Your eyes will not mark the advent of the season
Nor the joy of grasses thronging from the earth
Nor will they notice the burgeoning of the trees
In the stillness of the night
Nor the glow of sap in the heart of the leaf
They will not remark, your eyes, the silence of the seed
As it goes back to its closed-in kingdoms
They will not perceive, your eyes, this death as it returns
Hiding all the freed birds in its basket.
Conceal yourself, then, behind the herbage of words,
Know for a truth that the world
Is wider than is your anxious glance.

Your heart trembles in the shadows, like a face reflected in troubled water
The old mirage rises from the pit of the night
You sense the sweet sorcery of the past:
A river carries you far away from the banks,
Carries you toward the ancestral landscape.
Listen to those voices singing the sadness of love
And in the mountain, hear that tom-tom panting like the breast of a young black girl

Your soul is this image in the whispering water where your fathers bent their dark faces
Its hidden movements blend you with the waves

Your love was like a fire of sticks
Or whin that kindles at a spark.
It blazed so high it made
A splendour in the dark.
But if it burnt so merrily
It died away as fast,
And I was left with ashes
To warm me at long last.

Oh! like a fire of turf, my man,
I prayed to God your love might be,
As warm on winter nights
And burning steadfastly.
That if I'd think it dying out
And raked the ash apart,
I'd find the sod was glowing
With fire at its heart.

Your second cousin, an obscure
cigar-maker from Smyrna,
impresses me with tom thumb news
(the words are blunt
and throw a sour limelight).
He regrets the way your eye
gluts on the dancing girls
like an oyster in the head of Bacchus.

But his hands too explore this woman's calf,
his hide lights up
above her loincloth
like a white spark by an epitaph.

Your teeth are loose, your head is bald,
you're sixty-three years old;
every aspect of your life
should make you feel ashamed.
All that's left that interests you
are the products of your brush:
leave them behind to give the world
something to talk about.

Since all that is was ever bound to be;
Since grim, eternal laws our Being bind;
And both the riddle and the answer find,
And both the carnage and the calm decree;
Since plain within the Book of Destiny
Is written all the journey of mankind
Inexorably to the end; since blind
And mortal puppets playing parts are we:

Then let's have faith; good cometh out of ill;
The power that shaped the strife shall end the strife;
Then let's bow down before the Unknown Will;
Fight on, believing all is well with life;
Seeing within the worst of War's red rage

Now round my favoured grot let roses rise,
To strew the bank where Phaon wakes from rest!
Oh happy buds, to kiss his burning breast,
And die beneath the lustre of his eyes!
Now let the timbrels echo to the skies,
Now damsels sprinkle cassia on his vest,
With odorous wreaths of constant myrtle dressed,
And flowers, deep tinted with the rainbow's dyes!
From cups of porphyry let nectar flow,
Rich as the perfume of Phoenicia's vine!
Now let his dimpling cheek with rapture glow,
While round his heart love's mystic fetters twine;

Come, soft Eolian harp, while zephyr plays
Along the meek vibration of thy strings,
As Twilight's hand her modest mantle brings,
Blending with sober grey the western blaze!
Oh prompt my Phaon's dreams with tenderest lays,
Ere night o'ershade thee with its humid wings,
While the lorn philomel his sorrow sings
In leafy cradle red with parting rays!
Slow let thy dulcet tones on ether glide—
So steals the murmur of the amorous dove;
The mazy legions swarm on every side,
To lulling sounds the sunny people move!

Bring, bring, to deck my brow, ye sylvan girls,
A roseate wreath—nor for my waving hair
The costly band of studded gems prepare,
Of sparkling chrysolite, or orient pearls!
Love o'er my head his canopy unfurls,
His purple pinions fan the whispering air;
Mocking the golden sandal, rich and rare,
Beneath my feet the fragrant woodbine curls.
Bring the thin robe, to fold about my breast,
White as the downy swan; while round my waist
Let leaves of glossy myrtle bind the vest,
Not idly gay, but elegantly chaste!

Now, o'er the tesselated pavement strew
Fresh saffron, steeped in essence of the rose,
While down yon agate column gently flows
A glittering streamlet of ambrosial dew!
My Phaon smiles! The rich carnation's hue,
On his flushed cheek in conscious lustre glows,
While o'er his breast enamoured Venus throws
Her starry mantle of celestial blue!
Breathe soft, ye dulcet flutes, among the trees
Where clustering boughs with golden citrons twine;
While slow vibrations, dying on the breeze,
Shall soothe his soul with harmony divine.