"Apparition" by Stéphane Mallarmé, translated by Wilfrid Thorley

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January 29, 2022 

Apparition

Stéphane Mallarmé
translated by Wilfrid Thorley

The moon grew sad, and weeping seraphim,
Musing among the vaporous flowers aswim,
With slow bows from the sobbing viols drew
White tears that sank in their corónals blue.
It was the blesséd day of your first kiss.
My reverie, eager with new miseries,
Was all a-swoon with perfume of shy grief
That leaves the heart to gather its own sheaf,
And frets not, nor yet sickens of its prize.
I wandered, and the worn way held my eyes
When in the street I saw your sun-girt hair
And you all smiling in the twilit air.
I took you for that elf who, crowned with beams,
Once passed before me in my childish dreams,
And shed white posies of sweet-smelling flow’rs
Star-like for tiny hands in snowy show’rs.

 


 

Apparition

 

La lune s’attristait. Des séraphins en pleurs
Rêvant, l’archet aux doigts, dans le calme des fleurs
Vaporeuses, tiraient de mourantes violes
De blancs sanglots glissant sur l’azur des corolles.
—C’était le jour béni de ton premier baiser.
Ma songerie aimant à me martyriser
S’enivrait savamment du parfum de tristesse
Que même sans regret et sans déboire laisse
La cueillaison d’un Rêve au cœur qui l’a cueilli.
J’errais donc, l’œil rivé sur le pavé vieilli,
Quand avec du soleil aux cheveux, dans la rue
Et dans le soir, tu m’es en riant apparue
Et j’ai cru voir la fée au chapeau de clarté
Qui jadis sur mes beaux sommeils d’enfant gâté
Passait, laissant toujours de ses mains mal fermées
Neiger de blancs bouquets d’étoiles parfumées.

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on January 29, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.

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“Apparition” appeared in Fleurs-de-Lys: A Book of French Poetry Freely Translated into English Verse (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1920).

Stéphane Mallarmé was a French poet of the Symbolist movement. The author of several collections, including Poésies (La Revue indépendante, 1887), and Divagations (Bibliothèque-Charpentier, 1897). He died on September 9, 1898.

Wilfrid Charles Thorley was an English poet, children’s author, and translator. He was author of many books, including Fleurs-de-Lys (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1920). He died on January 28, 1963.
Fleurs-de-Lys
(Houghton Mifflin Company, 1920)

“The Apparition” by John Donne
read more
“The Ghost” by Winifred M. Letts
read more

Thanks to Joseph O. Legaspi, author of Threshold (CavanKerry Press, 2017), who curated Poem-a-Day for this month’s weekdays. Listen to a Q&A about Legaspi’s curatorial approach and find out more about our guest editors for the year.
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