Ophelia From Arthur Rimbaud Translated From Paul Amrod Poem by Paul Amrod

On the calm and black wave where the stars sleep
The white Ophelia floats by like a big lily,
Fleeting quite slowly, lying upon her long sails
In the distant woods we hear a death call so chilly.

It's been more than a thousand years since the sad Ophelia
passed, a pale phantom, along the long woeful river;
Here is more than a thousand years that this sweet madness
murmured her romances to the evening breeze with shivers.

The wind kisses her breasts and rearranges her mantillas
Cradled gently by the ripples in a radiance around her
The trembling willows are crying on her shoulder,
The reeds bow and hover over her dreamy third eye.

The wrinkled water-lilies sighed around her;
She sometimes wakes up, in a sleeping alley,
in some nest, from which escapes a small fragment of a wing:
A mysterious song falls from the golden stars to sing.

II

Oh pale Ophelia! Beautiful as snow!
Yes you died, child, by a river and then carried away!
Torrential winds fell from the great mountains of Norway
You had spoken quietly of your bittersweet liberty;

Is it a blustering gust twisting your long and gorgeous hair,
Bringing mysterious sounds with a dreamy atmosphere
May your heart listen to this song of Mother Nature's light
as the trees wail along with the sighing of the night.

Hearken, it's the voice of the crazy seas an immense groan
breaking your childlike bosom, too human and too sweet;
It was only one morning in April, a handsome pale cavalier moans,
a poor fool who sat mute and humble at your knees!

Firmament! Love! Freedom! What a dream, you foolish girl
You melted into him like snow warmed by fire:
Your great visions were strangled by your precious word
and the terrible infinity appalled your blue eyes!

III

Hence the poet recites by starlight a woesome ditty
You then come to fetch, at night, bouquets which you do collect.
You were witnessed by the water lying upon your long veils
Oh pale white Ophelia you are floating by like a big lily.