Paul Valéry - The Graveyard by the Sea lyrics

This quiet roof, where dove-sails saunter by, Between the pines, the tombs, throbs visibly. Impartial noon patterns the sea in flame -- That sea forever starting and re-starting. When thought has had its hour, oh how rewarding Are the long vistas of celestial calm! What grace of light, what pure toil goes to form The manifold diamond of the elusive foam! What peace I feel begotten at that source! When sunlight rests upon a profound sea, Time's air is sparkling, dream is certainty -- Pure artifice both of an eternal Cause. Sure treasure, simple shrine to intelligence, Palpable calm, visible reticence, Proud-lidded water, Eye wherein there wells Under a film of fire such depth of sleep -- O silence! . . . Mansion in my soul, you slope Of gold, roof of a myriad golden tiles. Temple of time, within a brief sigh bounded, To this rare height inured I climb, surrounded By the horizons of a sea-girt eye. And, like my supreme offering to the gods, That peaceful coruscation only breeds A loftier indifference on the sky. Even as a fruit's absorbed in the enjoying, Even as within the mouth its body dying Changes into delight through dissolution, So to my melted soul the heavens declare All bounds transfigured into a boundless air, And I breathe now my future's emanation. Beautiful heaven, true heaven, look how I change! After such arrogance, after so much strange Idleness -- strange, yet full of potency -- I am all open to these shining spaces; Over the homes of the dead my shadow pa**es, Ghosting along -- a ghost subduing me. My soul laid bare to your midsummer fire, O just, impartial light whom I admire, Whose arms are merciless, you have I stayed And give back, pure, to your original place. Look at yourself . . . But to give light implies No less a somber moiety of shade. Oh, for myself alone, mine, deep within At the heart's quick, the poem's fount, between The void and its pure issue, I beseech The intimations of my secret power. O bitter, dark, and echoing reservoir Speaking of depths always beyond my reach. But know you -- feigning prisoner of the boughs, Gulf which cats up their slender prison-bars, Secret which dazzles though mine eyes are closed -- What body drags me to its lingering end, What mind draws it to this bone-peopled ground? A star broods there on all that I have lost. Closed, hallowed, full of insubstantial fire, Morsel of earth to heaven's light given o'er -- This plot, ruled by its flambeaux, pleases me -- A place all gold, stone, and dark wood, where shudders So much marble above so many shadows: And on my tombs, asleep, the faithful sea. Keep off the idolaters, bright watch-dog, while -- A solitary with the shepherd's smile -- I pasture long my sheep, my mysteries, My snow-white flock of undisturbed graves! Drive far away from here the careful doves, The vain daydreams, the angels' questioning eyes! Now present here, the future takes its time. The brittle insect scrapes at the dry loam; All is burnt up, used up, drawn up in air To some ineffably rarefied solution . . . Life is enlarged, drunk with annihilation, And bitterness is sweet, and the spirit clear. The dead lie easy, hidden in earth where they Are warmed and have their mysteries burnt away. Motionless noon, noon aloft in the blue Broods on itself -- a self-sufficient theme. O rounded dome and perfect diadem, I am what's changing secretly in you. I am the only medium for your fears. My penitence, my doubts, my baulked desires -- These are the flaw within your diamond pride . . . But in their heavy night, cumbered with marble, Under the roots of trees a shadow people Has slowly now come over to your side. To an impervious nothingness they're thinned, For the red clay has swallowed the white kind; Into the flowers that gift of life has pa**ed. Where are the dead? -- their homely turns of speech, The personal grace, the soul informing each? Grubs thread their way where tears were once composed. The bird-sharp cries of girls whom love is teasing, The eyes, the teeth, the eyelids moistly closing, The pretty breast that gambles with the flame, The crimson blood shining when lips are yielded, The last gift, and the fingers that would shield it -- All go to earth, go back into the game. And you, great soul, is there yet hope in you To find some dream without the lying hue That gold or wave offers to fleshly eyes? Will you be singing still when you're thin air? All perishes. A thing of flesh and pore Am I. Divine impatience also dies. Lean immortality, all crêpe and gold, Laurelled consoler frightening to behold, d**h is a womb, a mother's breast, you feign The fine illusion, oh the pious trick! Who does not know them, and is not made sick That empty skull, that everlasting grin? Ancestors deep down there, O derelict heads Whom such a weight of spaded earth o'erspreads, Who are the earth, in whom our steps are lost, The real flesh-eater, worm unanswerable Is not for you that sleep under the table: Life is his meat, and I am still his host. 'Love,' shall we call him? 'Hatred of self,' maybe? His secret tooth is so intimate with me That any name would suit him well enough, Enough that he can see, will, daydream, touch -- My flesh delights him, even upon my couch I live but as a morsel of his life. Zeno, Zeno, cruel philosopher Zeno, Have you then pierced me with your feathered arrow That hums and flies, yet does not fly! The sounding Shaft gives me life, the arrow k**s. Oh, sun! -- Oh, what a tortoise-shadow to outrun My soul, Achilles' giant stride left standing! No, no! Arise! The future years unfold. Shatter, O body, meditation's mould! And, O my breast, drink in the wind's reviving! A freshness, exhalation of the sea, Restores my soul . . . Salt-breathing potency! Let's run at the waves and be hurled back to living! Yes, mighty sea with such wild frenzies gifted (The panther skin and the rent chlamys), sifted All over with sun-images that glisten, Creature supreme, drunk on your own blue flesh, Who in a tumult like the deepest hush Bite at your sequin-glittering tail -- yes, listen! The wind is rising! . . . We must try to live! The huge air opens and shuts my book: the wave Dares to explode out of the rocks in reeking Spray. Fly away, my sun-bewildered pages! Break, waves! Break up with your rejoicing surges This quiet roof where sails like doves were pecking.