Obsession
You scare me, forests, as cathedrals do!
You howl like organs; and in your damned hearts,
Those mourning-chambers where old death-rales ring,
Your
De Profundis echoes in response.
Ocean, I hate you! Your great crests and troughs,
I see them in my soul; the conquered man's
Mad laughter, full of insults and of sobs,
I hear it in the roaring of the sea.
But how you'd please me, night! without those stars
Whose light speaks in a language I have known!
Since I seek for the black, the blank, the bare!
Ah, but the darkness is itself a screen
Where thousands are projected from my eyes -
Those vanished beings whom I recognize.
Přeložil James McGowan