Poems by Arthur Rimbaud

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Democracy

"The flag goes with the foul landscape,

and our jargon muffles the drum."

In the great centers we'll nurture

the most cynical prostitution.

We'll massacre logical revolts.

In spicy and drenched lands!--

at the service of the most monstrous

exploitations, industrial or military.

by Arthur Rimbaud

The Orphans' New Year's Gift

The room is full of shadow; you can hear, indistinctly, the sad soft whispering of two children.

Their foreheads lean forward, still heavy with dreams, beneath the long white bed-curtain

which shudders and rises... Outside the birds crowd together, chilled;

their wings are benumbed under the grey tints of the skies; and the New Year,

with her train of mist, trailing the folds of her snowy garment,

smiles through her tears, and shivering, sings...

But the little children, beneath the swaying curtain, talk in low voices as one does on a dark night.

by Arthur Rimbaud

Barbarian

Long after the days and the seasons, and people and countries.

The banner of raw meat against the silk of seas and arctic flowers;

(they do not exist). Recovered from the old fanfares of heroism,--

which still attack the heart and head,-- far from the old assassins.

-- Oh! the banner of raw meat against the silk of seas and arctic flowers;

(they do not exist).-- Bliss! Live embers raining in gusts of frost.--

Bliss!-- fires in the rain of the wind of diamonds

flung out by the earth's heart eternally carbonized for us.

by Arthur Rimbaud

City

I am an ephemeral

and a not too discontented citizen

of a metropolis considered modern

because all known taste

has been evaded in the furnishings

and the exterior of the houses

as well as in the layout of the city.

Here you will fail to detect the least trace

by Arthur Rimbaud

The Sly One

In the brown dining-room,

which was perfumed

with the scent of polish and fruit,

I was shoveling up at my ease

a plateful of some Belgian dish

or other, and sprawling in my enormous chair.

While I ate, I listened, happy and silent, to the clock.

The kitchen door opened with a gust,

by Arthur Rimbaud

Anguish

Is it possible that She will have me forgiven for ambitions continually crushed,--

that an affluent end will make up for the ages of indigence,--

that a day of success will lull us to sleep on the shame of our fatal incompetence?

(O palms! diamond!-- Love! strength!-- higher than all joys and all fame!--

in any case, everywhere-- demon, god,-- Youth of this being: myself!)

That the accidents of scientific wonders and the movements of social brotherhood

will be cherished as the progressive restitution of our original freedom?...

But the Vampire who makes us behave orders us to enjoy ourselves

by Arthur Rimbaud

May Banners

In the bright lime-tree branches

Dies a fainting mort. But lively song

Flutters among the currant bushes.

So that our bloods may laugh in our veins,

See the vines tangling themselves.

The sky is as pretty as an angel,

The azure and the wave commune.

I go out. If a sunbeam wounds me

by Arthur Rimbaud

Fairy

For Helen, in the virgin shadows and the

impassive radiance in astral silence,

ornamental saps conspired.

Summer's ardour was confided

to silent birds and due indolence

to a priceless mourning boat

through gulfs of dead loves

and fallen perfumes.

by Arthur Rimbaud

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?

by Arthur Rimbaud

Feasts Of Hunger

My hunger, Anne, Anne, flee on your donkey.

If I have any taste, it s for hardly anything

but earth and stones.

Dinn! Dinn! Dinn! Dinn!

Let us eat air, rock, coal, iron.

Turn, my hungers.

Feed, hungers, in the meadow of sounds!

Suck the gaudy poison of the convolvuli;

by Arthur Rimbaud

Cities Vagabonds

These are cities!

And this is the people for whom these

Alleghenys and Lebanons of dream have been raised!

Castles of wood and crystal move on tracks and invisible winches.

Old craters ringed with mammoth statues and

coppery palms roar melodiously in flames.

Festivals of love reverberate

from the canals suspended behind the castles.

by Arthur Rimbaud

Blackcurrant River

Blackcurrant river rolls unknown in strange valleys;

the voices of a hundred rooks go with it,

the true benevolent voice of angles:

with the wide movements of the fir woods

when several winds sweep down.

Everything flows with [the] horrible mysteries of ancient landscapes;

of strongholds visited, of large estates:

it is along these banks that you can hear

by Arthur Rimbaud