Les yeux d'Elsa [English translation]

your eyes so deep I stoop to drink I’ve seen

all the bright suns assemble here to preen

seen the despairing all plunge in to die

your eyes so deep I lose my memory

in the birds’ shade it’s raging ocean tempest

then see the weather’s fine your eyes are changed as

summer carves clouds to apron-size for angels

sky’s never bluer than above the harvest

what if the winds dispel the blues of heaven

your eyes outshine it when a teardrop glitters

your eyes the clear skies’ envy after showers

never so blue the glass as when it’s broken

o the wet brightness seven-sorrowed mother

the colour-prism pierced by seven broadswords

the day stabs deep that stabs among the mourners

the shot-silk iris bluer for the graveside

your eyes in sorrow pierce the pair of holes

the magi re-enact their miracle

all three of them observed with pounding pulse

the cloak of Mary hanging in the stall

may-time of words a pair of lips suffice

for all the cries of woe and all the songs

not enough heaven for the starry throngs

they need your eyes and their twin mysteries

the child with pretty pictures on the brain

reveals his own affairs more cautiously

you make big eyes perhaps it means you lie

exotic blooms laid open by the rain

do they hide lightning in the lavenders

where insects shaft their violent amours

I’m tangled in the net of shooting stars

a sailor dead at sea in august fires

I won this radium from the raw pitchblende

in this forbidden fire my fingers burned

my paradise so often lost and found

your eyes my indies andes demavend

it happened one fine night the universe

foundered on reefs where wreckers lit a flame

set high above the sea I saw them gleam

your eyes elsa your eyes elsa your eyes

• Artist:Louis Aragon