Arthur Rimbaud
Vowels
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, whiteness 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!