Muse of my heart, lover of palaces, When January comes with wind and sleet, During the snowy eve's long weariness, Will there be fire to warm thy violet feet?
I was the height of a folio, my bed just backed on the bookcases' sombre Babel, everything, Latin ashes, Greek dust jumbled together: novel, science, fable.
Pascal had his Void that went with him day and night. Alas! It's all Abyss, action, longing, dream, the Word! And I feel Panic's storm-wind stream through my hair, and make it stand upright. ...
The way her silky garments undulate It seems she's dancing as she walks along, Like serpents that the sacred charmers make To move in rhythms of their waving wands. ...
Vauvenargues says that in public gardens there are alleys haunted principally by thwarted ambition, by unfortunate inventors, by aborted glories and broken hearts, and by all those tumultuous and contracted souls in whom the la...
Old monasteries under steadfast walls Displayed tableaux of holy Verity, Warming the inner men in those cold halls Against the chill of their austerity. ...
In a perfumed land caressed by the sun I found, beneath the trees' crimson canopy, palms from which languor pours on one's eyes, the veiled charms of a Creole lady.
Madonna, mistress, I would build for thee An altar deep in the sad soul of me; And in the darkest corner of my heart, From mortal hopes and mocking eyes apart, Carve of enamelled blue and gold a shrine...
Your feet are as slender as hands, your hips, to me, wide enough for the sweetest white girl's envy: to the wise artist your body is sweet and dear, and your great velvet eyes black without peer....
Around me roared the nearly deafening street. Tall, slim, in mourning, in majestic grief, A woman passed me, with a splendid hand Lifting and swinging her festoon and hem; ...
Stupidity and error, avarice and vice, possess our spirits, batten on our flesh, we feed that fond remorse, our guest, like ragged beggars nourishing their lice.
I once knew a certain Benedicta whose presence filled the air with the ideal and whose eyes spread abroad the desire of grandeur, of beauty, of glory, and of all that makes man believe in immortality....
What will you say tonight, poor lonely soul, What will you say old withered heart of mine, To the most beautiful, the best, most dear, Whose heavenly regard brings back your bloom? ...
You'd entertain the universe in bed, Foul woman; ennui makes you mean of soul. To exercise your jaws at this strange sport Each day you work a heart between your teeth. Your eyes, illuminated like boutiques...