The Beacons
Rubens, garden of sloth, stream of oblivion,
Pillow of blooming flesh where no one can make love,
But where life's spirit flows and tosses ceaselessly,
As wind does in the sky, or seas within the sea;
Leonardo, a mirror, sombre and profound,
Where charming angels with ingratiating smiles
Burdened with mystery, are seen within the shades
Of glaciers and of pines that border the terrain;
Rembrandt, sad hospital full of strange whispering,
The one adornment there, a giant crucifix,
Where prayer is full of tears, and rises from the filth -
Abrupt across the room, a ray of winter sun;
And Michelangelo, vague place where Hercules
Mingles with forms of Christ, and rising very straight
Above are mighty ghosts, which in the dusky light
Will stretch their fingers out, and tear their winding-sheets;
Rage of the boxing-riog, impudence of a faun,
You who could call to beauty vassals in the camp,
Great heart puffed up with pride, feeble and jaundiced man,
Puget, sad and forlorn, the convicts' emperor;
Watteau, this carnival, where many famous hearts
Wander about like bright, flamboyant butterflies,
Decor is cool and light under the chandeliers
That pour down madness on this ever-circling dance;
Goya, a nightmare full of things unspeakable,
Of foetuses one cooks for midnight revellers,
Old women at the mirror, children fully nude,
Dressing to tempt the devils, very carefully;
Delacroix, lake of blood, the evil angels' haunts,
Shaded within a wood of fir-trees always green;
Under a gloomy sky, strange fanfares pass away
And disappear, like one of Weber's smothered sighs;
These curses, blasphemies, these maledictions, groans
These ecstasies, these pleas, cries of
Te Deum, tears
Echo respoken by a thousand labyrinths, -
An opium divine for hungry mortals' hearts!
It is a call passed by a thousand sentinels,
An order shouted through a thousand speaking horns;
It is a beacon on a thousand citadels,
A cry of hunters lost within a mighty wood!
For it is truly, Lord, best witness in the world
That we might give to you of human dignity,
This ardent sob that rolls onward from age to age
And comes to die in meeting your eternity!
Přeložil James McGowan