Beyond the cloudy cribs of setting Night

Beyond the other Aethiopians

Where the starlight fails to pierce the haze

It stands

This silent grove

And beneath a gloomy grotto lined by hollow crags

Down it goes into a deeply quiet mountain

Where Nature placed the hallways of indolent Sleep

Quiet and Oblivion watch over the threshold

So too lazy Sloth
With an ever-drowsy face

Leisure and Silence
Their feathers pressed together

Sit at the forecourt

Wordlessly

Repelling grim winds from the cliff peaks

Forbidding branches to creak and choking murmurs from

The heights

No crash of the sea no crash of the sky

Yet the shores still shout for something

And a river flows

Right next to the den

Currents fleeing in deep vales

And among all those rocks and crags is deep

Silence

Murky silence

And black cattle laze around

And every single sheep is slouching on the soil

New sprouts wither

A breath of life that orbits the earth hovers

Over the herbage

Burning Vulcan carved a thousand figures of Sleep

This one’s of Pleasure

Wearing a garland
Sticking hotly to his side

And Toil with whom he spends the lonely nights

Turning to repose

Bacchus

Mars-born Love

They both share his sofa at one time or another

And at the heart of the house

He lies down with Death

Artaud’s theatre of cruelty seen by no one

So much for imagery

But the god
In the flesh

Sprawls himself out beneath clammy grottos

On carpets thick with sleep-seducing flowers

His coverlets breathe out

Warm with his body

And above the couch a black vapour flies

Out from his drooling mouth

One hand holds back hair spread over his temples

The other

Possessed by oblivion

Drops the drinking-horn

Wandering Dreams of innumerable faces

Are present in his halls

This alchemy of truth and lies

And the shady gang of Night stick to beams and posts

Or lie on the ground in heaps

Faint is the lustre that encircles the courtyard

And dim lights that encourage the first-fruits of slumber

Breathe out among the faltering flames

Now here comes the variegated virgin

Quitting herself from the dark blue æther

For her the forests shine
The valleys laugh

The house thronged by her glowing girdles

Looks out

But Sleep wasn’t struck by her light

Voice
Sound
And so he lay
Just as always

Until Iris descended deep in his eyes

With every gleam of her radiance

So spoke the golden author of storm-clouds

Juno orders you

Sleep

Most mild of the gods

To stop the Theban army in their tracks

Their savage leaders

And all their heads swollen with self-reflexive

Boasts

Ever since the war began

They watch the rampart

Every hour every day

Always the hours they refuse your jurisdiction

So do as I say

Rare is the chance to please Jupiter and Juno

She spoke

And banging on his chest so that her words not perish

Again and again she lectured him

Ever-nodding Sleep

Nodded to the goddess

Iris went off weighed

Down by the world of all those black caverns

Rekindled the radiance that was sapped by the mist

Sleep incites his winged step and temples

Fills his swelling cloak with the cold of the dark sky

And on a silent course through the æther he hastens

So heavy he hangs over Theban ploughlands

His breath lays down birds and flocks and beasts

And wherever he flies over in all the known world

Seas slide languidly down from the crags

Clouds stick lazily upon the skies

Peaks sink down from the heights of the forests

And stars fall in heaps from the expanse of heaven

The field first felt the presence of the god

All the voices of men

Softened their sound

And when he gloomed over with dampening wings

Never was his pitch-black shadow ever denser

He’s entering the camp

Eyes go astray

Necks are loosened

Words left unfinished in the middle of their breath

Shining shields and savage weapons tumble from hands

And tired faces fall onto their chests

Now everything’s quiet

Flocks droop to the ground

Exeunt fires

All of a sudden

All there’s left is ash