UPON this flat, misshapen dayMy weary sullen thoughts grow grey—Grey waters, and grey, sunless cliffs,Bleak gaiety of flowers, whiffsOf loneliness, ah lonelinessTo ever clasp in my caress.And shall I, poor mazed lunatic,When memories come crowding thick,Dangle a silly mandrake-root,Swinging upon Time’s parachute?Can thoughts have colours, colours thoughts,Or do I wander midst the ortsOf half-forgotten nightmare-pyres?We poets have exchanged our lyresFor heart-strings. We have souls to saveFrom boredom; come then, let’s be braveAnd sing the baser passions, singUntil the blood jerked up will ringA matins for our lusts and shames,And men will tingle at our names.
UPON this flat, misshapen dayMy weary sullen thoughts grow grey—Grey waters, and grey, sunless cliffs,Bleak gaiety of flowers, whiffsOf loneliness, ah lonelinessTo ever clasp in my caress.And shall I, poor mazed lunatic,When memories come crowding thick,Dangle a silly mandrake-root,Swinging upon Time’s parachute?Can thoughts have colours, colours thoughts,Or do I wander midst the ortsOf half-forgotten nightmare-pyres?We poets have exchanged our lyresFor heart-strings. We have souls to saveFrom boredom; come then, let’s be braveAnd sing the baser passions, singUntil the blood jerked up will ringA matins for our lusts and shames,And men will tingle at our names.
UPON this flat, misshapen dayMy weary sullen thoughts grow grey—Grey waters, and grey, sunless cliffs,Bleak gaiety of flowers, whiffsOf loneliness, ah lonelinessTo ever clasp in my caress.And shall I, poor mazed lunatic,When memories come crowding thick,Dangle a silly mandrake-root,Swinging upon Time’s parachute?Can thoughts have colours, colours thoughts,Or do I wander midst the ortsOf half-forgotten nightmare-pyres?We poets have exchanged our lyresFor heart-strings. We have souls to saveFrom boredom; come then, let’s be braveAnd sing the baser passions, singUntil the blood jerked up will ringA matins for our lusts and shames,And men will tingle at our names.
APOOR lame lady limps alongLow sloping fields of tender green,She’d love to break into a songOr dance, a figure slim, serene.All nature seems a parquet floorTo please the sense, to please the eye,And Lazarus forgets each soreBeneath the thickly-coated sky.The poor lame lady senses wholeThe shafts of coloured warmth arise,A thirsty solitude of soulLooms in her vague pathetic eyes.The hollow spells of Spring are fleetAnd quick thoughts clatter through her head....“An awkward duck with webbèd feet!...Ah! better far to lie a-bed.â€In bed her lameness will not leer,For Sleep’s compassionate and kind,And she will dance and sing and hearThe crooning of a phantom wind.For then her body’s cage-doors wideAre opened, and the spirit freeFlutters, and in a burst of prideDances before Eternity.
APOOR lame lady limps alongLow sloping fields of tender green,She’d love to break into a songOr dance, a figure slim, serene.All nature seems a parquet floorTo please the sense, to please the eye,And Lazarus forgets each soreBeneath the thickly-coated sky.The poor lame lady senses wholeThe shafts of coloured warmth arise,A thirsty solitude of soulLooms in her vague pathetic eyes.The hollow spells of Spring are fleetAnd quick thoughts clatter through her head....“An awkward duck with webbèd feet!...Ah! better far to lie a-bed.â€In bed her lameness will not leer,For Sleep’s compassionate and kind,And she will dance and sing and hearThe crooning of a phantom wind.For then her body’s cage-doors wideAre opened, and the spirit freeFlutters, and in a burst of prideDances before Eternity.
APOOR lame lady limps alongLow sloping fields of tender green,She’d love to break into a songOr dance, a figure slim, serene.
All nature seems a parquet floorTo please the sense, to please the eye,And Lazarus forgets each soreBeneath the thickly-coated sky.
The poor lame lady senses wholeThe shafts of coloured warmth arise,A thirsty solitude of soulLooms in her vague pathetic eyes.
The hollow spells of Spring are fleetAnd quick thoughts clatter through her head....“An awkward duck with webbèd feet!...Ah! better far to lie a-bed.â€
In bed her lameness will not leer,For Sleep’s compassionate and kind,And she will dance and sing and hearThe crooning of a phantom wind.
For then her body’s cage-doors wideAre opened, and the spirit freeFlutters, and in a burst of prideDances before Eternity.
“WELL, here we are. I venture to believeWe have not met since Venice ... seven years....My sons were killed, and I was left to grieveWith Adelaide and Fanny ... they are dears.â€I look around and find two fleshy earsDangling a pair of ear-rings ... it’s a phase....But all the same I wish that they’d wear stays.When Regent Street is up I always feelThat London Bridge is also falling down,Symbolic hulks of granite, orange peel,And somebody who’s losing half-a-crown....It is so queer, so queer, to live in town....And then I see myself and purse my lips“With no more conscience than a snake has hips.â€[C]Yes, here am I bathed in a maudlin smile!And here are: you, he, it, and everyoneExcept the person who’s alone worth while.Calmly I rise with broken threads, I runStirred by my own intrinsic power to sunSelf-consciousness to flesh-burst—I’ve begunWith unabated sarcasm to riseIn self-opinion, sinking with closed eyes.A subtle crepitation in the airAs if the nomad camels would return,As if the burly lion left his lairTo have his hair curled daintily. I burn.You do not listen: “there’s so much to learnFrom scientific data, palimpsest....â€I tell you they will crumble with the rest.Before the wolf returns to Regent Street,Before he digs up fashionable tombs,Before the nightingale with music sweetPierces the Piccadilly catacombs,Before the screech-owl adds to ruin-glooms,The merry robin-redbreast and the wrenWill trill their notes in Bayswater again.“The worst of influenza’s over now,But rents are high ... the weather is not coldConsidering the month of year, but howThe war has broken through our lives! how oldâ€....Above her grave time soon will rake the mould:Already she is smouldering away,Already she is fettled for decay.Pleasures and vanities, regrets, desiresDumped on a dung-heap where the lilies grow....And these shall be their own sad funeral-pyres,Destruction totters and his steps are slow.The miles to Babylon? I do not know.But this I know: these folk on gilded chairsHad better kneel and say their hopeless prayers.
“WELL, here we are. I venture to believeWe have not met since Venice ... seven years....My sons were killed, and I was left to grieveWith Adelaide and Fanny ... they are dears.â€I look around and find two fleshy earsDangling a pair of ear-rings ... it’s a phase....But all the same I wish that they’d wear stays.When Regent Street is up I always feelThat London Bridge is also falling down,Symbolic hulks of granite, orange peel,And somebody who’s losing half-a-crown....It is so queer, so queer, to live in town....And then I see myself and purse my lips“With no more conscience than a snake has hips.â€[C]Yes, here am I bathed in a maudlin smile!And here are: you, he, it, and everyoneExcept the person who’s alone worth while.Calmly I rise with broken threads, I runStirred by my own intrinsic power to sunSelf-consciousness to flesh-burst—I’ve begunWith unabated sarcasm to riseIn self-opinion, sinking with closed eyes.A subtle crepitation in the airAs if the nomad camels would return,As if the burly lion left his lairTo have his hair curled daintily. I burn.You do not listen: “there’s so much to learnFrom scientific data, palimpsest....â€I tell you they will crumble with the rest.Before the wolf returns to Regent Street,Before he digs up fashionable tombs,Before the nightingale with music sweetPierces the Piccadilly catacombs,Before the screech-owl adds to ruin-glooms,The merry robin-redbreast and the wrenWill trill their notes in Bayswater again.“The worst of influenza’s over now,But rents are high ... the weather is not coldConsidering the month of year, but howThe war has broken through our lives! how oldâ€....Above her grave time soon will rake the mould:Already she is smouldering away,Already she is fettled for decay.Pleasures and vanities, regrets, desiresDumped on a dung-heap where the lilies grow....And these shall be their own sad funeral-pyres,Destruction totters and his steps are slow.The miles to Babylon? I do not know.But this I know: these folk on gilded chairsHad better kneel and say their hopeless prayers.
“WELL, here we are. I venture to believeWe have not met since Venice ... seven years....My sons were killed, and I was left to grieveWith Adelaide and Fanny ... they are dears.â€I look around and find two fleshy earsDangling a pair of ear-rings ... it’s a phase....But all the same I wish that they’d wear stays.
When Regent Street is up I always feelThat London Bridge is also falling down,Symbolic hulks of granite, orange peel,And somebody who’s losing half-a-crown....It is so queer, so queer, to live in town....And then I see myself and purse my lips“With no more conscience than a snake has hips.â€[C]
Yes, here am I bathed in a maudlin smile!And here are: you, he, it, and everyoneExcept the person who’s alone worth while.Calmly I rise with broken threads, I runStirred by my own intrinsic power to sunSelf-consciousness to flesh-burst—I’ve begunWith unabated sarcasm to riseIn self-opinion, sinking with closed eyes.
A subtle crepitation in the airAs if the nomad camels would return,As if the burly lion left his lairTo have his hair curled daintily. I burn.You do not listen: “there’s so much to learnFrom scientific data, palimpsest....â€I tell you they will crumble with the rest.
Before the wolf returns to Regent Street,Before he digs up fashionable tombs,Before the nightingale with music sweetPierces the Piccadilly catacombs,Before the screech-owl adds to ruin-glooms,The merry robin-redbreast and the wrenWill trill their notes in Bayswater again.
“The worst of influenza’s over now,But rents are high ... the weather is not coldConsidering the month of year, but howThe war has broken through our lives! how oldâ€....Above her grave time soon will rake the mould:Already she is smouldering away,Already she is fettled for decay.
Pleasures and vanities, regrets, desiresDumped on a dung-heap where the lilies grow....And these shall be their own sad funeral-pyres,Destruction totters and his steps are slow.The miles to Babylon? I do not know.But this I know: these folk on gilded chairsHad better kneel and say their hopeless prayers.
[C]A line from “Louisville Louâ€: a certain fox-trot.
[C]A line from “Louisville Louâ€: a certain fox-trot.
THAT sinister, that sombre poet-waifPresses his brow against the window-pane,(That window-pane of cruel, wicked glass),Watching the sour and curdled flakes of snow.With eyes like pale grey membranes fixed and glazedEver he stares upon snow-silent fields,And sweating skies that lean towards the earthLike a great toper leaning at a bar.Ever the mournful cries of mountain-apesEcho, re-echo, and abysmally,Ever the sour snow falls. And where’s the moon?It must hang high, oh, somewhere in the heavens.And somewhere, waking in the middle nightSoft longing arms spread out in love’s embraceFind nothing, no one; in a dazed despairGrope for a form to clasp, to touch, and thenFall limply back in dismal loneliness.Perpetual Penelopes unspinThe webs they spun meticulous at day.Somewhere the honey-throated nightingaleIs voiceless for the burden of his love,And somewhere it is good to be alive....That sinister, that sombre poet-waifSo tired to tears and tearless, with those eyesAirily floating in eternal stare,Bartered his soul for void philosophies.But suddenly he flings a weary laughAnd walks into the jangling painted world.
THAT sinister, that sombre poet-waifPresses his brow against the window-pane,(That window-pane of cruel, wicked glass),Watching the sour and curdled flakes of snow.With eyes like pale grey membranes fixed and glazedEver he stares upon snow-silent fields,And sweating skies that lean towards the earthLike a great toper leaning at a bar.Ever the mournful cries of mountain-apesEcho, re-echo, and abysmally,Ever the sour snow falls. And where’s the moon?It must hang high, oh, somewhere in the heavens.And somewhere, waking in the middle nightSoft longing arms spread out in love’s embraceFind nothing, no one; in a dazed despairGrope for a form to clasp, to touch, and thenFall limply back in dismal loneliness.Perpetual Penelopes unspinThe webs they spun meticulous at day.Somewhere the honey-throated nightingaleIs voiceless for the burden of his love,And somewhere it is good to be alive....That sinister, that sombre poet-waifSo tired to tears and tearless, with those eyesAirily floating in eternal stare,Bartered his soul for void philosophies.But suddenly he flings a weary laughAnd walks into the jangling painted world.
THAT sinister, that sombre poet-waifPresses his brow against the window-pane,(That window-pane of cruel, wicked glass),Watching the sour and curdled flakes of snow.With eyes like pale grey membranes fixed and glazedEver he stares upon snow-silent fields,And sweating skies that lean towards the earthLike a great toper leaning at a bar.Ever the mournful cries of mountain-apesEcho, re-echo, and abysmally,Ever the sour snow falls. And where’s the moon?It must hang high, oh, somewhere in the heavens.And somewhere, waking in the middle nightSoft longing arms spread out in love’s embraceFind nothing, no one; in a dazed despairGrope for a form to clasp, to touch, and thenFall limply back in dismal loneliness.Perpetual Penelopes unspinThe webs they spun meticulous at day.Somewhere the honey-throated nightingaleIs voiceless for the burden of his love,And somewhere it is good to be alive....
That sinister, that sombre poet-waifSo tired to tears and tearless, with those eyesAirily floating in eternal stare,Bartered his soul for void philosophies.But suddenly he flings a weary laughAnd walks into the jangling painted world.
The Gibbet
(Derived from Aloysius Bertrand)
OH, do I hear the night-raped windWho screams in travail, do I hearThe blunt ropes of the gibbet grind,The hanged man’s writhing sigh so drear?Oh, can it be some cricket’s songVibrating shrill amongst the weedsAnd sterile moss? throughout the longFinned languid hours when summer bleedsOutstretched and pallid on a bier.Oh, can it be some spot-swift flyWho winds his horn round each deaf ear?Some beetle plucking stealthilyA morsel of corrupting flesh,A trailing wisp, a bleeding hair,Until his spirit, fed and fresh,Will bid him frisk upon the air?Oh, can it be some spider squatWho sings and sows at half an ellOf satin, for a new cravatTo deck his strangled throat in Hell?It is the clock which tinkles downThe hour to the crumbling town.It is a hanged man’s carcass spunWith crimson by the setting sun.
OH, do I hear the night-raped windWho screams in travail, do I hearThe blunt ropes of the gibbet grind,The hanged man’s writhing sigh so drear?Oh, can it be some cricket’s songVibrating shrill amongst the weedsAnd sterile moss? throughout the longFinned languid hours when summer bleedsOutstretched and pallid on a bier.Oh, can it be some spot-swift flyWho winds his horn round each deaf ear?Some beetle plucking stealthilyA morsel of corrupting flesh,A trailing wisp, a bleeding hair,Until his spirit, fed and fresh,Will bid him frisk upon the air?Oh, can it be some spider squatWho sings and sows at half an ellOf satin, for a new cravatTo deck his strangled throat in Hell?It is the clock which tinkles downThe hour to the crumbling town.It is a hanged man’s carcass spunWith crimson by the setting sun.
OH, do I hear the night-raped windWho screams in travail, do I hearThe blunt ropes of the gibbet grind,The hanged man’s writhing sigh so drear?
Oh, can it be some cricket’s songVibrating shrill amongst the weedsAnd sterile moss? throughout the longFinned languid hours when summer bleeds
Outstretched and pallid on a bier.Oh, can it be some spot-swift flyWho winds his horn round each deaf ear?Some beetle plucking stealthily
A morsel of corrupting flesh,A trailing wisp, a bleeding hair,Until his spirit, fed and fresh,Will bid him frisk upon the air?
Oh, can it be some spider squatWho sings and sows at half an ellOf satin, for a new cravatTo deck his strangled throat in Hell?
It is the clock which tinkles downThe hour to the crumbling town.It is a hanged man’s carcass spunWith crimson by the setting sun.
Saint
(After Mallarmé)
HIGH at a windowOf old gilded sandalwoodWhere once the violMingled with dulcimer,Sits the Saint pallid,The missal of parchmentLies open where vespersAnd complines were chaunted:At monstrance-glazingGrazed by the Angel’sHarp curved by wingingAloft on the twilightFor her delicate fingers,On instrument’s plumageShe balances soft,A musician of silence.
HIGH at a windowOf old gilded sandalwoodWhere once the violMingled with dulcimer,Sits the Saint pallid,The missal of parchmentLies open where vespersAnd complines were chaunted:At monstrance-glazingGrazed by the Angel’sHarp curved by wingingAloft on the twilightFor her delicate fingers,On instrument’s plumageShe balances soft,A musician of silence.
HIGH at a windowOf old gilded sandalwoodWhere once the violMingled with dulcimer,
Sits the Saint pallid,The missal of parchmentLies open where vespersAnd complines were chaunted:
At monstrance-glazingGrazed by the Angel’sHarp curved by wingingAloft on the twilight
For her delicate fingers,On instrument’s plumageShe balances soft,A musician of silence.
Hérodiade
Translated from Mallarmé
Scene
The Nurse—Hérodiade
NURSE. You live, Princess? or do I see your shade?Your fingers at my lips and all their ringsCease to proceed in an unlearned-of age....Hérodiade.Recede.The immaculate blond torrent of my hairFreezes my limbs with horror when it bathesTheir solitude, and interlaced with lightMy hair’s immortal. Me a kiss would murder,Would kill, if beauty were not death, oh woman....Driven by what allurement, should I know?What morn forgotten by the prophets poursO’er dying distances, these dismal feasts?And you have seen me enter, nurse of winter,The heavy prison built of stone and ironWhere aged lions drag the centuries,And fatal, I advanced, with shielded hands,Through desert-perfume of these ancient kings:But have you still beheld my very dread?I stop to dream of exiles, and I strip,As near a pond whose gush of water welcomes,The pallid lilies in me, smitten, charmedMy eyes pursue the languor of the wreckDescend, in silence, through my reverie,The lions part my indolence of robeAnd gaze on feet whose curves would calm the sea.Quiet the shudder of your crumbling flesh,And mimicking the fashions of my hairSo fierce that makes you fear their shock of manes,Come, help, as thus you dare no longer see me,Within a mirror nonchalantly combing.Nurse.My child, unless you wish to sample myrrhGay in its sealèd bottles, would you proveThe grave funereal virtue of the essenceRavished from roses’ dim senility?Hérodiade.Leave there those perfumes! Nurse, do you not knowI hate them, do you wish me then, to feelMy languid frame drown in their drunkenness?I crave: my hair of flowers not createdTo strew oblivion of human anguish,But gold, for ever virgin of the spices,In cruel flashes and in heavy pallor,Will mark the sterile chilliness of metals,Having reflected you, my native jewels,Vases and arms, from solitary childhood.Nurse.Pardon, oh queen, for age eclipsed the pleaWith which you deign to vindicate my mindGrown sallow as an old or gloomy book....Hérodiade.Enough! before me hold this mirror. Mirror!Cold water frozen hard within your frameBy weariness; how often, dream-tormentedAnd searching for my memories, like leavesBeneath the hole profound within your ice,In you I seemed a shadow, but, what horrorAt dusk when in your fountain I have knownThe nudity of my dishevelled dream!Nurse, am I beautiful?Nurse.In truth, a star,But this tress tumbles....Hérodiade.Check in your offenceWhich chills my blood towards its source, and quellThis gesture of notorious irreligion:Tell me, in grim emotion what sure demonThrows you this kiss, these perfumes, should I breathe it?And, oh my heart, this hand still sacrilegious,Since I believe you wished to touch me, sayThey are a day which will not be extinguishedWithout calamity upon the tower....Oh day Hérodiade beholds with dread!Nurse.Indeed, a strange day, from which heaven guard you!You wander, lonely shadow, recent passion,Looking within you, premature in terror:Even as an immortal exquisite,And hideously beautiful, my childAs....Hérodiade.Were you not about to touch me?Nurse.I would belong to him, for whom the FatesReserve your secrets.Hérodiade.Oh! be silent!Nurse.SometimesHe’ll come, perchance?Hérodiade.I pray you, do not listen,Innocent stars!Nurse.How else, ’mid sombre terrorsTo dream a suppliant, more implacable,That god the treasure of your grace attends!For whom, devoured of agony, you guardThe mystery, vain splendour of your being?Hérodiade.For me.Nurse.Sad flower seen with atonyIn water, doleful flower that grows alone,Nor has anxiety but cloudy sound.Hérodiade.Go, keep your pity with your irony.Nurse.Expound however: no, ingenuous child,Some day this scorn triumphant will diminish....Hérodiade.But who would touch me, reverenced of lions?Besides, I want no human thing; if, chiselled,You see me with eyes lost in Paradise,’Tis when I call to mind your milk of yore.Nurse.Oh lamentable victim to its fate!Hérodiade.Yes, it is for myself, deserted, that I flower!Gardens of amethyst, you know too well—Fled without end into the wise abysmsDazzled and dazed; you unawared-of goldsWho guard your antique mellowness of lightBeneath the sombre slumber of a soilPrimordial and primitive; and youOh stones from which my pure and jewel eyesBorrow their melody of clarity;You, metals, which surrender to my hairA fatal splendour and its massive gait!Woman who speak of mortal, as for you,Created in malignant centuries,Born for the spite of caverns sybilline!According as from calyx of my clothesThe white thrill of my nudity emerge,Aroma of the fierce, the savage joys—Woman who speak of mortal! prophesyThat if the tepid azure of the summer,To whom the woman natively unveils,Sees me in starlike shivering chastity,I die!I love the dread of being virginAnd I desire to live the terror of my hair—To sense, inviolate reptile, on my couchAt evening, stir within my useless fleshThe frigid sparkle of your pallid lucence,O you who die calcined with chastity,White night of icicles and cruel snow!And your lone sister, oh eternal sister,My dream will mount towards you airily:Already as the rare limpidityOf one who dreamt it, in my native-landMonotonous, I think myself alone,And all around me lives in the idolatryThat in a mirror’s dozing calm reflectsHérodiade of clear and diamond gaze....Yea, last of spells! I feel it, I’m alone.Nurse.And will you die then, Madam?Hérodiade.Grandmother, no,Be calm: withdrawing, pardon this flint heart,But, if you wish, first close the shutters fast,Seraphic azure smiles within the pane’sProfundity. I loathe the lovely azure.The waters lull themselves and, over there,Do you not know a country where the sky,So sinister, has all the heated looksOf Venus who is burning in the leavesAt evening? I’ll thither ...Light these tapers,Mere childishness, you say, whose nimble flamesWeep a strange weeping ’mid the empty goldAnd ...Nurse.Now?Hérodiade.Farewell.You lie, oh naked flower of my lips!For I await a thing unheard of yet.Perhaps unconscious of their mystery,Unconscious of your cries, you hurl the sobsSupreme and bruisèd of an infancyPerceiving dimly ’mid its reveriesThose frozen gems that separate at last.
NURSE. You live, Princess? or do I see your shade?Your fingers at my lips and all their ringsCease to proceed in an unlearned-of age....Hérodiade.Recede.The immaculate blond torrent of my hairFreezes my limbs with horror when it bathesTheir solitude, and interlaced with lightMy hair’s immortal. Me a kiss would murder,Would kill, if beauty were not death, oh woman....Driven by what allurement, should I know?What morn forgotten by the prophets poursO’er dying distances, these dismal feasts?And you have seen me enter, nurse of winter,The heavy prison built of stone and ironWhere aged lions drag the centuries,And fatal, I advanced, with shielded hands,Through desert-perfume of these ancient kings:But have you still beheld my very dread?I stop to dream of exiles, and I strip,As near a pond whose gush of water welcomes,The pallid lilies in me, smitten, charmedMy eyes pursue the languor of the wreckDescend, in silence, through my reverie,The lions part my indolence of robeAnd gaze on feet whose curves would calm the sea.Quiet the shudder of your crumbling flesh,And mimicking the fashions of my hairSo fierce that makes you fear their shock of manes,Come, help, as thus you dare no longer see me,Within a mirror nonchalantly combing.Nurse.My child, unless you wish to sample myrrhGay in its sealèd bottles, would you proveThe grave funereal virtue of the essenceRavished from roses’ dim senility?Hérodiade.Leave there those perfumes! Nurse, do you not knowI hate them, do you wish me then, to feelMy languid frame drown in their drunkenness?I crave: my hair of flowers not createdTo strew oblivion of human anguish,But gold, for ever virgin of the spices,In cruel flashes and in heavy pallor,Will mark the sterile chilliness of metals,Having reflected you, my native jewels,Vases and arms, from solitary childhood.Nurse.Pardon, oh queen, for age eclipsed the pleaWith which you deign to vindicate my mindGrown sallow as an old or gloomy book....Hérodiade.Enough! before me hold this mirror. Mirror!Cold water frozen hard within your frameBy weariness; how often, dream-tormentedAnd searching for my memories, like leavesBeneath the hole profound within your ice,In you I seemed a shadow, but, what horrorAt dusk when in your fountain I have knownThe nudity of my dishevelled dream!Nurse, am I beautiful?Nurse.In truth, a star,But this tress tumbles....Hérodiade.Check in your offenceWhich chills my blood towards its source, and quellThis gesture of notorious irreligion:Tell me, in grim emotion what sure demonThrows you this kiss, these perfumes, should I breathe it?And, oh my heart, this hand still sacrilegious,Since I believe you wished to touch me, sayThey are a day which will not be extinguishedWithout calamity upon the tower....Oh day Hérodiade beholds with dread!Nurse.Indeed, a strange day, from which heaven guard you!You wander, lonely shadow, recent passion,Looking within you, premature in terror:Even as an immortal exquisite,And hideously beautiful, my childAs....Hérodiade.Were you not about to touch me?Nurse.I would belong to him, for whom the FatesReserve your secrets.Hérodiade.Oh! be silent!Nurse.SometimesHe’ll come, perchance?Hérodiade.I pray you, do not listen,Innocent stars!Nurse.How else, ’mid sombre terrorsTo dream a suppliant, more implacable,That god the treasure of your grace attends!For whom, devoured of agony, you guardThe mystery, vain splendour of your being?Hérodiade.For me.Nurse.Sad flower seen with atonyIn water, doleful flower that grows alone,Nor has anxiety but cloudy sound.Hérodiade.Go, keep your pity with your irony.Nurse.Expound however: no, ingenuous child,Some day this scorn triumphant will diminish....Hérodiade.But who would touch me, reverenced of lions?Besides, I want no human thing; if, chiselled,You see me with eyes lost in Paradise,’Tis when I call to mind your milk of yore.Nurse.Oh lamentable victim to its fate!Hérodiade.Yes, it is for myself, deserted, that I flower!Gardens of amethyst, you know too well—Fled without end into the wise abysmsDazzled and dazed; you unawared-of goldsWho guard your antique mellowness of lightBeneath the sombre slumber of a soilPrimordial and primitive; and youOh stones from which my pure and jewel eyesBorrow their melody of clarity;You, metals, which surrender to my hairA fatal splendour and its massive gait!Woman who speak of mortal, as for you,Created in malignant centuries,Born for the spite of caverns sybilline!According as from calyx of my clothesThe white thrill of my nudity emerge,Aroma of the fierce, the savage joys—Woman who speak of mortal! prophesyThat if the tepid azure of the summer,To whom the woman natively unveils,Sees me in starlike shivering chastity,I die!I love the dread of being virginAnd I desire to live the terror of my hair—To sense, inviolate reptile, on my couchAt evening, stir within my useless fleshThe frigid sparkle of your pallid lucence,O you who die calcined with chastity,White night of icicles and cruel snow!And your lone sister, oh eternal sister,My dream will mount towards you airily:Already as the rare limpidityOf one who dreamt it, in my native-landMonotonous, I think myself alone,And all around me lives in the idolatryThat in a mirror’s dozing calm reflectsHérodiade of clear and diamond gaze....Yea, last of spells! I feel it, I’m alone.Nurse.And will you die then, Madam?Hérodiade.Grandmother, no,Be calm: withdrawing, pardon this flint heart,But, if you wish, first close the shutters fast,Seraphic azure smiles within the pane’sProfundity. I loathe the lovely azure.The waters lull themselves and, over there,Do you not know a country where the sky,So sinister, has all the heated looksOf Venus who is burning in the leavesAt evening? I’ll thither ...Light these tapers,Mere childishness, you say, whose nimble flamesWeep a strange weeping ’mid the empty goldAnd ...Nurse.Now?Hérodiade.Farewell.You lie, oh naked flower of my lips!For I await a thing unheard of yet.Perhaps unconscious of their mystery,Unconscious of your cries, you hurl the sobsSupreme and bruisèd of an infancyPerceiving dimly ’mid its reveriesThose frozen gems that separate at last.
NURSE. You live, Princess? or do I see your shade?Your fingers at my lips and all their ringsCease to proceed in an unlearned-of age....
Hérodiade.Recede.The immaculate blond torrent of my hairFreezes my limbs with horror when it bathesTheir solitude, and interlaced with lightMy hair’s immortal. Me a kiss would murder,Would kill, if beauty were not death, oh woman....Driven by what allurement, should I know?What morn forgotten by the prophets poursO’er dying distances, these dismal feasts?And you have seen me enter, nurse of winter,The heavy prison built of stone and ironWhere aged lions drag the centuries,And fatal, I advanced, with shielded hands,Through desert-perfume of these ancient kings:But have you still beheld my very dread?I stop to dream of exiles, and I strip,As near a pond whose gush of water welcomes,The pallid lilies in me, smitten, charmedMy eyes pursue the languor of the wreckDescend, in silence, through my reverie,The lions part my indolence of robeAnd gaze on feet whose curves would calm the sea.Quiet the shudder of your crumbling flesh,And mimicking the fashions of my hairSo fierce that makes you fear their shock of manes,Come, help, as thus you dare no longer see me,Within a mirror nonchalantly combing.
Nurse.My child, unless you wish to sample myrrhGay in its sealèd bottles, would you proveThe grave funereal virtue of the essenceRavished from roses’ dim senility?
Hérodiade.Leave there those perfumes! Nurse, do you not knowI hate them, do you wish me then, to feelMy languid frame drown in their drunkenness?I crave: my hair of flowers not createdTo strew oblivion of human anguish,But gold, for ever virgin of the spices,In cruel flashes and in heavy pallor,Will mark the sterile chilliness of metals,Having reflected you, my native jewels,Vases and arms, from solitary childhood.
Nurse.Pardon, oh queen, for age eclipsed the pleaWith which you deign to vindicate my mindGrown sallow as an old or gloomy book....
Hérodiade.Enough! before me hold this mirror. Mirror!Cold water frozen hard within your frameBy weariness; how often, dream-tormentedAnd searching for my memories, like leavesBeneath the hole profound within your ice,In you I seemed a shadow, but, what horrorAt dusk when in your fountain I have knownThe nudity of my dishevelled dream!Nurse, am I beautiful?
Nurse.In truth, a star,But this tress tumbles....
Hérodiade.Check in your offenceWhich chills my blood towards its source, and quellThis gesture of notorious irreligion:Tell me, in grim emotion what sure demonThrows you this kiss, these perfumes, should I breathe it?And, oh my heart, this hand still sacrilegious,Since I believe you wished to touch me, sayThey are a day which will not be extinguishedWithout calamity upon the tower....Oh day Hérodiade beholds with dread!
Nurse.Indeed, a strange day, from which heaven guard you!You wander, lonely shadow, recent passion,Looking within you, premature in terror:Even as an immortal exquisite,And hideously beautiful, my childAs....
Hérodiade.Were you not about to touch me?
Nurse.I would belong to him, for whom the FatesReserve your secrets.
Hérodiade.Oh! be silent!
Nurse.SometimesHe’ll come, perchance?
Hérodiade.I pray you, do not listen,Innocent stars!
Nurse.How else, ’mid sombre terrorsTo dream a suppliant, more implacable,That god the treasure of your grace attends!For whom, devoured of agony, you guardThe mystery, vain splendour of your being?
Hérodiade.For me.
Nurse.Sad flower seen with atonyIn water, doleful flower that grows alone,Nor has anxiety but cloudy sound.
Hérodiade.Go, keep your pity with your irony.
Nurse.Expound however: no, ingenuous child,Some day this scorn triumphant will diminish....
Hérodiade.But who would touch me, reverenced of lions?Besides, I want no human thing; if, chiselled,You see me with eyes lost in Paradise,’Tis when I call to mind your milk of yore.
Nurse.Oh lamentable victim to its fate!
Hérodiade.Yes, it is for myself, deserted, that I flower!Gardens of amethyst, you know too well—Fled without end into the wise abysmsDazzled and dazed; you unawared-of goldsWho guard your antique mellowness of lightBeneath the sombre slumber of a soilPrimordial and primitive; and youOh stones from which my pure and jewel eyesBorrow their melody of clarity;You, metals, which surrender to my hairA fatal splendour and its massive gait!Woman who speak of mortal, as for you,Created in malignant centuries,Born for the spite of caverns sybilline!According as from calyx of my clothesThe white thrill of my nudity emerge,Aroma of the fierce, the savage joys—Woman who speak of mortal! prophesyThat if the tepid azure of the summer,To whom the woman natively unveils,Sees me in starlike shivering chastity,I die!I love the dread of being virginAnd I desire to live the terror of my hair—To sense, inviolate reptile, on my couchAt evening, stir within my useless fleshThe frigid sparkle of your pallid lucence,O you who die calcined with chastity,White night of icicles and cruel snow!And your lone sister, oh eternal sister,My dream will mount towards you airily:Already as the rare limpidityOf one who dreamt it, in my native-landMonotonous, I think myself alone,And all around me lives in the idolatryThat in a mirror’s dozing calm reflectsHérodiade of clear and diamond gaze....Yea, last of spells! I feel it, I’m alone.
Nurse.And will you die then, Madam?
Hérodiade.Grandmother, no,Be calm: withdrawing, pardon this flint heart,But, if you wish, first close the shutters fast,Seraphic azure smiles within the pane’sProfundity. I loathe the lovely azure.The waters lull themselves and, over there,Do you not know a country where the sky,So sinister, has all the heated looksOf Venus who is burning in the leavesAt evening? I’ll thither ...Light these tapers,Mere childishness, you say, whose nimble flamesWeep a strange weeping ’mid the empty goldAnd ...
Nurse.Now?
Hérodiade.Farewell.You lie, oh naked flower of my lips!For I await a thing unheard of yet.Perhaps unconscious of their mystery,Unconscious of your cries, you hurl the sobsSupreme and bruisèd of an infancyPerceiving dimly ’mid its reveriesThose frozen gems that separate at last.
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