movement or business,
Dumb, every drama and every comedy,
Unending concentration of scenes,
I know you and I admire you in silence.
*** Is she an Almeh ?...
in the first blue hours
Will she destroy herself like flowers of fire...
In front of the splendid sweep where one may smell
The enormous flowering city's breath !
It's too beautiful ! It's too beautiful ! but it is necessary -
For the Fisherwoman*
and the Corsair's song,
And also because the last masqueraders still believed
In nocturnal festivities on the pure sea !
705
Arthur Rimbaud
Being Beauteous
Being Beauteous
Against a fall of snow, a Being Beauiful, and very tall.
Whistlings of death and circles of faint music
Make this adored body, swelling and trembling
Like a specter, rise...
Black and scarlet gashes burst in the gleaming flesh.
The true colors of life grow dark,
Shimmering and sperate
In the scaffolding, around the Vision.
Shiverings mutter and rise,
And the furious taste of these effects is charged
With deadly whistlings and the raucous music
That the world, far behind us, hurls at our mother of beauty...
She retreats, she rises up...
Oh! Our bones have put on new flesh, for love.
Oh ash-white face
Oh tousled hair
O crystal arms!
On this cannot I mean to destroy myself
In a swirling of trees and soft air!
Against a fall of snow, a Being Beauiful, and very tall.
Whistlings of death and circles of faint music
Make this adored body, swelling and trembling
Like a specter, rise...
Black and scarlet gashes burst in the gleaming flesh.
The true colors of life grow dark,
Shimmering and sperate
In the scaffolding, around the Vision.
Shiverings mutter and rise,
And the furious taste of these effects is charged
With deadly whistlings and the raucous music
That the world, far behind us, hurls at our mother of beauty...
She retreats, she rises up...
Oh! Our bones have put on new flesh, for love.
Oh ash-white face
Oh tousled hair
O crystal arms!
On this cannot I mean to destroy myself
In a swirling of trees and soft air!
836
Arthur Rimbaud
Antique
Antique
Gracious son of Pan! Around your forehead
crowned with flowerets
and with laurel, restlessly roll
those precious balls, your eyes.
Spotted with brown lees, your cheeks are hollow.
Your fangs gleam. Your breast is like a lyre,
tinklings circulate through your pale arms.
Your heart beats in that belly where sleeps the double sex.
Walk through the night, gently moving that thigh,
that second thigh, and that left leg.
Gracious son of Pan! Around your forehead
crowned with flowerets
and with laurel, restlessly roll
those precious balls, your eyes.
Spotted with brown lees, your cheeks are hollow.
Your fangs gleam. Your breast is like a lyre,
tinklings circulate through your pale arms.
Your heart beats in that belly where sleeps the double sex.
Walk through the night, gently moving that thigh,
that second thigh, and that left leg.
599
Anonymous
When Flora had O'erfret the Firth
When Flora had O'erfret the Firth
QUHEN Flora had o'erfret the firth
In May of every moneth queen;
Quhen merle and mavis singis with mirth
Sweet melling in the shawis sheen;
Quhen all luvaris rejoicit bene
And most desirous of their prey,
I heard a lusty luvar mene
--'I luve, but I dare nocht assay!'
'Strong are the pains I daily prove,
But yet with patience I sustene,
I am so fetterit with the luve
Only of my lady sheen,
Quhilk for her beauty micht be queen,
Nature so craftily alway
Has done depaint that sweet serene:
--Quhom I luve I dare nocht assay.
'She is so bricht of hyd and hue,
I luve but her alone, I ween;
Is none her luve that may eschew,
That blinkis of that dulce amene;
So comely cleir are her twa een
That she mae luvaris dois affray
Than ever of Greece did fair Helene:
--Quhom I luve I dare nocht assay!'
QUHEN Flora had o'erfret the firth
In May of every moneth queen;
Quhen merle and mavis singis with mirth
Sweet melling in the shawis sheen;
Quhen all luvaris rejoicit bene
And most desirous of their prey,
I heard a lusty luvar mene
--'I luve, but I dare nocht assay!'
'Strong are the pains I daily prove,
But yet with patience I sustene,
I am so fetterit with the luve
Only of my lady sheen,
Quhilk for her beauty micht be queen,
Nature so craftily alway
Has done depaint that sweet serene:
--Quhom I luve I dare nocht assay.
'She is so bricht of hyd and hue,
I luve but her alone, I ween;
Is none her luve that may eschew,
That blinkis of that dulce amene;
So comely cleir are her twa een
That she mae luvaris dois affray
Than ever of Greece did fair Helene:
--Quhom I luve I dare nocht assay!'
179
Anonymous
There is a Lady sweet and kind, Thomas Ford's Music of Sundry Kinds
There is a Lady sweet and kind, Thomas Ford's Music of Sundry Kinds
THERE is a Lady sweet and kind,
Was never face so pleased my mind;
I did but see her passing by,
And yet I love her till I die.
Her gesture, motion, and her smiles,
Her wit, her voice my heart beguiles,
Beguiles my heart, I know not why,
And yet I love her till I die.
Cupid is winged and doth range,
Her country so my love doth change:
But change she earth, or change she sky,
Yet will I love her till I die.
THERE is a Lady sweet and kind,
Was never face so pleased my mind;
I did but see her passing by,
And yet I love her till I die.
Her gesture, motion, and her smiles,
Her wit, her voice my heart beguiles,
Beguiles my heart, I know not why,
And yet I love her till I die.
Cupid is winged and doth range,
Her country so my love doth change:
But change she earth, or change she sky,
Yet will I love her till I die.
290
Anonymous
Since First I saw your Face, Thomas Ford's Music of Sundry Kinds
Since First I saw your Face, Thomas Ford's Music of Sundry Kinds
SINCE first I saw your face I resolved to honour and renown ye;
If now I be disdained I wish my heart had never known ye.
What? I that loved and you that liked, shall we begin to wrangle?
No, no, no, my heart is fast, and cannot disentangle.
If I admire or praise you too much, that fault you may forgive me;
Or if my hands had stray'd but a touch, then justly might you leave
me.
I ask'd you leave, you bade me love; is 't now a time to chide me?
No, no, no, I'll love you still what fortune e'er betide me.
The Sun, whose beams most glorious are, rejecteth no beholder,
And your sweet beauty past compare made my poor eyes the bolder:
Where beauty moves and wit delights and signs of kindness bind me,
There, O there! where'er I go I'll leave my heart behind me!
SINCE first I saw your face I resolved to honour and renown ye;
If now I be disdained I wish my heart had never known ye.
What? I that loved and you that liked, shall we begin to wrangle?
No, no, no, my heart is fast, and cannot disentangle.
If I admire or praise you too much, that fault you may forgive me;
Or if my hands had stray'd but a touch, then justly might you leave
me.
I ask'd you leave, you bade me love; is 't now a time to chide me?
No, no, no, I'll love you still what fortune e'er betide me.
The Sun, whose beams most glorious are, rejecteth no beholder,
And your sweet beauty past compare made my poor eyes the bolder:
Where beauty moves and wit delights and signs of kindness bind me,
There, O there! where'er I go I'll leave my heart behind me!
265
Anonymous
My Lady's Tears, John Dowland's Third and Last Book of Songs or Airs
My Lady's Tears, John Dowland's Third and Last Book of Songs or Airs
I SAW my Lady weep,
And Sorrow proud to be advanced so
In those fair eyes where all perfections keep.
Her face was full of woe;
But such a woe (believe me) as wins more hearts
Than Mirth can do with her enticing parts.
Sorrow was there made fair,
And Passion wise; Tears a delightful thing;
Silence beyond all speech, a wisdom rare:
She made her sighs to sing,
And all things with so sweet a sadness move
As made my heart at once both grieve and love.
O fairer than aught else
The world can show, leave off in time to grieve!
Enough, enough: your joyful look excels:
Tears kill the heart, believe.
O strive not to be excellent in woe,
Which only breeds your beauty's overthrow.
I SAW my Lady weep,
And Sorrow proud to be advanced so
In those fair eyes where all perfections keep.
Her face was full of woe;
But such a woe (believe me) as wins more hearts
Than Mirth can do with her enticing parts.
Sorrow was there made fair,
And Passion wise; Tears a delightful thing;
Silence beyond all speech, a wisdom rare:
She made her sighs to sing,
And all things with so sweet a sadness move
As made my heart at once both grieve and love.
O fairer than aught else
The world can show, leave off in time to grieve!
Enough, enough: your joyful look excels:
Tears kill the heart, believe.
O strive not to be excellent in woe,
Which only breeds your beauty's overthrow.
251
Anonymous
Blow, Northern Wind
Blow, Northern Wind
ICHOT a burde in boure bryht,
That fully semly is on syht,
Menskful maiden of myht;
Feir ant fre to fonde;
In al this wurhliche won
A burde of blod ant of bon
Never yete y nuste non
Lussomore in londe.
Blou northerne wynd!
Send thou me my suetyng!
Blou northerne wynd! blou, blou, blou!
With lokkes lefliche ant longe,
With frount ant face feir to fonge,
With murthes monie mote heo monge,
That brid so breme in boure.
With lossom eye grete ant gode,
With browen blysfol under hode,
He that reste him on the Rode,
That leflych lyf honoure.
Blou northerne wynd, etc.
Hire lure lumes liht,
Ase a launterne a nyht,
Hire bleo blykyeth so bryht.
So feyr heo is ant fyn.
A suetly swyre heo hath to holde,
With armes shuldre ase mon wolde,
Ant fingres feyre forte folde,
God wolde hue were myn!
Blou northerne wynd, etc.
Heo is coral of godnesse,
Heo is rubie of ryhtfulnesse,
Heo is cristal of clannesse,
Ant baner of bealte.
Heo is lilie of largesse,
Heo is parvenke of prouesse,
Heo is solsecle of suetnesse,
Ant lady of lealte.
For hire love y carke ant care,
For hire love y droupne ant dare,
For hire love my blisse is bare
Ant al ich waxe won,
For hire love in slep y slake,
For hire love al nyht ich wake,
For hire love mournynge y make
More then eny mon.
Blou northerne wynd!
Send thou me my suetyng!
Blou northerne wynd! blou, blou, blou!
ICHOT a burde in boure bryht,
That fully semly is on syht,
Menskful maiden of myht;
Feir ant fre to fonde;
In al this wurhliche won
A burde of blod ant of bon
Never yete y nuste non
Lussomore in londe.
Blou northerne wynd!
Send thou me my suetyng!
Blou northerne wynd! blou, blou, blou!
With lokkes lefliche ant longe,
With frount ant face feir to fonge,
With murthes monie mote heo monge,
That brid so breme in boure.
With lossom eye grete ant gode,
With browen blysfol under hode,
He that reste him on the Rode,
That leflych lyf honoure.
Blou northerne wynd, etc.
Hire lure lumes liht,
Ase a launterne a nyht,
Hire bleo blykyeth so bryht.
So feyr heo is ant fyn.
A suetly swyre heo hath to holde,
With armes shuldre ase mon wolde,
Ant fingres feyre forte folde,
God wolde hue were myn!
Blou northerne wynd, etc.
Heo is coral of godnesse,
Heo is rubie of ryhtfulnesse,
Heo is cristal of clannesse,
Ant baner of bealte.
Heo is lilie of largesse,
Heo is parvenke of prouesse,
Heo is solsecle of suetnesse,
Ant lady of lealte.
For hire love y carke ant care,
For hire love y droupne ant dare,
For hire love my blisse is bare
Ant al ich waxe won,
For hire love in slep y slake,
For hire love al nyht ich wake,
For hire love mournynge y make
More then eny mon.
Blou northerne wynd!
Send thou me my suetyng!
Blou northerne wynd! blou, blou, blou!
313
Anonymous
Angelica the Doorkeeper
Angelica the Doorkeeper
The falcon soars
The town's gates are even higher
Angelica's their doorkeeper
She's wound the sun round her head
She's tied the moon round her waist
She's hung herself with stars.
The falcon soars
The town's gates are even higher
Angelica's their doorkeeper
She's wound the sun round her head
She's tied the moon round her waist
She's hung herself with stars.
254
Anonymous
A Hymn to the Virgin
A Hymn to the Virgin
OF on that is so fayr and bright
Velut maris stella,
Brighter than the day is light,
Parens et puella:
Ic crie to the, thou see to me,
Levedy, preye thi Sone for me,
Tam pia,
That ic mote come to thee
Maria.
Al this world was for-lore
Eva peccatrice,
Tyl our Lord was y-bore
De te genetrice.
With ave it went away
Thuster nyth and comz the day
Salutis;
The welle springeth ut of the,
Virtutis.
Levedy, flour of alle thing,
Rose sine spina,
Thu bere Jhesu, hevene king,
Gratia divina:
Of alle thu ber'st the pris,
Levedy, quene of paradys
Electa:
Mayde milde, moder es
Effecta.
OF on that is so fayr and bright
Velut maris stella,
Brighter than the day is light,
Parens et puella:
Ic crie to the, thou see to me,
Levedy, preye thi Sone for me,
Tam pia,
That ic mote come to thee
Maria.
Al this world was for-lore
Eva peccatrice,
Tyl our Lord was y-bore
De te genetrice.
With ave it went away
Thuster nyth and comz the day
Salutis;
The welle springeth ut of the,
Virtutis.
Levedy, flour of alle thing,
Rose sine spina,
Thu bere Jhesu, hevene king,
Gratia divina:
Of alle thu ber'st the pris,
Levedy, quene of paradys
Electa:
Mayde milde, moder es
Effecta.
245
Anonymous
Alysoun
Alysoun
An hendy hap ichabbe yhent;
Ichot, from hevene it is me sent;
From alle wymmen mi loue is lent,
And lyght on Alysoun.
Bytuen{.e} Mersh and Averil,
When spray biginneth to spring{.e},
The lutel foul hath hir{.e} wyl
On hyr{.e} lud to syng{.e}.
Ich libbe in love longing{.e}
For semlokest of all{.e} thing{.e}.
He may me bliss{.e} bring{.e};
Icham in hire baundoun.
On heu hire her is fayr ynoh,
Hire brow{.e} broune, hire ey{.e} blak{.e};
With lossum chere he on me loh;
With middel smal, and wel ymak{.e}.
Bote he me woll{.e} to hire tak{.e},
Fort{.e} buen hire owen mak{.e},
Longe to lyven ichulle forsak{.e},
And fey{.e} fallen adoun.
Niht{.e}s when y wende and wak{.e},
Forthi myn wong{.e}s waxeth won;
Levedi, al for thin{.e} sak{.e}
Longinge is ylent me on.
In world nis non so wyter mon,
That al hire bounté tell{.e} con.
Hire swyre is whittore then the swon,
And feyrest may in toune.
Icham for wowyng al forwake,
Wery so water in wor{.e}.
Lest eny rev{.e} me my mak{.e},
Ychabbe y-yern{.e}d yor{.e}.
Betere is tholien whyl{.e} sor{.e}
Then mournen evermor{.e}.
Geynest under gor{.e},
Herkn{.e} to my roun.
An hendy hap ichabbe yhent;
Ichot, from hevene it is me sent;
From alle wymmen mi loue is lent,
And lyght on Alysoun.
Bytuen{.e} Mersh and Averil,
When spray biginneth to spring{.e},
The lutel foul hath hir{.e} wyl
On hyr{.e} lud to syng{.e}.
Ich libbe in love longing{.e}
For semlokest of all{.e} thing{.e}.
He may me bliss{.e} bring{.e};
Icham in hire baundoun.
On heu hire her is fayr ynoh,
Hire brow{.e} broune, hire ey{.e} blak{.e};
With lossum chere he on me loh;
With middel smal, and wel ymak{.e}.
Bote he me woll{.e} to hire tak{.e},
Fort{.e} buen hire owen mak{.e},
Longe to lyven ichulle forsak{.e},
And fey{.e} fallen adoun.
Niht{.e}s when y wende and wak{.e},
Forthi myn wong{.e}s waxeth won;
Levedi, al for thin{.e} sak{.e}
Longinge is ylent me on.
In world nis non so wyter mon,
That al hire bounté tell{.e} con.
Hire swyre is whittore then the swon,
And feyrest may in toune.
Icham for wowyng al forwake,
Wery so water in wor{.e}.
Lest eny rev{.e} me my mak{.e},
Ychabbe y-yern{.e}d yor{.e}.
Betere is tholien whyl{.e} sor{.e}
Then mournen evermor{.e}.
Geynest under gor{.e},
Herkn{.e} to my roun.
267
André Breton
Freedom of Love
Freedom of Love
(Translated from the French by Edouard Rodti)
My wife with the hair of a wood fire
With the thoughts of heat lightning
With the waist of an hourglass
With the waist of an otter in the teeth of a tiger
My wife with the lips of a cockade and of a bunch of stars of the last magnitude
With the teeth of tracks of white mice on the white earth
With the tongue of rubbed amber and glass
My wife with the tongue of a stabbed host
With the tongue of a doll that opens and closes its eyes
With the tongue of an unbelievable stone
My wife with the eyelashes of strokes of a child's writing
With brows of the edge of a swallow's nest
My wife with the brow of slates of a hothouse roof
And of steam on the panes
My wife with shoulders of champagne
And of a fountain with dolphin-heads beneath the ice
My wife with wrists of matches
My wife with fingers of luck and ace of hearts
With fingers of mown hay
My wife with armpits of marten and of beechnut
And of Midsummer Night
Of privet and of an angelfish nest
With arms of seafoam and of riverlocks
And of a mingling of the wheat and the mill
My wife with legs of flares
With the movements of clockwork and despair
My wife with calves of eldertree pith
My wife with feet of initials
With feet of rings of keys and Java sparrows drinking
My wife with a neck of unpearled barley
My wife with a throat of the valley of gold
Of a tryst in the very bed of the torrent
With breasts of night
My wife with breasts of a marine molehill
My wife with breasts of the ruby's crucible
With breasts of the rose's spectre beneath the dew
My wife with the belly of an unfolding of the fan of days
With the belly of a gigantic claw
My wife with the back of a bird fleeing vertically
With a back of quicksilver
With a back of light
With a nape of rolled stone and wet chalk
And of the drop of a glass where one has just been drinking
My wife with hips of a skiff
With hips of a chandelier and of arrow-feathers
And of shafts of white peacock plumes
Of an insensible pendulum
My wife with buttocks of sandstone and asbestos
My wife with buttocks of swans' backs
My wife with buttocks of spring
With the sex of an iris
My wife with the sex of a mining-placer and of a platypus
My wife with a sex of seaweed and ancient sweetmeat
My wife with a sex of mirror
My wife with eyes full of tears
With eyes of purple panoply and of a magnetic needle
My wife with savanna eyes
My wife with eyes of water to he drunk in prison
My wife with eyes of wood always under the axe
My wife with eyes of water-level of level of air earth and fire
(Translated from the French by Edouard Rodti)
My wife with the hair of a wood fire
With the thoughts of heat lightning
With the waist of an hourglass
With the waist of an otter in the teeth of a tiger
My wife with the lips of a cockade and of a bunch of stars of the last magnitude
With the teeth of tracks of white mice on the white earth
With the tongue of rubbed amber and glass
My wife with the tongue of a stabbed host
With the tongue of a doll that opens and closes its eyes
With the tongue of an unbelievable stone
My wife with the eyelashes of strokes of a child's writing
With brows of the edge of a swallow's nest
My wife with the brow of slates of a hothouse roof
And of steam on the panes
My wife with shoulders of champagne
And of a fountain with dolphin-heads beneath the ice
My wife with wrists of matches
My wife with fingers of luck and ace of hearts
With fingers of mown hay
My wife with armpits of marten and of beechnut
And of Midsummer Night
Of privet and of an angelfish nest
With arms of seafoam and of riverlocks
And of a mingling of the wheat and the mill
My wife with legs of flares
With the movements of clockwork and despair
My wife with calves of eldertree pith
My wife with feet of initials
With feet of rings of keys and Java sparrows drinking
My wife with a neck of unpearled barley
My wife with a throat of the valley of gold
Of a tryst in the very bed of the torrent
With breasts of night
My wife with breasts of a marine molehill
My wife with breasts of the ruby's crucible
With breasts of the rose's spectre beneath the dew
My wife with the belly of an unfolding of the fan of days
With the belly of a gigantic claw
My wife with the back of a bird fleeing vertically
With a back of quicksilver
With a back of light
With a nape of rolled stone and wet chalk
And of the drop of a glass where one has just been drinking
My wife with hips of a skiff
With hips of a chandelier and of arrow-feathers
And of shafts of white peacock plumes
Of an insensible pendulum
My wife with buttocks of sandstone and asbestos
My wife with buttocks of swans' backs
My wife with buttocks of spring
With the sex of an iris
My wife with the sex of a mining-placer and of a platypus
My wife with a sex of seaweed and ancient sweetmeat
My wife with a sex of mirror
My wife with eyes full of tears
With eyes of purple panoply and of a magnetic needle
My wife with savanna eyes
My wife with eyes of water to he drunk in prison
My wife with eyes of wood always under the axe
My wife with eyes of water-level of level of air earth and fire
874
Allen Ginsberg
Wales Visitation
Wales Visitation
White fog lifting & falling on mountain-brow
Trees moving in rivers of wind
The clouds arise
as on a wave, gigantic eddy lifting mist
above teeming ferns exquisitely swayed
along a green crag
glimpsed thru mullioned glass in valley raine—
Bardic, O Self, Visitacione, tell naught
but what seen by one man in a vale in Albion,
of the folk, whose physical sciences end in Ecology,
the wisdom of earthly relations,
of mouths & eyes interknit ten centuries visible
orchards of mind language manifest human,
of the satanic thistle that raises its horned symmetry
flowering above sister grass-daisies’ pink tiny
bloomlets angelic as lightbulbs—
Remember 160 miles from London’s symmetrical thorned tower
& network of TV pictures flashing bearded your Self
the lambs on the tree-nooked hillside this day bleating
heard in Blake’s old ear, & the silent thought of Wordsworth in eld Stillness
clouds passing through skeleton arches of Tintern Abbey—
Bard Nameless as the Vast, babble to Vastness!
All the Valley quivered, one extended motion, wind
undulating on mossy hills
a giant wash that sank white fog delicately down red runnels
on the mountainside
whose leaf-branch tendrils moved asway
in granitic undertow down—
and lifted the floating Nebulous upward, and lifted the arms of the trees
and lifted the grasses an instant in balance
and lifted the lambs to hold still
and lifted the green of the hill, in one solemn wave
A solid mass of Heaven, mist-infused, ebbs thru the vale,
a wavelet of Immensity, lapping gigantic through Llanthony Valley,
the length of all England, valley upon valley under Heaven’s ocean
tonned with cloud-hang,
—Heaven balanced on a grassblade.
Roar of the mountain wind slow, sigh of the body,
One Being on the mountainside stirring gently
Exquisite scales trembling everywhere in balance,
one motion thru the cloudy sky-floor shifting on the million feet of daisies,
one Majesty the motion that stirred wet grass quivering
to the farthest tendril of white fog poured down
through shivering flowers on the mountain’s head—
No imperfection in the budded mountain,
Valleys breathe, heaven and earth move together,
daisies push inches of yellow air, vegetables tremble,
grass shimmers green
sheep speckle the mountainside, revolving their jaws with empty eyes,
horses dance in the warm rain,
tree-lined canals network live farmland,
blueberries fringe stone walls on hawthorn’d hills,
pheasants croak on meadows haired with fern—
Out, out on the hillside, into the ocean sound, into delicate gusts of wet air,
Fall on the ground, O great Wetness, O Mother, No harm on your body!
Stare close, no imperfection in the grass,
each flower Buddha-eye, repeating the story,
myriad-formed—
Kneel before the foxglove raising green buds, mauve bells dropped
doubled down the stem trembling antennae,
& look in the eyes of the branded lambs that stare
breathing stockstill under dripping hawthorn—
I lay down mixing my beard with the wet hair of the mountainside,
smelling the brown vagina-moist ground, harmless,
tasting the violet thistle-hair, sweetness—
One being so balanced, so vast, that its softest breath
moves every floweret in the stillness on the valley floor,
trembles lamb-hair hung gossamer rain-beaded in the grass,
lifts trees on their roots, birds in the great draught
hiding their strength in the rain, bearing same weight,
Groan thru breast and neck, a great Oh! to earth heart
Calling our Presence together
The great secret is no secret
Senses fit the winds,
Visible is visible,
rain-mist curtains wave through the bearded vale,
gray atoms wet the wind’s kabbala
Crosslegged on a rock in dusk rain,
rubber booted in soft grass, mind moveless,
breath trembles in white daisies by the roadside,
Heaven breath and my own symmetric
Airs wavering thru antlered green fern
drawn in my navel, same breath as breathes thru Capel-Y-Ffn,
Sounds of Aleph and Aum
through forests of gristle,
my skull and Lord Hereford’s Knob equal,
All Albion one.
What did I notice? Particulars! The
vision of the great One is myriad—
smoke curls upward from ashtray,
house fire burned low,
The night, still wet & moody black heaven
starless
upward in motion with wet wind.
White fog lifting & falling on mountain-brow
Trees moving in rivers of wind
The clouds arise
as on a wave, gigantic eddy lifting mist
above teeming ferns exquisitely swayed
along a green crag
glimpsed thru mullioned glass in valley raine—
Bardic, O Self, Visitacione, tell naught
but what seen by one man in a vale in Albion,
of the folk, whose physical sciences end in Ecology,
the wisdom of earthly relations,
of mouths & eyes interknit ten centuries visible
orchards of mind language manifest human,
of the satanic thistle that raises its horned symmetry
flowering above sister grass-daisies’ pink tiny
bloomlets angelic as lightbulbs—
Remember 160 miles from London’s symmetrical thorned tower
& network of TV pictures flashing bearded your Self
the lambs on the tree-nooked hillside this day bleating
heard in Blake’s old ear, & the silent thought of Wordsworth in eld Stillness
clouds passing through skeleton arches of Tintern Abbey—
Bard Nameless as the Vast, babble to Vastness!
All the Valley quivered, one extended motion, wind
undulating on mossy hills
a giant wash that sank white fog delicately down red runnels
on the mountainside
whose leaf-branch tendrils moved asway
in granitic undertow down—
and lifted the floating Nebulous upward, and lifted the arms of the trees
and lifted the grasses an instant in balance
and lifted the lambs to hold still
and lifted the green of the hill, in one solemn wave
A solid mass of Heaven, mist-infused, ebbs thru the vale,
a wavelet of Immensity, lapping gigantic through Llanthony Valley,
the length of all England, valley upon valley under Heaven’s ocean
tonned with cloud-hang,
—Heaven balanced on a grassblade.
Roar of the mountain wind slow, sigh of the body,
One Being on the mountainside stirring gently
Exquisite scales trembling everywhere in balance,
one motion thru the cloudy sky-floor shifting on the million feet of daisies,
one Majesty the motion that stirred wet grass quivering
to the farthest tendril of white fog poured down
through shivering flowers on the mountain’s head—
No imperfection in the budded mountain,
Valleys breathe, heaven and earth move together,
daisies push inches of yellow air, vegetables tremble,
grass shimmers green
sheep speckle the mountainside, revolving their jaws with empty eyes,
horses dance in the warm rain,
tree-lined canals network live farmland,
blueberries fringe stone walls on hawthorn’d hills,
pheasants croak on meadows haired with fern—
Out, out on the hillside, into the ocean sound, into delicate gusts of wet air,
Fall on the ground, O great Wetness, O Mother, No harm on your body!
Stare close, no imperfection in the grass,
each flower Buddha-eye, repeating the story,
myriad-formed—
Kneel before the foxglove raising green buds, mauve bells dropped
doubled down the stem trembling antennae,
& look in the eyes of the branded lambs that stare
breathing stockstill under dripping hawthorn—
I lay down mixing my beard with the wet hair of the mountainside,
smelling the brown vagina-moist ground, harmless,
tasting the violet thistle-hair, sweetness—
One being so balanced, so vast, that its softest breath
moves every floweret in the stillness on the valley floor,
trembles lamb-hair hung gossamer rain-beaded in the grass,
lifts trees on their roots, birds in the great draught
hiding their strength in the rain, bearing same weight,
Groan thru breast and neck, a great Oh! to earth heart
Calling our Presence together
The great secret is no secret
Senses fit the winds,
Visible is visible,
rain-mist curtains wave through the bearded vale,
gray atoms wet the wind’s kabbala
Crosslegged on a rock in dusk rain,
rubber booted in soft grass, mind moveless,
breath trembles in white daisies by the roadside,
Heaven breath and my own symmetric
Airs wavering thru antlered green fern
drawn in my navel, same breath as breathes thru Capel-Y-Ffn,
Sounds of Aleph and Aum
through forests of gristle,
my skull and Lord Hereford’s Knob equal,
All Albion one.
What did I notice? Particulars! The
vision of the great One is myriad—
smoke curls upward from ashtray,
house fire burned low,
The night, still wet & moody black heaven
starless
upward in motion with wet wind.
711
Allen Ginsberg
In Back of the Real
In Back of the Real
railroad yard in San Jose
I wandered desolate
in front of a tank factory
and sat on a bench
near the switchman's shack.
A flower lay on the hay on
the asphalt highway
--the dread hay flower
I thought--It had a
brittle black stem and
corolla of yellowish dirty
spikes like Jesus' inchlong
crown, and a soiled
dry center cotton tuft
like a used shaving brush
that's been lying under
the garage for a year.
Yellow, yellow flower, and
flower of industry,
tough spiky ugly flower,
flower nonetheless,
with the form of the great yellow
Rose in your brain!
This is the flower of the World.
railroad yard in San Jose
I wandered desolate
in front of a tank factory
and sat on a bench
near the switchman's shack.
A flower lay on the hay on
the asphalt highway
--the dread hay flower
I thought--It had a
brittle black stem and
corolla of yellowish dirty
spikes like Jesus' inchlong
crown, and a soiled
dry center cotton tuft
like a used shaving brush
that's been lying under
the garage for a year.
Yellow, yellow flower, and
flower of industry,
tough spiky ugly flower,
flower nonetheless,
with the form of the great yellow
Rose in your brain!
This is the flower of the World.
562
Allen Ginsberg
An Asphodel
An Asphodel
O dear sweet rosy
unattainable desire
...how sad, no way
to change the mad
cultivated asphodel, the
visible reality...
and skin's appalling
petals--how inspired
to be so Iying in the living
room drunk naked
and dreaming, in the absence
of electricity...
over and over eating the low root
of the asphodel,
gray fate...
rolling in generation
on the flowery couch
as on a bank in Arden-my
only rose tonite's the treat
of my own nudity.
O dear sweet rosy
unattainable desire
...how sad, no way
to change the mad
cultivated asphodel, the
visible reality...
and skin's appalling
petals--how inspired
to be so Iying in the living
room drunk naked
and dreaming, in the absence
of electricity...
over and over eating the low root
of the asphodel,
gray fate...
rolling in generation
on the flowery couch
as on a bank in Arden-my
only rose tonite's the treat
of my own nudity.
529
Muhammad Iqbal
The Morning Sun
The Morning Sun
Far from the ignoble strife of Man's tavern you are
The wine-cup adorning the sky's assemblage you are
The jewel which should be the pearl of the morning's bride's ear you are
The ornament which would be the pride of horizon's forehead you are
The blot of night's ink from time's page has been removed!
The star from sky like a spurious picture has been removed!
When from the roof of the sky your beauty appears
Effect of sleep's wine suddenly from eyes disappears
Perception's expanse gets filled with light
Though opens only the material eye your light
The spectacle which the eyes seek is desired
The effulgence which would open the insight is desired
The desires for freedom were not fulfilled in this life
We remained imprisoned in chains of dependence all life
The high and the low are alike for your eye
I too have longing for such a discerning eye
May my eye shedding tears in sympathy for others' woes be!
May my heart free from the prejudice of nation and customs be!
May my tongue be not bound with discrimination of color
May mankind be my nation, the whole world my country be
May secret of Nature's organization clear to my insight be
May smoke of my imagination's candle rising to the sky be
May search for secrets of opposites not make me restless!
May the Love-creating Beauty in everything appear to me!
If the rose petals get damaged by the breeze
May its pain dropping from my eye as a tear be
May the heart contain that little spark of Love's fire
The light of which may contain the secret of the Truth
May my heart not mine but the Beloved's mirror be!
May no thought in my mind except human sympathy be!
If you cannot endure the hardships of the tumultuous world
O the Great Luminary that is not the mark of greatness!
As you are not aware of your world-decorating beauty
You cannot be equal to a speck of dust at the Man's door!
The light of Man eager for the Spectacle ever remained
And you obligated to the tomorrow's morning ever remained
Longing for the Light of the Truth is only in our hearts
Abode of Lailah of desire for search is only in this litter
Opening of the difficult knot, Oh what a pleasure it is!
The pleasure of universal gain in our endless effort is!
Your bosom is unacquainted with the pain of investigation
You are not familiar with searching of the secrets of Nature
Far from the ignoble strife of Man's tavern you are
The wine-cup adorning the sky's assemblage you are
The jewel which should be the pearl of the morning's bride's ear you are
The ornament which would be the pride of horizon's forehead you are
The blot of night's ink from time's page has been removed!
The star from sky like a spurious picture has been removed!
When from the roof of the sky your beauty appears
Effect of sleep's wine suddenly from eyes disappears
Perception's expanse gets filled with light
Though opens only the material eye your light
The spectacle which the eyes seek is desired
The effulgence which would open the insight is desired
The desires for freedom were not fulfilled in this life
We remained imprisoned in chains of dependence all life
The high and the low are alike for your eye
I too have longing for such a discerning eye
May my eye shedding tears in sympathy for others' woes be!
May my heart free from the prejudice of nation and customs be!
May my tongue be not bound with discrimination of color
May mankind be my nation, the whole world my country be
May secret of Nature's organization clear to my insight be
May smoke of my imagination's candle rising to the sky be
May search for secrets of opposites not make me restless!
May the Love-creating Beauty in everything appear to me!
If the rose petals get damaged by the breeze
May its pain dropping from my eye as a tear be
May the heart contain that little spark of Love's fire
The light of which may contain the secret of the Truth
May my heart not mine but the Beloved's mirror be!
May no thought in my mind except human sympathy be!
If you cannot endure the hardships of the tumultuous world
O the Great Luminary that is not the mark of greatness!
As you are not aware of your world-decorating beauty
You cannot be equal to a speck of dust at the Man's door!
The light of Man eager for the Spectacle ever remained
And you obligated to the tomorrow's morning ever remained
Longing for the Light of the Truth is only in our hearts
Abode of Lailah of desire for search is only in this litter
Opening of the difficult knot, Oh what a pleasure it is!
The pleasure of universal gain in our endless effort is!
Your bosom is unacquainted with the pain of investigation
You are not familiar with searching of the secrets of Nature
496
Muhammad Iqbal
The Cloud On The Mountain
The Cloud On The Mountain
Elevation bestows the sky's nearness to my abode
I am the mountain's cloud, my skirt sprinkles roses
Now the wilderness, now the rose garden is my abode
City and wilderness are mine, ocean is mine, forest is mine
If I want to return to some valley for the night
The mountain's verdure is my carpet of velvet
Nature has taught me to be a pearl spreader
To chant the camel song for the camel of the Beloved of Mercy
To be the comforter of the dispirited farmer's heart
To be the elegance of the assembly of the garden's trees
I spread out over the face of the earth like the locks
I get arranged and adorned by the breeze's
I tantalize the expecting eye from a distance
As I pass silently over some habitation
As I approach strolling towards a brook's bank
I endow the brook with ear rings of whirlpools
I am the hope of the freshly grown field's verdure
I am the ocean's offspring, I am nourished by the sun
I gave ocean's tumult to the mountain spring
I charmed the birds into thrilling chants
I pronounced 'Rise' standing by the verdure's head
I conferred the taste for smile to the rose-bud
By my benevolence farmers' huts on the mountain side
Are converted into bed chambers of the opulent.
Elevation bestows the sky's nearness to my abode
I am the mountain's cloud, my skirt sprinkles roses
Now the wilderness, now the rose garden is my abode
City and wilderness are mine, ocean is mine, forest is mine
If I want to return to some valley for the night
The mountain's verdure is my carpet of velvet
Nature has taught me to be a pearl spreader
To chant the camel song for the camel of the Beloved of Mercy
To be the comforter of the dispirited farmer's heart
To be the elegance of the assembly of the garden's trees
I spread out over the face of the earth like the locks
I get arranged and adorned by the breeze's
I tantalize the expecting eye from a distance
As I pass silently over some habitation
As I approach strolling towards a brook's bank
I endow the brook with ear rings of whirlpools
I am the hope of the freshly grown field's verdure
I am the ocean's offspring, I am nourished by the sun
I gave ocean's tumult to the mountain spring
I charmed the birds into thrilling chants
I pronounced 'Rise' standing by the verdure's head
I conferred the taste for smile to the rose-bud
By my benevolence farmers' huts on the mountain side
Are converted into bed chambers of the opulent.
282
Muhammad Iqbal
The Candle
The Candle
O Candle! I am also an afflicted person in the world assembly
Constant complaint is my lot in the manner of the rue
Love gave the warmth of internal pathos to you
It made me the florist selling blood-mixed tears
Whether you be the candle of a celebrating assembly or one at the grave
In every condition associated with the tears of sorrow you remain
Your eye views all with equity like the Secret's Lovers
My eye is the pride of the tumult of discrimination
Your illumination is alike in the Ka'bah and the temple
I am entangled in the temple and the Haram's discrimination
Your black smoke contains the sigh's elegance
Is some heart hidden in the place of your manifestation?
You burn with pathos due to distance from Tajalli's Light
Your pathos the callous ones consider your light
Though you are burning you are unaware of it all
You see but do not encompass the internal pathos
I quiver like mercury with the excitement of vexation
As well I am aware of vexations of the restless heart
This was also the elegance of some Beloved
Which gave me perception of my own pathos
This cognition of mine keeps me restless
Innumerable fire temples are asleep in this spark
Discrimination between high and low is created by this alone!
Fragrance in flower, ecstasy in wine is created by this alone!
Garden, nightingale, flower, fragrance this Cognition is
Root of the struggle of ‘I and you' this Cognition is
At creation's dawn as Beauty became the abode of Love
The sound of "Kun" taught warmth to the spirit of Love
The command came Beauty of Kun's garden to witness
With one eye a thousand dreadful dreams to witness
Do not ask me of the nature of the veil of being
The eve of separation was the dawn of my being
Gone are the days when unaware of imprisonment I was
That my abode the adornment of the tree of Tur was
I am a prisoner but consider the cage to be a garden
This exile's hovel of sorrow I consider the homeland
Memories of the homeland a needless melancholy became
Now the desire for sight, now Longing for search became
O Candle! Look at the excessive illusion of thought
Look at the end of the one worshipped by celestial denizens
Theme of separation I am, the exalted one I am
Design of the Will of the Universe's Lord I am
He desired my display as He designed me
When at the head of Existence' Divan He wrote me
The pearl likes living in a handful of dust
Style may be dull the subject is excellent
Not seeing it rightly is the fault of shortsighted perception
The universe is the show of effulgence of taste for Cognizance
This network of time and space is the scaling ladder of the Universe
It is the necklace of the neck of Eternal BeautyI
have lost the way, Longing for the goal I am
O Candle! Captive of perception's illusion I am
I am the hunter as well as the circle of tyranny's net!
I am the Haram's roof as well as the bird on Haram's roofAm I the Beauty or head to
foot the melting love am I?
It is not clear whether the beloved or the Lover am I?
am afraid the old secret may come up to my lips again
Lest story of suffering on the Cross may come up again.
O Candle! I am also an afflicted person in the world assembly
Constant complaint is my lot in the manner of the rue
Love gave the warmth of internal pathos to you
It made me the florist selling blood-mixed tears
Whether you be the candle of a celebrating assembly or one at the grave
In every condition associated with the tears of sorrow you remain
Your eye views all with equity like the Secret's Lovers
My eye is the pride of the tumult of discrimination
Your illumination is alike in the Ka'bah and the temple
I am entangled in the temple and the Haram's discrimination
Your black smoke contains the sigh's elegance
Is some heart hidden in the place of your manifestation?
You burn with pathos due to distance from Tajalli's Light
Your pathos the callous ones consider your light
Though you are burning you are unaware of it all
You see but do not encompass the internal pathos
I quiver like mercury with the excitement of vexation
As well I am aware of vexations of the restless heart
This was also the elegance of some Beloved
Which gave me perception of my own pathos
This cognition of mine keeps me restless
Innumerable fire temples are asleep in this spark
Discrimination between high and low is created by this alone!
Fragrance in flower, ecstasy in wine is created by this alone!
Garden, nightingale, flower, fragrance this Cognition is
Root of the struggle of ‘I and you' this Cognition is
At creation's dawn as Beauty became the abode of Love
The sound of "Kun" taught warmth to the spirit of Love
The command came Beauty of Kun's garden to witness
With one eye a thousand dreadful dreams to witness
Do not ask me of the nature of the veil of being
The eve of separation was the dawn of my being
Gone are the days when unaware of imprisonment I was
That my abode the adornment of the tree of Tur was
I am a prisoner but consider the cage to be a garden
This exile's hovel of sorrow I consider the homeland
Memories of the homeland a needless melancholy became
Now the desire for sight, now Longing for search became
O Candle! Look at the excessive illusion of thought
Look at the end of the one worshipped by celestial denizens
Theme of separation I am, the exalted one I am
Design of the Will of the Universe's Lord I am
He desired my display as He designed me
When at the head of Existence' Divan He wrote me
The pearl likes living in a handful of dust
Style may be dull the subject is excellent
Not seeing it rightly is the fault of shortsighted perception
The universe is the show of effulgence of taste for Cognizance
This network of time and space is the scaling ladder of the Universe
It is the necklace of the neck of Eternal BeautyI
have lost the way, Longing for the goal I am
O Candle! Captive of perception's illusion I am
I am the hunter as well as the circle of tyranny's net!
I am the Haram's roof as well as the bird on Haram's roofAm I the Beauty or head to
foot the melting love am I?
It is not clear whether the beloved or the Lover am I?
am afraid the old secret may come up to my lips again
Lest story of suffering on the Cross may come up again.
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