To Julie

Poem by Alfred De Musset Collection Early PoemsThemes LovePeriod 19th century

In the streets they ask me why
I go gaping at the cranes,
Smoking my cigar in the sun,
What my youth is spent on,
And for three years of idleness
What my sleepless nights have done.

Give me your lips, Julie;
The mad nights that have paled you
Have dried their glistening coral.
Perfume them with your breath;
Give them to me, my African,
Your beautiful lips of pure blood.

My printer shouts at the top of his voice
That his machine is always ready,
And that mine can do no more.
Honest folk, whom a club admires,
Have not disdained to predict
That I will never come back from it.

Julie, have you any Spanish wine?
Yesterday we were scouring the countryside;
Go see if there is any left.
Your mouth is burning, Julie;
Let us invent some madness
That will lose us soul and body.

They say my distemper is going inward,
That I have nothing left in my belly,
That I am empty enough to frighten;
I believe, if I were worth the trouble,
They would send me to Saint Helena,
With a cancer in my heart.

Come, Julie, you must expect
To see me some day in ashes,
Like Hercules on his rock.
Since it is through you that I die,
Open your dress, Deianira,
That I may climb onto my pyre.

Alfred De Musset

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

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