“Toy, pee, poo, beddy-bye.”
“Do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti, do.”
The brat bawls, and his sister taps
On an old Pleyel-ish clavier, perhaps.
The father shaves at the windowpane
Before he sets off to the office again.
The mother crumbles a pap that stews,
Glutinous, bland, in the embers’ hues.
The eldest son, with a startled air,
Polishes the shoes for the whole troupe there,
For this very evening, after the soup,
They’ll go promenading around Musard’s group
And won’t come home too late, you see,
So tomorrow they’ll wake for a life just as wee.
“Do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti, do.”
“Toy, pee, poo, beddy-bye.”
Charles Cros
Translation generated by Poésies 123 with assistance from the deepseek-chat artificial-intelligence model.
Text published on Poésies 123: https://www.poesies123.com/en/poem-interior-charles-cros/
