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METROPOLITAN

Chariots of copper and of silver —
Prows of silver and steel —
Thresh upon the foam, —
Upheave the stumps and brambles.
The currents of the heath,
And the enormous ruts of the ebb,
Flow circularly toward the east,
Toward the pillars of the forest, —
Toward the boles of the jetty,

Chariots of copper and of silver —
Prows of silver and steel —
Thresh upon the foam, —
Upheave the stumps and brambles.
The currents of the heath,
And the enormous ruts of the ebb,
Flow circularly toward the east,
Toward the pillars of the forest, —
Toward the boles of the jetty,
Against whose edge whirlwinds of light collide.
Against whose edge whirlwinds of light collide.

From the indigo straits to Ossian's seas, on pink and orange sands washed by the vinous sky, crystal boulevards have just risen and crossed, immediately occupied by poor young families who get their food at the greengrocers'. Nothing rich. — The city!

From the bituminous desert, in headlong flight with the sheets of fog spread in frightful bands across the sky, that bends, recedes, descends, formed by the most sinister black smoke that Ocean in mourning can produce, flee helmets, wheels, boats, rumps. — The battle!

Raise your eyes: that arched wooden bridge; those last truck gardens of Samaria; those faces reddened by the lantern lashed by the cold night; silly Undine in her noisy dress, down by the river; those luminous skulls among the rows of peas, — and all the other phantasmagoria — the country.

Roads bordered by walls and iron fences that with difficulty hold back their groves, and frightful flowers probably called loves and doves, Damask damning langourously, — possessions of magic aristocracies ultra-Rhenish, Japanese, Guaranian, still qualified to receive ancestral music — and there are inns that now never open anymore,-- there are princesses, and if you are not too overwhelmed, the study of the stars — the sky.

The morning when with Her you struggled among the glitterings of snow, those green lips, those glaciers, black banners and blue beams, and the purple perfumes of the polar sun. — Your strength.

 

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