No More Learning

Space, like itself, whether denied or expanded

Revolves in this boredom, vile flames as witness

That a festive star's genius has been enkindled.

Sonnet: 'Le vierge, le vivace. . . '

The virginal, living and lovely day

Will it fracture for us with a wild wing-blow

This solid lost lake whose frost's haunted below

By the glacier, transparent with flights not made?

A swan from time past remembers it's he

Magnificent yet struggling hopelessly

Through not having sung a liveable country

From the radiant boredom of winter's sterility.

His neck will shake off this whitest agony

Space inflicts on a bird that denies it wholly,

But not earth's horror that entraps his feathers.

Phantom assigned to this place by his brilliance,

The Swan in his exile is rendered motionless,

Swathed uselessly by his cold dream of defiance.

Sonnet: 'Victorieusement fui le suicide. . . '

Victoriously the grand suicide fled

Foaming blood, brand of glory, gold, tempest!

O laughter if only to royally invest

My absent tomb purple, down there, is spread.

What! Not even a fragment of all that brightness

Remains, it is midnight, in the shade that fetes us,

Except, from the head, there's a treasure, presumptuous,

That pours without light its spoiled languidness,

Yours, always such a delight!
Yours, yes,

Retaining alone of the vanished sky, this

Trace of childish triumph as you spread each tress,

Gleaming as you show it against the pillows,

Like the helmet of war of a child-empress

From which, to denote you, would pour down roses.

Sonnet: 'Ses purs ongles tres haut. . . '

Her pure nails on high dedicating their onyx,

Anguish, at midnight, supports, a lamp-holder,

Many a twilight dream burnt by the Phoenix

That won't be gathered in some ashes' amphora

On a table, in the empty room: here is no ptyx,

Abolished bauble of sonorous uselessness,

(Since the Master's gone to draw tears from the Styx

With that sole object, vanity of Nothingness).

But near the casement wide to the north,

A gold is dying, in accord with the decor

Perhaps, those unicorns dashing fire at a nixie,

She who, naked and dead in the mirror, yet

In the oblivion enclosed by the frame, is fixed

As soon by scintillations as the septet.

(Note: The septet may indicate the constellation of Ursa Major in the north. )

Sonnet: 'Pour votre chere morte, son ami. . . '

(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.