Phantasmagorials

... Loved I a dream?
My doubts, born of obvious darkness, seem
A subtle tracery of branches grown
The tree’s true self -- proving that I have known,
Thinking it love, the blushing of a rose.
But think. These nymphs, their loveliness ... suppose
They bodied forth your senses fabulous thirst?
Illusion! Which the blue eyes of the first,
As cold and cha 0ste as the weeping srping,
Beget: the other, sighing, passioning,
Is she the wind, warm in your fleece at noon?

--- from Stephen Mallarme’s
“The Afternoon of a Faun,”
transl. Aldous Huxley