ws along the roads, already torrid....

Iris, cries of jays, turtledoves, mountains of blue snow which are
rocks of azure, green fields laid out in squares, brook rolling
a golden pebble in the silence; first foliage of the waters, icy
trembling of the body beside the springs when the sun lies burning on
your hands....

* * * * *

Slender alders; fiery marshes where toward noonday puffing out their
throat, the hoarse gray frogs climb up on the coriaceous plants,
while slowly from the deep of the shady and gilded mire rises a bubble....

Dry and twisted vines; swarms of insects from the blossoms of rosy
peach-trees, in slanting flight into the azure; pear-trees and roses
of Bengal....

* * * * *

Setting of the cherry sun; nocturnal snow of a fruit-tree; green and
transparent shadowing of the lanes; summit of little hills at seven
o'clock where the trees are like sponges which little by little blend
into the severity of the uniform curve which swells and rises sharply.

Starless night; violet night in which the white sandals of a beloved
pagan can hardly be distinguished, and dense bristling of slender, dry
trees; pallor of a limestone slope, and water in which something casts
two long and deep shadows....

Night; fire; lines of shadow blended with shadows of lines; fire;
humid thickness of fields; fire; crimsoning and reddening of clouds;
poplars; whiteness which must be a village. Water again, water, and
shadows of water....

A wagon passes. The lantern lights up only the rear of the horse,
all else is night. When I was a child it was this which astonished
me--this light which was quenched again. Another wagon...One sees
only the rosy bust of a girl. It slips into the night....

* * * * *

I return from a journey. The recollection of a maroon reflection of a
boat in the canal, the color of gray fish, makes my memory quiver. I
dream of white tulips.

I have returned at night. The croaking of frogs has greeted me from
the depths of the damp meadow. My heart, do not burst!... Do not burst
like the lilacs of the flower-garden whose fragrance I alone have
touched....

Will hope be born again? I am afraid. Is this one more disillusion?

The wasp has hummed. I love none but the violet lilacs, I love none
but the blue violets. It is Sunday, and I hear in the depths of my
soul the droning of the harmoniums of poor chur