Marie Dauguet: 'Printemps', Part III

 

 

                                 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.