What Is It to Us, My Heart..., Poem by Arthur Rimbaud

Poem by Arthur Rimbaud Collection Derniers versPeriod 19th century

What is it to us, my heart, the sheets of blood
And embers, and a thousand murders, and the long cries
Of rage, sobs of all hell overturning
All order; and the North Wind still upon the ruins;

And all vengeance? Nothing!… — But yes, all of it still,
We want it! Industrialists, princes, senates:
Perish! power, justice, history: down with them!
It is owed to us. Blood! blood! the golden flame!

All to war, to vengeance, to terror,
My spirit! Let us turn in the bite: Ah! pass on,
Republics of this world! Emperors,
Regiments, colonists, peoples, enough!

Who would stir up the whirlwinds of furious fire,
But we and those whom we imagine to be brothers?
To us, romantic friends: it will please us.
Never will we work, O waves of fire!

Europe, Asia, America, disappear.
Our avenging march has occupied everything,
Cities and countryside! — We shall be crushed!
The volcanoes will burst! And the Ocean struck…

Oh! my friends! — My heart, it is certain, they are brothers:
Black unknowns, if we went! Let’s go! let’s go!
O misfortune! I feel myself trembling, the old earth,
Upon me more and more toward you! the earth melts,

It is nothing! I am there! I am still there.

Arthur Rimbaud

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