Paysage

I wish, to compose my eclogues chastely,

To lie down close to the sky, like the astrologers,

And, neighbor to the bell-towers, to listen as I dream

Their solemn hymns carried off by the wind.

Both hands beneath my chin, high in my garret,

I will see the workshop that sings and that chatters;

The chimney-pipes, the steeples, those masts of the city,

And the great skies that set one dreaming of eternity.

The star in the blue, the lamp at the window,

The rivers of coal-smoke climbing to the firmament,

And the moon pouring out its pale enchantment.

I will see the springs, the summers, the autumns;

And when winter comes with its monotonous snows,

I will close everywhere the curtains and the shutters

To build within the night my fairy-tale palaces.

Then I will dream of bluish horizons,

Of gardens, of fountains weeping into the alabaster,

Of kisses, of birds singing evening and morning,

And all that is most childlike in the Idyll.

The Riot, storming in vain against my windowpane,

Will not make me lift my brow from my writing-desk;

For I will be plunged in this voluptuous delight

Of summoning the Spring by my own will,

Of drawing a sun out of my heart, and of making

Of my burning thoughts a warm atmosphere.