Parisian Dream

for Constantin Guys     Of this strange, awe-inspiring scene     Such as on earth one never sees,     Today the image once again,     Obscure and distant, captures me.     Sleep is so full of miracles!     By whimsy odd and singular     I've banished from these spectacles     Nature and the irregular.     And, happy with my artistry,     I painted into my tableau     The ravishing monotony     Of marble, metal, water-flow.     Babel of endless stairs, arcades,     It was a palace multifold     Replete with pools and bright cascades     Falling in dull or burnished gold;     And the more weighty waterfalls     Like crystal screens resplendent there     Along the metal rampart walls     Seemed to suspend themselves in air;     The sleeping pools - there were no trees     Gathered around them colonnades,     And in them naiads at their ease     Could cast the narcissistic gaze.     Sheets of blue water, emptying     Between the green and rosy quays     From multitudes of openings,     Poured to the world's last boundaries;     Magical waves, to please the eye,     Splashed on unheard-of stones, and vast     Reflectors stood there, dazzled by     The world they mirrored in their glass!     Insouciant and taciturn,     Some Ganges, in the firmament,     Poured out the treasure of their urns     Into the gulfs of diamond.     Architect of my magic show,     I then required, for my mood,     Through a jewelled conduit to flow     An ocean I had first subdued.     And all, even the colour black,     Seemed polished, sparkling, clear and clean;     The liquid kept its glow intact     Within the solid crystal beam.     No star from anywhere, no sign     Of moon or sunshine, bright or dim,     Illuminate this scene of mine     Glowing with fire from within!     Over the pageantry appears     To hover (awful novelty     For eyes, but nothing for the ear!)     A silence of eternity.     Open, my ardent eyes could see     The horror of my wretched hole;     I felt my cursed cares to be     A needle entering my soul;     The clock proclaimed the time was noon     In accents brutal and perverse,     And from the misty sky a gloom     Poured through the torpid universe.