Front cover illustration by František Tichý for Chimeras by Gerard de Nerval 1949
Gilded Verse
And so! Everything is sentient!
-Pythagoras
Man, free thinker! You think you alone think
In this world where life splatters everywhere?
You're free to dispose of your charge,
But the firmament's gone from your schemes.
Respect the spirit that moves in beasts:
Every flower a ghost that opens to Nature,
Every alloy harbors the secrets of love;
“Everything is sentient,” & everything can change you,
Fear the eyes in blind walls,
Even dead matter is infused with a verb,
Don't use it perversely.
Even in the shunned ones lives a secret god,
Like a nascent eye obscured by its lids,
A pure spirit blooms behind the veil of stones.
The Chimeras ~ by Gerard de Nerval translated by Translated by Mark Lamoureux
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