Five Poems

1

L’albatros (The Albatross) In the immense stretch from Capricorn to the Pole The wind bellows, roars, whistles, mews and scowls, And leaps across the Atlantic all white with furious Frothing. It flings itself, scratching the colorless Water that it pursues and ruptures into clouds Of steam; it bites, tears, slices, and shreds clouds Into convulsive morsels which suddenly bleed a flicker Of lightning; it seizes, envelops, and tumbles through the air A confused whirling of shrill cries and feathers That it shakes and drags to the crests of waves, And, hammering the massive foreheads of sperm whales, Mixes its howling with their monstrous snivels. Alone, the King of space and shoreless seas Flies against the assaults of wild flurries. With sure and potent flight, with neither haste Nor delay, with an eye piercing beyond the livid mist, With his iron wings resolutely stretched out He splits the whirlwind of the raucous waste, And, calm in the middle of the terror, Arrives, passes, and majestically disappears.

2

La Vipère (The Viper) If chaste loves, praised with reverence, Still dazzle your thoughts and your eyes, Do not brush against the folds of their clasped dresses, Guard the purity of your dream’s piety. These white visions, these virgins you conjure, Are the flowering of your youth, blooming in heaven! Pour over their feet the flood of your sacred tears, Burn all your perfumes on their mystic altar-stone. But if lethal venom has entered your veins, Pale with tears shed in languor and sensual delight, You will seek in vain a remedy for your pains: The anguish of nothingness will fill your heart. Weighed down by the burden of shame and misery, Do not let execrable evil consume your days: Rip from your chest the lethal viper, or quietly, Coward, die, die from having loved to excess!