Été. Summer

SUMMER

À Francis Vielé-Griffin.

SUMMER, rock of pure air, and you, blazing hive, O sea! Scattered into a thousand flies upon The tufts of a flesh as cool as from a pitcher, And even in the mouth where buzzes the blue sky;

And you, fiery dwelling-place, immense Space, dear Space Tranquil, where the tree steams and loses a few birds, Where infinitely breaks the murmur of the mass Of the sea, of the march and the troops of the waters,

Weights of odours, great ripples from the happy races On the gulf which consumes and which mounts to the sun, Pure nests, sluices of grass, shadows of hollow waves, Cradle the child ravished in a fretful slumber!

Of whom the legs (but the one is cool and released From the one more rosy), the shoulders, the hard breast, The arms that are mingling with the foamy cheek Are abandoned shining in the obscure bowl

Where there filters loud sounds full of the beasts drawn up In the cages of leaves and the nets of the sea By the maritime mills and the rose-coloured huts Of day ... All the skin gilds the arbours of the air.