Long since, I lived beneath vast porticoes,

I can remember a country of long, high colonnades

By many ocean-sunsets tinged and fired,

Which mirrored in their pale marble the prismatic light

Where mighty pillars, in majestic rows,

Cast from the bright sea billows in a thousand shades,

Seemed like basaltic caves when day expired.

And which resembled a cave of fluted basalt by night.

The rolling surge that mirrored all the skies

The ocean, strewn with sliding images of the sky,

Mingled its music, turbulent and rich,

Would mingle in a mysterious and solemn way,

Solemn and mystic, with the colours which

Under the wild brief sunsets, its tremendous cry

The setting sun reflected in my eyes.

With the reflected colors of the ruined day.

And there I lived amid voluptuous calms,

There did I dwell in quiet luxury apart,

In splendours of blue sky and wandering wave,

Amid the slowly changing hues of clouds and waves;

Tended by many a naked, perfumed slave,

And there I was attended by two naked slaves

Who fanned my languid brow with waving palms.

Who sometimes fanned me with great fronds on either side,

They were my slaves — the only care they had

And whose sole task was to let sink into my heart

To know what secret grief had made me sad.

The dolorous and beautiful secret of which I died.