Vowels

A Black, E white, I red, U green, O blue: vowels,
I will recount some day of your latent births:
A, black velvety jacket of sparkling flies
That buzz around cruel smells,
Gulfs of shadow; E, whiteness of vapours and of tents,
Proud spears of glaciers, white kings, quivering umbels;
I, reds, spat blood, smile of beautiful lips
In rage or in the raptures of penitence;
U, waves, divine vibrations of verdant seas,
Peace of pastures dotted with livestock, peace of the furrows
Which alchemy prints on broad studious brows;
O, sublime Clarion full of strange foreign sounds,
Silences crossed by Worlds and by Angels:
O the Omega, the violet ray of Her Eyes!

-Arthur Rimbaud, 1872