The Bell Ringer (Le Sonneur)

While the bell awakens its voice clear and bright
To the pure deep air of the morning time,
Passing over a child who pours out in delight
An Angelus amid lavender and thyme,

The ringer, brushed by a bird brought to light,
Plods sadly and, mumbling a Latin rhyme
On the stone that stretches the old cord tight,
Hears only the tinkling of a far-off chime.

I myself am that man. For alas! when I pull
On anxious night’s rope to sound the Ideal,
Cold sins flaunt their faithful plumes in disdain

And the voice comes only as a hollow moan!
But one day, sick from having pulled in vain,
I’ll hang myself, Satan, removing the stone.

poem by Stephane Mallarme (15 March 1862), translated by Henry Weinfield
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Tomb (Of Verlaine)

Anniversary – January 1897

The black rock enraged that the north wind rolls it on
Will not stop itself, nor, under pious hands, still
Cease testing its resemblance to human ill
As if to bless some fatal cast of bronze.

Here nearly always if the ring-dove coos
This immaterial grief with many a fold of cloud
Crushes the ripe star of tomorrows, whose crowd
Will be silvered by its scintillations. Who

Following the solitary leap
External now of our vagabond – seeks
Verlaine? He’s hidden in the grass, Verlaine

Only to catch, naïvely, not drying it with his breath
And without the lip drinking there, at peace again,
A shallow stream that’s slandered, and named Death.

poem by Stéphane Mallarmé
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