I can remember a country of long, high colonnades

For a long time I dwelt under vast porticos

Which mirrored in their pale marble the prismatic light

Which the ocean suns lit with a thousand colors,

Cast from the bright sea billows in a thousand shades,

The pillars of which, tall, straight, and majestic,

And which resembled a cave of fluted basalt by night.

Made them, in the evening, like basaltic grottos.

The ocean, strewn with sliding images of the sky,

The billows which cradled the image of the sky

Would mingle in a mysterious and solemn way,

Mingled, in a solemn, mystical way,

Under the wild brief sunsets, its tremendous cry

The omnipotent chords of their rich harmonies

With the reflected colors of the ruined day.

With the sunsets' colors reflected in my eyes;

There did I dwell in quiet luxury apart,

It was there that I lived in voluptuous calm,

Amid the slowly changing hues of clouds and waves;

In splendor, between the azure and the sea,

And there I was attended by two naked slaves

And I was attended by slaves, naked, perfumed,

Who sometimes fanned me with great fronds on either side,

Who fanned my brow with fronds of palms

And whose sole task was to let sink into my heart

And whose sole task it was to fathom

The dolorous and beautiful secret of which I died.

The dolorous secret that made me pine away.