A kiss would kill me, woman, If beauty were not death... By what attraction Am I drawn, what morn forgotten by the prophets That pours on the dying d… - Stéphane Mallarmé

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.

The poet Mallarmé listened to the painter Degas complaining about his inability to write poems even though “he was full of ideas.” “My dear Degas,” Mallarmé responded, “poems are not made out of ideas. They’re made out of words.

Tei qu’en Lui-même enfin l’éternité le change