Sonnet Allegorical of Itself

Approbative night enkindles all the onyxes

Of its nails in purest Crime lampadophoric,

Of evenings abolished quite by the vesperal Phoenix

The ash of which has not a cinerary amphora.

Upon consoles, in the dark Salon: no ptyx,

Vessel all unwonted of inanity sonorous,

For the Master is gone to draw water from the Styx

With all his objects whence the dream does itself honors.

And according to the north casement vacant, an auric

Evildoing incites for its fair frame a mix-up

Made of a god thought to be borne off by a nixie

In the obscuration of the glass, Décor

Of Absence, if not that upon the glass still more

Of scintillation the septentrions are fixed.

Stéphane Mallarmé