The house erupted in the fresh voices of women.
They chatted; one laughed her twenty-year-old laugh,
While on the edge of the red, trembling skies,
The sun set in its huge bed of flames.
On blades, with burning kisses, the stars shone prisms
Shimmering with coloured reflections.
Sometimes on the strong backs of murmuring, blue waves,
A boat slid by with the sound of oars.
And the women threw their mad, mocking voices
Into the deep voices of the skies, resounding clearly there
In the harmony of the sweet, melancholy evening:
Tired of having to keep both my ears and eyes open,
And no longer able to do both,
I closed my eyes to the sun, so I could hear.
From: https://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/four-poems-from-les-chimeres/
Date: 1866 (original in French); 2023 (translation in English)
By: Albert Mérat (1840-1909)
Translated by: Tim Mitchell (1966- )
From Troubles of The World 