Cantique des colonnes. Canticle of the Columns

CANTICLE OF THE COLUMNS

GRACEFUL columns, wearing Hats bedecked for the day, With real birds embellished Who walk and look around,

Graceful columns, sounding Your orchestra of forms! Each one sacrificing Silence for unison.

- What do you lift so high, Of equal radiance? - The wish to make faultless Our studious graces!

We sing at the same time We carry the heavens! O wise and single voice Which makes songs for the eyes!

Behold these guileless hymns! What rich sonority Our limpid elements Draw out of the brightness!

So chilly and gilded We remained in our beds By the chisel rescued, To become these lilies!

In our beds of crystal We remained until called, Then by great metal claws We were carved out and dressed. À Léon-Paul Fargue.

For confronting the moon, Both the moon and the sun, We were polished each one Like a nail on a toe!

Serving-maids without knees, Who smile without faces, The young girl facing us Understands pure legs.

Alike in piety, A blindfold to the nose And our sumptuous ears Deaf to the white burden,

A temple on the eyes Dark for eternity, We go without the gods Towards the deity!

Our antiquated youth, Dull flesh and fine shadows, Are proud of the finesse Which is born of numbers!

Daughters of gold numbers, Made strong by heaven's laws, On us descends and sleeps A honey-coloured god.

He sleeps content, the Day, Who each day offers up At the table of love Becalmed upon our brows.

Immaculate sisters, Half burning, half icy, We took but for dancers Breezes and withered leaves,

And tens of centuries, And the passing peoples, It is all a deep once, A once never enough!

Beneath even our loves More heavy than the earth We pass across the days As a stone skims water!

We march onward through time And our dazzling bodies Have ineffable steps Which are marked in fables...