Saturday Poem

Apparition
The moon was saddening. Seraphim in tears
Dreaming, bow in hand, in the calm of vaporous
Flowers, were drawing from dying violins
White sobs gliding down blue corollas
--It was the blessed day of your first kiss.
My dreaming loving to torment me
Was drinking deep of the perfume of sadness
That even without regret and deception is left
By the gathering of a Dream in the heart which has gathered it.
I wandered then, my eyes on the worn pavement
When with the sun in your hair, and in the street
In the evening, you in laughter appeared to me
And I thought I saw the fairy with her cap of brightness
Who once on the beauty sleeps of my spoilt childhood
Passed, letting always her half-closed hands
Snow down white bouquets of perfumed stars.

-- STÉPHANE MALLARMÉ