The Rainy Month

Poem by Henry Bataille Period 19th century

Through the gray panes of the wash-house,
I saw the autumn night fall, there it is…
Someone walks along the ditches full of rain…
Traveler, traveler of long ago, who goes your way,
At the hour when shepherds come down from the mountains,
Hurry. – The hearths are out where you are going,
Shut the doors in the country you are returning to…
The great road is empty and the sound of the lucernes
Comes from so far it would frighten you… Hurry up:
The old carts have blown out their lanterns…
It is autumn: she has sat down and sleeps from cold
On the straw chair at the back of the kitchen…
Autumn sings in the dead vine shoots of the vineyards…
It is the moment when the unfound corpses,
The white drowned, floating, pensive, between two waves,
Seized themselves by the first colds lifted up,
Go down to shelter in the deep mud.

Henry Bataille

Translation generated by Poésies 123 with assistance from the deepseek-chat artificial-intelligence model.

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