Comedy of Thrist: 4-5

4. The Poor Man Dreams

Perhaps an Evening awaits me
when I shall drink I peace in some old Town,
and die the happier: since I am patient!
If my pain submits, if I ever have any gold,
shall I choose the North or the Country of Vines? …
- Oh! It is shameful to dream - since it is pure loss!
And if I become once more the old traveler,
never can the green inn be open to me again.

5. Conclusion

The pigeons which flutter in the meadow,
the game which runs and sees in the dark,
the water animals, the animal enslaved,
the last butterflies!.. also are thirsty.
But to dissolve where that wandering cloud is dissolving -
Oh! Favoured by what is fresh!
To expire in those damp violets
whose awakening fills these woods?

Pleasant Thought for the Morning

At four o'clock on a summer morning,
The Sleep of love still lasts.
Under the spinneys the dawn disperses scents
Of the festive night.

But down there in the huge workshop
Near the Hesperidean sun,
The carpenters in their shirtsleeves
are already astir.

Peaceful in the midst of their wilderness of foam,
They are preparing the costly canopies
Where the riches of the city
Will smile beneath painted skies.

Ah ! for these charming labourer's sakes
Subjects of a king of Babylon,
Venus ! leave Lovers for a little while,
Whose souls are wearing crowns.

O Queen of the Sheperds!
Take strong liquor to the workers,
So that their strength may be calmed
Until the sea-bathe at noon.

May 1872
Arthur Rimbaud


Read more...

Comedy of Thrist: 1-3

1. The Parents

We are your Grand-Parents, the Grown-Ups!
Covered with the cold sweats of the moon and the greensward.
Our dry wines had heart in them!
In the sunshine where there is no deception,
what does man need? To drink.
Myself: To die among barbarous rivers.

We re your Grand-Parents of the fields.
The water lies at the foot of the willows:
see the flow of the moat round the damp castle.
Let us go down to our storerooms;
afterwards, cider or milk.
Myself: To go where the cows drink.

We are your Grand-Parents; here,
take some of the liqueurs in our cupboards;
Tea and Coffee, so rare, sing in our kettles.
Look at the pictures, the flowers.
We are back from the cemetery.
Myself: Ah! To drink all urns dry!

2. The Soul

Eternal Undines, split the pure water.
Venus, sister of azure, stir up the clear wave.
Wandering Jews of Norway, tell me of snow;
old beloved exiles tell me of the sea.
Myself: No, no more of these pure drinks,
these water-flowers for glasses;
neither legends nor faces quench my thirst;
singer, your god-child is my thirst so mad,
a mouthless intimate hydra
which consumes and ravages.

3. Friends

Come, the Wines are off to the seaside,
and the waves by the million!
Look at wild Bitter rolling from the mountain tops!
Let us reach, like good pilgrims, green-pillared Absinthe…

Myself: No more of these landscapes.
What is drunkenness, friends?
I had soon - rather, even - rot in the pond,
beneath the horrible scum, near the floating driftwood.
Arthur Rimbaud


Read more...