Part 4 (2/2)

Down yonder to fly To love, till we die, In the land which resembles thee.

Those suns that rise 'Neath erratic skies, --No charm could be like unto theirs-- So strange and divine, Like those eyes of thine Which glow in the midst of their tears.

There, all is order and loveliness, Luxury, calm and voluptuousness.

The tables and chairs, Polished bright by the years, Would decorate sweetly our rooms, And the rarest of flowers Would twine round our bowers And mingle their amber perfumes: The ceilings arrayed, And the mirrors inlaid, This Eastern splendour among, Would furtively steal O'er our souls, and appeal With its tranquillous native tongue.

There, all is order and loveliness, Luxury, calm and voluptuousness.

In the harbours, peep, At the vessels asleep (Their humour is always to roam), Yet it is but to grant Thy smallest want From the ends of the earth that they come, The sunsets beam Upon meadow and stream, And upon the city entire 'Neath a violet crest, The world sinks to rest, Illumed by a golden fire.

There, all is order and loveliness, Luxury, calm and voluptuousness.

”Causerie”

You are a roseate autumn-sky, that glows!

Yet sadness rises in me like the flood, And leaves in ebbing on my lips morose, The poignant memory of its bitter mind.

In vain your hands my swooning breast embrace, Oh, friend! alone remains the plundered spot, Where woman's biting grip has left its trace: My heart, the beasts devoured--seek it not!

My heart is a palace pillaged by the herd; They kill and take each other by the throat!

A perfume glides around your bosom bared--

O loveliness, thou scourge of souls--devote Thine eyes of fire--luminous-like feasts, To burn these rags--rejected by the beasts!

Autumn Song

I

Shortly we will plunge within the frigid gloom, Farewell swift summer brightness; all too short-- I hear already sounding with a death-like boom The wood that falls upon the pavement of the court.

The whole of winter enters in my Being--pain, Hate, honor, labour hard and forced--and dread, And like the northern sun upon its polar plane My heart will soon be but a stone, iced and red.

I listen trembling unto every log that falls, The scaffold, which they build, has not a duller sound, My spirits waver, like the trembling tower walls that shake--with every echoing blow the builders pound.

Meeseemeth--as to these monotonous blows I sway, They nail for one a coffin lid, or sound a knell-- For whom? Autumn now--and summer yesterday!

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