The blanks of
meditating
flags
Stand high along our avenue:
But I've your naked tresses too
To bury there my contented eyes.
Stand high along our avenue:
But I've your naked tresses too
To bury there my contented eyes.
Mallarme - Poems
.
.
'
(For your dear departed wife, his friend) 2 November 1877
- 'Over the lost woods when dark winter lowers
You moan, O solitary captive of the threshold,
That this double tomb which our pride should hold's
Cluttered, alas, only with absent weight of flowers.
Unheard Midnight counts out his empty number,
Wakefulness urges you never to close an eye,
Before in the ancient armchair's embrace my
Shade is illuminated by the dying embers.
Who wishes to receive visitations often,
Mustn't load with too many flowers the stone
My finger raises with a dead power's boredom.
A soul trembling to sit by a hearth so bright,
To exist again, it's enough if I borrow from
Your lips the breath of my name you murmur all night. '
To The Sole Concern
To the sole task of voyaging
Beyond an India dark and splendid
- Goes time's messenger, this greeting,
Cape that your stern has doubled
As on some low yard plunging
Along with the vessel riding
Skimmed in constant frolicking
A bird bringing fresh tidings
That without the helm flickering
Shrieked in pure monotones
An utterly useless bearing
Night, despair, and precious stones
Reflected by its singing so
To the smile of pale Vasco.
All Summarised The Soul. . .
All summarised, the soul,
When slowly we breathe it out
In several rings of smoke
By other rings wiped out
Bears witness to some cigar
Burning skilfully while
The ash is separated far
From its bright kiss of fire
Should the choir of romantic art
Fly so towards your lips
Exclude from it if you start
The real because it's cheap
Meaning too precise is sure
To void your dreamy literature.
What Silk. . .
What silk of time's sweet balm
Where the Chimera tires himself
Is worth the coils and natural cloud
You tend before the mirror's calm?
The blanks of meditating flags
Stand high along our avenue:
But I've your naked tresses too
To bury there my contented eyes.
No! The mouth cannot be sure
Of tasting anything in its bite
Unless your princely lover cares
In that mighty brush of hair
To breathe out, like a diamond,
The cry of Glory stifled there.
To Introduce Myself. . .
To introduce myself to your story
It's as the frightened hero
If he touched with naked toe
A blade of territory
Prejudicial to glaciers I
Know of no sin's naivety
Whose loud laugh of victory
You won't have then denied
Say if I'm not filled with joyousness
Thunder and rubies to the hubs no less
To see in the air this fire is piercing
With royal kingdoms far scattering,
The wheel, crimson, as if in dying,
Of my chariot's single evening.
Crushed by. . . .
Crushed by the overwhelming cloud
Depth of basalt and lavas
By even the enslaved echoes
Of a trumpet without power
What sepulchral shipwreck (you
Know it, slobbering there, foam)
Among hulks the supreme one
Flattened the naked mast too
Or that which, furious mistake
Of some noble ill-fate
All the vain abyss spread wide
In the so-white hair's trailing
Would have drowned miser-like
The childish flank of some Siren.
My Books. . .
My books closed again on Paphos' name,
It delights me to choose with solitary genius
A ruin, by foam-flecks in thousands blessed
Beneath hyacinth, far off, in days of fame.
(For your dear departed wife, his friend) 2 November 1877
- 'Over the lost woods when dark winter lowers
You moan, O solitary captive of the threshold,
That this double tomb which our pride should hold's
Cluttered, alas, only with absent weight of flowers.
Unheard Midnight counts out his empty number,
Wakefulness urges you never to close an eye,
Before in the ancient armchair's embrace my
Shade is illuminated by the dying embers.
Who wishes to receive visitations often,
Mustn't load with too many flowers the stone
My finger raises with a dead power's boredom.
A soul trembling to sit by a hearth so bright,
To exist again, it's enough if I borrow from
Your lips the breath of my name you murmur all night. '
To The Sole Concern
To the sole task of voyaging
Beyond an India dark and splendid
- Goes time's messenger, this greeting,
Cape that your stern has doubled
As on some low yard plunging
Along with the vessel riding
Skimmed in constant frolicking
A bird bringing fresh tidings
That without the helm flickering
Shrieked in pure monotones
An utterly useless bearing
Night, despair, and precious stones
Reflected by its singing so
To the smile of pale Vasco.
All Summarised The Soul. . .
All summarised, the soul,
When slowly we breathe it out
In several rings of smoke
By other rings wiped out
Bears witness to some cigar
Burning skilfully while
The ash is separated far
From its bright kiss of fire
Should the choir of romantic art
Fly so towards your lips
Exclude from it if you start
The real because it's cheap
Meaning too precise is sure
To void your dreamy literature.
What Silk. . .
What silk of time's sweet balm
Where the Chimera tires himself
Is worth the coils and natural cloud
You tend before the mirror's calm?
The blanks of meditating flags
Stand high along our avenue:
But I've your naked tresses too
To bury there my contented eyes.
No! The mouth cannot be sure
Of tasting anything in its bite
Unless your princely lover cares
In that mighty brush of hair
To breathe out, like a diamond,
The cry of Glory stifled there.
To Introduce Myself. . .
To introduce myself to your story
It's as the frightened hero
If he touched with naked toe
A blade of territory
Prejudicial to glaciers I
Know of no sin's naivety
Whose loud laugh of victory
You won't have then denied
Say if I'm not filled with joyousness
Thunder and rubies to the hubs no less
To see in the air this fire is piercing
With royal kingdoms far scattering,
The wheel, crimson, as if in dying,
Of my chariot's single evening.
Crushed by. . . .
Crushed by the overwhelming cloud
Depth of basalt and lavas
By even the enslaved echoes
Of a trumpet without power
What sepulchral shipwreck (you
Know it, slobbering there, foam)
Among hulks the supreme one
Flattened the naked mast too
Or that which, furious mistake
Of some noble ill-fate
All the vain abyss spread wide
In the so-white hair's trailing
Would have drowned miser-like
The childish flank of some Siren.
My Books. . .
My books closed again on Paphos' name,
It delights me to choose with solitary genius
A ruin, by foam-flecks in thousands blessed
Beneath hyacinth, far off, in days of fame.
