Who raced, spurred on by electric lunulae?
What mad timbers, escorted by black seahorses
When Julys with cudgel blows smote
Ultramarine skies into blazing funnels?
I who shuddered, hearing the moans at fifty leagues
Of these Behemoths in rut and their dense Maelstroms,
Incessant rotors of blue immobilities;
Should I have stayed with the crumbling roofs of Europe?
I’ve gazed on starry archipelagos! And on islands
Whose crazy skies entice the galley rowers,
—In these endless nights can you sleep and exile yourself,
Amid a million golden guys, oh impending Vigour?
Translator's Note:
I simply made visible the sexual energy (and homoerotic) of the stanzas. And corrected what to me is, in most English versions of these lines, a poor translation of the old word “vogueurs”…
