Who then knew that one day he would be bound to read you?
The monstrous sun quivers in your lyre!
When you deign to sing, Mozart says: "Let us be silent"
And we can then see the people on their knees
From whom there arises, in an effusion of sublime showers,
The prodigious wave of overflowing strophes.
Then out of rage we see Weber smash his lute;
Bellaigue comes to whistle at what had pleased him in the past,
César Franck and Fauré just have to close up shop,
Offenbach asks again for a little Attic wit
And in amazement sees Venus laughing in his face;
And yet imploring you with outstretched arms, came
Some from Delphi, where Phoebus the God who loves you
Rearing up his stallions to a superb rhythm
Sows the seeds of gold that you alone reap,
Others from the dazzling bank of lilies,
And all those from Megara and those from Acrocorinth
Where the child of Ictinus laughs yet atop the plinth,
Those from Argos Hippium where Tryphon sleeps,
Those who on the glaucous and bellowing sea make
The native soil all the more great out of enslaved isles,
Come to make you a gift of their enraptured souls.
The infinite, that bore, says to Kant: "Do you hear?"
The imperative ends with a tootle toot
Because the eagle of Liberty escapes from the nest of Cause,
And your double critic adds this footnote
And places Sorel before Monteverdi and Wagner.
Poem wrtiten in a letter to Albert Sorel [9 April 1905], possibly
a pastiche of Victor Hugo.
Created 03.01.24