Poems by Arthur Rimbaud

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First Evening (Première Soirée)

Her clothes were almost off;

Outside, a curious tree

Beat a branch at the window

To see what it could see.

Perched on my enormous easy chair,

Half nude, she clasped her hands.

Her feet trembled on the floor,

As soft as they could be.

157

Arthur Rimbaud

Ophelia

On the calm black water where the stars are sleeping

White Ophelia floats like a great lily ;

Floats very slowly, lying in her long veils…

- In the far-off woods you can hear them sound the mort.

For more than a thousand years sad Ophelia

Has passed, a white phantom, down the long black river.

For more than a thousand years her sweet madness

113

Arthur Rimbaud

Sun And Flesh (Credo In Unam)

Birth of Venus

The Sun, the hearth of affection and life,

Pours burning love on the delighted earth,

And when you lie down in the valley, you can smell

How the earth is nubile and very full-blooded;

How its huge breast, heaved up by a soul,

Is, like God, made of love, and, like woman, of flesh,

154

Arthur Rimbaud

The Drunken Boat

As I drifted on a river I could not control,

No longer guided by the bargemen's ropes.

They were captured by howling Indians

Who nailed them naked to coloured posts.

I cared no more for other boats or cargoes:

Flemish wheat or English cottons, all were gone

When my bargemen could no longer haul me

I forgot about everything and drifted on.

161

Arthur Rimbaud

My Little Lovelies

A tearful tincture washes

Cabbage-green skies;

Beneath the dribbling bushes

Your raincoats lie;

Pale white in private moonlight,

Like round-eyed sores,

Flap your scabby kneecaps apart,

My ugly whores!

125

Arthur Rimbaud

Nina's Reply (Les Reparties De Nina)

HE - Your breast on my breast,

Eh ? We could go,

With our nostrils full of air,

Into the cool light

Of the blue good morning that bathes you

In the wine of daylight ?…

When the whole shivering wood bleeds,

Dumb with love

163

Arthur Rimbaud

Asleep In The Valley

A small green valley where a slow stream flows

And leaves long strands of silver on the bright

Grass; from the mountaintop stream the Sun's

Rays; they fill the hollow full of light.

A soldier, very young, lies open-mouthed,

A pillow made of fern beneath his head,

Asleep; stretched in the heavy undergrowth,

Pale in his warm, green, sun-soaked bed.

112

Arthur Rimbaud

The Sun Has Wept Rose

The sun has wept rose in the shell of your ears,

The world has rolled white from your back,

Your thighs:

The sea has stained rust at the crimson of your breasts,

And Man had bled black at your sovereign side.

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Arthur Rimbaud

Time Without End

We have found it again.

What? Time without end.

'Tis the ocean gone

For a walk with the sun.

Soul, you sentinel,

Murmur and confess,

Day is fiery hell,

Night is nothingness.

126

Arthur Rimbaud

War

When a child,

certain skies sharpened my vision:

all their characters were reflected in my face.

The Phenomena were roused.—

At present,

the eternal inflection of moments

and the infinity of mathematics

drives me through this world where

134

Arthur Rimbaud

From 'The Cupboard' (Le buffet)

A large carved cupboard of white oak

emanates that relaxed gentle air

Old people have; open, it's kindly

shadows give off fragrances like fine

wine, it overflows with a jumble

of quaint frayed things: sweet

yellowed linen, torn women's clothes,

faded laces, grandmother's shawls

207

Arthur Rimbaud

Dance Of The Hanged Men

On the black gallows, one-armed friend,

The paladins are dancing, dancing

The lean, the devil's paladins

The skeletons of Saladins.

Sir Beelzebub pulls by the scruff

His little black puppets who grin at the sky,

And with a backhander in the head like a kick,

Makes them dance, dance, to an old Carol-tune!

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Arthur Rimbaud