See gleaming in the skies the great disk of red copper, immense
casserole where the good God cooks manna, the harlequin, eternal _plat
du jour_. It is dipped in sweat and dipped in love.
The laridons wait in a circle near the oven; vaguely one hears the
rustling of rancid flesh, and the tipplers, too, are there, holding out
their jugs; the wretches shiver, waiting their turn.
Thinkest thou the sun then fries for everybody these fat stirring
scraps of burnt meat which a flood of gold inundates? No, the dog-soup
falls on us from the sky.
They are beneath the ray and we beneath the gutter. To us the black jug
that grows cold without light. Our substance for ourselves is our bag
of gall.
(Tr. 42)
With the assent of the tall sunflowers.
(Tr. 43)
And since, then, I have bathed me in the poem of the sea, steeped in
stars and latescent, mastering the green azure where, flotation pale
and ravished, a pensive drowned person sometimes descends; where,
suddenly staining the nuances of blue, frenzied and slow rhythms
beneath the glinting red of day, stronger than alcohol, vaster than
your lyres, the bitter redness of love ferments.
(Tr. 44)
Who knows if genius is not one of your virtues.
(Tr. 45)
The sky rains without ending, though nothing agitates it; it rains, it
rains, shepherdess! on the stream....
The stream has its dominical repose; not a barge up stream, downstream.
Vespers chime in the town; the banks are deserted, not an isle.
Passes a boarding-school group, o poor flesh! Several already have on
their winter muffs.
One that has neither muff nor fur makes a quite sorry figure all in
gray.
And see! She breaks from the ranks and runs; O God, what has seized her?
She goes and throws herself in the stream. Not a boatman, not a
Newfoundland dog....
(Tr. 47)
Dismal north wind, screaming downpour and dark stream, and shut
houses....
(Tr. 48)
A full silence of vibrant gold has descended near the springs which
satyrs have troubled; a clear marvel enclosed in the heart of the
valleys, if the little singing bird remains silent.
Oblivion of the flute, hours of fearless dreams, where thou hast known
how to find for thy amorous blood the peacefulness of inhabiting a
place odorous with roses, whose sylvan gods make thee arms.
There thou goest, composing beautiful books, a credit to the French
language and the noble Athens.
(Tr. 49)
Of that Sophocles, credit to Ferté-Milon.
(Tr. 50)
Once while riding on a journey,
Pensive along the route that displeased me,
I found love in the middle of the road
In a vagrant's scant attire.
(Tr. 51)
Brilliant star, Phoebe with outspread wings, O name of night that
grows and wanes, favor my way through the gloomy forest where my
errant soul takes its modest steps! In the grotto with hollow sounds,
whose entrance is ivy-covered, on the rock topped with the familiar
she-goat, on the lake, on the pond, on the tranquil waters, on the
enamelled banks where reeds moan, she likes to see the trembling of thy
melancholy fires.
Phoebe, O Cynthia, from the first season my soul was drunk with thy
lovely light; observing thy diverse faces in their orb, beneath thy
gentle influence, she composed verses. Above Nicias, Eryx, Siris and
the sandy Iolchos, Timolus and the grand Epidorus, and Green Sidon, her
piety reveres this rock of Latmos where thou loved.
(Tr. 52)
It is the autumn wind in the lane, sister, hearken, and the fall of
willow and beach tree leaves on the water, and the hoar-frost in the
valley.
And come, like those drooping great ladies, to him who is thinking of
thee, in the silence when thy light spinning-wheel dies, O sister of
the sweet marjoram.
Loose--'tis the hour--thy hair fairer than the hemp thou spinnest....
(Tr. 53)
Come with wreathes of primroses in thy hands, O young girls, who mourn
the sister dead at dawn. Bells of the valley peal the end of a destiny,
and spades are seen gleaming in the morning sun.
Come with baskets of violets, O young girls who slightly hesitate in
the path of beeches, for fear of the priest's solemn words. Come, the
sky is quite sonorous with invisible larks....
'Tis the festival of the dead, one would say Sunday, the bells ring so
gently in the heart of the valley; boys have hidden in the lanes. Thou
alone goest to pray at the foot of the white grave.
Some year, the boys, who today are hidden, will come to tell you the
sweet pain of loving, and they will hear you all, around the maypole,
sing songs of childhood to greet the night.
(Tr. 54)
Fish, crane, eagle, flower, bird-bent bamboo.
Turtle, iris, peony, anemone, sparrows.
(Tr. 55)