Comedy of thirst

1. Parents

We are your Grandparents,

The Grand!

In cold sweats quite covered

Of the moon and verdure.

Our dry wines had heart!

In the sun sans imposture

What to do? Have a snort.

ME: Die in rivers barbarous.

We are your Grandparents

Of the land.

Water is deep in the osiers:

Observe the running moat-waters

The dampened castle gird.

Let’s go down in our cellars;

Afterward, milk and cider.

ME: Going where the cows lap up.

We are your Grandparents;

Come, to hand

The liquors in our armoires;

The Tea, the Coffee, so rare,

In our kettles simmer.

—Observe the pictures, the flowers.

Back from death we re-enter.

ME: Ah! drying up the urns!

2. Mind

Water-sprites eternal,

Part the flood fine and all.

Venus, sister of azure,

Agitate the waters pure.

Wandering Jews of Norway,

What snow is now say.

Exiles dear of old,

Let now the sea be told.

ME: No, no more drinks made pure,

These flowers of water for glasses;

Neither legend nor figure

My great thirst surpasses;

Singer, your goddaughter

Is my thirst so wild,

Intimate and mouthless hydra

That desolates and mines.

3. Friends

Come, Wines go to the beach,

And the waves in millions!

Observe the Bitter savage

Roll down from the mountains!

Let’s have, pilgrims sage,

The Absinthe of green pillars...

ME: Landscapes that surfeit each,

What is drunkenness, Friends?

I love rather, better, yet,

Rotting in the pond,

Beneath the foam thickset,

Beside a floating frond.

4. Poor Dream

Perhaps a Night will be lent,

To drink without a sound

In some towering Town,

And I shall die more content,

Because I really am patient!

If my ill resigns,

If money sallies forth,

Shall I choose the North

Or the Land of Vines?...

—Ah! dreaming’s a bad sign

Because it’s loss and some then!

And if I reoccur

The ancient traveler,

Never could the green inn

Well unto me be open.

5. Conclusion

The pigeons trembling in the light,

The game, that runs and sees the night,

The water-beasts, the beast held tight,

Last butterflies!... are thirst-bedight.

But vanish where go lost cloudlets,

—By freshness looked favorably on!

Expire in these humid violets

Laden on forests by dawns?

Arthur Rimbaud