Explore "Louanges D'Elle" by David Park Barnitz on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
-O Muse of mine that sittest orientally With a green emerald snake about the waist of thee, With henna-tinted feet, and almond eyes that dream, Put down the opium-pipe of jade and ivory, For she that is most fair is fain to hear thy song:
Awake, O Muse, and sing her praises solemnly, That to the laughing heart of California Hath added all the grace of France and Italy;
She who, to put to sleep my pitiless ennuis Is come from distant Paris and from Varsovie;
Athens is in her heart, and Paris in her eyes, Dear European angel from beyond the sea!
-There is no use to sing; she is not to be sung;
What mortal praise can come unto her glory near?
And she hath quite forgot her natal English tongue;
She is too far, too high, thy languid praise to hear, Too delicate, too strange, too wicked, too divine, Too heavenly, too sweet, too bad, too fair, too dear!
"N'est-elle pas l'oasis où tu rêves et la gourde Où tu humes à longs traits le vin du souvenir? "