I WISH for nothing more
Than my emotion of now;
There is nothing one is bound to know,
And if my chest inflates,
It is with me it fills.

And yet the breath I exhale
Has the same taste as desire;
I am not happy yet.

What does my soul need, this eve,
Which is neither itself, nor God?

* * * * * *

I should need, perhaps, to tear the alga out,
Roughly, that in bundles ties my limbs,
And which the ebbing tide takes not away.

Then I should feel that I am separated,
And ending in the air, the earth, my skin,
And that my soul no longer feeds poor forces,
And that the blood, here, comes but from my heart.

Then, sure of having myself quite entire,
With the annihilated street curbed under me,
A woman under chestnut-trees would laugh.

And nothing of all that is the world this night;
Nor cattle-herds nor villages of valleys,
Nor yon far army under heaven encamped,
Nor, reading at his lamp, the youth of twenty,
Nor the group eating in the vessel's cabin,
There would be nothing presious more than she.

She would be fain to walk at my left side;
We should be fain to think our pathways touched;
And the rhythm would leap from her thigh unto mine,
Imprisoned bird seeking another perch;
Since I should not have taken her into my arms,
We simply should go walking under the trees.

* * * * * *

I am alone; but my environs
Suddenly leapt just now;
They steady themselves; they palpitate;
It is as though my hands
Seized and raised from earth
A great swooned body:
And having puffed my cheeks
I bury my breath in it
Through the slit of its mouth.

A couple passes, groping;
It is as though my hands
Ferried them down the street.

Another couple yonder
Stop mid in a shadow,
Which docilely begins
To turn around them;
And from shadow to shadow are kindled
Narrow pointed souls,
Which mount unwavering.
I recognize them from afar,
For they have a dye
Which is that of love;
And the heat they make
Licks, underneath, the leaves.