Poetry

Caught by surprise in verity,

A mouth that had been drinking-down

At the breast of Poetry

Pulls away from its soft down:

—O mother Intelligence,

Whence all sweetness flows like silk,

What can be this negligence

Letting dry up all its milk!

Scarcely upon thy belly,

Overcome with pallid links,

The ocean waves cradle me

Of your heart full of good things;

God lost within its essence,

And the most deliciously

Docile to the great knowledge

Of appeasement most supreme,

I touched the nighttide itself,

No more could I ever die,

For a river without let

Seemed within me flowing by...

Say to me, by what fear vain,

By what shadow of despite,

That most wonderful of veins

Unto my lips has ceased quite?

Rigor, unto me a sign

That my soul I have displeased!

Silence as of swans in flight

Reigns no longer us between!

Immortal one, thine eyelid

Refuses me my treasures,

And the flesh now stony is

That under me was tender.

From the very skies I’m weaned

By what unjust returning?

Sans my lips what would you be?

What would I without love burning?

But the Wellspring now apart

Answered now as ever softly:

—You have bitten me so hard

That my heart quite ceased to beat!

Paul Valéry