Works

You are a pink and lovely autumn sky!
But sadness in me rises like the sea,
And leaves in ebbing only bitter clay
On my sad lip, the smart of memory.

Your hand slides up my fainting breast at will;...

In Nature's temple living pillars rise,
And words are murmured none have understood,
And man must wander through a tangled wood
Of symbols watching him with friendly eyes.
...

For Ernest Christophe

Proud, like one living, of her noble height,
With handkerchief and gloves, her great bouquet,
She has the graceful nonchalance that might
Befit a gaunt coquette with lavish ways....

' Ernest Christophe

Fi're, autant qu'un vivant, de sa noble stature,
Avec son gros bouquet, son mouchoir et ses gants,
Elle a la nonchalance et la d'sinvolture...

Reveille sang its call among the barracks' paths,
And moving air disturbed the tall, commanding lamps.

It was the time when dreams of lust and swarming heat...

In evening as the sun goes down
She twists and dances mindlessly
Life, in her brash effrontery.
But also, when above the town

The night has risen, charming, vast,...

Cent fois d'j' le soleil avait jailli, radieux ou attrist', de cette
cuve immense de la mer dont les bords ne se laissent qu'' peine
apercevoir; cent fois il s''tait replong', 'tincelant ou morose, dans...

I beg your pity, You, my only love;
My fallen heart lies in a deep abyss,
A universe of leaden heaviness,
Where cursing terrors swim the night above!

For six months stands a sun with heatless beams,...

The Fiend is at my side without a rest;
He swirls around me like a subtle breeze;
I swallow him, and burning fills my breast,
And calls me to desire's shameful needs.
...

When Juan sought the subterranean flood,
And paid his obolus on the Stygian shore,
Charon, the proud and sombre beggar, stood
With one strong, vengeful hand on either oar.
...

Tranquil as a sage and gentle as one who's cursed. I said:
I love you, oh my beauty, my charmer

many a time
your debauches without thirst, your soul-less loves,
your longing for the infinite...

for F.N.

Do you, as I do, know a zesty grief,
And is it said of you, 'curious man!'
I dreamed of dying; in my spirit's heat
Desire and horror mixed, a strange mischance;
...

Two warriors have grappled, and their arms
Have flecked the air with blood and flashing steel.
These frolics, this mad clanking, these alarms
Proceed from childish love's frantic appeal.
...

Sweet evening comes, friend of the criminal,
Like an accomplice with a light footfall;
The sky shuts on itself as though a tomb,
And man turns beast within his restless room.
...

Above the ponds, beyond the valleys,
The woods, the mountains, the clouds, the seas,
Farther than the sun, the distant breeze,
The spheres that wilt to infinity

My spirit, you move with agility...

With quiet heart, I climbed the hill,
from which one can see, the city, complete,
hospitals, brothels, purgatory, hell,

prison, where every sin flowers, at our feet....

Here's the criminal's friend, delightful evening:
come like an accomplice, with a wolf's loping:
slowly the sky's vast vault hides each feature,
and restless man becomes a savage creature.
...

Beneath a broad grey sky, upon a vast and dusty plain devoid of grass, and where not even a nettle or a thistle was to be seen, I met several men who walked bowed down to the ground....

When with closed eyes in autumn's eves of gold
I breathe the burning odours of your breast,
Before my eyes the hills of happy rest
Bathed in the sun's monotonous fires, unfold.
...

This is the sanctuary
where the prettified young lady,
calm, and always ready,

fans her breasts, aglow,
elbow on the pillow,
hears the fountain's flow:

it's the room of Dorothea....