Sea Breeze

The flesh is sad, alas! and I've read all the books.

Flee! yonder flee! I sense that birds are drunk

At being amid the unknown foam and the skies!

Nothing, even old gardens reflected by eyes

Will hold back this heart which dips in the sea

O night! nor the desert brightness of my lamp

On the empty paper which its whiteness defends

Nor the young wife giving suck to her child.

I'll leave! Steamer swaying your masts,

Raise anchor for an exotic nature!

A boredom, desolated by cruel hopes,

Still believes in the supreme wave of handkerchiefs!

And, perhaps, the masts, inviting storms

Are of those a wind leans over shipwrecks

Lost without masts, without masts, nor fertile isles...

But, oh my heart, hear the sailor song!

"Brise Marine," written 1865;

published 1866. Translation by

Robert Cohn, Towards the Poems of Mallarme.