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Place de la Gare, in Charleville.
On the square laid out in measly lawns,
A square where everything is proper, the trees and the flowers,
All the wheezing bourgeois whom the heat waves strangle
Wear, on Thursday evenings, their jealous stupidities.
– The military band, in the middle of the garden,
Sways its shakos in the Waltz of the Fifes:
Around, in the front rows, the dandy parades;
The notary hangs from his numeral watch charms.
Men of means with lorgnettes underline every wrong note:
The puffed-up big offices dragging their big wives
Beside whom walk, officious elephant keepers,
Those whose flounces have the air of advertisements;
On the green benches, clubs of retired grocers
Who poke the sand with their knobbed canes,
Very seriously discuss the treaties,
Then take snuff in silver, and resume: “” All in all!… “”
Sprawling on his bench the roundness of his haunches,
A bourgeois with bright buttons, a Flemish belly,
Savors his onnaing from which tobacco in shreds
Spills over – you know, it’s contraband; –
Along the green lawns the street urchins snicker;
And, made amorous by the song of the trombones,
Very naive, and smoking roses, the little soldiers
Caress the babies to wheedle the maids…
– I, unbuttoned like a student,
Under the green chestnut trees the alert young girls:
They know it well; and turn laughing,
Toward me, their eyes full of indiscreet things.
I don’t say a word: I keep watching
The flesh of their white necks embroidered with wild locks:
I am, beneath the bodice and the frail finery,
The divine back after the curve of the shoulders.
I have soon unearthed the bootie, the stocking…
– I reconstruct the bodies, burning with beautiful fevers.
They find me funny and talk to each other softly…
– And I feel the kisses coming to my lips…
Arthur Rimbaud
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-to-music-arthur-rimbaud/