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Often, in the red glow of a street-lamp
Whose flame the wind beats and whose glass it torments,
In the heart of an old suburb, a muddy labyrinth
Where humanity swarms in stormy ferment,
One sees a ragpicker come, shaking his head,
Stumbling, and knocking against walls like a poet,
And without a care for the spies, his subjects,
Pours out his whole heart in glorious projects.
He makes vows, dictates sublime laws,
Strikes down the wicked, raises up victims,
And beneath the firmament like a suspended canopy
Gets drunk on the splendors of his own virtue.
Yes, these people harassed by domestic sorrows,
Ground down by toil and tormented by age,
Exhausted and bending under a heap of debris,
Confused vomit of enormous Paris,
Return, perfumed with the smell of casks,
Followed by companions, whitened in battles
Whose mustaches hang like old flags.
Banners, flowers, and triumphal arches
Rise before them, solemn magic!
And in the bewildering and luminous orgy
Of bugles, sun, shouts, and drum,
They bring glory to the people drunk with love!
Thus it is that across frivolous Humanity
Wine rolls out its gold, dazzling Pactolus;
Through man’s throat it sings its exploits
And reigns by its gifts like true kings.
To drown rancor and lull the indolence
Of all these old accursed who die in silence,
God, touched by remorse, had made sleep;
Man added Wine, sacred son of the Sun!
Charles Baudelaire
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-the-ragpickers-wine-charles-baudelaire/