A Black, E white, I red, U green, O blue : vowels, / I shall tell, one day, of your mysterious origins: / A, black velvety jacket of brilliant flies / Which buzz around cruel smells,
Gulfs of shadow; E, white- ness of vapours and of tents, / Lances of proud glaciers, white kings, shivers of cow- parsley; / I, purples, spat blood, smile of beautiful lips / In anger or in the raptures of penitence;
U, waves, divine shudderings of viridian seas, / The peace of pastures dotted with animals, the peace of the furrows / Which alchemy prints on broad studious foreheads;
O, sublime Trumpet full of strange piercing sounds, / Silences crossed by Worlds and by Angels: / O the Omega, the violet ray of Her Eyes!
—Arthur Rimabuad, "Vowels" (Voyelles), 1871, translated by Oliver Bernard, 1962.
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