Little Poems in Prose

XVII A WORLD IN A MANE LET me breathe long, long, the scent of thine hair; let me plunge my whole face into it as a thirsty man does in the water of a spring; let me stir thy tresses with thy hand like a per- fumed kerchief to wave memories in the air! If thou couldst know all that I see, all that I feel, all that I hear in thy hair! my soul goes journeying upon the wings of perfume like that of other men upon the wings of music. Thy hair contains a world of dream, full of sails and masts; it holds great seas whose winds bear me to charming climates, where space is bluer and deeper, where the atmos- phere is scented with fruit, with leaves, and with the skin of man. In the ocean of thy man I see a harbour, bust as an ant-heap with melancholy songs, with vigorous men of every nation, and with ships of every style, whose fine and compli- cated architecture is silhouetted on a vast sky where stalks forth the eternal heat.