Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ALMA PERDIDA by VALERY LARBAUD

First Line: TO YOU, VAGUE ASPIRATIONS; EAGERNESS
Last Line: TO YOU, THIS LOST SOUL!
Subject(s): MEMORY;
To you, vague aspirations; eagerness;
After-breakfast thoughts; rousings of the spirit;
Tenderness that follows the satisfaction
Of natural needs; flashes of genius; stir
Of digestion; slow appeasement
Of digestion done; and causeless joys;
Troubles of circulation; memories of love;
Perfume of benzoin in the morning bath; dreams of love;
My great Castilian savor of a jest, my enormous
Puritan sadness, my especial tastes:
Chocolate, sugar-candy to burn, iced drinks;
Drowsying cigars; you, crooning cigarettes;
Delights of speed; pleasure of being at rest; the boon
Of sleep in absolute obscurity;
Great poetry of banal things: odd items, trips;
Gipsies; sleigh-rides; rain on the sea;
Madness of the fevered night, alone with my books;
Heights and depths of time and temperament;
Reglimpsed moments of another life; memories, prophecies;
O splendours of daily life and the regular routine:
To you, this lost soul!



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