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Maeterlinck, Maurice: Aquarium

Portre of Maeterlinck, Maurice

Aquarium (French)

Hélas ! mes vœux n'amènent plus

Mon âme aux rives des paupières,

Elle est descendue au reflux

De ses prières.

 

Elle est au fond de mes yeux clos,

Et seule son haleine lasse

Élève encore à fleur des eaux

Ses lys de glace.

 

Ses lèvres au fond des douleurs,

Semblent closes à mille lieues,

Et je les vois chanter des fleurs

A tiges bleues.

 

Ses doigts blanchissent mes regards,

En suivant la trace incolore

De ses lys à jamais épars

Et morts d'éclore.

 

Et je sais qu'elle doit mourir

En joignant ses mains impuissantes,

Et lasses enfin de cueillir

Ces fleurs absentes.



Uploaded byP. T.
Source of the quotationhttp://ae-lib.org.ua/texts

Aquarium (English)

Ow my desires no more, alas,

Summon my soul to my eyelids' brink,

For with its prayers that ebb and pass

It too must sink,

 

To lie in the depth of my closéd eyes;

Only the flowers of its weary breath

Like icy blooms to the surface rise,

Lilies of death.

 

Its lips are sealed, in the depths of woe,

And a world away, in the far-off gloom,

They sing of azure stems that grow

A mystic bloom.

 

But lo, its fingers--I have grown

Pallid beholding them, I who perceive

Them traces the marks its poor unblown

Lost lilies leave.

 

And I know it must die, for its hour is o'er;

Folding its impotent hands at last,

Hands too weary to pluck any more

The flowers of the past!



Uploaded byP. T.
Source of the quotationhttp://www.poetry-archive.com

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