Cities

 

 

What cities! This is a people for whom these Alleghenies and these

Lebanons of dream were staged! Chalets of crystal and of wood that move

along invisible rails and pulleys. Old craters encircled by colossi and

copper palms roar melodiously in the fires. Amorous revels ring over the

canals pendent behind the chalets. The hunt of chimes clamors in the

gorges. Guilds of giant singers congregate in robes and oriflammes as

dazzling as the light on mountain peaks. On platforms amidst the

precipices Rolands trumpet their valor. On the footbridges over the abyss

and on the roofs of inns, the conflagration of the sky decks the masts

with flags. The collapse of apotheoses joins the fields and heights where

seraphic centauresses wander among the avalanches. Above the level of the

highest peaks, a sea, troubled by the eternal birth of Venus, covered

with orpheonic fleets and the murmur of precious conchs and pearls, the

sea darkens at times with deadly flashes. On the slopes, harvests of

flowers, large as our arms and our goblets, bellow. Processions of Mabs

in russet dresses, and opaline, climb the ravines. Up there, with feet

in the waterfall and brambles, stags suckle at Diana's breast. Bacchantes

of the suburbs sob and the moon burns and bays. Venus enters the caverns

of ironsmiths and hermits. Groups of belfries ring out the ideas of

people. Out of castles built of bone comes mysterious music. All the

legands advance and elks surge through the towns. The paradise of storms

collapses. Savages dance ceaselessly in celebration of the night. And,

one hour, I went down into the bustle of a boulevard in Bagdad where

companies sang the joy of new toil, in a thick breeze, constantly moving

about but unable to elude the fabulous phantoms of the heights, where

they were to have met again.

 

What strong arms, what lovely hour will give me back that region whence

come my slumbers and my slightest movements?