Classic and Contemporary Poetry
AFTERNOON OF A FAUN: ECLOGUE, by STEPHANE MALLARME Poem Explanation Poet's Biography First Line: These nymphs, whom I itch to perpetuate Subject(s): Nymphs | ||||||||
ECLOGUE These nymphs, whom I itch to perpetuate -- so clear Their lightness, yet incarnate, flesh of this air Made rosy by woodland slumber. Was loving a dream? Like a drift of ancient night my misgiving grows, Numberless subtle ramifications, which merge In these real branches -- ah, proof that I wake alone Who mistook for triumph the dreamt ideal of roses! We must think again . . . Or suppose these two you spell of Are no more than desires of your own wondrous senses! Faun, illusion trembles in those blue cool eyes Of the one more chaste, seeping as from a pool. And then this other, all sighs, will you say that she, Contrasting, is the day's hot breeze in your fleeces? But no. Through this swooning immobility and laziness, Cool morning (if it resists) smothered in torpor, No water murmurs except this from my flute Wetting the verdure with harmony, and the only wind Is from these two pipes which exhale quickly Before it disperses their song in an arid rain -- This now on the far unrippling horizon, Visible and serene, this artificial breath Of inspiration remounting to the sky. O calm banks of that pool I plundered in Sicily With my self-love once to spite the jealous sun, Silent beneath those spark-like flowers, RECALL "How I here, cutting the hollow reeds that genius Subjugates, see wavering, on the hazy, distant, Golden greenery which consecrates its vine To the springheads, an animal whiteness come to rest; And how then in the low prelude when the pipes Are born this flight of swans -- ah, naiads! -- runs Or plunges . . ." In the hot hour the inert world burns, Not revealing by what art that virginity, Craved by him searching the la, vanished together: So I shall rouse myself to my original fervor, Upright and alone, under the sky's ageless flood Of light, you lilies, and one with you for innocence. Besides this nothingness, sweet hint from their lip, This kiss all in its promise of betrayal, Still my shoulder, unproven, exposes a mysterious Wound -- am I bitten truly, am I exalted? Ah, enough! Something arcane chose to confide Below the azure in this great twin reed we play on, Which dreams in a long solo, taking to itself The cheek's shamed blush, how we were amusing To the beauty around us through false confusions We conceived between her and our credulous song; And how also in song's sublimity a purging Might strike from our worn fantasy of a pure Back or flank, pursued by my half-closed eyes, One sonorous and vain and monotonous line. Try therefore, o instrument of transport, cunning Syrinx, to spring and flower again by the lakes Where you await me! I, proud of my intoning, Will speak at length of goddesses and strip off With idolatrous images their sashes in the gloom. Yet then, when I've sucked brightness from the grapes, What of regret? And what of my scattered pretenses? I laugh and raise the empty cluster and blow On the translucent skins, crazy for drunkenness, Gazing through them at the summer sky till evening. O nymphs, let us renew our particular MEMORIES. "My eye, piercing the reeds, darts to each Immortal neck as it drowns its burning in the wave With a cry of rage flung to the forest sky; And the splendid liquescence of hair disappears In brightness and shimmering, o jewels, jewels! I run near; whereupon at my feet, entwined (tousled In the languor sipped from this poison of duality) They lie sleeping, tangled in their accidental arms, Alone; I seize them, not untangling them, and run To this bank abhorred by the frivolous shade Where roses exhaust their perfume in the sun And our frolic too may consume itself in a day." Oh, I adore you, virginal anger, horrified Delight of the holy naked burden that slips Away from my flaming lips as they drink, quivering Like lightning, the terror secret to the flesh: Yes, from lascivious limbs, from the timid heart, Two in one instant forgoing innocence, wet With wild tears or with less sorrowful moistures. "Happy in overcoming their traitorous fears, My crime is to have parted the disheveled locks For kisses that the gods kept so well mingled: For hardly had I buried a fervent chuckle In the willing coils of the one (while holding The other, so little, naive, not even blushing, By only a finger so that her feathery innocence Might be tinged from her sister's arousing passion) When from my arms, unclasped by death's shapelessness, This prey sets herself free, ungrateful forever, Unpitying, though I am drunk still on her tear." Let them go. Others will lead me to happiness With their tresses woven around my head's horns; My lust, you know how each pomegranate bursts, Crimson, ready and ripe, murmurous with bees, And how our blood, in adoration of what will subdue it, Pulses for passion, that swarming profusion, forever. So at the late hour when woods turn golden and ashen A festival proclaims itself in the fading leaves -- Here, Etna! here where Venus herself visited you, Treading on your lava, her bare pure feet, In tremors of a wistful sleep or the flare dying. I hold the queen! O sure retribution ... No, yet my soul Is empty of words now and this ponderous body Succumbs sluggardly to fierce noon's quiescence: No more, we must sleep now, forgetting blasphemy, Fallen on thirsty sands, opening my mouth For love to the powerful wine-giving sun! Good-bye You two; I go to see the shadow you have become. Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA 98368-0271, www.cc.press.org | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TO THE WATER NYMPHS DRINKING AT THE FOUNTAIN by ROBERT HERRICK THE NYMPH COMPLAINING FOR THE DEATH OF HER FAUN [OR, FAWN] by ANDREW MARVELL OVERHEARD ON A SALTMARSH by HAROLD MONRO HYMN TO CONTENT by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD SIR RUPERT THE FEARLESS; A LEGEND OF GERMANY by RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM WOOD WITCHERY by RICHARD EUGENE BURTON THE NYMPH ASLEEP by ANDRE MARIE CHENIER A FRAGMENT by STEPHANE MALLARME A THROW OF THE DICE NEVER WILL ABOLISH CHANCE by STEPHANE MALLARME |
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