The Spectral Attitudes

I attach no importance to life I pin not the least of life's butterflies to importance I do not matter to life But the branches of salt the white branches All the shadow bubbles And the sea-anemones Come down and breathe within my thoughts They come from tears that are not mine From steps I do not take that are steps twice And of which the sand remembers the flood-tide The bars are in the cage And the birds come down from far above to sing before these bars A subterranean passage unites all perfumes A woman pledged herself there one day This woman became so bright that I could no longer see her With these eyes which have seen my own self burning I was then already as old as I am now And I watched over myself and my thoughts like a night watchman in an immense factory Keeping watch alone The circus always enchants the same tramlines The plaster figures have lost nothing of their expression They who bit the smile's fig I know of a drapery in a forgotten town If it pleased me to appear to you wrapped in this drapery You would think that your end was approaching Like mine At last the fountains would understand that you must not say Fountain The wolves are clothed in mirrors of snow I have a boat detached from all climates I am dragged along by an ice-pack with teeth of flame I cut and cleave the wood of this tree that will always be green A musician is caught up in the strings of his instrument The skull and crossbones of the time of any childhood story Goes on board a ship that is as yet its own ghost only Perhaps there is a hilt to this sword But already there is a duel in this hilt During the duel the combatants are unarmed Death is the least offence The future never comes The curtains that have never been raised Float to the windows of houses that are to be built The beds made of lilies Slide beneath the lamps of dew There will come an evening The nuggets of light become still underneath the blue moss The hands that tie and untie the knots of love and of air Keep all their transparency for those who have eyes to see They see the palms of hands The crowns in eyes But the brazier of crown and palms Can scarcely be lit in the deepest part of the forest There where the stags bend their heads to examine the years Nothing more than a feeble beating is heard From which sound a thousand louder or softer sounds proceed And the beating goes on and on There are dresses that vibrate And their vibration is in unison with the beating When I wish to see the faces of those that wear them A great fog rises from the ground At the bottom of the steeples behind the most elegant reservoirs of life and of wealth In the gorges which hide themselves between two mountains On the sea at the hour when the sun cools down Those who make signs to me are separated by stars And yet the carriage overturned at full speed Carries as far as my last hesitation That awaits me down there in the town where the statues of bronze and of stone have changed places with statues of wax Banyans banyans.   Andre Breton