I
The Sun, the hearth of affection and life
Pours burning love on the delighted earth
And when you lie down in the valley, you can smell
How the earth is nubile and very full-blooded;
How its huge breast, heaved up by a soul
Is, like God, made of love, and, like woman, of flesh
And that it contains, big with sap and with sunlight
The vast pullulation of all embryos!
And everything grows, and everything rises!
- O Venus, O Goddess!
I long for the days of antique youth
Of lascivious satyrs, and animal fauns
Gods who bit, mad with love, the bark of the boughs
And among water-lilies kissed the Nymph with fair hair!
I long for the time when the sap of the world
River water, the rose-coloured blood of green trees
Put into the veins of Pan a whole universe!
When the earth trembled, green,beneath his goat-feet;
When, softly kissing the fair Syrinx, his lips formed
Under heaven the great hymn of love;
When, standing on the plain, he heard round about him
Living Nature answer his call;
When the silent trees cradling the singing bird
Earth cradling mankind, and the whole blue Ocean
And all living creatures loved, loved in God!
I long for the time of great Cybele
Who was said to travel, gigantically lovely
In a great bronze chariot, through splendid cities;
Her twin breasts poured, through the vast deeps
The pure streams of infinite life
Mankind sucked joyfully at her blessed nipple
Like a small child playing on her knees
- Because he was strong, Man was gentle and chaste
Misfortune! Now he says: I understand things
And goes about with eyes shut and ears closed
- And again, no more gods! no more gods! Man is King
Man is God! But the great faith is Love!
Oh! if only man still drew sustenance from your nipple
Great mother of gods and of men, Cybele;
If only he had not forsaken immortal Astarte
Who long ago, rising in the tremendous brightness
Of blue waters, flower-flesh perfumed by the wave
Showed her rosy navel, towards which the foam came snowing
And , being a goddess with the great conquering black eyes
Made the nightingale sing in the woods and love in men's hearts!
II
I believe! I believe in you! divine mother
Sea-born Aphrodite! - Oh! the path is bitter
Since the other God harnessed us to his cross;
Flesh, Marble, Flower, Venus, in you I believe!
- yes, Man is sad and ugly, sad under the vast sky
He possesses clothes, because he is no longer chaste
Because he has defiled his proud, godlike head
And because he has bent, like an idol in the furnace
His Olympian form towards base slaveries!
Yes, even after death, in the form of pale skeletons
He wishes to live and insult the original beauty!
- And the Idol in whom you placed such maidenhood
Woman, in whom you rendered our clay divine
So that Man might bring light into his poor soul
And slowly ascend, in unbounded love
From the earthly prison to the beauty of day
Woman no longer knows even how to be a Courtesan!
- It's a fine farce! and the world snickers
At the sweet and sacred name of great Venus!
III
If only the times which have come and gone might come again!
- For Man is finished! Man has played all the parts!
In the broad daylight, wearied with breaking idols
He will revive, free of all his gods
And, since he is of heaven, he will scan the heavens!
The Ideal, that eternal, invincible thought, which is
All; The living god within his fleshly clay
Will rise, mount, burn beneath his brow!
An when you see him plumbing the whole horizon
Despising old yokes, and free from all fear
You will come and give him holy Redemption!
- Resplendent, radiant, from the bosom of the huge seas
You will rise up and give to the vast Universe
Infinite Love with its eternal smile!
The World will vibrate like an immense lyre
In the trembling of an infinite kiss!
- The World thirsts for love: you will come and slake its thirst
....................................................
O! Man has raised his free, proud head!
And the sudden blaze of primordial beauty
Makes the god quiver in the altar of the flesh!
Happy in the present good, pale from the ill suffered
Man wishes to plumb all depths, - and know all things! Thought
So long a jade, and for so long oppressed
Springs from his forehead! She will know Why!...
Let her but gallop free, and Man will find Faith!
- Why the blue silence, unfathomable space?
Why the golden stars, teeming like sands?
If one ascended forever, what would one see up there?
Does a sheperd drive this enormous flock
Of worlds on a journey through this horror of space?
And do all these worlds contained in the vast ether
Tremble at the tones of an eternal voice?
- And Man, can he see? can he say: I believe?
Is the langage of thought anymore than a dream?
If man is born so quickly, if life is so short
Whence does he come? Does he sink into the deep Ocean
Of Germs, of Foetuses, of Embryos, to the bottom
Of the huge Crucible where Nature the Mother
Will resuscitate him, a living creature
To love in the rose and to grow in the corn?...
We cannot know! - We are weighed down
With a cloak of ignorance, hemmed in by chimaeras!
Men like apes, dropped from our mothers' wombs
Our feeble reason hides the infinite from us!
We wish to perceive: - and Doubt punishes us!
Doubt, dismal bird, beat us down with its wing...
- And the horizon rushes away in endless flight!...
.......................................................
The vast heaven is open! the mysteries lie dead
Before erect Man, who folds his strong arms
Among the vast splendour of abundant Nature!
He sings... and the woods sing, the river murmurs
A song full of happiness which rises towards the light!...
- it is Redemption! it is love! it is love!...
........................................................
IV
O splendour of flesh! O ideal splendour!
O renewal of love, triumphal dawn
When, prostrating the Gods and the Heroes
White Callipyge and little Eros
Covered with the snow of rose petals, will caress
Women and flowers beneath their lovely outstretched feet!
- O great Ariadne who pour out your tears
On the shore, as you see, out there on the waves
The sail of Theseus flying white under the sun
O sweet virgin child whom a night has broken
Be silent! On his golden chariot studded with black grapes
Lysios, who has been drawn through Phrygian fields
By lascivious tigers and russet panthers
Reddens the dark mosses along the blue rivers
- Zeus, the Bull, cradles on his neck like a child
The nude body of Europa who throws her white arm
Round the God's muscular neck which shivers in the wave
Slowly he turns his dreamy eye towards her;
She, droops her pale flowerlike cheek
On the brow of Zeus; her eyes are closed; she is dying
In a divine kiss, and the murmuring waters
Strew the flowers of their golden foam on her hair
- Between the oleander and the gaudy lotus tree
Slips amorously the great dreaming Swan
Enfloding Leda in the whiteness of his wing;
- And while Cypris goes by, strangely beautiful
And, arching the marvellous curves of her back
Proudly displays the golden vision of her big breasts
And snowy belly embroidered with black moss
- Hercules, Tamer of beasts, in his Strength
Robes his huge body with the lion's skin as with glory
And faces the horizons, his brow terrible and sweet!
Vaguely lit by the summer moon
Erect, naked, dreaming in her pallor of gold
Streaked by the heavy wave of her long blue hair
In the shadowy glade whenre stars spring in the moss
The Dryade gazes up at the silent sky...
- White Selene, timidly, lets her veil float
Over the feet of beautiful Endymion
And throws him a kiss in a pale beam...
- The Spring sobs far off in a long ectasy...
Ii is the nymph who dreams with one elbow on her urn
Of the handsome white stripling her wave has pressed against
- A soft wind of love has passed in the night
And in the sacred woods, amid the standing hair of the great trees
Erect in majesty, the shadowly Marbles
The Gods, on whose brows the Bullfinch has his nest
- the Gods listen to Men, and to the infinite World!
The Sun, the hearth of affection and life
Pours burning love on the delighted earth
And when you lie down in the valley, you can smell
How the earth is nubile and very full-blooded;
How its huge breast, heaved up by a soul
Is, like God, made of love, and, like woman, of flesh
And that it contains, big with sap and with sunlight
The vast pullulation of all embryos!
And everything grows, and everything rises!
- O Venus, O Goddess!
I long for the days of antique youth
Of lascivious satyrs, and animal fauns
Gods who bit, mad with love, the bark of the boughs
And among water-lilies kissed the Nymph with fair hair!
I long for the time when the sap of the world
River water, the rose-coloured blood of green trees
Put into the veins of Pan a whole universe!
When the earth trembled, green,beneath his goat-feet;
When, softly kissing the fair Syrinx, his lips formed
Under heaven the great hymn of love;
When, standing on the plain, he heard round about him
Living Nature answer his call;
When the silent trees cradling the singing bird
Earth cradling mankind, and the whole blue Ocean
And all living creatures loved, loved in God!
I long for the time of great Cybele
Who was said to travel, gigantically lovely
In a great bronze chariot, through splendid cities;
Her twin breasts poured, through the vast deeps
The pure streams of infinite life
Mankind sucked joyfully at her blessed nipple
Like a small child playing on her knees
- Because he was strong, Man was gentle and chaste
Misfortune! Now he says: I understand things
And goes about with eyes shut and ears closed
- And again, no more gods! no more gods! Man is King
Man is God! But the great faith is Love!
Oh! if only man still drew sustenance from your nipple
Great mother of gods and of men, Cybele;
If only he had not forsaken immortal Astarte
Who long ago, rising in the tremendous brightness
Of blue waters, flower-flesh perfumed by the wave
Showed her rosy navel, towards which the foam came snowing
And , being a goddess with the great conquering black eyes
Made the nightingale sing in the woods and love in men's hearts!
II
I believe! I believe in you! divine mother
Sea-born Aphrodite! - Oh! the path is bitter
Since the other God harnessed us to his cross;
Flesh, Marble, Flower, Venus, in you I believe!
- yes, Man is sad and ugly, sad under the vast sky
He possesses clothes, because he is no longer chaste
Because he has defiled his proud, godlike head
And because he has bent, like an idol in the furnace
His Olympian form towards base slaveries!
Yes, even after death, in the form of pale skeletons
He wishes to live and insult the original beauty!
- And the Idol in whom you placed such maidenhood
Woman, in whom you rendered our clay divine
So that Man might bring light into his poor soul
And slowly ascend, in unbounded love
From the earthly prison to the beauty of day
Woman no longer knows even how to be a Courtesan!
- It's a fine farce! and the world snickers
At the sweet and sacred name of great Venus!
III
If only the times which have come and gone might come again!
- For Man is finished! Man has played all the parts!
In the broad daylight, wearied with breaking idols
He will revive, free of all his gods
And, since he is of heaven, he will scan the heavens!
The Ideal, that eternal, invincible thought, which is
All; The living god within his fleshly clay
Will rise, mount, burn beneath his brow!
An when you see him plumbing the whole horizon
Despising old yokes, and free from all fear
You will come and give him holy Redemption!
- Resplendent, radiant, from the bosom of the huge seas
You will rise up and give to the vast Universe
Infinite Love with its eternal smile!
The World will vibrate like an immense lyre
In the trembling of an infinite kiss!
- The World thirsts for love: you will come and slake its thirst
....................................................
O! Man has raised his free, proud head!
And the sudden blaze of primordial beauty
Makes the god quiver in the altar of the flesh!
Happy in the present good, pale from the ill suffered
Man wishes to plumb all depths, - and know all things! Thought
So long a jade, and for so long oppressed
Springs from his forehead! She will know Why!...
Let her but gallop free, and Man will find Faith!
- Why the blue silence, unfathomable space?
Why the golden stars, teeming like sands?
If one ascended forever, what would one see up there?
Does a sheperd drive this enormous flock
Of worlds on a journey through this horror of space?
And do all these worlds contained in the vast ether
Tremble at the tones of an eternal voice?
- And Man, can he see? can he say: I believe?
Is the langage of thought anymore than a dream?
If man is born so quickly, if life is so short
Whence does he come? Does he sink into the deep Ocean
Of Germs, of Foetuses, of Embryos, to the bottom
Of the huge Crucible where Nature the Mother
Will resuscitate him, a living creature
To love in the rose and to grow in the corn?...
We cannot know! - We are weighed down
With a cloak of ignorance, hemmed in by chimaeras!
Men like apes, dropped from our mothers' wombs
Our feeble reason hides the infinite from us!
We wish to perceive: - and Doubt punishes us!
Doubt, dismal bird, beat us down with its wing...
- And the horizon rushes away in endless flight!...
.......................................................
The vast heaven is open! the mysteries lie dead
Before erect Man, who folds his strong arms
Among the vast splendour of abundant Nature!
He sings... and the woods sing, the river murmurs
A song full of happiness which rises towards the light!...
- it is Redemption! it is love! it is love!...
........................................................
IV
O splendour of flesh! O ideal splendour!
O renewal of love, triumphal dawn
When, prostrating the Gods and the Heroes
White Callipyge and little Eros
Covered with the snow of rose petals, will caress
Women and flowers beneath their lovely outstretched feet!
- O great Ariadne who pour out your tears
On the shore, as you see, out there on the waves
The sail of Theseus flying white under the sun
O sweet virgin child whom a night has broken
Be silent! On his golden chariot studded with black grapes
Lysios, who has been drawn through Phrygian fields
By lascivious tigers and russet panthers
Reddens the dark mosses along the blue rivers
- Zeus, the Bull, cradles on his neck like a child
The nude body of Europa who throws her white arm
Round the God's muscular neck which shivers in the wave
Slowly he turns his dreamy eye towards her;
She, droops her pale flowerlike cheek
On the brow of Zeus; her eyes are closed; she is dying
In a divine kiss, and the murmuring waters
Strew the flowers of their golden foam on her hair
- Between the oleander and the gaudy lotus tree
Slips amorously the great dreaming Swan
Enfloding Leda in the whiteness of his wing;
- And while Cypris goes by, strangely beautiful
And, arching the marvellous curves of her back
Proudly displays the golden vision of her big breasts
And snowy belly embroidered with black moss
- Hercules, Tamer of beasts, in his Strength
Robes his huge body with the lion's skin as with glory
And faces the horizons, his brow terrible and sweet!
Vaguely lit by the summer moon
Erect, naked, dreaming in her pallor of gold
Streaked by the heavy wave of her long blue hair
In the shadowy glade whenre stars spring in the moss
The Dryade gazes up at the silent sky...
- White Selene, timidly, lets her veil float
Over the feet of beautiful Endymion
And throws him a kiss in a pale beam...
- The Spring sobs far off in a long ectasy...
Ii is the nymph who dreams with one elbow on her urn
Of the handsome white stripling her wave has pressed against
- A soft wind of love has passed in the night
And in the sacred woods, amid the standing hair of the great trees
Erect in majesty, the shadowly Marbles
The Gods, on whose brows the Bullfinch has his nest
- the Gods listen to Men, and to the infinite World!
( Arthur Rimbaud )
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