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Mallarmé, Stéphane: Sea-wind (Brise marine in English)

Portre of Mallarmé, Stéphane

Brise marine (French)

La chair est triste, hélas! et j'ai lu tous les livres.

Fuir! lŕ-bas fuir! Je sens que des oiseaux sont ivres

D'ętre parmi l'écume inconnue et les cieux!

Rien, ni les vieux jardins reflétés par les yeux

Ne retiendra ce coeur qui dans la mer se trempe

O nuits! ni la clarté déserte de ma lampe

Sur le vide papier que la blancheur défend

Et ni la jeune femme allaitant son enfant.

Je partirai! Steamer balançant ta mâture,

Lčve l'ancre pour une exotique nature!

Un Ennui, désolé par les cruels espoirs,

Croit encore ŕ l'adieu supręme des mouchoirs!

Et, peut-ętre, les mâts, invitant les orages

Sont-ils de ceux qu'un vent penche sur les naufrages

Perdus, sans mâts, sans mâts, ni fertiles îlots...

Mais, ô mon coeur, entends le chant des matelots!



PublisherBudapest, Magvető Kiadó
Source of the quotationSzerb Antal: Száz vers. Negyedik kiadás. 200. p.

Sea-wind (English)

The 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!



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

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