Another Fan
(Of Mademoiselle Mallarme's)
O dreamer, that I may dive
In pure pathless joy, understand,
How by subtle deceits connive
To keep my wing in your hand.
(Of Mademoiselle Mallarme's)
O dreamer, that I may dive
In pure pathless joy, understand,
How by subtle deceits connive
To keep my wing in your hand.
Mallarme - Poems
He's hidden in the grass, Verlaine
Only to catch, naively, not drying with his breath
And without his lip drinking there, at peace again,
A shallow stream that's slandered, and named Death.
Prose
Hyperbole! From my memory
Triumphantly can't you
Rise today, like sorcery
From an iron-bound book or two:
Since, through science, I inscribe
The hymn of hearts so spiritual
In my patient work, inside
Atlas, herbal, ritual.
We walked set our face
(We were two, I maintain)
Toward the many charms of place,
Compared them, Sister, to yours again.
The reign of authority's troubled
If, without reason, we say
Of this south that our double
Thoughtlessness has in play
That its site, bed of a hundred irises,
(They know if it truly existed),
Bears no name the golden breath
Of the trumpet of summer cited.
Yes, on an isle the air charges
With sight and not with visions
Every flower showed itself larger
Without entering our discussions.
Such flowers, immense, that every one
Usually had as adornment
A clear contour, a lacuna done
To separate it from the garden.
Glories of long-held desire, Ideas
Were all exalted in me, to see
The Iris family appear
Rising to this new duty,
But the sister sensible and fond
Carried her look no further
Than a smile, and as if to understand
I continue my ancient labour.
Oh! Let the contentious spirit know
At this hour when we are silent
The stalks of multiple lilies grow
Far too tall for our reason
And not as the riverbank weeps
When its tedious game tells lies
Claiming abundance should reach
Into my first surprise
On hearing the whole sky and the map
Behind my steps, without end, bear witness
By the ebbing wave itself that
This country never existed.
The child so taught by the paths,
Resigns her ecstasy
Says the word: Anastasius!
Born for scrolls of eternity,
Before a tomb can laugh
Beneath any sky, her ancestor,
At bearing that name: Pulcheria!
Hidden by the too-high lily-flower.
A Fan
(Of Mademoiselle Mallarme's)
With nothing of language but
A beating in the sky
From so precious a place yet
Future verse will rise.
A low wing the messenger
This fan if it is the one
The same by which behind you there
Some mirror has shone
Limpidly (where will fall
pursued grain by grain
a little invisible dust, all
that can give me pain)
So may it always bless
Your hands free of idleness.
Another Fan
(Of Mademoiselle Mallarme's)
O dreamer, that I may dive
In pure pathless joy, understand,
How by subtle deceits connive
To keep my wing in your hand.
A coolness of twilight takes
Its way to you at each beat
Whose imprisoned flutter makes
The horizon gently retreat.
Vertigo! How space quivers
Like an enormous kiss
That, wild to be born for no one, can neither
Burst out or be soothed like this.
Do you feel the fierce paradise
Like stifled laughter that slips
To the unanimous crease's depths
From the corner of your lips?
The sceptre of shores of rose
Stagnant on golden nights,
Is this white closed flight that shows
Against your bracelet's fiery light.
Album Leaf
All at once, as if in play,
Mademoiselle, she who moots
A wish to hear how it sounds today
The wood of my several flutes
It seems to me that this foray
Tried out here in a country place
Was better when I put them away
To look more closely at your face
Yes this vain whistling I suppress
In so far as I can create
Given my fingers pure distress
It lacks the means to imitate
Your very natural and clear
Childlike laughter that charms the air.
(Note: Written to Mademoiselle Roumanille whom Mallarme knew as a child. )
Note
Not meaningless flurries like
Those that frequent the street
Subject to black hats in flight;
But a dancer shown complete
A whirlwind of muslin or
A furious scattering of spray
Raised by her knee, she for
Whom we live, to blow away
All, beyond her, mundane
Witty, drunken, motionless,
With her tutu, and refrain
From other mark of distress,
Unless a light-hearted draught of air
From her dress fans Whistler there.
Little Air
I
Any solitude
Without a swan or quai
Mirrors its disuse
In the gaze I abdicate
Far from that pride's excess
Too high to enfold
In which many a sky paints itself
With the twilight's gold
But languorously flows beside
Like white linen laid aside
Such fleeting birds as dive
Exultantly at my side
Into the wave made you
Your exultation nude.
II
Unconquerably there must
As my hope hurls itself free
Burst on high and be lost
In silence and in fury
A voice alien to the wood
Or followed by no echo,
The bird one never could
Hear again in this life below.
The wild musician,
The one that in doubt expires
As to whether from his breast or mine
Has spurted the sob more dire
Torn apart may it complete
Find rest on some path beneath!
Sonnet: 'Quand l'ombre menaca. . . '
When the shadow with fatal law menaced me
A certain old dream, sick desire of my spine,
Beneath funereal ceilings afflicted by dying
Folded its indubitable wing there within me.
Only to catch, naively, not drying with his breath
And without his lip drinking there, at peace again,
A shallow stream that's slandered, and named Death.
Prose
Hyperbole! From my memory
Triumphantly can't you
Rise today, like sorcery
From an iron-bound book or two:
Since, through science, I inscribe
The hymn of hearts so spiritual
In my patient work, inside
Atlas, herbal, ritual.
We walked set our face
(We were two, I maintain)
Toward the many charms of place,
Compared them, Sister, to yours again.
The reign of authority's troubled
If, without reason, we say
Of this south that our double
Thoughtlessness has in play
That its site, bed of a hundred irises,
(They know if it truly existed),
Bears no name the golden breath
Of the trumpet of summer cited.
Yes, on an isle the air charges
With sight and not with visions
Every flower showed itself larger
Without entering our discussions.
Such flowers, immense, that every one
Usually had as adornment
A clear contour, a lacuna done
To separate it from the garden.
Glories of long-held desire, Ideas
Were all exalted in me, to see
The Iris family appear
Rising to this new duty,
But the sister sensible and fond
Carried her look no further
Than a smile, and as if to understand
I continue my ancient labour.
Oh! Let the contentious spirit know
At this hour when we are silent
The stalks of multiple lilies grow
Far too tall for our reason
And not as the riverbank weeps
When its tedious game tells lies
Claiming abundance should reach
Into my first surprise
On hearing the whole sky and the map
Behind my steps, without end, bear witness
By the ebbing wave itself that
This country never existed.
The child so taught by the paths,
Resigns her ecstasy
Says the word: Anastasius!
Born for scrolls of eternity,
Before a tomb can laugh
Beneath any sky, her ancestor,
At bearing that name: Pulcheria!
Hidden by the too-high lily-flower.
A Fan
(Of Mademoiselle Mallarme's)
With nothing of language but
A beating in the sky
From so precious a place yet
Future verse will rise.
A low wing the messenger
This fan if it is the one
The same by which behind you there
Some mirror has shone
Limpidly (where will fall
pursued grain by grain
a little invisible dust, all
that can give me pain)
So may it always bless
Your hands free of idleness.
Another Fan
(Of Mademoiselle Mallarme's)
O dreamer, that I may dive
In pure pathless joy, understand,
How by subtle deceits connive
To keep my wing in your hand.
A coolness of twilight takes
Its way to you at each beat
Whose imprisoned flutter makes
The horizon gently retreat.
Vertigo! How space quivers
Like an enormous kiss
That, wild to be born for no one, can neither
Burst out or be soothed like this.
Do you feel the fierce paradise
Like stifled laughter that slips
To the unanimous crease's depths
From the corner of your lips?
The sceptre of shores of rose
Stagnant on golden nights,
Is this white closed flight that shows
Against your bracelet's fiery light.
Album Leaf
All at once, as if in play,
Mademoiselle, she who moots
A wish to hear how it sounds today
The wood of my several flutes
It seems to me that this foray
Tried out here in a country place
Was better when I put them away
To look more closely at your face
Yes this vain whistling I suppress
In so far as I can create
Given my fingers pure distress
It lacks the means to imitate
Your very natural and clear
Childlike laughter that charms the air.
(Note: Written to Mademoiselle Roumanille whom Mallarme knew as a child. )
Note
Not meaningless flurries like
Those that frequent the street
Subject to black hats in flight;
But a dancer shown complete
A whirlwind of muslin or
A furious scattering of spray
Raised by her knee, she for
Whom we live, to blow away
All, beyond her, mundane
Witty, drunken, motionless,
With her tutu, and refrain
From other mark of distress,
Unless a light-hearted draught of air
From her dress fans Whistler there.
Little Air
I
Any solitude
Without a swan or quai
Mirrors its disuse
In the gaze I abdicate
Far from that pride's excess
Too high to enfold
In which many a sky paints itself
With the twilight's gold
But languorously flows beside
Like white linen laid aside
Such fleeting birds as dive
Exultantly at my side
Into the wave made you
Your exultation nude.
II
Unconquerably there must
As my hope hurls itself free
Burst on high and be lost
In silence and in fury
A voice alien to the wood
Or followed by no echo,
The bird one never could
Hear again in this life below.
The wild musician,
The one that in doubt expires
As to whether from his breast or mine
Has spurted the sob more dire
Torn apart may it complete
Find rest on some path beneath!
Sonnet: 'Quand l'ombre menaca. . . '
When the shadow with fatal law menaced me
A certain old dream, sick desire of my spine,
Beneath funereal ceilings afflicted by dying
Folded its indubitable wing there within me.
