Ballad of the Unseen Sea, Rhythm
                                          in Diverse Stanzas



I haven’t seen the sea.

My eyes,
-- wounded watchmen, fantastic fireflies;
my eyes alert in the night; owners
of the shattered warp,
of astral worlds;
my errant eyes
relatives of the horrid vertigo of the abyss;
my steely Viking eyes, watched over,
my vagrant eyes
haven’t seen the sea . . .

The undulating song of its tremulous curve
hasn’t stirred my dreams,
nor have I heard the erotic moan of its sirens,
nor has my retina been stunned by the bright yellow mercury,
that rolls across its back . . .
Its resonant whirlwinds,
its silences, I never could hear . . . !
its Cyclopean rages, its complaints or its hymns,
nor its valiant mutism when silver and gold
of suns and moons, like perennial cries,
dilute its wealth for the green sapphire . . . !

Nor will I inhale its perfume!

I know of the aromas
of beloved manes . . .
I know of the perfumes of necks, slender
and fragile and tepid,
of breasts where the preferred apples of Venus
hide their breath!
I will imbibe the flasks
where Nirvana sets to fire symbolic sandals,
the aloe and myrrh of Zoroastro the magician . . .
But I will not inhale the salt or the iodine of the sea!

My hungering lips
aren’t slaked by wineskins
in my thirst:
nor do the acerbic wineskins
mitigate the thirst . . .
My lips, crazy, drunken, avid, vagrant,
thoughtful lips
that embitter lamentations and irate gestures
and in a pair of lips -- virginal -- are captured in your net.

I am brother
to the clouds.
Brother to the clouds,
of the vagrant clouds, of the visionaries of space:
wandering ships
that push acres puffs of wind anonymous and cold!
That impel robust impulses fickle and dark!
I am a voyager
of nights.
Voyager of intoxicating nights; sailor
of its limitless gulfs,
of its limitless gulfs, delirious, empty,
-- void of infinity . . .,  void -- I am
a docile sailor,
and my defeated dreams are ships . . .
Defeated ships, courses ignored, cavern
of pirates . . . the sea! . . .

My wandering eyes
--- insatiable voyagers -- know skies, worlds,
know deep nights, engraved and serene,
know tragic nights,
delicious fantasies,
impudent dreams . . .
They know of unique pity,
of pleasures and of tears,
of myths and of science,
of pain
and of love . . . !

My wandering eyes,
my infertile eyes . . . :
my eyes haven’t seen the sea,
I haven’t seen the sea!



Leon de Greiff