- All this transformation
once barbarous and
material
external -
now
moral
and within
21.
once barbarous and
material
external -
now
moral
and within
21.
Mallarme - Poems
12.
Child our
immortality
made in fact
of lost human
hopes - son -
entrusted to woman
by a man
no longer young
despairing of finding
the mystery
taking a wife
13.
Ill
since the day when death
installed itself - marked by
malady -
no longer himself already, but
the one we would wish
to see again later
beyond death -
summing up death and
corruption - appearing
so, with his sickness
and pallor
14.
Ill - to be naked
as the child -
appearing to us
- we profit from those
hours, when death
stricken
he lives
still, and
is still ours
title: poetry of
the malady
15.
With the gift of words
I could have made you
yourselfchild of the work
kingmade of you
instead
-no, sadof the son
in us
- made you- of
task
no-
yet he
remember theproves
that he
bad days -was such -
played
mouth closedthat role!
native
speech-
forgotten
it is I who have
aided you since
16.
- Have brought back in
you the child -
youth or sickness
of history learned
forgottenfrom which
nothing
I would not have
suffered - to be
in my turn
studying only that
-death
17.
Then - you would only
have been me
- since I am
here - lonely, sad -
- no, I remember
a childhood -
- yours
twin voices
but without you
I'd not have - known
18.
So it is I,
hands accursed -
who bequeathed you!
- silence
(he forgives)
19.
Oh! Leave. . . us
at this word
- that merges
us both
- unites us
finally -
since who has
spoken it
yours
20.
- All this transformation
once barbarous and
material
external -
now
moral
and within
21.
No brother sister
ever the absent one
shall not be less than
those present -
22.
to feel it burst
in the night
the immense void
produced by what
would be his life
- because he cannot
know -
he is dead
lightning?
23.
Moment when one must
break with the
living memory,
to inter it
- place it in the coffin,
hide it - with
the brutality of
placing it there,
raw contact
to see it no longer
except as idealised -
later, no longer him
living, there - but
the germ of his being
taken back into itself -
the germ allowing
thought for him
- sight of him
vision (ideality
of state) and
speech for him
for in us, pure
him, a refining
- become our
honour, the source
of our finer
feelings -
true re-entry
into the ideal
24.
Death's treacherous
blow - of
which he
evil
knew nothing
- in my turn
to toy with it, the
one thing childhood
knows nothing of
25.
hour of the
empty room
-
until it is
opened
perhaps everything
follows thus
(morally)
26.
You can, with your
weak hands, drag me
into your grave - you
have the right -
- I myself
who follow you, I, I
let myself fall -
- yet if you
wish, together,
let us both make. . .
an alliance
a magnificent bond,
- and the life
remaining in me
I will employ
for. . . . . .