Voyelles [English translation]

A black, E white, I red, U green, O blue: vowels,

I’ll tell you one day of their clandestine advents:

A, a black hairy coat, and the foulest of scents,

A cloud of flies dazzling that ’round them yet mills.

Shadowed depths; E, the whiteness of steam and of tents,

Spears of proud glaciers, white kings, umbels’ chills

I, purples, spat blood, fair lips’ laughter that spills

Both in wrath and drunk raptures of penitence.

U, waves, divine tremblings of viridian seas,

Peace of beast-strewn pastures, peace of the ease

With which alchemy imprints brows studious and wise;

O, sublime Horn filled with the most bizarre din,

Silences crossed by Angels and Worlds kept within,

— O, the Omega, the violet-hued ray of Her Eyes!

• Artist:Arthur Rimbaud