Marie Dauguet: 'Printemps', Part III

 

                                 III

                                 Pour Gustave Le Bon

 

Écoute, écoute, c’est le formidable bond

Du soleil animal dont la crinière flambe

Et la course en vertige au rythme furibond

De la terre captive où l’humanité rampe.

 

L’éther dissout ses morts, berce ses derniers nés,

Mêle des astres neufs à des soleils fantômes,

Mais sur les raiuls du temps, tous glissent entraînés

Dans les vibrations de votre danse, atômes.

 

Fluidité! Néant! Le contour exprimé

Des mondes et des cœurs, puis tout se désagrège.

Apparence, tends-moi du moins ton divin piège!

 

Au travers du printemps, dans mon âme essaimé,

Rose, dont j’aurai su goûter le sortilège

Qu’importe si tu n’es qu’un sépulcre embaumé?

 

                                 III

                                 To Gustave Le Bon

 

Ah, listen, listen, it’s the formidable bound

Of the instinctive sun whose mane is all ablaze

And the dizzying race with frenzied, rhythmic sound

Of captive earth, where humans crawl as in a daze.

 

Aether dissolves its dead, it rocks its newly born,

Mixes new stars with ghostlike suns as if by chance,

But on the rails of time, all slide away, are drawn

As atoms in the strong vibrations of our dance.

 

Sheer flux! And nothingness! The contour that is drawn

Of worlds and hearts before all things disintegrate.

Appearance, lay your sacred trap is all I crave!

 

Throughout all spring, dispersed and in my soul still borne,

Oh Rose, whose spell I will have tasted at some date,

What does it matter if you’re but a scented grave? 

                                 

                          

I have added Part III for the sake of completeness. In my opinion it is a ghastly poem. It is confirmation that Marie Dauguet lost her centre from about 1909 onwards. Not always, but Futurism seems to have blighted her poetry.