Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE SONGS OF MALDOROR: 9, by ISIDORE LUCIEN DUCASSE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE SONGS OF MALDOROR: 9, by                    
First Line: I intend, unemotionally, to declaim aloud the cold and serious strophe
Last Line: Ancient ocean!
Alternate Author Name(s): Lautremont, Le Compte De
Subject(s): Sea; Waves; Youth; Ocean


I intend, unemotionally, to declaim aloud the cold and serious strophe you
shall hear. Pay heed, you, to what it holds, and beware the painful impression
it will not fail to leave like a brand upon your troubled fancies. Do not
imagine that I am on the point of death, for I am not a carcass yet, nor is age
pasty on my brow. Consequently, put aside all thought of a comparison with the
swan, at the moment its life soars away, and behold before you naught but a
monster, whose face I am happy you cannot see; yet it is less frightful than his
soul. Nonetheless, I am not a criminal. ... Enough on this matter. It is not
long since I beheld the sea once more, and tramped the bridge of ships, and my
memories are lively as though I had left it yesterday. Be nonetheless, if you
can, as calm as I, in this reading that I already repent having offered you, and
do not blush at the thought of what the human heart may be. O octopus with the
silken eye! you whose soul is inseparable from mine own; you, most beautiful
habitant of the earthly globe, who command a seraglio of four hundred
ventiducts; you in whom there nobly reside, as in their natural home, in mutual
accord, the sweet communicative virtue and the divine graces, why are you not
with me, your mercury belly against my aluminum breast, both seated upon some
rock along the shore, to watch the spectacle that I adore?

Ancient ocean, with your crystal waves, you resemble in fair proportion
those bluish marks on a cabin-boy's bruised back; you are a great contusion on
the body of the earth; I relish that comparison. Thus, at first sight of you, a
prolonged breath of sadness we mistake for the murmur of your suave breeze,
passes and leaves an indelible trace on the profoundly shaken soul, and you
bring back to lovers' memories, though they do not always heed, the rude
beginnings of man, when he made the acquaintance of dolor, that will not leave
him since. I greet you, ancient ocean!

Ancient ocean, your harmonious spherical form, that meets the grave face of
geometry, I recall only too well the little eyes of man, like unto those of the
wild boar in littleness, and like those of the birds of night for circular
perfection of contour. In every century man has, however, looked upon himself
and found him handsome. I rather consider that man believes in his beauty only
through pride, that he is not truly beautiful, and he suspects; otherwise,
wherefore look upon the countenance of his fellow-man with so much scorn? I
greet you, ancient ocean!

Ancient ocean, you are the symbol of identity, always equal to yourself.
You vary in no respect that is essential, and if somewhere your waves rear in
fury, farther off, in another zone, they rest in absolute calm. You are not like
man, who stops in the street to watch two bull dogs clutch at each other's neck,
but does not stop when a funeral passes by; who can be approached this morning,
and this evening scowls; who laughs today and weeps tomorrow. I greet you,
ancient ocean!





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