My Sad Muse

by

Delmira Agustini


Murmuring preludes. On this resplendent night

Her pearled voice quiets a fountain.

The breezes hang their celestial fifes

In the foliage. The gray heads

Of the owls keep watch.

Flowers open themselves, as if surprised.

Ivory swans extend their necks

In the pallid lakes.

Selene watches from the blue. Fronds

Tremble...and everything! Even the silence, quiets.


She wanders with her sad mouth

And the grand mystery of amber eyes,

Across the night, toward forgetfulness

Like a star, fugitive and white.

Like a dethroned exotic queen

With comely gestures and rare utterings.


Her undereyes are violated horizons

And her irises—two stars of amber—

Open wet and weary and sad

Like ulcers of light that weep.


She is a grief which thrives and does not hope,

She is a gray aurora rising

From the shadowy bed of night,

Exhausted, without splendor, without anxiousness.

And her songs are like dolorous fairies

Jeweled in teardrops...


The strings of lyres

Are the souls' fibers.—


The blood of bitter vineyards, noble vineyards,

In goblets of regal beauty, rises

To her marble hands, to lips carved

Like the blazon of a great lineage.


Strange Princes of Fantasy! They

Have seen her languid head, once erect,

And heard her laugh, for her eyes

Tremble with the flower of aristocracies!


And her soul clean as fire, like a star,

Burns in those pupils of amber.

But with a mere glance, scarcely an intimacy,

Perhaps the echo of a profane voice,

This white and pristine soul shrinks

Like a luminous flower, folding herself up!



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