Adrift down soulless rivers on I went
Feeling no longer the tug of the barge’s rope:
I saw some howling redskins nail the crew,
Naked, to flag poles and then shoot them down.
I had no interest in the boats that passed,
Loaded with Flemish wheat or English cloth.
Then when the uproar with the bargemen stopped,
The rivers let me float down where I would.
Through the raging surges of the tides
Last winter, heedless like a dreamy child
I raced along! Peninsulas let loose
Have never known such jubilant turmoil.
The tempest blessed my wakenings out at sea.
Light as a cork I danced upon the waves
(Endlessly tumbling their victims, they say)
Ten nights, nor missed the lantern’s stupid eye.
Sweeter than sour apples to the child
Green water seeped into my pinewood hull,
Washing me clean of blue wine-stains and sick
And swept away the anchor and the helm.
And from that time I bathed long in the poem
Of the sea, mingled with stars and white like milk
Devouring bluish greens and floating pale,
Ravished, a pensive corpse at times sank by;
And where the slow tempo and delirium
Staining these blues in the shining glare of day,
Ferment the bitter flush of love,
Stronger than alcohol, vaster than songs.
I’ve known the lightning split the skies, currents,
Whirlpools and waterspouts: the fall of night,
The dawn exalted like a flock of doves,
I’ve seen, at times, what some believe they’ve seen.
I’ve seen the low sun, dyed with mystic awe,
Illuminating violet clotted shapes,
Like actors in an ancient tragedy,
The rolling distant waves flicker like blinds.
I’ve dreamed in the green night of dazzling snow,
Of a kiss ascending slow to the ocean’s eye,
The ambulation of unheard-of sap,
The awakening of singers in the phosphorous dawn.
For months on end I watched the crash of surge
On reef, like a herd of hysterical beasts
Never dreaming that the the Maries’ shining feet
Could break the snout of broken-winded seas.
You know, I’ve struck undreamed-of Floridas
Flowers mixed with the eyes of panthers clad
In human skin! And rainbows stretched to curb,
Below the sea’s horizon, pale green flocks.
I’ve seen fermenting swamps, vast eel-pots where
A huge Leviathan rots among the reeds!
And waters crashing down on halcyon days,
The distant rushing headlong to the abyss!
Ice, silver suns and pearly waves and skies
On fire, grim wrecks sunk low in sombre gulfs
Where giant serpents eaten up with lice
Drop with exotic scents from twisted trees!
I would have wished to show these golden fish
Of the eye-blue wave to children, these singing fish
From spumes of flowers have blessed my aimless drift,
At times mysterious winds have winged me on.
Sometimes, that weary martyr of poles and zones
The sea whose sobbing soothed this sickening pitch,
Raised for me ghostly flowers with yellow mouths
And I, like a kneeling woman, didn’t move…..
Like a peninsula, splattered with the dung
And squabbles of pale-eyed pesky birds;
I floated on, while across my worn-out ropes
Drowned men moving backwards sank to sleep.
But I, a boat lost under a creek’s green mane
Thrown by tempests through the birdless air,
I that no cruiser nor a Baltic sail
Would ever save, a carcase drunk with brine;
Free and steaming, mounted by purple mists
I who pierced like a wall the reddening sky,
Delicious compote made for troubadours,
With its sun-bred lichens and azure slime;
Streaked with electric crescents, the crazy raft
Flew on, escorted by black hippocamps,
When July’s cudgel blows demolish all
The burning vortices of deep-blue skies.
Trembling I heard the groans at fifty leagues
Of turbid maelstroms and Behemoth in rut,
Eternal spinner of blue archetypes,
I long for Europe’s ancient parapets!
I’ve seen starry archipelagos! And isles
With ecstatic skies open to vagabonds:
Can you sleep exiled in these boundless nights,
A million golden birds, O Powers to come?
It’s true, I’ve wept too much. The dawns are sad.
Moons are unbearable and bitter the suns!
My mordant love swells up with drunken languor.
Let my keel burst! O let me go to the sea!
In Europe the only water I desire
Is a cold, black pool where in the scented dusk
A sad-eyed child crouches and pushes out
His boat as frail as a butterfly in May.
No longer can I, in your languor bathed
O waves! erase the tracks of merchant ships
Nor face the arrogance of flags and flames,
Nor swim in the fearful gaze of prison hulks.
Close
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