Former Life

I've lived beneath huge portals where marine

Suns coloured, with a myriad fires, the waves;

At eve majestic pillars made the scene

Resemble those of vast basaltic caves.

The breakers, rolling the reflected skies,

Mixed, in a solemn, enigmatic way,

The powerful symphonies they seem to play

With colours of the sunset in my eyes.

There did I live in a voluptuous calm

Where breezes, waves, and splendours roved as vagrants;

And naked slaves, impregnated with fragrance,

Would fan my forehead with their fronds of palm:

Their only charge was to increase the anguish

Of secret grief in which I loved to languish.