Inscription, Poem by Charles Cros

Poem by Charles Cros Collection The Collar of ClawsPeriod 19th century

My soul is like a boundless sky;
It has gloomy immensities
And countless clear suns;
So, despite evil, my life,
Ravished by so many diamonds,
Is reflected in the stream of my verses.

I will therefore tell in these words
My visions that were thought mad,
My answer to the distant worlds
That sent us their messages,
Lightning misunderstood by our sages
And which, weary, have gone out.

In my customary search
For all the secrets of light,
All the mysteries of the brain,
I have explored everything, I have known how to say everything,
To make people weep and make them laugh
And to show the new world.

I wanted tones, grace,
Everything that a mirror reflects,
The intoxication of an opera ball,
Ruby evenings, the green shadow,
To fix themselves on the inert plate.
I wanted it, it will be.

Like the features in cameos
I wanted the beloved voices
To be a possession, kept forever,
And to be able to repeat the musical
Dream of the too brief hour;
Time wants to flee, I subdue it.
And men, without irony,
Will say that I had genius
And, in the pacified centuries,
Women will say that my lips,
Despite struggles and fevers,
Knew the supreme kisses.

Charles Cros

Translation generated by Poésies 123 with assistance from the deepseek-chat artificial-intelligence model.

Text published on Poésies 123: https://www.poesies123.com/en/poem-inscription-charles-cros/