Albert Mérat Poems on Venice - The Marble Cities

Albert Mérat (1840-1909) was a French poet who was a contemporary of Rimbaud and Verlaine.

He left us several poems about Venice, imbued with the romanticism of the era. The following poems are taken from his collection of poetry, “Les Villes de Marbre”, published in 1869.

In Venice

“Venice! O memory! O white and pink city!
Marvelous halcyon, flower of the sea in bloom
Between the azure waves and the sky,
City-woman with a sweet name, O my eternal charm,
Venice, like you, the Venuses were blonde.

Your exquisite feet dipped in the shallow waves,
Like a princess in oriental dress,
You lean over, and the water reflects, smiling,
The rhythm of your body and your vain adornments.

Delicate, slender canals are your veins;
Like fine beings, silence is dear to you.
The bright, pink marble is your flesh,
So pure that one would think that the sonorous breezes
Make the blood of living dawns run through them.

Your eyes are the divine ray of the light sky,
And your smile makes the day, without thinking about it.
Thus my enamoured dream could not defend itself
From loving you with a melancholy and tender love,
As one loves a woman, and as one stretches out one's arms
To beautiful visions that do not fly away.

I have known your gaze and I have known your mouth.
I know what the sky, when the sun sets,
Puts on your serene forehead of grace and splendour.
A breath from the Lido brought me this flower,
Wandering on words embroidered with white foam.
The cicadas echoed in the branches in the distance.

When it was time, alas, to leave and leave you,
I left you my heart without taking anything with me.
Like a lover, oh most august of mistresses.
He tears himself away, shivering, from the last caresses.”
Albert Mérat - Les Villes de Marbre 1869

Pink Marbles

“Our marbles, tombstones,
Are mournful or prosaic.
Pink marbles are only beautiful
Next to the gold of mosaics.

The rising sky comes to rest
On their delicate watercolours
It looks as if it is kissing
The throats of turtledoves.

In golden, trembling chords
Summing up the sweetness of things,
The divine blood of white marble
Lives in the veins of the pink marble.

On the side where the sea comes in,
A fine and delicate sea,
They stretch out towards the bitter space
Their radiant, muted light.

They have voices and gazes;
And when the tide rises,
They look to see if the flags
Are floating towards the Morea.”
Albert Mérat - Les Villes de Marbre 1869