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sensuous and rose-colored, of drunkenness—
the rose of such a drunkenness, that even now
as I write, after so many years have passed!,
in my solitary house, I am drunk again.
[1907; 1916]
Come Back
Come back often and take hold of me,
beloved feeling come back and take hold of me,
when the memory of the body reawakens,
and old longing once more passes through the blood;
when the lips and skin remember,
and the hands feel like they’re touching once again.
Come back often and take hold of me at night,
when the lips and skin remember …
[1904; 1909; 1912]
Far Off
I’d like to talk about that memory …
But by now it’s long died out … as if there’s nothing left:
because it lies far off, in the years of my first youth.
Skin, as if it had been made of jasmine …
That August—was it August?—evening …
I can just recall the eyes: they were, I daresay, blue …
Ah yes, blue: a deep blue, sapphirine.
[1914; 1914]
He Swears
Now and then he swears to begin a better life.
But when the night comes on with its own counsels,
its own compromises, and with its promises:
but when the night comes on with a power of its own,
of a body that desires and demands, he returns,
lost, once more to the same fateful pleasure.
[1905; >1915]
I Went
No restraint. I surrendered completely and I went.
To gratifications that were partly real,
partly careening within my mind—
I went in the illuminated night.
And I drank powerful wines, just as
the champions of pleasure drink.
[1905; 1913]
Chandelier
In a small and empty room, four lone walls,
covered in a cloth of solid green,
a beautiful chandelier burns and glows
and in each and every flame there blazes
a wanton fever, a wanton need.
In the small room, which has been set
aglow by the chandelier’s powerful flames,
the light that appears is no ordinary light.
The pleasure of this heat has not been fashioned
for bodies that too easily take fright.
[1895; 1914]
Poems 1916–1918
Since Nine—
Half past twelve. The time has quickly passed
since nine o’clock when I first turned up the lamp
and sat down here. I’ve been sitting without reading,
without speaking. With whom should I speak,
so utterly alone within this house?
The apparition of my body in its youth,
since nine o’clock when I first turned up the lamp,
has come and found me and reminded me
of shuttered perfumed rooms
and of pleasure spent—what wanton pleasure!
And it also brought before my eyes
streets made unrecognizable by time,
bustling city centres that are no more
and theatres and cafés that existed long ago.
The apparition of my body in its youth
came and also brought me cause for pain:
deaths in the family; separations;
the feelings of my loved ones, the feelings of
those long dead which I so little valued.
Half past twelve. How the time has passed.
Half past twelve. How the years have passed.
[1917; 1918]
Comprehension
The years of my youth, my pleasure-bent existence—
how plainly do I see their meaning now.
What useless, foolish regrets …
But I didn’t see their meaning then.
In the dissolute life I led in my youth
my poetry’s designs took shape;
the boundaries of my art were drawn.
That is why the regrets were never firm.
And my resolutions—to master myself, to change—
would keep up for two weeks at the most.
[1895; 1917/1918]
In the Presence of the Statue of Endymion
On a chariot of white, drawn by four
snow-white mules caparisoned in silver,
I have arrived at Latmus from Miletus. I sailed over
from Alexandria in a purple trireme to perform
holy rites for Endymion, sacrifices and libations.
Behold the statue. With rapture I now look upon
the fabled beauty of Endymion. My slaves
empty panniers of jessamine; and well-omened acclamations
have awakened the pleasure of ancient days.
[1895; 1916]
Envoys from Alexandria
