No More Learning

There the wearied, ominous horse-killer,

The ox-slayer, returns with a steady tread,

Over the dead mossy trunks of old timber.

Stretching, arching his muscular loins, a breath

From his gaping muzzle heavy with thirst

Issues with a sudden shock, quick and harsh,

And great lizards warm from the noon heat stir,

Then vanish gleaming through the tawny grass.

Veiled from the sun in a hollow of the forest,

He sinks down; stretched out on a level stone,

Cleans his paw with a broad lick of his tongue

Blinks golden eyes dull with sleepiness;

And, as his inert forces, in imagination

Make his tail flicker and his flanks quiver,

Dreams himself deep in some green plantation,

Leaping, and plunging dripping claws forever

Into bullocks' flesh as they bellow and shiver.

Stephane Mallarme (1844-1896)

Stephane Mallarme

'Stephane Mallarme'
Paul Gauguin, 1891, The Rijksmuseum

Sigh

My soul towards your brow, where, O calm sister,

An autumn dreams blotched by reddish smudges,

And towards the errant sky of your angelic eye

Climbs: as in a melancholy garden the true sigh

Of a white jet of water towards the Azure!

- To the Azure that October stirred, pale, pure,

That in the vast pools mirrors infinite languor,

And over dead water where the leaves wander

The wind, in russet throes dig their cold furrow,

Allows a long ray of yellow light to flow.

O so dear

O so dear from far and near and white all

So deliciously you, Mery, that I dream

Of what impossibly flows, of some rare balm

Over some flower-vase of darkened crystal.

Do you know it, yes! For me, for years, here,

Forever, your dazzling smile prolongs

The one rose with its perfect summer gone

Into times past, yet then on into the future.

My heart that sometimes at night tries to know itself,

Or with which last word to name you the most tender

Exults in that which merely whispered sister

Were it not, such short tresses so great a treasure,

That you teach me quite another sweetness,

Soft through the kiss murmured only in your hair.

Note: Dated 1895. The French text reads 'Mary', this being one of a series of poems written for Mery Laurent, a friend also of Manet and others.

Sonnet

(Mery, sans trop d'aurore. . . )

Mery,

Without dawn too grossly now inflaming

The rose, that splendid, natural and weary

Sheds even her heavy veil of perfumes to hear

Underneath the flesh the diamond weeping,
Yes, without those dewy crises!
And gently,

Unbroken when the sky fills with storm,

Jealous to add who knows what spaces

To simple day the day so true in feeling,

Does it not seem, Mery, that each year,

Where spontaneous grace relights your brow,

Suffices, given so much wonder and for me,

Like a lone fan with which a room's surprised,

To refresh with as little pain as is needed here

All our inborn and unvarying friendship.


Paul Verlaine (1844-1896)

Paul Verlaine

'Paul Verlaine'
Library of the World's best Literature, Ancient and Modern (p248, 1896) Internet Book Archive Images

The piano kissed. . .

Joyous notes, a sounding harpsichord's intrusion.

Petrus Borel

The piano kissed by a delicate hand

Gleams distantly in rose-grey evening

While with a wingtips' weightless sound

A fine old tune, so fragile, charming

Roams discreetly, almost trembling,

Through the chamber She's long perfumed.

What is this sudden cradle song

That gradually lulls my poor being?

What do you want of me, playful one?

What do you wish, slight vague refrain

Drifting now, dying, towards the window

Opening a little on a patch of garden?

In the Endless

In the endless ennui

Of this empty land,

The blurred snow

Gleams like sand.

The sky is of copper

Without true light

As if the moon there

Had lived and died.

The grey crowns

Of nearby trees

Float like clouds

On the misty breeze.

The sky is of copper

Without true light

As if the moon there

Had lived and died.

Wheezing crow

And you, lean wolves,

In these sharp gusts

What will you do?

In the endless ennui

Of this empty land,

The blurred snow

Gleams like sand.

Parsifal

Parsifal has conquered the girls, their sweet

Chatter, amusing lust - and his inclination,

A virgin boy's, towards the Flesh, tempted

To love the little tits and gentle babble;

He's conquered lovely Woman, of subtle

Heart, showing her cool arms, provoking breast;

He's conquered Hell, returned to his tent,

With a weighty trophy on his boyish arm.