CITIES

What cities! This is a people for whom these Alleghenies and these Lebanons of dream were staged! Chalets of crystal and of wood that move along invisible rails and pulleys. Old craters encircled by colossi and copper palms roar melodiously in the fires. Amorous revels ring over the canals pendent behind the chalets. The hunt of chimes clamors in the gorges. Guilds of giant singers congregate in robes and oriflammes as dazzling as the light on mountain peaks. On platforms amidst the precipices Rolands trumpet their valor. On the footbridges over the abyss and on the roofs of inns, the conflagration of the sky decks the masts with flags. The collapse of apotheoses joins the fields and heights where seraphic centauresses wander among the avalanches. Above the level of the highest peaks, a sea, troubled by the eternal birth of Venus, covered with orpheonic fleets and the murmur of precious conchs and pearls, the sea darkens at times with deadly flashes. On the slopes, harvests of flowers, large as our arms and our goblets, bellow. Processions of Mabs in russet dresses, and opaline, climb the ravines. Up there, with feet in the waterfall and brambles, stags suckle at Diana's breast. Bacchantes of the suburbs sob and the moon burns and bays. Venus enters the caverns of ironsmiths and hermits. Groups of belfries ring out the ideas of people. Out of castles built of bone comes mysterious music. All the legands advance and elks surge through the towns. The paradise of storms collapses. Savages dance ceaselessly in celebration of the night. And, one hour, I went down into the bustle of a boulevard in Bagdad where companies sang the joy of new toil, in a thick breeze, constantly moving about but unable to elude the fabulous phantoms of the heights, where they were to have met again.

What strong arms, what lovely hour will give me back that region whence come my slumbers and my slightest movements?