I was doing extra research on my Victorian Decadent Literature module, and I was looking at the French writer Mallarme, a great boundary-pusher.
And then I found this. I don't know about you guys but I literally nearly cried as I read it. He says everything I've been thinking recently. It's so uplifting and at the same time so sad.
I just thought it would fit with this fiction perfectly, as the voice of the narrator in their own thoughts, away from the story's action for a while.
Disclaimer: I did not write this poetry. Mallarme did. Because he was a bloody brilliant French person.
Sea Breeze
The flesh is sad, alas! – and I've read all the books.
Let's go! Far off. Let's go! I sense
That the birds, intoxicated, fly
Deep into unknown spume and sky!
Nothing – not even old gardens mirrored by eyes –
Can restrain this heart that drenches itself in the sea,
O nights, or the abandoned light of my lamp,
On the void of paper, that whiteness defends,
No, not even the young woman feeding her child.
I shall go! Steamer, straining at your ropes
Lift your anchor towards an exotic rawness!
A Boredom, made desolate by cruel hope
Still believes in the last goodbye of handkerchiefs!
And perhaps the masts, inviting lightning,
Are those the gale bends over shipwrecks,
Lost, without masts, without masts, no fertile islands...
But, oh my heart, listen to the sailors' chant!