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 L'APRÈS-MIDI D'UN FAUNE.

(From the French of Stéphane Mallarmé.)

I would immortalize these nymphs; so bright Their sunlit colouring, so airy light, It floats like drowsy down. Loved I a dream? My doubts, born of oblivious darkness, seem A subtle tracery of branches grown The tree's true self—proving that I have known, Thinking it love, the blushing of a rose. But think. These nymphs, their loveliness suppose They bodied forth your senses' fabulous thirst? Illusion! which the blue eyes of the first, As cold and chaste as is the weeping spring, Beget: the other, sighing, passioning, Is she the wind, warm in your fleece at noon? No; through this quiet, when a weary swoon Crushes and chokes the latest faint essay Of morning, cool against the encroaching day, There is no murmuring water, save the gush Of my clear fluted notes; and in the hush Blows never a wind, save that which through my reed Puffs out before the rain of notes can speed Upon the air, with that calm breath of art