SEA-WIND
by: Stéphane Mallarmé
(1842-1898)
- HE flesh
is sad, alas! and all the books are read.
- Flight, only flight! I feel that birds are wild to tread
- The floor of unknown foam, and to attain the skies!
- Nought, neither ancient gardens mirrored in the eyes,
- Shall hold this heart that bathes in waters its delight,
- O nights! nor yet my waking lamp, whose lonely light
- Shadows the vacant paper, whiteness profits best,
- Nor the young wife who rocks her baby on her breast.
- I will depart! O steamer, swaying rope and spar,
- Lift anchor for exotic lands that lie afar!
- A weariness, outworn by cruel hopes, still clings
- To the last farewell handkerchief's last beckonings!
- And are not these, the masts inviting storms, not these
- That an awakening wind bends over wrecking seas,
- Lost, not a sail, a sail, a flowering isle, ere long?
- But, O my heart, hear thou, hear thou, the sailors' song!
-
- TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH BY
ARTHUR
SYMONS
MORE
POEMS BY STÉPHANE MALLARMÉ |
|