The Defeat of Youth and Other Poems Part 6

L'APReS-MIDI D'UN FAUNE

(From the French of Stephane Mallarme.)

I would immortalize these nymphs: so bright Their sunlit colouring, so airy light, It floats like drowsing down. Loved I a dream?

My doubts, born of oblivious darkness, seem A subtle tracery of branches grown The tree's true self--proving that I have known No triumph, but the shadow of a rose.

But think. These nymphs, their loveliness ... suppose They bodied forth your senses' fabulous thirst?

Illusion! which the blue eyes of the first, As cold and chaste as is the weeping spring, Beget: the other, sighing, pa.s.sioning, Is she the wind, warm in your fleece at noon?

No, through this quiet, when a weary swoon Crushes and chokes the latest faint essay Of morning, cool against the encroaching day, There is no murmuring water, save the gush Of my clear fluted notes; and in the hush Blows never a wind, save that which through my reed Puffs out before the rain of notes can speed Upon the air, with that calm breath of art That mounts the unwrinkled zenith visibly, Where inspiration seeks its native sky.

You fringes of a calm Sicilian lake, The sun's own mirror which I love to take, Silent beneath your starry flowers, tell _How here I cut the hollow rushes, well Tamed by my skill, when on the glaucous gold Of distant lawns about their fountain cold A living whiteness stirs like a lazy wave; And at the first slow notes my panpipes gave These flocking swans, these naiads, rather, fly Or dive._ Noon burns inert and tawny dry, Nor marks how clean that Hymen slipped away From me who seek in song the real A.

Wake, then, to the first ardour and the sight, O lonely faun, of the old fierce white light, With, lilies, one of you for innocence.

Other than their lips' delicate pretence, The light caress that quiets treacherous lovers, My breast, I know not how to tell, discovers The bitten print of some immortal's kiss.

But hush! a mystery so great as this I dare not tell, save to my double reed, Which, sharer of my every joy and need, Dreams down its cadenced monologues that we Falsely confuse the beauties that we see With the bright palpable shapes our song creates: My flute, as loud as pa.s.sion modulates, Purges the common dream of flank and breast, Seen through closed eyes and inwardly caressed, Of every empty and monotonous line.

Bloom then, O Syrinx, in thy flight malign, A reed once more beside our trysting-lake.

Proud of my music, let me often make A song of G.o.ddesses and see their rape Profanely done on many a painted shape.

So when the grape's transparent juice I drain, I quell regret for pleasures past and feign A new real grape. For holding towards the sky The empty skin, I blow it tight and lie Dream-drunk till evening, eyeing it.

Tell o'er Remembered joys and plump the grape once more.

_Between the reeds I saw their bodies gleam Who cool no mortal fever in the stream Crying to the woods the rage of their desire: And their bright hair went down in jewelled fire Where crystal broke and dazzled shudderingly.

I check my swift pursuit: for see where lie, Bruised, being twins in love, by languor sweet, Two sleeping girls, clasped at my very feet.

I seize and run with them, nor part the pair, Breaking this covert of frail petals, where Roses drink scent of the sun and our light play 'Mid tumbled flowers shall match the death of day._ I love that virginal fury--ah, the wild Thrill when a maiden body shrinks, defiled, Shuddering like arctic light, from lips that sear Its nakedness ... the flesh in secret fear!

Contagiously through my linked pair it flies Where innocence in either, struggling, dies, Wet with fond tears or some less piteous dew.

_Gay in the conquest of these fears, I grew So rash that I must needs the sheaf divide Of ruffled kisses heaven itself had tied.

For as I leaned to stifle in the hair Of one my pa.s.sionate laughter (taking care With a stretched finger, that her innocence Might stain with her companion's kindling sense To touch the younger little one, who lay Child-like unblushing) my ungrateful prey Slips from me, freed by pa.s.sion's sudden death, Nor heeds the frenzy of my sobbing breath._

Let it pa.s.s! others of their hair shall twist A rope to drag me to those joys I missed.

See how the ripe pomegranates bursting red To quench the thirst of the mumbling bees have bled; So too our blood, kindled by some chance fire, Flows for the swarming legions of desire.

At evening, when the woodland green turns gold And ashen grey, 'mid the quenched leaves, behold!

Red Etna glows, by Venus visited, Walking the lava with her snowy tread Whene'er the flames in thunderous slumber die.

I hold the G.o.ddess!

Ah, sure penalty!

But the unthinking soul and body swoon At last beneath the heavy hush of noon.

Forgetful let me lie where summer's drouth Sifts fine the sand and then with gaping mouth Dream planet-struck by the grape's round wine-red star.

Nymphs, I shall see the shade that now you are.

THE LOUSE-HUNTERS

(From the French of Rimbaud).

When the child's forehead, full of torments red, Cries out for sleep and its pale host of dreams, His two big sisters come unto his bed, Having long fingers, tipped with silvery gleams.

They set him at a cas.e.m.e.nt, open wide On seas of flowers that stir in the blue airs, And through his curls, all wet with dew, they slide Those terrible searching finger-tips of theirs.

He hears them breathing, softly, fearfully, Honey-sweet ruminations, slow respired: Then a sharp hiss breaks time and melody-- Spittle indrawn, old kisses new-desired.

Down through the perfumed silences he hears Their eyelids fluttering: long fingers thrill, Probing a la.s.situde bedimmed with tears, While the nails crunch at every louse they kill.

He is drunk with Languor--soft accordion-sigh, Delirious wine of Love in Idleness; Longings for tears come welling up and die, As slow or swift he feels their magical caress.