Stéphane Mallarmé Quotes

WHEN SHADOW THREATENED WITH THE FATAL LAW…” When shadow threatened with the fatal law One old Dream, desire and pain of my spine, Grieved at perishing beneath ceilings funereal, It folded its indubitable wing within me. Luxury, O ebony room where, to charm a king, Celebrated garlands writhe in their death, You are but a proud lie spoken by darkness In the eyes of the lone man dazzled by his faith. Yes, I know that, far in deep night, the Earth Casts with great brilliance the strange mystery Under the hideous centuries that darken it less. Space ever alike if it grow or deny itself Rolls in that boredom vile fires as witnesses That genius has been lit with a festive star.

No more, I must sleep, forgetting the outrage, On the thirsty sand lying, and as I delight Open my mouth to wine's potent star! Adieu, both! I shall see the shade you became.

Etna! 'tis amid you, visited by Venus On your lava fields placing her candid feet, When a sad stillness thunders wherein the flame dies. I hold the queen!

Ah well, towards happiness others will lead me With their tresses knotted to the horns of my brow: You know, my passion, that purple and just ripe, The pomegranates burst and murmur with bees; And our blood, aflame for her who will take it, Flows for all the eternal swarm of desire.

I, proud of my rumour, for long I will talk Of goddesses; and by picturings idolatrous, From their shades unloose yet more of their girdles: So when of grapes the clearness I've sucked, To banish regret by my ruse disavowed, Laughing, I lift the empty bunch to the sky, Blowing into its luminous skins and athirst To be drunk, till the evening I keep looking through. Oh nymphs, we diverse MEMORIES refill.

My breast, though proofless, still attests a bite Mysterious, due to some august tooth; But enough! for confidant such mystery chose The great double reed which one plays 'neath the blue.

Then shall I awake to the primitive fervour, Straight and alone, 'neath antique floods of light, Lilies and one of you all through my ingenuousness.

Inert, all burns in the fierce hour

No water murmurs but what my flute pours On the chord sprinkled thicket; and the sole wind Prompt to exhale from my two pipes, before It scatters the sound in a waterless shower, Is, on the horizon's unwrinkled space, The visible serene artificial breath Of inspiration, which regains the sky.

All alone I gave Myself for triumph the ideal sin of roses.

These nymphs I would perpetuate. So clear Their light carnation, that it floats in the air Heavy with tufted slumbers. <p> Was it a dream I loved?

I feel in my sinews The spreading of shadows Converging together With a shiver And in solitary vigil After flights triumphal My head rise From this scythe Through a clean rupture That serves to dissever The ancient disharmony With the body As drunk from fasting It persists in following With a haggard bound Its gaze profound Up where the frozen Absolute has chosen That nothing shall measure Its vastness, O glacier But according to a ritual Illumined by the principle That chose my consecration It extends a salutation.

The sun as it's halted Miraculously exalted Resumes its descent Incandescent.

I am alone in my monotonous country, While all those around me live in the idolatry Of a mirror reflecting in its depths serene Herodiade, whose gaze is diamond keen ... O final enchantment! yes, I sense it, I am alone.

I wait, but do not know for what or why Or perhaps you are uttering the last bruised sighs, Ignorant of the mystery and of your cries, Of a childhood feeling its frozen gems Being broken off at last amidst its dreams.