Holiday, Poem by Charles Cros

Poem by Charles Cros Collection The Sandalwood CasketPeriod 19th century

It is myself alone I wish to charm in writing
The blessed dreams the wind dictates to me,
The memories I have of the kisses of her mouth,
Of her eyes, troubled skies where the sun goes down,
Of the shivers my neck keeps from her white arms,
Of the royal abandon that delivered her flanks to me.
Now that the discreet wind makes the oaks whisper

And that the sun intoxicates, in the nearby clearings,
Vipers and lizards asleep in the thyme,
Lying on the dry ground, I think of the distant time.
I tell myself that I still see the sky, and that She,
Superb soul, flower of beauty, frail splendor,
Having arrived after me, went away before.

And I listen to the sad songs the wind tells.

The idle fly and the hasty ant
Do not want one to dream and to write in the woods;
So too the wasps, the harvestmen, the gnats…
I go, along the wheat, to gather bindweeds
Of mysterious, bitter sweetness,
Like the memory of an ephemeral joy.

The fields too are full of busy insects,
A crowd of people of every aspect, of every degree.
Black locksmith, down low, the cricket files and grinds.
The hornet, pot-bellied like a rich man from the provinces,
Takes the little flowers between his short limbs.
The butterflies go off to their brief loves
Under their coats of silk and gold. The dragonfly
Brushes the grass with ridiculous disdain.
It is the city.
And I think of the city, of humans,
Of proud friends, of the balls where I pressed her hands;
Although stupidity and hasty intrigue
Do not suffer there either that one dream and that one write.

Charles Cros

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