Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A THROW OF THE DICE NEVER WILL ABOLISH CHANCE, by STEPHANE MALLARME


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A THROW OF THE DICE NEVER WILL ABOLISH CHANCE, by             Poem Explanation         Poet's Biography
First Line: A throw of the dice
Last Line: All thought emits a throw of the dice
Subject(s): Disasters; Fate; Luck; Shipwrecks; Destiny


A THROW OF THE DICE

NEVER

EVEN WHEN CAST IN ETERNAL CIRCUMSTANCES

AT THE HEART OF A SHIPWRECK

LET IT BE

that the

Abyss

whitened
slack
raging

under an incline
desperately soars

by its own

wing

beforehand relapsed from wrongly steering the flight
and repressing the outbursts
cleaving the bounds at the root

deep inside weighs

the shadow hidden in the depth by this alternate sail

to adjust
to the spread

its yawning depth as great as the hull

of a ship

careening from side to side

THE MASTER

arisen
inferring

from this conflagration

which

as one threatens

the one Number which can be

hesitates
cadaver by his arm
rather
than
as the old madman
play the game
in behalf of the waves

one

direct shipwreck

beyond outworn calculations
where the manoeuvre with age forgotten

once he gripped the helm

at his feet
of the unanimous horizon

prepares itself
is tossed and merges
with the fist which would grip it
destiny and the winds

no other

Spirit
to hurl it
into the tempest
to seal the gap and to go proudly

cut off from the secret he withholds

surges over the chief
flows over the submissive graybeard

of the man

without a ship
no matter
where vainly

ancestrally not to unclench his hand
contracted
above the worthless head

legacy on his disappearance

to some
unknown

the ulterior immemorial demon

having
from dead lands
led
the aged man toward this supreme conjunction with
probability

he
the puerile shadow

caressed and polished and drained and washed
tamed by the wave and freed
from the unyielding bones lost among the planks

born
of a frolic
the sea by the sire enticed or the sire compelling the sea
idle fortune
Betrothal
whose
veil of illusion rekindled their obsession
as the ghost of a gesture

will falter
will plummet

madness

NEVER WILL ABOLISH

AS IF

A simple

in the silence

into an approaching

hovers

innuendo

encoiled with irony

or

the mystery

hurled

howled

whirlwind of hilarity and horror

over the abyss

neither scattering it

nor fleeing

and rocks therein the virgin symbol

AS IF

solitary plume lost

save

that a toque of midnight meets or grazes it

and freezes

to the velvet crumpled by a dull guffaw

this stiffened whiteness

derisive

too much

in opposition to heaven

not to weakly

brand

whosoever

bitter prince of the reef

dons the headdress heroic

invincible but curbed
by his limited human mind

in turmoil

anxious
atoning and pubescent
mute

The lucid and seigneurial aigrette
on the invisible brow
scintillates
then conceals
a frail gloomy stature
in her siren's torsion

with impatient end scales

laugh

which

IF

of vertigo

upright

time
for beating
forked

a rock

false castle
suddenly
melted into fog

which imposed
a limit on infinity

IT WAS
stellar birth

THIS WOULD BE
no
worse
nor better
but as indifferent as

THE NUMBER

EVEN IF IT EXISTED
other than as a straggling hallucination of agony

EVEN IF IT BEGAN AND EVEN IF IT CEASED
hollow as negation and still born
finally
by some profusion spread with rarity

EVEN IF SUMMED UP

evidence of the sum as small as it is
EVEN IF IT ENLIGHTENED

CHANCE

Falls
the plume
rhythmic suspense of the disaster
to bury itself
in the primitive foam
from where lately his delirium surged to a peak
collapsed
by the indifferent neutrality of the abyss

NOTHING

of the memorable crisis
or the event
might have been

completed with no possible result in view
human

WILL HAVE TAKEN PLACE
an ordinary swell discloses the absence

BUT THE PLACE
any mediocre plashing as if to disperse the empty act
abruptly which otherwise
by its lie
would have justified
the perdition

in these parts
of the void
in which all reality is dissolved

EXCEPT
in the heights
PERHAPS
at so distant a place

that it fuses with infinity
above human interest
as pointed out to him
in general
by such slant by such slope
of lights

toward
what should be
the Septentrion or North

A CONSTELLATION

cold from neglect and disuse
yet not so much
that it does not count
on some empty and superior plane
the next collision
sidereally
of a final reckoning in the making

watching
doubting
revolving
blazing and meditating

before it halts
at some final point which consecrates it

All Thought emits a Throw of the Dice





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net