One morning on the endless Ocean
(Whose skies I cannot call to mind)
I threw out, honoring negation,
A quantity of precious wine.

Who willed that vinous dissipation?
Did I obey a god’s command?
Or did the heart’s mute agitation,
Dreaming of blood, disturb my hand?

After a flush of reddish spray,
The sea resurged in swells to save
Its ancient pure transparency.

O squandered wine, besotted wave!
I looked and saw in salt-flecked air
Profoundest figures leaping there.

“Le Vin perdu”

J’ai, quelque jour, dans l’Océan,
(Mais je ne sais plus sous quels cieux),
Jeté, comme offrande au néant,
Tout un peu de vin précieux . . .

Qui voulut ta perte, ô liqueur?
J’obéis peut-être au devin?
Peut-être au souci de mon cœur,
Songeant au sang, versant le vin,

Sa transparence accoutumée
Après une rose fumée
Reprit aussi pure la mer . . .

Perdu ce vin, ivres les ondes! . . .
J’ai vu bondir dans l’air amer
Les figures les plus profondes . . .

Jan Schreiber is a poet and translator whose work has appeared in books and periodicals in the United States, Canada, and the UK over several decades. His collection of translations of Valéry, The Poems of Paul Valéry, is now available from Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Schreiber’s poetry collections include Digressions, Wily Apparitions, Bell Buoys, Peccadilloes, and Bay Leaves, and he is the author of two previous books of translations: A Stroke upon the Sea and Sketch of a Serpent. He teaches in the BOLLI program at Brandeis University, USA, and directs The Critical Path, a symposium on poetry criticism held annually at Western Colorado University.