For a long time I dwelt under vast porticos

I've lived beneath huge portals where marine

Which the ocean suns lit with a thousand colors,

Suns coloured, with a myriad fires, the waves;

The pillars of which, tall, straight, and majestic,

At eve majestic pillars made the scene

Made them, in the evening, like basaltic grottos.

Resemble those of vast basaltic caves.

The billows which cradled the image of the sky

The breakers, rolling the reflected skies,

Mingled, in a solemn, mystical way,

Mixed, in a solemn, enigmatic way,

The omnipotent chords of their rich harmonies

The powerful symphonies they seem to play

With the sunsets' colors reflected in my eyes;

With colours of the sunset in my eyes.

It was there that I lived in voluptuous calm,

There did I live in a voluptuous calm

In splendor, between the azure and the sea,

Where breezes, waves, and splendours roved as vagrants;

And I was attended by slaves, naked, perfumed,

And naked slaves, impregnated with fragrance,

Who fanned my brow with fronds of palms

Would fan my forehead with their fronds of palm:

And whose sole task it was to fathom

Their only charge was to increase the anguish

The dolorous secret that made me pine away.

Of secret grief in which I loved to languish.