Parisian Dream

To pleasure me, in this dark dawn, A far and terrible paradise, Fading, has left within mine eyes The dazzlement of light withdrawn.

Slumber is full of miracles! Forbidden by mine own decree, No unconforming blade or tree In this diviner vision dwells,

And I, proud sculptor of a world, Grow drunken with the monotone Of metal, water, flame and stone At my fantastic will unfurled.

Babel of stairs and of arcades, There is a palace infinite With countless pools, and fountains bright Falling on golden dark estrades;

Where, from the ramparts far and high, Enormous cataracts have sprung, Like heavy crystal curtains hung On brazen walls within the sky.

No bowers, but lines of columns tall By sleeping tarns surrounded there, With mirrored naiadès that bare Huge breasts and limbs titanical.

Blue waters endlessly are whirled Between the quays of malachite And quays of sard, that run in light A million leagues athwart the world—

A world of waves chimerical, And stone undreamt-of; shore and sea, A dazzling cold immensity Reflecting and redoubling all!

In silence, from the vault beyond, Great rivers negligently turn The treasure of each teeming urn Adown the gulfs of diamond.

An architect of Fäery, Through lofty caverns roofed and walled With ruby and with emerald, I drive the tamed, obedient sea.

Pale, black or irised, all things gleam like burnished Orient mirrors clear; Colossal gems of sea and mere Are set in the crystallizèd beam.

And yet no alien star, nor light left by the sun in nether skies Has shone upon these prodigies— Self-lit in lusters infinite!

On all the shifting gramarie Hovers (0, dreadful strange demesne Where naught is heard and all is seen!) The silence of eternity.

II

Opening eyes replete with fire, I see my hovel's horror plain, And feel re-entering in my brain The fang of cares accurst and dire;

Funeral, slow, the pendulum Tolls brutally the lapse of noon, And darkness pours from heaven too soon On the sad world forlorn and numb.