This quiet roof, where dove-sails
saunter by,
Between the pines, the tombs, throb
visibly.
Impartial noon patterns the sea in
flame --
That sea forever starting and
re-starting.
When thought has had its hour,
oh how rewarding
Are the long vistas of celestial calm!
What grace of light, what pure toil
goes to form The manifold diamond of the elusive
foam! What peace I feel begotten at that source!
When sunlight rests upon a profound sea, Time's air is sparkling, dream is
certainty -- Pure artifice both of an eternal Cause.
Sure treasure, simple shrine to
intelligence, Palpable calm, visible reticence, Proud-lidded water,
Eye wherein there wells Under a film of fire such depth of sleep -- O silence! . . . Mansion in my soul,
you slope Of gold, roof of a myriad golden tiles.
Temple of time, within a brief sigh
bounded, To this rare height inured I climb,
surrounded By the horizons of a sea-girt eye. And, like my supreme offering to the
gods, That peaceful coruscation only breeds A loftier indifference on the sky.
Even as a fruit's absorbed in the
enjoying, Even as within the mouth its body
dying Changes into delight through
dissolution, So to my melted soul the heavens
declare All bounds transfigured into a
boundless air, And I breathe now my future's emanation.
Beautiful heaven, true heaven,
look how I change! After such arrogance, after so much
strange Idleness -- strange, yet full of potency -- I am all open to these shining spaces; Over the homes of the dead
my shadow passes, Ghosting along -- a ghost subduing me.
My soul laid bare to your
midsummer fire, O just, impartial light whom I admire, Whose arms are merciless, you have I
stayed And give back, pure, to your original
place. Look at yourself . . . But to give light implies No less a somber moiety of shade.
Oh, for myself alone, mine, deep
within At the heart's quick, the poem's fount,
between The void and its pure issue, I beseech The intimations of my secret power.
O bitter, dark, and echoing reservoir
Speaking of depths always beyond
my reach.
But know you -- feigning prisoner of
the boughs, Gulf which cats up their slender
prison-bars, Secret which dazzles though mine
eyes are closed -- What body drags me to
its lingering end, What mind draws it to this
bone-peopled ground? A star broods there on all that I have lost.
Closed, hallowed, full of
insubstantial fire, Morsel of earth to heaven's light
given o'er -- This plot, ruled by its flambeaux,
pleases me -- A place all gold, stone, and dark
wood, where shudders So much marble above so many
shadows: And on my tombs, asleep, the faithful sea.
Keep off the idolaters, bright watch-dog,
while -- A solitary with the shepherd's smile -- I pasture long my sheep, my
mysteries, My snow-white flock of undisturbed
graves! Drive far away from here the careful
doves, The vain daydreams, the angels'
questioning eyes!
Now present here, the future takes its time.
The brittle insect scrapes at the dry loam; All is burnt up, used up,
drawn up in air To some ineffably rarefied solution . . . Life is enlarged,
drunk with annihilation, And bitterness is sweet, and
the spirit clear.
The dead lie easy, hidden in earth
where they Are warmed and have their mysteries
burnt away. Motionless noon,
noon aloft in the blue Broods on itself -- a self-sufficient theme.
O rounded dome and perfect diadem, I am what's changing secretly in you.
I am the only medium for your fears. My penitence, my doubts,
my baulked desires -- These are the flaws within your diamond pride . . . But in their heavy night,
cumbered with marble, Under the roots of trees
a shadow people Has slowly now come over to your side.
To an impervious nothingness
they're thinned, For the red clay has swallowed
the white kind; Into the flowers that gift of life has passed.
Where are the dead? -- their homely
turns of speech, The personal grace, the soul informing each? Grubs thread their way where tears
were once composed.
The bird-sharp cries of girls
whom love is teasing, The eyes, the teeth,
the eyelids moistly closing, The pretty breast that gambles
with the flame, The crimson blood shining when lips
are yielded, The last gift, and the fingers that
would shield it -- All go to earth, go back into the game.
And you, great soul, is there yet
hope in you To find some dream without
the lying hue That gold or wave offers
to fleshly eyes? Will you be singing still when you're thin air?
All perishes. A thing of flesh and pore Am I.
Divine impatience also dies.
Lean immortality, all crêpe and gold, Laurelled consoler frightening to
behold, Death is a womb, a mother's breast,
you feign The fine illusion, oh the pious trick! Who does not know them, and is not
made sick That empty skull, that everlasting grin?
Ancestors deep down there,
O derelict heads Whom such a weight of spaded earth
o'erspreads, Who are the earth, in whom
our steps are lost, The real flesh-eater, worm unanswerable Is not for you that
sleep under the table: Life is his meat, and I am still his host.
'Love,' shall we call him?
'Hatred of self,' maybe? His secret tooth is so intimate with me That any name would suit him well enough, Enough that he can see,
will, daydream, touch -- My flesh delights him,
even upon my couch I live but as a morsel of his life.
Zeno, Zeno, cruel philosopher Zeno, Have you then pierced me
with your feathered arrow That hums and flies,
yet does not fly! The sounding Shaft gives me life, the arrow
kills. Oh, sun! -- Oh, what a tortoise-shadow to
outrun My soul, Achilles' giant stride left standing!
No, no! Arise!
The future years unfold. Shatter, O body, meditation's mould! And, O my breast, drink in the wind's
reviving! A freshness, exhalation of the sea, Restores my soul . . . Salt-breathing potency! Let's run at the waves and be hurled back
to living!
Yes, mighty sea with such wild frenzies gifted (The panther skin and the rent chlamys), sifted All over with sun-images that
glisten, Creature supreme, drunk on your own
blue flesh, Who in a tumult like the deepest hush Bite at your sequin-glittering tail --
yes, listen!
The wind is rising! . . . We must try to live! The huge air opens and shuts my book: the wave Dares to explode out of the rocks
in reeking Spray. Fly away, my sun-bewildered pages! Break, waves! Break up with your
rejoicing surges This quiet roof where sails like doves were pecking.
Paul Valery .
There is always a rather sordid side to literature, a lurking deference to one's public.
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