Symbols From Albert Giraud Translated By Paul Amrod Poem by Paul Amrod

Yonder flows a river of blood on the horizon.
From its melancholic and splendid purple it overflows.
Beneath the heavens lies a muted orb, our morbid Earth
where the horror of a great invisible murder descends.

In the aftermath of these epic disasters
for the vanquished princes the scaffold is draped.
Night upon a zenith is standing like an indicator,
extending the obscurity of his mourning under the stars.

Destitute of blood and venomous, O head whose flesh
has kept the paleness and callousness of the sword, -
Brightly spins the moon
in the black silence and terror of the nightly air.

Nothing is annihilated. All that was, persists.
The crimes of this world are reborn in heaven.
Tonight, in the air palace of the gods,
Herodias decapitates John the Baptist.