Vowels

Vowels

Black A, white E,red I, green U, blue O - vowels,

Some day I will open your silent pregnacies:

A, black belt, hairy with bursting flies,

Bumbling and buzzing over stinking cruelties,

Pits of night; E, candor of sand and pavilions,

High glacial spears, white kings, trembling Queen Anne's lace;

I, bloody spittle, laughter dribbling from a face

In wild denial or in anger, vermilions;

U,... divine movement of viridian seas,

Peace of pastures animal-strewn, peace of calm lines

Drawn on foreheads worn with heavy alchemies;

O, supreme Trumpet, harsh with strange stridencies,

Silences traced in angels and astral desings:

O... OMEGA...the violet light of His Eyes!

Arthur Rimbaud

Translated by PAUL SCHMIDT