My Bohemian Existence

My Bohemian Existence

I went off with my hands in my torn coat pockets;
my overcoat too was becoming ideal;
I travelled beneath the sky,
Muse! and I was your vassal;

Oh dear me! what marvellous loves
I dreamed of! My only pair of breeches
had a big hole in them. --

Stragazing Tom Thumb,
I sowed my rhymes along the way.
My tavern was at the Sign of the Great Bear.
-- My stars in the sky rustled softly.
And I listened to them, sitting on the road-sides
on those pleasant September evenings
while I felt drops of dew on my forehead
like vigorous wine; and while,
rhyming among the fantastical shadows,

I plucked the strings of a lyre
the elastics of my tattered boots,
one foot close to my heart!

Arthur Rimbaud

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