To Maxime Du Camp
I.
To the child, passionate for maps and stamps,
The
Universe is equal to his appetite.
Ah! That the world looks
large in the clarity of lamps
But tiny in hindsight.
We left one morning, our brains full of flame,
Our hearts
huge with rancor and bitter desire,
And we went, following the
rhythm of the untamed
Waves that cradle our infinity within the
sea's finality of fire:
Some, joyous to flee the infamy of their homeland;
Others,
horrified in their cradles; in view of the moon
Astrologers
drown in the eyes of a woman,
Tyrannical Circe with her
dangerous perfumes.
Not to be changed into beasts, we go higher
Into space and
light and the blazing sky;
The ice that bites us, the sun that
fires
Will efface the rash of love slowly.
But the true voyager is he who leaves
To leave something;
light hearts, resembling balloons,
Never shrink from their
fate's weave
And, without knowing why, always say: onward, go
on!
There are those whose desires are formed of clouds,
And who
dream, thus the cannon conscripts came,
The vast voluptuous,
changeable, unknowable crowds
The human mind can never name.
II.
We mimic — O horror — the top and the ball
In
their waltz, bound, and bounce; even our dreams run,
Our
curiosity tortures us and we roll,
Like an Angel cruelly
whisking the suns.
Singular fortune where the target moves west,
And, being
nothing, carries perhaps the meaning of all:
Of Man, whose hope
never lessens,
Always trying to find rest like a fool.
Our soul is a schooner seeking its Icarus;
A voice reaches
from the bridge: "Fix your eyes, far."
A voice from
the topmast, eager and crazy, shouts to us:
"Love...glory...happiness." Hell! It's a sandbar.
At each island, man's vigilant gaze goes foraging,
For the
Eldorado promised by destiny's night;
The imagination creates
an orgy
That turns out to be a reef in the morning light.
The poor lovers of things that are chimeras!
Should they be
put in irons, thrown to the sea,
These hard-drinking sailors,
inventors of Americas,
Does the mirage make the abyss more
deep?
Like the old vagabond, tramping in the sewer,
Dreaming, his
nose in the air, of a paradise that dazzles;
His entranced eyes
discover a Capua
Everywhere the candle illuminates a hovel.
III.
Astonishing travelers! Whose noble stories
Are
read on eyes as deep as the ocean!
Bring us the chest of your
rich memories,
Marvelous jewels, made of stars and ether in
motion.
We would travel without steam and without sail
To ease the
sadness of our prisons,
To call into our minds, stretched like
a veil,
A canvas of memories in the frame of your horizons.
Tell us, what have you seen?
IV.
"We have seen stars
And floods; we have seen bare sand
stare;
And, despite the shocks of unforeseen disasters,
We
could not go on with life's tedium, just like here.
Glorious sunshine on the violet sea,
Glorious cities in
declining sun,
Burn in our hearts an unquiet plea
To
plunge in the sky's enticing reflection.
The richest cities, the grandest landscapes
Will never
contain the mysterious charge
Of chance meeting the
cloudbreaks.
Desire makes us anxious, ever more large!
— Enjoyment joins desire to our will,
Desire, ancient tree
whose pleasure is manure,
Your bark grows hard and thick,
Your
branches long to see the sun nearer.
Do you never stop growing, large tree with a harder look
Than
the cypress? — Yet we are, without worry,
Picking sketches
for your voracious scrapbook,
Like brothers who only find the
distant worthy.
We have bowed to the fraudulent icons:
The constellations
where joy is illumined;
The palaces whose gilded fantasies of
pomp
Make the banker's dreams ruined;
The costumes clothed for the inebriated eye;
The women whose
teeth and nails are dyed,
And the sage jugglers the snake
caresses."
V.
And now, what is next?
VI.
"O Childish brain!
Don't forget the most interesting principle:
We have seen in
everything, without looking,
From the heights to the depths
went the fatal scale,
The spectacle of ennui, of immortal sin.
The woman, the filthy slave, conceited and stupid,
Without
laughing adores and loves herself, as if a lure;
The man, the
ravenous tyrant, debauched, merciless Cupid,
Slave of the slave
and gutter of the sewer;
The happy executioner, the martyr who sobs;
The feast with
the seasoning and scent of blood;
The poison that unnerves the
enervated despot,
And the mob that forms from a deadening whip
— love;
Many religions resemble our own,
All scale the sky; the
Saintly,
As in a feather bed where the delicate wallow,
Find
in horsehair and nails ecstasy;
Chattering Humanity, on her genius tipsy,
And crazy, now as
ever before is it true,
Crying out to God, in her furious
agony:
'O my mate, O my Master, I curse you!'
And the least stupid, bold lovers of Lunacy,
Flee the great
herd that Destiny pens in,
And take refuge in opium's
immensity!
— So the whole globe is one endless bulletin."
VII.
Bitter knowledge, that's the haul from the voyage!
The
world, monotonous and small, today,
Yesterday, tomorrow,
always, show us our image:
An oasis of horror in a desert of
ennui!
Must one leave? Remain? If you can stay, stay;
Leave, if you
must. The one shrinks, and the other cowers
To cheat the
vigilant and fierce enemy,
Time! that's it, alas! giving no
respite to the racers,
Like the wandering Jew and the apostles,
For whom nothing
suffices, neither carriage nor vessel,
To flee these gladiator
nets; Time is like all the others
Who can slaughter without
leaving their cradle.
When finally it puts its foot on our spine,
We'll be able to
shout out with hope: ahead!
Just as when we set sail for China,
Eyes fixed on the open sea and masthead,
We will embark on the sea of Darkness
With the happy heart
of a young traveler.
Do you hear these voices, charming and
lugubrious,
Which sing: "come here! you who want to devour
The perfumed Lotus! It is here that one harvests
The
miraculous fruits for which your heart depends;
Allay your
thirsts on the strange softness
Of an afternoon that will never
end!"
With the familiar accent we foretell the spectre;
Our
Pylades with their arms toward us outstretched.
"To
refresh your heart swim toward your Electra!"
Where before
we kissed the knees at best.
VIII.
O Death, old captain, it is time! Raise anchor!
This
country bores us, O death! Sail on!
If the sky and sea like ink
are black ore
Our hearts, as you know, give illumination.
Pour us your poison so it comforts us,
The flame that burns
our mind so, we wish to
Plunge into Hell, or Heaven, what's the
difference?
We plumb the Unknown to find the new!
