I propose, with a steady voice
To declaim in loudest tones the cold
And sober offering you are about to hear
Pay heed to what it contains
And beware of the painful impact
It will not fail to leave like a blight
On your disordered imaginations
Do not believe I am on the verge of death
(even though I might very well be)
For I am not yet a skeleton, and old age cleaves not to my brow
(and yet it starts taking the role of an unwanted companion)
Now we consequently wave aside any idea of comparison
With the swan of golden origin at the moment when its life flies off
And before you behold a mere monstrosity
Whose face I am glad you cannot see
But the face is less horrible than the spirit
(but the face is less horrible than the spirit)
Not long ago I saw the sea again and trod the decks of ships
And my memories are as fresh
As if I'd left the sea only yesterday
Nevertheless, if you can
On listening to what I already regret offering you
Be as calm as I, and do not blush
At the thought of what the human heart is
Ye who have not witnessed the foundering
Of a ship in the eye of a storm
While the brilliance of lightning alternates
With the most profound darkness
And the souls on board are overcome
With the despair you know so well
Knows nothing of the tragedy of life
Imagine a grand universal shriek of agony
Escaping from the vessel's buried hull
While the sea relentlessly increases the assault
A cry to beautifully embody the human strength
Giving in to its demise
One each man enfolds himself in the garment of resignation
And commits his soul into the hands of God
A pitiful bunch
Clinging together like a flock of sheep
One distressed ship roars its tunes of anguish
And majestically she sets into the dark
Spirit of the silken glance!
Your soul is inseparable from mine
Most handsome inhabitant of the sphere that you call yours
And you are nobly enthroned
By common consent and perennial bond
The sweet virtue of every grace and divine communion
Why are you not with me...?
Your quicksilver belly against my breast of aluminum
Both of us seated on some rock by the shore
To meditate upon this spectacle I adore
Old Ocean, with your Crystal Waves you resemble the icy pale lines
An unfortunate soul might be given a swift distorted glimpse upon
After having spent hours, days and months at the mercy
(if one wants to call it so)
Of their torturer
You are a colossal azure bruise slapped on the body of earth
At first sight of you, a long-drawnout sigh of sadness
(of sadness)
That one might believe to be the murmur
Of your mellow breeze passes over
The deeply disturbed esprit
(the deeply disturbed esprit)
Leaving harrowing scars for the ages
And you remind your lovers
(though they don't always bear it in mind)
Of man's crude origins
When he became acquainted with the sorrow
That is never to desert him
Your harmoniously spherical form
That rejoices the grave face of geometry
Reminds me overmuch of man's tiny eyes -
Akin to the peccary's in minuteness
And to those of the nightbirds in their circular perfection
(in their circular perfection)
Of contour (of contour)
Yet down the ages man has deemed himself beautiful
Oh so ignorant of his excruciating peradventure
So adversarial towards that ravishing divineness of yours
Old Ocean, you are the symbol of identity
Always equal unto yourself
In essence you never change
Even with waves in a deuce of a stir somewhere
Farther off you're in absolute and complete tranquility
You are not like man - who stops in the streets with delight
To watch two deadbeats tearing each other apart
But does not stop when a funeral passes
Who does not bat an eyelash in the finite face of extinction
(in the finite face of extinction)
Who in the morning is affable
Yet in the evening ill-humoured
Who laughs today and weeps tomorrow
(who laughs today and weeps tomorrow)
Who loves today and hates tomorrow
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